Mass Combat Video Games?

[JBPuffin]

I've never been terribly interested in tabletop wargames, but digital mass combat simulators are something I would like to have in my life. Does anyone know of a game like this that isn't Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (it's fun, but a bit too silly for me atm)?

To clarify a bit more - I've played some Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics (including both Advances), but I want something less JRPG if possible. Fantasy elements preferred, but not required.

[Dienekes]

Total War series, has all your mass combat desires. There's a base game that's all about empire building, but I'm pretty sure that all the new ones have a simple option to build an army, face it against an enemy army and see who wins.

It's "historical" for the most part, but I think there newest game is under the Warhammer license, so it would have some fantasy elements. I haven't played that one though.

Or if you want to be one guy in the middle of an army, there's Mount and Blade, which is all about building your own medieval kingdom, but also has some scenario play if you just want to jump in and join a battle without all that hubbub about making the lords like you. This isn't very fantasy at all, but there are some mods that I know of that bring in things like wizards and the like. I never used them myself so I don't know how well they work.

[Robert D. Trayl]

What will be the next big genre for video games?

What do you think will be the next, and most popular, type of video game? Most of this is just conjecture but for a while now, I feel first person shooters have been the most popular to the masses since the early 90's with Doom, Quake, Half Life, Counter Strike, Halo, and so on. Of course many other very popular games were released since the 90's such as competitive strategy games (Starcraft, DoTA, HoN, LoL), fighting games (Mortal Combat etc..), and mmo's (WoW, EVE). Even indie games have been growing in popularity with kickstarter and indiegogo. But I feel the fps always seems to hold its position at the top.

[Jonzac]

How massive is massive?

Combat Mission (any one of the games) will give you up to a battalions worth of WW2/modern action

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Let's see. The Total War series has been mentioned. I wouldn't recommend any of the games before Rome: Total War, but all the ones after vary from alright to fantastic. Plus, there's a fantastic modding community at least for Rome and Medieval II that expands the number of settings you can play in.
Total War games:
Rome: Total War (Rise of Rome era in Europe, Middle East, North Africa)
Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasions expansion (New campaign, Fall of Rome era in Europe, Middle East, North Africa)
Rome: Total War: Alexander expansion (New Campaign, Rise of Alexander. Except the campaign sucks, and no good mods cover this area)
Medieval II: Total War (1080-1400 in Europe, Middle East, North Africa)
Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms Expansion (Adds 4 mini-campaigns: Third and Fourth Crusades, Baltic Crusade, 13th century Britain, and Discovery of the Americas).
Empire: Total War (1700-1800 in Europe, Middle East, North Africa, North America, India. First to include Naval Battles)
Napoleon: Total War (1789-1815 in Europe, Middle East, North Africa)
Total War: Shogun 2 (16th century Japan)
Total War: Shogun 2: Rise of the Samurai (12th century Japan)
Total War; Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai (19th century Japan, features ironclad ships and gatling guns. Standalone)
Total War: Rome 2: (Rise of the Rome era in Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and free bonus campaign of immediately after Caesar dies). Expansions include Hannibal campaign focusing on western Europe and North Africa, Caesar in Gaul campaign focusing on that one campaign, and a Wrath of Sparta campaign, which covers pre-Alexander Greek city-states. First game to have full amphibious invasions)
Total War; Attila (Fall of the Roman Era in Europe, Middle East, North Africa. Expansion campaigns include The Last Roman, focusing on Italy, Spain and North Africa and hte campaigns of Justinian, and Age of Charlemagne, with the base map but covering the rise of Charlemagne.)
Total War: Warhammer. (Fantasy battles between orcs, humans, dwarves, undead, and worshippers of chaos in the famous fantasy battles setting).

Mods include time periods from the Bronze Age all the way up to WW1, pretty much anything you can think of.

Otherwise, you have the Wargame series, for an alt history of If The Cold War Went Hot. The first game, European Escalation, is set in Germany, and features the US, UK, France, and West Germany on one side, and the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany on the other. Has several 'campaigns', of set missions to complete. Balance heavy armour, infantry, helicopters, and support units like anti-tank missile carriers, anti-air units, artillery, and such-like to capture points, drive offensives, and hold defensive lines. Learn to respect the infantryman. Learn to scorn the M1A1 Abrams tank.
The second game, AirLand Battle, is set in Scandinavia, and features a campaign map, much like Total War. It has all the same countries as the first game, but adds Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Canada to the NATO side (although some aren't part of NATO but still). It also adds planes to the game, and makes city fights much more exciting. Infantrymen are now even scarier in towns.
The third game, Red Dragon, is set in Eastern Asia, again with a campaign map, and adds naval units, ranging from river gunboats to powerful Destroyers. It adds China and North Korea to the Reds, and Japan and South Korea to the Blues. You can also buy Netherlands and Israel nation packs.

Lastly, Company of Heroes is great for WW2 combat. Not huge-scale like Total War, which can have up to 4000 men in a battle, or Wargame, which can have battles involving dozens of tanks over a battle map that is tens of kilometers across, but still fairly large. Large battles can have a handful of tanks, and dozens of infantrymen.

[RagingKrikkit]

Gary Grigsby's War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/351/details/War.in.the.Pacific.-.Admiral's.Edition). Pacific theater, 40nm hex grid, every ship, squadron and ground unit of the war, 1 day/turn time scale. About as "mass" as it gets.



Or if you want to be one guy in the middle of an army, there's Mount and Blade, which is all about building your own medieval kingdom, but also has some scenario play if you just want to jump in and join a battle without all that hubbub about making the lords like you. This isn't very fantasy at all, but there are some mods that I know of that bring in things like wizards and the like. I never used them myself so I don't know how well they work.

Even better, M&B Warband with Napoleonic Wars expansion. I've taken part in 100v100 rank-and-file musket battles.

[Fri]

Gary Grigsby's War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/351/details/War.in.the.Pacific.-.Admiral's.Edition). Pacific theater, 40nm hex grid, every ship, squadron and ground unit of the war, 1 day/turn time scale. About as "mass" as it gets.


Huh what, I've never seen it before, it sounds insane (in a good way if you like this kind of things).

What do you control? You can't possibly control every single ship and ground unit, right?

[Corvus]

Huh what, I've never seen it before, it sounds insane (in a good way if you like this kind of things).

What do you control? You can't possibly control every single ship and ground unit, right?

Yes. Yes you can. Every single warship, PT, sub, transport, etc.

From memory ground units can go down to battalion level (or is it company?) but you tend to form them into higher level units for fighting.

And it tracks the production and supply of every single piece of artillery, every plane and so on.

I bought the digital copy ages ago - still have the activation code - but haven't been able to find a digital download any more. I need to find one again so I can play it.

[RagingKrikkit]

Huh what, I've never seen it before, it sounds insane (in a good way if you like this kind of things).

What do you control? You can't possibly control every single ship and ground unit, right?

Here, have a let's play. (http://lparchive.org/War-in-the-Pacific) Or you can wait for mine, because I'm insane.


From memory ground units can go down to battalion level (or is it company?) but you tend to form them into higher level units for fighting.

Mostly Bn, though there's a few companies out there.



I bought the digital copy ages ago - still have the activation code - but haven't been able to find a digital download any more. I need to find one again so I can play it.

If you want, I can upload my installer to a file-sharer and you can get it from there.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

If it's turn-based, then you're fine. That's my major gripe with the Wargame series; the battles are realtime unpausable, and only the newest game has a time-dial control. Luckily, that time-dial control goes down to Bullet-time, which is aaaaalmost paused, but the first ones I had to install a hack to add time-dial control to actually play it. I'm not capable of dealing with multiple crises in realtime.

[Vaz]

Wargame series. They've just released a new Israeli Pack, and it's a little annoying that they don't have the most up to date units (I don't know why that particularly bothers me that it stops in the 80's, early 90's, but it does), but it's incredibly fun.

The Shermanator is one of the better players I've seen, I'd recommend having a look at some of his videos (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCtTx6yW6Du8YdDD2PgEs22kaTRz6X0Yh) to see if that's your style.

Outside of that, Total War Warhammer is in the middle of a rolling release cycle that's expected to extend for another 2 years, if not longer, and is a very fun game, if you're not especially tied to the Warhammer Lore (it's close, though). There are few balance issues (magic kinda sucks on the larger unit sizes), but they're pretty good with the patching of the game.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The PC is the only system which has a decent number of such games.

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War series. Provides two very different experiences that may both fit this criteria.

The first game in the series is a real-time strategy game. This means having to be on top of everything you're doing as you order units to build things, capture points, and otherwise move around while buildings have to produce things with resources gained over time. RTS isn't for everyone, but Dawn of War and all its expansion packs is a fine example of the genre. It has nine different faction armies, and each match is self-contained; single-player missions tend to restrict you to certain units or start you with powerful ones, but nothing carries over.

The second game in the series, aptly named Dawn of War II, is very different. It is a real-time tactics game where you control a much smaller, more elite force with RPG-like progression. The emphasis is on the single-player, multiplayer is terrible. Of course, I'm not sure about DoW2: Retribution, which is standalone from the others and goes back to being more RTS, but... it's more RTS, you may as well play the first game.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Well, Wargame IS a Cold War game, late 90s is post-Cold War, alt-history notwithstanding.

I will say that Wargame is the least like other strategy games, strategy-wise. It's not about "what unit beats what", though that exists to a certain extent, and it's certainly not about "spam a bunch of good units and rolllll". It's about "Recquisition a balanced force" and "use each unit to it's strengths and use others to hide the weaknesses."

For example, take a look at how one would drive a tank offense. A tank offense needs a) Tanks. But not only heavy tanks, I usually run one or two heavies, and then 2-4 olders in front as shields. It needs b) recon. This can be vehicular or heli. It needs c) infantry support, in case you come across enemy infantry in a huddle of buildings or some woods. It needs d) anti-tank support. It needs e) anti-air support. I usually keep one heavy anti-air unit for airplanes, and one lighter one for helicopters, and second shots at airplanes. It needs f) logistical support. Airborne support (helicopters or planes) is optional but useful. I usually keep a handful of helicopters on hand to flank enemies engaging my column. Mortar support I should use more often, to lay down smoke-screens to shield my advance.

Defending a Line is much the same, but with infantry recon, more infantry (including anti-tank and anti-air), you can use less modern tanks who don't have stabilizers, and you should certainly use artillery to stun enemies on the approach.

Defending a Village. Infantry. Cheap infantry. More infantry. Even more infantry. When you lose the outskirts, fall back to the next group of buildings, and bring in the Napalm to clear out the bits you just lost. Supplement with anti-tank and anti-air infantry, maybe some other anti-tank and anti-air units but those units will die first if the village is stormed. Artillery helps stun enemies on their approach.

Taking a Village. Go around. No seriously, taking a village of medium-to-large size is in all likelihood not worth the effort, unless its in range of your supply and reinforcement lines. If you HAVE to, still don't. If you REALLY have to, first pound the village with artillery, bombing, and, ideally, napalm. Then send in a massive wave of infantry shielded by smoke, and have them drive STRAIGHT into the village as fast as they can, and then dismount and try to overwhelm through numbers. Units with light maneuverable machine guns and submachine guns are good at this. I like to throw Engineers in heavier APCs into the fight as well, using their Napalm to support, and the APCs armor hopefully means they'll survive to get in a little more.

Taking a Bridge: AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH. I honestly don't even know. Massive bombing and smoke? Like if a bridge is covered by enemy fire, set down your opposing defensive line and pick another bridge to cross. May be further from your objective, but you won't lose 40 T-72s trying to cross it.

[RagingKrikkit]

Here, have a review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh5dGGIQXn8) by and for someone with no experience with the Wargame series.

[Sean Mirrsen]

One I haven't seen mentioned yet is Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension.

It's sort of medium-fantasy, fantastical nations based on real-world ancient pantheons, mythologies, and folklore.
Turn-based (simultaneous) in the strategic layer, realtime with no direct control in the tactical, only preset orders and formations.
Expansive magic system with craftable objects and various spells.
It sort of feels like someone crossed Total War with Master of Magic after reading the entire ancient history section of the local library and a 24-hour Magic:The Gathering marathon.

[Corvus]

Here, have a let's play. (http://lparchive.org/War-in-the-Pacific) Or you can wait for mine, because I'm insane.


If you want, I can upload my installer to a file-sharer and you can get it from there.


Ahk, no, not a WiTP AAR - I'll be stuck there forever :)

Thanks. I'd enjoy being able to fire up the game again some day. It's been a while.

Last time I played it I managed to stop the Japanese dead at Manila/Singapore/Wake. When you know historically where they are going to be it does make it easier. For Manila/Singapore I had my troops fall back, rammed in a large number of supplies out of DEI to keep them going and dug in. Worked remarkably well.

I also stumbled on a ship that quickly became my favourite - the Dutch patrol ship Soerbaja. Small and slow, it was ridiculously tough for its size and with some big guns too. Used it in the isaldsn to hunt down Japanese shipping and nothing that it ran across could really do much damage to it.

[Gnoman]

Last time I wanted to install Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich, I simply emailed Matrix technical support and they provided the installer within hours.

As for WitP LPs, the same guy that did the Allied playthrough posted upthread is currently doing the "Imperial Edition", playing as Japan. Just like the original, he is doing it in real time.

[NichG]

Two titles that spring to mind to me are Dominions 4 and AI War. Dominions 4 is basically a 'you're a god, fight the other gods for control of the world' strategic map conquest game, but where each unit in the armies is modelled individually down to things like being wounded or crippled, becoming sick, aging, etc. Since these things can be vastly amplified with the game's magic system, you might not generally find that the age of your soldiers matters but then there's that one time you go up again the guy with the rapid aging curse spells and maybe you have to start rotating troops out since after the 3rd or 4th engagement they're starting to become much less effective. So if you want that kind of granularity, it's there. But the downside is you can't really control the battles aside from giving standing orders.

AI War is at the completely other end of the spectrum, where its fleet battles in space and you're trying to bust through one star system at a time to retake the galaxy from an AI who has already conquered it and is now distracted dealing with a separate extragalactic aggressor. So its kind of like a guerilla warfare simulator - call too much attention to yourself before you're ready and you're just going to get crushed, but grab the right systems and you can start siphoning the AI's resources or shut down its abilities so that you can be in a position to potentially win - at least the one or two deciding fights. You basically control large swarms of very different ship types, which can be anything from simple 'really tough/does a lot of burst damage/very fast' variants, to exotic stuff like cloaked vessels, damage reflectors, support ships, ships that take over the enemy, ships that deploy self-replicating swarms that need to report back in for maintenance, etc...

[Triaxx]

Late Game Mount and Blade gets some pretty good size combats going on.

There's also the school of thought that Age of Empires units are scaled representations of squads of units, rather than individuals. And so the HP is soldiers in the unit. So if your unit has 50HP, that means it represents 50 soldiers.

Fallout Tactics is technically squad based, but it's not a JRPG and you're usually heavily out numbered.

[mollylayne]

Thanks for the wonderful Information..