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#4013565 - 09/23/14 08:28 PM Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim)  
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http://www.historicalsoftware.com/

Looks pretty sweet, but other than the odd AAR (like here) I can't seem to find much about it.


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
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#4013570 - 09/23/14 08:45 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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never heard of it...would like more info too.

#4013772 - 09/24/14 08:56 AM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Magnum]  
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Originally Posted By: Magnum
never heard of it...would like more info too.

Same here until yesterday. I stumbled on it because I was looking for 'Point of Attack' again and I can never remember the name, so I googled some stuff and suddenly there it was. It seems to have been around for a while as free software but recently been updated to a more advanced Interface and gone payware.

In that 1h+ video the devs says it models unit combat itself in the approximate level of complexity of advanced miniature wargaming, except for LOS which is calculated in realtime based of the 3d terrain. That actually sounds pretty promising.

Here's pretty much all I've found online so far, it's from the same blog:
Getting Acquainted with "Battle Command"
Battle Command - Flushing Insurgents Out of Khair-ud-dim - Micro AAR

Plus the Videos on the Website that are very Elaborate but somehow I can't skip parts in Chrome:
http://www.historicalsoftware.com/?page_id=122 (be warned, the combat demo vid features Trance Music, yikes.)

I have to say I'm especially intrigued by the 'true' LOS modelling concept.

But man, could you have a more generic name for both your Company and your game? It's like it's deliberately designed to be smothered by search engine false positives. But then I read about "responsive devs" in the comments on that blog. The Forum seems to have relaunched end of August and says it lost all prior Posts so there's not much info there (yet?).


Ah well, Greenbacks lead the way I guess. biggrin


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4014182 - 09/25/14 08:34 AM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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So, I ordered it through their shop. It all went smoothly but orders are processed manually so depending on your time zone (my understanding is the dev is in Hawaii) you do have to allow some time for delivery (as per the purchase page).

Also, once you install the software you have to mail back a challenge code after running the server software for the first time to receive a hardware-specific product code, which is also handled manually, so if your time zone is such and murphy's law strikes, worst case you may have to wait another few hours until you can actually play it.

Incompatible time zones meant I initially waited a little over 12 hours for the order to be handled, but when it did, I got an immediate response from the dev after mailing my challenge code. You can install the server software onto up to five machines but in any case can use unlimited clients. Every separate server machine needs it's own challenge/response code.

I've had similar DRM schemes on other software and have to say I'm not a big fan, but I understand the need to protect your IP, especially for indie devs with niche products where the potential customer base isn't big enough to make up for pirating through sheer volume of sales. I would personally much prefer a product code or key file, because that way you're not caught with your pants down when you replaced some essential piece of hardware or so and forget to request a new code before you want to use the software for the first time. But it's all good.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to playing now. I'm not really interested in historical sims (anymore) and I'm glad this has a good lot of present day scenarios.


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4015008 - 09/27/14 09:32 AM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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So, I've been fooling around in it a bit (although the 25% sale on CMANO may ruin my efforts). The game engine seems solid, the scenarios I played seemed to play out realistically enough overall. Playing on satellite images is also very satisfying and works great. Terrain qualification obviously gets a little hit/miss along the edges, so don't count on every pile of rocks you see in the sat image to provide cover for your units, you need to check the 'terrain' window in these borderline cases. Overall a house is a house and a grove is a grove and you can run with that.

The UI/UX needs some serious work though IMO. There's a lot of stuff there, be it options or C&C stuff, but it's not always in an obvious place, very old-school wargaming, if you like: Set the ROE in the 'Orders' tab, the waypoints in the 'Waypoints' tab, 'groups' are a drop-down menu pop-up window with the entire OOB and you click on units you want to have in the group, which meant figuring out from the map which units I wanted to group, then looking for them in the list. Ugh.
It also doesn't have it's own 'group waypoint' button, rather you give one unit in the group the path orders (in it's own unit window) and then pass those on to the group in the 'group' window. Changing waypoints seems to mean going back to the unit that 'owns' the path and changing it there. But all the functionality is there really, so it would be a matter of bringing it all together in a more 'action centric' interface. Overall I think can't have enough screen real estate in this game, because you need so many windows open all the time. I have a 27" monitor and I think if I had two of them I would still be juggling windows. biggrin

There is a very effective pop-up menu if you rclick on the unit counter, but it doesn't quite do everything you'd need (yet?).

What I find really badly implemented personally are the camera controls. There seem to be about three different control schemes that overlap partially, but not entirely and they're not intuitive. W and S are effectively zoom keys, meaning you go 'forward' on the axis of the camera, not in the horizontal pane. Moving on the horizontal pane is done with ADGH, which are all in a row, despite G/H controlling the 'horizontal forward' (Z?) pane.

Overall I can recommend it if you're into this type of wargaming. I'm having fun, but at this point I'm having more fun on smaller engagements than larger ones, because navigating a larger map and OOB is rather tedious at this point. With some streamlining and optimizing this could be a serious contender though, even if smaller engagements are dangerously close to what can be done (arguably better) in SBpro PE (albeit at more than twice the price).

Take all this with a grain of salt, mind you. I'm no wargaming expert and I've just started playing this. It's highly likely there's a lot I just didn't 'get'. In any case, there's not exactly hundreds these games out there, and I felt putting $49 towards an indie developer of something as ambitous and complex as this was well worth it.

Anybody else try it?


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4038639 - 11/20/14 10:11 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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This looks real interesting. I've a background in professional US Army simulation products and this guy seems to have had some exposure or work in this area. The UI's seem to allow for a tremendous amount of configuration, but as you noted...this may be too much for the typical player. I've only spent about 15 minutes looking at the site.

Who did you play against? The AI? Is it real time or turned based? I did not get that from the pages I looked at.


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#4039444 - 11/22/14 05:17 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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Yeah, I played against the 'AI', but that's kind of the elephant in the room: There is none. I think you can script stuff but honestly I don't know for sure. Steel Beasts does ok with just waypoints and such too, but that puts the burden on the scenario designer. Right now there's not much around, just assaults on prepared postions.

It's real time, but it runs in a client/server configuration, so if you control the server you can pause time, slow it down or speed it up. On the scale that it's played at, real time is usually too slow. The game allows for a lot of control, but like I said before it's not a very fluid eperience at the moment.

Overall it's promising and as far as I can tell the engine is sound. There are some multiplayer AAR available that sem to have played out very impressively. Sadly, I don't have enough time to play a game of this scope online so I'm stuck with the 'AI'.

Personally, I feel in its current state I get a similar simulation but smoother user experience out of using the commander's map in Steel Beasts Pro PE, but if you don't have SBProPE or just like any current-time land warfare sims it's well worth a look for $50. Just don't expect a UX as refined as CMANO or SBProPE.

//edit
Just checked the forums again and there's been quite a lot of action. A new version is in the works, the devs seem very responsive and eager for feedback on features.

Last edited by Amaroq; 11/22/14 05:41 PM.

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4046563 - 12/06/14 12:13 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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AI is sorely missing from this game alhough the dev has talked about implementing one for ages.

#4049554 - 12/12/14 01:29 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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I heard from the dev that after years of development an AI is coming any time now.

The development is really active right now, the dev is super responsive and there are substantial improvements every other week almost. Once you get the hang of the workflow it's actually no big deal to control things.

If you're into modern warfare wargaming I'd really encourage checking this out. It's not a very elegant beast, but it's really powerful, and it's getting better by the day almost. Maybe I can post an AAR this weekend.


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4083384 - 02/24/15 09:03 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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I purchased it too.

Looked at the tutorial. It seems like a strong game for my gaming style.

I like the WWII maps and missions.

Thank you Amaroq for that thread!


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#4085349 - 02/28/15 09:32 AM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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I'm glad you like it! There's a learning curve and no demo, so back when I wrote this I was a little reluctant to really flat out recommend it to 'everybody', as I worried that frustration from people who expected something different (maybe more like the "Wargame" series) would result in unduly negative feedback.

It's already come a long way since then though and having compared it to what else is around since then (the closes comparison is probably POA2) I feel it holds its own perfectly and is arguably even better, despite the occasional clunkyness you need to get the hang of. It's also a thrill to see it getting better practically every week. The dev is really active.

Here's my first-ever AAR, featuring Battle Command and the Khair-ud-Dim scenario:
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4085346/Mini-AAR:_Battle_Command,_Khai#Post4085346

I wish we had mortars in that scenario. I may have to make my own variant. biggrin

Last edited by Amaroq; 02/28/15 10:46 AM. Reason: clarity

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4109765 - 04/21/15 08:17 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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Going by their main page it looks like we'll be getting AI sooner rather than later:

http://www.historicalsoftware.com/

I can't wait for this. I played a very early test version a few weeks ago and it was already pretty insane.


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
#4131020 - 06/08/15 10:20 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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Based on the feedback in this thread I purchased it this weekend but still waiting on a key. Will report back after giving it it a good run through and add to the opinions here. As of seeing this post this weekend it's the first time I ever heard of this, saw point of attack 2 a while back but this one looks better.

#4132778 - 06/12/15 12:24 AM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: newguy]  
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Originally Posted By: newguy
Based on the feedback in this thread I purchased it this weekend but still waiting on a key. Will report back after giving it it a good run through and add to the opinions here. As of seeing this post this weekend it's the first time I ever heard of this, saw point of attack 2 a while back but this one looks better.


Well ... darn it I went in to this with high expectations and hope but I simply don't have much positive to say so in the spirit of moving on I'll simply leave it at I was disappointed and it was not as expected performance wise or game play wise. The lack of information around the web on this product should have been a clue to me, there's niche games and then there's just not very good. Moving on.

Last edited by newguy; 06/12/15 12:25 AM.
#4138914 - 06/24/15 03:58 PM Re: Anybody tried 'Battle Command'? (Land Warfare Sim) [Re: Amaroq]  
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Oops, missed your post, newguy.

I'm sorry that's how you feel about it. Just out of interest, what did you find not very good? The learning curve is certainly pretty steep initially as with all these games and it took me a whilte to understand how things work. But now it's pretty straight forward. Due to the complexity you can't expect point-and-click interactions

Also, due to the lack of AI not all scenarios are equally fun without a human opponent. Salmünster is a fun one IMO, and the 'Status Quo' scenario (Ramadi) is too. Some NTC scenarios are also fun. But you have a to invest a few hours to get the hang of things.

Performance depends on your rig. You're loading huge sat image terrain tiles so it can be taxing on an older system. If you can run it in hardware mode it's a huge benefit, both visually and in smootheness, but it's not ArmA so you don't really depend on framerates.

Anyway, if really didn't click at this point, maybe check back on it in a half a year or so. The AI should make it a much more easily enjoyable game. Unlike POA2 (it seems at least) it's being actively developed, so I think your investment will pay off eventually, even if you don't feel it did in its current state.

Also, if you have any suggestions of grievances, post them in the forum if you like. Posting traffic is rather low since summer started but they're reasonably well frequented and in any case the dev team is always listening and very open to feedback.


Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

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