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#4331479 - 01/25/17 10:47 PM EECH vs. Longbow 2  
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2
SteveM Offline
Junior Member
SteveM  Offline
Junior Member

Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2
TN
First post here. Going to try to stick around. The other day I found a copy of Nascar Racing 2003 Season in a Goodwill for $3.50. It installed and runs perfect. Going to look into some of the mods later. Doing so reminded me of Longbow 2. I've never actually played it but several years back I noticed it was getting scarce so I picked up Longbow Anthology on eBay. Never did get it to run back then. Thought I'd try installing it on Windows 10 and I couldn't even get the install program to launch.

Looking online I found a lot of resources to try but I saw a comment that Longbow 2 is old and that EECH is so much better. I didn't know anything about the game mostly because I never got into sims as much as I wanted to and I pretty much always wrote off anything helicopter that wasn't Longbow but this seriously got me wondering, is EECH modded as good or better than Janes Longbow 2?

As far as running Longbow 2, wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier to pick up an old PC to run it on? I do have an old PC but it was long in the tooth when Longbow 2 came out!

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#4331503 - 01/25/17 11:52 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 2,849
Falstar Offline
Senior Member
Falstar  Offline
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 2,849
Edina, MN 55439
Hi Steve, welcome aboard. Haven't tried LB2 for a decade now. If you look around here I think you can get it to work. I may be wrong, haven't followed it for a while. Come on down to the EECH forum. These guys are still active improving it. EECH can be gotten pretty reasonably on GOG.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/13/1/EECH_/_EEAH

#4331704 - 01/26/17 04:25 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,600
Recluse Offline
Mediocrity Above All!
Recluse  Offline
Mediocrity Above All!
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,600
Randolph, NJ
Hard to compare the two. I enjoyed and played LB2 more than EECH, though I did play quite a bit of EECH in SP and MP. I admit that I haven't played much EECH since the latest round of updates, so everything below may be out of date smile Please jump in and correct me if I am wrong.

LB2 had a steeper learning curve than EECH, though that may be a bit different now with all the EECH improvements.

I thought the LB2 flight model made it EASIER to fly the helos than EECH, but EECH may be more realistic along with the increased difficulty.

The two games are different in conception. While both have DYNAMIC campaigns, LB2 gives you 4 missions to complete per campaign "turn" one of which you will fly and the others which you assign AI flights. Of course you can do them ALL yourself..but that gets tedious.

EECH gives you overall objectives and there are AI flights doing all sorts of things. You can pick a particular flight to lead as is your preference. LB2 is about completing missions, while EECH is more about winning a campaign by occupying enemy territory which all the missions are directly in aid of, including the actual "Occupation" by transport helos dropping troops. Typically an EECH campaign will have a number of missions to

- Wear down defenses
- Destroy enemy forces/installations
- BDA to verify the state of the previous mission
- Occupation of sites by Friendlies

It can be fun to just jump in and fly missions, but if you are really interested in furthering a campaign, you need a more strategic element to your thinking than is required in LB2.

EECH gives a better impression of a big battlefield with lots of units going about their missions. While some of this is going on in LB2 as well, the SCOPE that you see is mostly on a Tactical Level concerned with your missions.

For example, given the schema above, I might notice that a mission to attack an enemy FARP failed, but there is a BDA mission generated to see what the state of the FARP was. I would load out for attack and make sure the FARP was destroyed, and THEN Transmit my BDA instead of just verifying that ANOTHER attack mission should be planned. This way, doing both the ATTACK and BDA, I could trigger the INSERTION mission to take the installation. Sometimes I would then take over THAT flight as well..

If you are interested in Multiplayer, EECH is probably the better bet as the net code in LB2 doesn't support things like hosting from behind a router (which just about everyone has) without using some Virtual network app (Hamachi, TUNNGLE etc..). SUCH A SHAME!!!


Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals

#4331860 - 01/26/17 11:30 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2
SteveM Offline
Junior Member
SteveM  Offline
Junior Member

Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2
TN
Just kind of sad Longbow 2 never went on to have the longevity it could have had. I put some time into the first game but I just didn't have a PC good enough for the second so I waited. Now, if it were easily playable I could run it no problem and I have a decent flight stick I've barely used. I do plan to fiddle with it and see if I can get it working but it's low priority right now. Falcon 4 is something I'd like to get back into too. I may give EECH a try too. Might wait for it to go on sale again.

#4332009 - 01/27/17 01:55 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,600
Recluse Offline
Mediocrity Above All!
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,600
Randolph, NJ
As mentioned up thread, having an older machine for LB2 and other games of its era is the best option.

I played LB2 mainly on a Pentium 3 (Windows 98) with a Voodoo 5 5500 card. It worked ALMOST perfectly on an XP Machine (Core2Duo E6600) using the DGVoodoo emulator. ALMOST because of the well known rocket aiming issue on faster CPU's, but still VERY playable.


Last edited by Recluse; 01/27/17 01:58 PM.

Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals

#4332078 - 01/27/17 06:10 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 13,199
DBond Offline
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DBond  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 13,199
NooJoyzee
I would echo what Recluse said. Personally I was flying both of these back around '08. Haven't since, so take what I say in that light. LB2 was fantastic of course, and I was still flying in the Win XP days using a Glide wrapper. I can't speak to how to get it running on a newer OS.

As much as I liked LB2, EECH has much more replayability. Both are fun to fly and fight. But EECH is the better sim to play in my opinion. You'll get alot more mileage out of it because of the campaign. Better yet, play both.

Steve, welcome to SimHQ and stop by the F4 forum if you're looking to get back in to that. I recommend the BMS mod. I recently got back in to it after a long layoff too.


No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
#4332757 - 01/29/17 08:36 PM Re: EECH vs. Longbow 2 [Re: SteveM]  
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 53
FlightJunkie Offline
Junior Member
FlightJunkie  Offline
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Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 53
Bottom of the sea
I will focus on an aspect that many people do not. And thats the personality. EECH has certainly aged better, has more helos, far better longevity with grandiose mod projects that radically change it. But I find LB2 more likeable, that it grows on you more than EECH. Its a trouble to run for sure, but I love it.

Last edited by FlightJunkie; 01/29/17 08:38 PM.

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