WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Just wondering if people could enlighten me about the major differences and their personal preferences
(yes, I'm aware that the last one isn't from the people here. But still, it's sort of relevant, I think)

Anyway, some orientating questions:

- Does WinSPBT lack any crucial feature that SPWW2 has? (otherwise I'd be interested in some modern battle gameplay)

- Does SP3 World at War have any feature that I would miss?


Sidenote: I'm a newbie at this game, but seems both very enjoyable and (particularily WinSPWW2) very friendly towards my netbook. (Low reqs, can play windowed, likely low battery drain for when my gynecology teacher starts ranting about his long past youth...), so I was wondering if I'd get even more stuff in the at-a-glance less friendly interface of SP3WaW


And while we are at it, is there any general tactical hints database for SPWW2?

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

The SPMBT and SPWW2 game engine should be practically identical, with the only exception of WW2 not using modern stuff like tandem HEAT and so on. Currently the SPWW2 is a lil' bit ahead, to be even with MBT once next MBT patch gets released by the developpers.

Compůarison with SPWAW is always tricky and relies much on personal taste. Me, i like MBT/WW2 series more, think it has better gameplay features and... 15 height levels and great map generator - need I say more? ;)

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

To read about the differences I recommend this thread here:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...ighlight=spwaw

Though SPWW2 and SPMBT have been updated with even more cool features since that thread.

There is some tactical help here:

http://www.theblitz.org/message_boar....php?tid=50259

There's also tactical help in the Game Guide.


cheers
Cross

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Not played the most recent version of SPWAW as think recently upated but compared to SPWW2, MBT the version I played is unstable & poor graphicaly.
SPWAW biggest problem though is it plays more like a game.
The speed of its vehicles & small map size mean you can reach any part of the map quickly so tactics take a back seat. Also units are godlike in there awareness of whats around them & shoot at everything, think RTS.
Just my view & I thought it was a good game till I tried the others & realised its limitations. If you want a game & an easy ride go WAW, if your more after a SIM go for the other 2 plus you get to play with modern equipment as well.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

If you want an easy ride, just crank up your "spotting" and "hitting" preferneces in MBT or WW2 and you're good to go ;)

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Given that winSPWW2 and winSPMBT are virtually the same code and play the same way that statement is just a bit puzzling

Don

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Miss representation maybe bad grammer on my part I wrote
What I meant was SPWAW is unstable & poor graphicaly compared to the camo games. Although thats by no means its worst issues.
Should have used & instead of ,

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

OK. Makes sense now. The sentance structure threw me off

Don

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

As its playing on my mind lets put this to rest once & for all.
My observations are based on SPWAW version 8.4 & I think there is a new one which we will assume has fixed stability & graphic problems. Also hopefully has updated its map engine to produce both better & larger maps.
WW2 & MBT are basicaly the same & will be treated as such based on current versions which will refer to as MBT

Scale
They either use diffrent scales or turn times or.
From memory WAW units can move 70-100% faster than equivalent MBT ones.
Strangely weapon ranges are constant so one must assume WAW turn is twice as long as MBTs.
If this is so WAW troops do not fire very much as ROF are pretty similar.
I checked this for a dozen units as something was obviosly wrong & the movement rates used by MBT are the correct ones.
In WAW this makes using infantry easier as can perform flank moves etc in one turn & makes vehicles plain silly. Moving 30 or more hexes down a road is easily possible so in urban terrain you can reinforce a force very easily. Even some troops can cover large amounts of terrain fast. If the map size has not been increased this means you can cover it very rapidly & little thought is required. You do not need a plan.

MBT units always have the same movement capabities, i.e. same number of MP available while WAW units slow down from turbo mode to nearer realistic once they are seen by the enemy. Lose about 1/3rd I think of MP, an asterix appears in info box so you know the enemy can see you. It is possible to switch this off but even so if you feel contact is likely so move 1 hex at a time you can see your MP suddenly vanish so you know you have been detected.

Since a revision MBT move radius display can be wrong so treat as a guide as does not calculate slope movement correctly. WAWs of course can vary depending on if the unit is seen or not
MBT has a similar thing for LOS which works fine & shows all hexes visible to that unit. Think in WAW you have to roate the unit to check this.

Units load & unload from transport at no cost in WAW meaning they can jump from one vehicle to another & cross the entire map in 1 turn.
In MBT both units lose part of there MP based on the size of the loading unloading unit

Game mechanics.
While both use basicaly the same mechanics this is about the only similarity that remains between the 2 games as the way they use them is diffrent.
WAW seems to have far less routines or poorer versions covering unit actions so when units are under AI control including reaction fire they perform in a far more simplified way.
WAW units fire at any & all targets, MBT seem to have a very slight delay in transfer of info between forces meaning a unit that is just sighted is not instantly fired on by every thing in sight. Closer units & those in contact are likely to react first rippling out if it performs another action. Its routines may also stop it firing at a specific type of unit. Hard to expalin but the way the MBT model works it takes away certain aspects of units being moved & reacted to individually. If you do it correctly get a fairly good representation of a formation breaking cover simultaniosly to conduct an attack, WAW fails to represent this on any real level somehow so is much more a piece by piece game. Actualy probably put that wrong its surprising that MBT manges to represent it at any level rather than a failing of WAW that it can't.

WAW does have the ability to stop fire being bled by continously op firing at the cost of increased suppression, MBT normaly once a unit goes quite it will not fire again. However you can get caught out if it rallies slightly due to another units action gaining a shot.

Artillery routines are very diffrent personal choice I suppose but WAWs is very easy to use making getting it on target a simple affair.

C&C is diffrent
MBT abstracts being out of command by slowly adding suppresion to out of contact units. This means they perform worse & can eventualy lead to them being pinned.
WAW many people switch it off but if on offers a more detailed way of play as unit commanders get a certain amount of orders each turn which they allocate to change units objectives call in arty etc.
On the face of it this is good but it slows the game dramatically as the interface for issuing orders is not executed well. MBT has the same ability to issue orders & the same problems with the interface which is probably why its not used. You need to access a seperate screen rather than do from the map screen is the problem in both cases.

Suppresion
WAW units both gain & lose suppresion faster & it operates slightly diffrently using a bigger range generally in WAW. WAW units have the ability if not fired on for a turn to become completly unsepressed. MBT never do they alwayss retain 1 suppresion after recieve it so are no longer "fresh" units.

Units in WAW disapear from view immediatly they leave your LOS in MBT they tend to hang around for a turn once you have lost sight of them. At first I thought the WAW system was better but the MBT way means you can take a break of several days & still come back & have an idea of whats going on. It helps a great deal in PBEM games where this can often be the case or if you have multiple games going on.
Occasionaly it does not work correctly & a unit that does not move stays visible for a long time.

MBT replays also tend only to show units fired on, if a unit just moves & disapears from view it will not show the move. This means posting sentries to watch for vehicles can not work very well as you get no idea which way they went unless they can shoot at them. This can also cause problems with airdrops as even if the aircraft is een it will not show unless fired on. I think WAW shows all movement but not sure.

These are I think the main things that effect game play & make the games play very diffrently. There are other things to like
Both use some diffrent movent rates for terrain
WAW has walls as this seems an issue for some players
WAW only has 3 levels MBT not sure but at least 12 I think
MBT info screens for units are clear & give more info. If it says it carries special ammo it does.
Reminds me WAW can play with 3 ammo loadouts from full to restricted & partial squads.
MBT has a very good editor compared to WAWs for both units & map however I would not like to speculate on which version it is easier to build scenarios in. Both are not entirely user friendly when it comes to plotting unit paths its a long process to get it right. Could just be me.
WAW allows weapon jams & fixing of damaged units MBT does not. All well & good but it does not differntiate between the chances of fixing things. A vehicle immobile by mines will recover as quicly as one stuck in mud. Repair its weapon with no thought for the chance for the weapon type or if it has retired somewhere safe to fix it or is currently engaged in battle.
Lots of other things like being able to set rally points airdrops etc the list just goes on.
The fundamentals are the same but they have diversified into 2 diffrent beasts in the way they play so you have to choose your camp.

To me WAW is easier to pick up a play requiring less brain power to play due to poor routines & sweeping moves you can make.
If you try using C&C to redress these problems it just becomes plain clunky & play slows to a crawl.
This is without the fundamental issue that movement rates are pure pie in the sky.

This is just my view on the 2 diffrent bites at the same cherry

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

The only things I miss from WAW is weapon jamming, immobilized vehicles getting fixed occasionally, and having squads start a few men under strength

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

There are some AI logic differences between the WaW version and the Win versions as well. One thing that really drove me nuts on the WaW version was having an assault mission with points per turn flags with poor weather resulting in slow movement. A decisive victory was all but out of the question. To get a marginal victory, you needed to secure all the flags about one third of the way into the battle. Capturing all the flags in about 10-15 turns, with units moving slow due to the weather, while having to breach a minefield was all but impossible. Most of my assault battles under those conditions ended up being draws.

At least WaW compensated by pure ignorance of AI deployment. Infantry companies were deployed in clustered groups and it told you when you inflicted casualties, even if you couldn't see what you were hitting with artillery. Find one unit and blast the whole area for a four hex diameter. WaW was really poor in placing fortifications. They could be found buried in a forest with only a clear view of the hex to their immediate front and that's it.

One other AI problem with WaW is capture one flag and the screaming hordes all jump out of their holes and try to recapture it. Capture one flag and WaW throws away one major advantage of being on the defensive. The Win games rationally wait to counter attack until such a move is required.

Minefield deployment is also predicable in WaW. It starts right at the deployment line, is 2-3 hexes in depth and there are never mines outside of the main belt. That is the extent of WaW's use of obstacles.

The Win logic with mines is also predictable, but not usefully so. One can expect Win games to place mines on the roads, which is a logical place to do so. The high speed avenues of approach is basically useless. It would take too long to clear the roads. The Win logic also tends to have a main belt of mines, but it can start anywhere between the deployment line back to the edge of the forward most objective. Also expect to find some of the flag locations mined. There is no breaching the line and forgetting about the engineers. The lead elements better have some with them or you just take your chances when capturing flags. Another nice touch is an extra partial line of obstacles along the edges of the map to slow down flanking maneuvers. These partial lines may be something other than mines and not be there at all, but can be a rude surprise of they are unexpected found. If mines, is it the main line or is it a partial line? Finally, mines can be expected to be scattered beyond main belt of mines. Busting through the main belt of mines and doing open field running also has it's risks. The scattered mines are basically random, but the only thing that is predictable is that they will be there. Where is anyone's guess.

WaW seems to have been coded to do a lot more "head hunting" than it should. While radio direction finding has improved since WWII allowing for better targeting of C&C locations, I found my HQ getting hit way too often for my taste in WaW considering it was WWII. It's been a while since I played WaW, but that is one impression that sticks with me.

Overall, Don and Andy have done a spectacular job with the AI. There are aspects of WaW that are nice, but the bottom line is how good of a battle do you get out of the AI with what you have to work with. Personally, I've never liked games that gave the AI an edge to compensate for inherent weakness. Straight up, the Win games give you a better fight than WaW.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

What I love about the Win- games, apart from what others mentions here, is that the "benevolent dictatorship" of the devs Don and Andy ensure the games difference between MBT and WW2 is minimal, and that any changes are thoroughly tested and verified. And they listen to the community :up:

I came here from having played WaW a lot - started playing WinSPMBT to get some modern action, and found having to switch between them for PBEM games was tedious since keys were different and so on. So I persuaded my PBEM mates to change to WinSPWW2 as well :)

I've tried SPWAW again last year, but like many found the pace too fast and the graphics too "shiny and colourful" if thats a correct term :D And the multitude of mods there was for WaW a while caused much confusion when installing... I see they now have something called SPWAW Enhanced but never tried it.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

I at one time had stated that mines in WW2 weren't simply just a matter of a solid line across the height of the map, as some seemed to believe. It's good to see somebody finally backed me up on this, but I will say I have yet to see flags mined, but that may be because I'm playing the only mode which the AI is trained for, the cluster one. It is grapeshot where you're probably getting flags with mines.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Another element that impacts how mines are laid is the number of battle points. Andy has mentioned there is a unit selection loop the AI goes through when selecting it's force so obstacle points are probably included in that loop for a defend mission. If there are some obstacle points left over after the main belt is completed, they get scattered about the map. WaW on the other hand, just seems to make it's main belt wider. Wider has it's complications, but WaW won't hit the breaching force with artillery if it can't seen anyone. That makes breaching the mines timely, but not dangerous.

Mining flags is just a matter of probability, I suspect. As I recall Charles, you play on a 200x200 map where I use a 100x100 map. In my battles, the mine density is going to be higher and the odds of some being in the flag hexes increase accordingly. That said, I got the impression they were laid more deliberately in the flag hexes, but honestly I never explored this concept. The AI concentrates some defensive formations around the grouped flags. It stands to reason mines would be part of those defensive positions. There could just be a higher density of mines around the flags and then probability comes into play and some just end up in the flag hexes.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Your point is well taken, that is my map is larger (200 X 130 actually), considerably and my amount of units less, so there would be a difference, though I think you routinely are playing grapeshot, or if not that the default rate of grapeshot. In my case I don't play them at all. There's probably less call for mining flags when the AI is geared specifically for that type.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Mining random objective hexes (and nearby to objective hexes) is a wee nasty that the AI will do sometimes, no matter what the pattern happens to be. Usually done when it has lots of engineering points. So be careful on approaching the objectives in an assault!.

The top and bottom map edge strips can be doubled. Sometimes 1 of the strips will be barbed wire or obstacles (esp on beach maps). And if the main mine belt goes to the top as well, you can face a triple-depth belt if you try to go round the flanks. Also long-ago fixed was the old SSI code bug that meant it never put mines on the flank edge row, thus making an edge run always worthwhile. Our code also puts obstacles (think of them as a pile of logs or those metal X things) on bridges as well, sometimes with a mine combined.

Andy

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

I would say that about sums it up tried to keep what I said subjective while I remembered WAW was easier did not remember quite why so would not comment.
It seems though as of this date WAW has not recieved a further update so from a program not playability point of view it is streets behind.

Small maps
Poor graphics
Unstable, mainly slight graphic issues if remember, think it leaked as well so slow resource hog but please do not take as correct was a while back.
Would get glitches even if only thing running, camo games I have 2 monitors & run it on one while often have 4-5 other things running on the other including live internet feeds & programs with zero problems conflicts resource issues.

Camo game is updated & supported on a regular basis in house by its designers.
WAW any new updates seem to be made by a 3rd party.
As I said choose a camp

On mines camo placement does indeed have a pattern
Flanks, road forward line or partial line then near objectives.
But it does vary where the line is & how its deployed my recent encounters with they were used from what I found in partial front line reinforced in 2 places to a depth of about 300m with scattered meaning find a path.
Then protected rear routes to bunkers
Placed again in front & on objectives.
They did there job as had an idea where most but not all might be so slowed advance painfully at times.

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

I would put the Camo mine placement rules in yet simpler way:
"The mines are always where the player does not want them to be" ;) After all, it's one of the Murphy's laws of combat operations: "The easy way is always mined!"

Re: WinSPBT vs WinSPWW2 vs SP3WaW?
 

Or possibly, the AI places them like a person would place them. Mining the high speed avenues of approach are not available in assault missions. It's predictable that mines will be on the roads, but the player can't do anything about it. I've seen so many mines it would take too long to make the clear them and make functional use of the road. Honestly, I've done the same thing myself. I don't allow high speed avenues of approach to be used. The only thing you can predict with Win games is mines will be there, somewhere. The thing is, this seems to me to be a relatively simple coding change that WaW hasn't picked up on. Throw in artillery hitting units clearing mines and you have easily made assault operations more difficult against the AI.