And the bartender says; we don't serve your kind here, and I say, hey, if I want to drink watered-down whisky and play with my miniatures you have no right to stop me.
So I started playing around with the Huey in DCS, it's an evil machine that wants to murder you any time it has the chance. But it's a fun ship that really requires that you fly it all times.
Here I fly a Huey as we take out a Russian base.
And here I do my first landing on a firgate.
Ah, but don't worry I'm not here to bore you with just video games videos.
Since I flew the Huey a lot, I got into the Nam mood, even if the game doesn't really have any Vietnam assets. (you have some Vietnam era aircraft like Huey and MiG21) but you don't have Vietnam-era infantry, ground vehicles. So you can't do a hot LZ landing under fire from NVA etc.
But a Huey is a Huey, so I pulled out some Nam stuff.
I painted 5 marines
This means my Marine force is 20 strong.
I only have 5 grunts left to paint, and maybe an M60, as well as a 60mm mortar team.
If I manage to paint the last 5 marines, I'm out and I need to order more to finish the platoon. So hopefully I'll feel like doing the last 9 man NVA Squad and its two HQ figures. I also have the figures to do 3 support options, a separate RPG team, a.30cal MMG and a nice big 12.7mm HMG.
So I know its been quiet of late on the blog. Bur I am working on this, a couple of Napoleonic units, but it's slow going as I've been completely hooked on DCS.
When I wrote a review of IL2 flying circus, I said DCS was too complex for me, and it still kinda is. But I hunkered down and really studied the stuff, I also jumped through a million hoops to get the game to run ok, I fresh install of Windows, and various other tricks did the stuff, and I finally got it playable.
I've been completely absorbed by the game, since I wrote the IL2 review I've played DCS for over 100 hours.
So what is DCS?
DCS(Digital Combat simulator) is a "free to play" game, not really free as I'll explane.
The base game is free, you get 2 maps, Caucasus, a big map of Georiga, and the black sea, the oldest map, now almost a decade old, it had gotten plenty of updates since then, but graphically the simplest map. You also get the Marianas map, which just came out a few weeks ago, mostly water designed for carrier operations, it included the islands of Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, It will get a WW2 version.
Also with the free game comes to planes, but before we get to that, a short explanation of the planes in the game.
The game comes with 2 types of planes, the "low-fidelity" or Flaming cliffs 3(FC3) planes, these are actually from an older game, that has been ported over to DCS and given a physics and graphical grade, they use the same flight model as the newer planes, but the cockpit is static and the graphics are a little lower in quality. You can still fly and shoot and bomb etc, but everything must be done with button presses on the keyboard to joystick, etc.
The other is the "high-fidelity" planes, these are all the newer stuff made for DCS, the graphics are better, they are far more complex and every button, knob, and switch in the game is clickable, not everything works, but in most planes, 95% of the systems are there. Here you can dive deep into all systems and subsystems of the plane.
So the free game comes with two planes, one is the Su-25T one of the FC3 planes, so it's simpler in operation, but all weapons, etc work, I believe you also have a campaign and various missions to play, this is the best taste of the game you get for free, and you can use this playing online.
The other plane is a TF-51 Mustang a none combat P51, but this one is high-fidelity, and so will give you a taste of how the proper planes are, you can click and manipulate all the stuff in the cockpit, you can start it up from cold, turning on the engine like in the real mustang, etc. You need to control the power of the engine during flight to avoid breaking it. But it has no weapons or gun sight.
You also have full access to the mission editor.
That's what you get for free, everything else cost money, sometimes quite a lot of money.
Other maps avalable for purches is
Nevada test and training map, a map of parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California. Persian Gulf, a map of well Persian gulf, centered on Strait of Hormuz., with UAE, Iran and Oman, with cities like Dubai etc.
Syria, one of the newer maps, I'll quite directly from the store page what this map has.
This 900x500 km map covers most of the eastern Mediterranean, and it includes the island of Cyprus, Lebanon, a large part of Syria up to the border with Iraq, parts of Israel, Turkey, and Jordan. The cities of Damascus, Nicosia, Tripoli, Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Aleppo, Hama, Palmyra, Haifa, Acre, Beirut and Adana are simulated, as well as unique constructions of world famous landmarks and historical monuments.
You also have two WW2 maps.
Normandy, as you'd except covers Normandy, Cherbourg peninsula, and the land behind the beaches. With airfields in England and France.
The Channel, also deals with Southern England and Northern France but further east with Dover and Calais, this is a fantastic map with the town of Dover looking fantastic. Each map cost around $50
Then you have all the planes, too many to mention them all but Mig21, Viggen, F16, F18, F14, F5, Mirage 2000 to name but a few, you also have helicopters like the Huey, Hind, Ka-50 "Black Shark, and soon Apatche.
WW2 is covered with P51 Mustang(the one that got weapons) P47 Thunderbolt, Spitfire IX LW, Messerschmitt 109K4 Kurfyrst, Fw190A-8 Anton and Fw190D-9 Dora, and in about half a month the Mosquito FB VI.
The planes cost between 40 and 80 dollars, depending on how new they are, each plane is made with input from the makers of the plane, technicians, pilots, etc. There is a lot of work going into each plane. so don't think of it like spending $80 on parts of a game, if you spend $80 on the F16, you got a full-blown super-accurate F16 simulator, each plane is a simulator in on itself.
Besides the planes and maps, you also have "asset packs" like the WW2 asset pack, which adds WW2, infantry, tanks, planes, guns, and ships. And these packs continue to be updated with new assets. You also have Supercarrier, a fully working American supercarrier with a working deck crew. And you also have combined arms pack that lets you control ground and sea units.
And finally the campaigns, these are more in the $10-15 range and worth it if you like well-made missions.
It's hard to explain just how fantastic this game is when you get the hang of it. A so-called "study sim" where you spend a lot of time just learning the systems.
I keep jumping between modern and WW2.
I spent quite a lot of time on the F18 but found its systems confusing, I then spent a lot of time on the F16, making my own super simple missions to learn one and one system, while watching videos on youtube showing how to do it.
I play exclusively in VR but you don't need it to play, it just enhances it soo much.
I'll let videos do some of the talking, here I am on the deck of a supercarrier in my F18, sitting there in VR seeing those F18 taking off right in front of me is probably one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
After getting too confused by the F18, I went back to the F16, as a Norwegian it holds a special place for me.
I made a series of "training missions" A trilogy, where I pretended to save my Friend Sven who lives on Cyprus from evil Russians.
In the first missions, the evil Russians have stopped right outside of Limassol, they have plenty of trucks full of chemical agents. I need to take them all out, And this shows the effect of dropping 12 250lb bombs in ripple mode.
In the second part of the "Save Sven" trilogy, the Russians have snuck in armor and infantry, since they are within his neighboorhood, I must use "smart bombs"
And finally, the Russians have gone full out, a full platoon of infantry, and armor are about to attack his house, and this time they have a SAM site ready to try and stop me from saving Sven. Let's just say, this time I made absolutely sure they would not come back by going totally overkill with 6 CBU-97 bombs.
I played with the F16 a lot and got decent at it. Starting to understand the systems, But playing in VR I have a hard time using the keyboard, I needed more buttons. So I've invested in the full Winwing system, It comes with a 1:1 F18 stick and throttle, as well as man buttons on the throttle part, I also got the Take off-panel and combat panel, giving me easy buttons and levers for landing gear, laser etc. Even though the panel is modeled on the F18 it works fine on the F16 or whatever else you want to use.
I also spent 8 bucks on Voice attack, letting me control stuff with my voice, in theory, you can use your voice to activate any system in the planes, but I only use it for communicating with ground and wingmen, and for controlling menus and views and map. This means I can no completely forget about the keyboard when I play.
I have now gone back to WW2, I wanted to wait until I got my spitfire flight controls, but I couldn't wait. So I jumped back.
Making some fun missions.
Like attacking a German airfield, The editor is incredibly powerful letting you do so much.
This video shows how I've managed to program 12 B17s to fly and carpetbomb.
And of late I've been practicing dogfighting in WW2.
After trying and trying to get the hang of the P51, I just can't fly it the way I want, its style of flight doesn't match what I want to do.
So I went back to the good old Spitfire. not as fast as the P51, but the Spit lets me do what I want it to do(most of the time)
Here I am in the most classic of all of history's aerial duels, the Spitfire vs the Bf109, the Bf109K-4 is very very late warplane and actually superior to the IX spitfire in most ways, only the ludicrous turning rate is better in the spit. You can also download missions, skins, and even planes for free made by modders. I've naturally used Norwegian skins on my F16 and on the Spitfire.
Another dogfight this time 3 vs 3. I end up cutting the 109 in half, I still stuck at Aerial gunnery, it just takes a lot of practice.
I recommend this game to anyone interested in WW2 or modern(or cold war) air combat. It's not an action game, this is as hardcore as a simulator you are gonna get outside of actual airforces.
A few warings-
1: you need a HOTAS, (stick and throttle) playing this with a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad is technically possible but just no, even a $100 one will improve the experience enormously. 2: Even without VR the game demands a lot of the computer, a 5-year-old family computer won't do it, And in VR we are talking $2500 level computer. 3. STEEP learning curve, if you are a bit more technical in the head than me, it will go easier for you, but I'm "easily confused" by complex systems. So while I can keep an aircraft in the air without much difficulty, actually controlling the systems is harder, if you keep to WW2, a lot of this goes away, the most complex part there is the start-up(which you can skip) and a little when it comes to managing the engines, but the warbirds are much harder to fly, I mean you can't do what you want with them, A spit will blow its engine if you fly straight up for 10 seconds, a Fw190 or P47 will stall its wings if you do even a half hard turn. But they are a joy to fly. And if you like systems upon systems, you have the F18 or F16s, Or maybe you want to jump into the 50s nostalgia with the Mig 15 or Mig 17. 4. This is a hobby by itself, As of now, this is the only game I have installed on my computer.
I haven't been this hooked on a game since my early teens(which is now over 20!!! years ago) this is really the flight sim one dreamed of when you played games like Microsoft combat flight simulator or F16 fighting falcon.
If you are interested I recommend you get the free game from https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ You have a lot of good deals there, like the ability to try any plane or helicopter for free for 2 weeks, after two weeks you can try any other plane for 2 weeks, that way you can try them all before buying. They also have a loyalty thing, where each purchase gives you credit, that you can use later, so if you buy 3 plans, the 4th one will be at a decent discount.
Buy Buy!!!
I'll try and get back to the scheduled programing soon.
Boy this one is going to be long, So first up, two bases of austrian grenadiers, so as they are combined, half my grenadier unit will be combined from two diffrent regiments.
I like theise, they are very colofull for german regiments, I will definatly make the full fusiliers regiments too. I also did the german general/colonel, standard white, green facings, bay horse, I did give him purple silk gloves, just to make him slightly dany. After all no reason to die in battle with out purple silk gloves.
Ok, now to the games I know most people that follow or come by my blog don't care about video or computer games. But here are two atleast one of you might like.
The first one is called Kingdom Come: Delivernce, it's a historic realistic medieval rpg. no dragons or elves. you are a blacksmiths son, in 1403 bohemia. you got a nice part of bohemia to play around with.
The game is made by people who have made sevral good games before, they have started their own company. They have a private billionare backer that has put in 1.5 million so far in the game.
They have now started a kickstarter asking for 300 000 pounds, Its mostly to show their backer people want a realistic rpg. And they got all 300 000 in less then 36 hours, with 25 days left of the kickstarter they are now at about 470 000 pounds. Do stop buy and suport them if this is your think, the game has taken the internet by storm,
Here is a trailer for the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D48PCFshHg
The big selling points are
Real world based on bohemia, with historic catles,
Take part in big battles and seiges with 100s or 1000s of solders.
Physics based first person combat.
4 layers 16 slot character slots, for armor and weapons, from no clothes to full suit of plate.
3 classes bard, theif and knight.
Branching dialogs with real choices.
Looks to be a super game, lots of people want this game!!
Next game is Histwar Napoleon
This is a sequal to Histwar Les Grognards, with much much updated graphics, and ai. I have played the demo sevral times today, and all my problems from the original game, is gone and the game plays great.
5000 historic commanders, 1300 historic regimetns 600 historic uniforms, huge battle maps.
1:6 1:2 or 1:1 scale soldiers. so if you play on 1:1 you can have 500 000 soldiers in the field at once.
This is a picture of the original game
This is what the new game looks like
It is the ultimate computer version of napoleonic gaming. So far there are 10 historic battle, with ability to make your own armies and own maps, 20 more historic battles will be added.
Shock and awe is the code word, now before we start, I'm very bad at this game, not only do I play on the easiest level, but I have turned of something called rarity, rarity is a second from of currancy in the quick battle force selection, you have credits and rarity, things like battalions cost alot of credits but have next to no rarity, while air suport has much higher rarity and stuff like rockets have very high rarity.
So I turn of that, which lets me buy LOTS of suport options.
This was a big battle, thats about a battalion and a half of americans. But I only bought one, and spent the rest of my credits on lots and lots of suport options.
The germans choose thier stuff randomly so I didn't know what they had, other then it was mech infantry.
I started the battle with saturaing and bombing the hell out of the map. Rockets saturated half the map
I started to move my airborne squads towards the objective. I also droped bomb and big boy artillery on the objevtive.
I found the objective and to my suprise some units had survived,
Well not for long
I called in the big stuff, 14 Inch battleship guns, the first shell hit exactly on the Pack 40, I don't think they made it.
The resault was some 30 dead germans.
But it wasn't over 30-40 dead germans out of 300 isn't gonna stop them.
The started to flank me, and ship soldiers into the objerctive area.
The craters from the 14" guns made perfect defliade for the germans.
Not only that but they had armord veichals, luckely I ambushed the half track with a bazooka.
I started to get more and more troopers into place, it was tuch and go for a few minutes, but then the last 20 minutes were turkey shoot, I had 60 paratropers, with 6 mgs behind a long hedge and all the germans did was to ship more and more soldiers into the objective area, which with the exeption of the craters didn't have any cover, I mowed them down.
With a good 30 minutes left of the game, the germans surrenderd, I lost 38 dead, and 37 wounded, I still had 496 soldiers good to go.
And the germans? Well they lost 190!! DEAD!! 110 Wouned. the only had 50 left when they surrenderd.
This was a quick battle, were I simply overpowerd the enemy with shock and awe, not a fair fight.
The next AAR will be from the first mission in one of the 4 campaigns.
So this is a computer game that has a long history, the first game was made in 2000 and based on the miniature game Advanced Squad Leader(ASL), the first game was set in WW2, and over the years got many expantion packs, basicly covering the whole of the european and north african theater.
It was slightly abstraced, squads were just a few soldiers to represent 12 soldiers ect. But the game was very detaled in armor protection and combat.
Then in 2007 Strike force came out, it was the same type of realistic game, but set in Modern conflicts, like Iraq, then a stand alone expantion to this was released dealing with the Russian invasion of Afganistan in late 70s and 80s.
And now this, the series is back in WW2, and we are in Normandy 44, The game has only Americans and German heer, no ss, or fallsjermjegers, No british, but trust me, they are comming, the game is gonna be expanded on for years and years, we are gonna get british, italians, free french, russians, SS ect. Mabye even Marines and Japanese some day, AND if the creators don't make it, you can count on the modding comunity making it.
The game has 3 game modes.
Campaign, you get 4 campaigns some American some German, the campaign got a goal, taking a town or area of normandy, casualties are transferd over from one mission to the other, so if you bungle the 2nd mission and loose 50 soldiers, you'll have 50 less soldiers on mission 3.
You then have battles, You get 21 pre made battles to choose from, again some german some US, from what I understand each mission has atleast 3 diffrent deplyoments, so you nevner know exactly were the enemy is.
And finnaly you have quick battle, this is really fun and what I've spent most of my time on, you choose the size of the battle, from platoon level to regimental level, each soldier shown as is, so with a regiment on each side you might have 1000+ soldiers on each side.
I have mostly played around with small battle, that is about a company on each side, with suport options.
Other then the size, you choose the time of day, the month, the weather, if the forces will be infantry only, mech infantry, tanks only or a mix. Also you can choose the type of game, probe? Attack or Assault. Each of these 3 options let you choose from 50ish maps. so there is probebly 100-150 maps to choose from, the maps are small, medium or big, each size has a number of options, a big city, a big town, a small city a small town ect. Some maps are very heavy in the green stuff while others are more open.
When all this is choosen, you get a screen that lets you "buy" units based on the size of the battle, it's called credits, a small battle you have 1800 credits, thats enough for a company and some extra units or suport, On large, you get a full battalion and enough credits to get some nice stuff.
Like in One game, I choose large battle, that gave me enough credits to buy a single battalion of American Paratroopers, I also bought air suport, naval artillery and rocket artilery. So Instead of close to 700 soldiers I hade some 550 soldiers and lots and lots of firepower.
The battles them self are played much like a miniature game, you give orders to squads, and american squad is 12 strong, and you got special units like pinoneers, mortar crew, MG teams.
Generarly the Germans rely on MG power, they got the best Mg and lots of it. a single mg will cut down a squad in the open easly, Bigger squads like 12 man Us squads can be divided into smaller fire teams, that means, you divivd a 12 man sqauds into 3 teams, that way when moving troops in the open, if worst comes to worst you'll only loose 2-4 men, and not a full squad.
The big killer is not rifles, rifle fire is very inacurate, and you need lots of rifles to do any damige even to soldiers in the open, in less it's close range, the big killers are, MGs, Artillery and Mortar.
The hedges in Normandy are so thick they actualy provide alot of cover not only from rifle fire but even direct fire explosives like AT and Tanks guns, often tanks won't be able to get throught the hedges not by raming them and not by shooting at them.
They are not 100% bullet proof, close fire mg will still take out the od soldier behind it, so there will be some atrition with prolonged firefights.
Mortar and off map artillery can be fired indrectly be using spotters with radios, more uniqe forms of suport like air suport and some more rare artillery like rockets and naval needs designated forward observers, on map mortars and MMGs, HMGs needs to be deployed to fire, that includes MG42s on tripods, M1917, M1919A4 ect, while LMGs like MG42 on with bipod and M1919A6 doesn't need to.
The games can be played two ways, Real time, thats is the clock tick down all the time, in single player you can ofcoruse pause the game, but the game is REALLY ment to be played turn based, In both Single and Multi Player when using turn based, the game is devided into two, first there is a paused part, were you give orders, that can be, fire zones, movment, ordering artillery, deplyoing mgs ect. you then click on a buttoen and the game calculates thats gonna happend the next minute, you then see this minute played out infront of you, you can't do anythnig, what happnes has allready been calculated, but you get to zoom around the map, watching the action.
After the minute is up, you again get a chance to give orders, and you continue to do this until someone looses or the time runs out. in quick battles and Multiplayer, the time can be set from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
The game is a computer version of a really realistic miniature wargame, but in one game you can play from a small skirmish to a big regimental level game. But the trick is, that a regimental miniature wargame is abstracted, very few ww2 games lets you play with 700-1000 minuatures a side, so what you get is a game that can be played with a 1000 soldiers, but is as detailed into the microscopic as a platoon level skirmish game. were each single soldier with a K98 or Carbine is caluculated.
The game is as adictive as Crack(I think, never tried crack) but I asmue that this is simular to beeing on crack.
