NEWS - Sunday, June 10, 2001

Introducting the new Simplex Forums for discussion of the games I am interested in and of the add-ons I have created for them!

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Well, the game is sort of complex and takes a while to get used to. Pretty much everything you can think of has been molded in the game, and the button 'keypad' on screen to issue commands has about 30+ little buttons on it marked with hard-to-decipher symbols. However, once you get into the game and get used to it, it's a piece of cake to use. The learning curve is not that bad, but it can look daunting with all the options, buttons, and commands possible. But like with most complex control panels, you learn that you only use a few commands constantly and soon learn where everything is.

Personally, I liked the scale of Norm Koger's "Wargame Construction Kit II: Tanks!" better. COW can cover a whole theater of battle and is zoomed way out from the usual scale of battle you might be used to (or at least I was). COWs engine is also less adept at showing small scale battles and is very inadequate for showing any sort of naval operations (something the COW manual itself admits to). But this is a land war game, and meant to show massive campaigns involving divisions and whole armies of several nations, not one or two battalions fighting for control of some forest in a valley somewhere.

While I said "several nations" above, unfortunately, there are only ever two sides to a COW battle. So, only two people can play it in head to head mode. And also, in something like a WWII game, Russia and the Western Allies will be portrayed not only fighting on the same exact side, but with the same flag symbol as well. I realize this isn't supposed to be a game of Diplomacy, but it might have been nice to have the option of having more than one independently controlled faction.

If you are a strategy wargamer, you may have heard of Norm Koger. He is a famous strategy game creator with many successful titles to his credit. He is also well known for intensive continuing technical and developmental support on his games (even on his own). He, himself, released an "unofficial" version patch for his Tanks! Game. All this background shows with COW. It is pleasantly free of frustrating bugs, lockups and crashes (when compared to the usual computer game). It is well thought out and heavily detailed. Mr. Koger must love his work because it shows in the attention he lavishes to detail and to the intense development of the game. I'll just leave off saying that anyone who is into wargames and does not have this title, has a seriously deficient game library!

Okay, okay, you've got to the good part! Here are some maps and battles I have made for Century of Warfare. Most of the battles are pure fantasy and just real nonsense really. No historical accuracy was meant or intended. I am proud of my maps and think they are very good and detailed. Hopefully you will enjoy them. I ask only one thing: If you make a cool battle with one of my maps, not only give me credit in your readme.txt but... send it to me! Send it to velasqua@grovenet.net

INSTALLATION: Put all the scenarios and maps into the scenarios folder of your Century of Warfare main directory. Such as the default: C:\Program Files\TalonSoft\TOAW-CW\Scenarios

Arulco map - map file of the tiny country of Arulco from the game "Jagged Alliance 2". This map is very small and does not require OPART 300.exe to load up. This is only a map, not a scenario. You can use it in your editor to make a battle of your own.

Battle of Britain/Sealion - A scenario I created to model not only the air attack on Britain in 1940 but also the hypothetical Sea Lion invasion. The scenario briefing contains detailed notes on the battle.

Case Yellow - A scenario I created to model the invasion of Western Europe by Germany in 1940. This scenario was still in a playtest mode when I moved on to other games. It is operational and enjoyable however, although containing only the basic elements of the battle.

War of the Roses - an attempt to make a scenario for COW based on the old game "Kingmaker" (by Avalon Hill). The battle has been 'modernized' and a very detailed event script is in the scenario. The scenario briefing is very detailed and should be studied to find out what can happen in this near-guerrilla warfare scenario of a civil war in 20^th century Britain. Personally, my favorite although the pure fantastic elements in the game rile some historical-only game buffs. J

The Jacobite Rebellion - a totally fantastical sequel to the above battle, this scenario purports to tell the story of a 20^th century Jacobite Rebellion with the backdrop of the Cold War and superpower intervention. A very detailed events script is written into the scenario and the scenario briefing is detailed and written with everything you'll need to know to fight the battle.

Oregon map - a large map of the U.S. State of Oregon. I live in Oregon, so I wanted to make a map of it and blow up Portland. J I don't know why you might want a map of Oregon for battles though, but here it is. Maybe you could make a scenario portraying a hypothetical Japanese invasion of the west U.S. in 1942 with this map? Only Oregon is portrayed and no detail of surrounding areas is shown. Of geeky interest - the airfields are all accurate and were obtained from a list of official aeronautical chart recognized airfields of various size around the state. This is only a map, not a scenario. You can use it in your editor to make a battle of your own.

The Forgotten Realms - a massive (and I do mean massive, almost the full 300x300 allowable size in Opart 300) map of the Forgotten Realms from the TSR AD&D Campaign setting. The map was made from foldouts included in this product. I made it on sort of an obsessed roll and after I was done, I had no idea what to do with it. But here it is, to be used for tournament scenarios, or Realms/RPG based campaigns or whatever. You'll need to add airfields around the map if you want to use aircraft. There are a few railways. Let me know what you make with it! This is only a map, not a scenario. You can use it in your editor to make a battle of your own.

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