Mad Minute Games Take Command Questions

[Marshal Murat]

I was curious as to your thoughts on the Mad Minute Games 2nd Manassas and Bull Run.
Was it like Antietam and Gettysburg by Sid Meiers, or is it more grand strategy oriented?

[CBR]

I would say its about same style. But Take Command might also be better with issuing commands to lower level AI commanders so you can play the game on a more grand tactical level.


CBR

[UglyandHasty]

I bought Take Command on monday, and this game rocks ! Like CBR said, its the same style as SidMeiers Gettysburg, but in better. What i loved of it, is that you can choose at what level you start micromanaging. You can micromanage all units, but you can also choose to only manage a regiment, or a brigade. The Ai look good so far. Map are huge, battle realism is better than anything i've played so far. I only played 3 battles so far, but i liked them so much, i had all kind of problem letting the game there and go to bed. My wife even told i shoot last night to deploy that damn battery on the hill. :inquisitive: You can choose random fight, but what impress me so far is the Battles of the 2nd Manassas. With each battles you control more units, it teach you gradualy the movement and battles tricks. You have goals to achieve, like take that crossroads, then turn east and attack the ennemy artillery. Or hold your position while re-inforcement are on their way. Its been a while since a game caught my interest like that. :2thumbsup:

[Dunhill]

Take Command 2nd Manassas is what wargaming is all about.

There are so many good things about this game.

The AI is the best I guess. You can adjust the number of cycles (CPU power) you wish the AI to use. You can also set the difficulty, which just give the AI more troops of better quality. The AI is able to make a number of choices even in "open play" games. It can decide to rush a weak position or hold off till it get reinforcements. I have often had very different outcomes in the included battles. It is in my opinion the best wargame AI I've ever encountered. You can tell this game's AI was made by grognards.

The next best thing is the ability to mod the game. You can mod uniforms, unit formations, number of sprites, unit actions/animations (eg: more smoke) order of battle, terrain factors, terrain graphics, player view restraints, unit statistics, unit flags, just about everything really, except for the AI. the developers help you mod and have put out a guide to modding. I'm personally modding splash screens to add to themix, and there is already a community mod pack available with the most interesting mods.

There is already a relatively dedicated community working on mods for the American revolutionary war and other aspects of the civil war.

The maps are huge, and require a jump map to see everything, which helps out with the gameplay. Including the whole map would bog this game down as the terrain is very realistic and well done, and there are thousands of sprites on the map. The game is a great mix of graphics and gameplay.

Next for the developers is the inclusion of multiplayer capability and the strategic campaign overlay. With those two objectives achieved this game will surely eclipse other wargames. The previous version was already a wargamers award winner. This version is even better.

Please don't think I'm bagging TW. I've been with TW for a long time (see join date). It's a great game and I enjoy it very much, but it just doesnt provide the AI I need. That's why I loved MP in STW. It was so clean and provided great opposition. Now TW MP seems very fragmented and overflowing with rather obnoxious folks. It's hard to get a fun game. I've had to turn to a single player game and TC2M is the best game out there.

Cheers

PS sorry for the long post but I really like this game.

[Dooz]

I concur with the above statements. It really is the best wargame out there right now... as you may have noticed from my numerous other posts about this game all over the forums...

[Ciaran]

Sounds good, almost too good. Is it a battles-only game or does it have a strategy part as well?

[Dooz]

It's battles only, no campaign map. But those battles are more than enough to fill your Civil War gaming needs. There is almost infinite replayability because of the variables. No two battles are ever the same.

[Dunhill]

There are carry-over scenarios. This is one reason why I've fought battels repeatedly and know he AI is making different choices. You have to succed in the first battle to progress to the next.

You can also mod this game like crazy, and some folks have written new scenarios.

They are working on a strategic overlay, which I assume will be similar to the TW strategic level.

[Ciaran]

I guess I´ll have to try the demo, it´s not that large a download, after all.

How far does the moddability go? Scenario building or creating new units (graphics, stats, etc) as well? I don´t care much about the Civil War, but if one could make a mod for another era or background...

[Eternal Champion]

You can change everything except the maps, they have very limited moddability. The only other limitation is the game engine will not support squares.

[Dunhill]

We've got some good sprites from Austria starting to show up in the forums now, and I've seen American War of Independence Sprites, including cavalry showing up.

There is also a community mod pack with different smoke, and a bunch of other useful mods out. Also some high and lo res mods too, but I'm not sure what that is all about.

They are probably working on the multiplayer and strategic layer, as well as some other goodies, like breaswork building in game and terrain destruction.

It's all good!!!

PS Birth of America and Conquet of the Agean are good games for grognards too. Just out. It;s like a grognard early Christmas.

[Obake]

Dunhill is spot on!

I printed out the SDK manual on Friday to have a look through the intent behind many of the .csv's. You can tell quite easily the direction that the Devs want to go. In particular there are two items that are not yet implemented in the game. The first is "first aid". This indicates to me the direction they want to go in the campaign game. I don't anticipate that they're going to go with a Grand Campaign game ala TW any time soon, but they will implement a Campaign function for the "Battle Campaign". For instance, in TC2M, you would be able to decide how and where to attack from the opening scenario of Kryzanowski, all the way through the end of the campaign.

Basically the scenarios in the battle would be replaced by a single open ended campaign spanning all 3 days. Imagine playing as Pope and trying to take out Jackson before Longstreet arrives. Assuming you do, you are then going to face a fresh Corp with your depleted troops (both in ammunition and casualties). Given that you know Longstreet is coming, how do you then choose to deal with Jackson?

The other column in one of the csv's that isn't being used is for breastworks. That tells me that we're going to be seeing Cold Harbor style battles as well. Assaulting entrenched units is not going to be fun, especially seeing how hard things can be now where everyone is out in the open!

This game is more than worth the cost, and the future of the franchise is exciting!

[Dunhill]

The Rebels and Redcoats mod has been released to the community over at TC2M. It changes all the units to American revolutionary war. More mods are planned.

http://www.madminutegames.com/MadMinuteBB/index.php

It's a great game, look for my other posts on the subject in this area of the forum.

Cheers,

[Dunhill]

The third patch for Take Command 2nd Manassas has permitted the modification of the maps. This will improve things greatly for this great single-player game.

Cheers,