[poli]

Reading thru the forums- and seeing Dima's many replys regarding realism (and granted- Dima is one hell of a modder!! ) I wonder if any of you vetrans have any comments regarding this, as in
1. What do you concider the most REALISTIC mod at the moment?
2. Which one has the best Gameplay?
3. Which one has the most balanced sides (ignoring the fact that one is usually attacking and one defending)
4. (and this ones for the modders) What do you take most in to account when modding- realism or gameplay?


cheers 4 now

[CrazyThumbs]

Well for me, more realism=better gameplay
As for mods, I only have CC3 and the only mod I play is RR, so I guess its my favorite

[Catoprion]

So i am! I don't know anything better than RR!!!

[ANZAC_Tack]

i have been playing CC for 10 years, i have tried every mod that has been publically released, plus testing for csosymtec guys, i loved RR for 4 years it was my staple, but.....

........GJS got me good. v44 is the best,resonably realistic,good graphics, good sounds, good maps, it has it all, and im replaying 1945 for cc3, and the Grand Campaign is still the same, backwards, forward,at end, you loose badly(rest all good units) get kicked off map, and get triple points next OP,so unrealistic a loosing unit gets massively reinforced in russia! more like off to the siberian goulag !!! after your relatives have been shot.

only mod close to GJS for ralism is stalingrad. needs some tweeking to be 'realistic' but then unplayable if it where, need more maps, more time.

thats my opinion.

tack$ter

[Pzt_Kami]

I'm agreed with you ANZAC_Tack.GJS v4.4 and "Stalingrad" are the best
mods are most realistic mods.
I'm not modder,but as a player,I prefer realism over gameplay.This is my opinion.

Hey Tack,Are you still playing CC3?I have never played it online.I want do this once.Tell me if you are interested in.

Thanks
-Kambiz

[Pzt_Mac]

I would have to say that there needs to be a good balance between both realism and game play. It's a fine line between these two factors, and much can go wrong if modders swing too far one way or the other.

If a game is so realistic that it makes it near impossible for a side to win, then it looses it's appeal very quickly to the CC world.

On the other hand, if a mod is totally fantastical and based on no apparent reality, then this also turns your average CC'er off as one of the main reasons we love this game is because of it's realism.

So you've got to have a balance - and for CC's purposes, it usually comes down to unit quality vs. quantity or quantity vs. quantity . With certain mod's it becomes clear almost immediately if the modder has sacrificed game play balance for historical accuracy. Stalingrad is one of these mods, imho. Which is not to say that it's not a fantastic mod - because it is- and has a great look and feel to it. But it won't take you long to see the Germans push all the way to the Vulga.

Again, this is just my own opinion, and I still play Stalingrad and have the utmost respect for it's modders, some of whom are my friends.

Utah, imo, is the finest playing mod on the floor right now. You may not see it as first, as other mods may "look" better, but Utah has that fine balance to it which is so hard to achieve. GJS is a great one, and very popular, and is oh so pretty to look at, but teeters on the edge of unbalanced - depending on the type of battle/op/gc you are fighting.

My favorite type of war to create for any mod in CC is custom Ops. Creating custom Ops will usually allow for the ultimate balance, though it may be taking away from the historical accuracy as Div X never actually fought against Battalion Y.

It's all about finding the balance.
[/u]

[Blackstump]

I agree with Mac, but to put a finer line on it you should play all the mods before deciding your preference. all mods have a degree of fantasy, ie howitzers didnt opperate as line of sight weapons. the Germans didnt win in Stalingrad, Panthers wernt THAT hard to kill, shreks were not deployed in small areas, nobody pushed 17 pounders a 1000metres in 10 min, small atgs werent deployed in tight buildings with minimal openings and infantry guns that were fired point blank into advancing troops dont need to hit the target, the shock wave will kill out to 30 metres, the effect of an 18 inch navel shell landing next to a tank would be to dissintergrate it and flip over any other tank in immediate area and the list goes on... that being said, now let me say this, playability and fun are what keeps us coming back, if you think you got a chance at winning then life is better. if i had to play grad as the russians or allied in gjs or the french in meuse for the rest of my cc career then i would be an unhappy boy......so for mine , its like this, all mods and modders are "good" they all add to the gene pool, whether historical or fantasy, the key is to learn the capabilities of that squad and be able to apply it against the capabilities of the squad it opposes. of course i still like to think that my bren is firing at correct speed,and that the flamer im firing at cant get me because im "just" out of its range

[ronson]

Personally I'd be loath to choose one mod over another, as all have an appeal to different people.

As regards realism v gameplay.......If you want a 'level pitch' contest then Macs' solution is the ideal one....each side has the weapons and equipment that was available at the time in an evenly balanced proportion to each other. This makes the game enjoyable for both sides and gives a clear cut result by the standard formula of maps taken or held at the end of the time period.

Having said that may I now contradict myself and suggest that in a purely historical GC or operation, maybe we should alter not so much the game as our view of winning and losing.
By this I mean that for most mods the subject is not evenly sided, the end result of the campaign is generally a forgone conclusion (given equal players)
Nobody in their right mind would expect a historically correct game of say Okinawa to end in other than a US victory.
The way possibly to overcome this I believe would be for the victory levels to be viewed differently. For the defender to claim a victory the player would have to hold more territory at the game end than he did historically.
Therefore for the Germans to 'win' Stalingrad they will have to hold all of the city, (possibly with the exceptions of the landing stages) as this was their objective, any other result means that the Soviets have fulfilled their objective of holding the Germans for the counterstrike.

This can be carried across to other Mods too with the players performance judged against the historical result rather than by ground taken or lost within the time frame.

Cheers
Ronson

[Pzt_Mac]

@Stumpy - Absolutely, all good points :drink2

@Ronson - Very good points as well, Ronson. In fact this kind of "Victory setting" works perfectly with a custom Op scenario, as you can dictate the victory conditions. Unfortunately there is no way to write them into an actual Op under the AI, but if you have a trusted opponent, all is well.

[roonburg]

When reading the question I immediatly thought realism is the most important as in my opinion that is what makes CC something more.

The more I thought about it the more I thought that it was the underlying playability that allowed the quest for realism to continue. Unless you tried to make a mod based on Barbarossa that was totally acurate you cannot really destroy gameplay totally. i enjoy being the very stong underdog. The sense of achievement if you are able to stop a much supirior force and hold out for days with a few reserves and a light AT gun is fantastic.

But I'm blabbering like a cretain but thats my 2 cents.
Realism is great but you have to have the strong gameplay underlying or noone would play.

And GJS is my favorite mod. It just looks and plays so well.

[king_tiger_tank]

i know ww2 a lot so it makes it more interesting to play a game thats realistic which will thus make gameplay better(in my opinion), but it's fun to have a challege which realism doesn't work well with WW2 in most cases. meuse crossing is my favorite.