Bismarck was based on the same system as Jutland, you have that range gauge and the movement gauge and all these little ship counters.. used the floor for the ocean and blast away..
I lost both times as the Bismarck.. too many British ships and not enough ammo
I had Fighting Steel too, yes it sucked the weenies. All there was to do was aim your guns and shoot, nothing else. I got hold of SSI and sent it back which they accepted because in the front of the manual it had a 100% satisfaction so....
As for Bismarck, yes the Germans lost that one when I played it too, so then we just set up regular battles on the floor.
My thought on fighting steel was that it was written by some graphics programers whose knowledge of naval affairs didn't extend beyond ships float, unless they have holes in them. I griped me that there were no cargo ships. The ENTIRE purpose of a navy is to either protect or destroy cargo ships. Someone on the design team should have googled 'Mahan'.
Just received Guns Of August. Looks pretty good. There are two patches, so I applied them. Also MGK has made a great mod for the game map and units. I also set up Jonesoft Mod Enabler to easily switch back and forth. Trying the combo of MGKs map with the stock counters. So far looks promising. Also has a nice 38 page .pdf manual.
I will get the mod. My first impression was "what is this, a DOS game?".
Followup: Ok, went looking and couldn't find the mod, can you link it?
Was your DL only 6mb? I read on his posts that the mod was suppose to be almost the same size as the original game.
Now that I have the game I guess I should install it and take a look at it.
Unzipped, I'm showing 38.6 MB.........might want to try it again, that's for the game map and counters..............
So is this game worth getting? I was thinking of picking it up myself as I am a bit of a WWI fanboy. I'm mainly interested though in something that will on the whole be true to the general course of the war and not vary wildly from it. Has it got scenarios that start the game at other times than August 1914, such as Verdun, Somme, Brusilov's offensive, Kaiser's Battle etc?