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A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
05-22-2009, 05:34 PM,
#1
A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
Greetings,

Thought I'd do a quick review of SB:ES to share my thoughts on how the game looks/plays.

Background:
Board game freak, whom plays Ambush!, Carrier and other mostly solitaire WWII games. There are others but they aren't relevant to this discussion. I've long been looking for a PC fix that would satisfy my interest and desire to play man-to-man squad level combat type of games.

In the last 15 years a handful of pretenders have come along that could have aided me in this quest, but sadly they fell out of favor because they didn't meet all the requirements - that being the "possibility" to recreate small squad interaction against an enemy force.

Then one day I discovered this little known gem, 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy and things changed quickly because though I couldn't edit any of the missions, it was indeed personal squad combat. Okay, one contender has been added to the list.

Now comes Squad Battles: Eagles Strike - I won't go into the details of the back story because you already know the history. Suffice it to say that I watched a couple scenarios allowing the AI to control both sides and liked what I saw. 2d and what's this, 3d capability.?.

Throughout this review, I'll give a AA if it's a good thing, or a XX if its a negative.

Graphics AA
Presentation AA
Sound AA

I played a quick scenario myself to just getting some idea of the mechanics on a personal level and see if this system was worth investing more time getting to know. What I discovered was yes, this system doesn't require you to be a current officer in the Army to figure it out. AA

The next step was to see if I could create my own scenarios. AA

How about edit/create own graphics (some is better than none). AA

A possibility to edit/create a new type of weapon that "might" not be covered. AA

So far so good, now to the two biggies:

Maps:
This could be a problem, but after seeing that the software comes with a sub map capability - perhaps not so much - although I would love to be able to recreate the Ambush! system maps then do all 38 scenarios. XX

Lastly, what pushed this game further up my list was the videos on YouTube showing how to add/edit your own battalions and..yes! single man counters are able to be created. AA

Overall:

I'm really pleased with this system, the graphic presentation isn't 2009 standards, but then again it doesn't have to be. What shines is the capability and flexibility that the system would offer me if I pursued scenario design. Overall, I must confess I didn't expect much when I bought Squad Battles : Eagles Strike - but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the completeness of the system, and the amount of expansions that preceded this game in the series.

My hats off to the design team for making a solid game that will stay on my hard drive for the foreseeable future.

Cheers,

R.S.
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05-22-2009, 10:47 PM, (This post was last modified: 05-22-2009, 11:12 PM by TheBigRedOne.)
#2
RE: A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
Welcome to the Blitz, Silverleaf, glad you are enjoying Eagle's Strike. It is one of the most popular SB games.

I've been around the SB world since '06, I believe, and I do feel that that WWII games get the heaviest play. Advance of the Reich, especially the post-release Advanced Squad Leader scenarios, is a nice compliment to ES, if your fancy is the Eastern Front. There are plenty of user-created scenarios and vehicle/sound mods available for both over on Task Force Echo 4 if you haven't already gone there.

The AI for SB is fairly robust. I've done my share of playing the AI as a newbie, and over the past two years playtesting for HPS. In general, the AI does better on the defense than on the offense, although the past few commercial releases have seen some better overall AI play due to improved scenario design.

If you really want to have a fun experience, play someone in a PBEM match after you feel you've got a handle on the game mechanics. I think you'll find that to be quite a bit more interesting than taking on the AI. The guys here are all great, not uber-competitive in the way of wanting to pound new guys into the ground. Most of us will run a few practice PBEMs before logging something on the ladder to get you out of bootcamp. There's always someone looking for an ES game.

I saw your post over on GameSquad about the map editor. I'm sure if you've poked around the boards you've seen a few debates, some heated, about the lack of a true map editor with the series. That conversation usually elicits a fairly strong response. Some folks feeling that HPS is completely in the wrong about a map editor, demanding that Tiller himself answer the question as to why he doesn't realease one. Others understand that it is probably a calculated business decision to keep that to themselves. What you will find in most SB games are fairly large maps that can be used to design your own scenarios, some are giagantic. It might not be exactly what you want, but as a basis for early scenario design, there is a lot available. I'd love to see more users creating top notch content for SB, and there are several members of the SB design team who are on this board to pick their brains about design, noteably Ozgur Budak (Winter War, Soviet Afghan War as commercial releases plus dozens of others for nearly all the other games), Joao Lima (Spanish Civl War) and Cazart (Mike Cox, Soviet-Afghan War as well as other non-commerical stuff)

Quote:and..yes! single man counters are able to be created.

One comment is that I'd limit single man counters in any scenario you'd chose to design. The game engine would make those single man units fairly hard to kill, unless you chose to use the Alternate Fire Density Rule.

If you have any questions or comments, post 'em here. I'd like to see this board get some more conversations going, especially ones that I'm not starting!

;)
Site Commander: Task Force Echo 4
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05-23-2009, 12:54 AM,
#3
RE: A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
Like Alan has said the best way to play these game is through PBEM the AI is decent but the best is when your going up against a live opponent and if you get the chance you have to play Oz even though you will get beat pretty soundly you will learn alot from watching how he plays his game.

The guys here are willing to help new guys get started so jump on in the waters fine.

Welcome to the ladder.

Dennis
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05-23-2009, 02:05 AM,
#4
RE: A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
I also think that for budding scenario designers, playing PBEM gives you a perspective you don't get by simply playing and scripting the AI. A scenario you thought was balanced and interesting might not turn out to be that way when a human takes command.
Site Commander: Task Force Echo 4
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05-23-2009, 02:23 AM, (This post was last modified: 05-23-2009, 02:26 AM by Ozgur Budak.)
#5
RE: A personal review of SB: Eagles Strike
TheBigRedOne Wrote:I also think that for budding scenario designers, playing PBEM gives you a perspective you don't get by simply playing and scripting the AI. A scenario you thought was balanced and interesting might not turn out to be that way when a human takes command.

True; although they are tweaked for solid Solo play I design my scenarios with Pbem mentality so they have hidden aspects AI cannot fully discover. Mike's scenarios too have such dimensions that can only be appreciated with Pbem play.
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