That exactly what I needed (I thought I had looked, but obviously not hard enough) I will also try looking again for the other campaigns that you can buy, as I'm seriously tempted buying those as well. Many, many thanks GiHubb
How does one go about fixing that - is it something I need to do because I started the thread? Or something TA need to do?
For most of the Africa campaign I breezed through the missions. Having better tanks than your opponents is really powerful, and I got the hang of using suppressing fire to good effect over the course of several battles. All in all, I was very much enjoying what appeared to be one of the best wargames on the iPad. Then, on Sunday night I embarked on the last battle of the Africa campaign. I had no idea what I was in for. Things went south fast as I scouted the fortified hill - I lost two of my four Shermans to that pack of '88s on the hill, which blasted the crap out of two Hurricanes that tried to suppress them. The next hour of my life was spent in a full-on infantry assault against the fortified position on that hill. It turned into a hard, nasty slog. When I finally broke through and my squads assaulted that last gun, I had a new respect for infantry and for this game. It gave me an experience that I rarely see out of games in general, and proved to be a visceral and epic challenge. I'm looking forward to more of that as I continue into the Normandy campaign, and I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for making this game for the iPad. I'm also looking forward to the Medieval battles game you guys are working on, and I've gone to your website and checked out several of your other titles, several of which would be really cool to bring to this platform. Slitherine has become one of my favorite developers, and I'll be watching your future offerings eagerly.
Question on mission setup: I've been playing BA quite a bit lately, and I think it's excellent. I do have one question though, on certain missions I am expected to pick my troop configuration before seeing the map and objectives. That feels very backward to me. In military engagements, you usually get to see the map and objectives first, and then you decide on troops. What is the rationale for the current implementation? --DotComCTO
Thanks for the feedback and glad you are enjoying the game. On the scale we are looking at you were allocated a force and had to deal with whatever you came up against. Giving you any form of selection is probably too much freedom and unrealistic but players like it. We have had a number of people ask for the mission briefing before the force selection and it might be possible but requires some reworking of the structure. Is it just the briefing image you want to see or you actually want to be able to look at the map and go back to force selection.
Well, I like the pre-briefing force selection as it is. It makes the scenarios feel more replayable as you are never quite sure of the situation & geographics and compels you to try different setups instead of optimized one. Just felt the need to say my opinion. Thanks Slitherine for reviving my interest in computer war gaming with BA, Panzer Corps and Field of Glory! All different games but hit just the sweet spot between complexity and playability for me. Hope to see PG and FoG on iPad too someday soon.
Thanks Iain. Ideally, I'd like to see some sort of map along with the objectives so I know what I'm supposed to be doing. While it would be great to see the initial map & visible enemy units, I don't think that's quite necessary - especially if it necessitates refactoring any of the code. Frankly, I'd rather see the effort put toward getting more games to iOS faster to market! Thanks again for listening! I think it's great that you guys frequent these forums and talk to your customers one-on-one. That makes me want to support Slitherine even more! --DotComCTO
I respect your opinion on this; however, my viewpoint is that the current approach is more frustrating. For example, I get into the scenario, read the objectives, and look at the map and visible enemy units. If I don't think my combination of units is appropriate, I will invariably bail out of the scenario and start again with what I hope will be a better mix of units. I don't think an approach of seeing the map and objectives first will hamper the replay value because you can always try a different mix of units and see how you perform. I think the approach of seeing the map and objectives first more closely mirrors reality. I don't think a military commander would send troops into combat without any overview of the terrain and objectives. Just my $0.02. --DotComCTO
There is no way to see the map before you see the enemy forces really. What you see depends on what you have, so you must have bought units or you'd go to an empty map where you could not see anything. Moving the briefing image earlier could be possible but I don't see any way to see the actual 3D map before force selection.
I expected as much, which is why getting the briefing image would suffice. As I said, it's really not worth the effort to refactor code just to see a blank 3D map (or a 3D map with visible enemy units and an insertion point spot for where my units would come in on the map). It's a cool idea, but the game wasn't designed that way, so I wouldn't waste the time or resources. Just keep the teams focused on getting Panzer General and Great Battles Medieval to iOS! --DotComCTO
Just to keep you guys up to date, the first iPad beta went out on Tuesday night. We are hoping to submit to Apple on Monday next week, so fingers crossed a new update before the end of next week! <looks for "fingers crossed" emoticon...> It should eliminate any memory crashes when sending MP games, as well as adding in force selection in MP games. There are open beta versions for the Mac and PC available for anyone who has the game on these platforms too (because if having the game on one platform is good, then two must be better?!). Cheers Pip
Utterly amazing game Just wanted to say thank you for making the best wargame available on the iPad today. I discovered this by accident while browsing the App Store for WWII turn based games and I'm surprised I never heard about Battle Academy before. This is an A-list title and belongs front and centre on the App Store showcase/highlights. I just spent the last 4 hours playing this non-stop and can't get enough of it. The addictiveness-factor is way up there! I'll post my review on the App Store after I've played it some more. The price is high compared to most iOS games but I think it's definitely worth it. If this encourages more high-quality games development, I'm all for it. BTW, is there any chance that the iPad version will get the map/campaign editor?
Glad you are enjoying the game! Tell your friends... An editor for the iPad is on our wishlist, but there are considerable UI issues, as well as how to get your creations on and off the iPad to share them with others. I think more likely we will have random map generation functionality across all platforms, which would give you the ability to create new missions, if not the full editor functionality. Cheers Pip
@Iain & Pip, I just sent you a PM with something I think should be fixed in BA multiplayer (aside from being able to re-watch replays). Thanks! --DotComCTO
We've finished the testing and have submitted to Apple. This adds some very cool multiplayer features so really looking forwards to getting this out there! You can now select your forces with points for the 5 new multiplayer scenarios. It really changes the way the game plays and make it even better. Beta feedback is great
Well.. due to the reputation of the company.. and the lack of this type of game.. I approached it differently. I bought it. PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY. I haven't even played it yet... hopefully I will soon. Why? Because if we don't financially support these efforts.. then they stop. Pay the developers
Thanks - we really appreciate it but don't like to think people are just buying it to help us out - we want people to really enjoy the game!
