New wargame in development - Conquest of the Aegean

[Golf33]

Here's the press release, folks:

Woodbridge, NJ, June 11th, 2004 - Matrix Games and Panther Games (http://www.panthergames.com) are pleased to announce the development Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean, a new wargame covering the battles for Greece, Crete and a hypothetical Malta operation during World War II. Designed by the talented historical wargame specialists at Panther Games and planned for release during fall 2004, Conquest of the Aegean will bring to life 20th Century warfare on ancient battlegrounds. A preview of Conquest of the Aegean will be shown in the Matrix Games booth at Origins 2004, starting June 24th.

Conquest of the Aegean is the third wargame released by Panther Games in their critically acclaimed Airborne Assault series. Reviews of the second game, Highway to the Reich, had this to say: “revolutionary”, “extraordinary”, “the new future of wargaming”. At its heart is “the best AI ever seen in any game”. As one GameSpot reviewer put it “It's hard to convey just how cool this system is, because not only does it eliminate the massive amount of micromanagement inherent in most wargames, but it does so in a way that makes it feel like you're really commanding forces in the field.”

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “The genre of wargaming is lucky to have designers and developers as talented as the guys at Panther Games. We are proud to be publishing Conquest of the Aegean, which expands and enhances the Airborne Assault series in ways that gamers will love while covering some great battles from an often neglected theater.”

Conquest of the Aegean covers the Greek Campaign, where German, Greek, Italian, British and Commonwealth forces fought to halt the oncoming blitzkrieg before the start of Operation Barbarossa. Also included is the follow-on airborne-led assault on Crete, which proved to be a gamble for the Germans, but a successful one. This tough island campaign pulls no punches as both sides fight tooth and nail to achieve success by holding the critical airfields. Finally, the road not taken… Malta was a thorn in the Axis side in the Mediterranean for the entire war. Planes based on Malta proved crucial to protecting British supplies and hindering German and Italian supply routes. While plans were discussed to attack this bastion, they were never executed. Conquest of the Aegean gives you have the ability to give the green light to the attack on Malta and fight as either side to see how things might have turned out.

In Conquest of the Aegean, players get to take on the role of either the Allied or German commanders and pit their wits against either a computer controlled opponent or a human opponent via LAN or the internet.

List of Planned Features

(Please note that this feature list is not final and may change before release.)

New Campaign Mode: Fight a series of scenarios where the outcome of each scenario affects the subsequent path of the campaign and the forces involved. Choose which forces to use in each engagement, including the ability to place units in reserve for rest and refit or commit them from the reserve for action.
Improved Interface, AI, Scenario and Map Maker
Enhanced Map Terrain Effects and New Map Graphics
More Terrain and Altitude Layers
New Weapons and Units
New Exit Tasks

For those who missed our first game, Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich, this depicted the entire Operation Market-Garden at company level, using a pausable continuous-time system and a detailed and realistic command structure that put players in the position of a senior commander and used an effective and innovative friendly AI to implement the player's commands without having to micromanage every unit.

You can get more information from our website:

http://www.highwaytothereich.com/

You can see what people who bought the game are saying at our forums:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=84

Regards
33

[Gebirgsjaeger]

Go ahead! What about "Battles from the Bulge"? Ist that already out?

[Golf33]

Battles from the Bulge is still on the cards but for a later date. CotA will hopefully be out in the next few months (once it's finished and tested of course) and after that we will be working on BftB.

We initially thought of doing a Crete expansion pack (featuring just battles from the airborne invasion of Crete in May 1941) but later decided to do the extra development work to create a full-scale stand-alone game that will cover Crete, Greece, and a what-if invasion of Malta, together with the new campaign feature that folks have been asking for since HTTR came out.

Regards
33

[DasReichX]

Noice. Hearts of Iron > All until it comes out?

[Dogmeat]

hoi-now thats a good game.
btw if you havent already,download hoi's 1.06 patch,it adds many generals,ministers and now even the smallest countires have ministers with portraits and traits.

[Thomhasj]

Hi! Will CotA feature the same information as Red Devils over Arnhem? I mean, will some of the commanders be described and some of the unit desciptions and histories? Because that's why I like Red Devils over Arnhem so much!

[Golf33]

As far as possible I'm doing the same thing, yes. One limitation I face is that information on the units and personalities of the early-war period is very scarce; for many of the Commonwealth units Greece was their first major campaign, while information on the Greek units (in English at least) is uniformly very scanty. So there might not be quite the same level of detail as there was in HttR.

Regards
33

[Golf33]

I wanted to post this one because I think it's cool . This is a what-if scenario from the game I'm working on, Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean, which is a pausable-continuous-time operational simulation of the campaign in Greece in 1940 and 1941. There are some links to further information at the bottom of this post.

I had the idea for this scenario at about 10pm last night and finished writing up the draft version and running a quick test by about 2am. It's located at the Corinth Canal Bridge in Greece, on the isthsmus between the mainland and the Peloponnese. In late April 1941, the British, Australian and New Zealand forces were using the bridge to get to evacuation beaches to the south, while the Germans advanced from the north. A daring German airborne operation aimed at seizing the bridge to cut the Allied withdrawal route.

This game starts after the German Fallschirmjäger (blue counters) have successfully taken the bridge without it being blown (historically, this occurred but the bridge was destroyed a few minutes later when a British Bofors gun crew hit the charges piled on the bridge by the German pioneers). The British (brown counters) have Australian and New Zealand reinforcements arriving to take it back, but they have limited time since the main German spearheads are only a couple of days away!

The shot below shows a near-perfect fire trap which the Australians (green counters) have just walked into. During the night their counterattack on the Corinth Canal Bridge made good progress, and you know what they say about an attack that is going well!



Notes:
1. The equipment lists on this image were added by me so you could see what I'm talking about below, in the game these lists only appear in the sidebar when a unit is selected, not on the map.
2. The arrows in the top right of each counter show the status of the unit: green is OK, yellow is retreating, and red is routed.
3. The coloured blocks in the bottom right of each counter show the engagement status of the unit: blue is firing, yellow is taking fire, and red is taking casualties. There is also white, for surrendering, but this isn't happening here - yet!
4. The lines between units show firing, yellow for anti-personnel, red for anti-armour, and grey for indirect e.g. artillery or mortars.
5. The grey grid is in 1000m increments. The map is taken directly from the WWII GSGS 1:100 000 scale topographic map.

It's not all going my way though. As you can see, they have plenty of weight behind the assault, certainly enough to deny the objective (selected and showing the yellow radius ring). South of the Canal there are some dramas developing as well: 2nd Company FJ MG Bn 7 has been routed and has lost all its heavy machine guns and its recoilless rifle; while 1st Platoon 13th Company Fallschirmjägerregiment 2 has also suffered, losing both its recoilless rifles and now down to a pair of light machine guns and some harsh language! This has been due to a mix of infantry attacks at close range and the enemy artillery, which is a potent force throughout the campaign.

The next few hours will be critical! The motorised infantry brigade Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler is on the way to relieve my troops, but between now and then it will be a tough struggle.

Further reading:

I work for Panther Games (check it out, there's a picture of my ugly mug on the website):
http://www.panthergames.com

Our publisher is Matrix Games: http://www.matrixgames.com

The COTA forum is located at:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=123

You can also check out our current title, Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich, at:
http://www.highwaytothereich.com

and the HTTR forum is at:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=84

Regards
33

[Golf33]

This shot, from a couple of hours later, shows what I mean when I say the battle is far from over:


Notes:
1. This shot shows a handy interface feature - you can toggle the icons to a smaller size to make the map easier to read.
2. The green outline on the objective marker in the middle of Korinthos shows I control that objective and will get the points for it - for now at least!

While I am holding out reasonably well against the main enemy thrust along the Canal, the northern wall of the fire-trap is starting to suffer as the Australians have outflanked me through the woods and are starting to cause problems. At the same time, a substantial concentration of enemy forces is trying to move through Korinthos to the south, and I don't have anything there to stop them. About all I can hope for at this stage is that I can inflict enough damage to allow the Leibstandarte an easy time of retaking the bridge, since I doubt I can hold against the coming attack.

Regards
33

[Jagdtiger]

Wow that´s cool!

When is the game gonna be available?

[Golf33]

A release date hasn't been determined yet. Basically we'll only release it when it's ready, which is always hard to predict

A game using this engine is already available, it's called Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich, and you can see screenshots of that, get more information, and even order a copy on the website at http://www.highwaytothereich.com/.

Regards
33