SP2WW2 and FLWGC subject logo: MILGAM
2007-07-23
Posted by: badanov

As some of you may know, the Steel Panthers series of wargames hos been around for many years. This club hasn't moved to adopt the game after it went out of print primarily because it was a DOS program and also because it had a very poor PBEM system and because the Campaign Series was commonly available for sale at reasonable prices.

That hasn't been the case since Talonsoft went out of business, and certainly not so, since the Campaign Series has been republished.

In the last two years, however, the games of Steel Panthers has been rewritten and ported over to Windows and many features have been added or upgraded including a much improved PBEM system.

I was for a time part of one of the email groups that helped with the early development of Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank DOS version before the code was acquired and ported to Windows by Shrapnel Games.

In the intervening time the modern version of the original game Steel Panthers, known as Steel Panthers II, has been modded to a WWII game because of its better game engine, and renamed Steel Panthers2 WW2. Shrapnel also ported that game to Windows in the last two years. One of the benefits that Shrapnel Games has incorporated into its product has been the availability of a free version of the game which has some slightly deprecated features.

Matrix Games, as you all may know has taken the Campaign Series games around which this club was originally built and compacted them into a single CD available for sale for $34.99 USD for the download.

There are advantages to using the Campaign Series, as you all may well know, but for new gamers who may not have the money for Matrix's products, especially those young folks from non-Euro, non-North America countries, incorporating SP2WW2 into our game mix, as an alternative which may help recruiting, SP2WW2 is a very good alternative for these gamers.

Next month I plan to have an electronic poll for members to decide the question should we incorporate SP2WW2 at FLWGC. This is a series of scripts I have been working on and I plan to test them on FLWGC.

At the moment, myself, John Given and Terry White have downloaded the free version and we are evaluating the game for use with our system. But before and during the time of the poll, I will be reporting to the club about scenarios, and how the game would work for us. I hope Given and White will do the same.

So, stay tuned and stay open to the possibility as we move into our busy months, the fall.

This was crossposted at the Beachead Mess

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