What I Think Of ToW-Series

[hedley]

Thanks for the outline of the ToW differences etc Sneaksie. Interesting to get the inside view of the series.

I have all ToW games. Don't regret buying any of them. Play all of them a lot & find Korea to be the game I fire up if I just want a hour or so of action. Don't know why but the way it's been designed ironically made me less worried about completing a campaign.
It is still great to look at & I like the terrain which causes some real problems (like pathfinding ).
I didn't mind the absence of music, it's quite handy to add your own or drop it altogether. [I often wish war films would focus more on the sounds of battle & not 'mood setting / heroic' music.]
Intro vids might have been nice but I prefer to see the $$ required for good video ploughed into the game itself. The advertising videos showed some of the beauty of the game in action & reading the history in the briefings was better for learning about what was being modelled.

I think the choices made were generally right as they set ToW outside the realm of the "ADD type" players & into the area of more serious gamers, but obviously the problem becomes one of sales figures vs investment. I suspect a lot of 'serious' wargamers don't spend money on hardware in the same way if the posts at BFC are anything to go by...

I had CC, & I have CMSF & have tried CM Normandy, but prefer ToW.
I think Tow changed my game buying, up until then I still liked the C&C type things, now I don't even bother looking at the demos, Starcraft2 was enough of a disappointment for me
I got AP cheaply & recently APOS at very low price in a sale (Strategy 1st & Gamersgate). Found the interface & learning curve a bit tricky after so many hours on ToW & then it suddenly 'clicked'.
Also great games & worth buying if you are a wargamer.

APOS has apparently used the gfx card to run a lot of the calculations on so the modeling remains deep but it doesn't hammer the CPU as ToW did on earlier hardware. The game is a great achievement for a small group of programmers - 4 or so I think someone said.

My vote is for a Cold War ToW, epic scale across Europe with 'modern' weaponry.
I'm ready to sell my neighbors kidneys on ebay if I have to, to get it.