Ground Pounders

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

asd

Read GeneSteeler's excellent review.
The only bad thing is that here is no multiplayer.

This game prooved to me that, when I know what I like in a game-gentre, it is good to not be fooled by "mostrly negative" overall reviews rating. I am engoying the game and have gone back to re-play it twice already, since it is exactly the kind of Hex-Strategy game I was hoping it to be, and even more:

It actually introduces succesfully (in my opinion) new mechanics and aspects to the Panzer General hex-strategy gentre. It also is build up like being able to be transfered into a tebletop paper-game version, and I found myself interested on trying something like this with friends.

BUT, this table-top alternative also makes the game look a bit alien to the hex gentre, since the unit sprites always display the colofrul number-stats of them, removing some of the "immersion" immages like Panzer General can offer. On the other hand, tis is NOT a disadvantage of the game, since what I wanted from it was deep strategy chalenge, not immersive VR 'movie'.

The good:
- Innovations like deck building for card-available actions, that provide a variety and could change the tactical approach of a situation. Possibly many 'modern' hex-strategy games try to add new ideas in the gameplay, and Ground Pounders is one of them that does it in a very satisfactory way for my likes.
- Chalenging. For some this might be a negative, but for gamers like me that apreciate the fact that Major Victory can hardly be achived just at the last deadline round, it is a must-have for a good hex-strategy game.
- Offers in full and in great variety what a hex-stategy is promising, including the not-so-usual 'space' setting, with battlegrounds without atmosphere for example etc (it's not another WW2 units roster). I found myself thinking for tenths of minutes long my next move, and I have already alocate many beloved nights just to 'finish that map', like I did with Panzer General, Panzer Corps or Fantacy Wars.

The 'bad':
- Innacurate manual. The tutorials are actually good and support the above-average load of game mechanics one should master, but the manual and some online descriptions of some combat modifiers look to be superseeded. It was frustrating at the start to not be able to condirm exactly how my unit casualties were calculated, but after a few test battles things can get much clearer.
- Visuals, especially when zoomingn-in are not breathteaking spectacular. This is not a problem for a hex-strategy game, but it damages the overal review-promotion of the title. On top of this, the tutorials are taking place on an alien planet, making terren recognition really aqward at the fist few hours of gameplay, actually destroying any promotion effords of the title.
- Not a big variety of units. All the nessesary types are here, and gameplay is varient enough with all engineer, medic, scout, heli etc options, but compared to similar games that have tenths of different Armor variations, the game looks a bit 'poor'.
- The 'lore' of the setting is not at all expanded in-game. The 'races' deviate tactics and description are adequate, but so poor and short, that it looks like the developers didn't manage to evolve the game to their original dream. Nothing gamebraking (many other hex-games have no other 'lore' or 'races deviation' other than "This axis tank has a +2 more in movement and a cool-looking new picture"), but the game looks to loose a big potential here.
- Like the lore, some things like unit commanders leveling elements are minimal. Not a problem at all, but if the game was the same prise with Panzer Corps, I would definatelly spend my money on Panzer first.

Summarizing, I strongly recomend Ground Pounders to any gamer that has enjoyed the hex-stratgegy gameplay, not just the hardcore funs of the gentre.

ok

potato

Although marketed as a Panzer General-style game, Ground pounders is more similar to modern table-top wargames than it is to Panzer General. Here is what Ground Pounders has:

1.Supply lines.

2.Transport units

3.Replacements

4.Units with 1-5 steps

5.Supply zones and Victory hexes

6.CRT (Combat Results Table)

7.Artillery, AA Guns, Command Units, Scouts, Engineers and of course Tanks, Mobile Infantry etc.

8.Scanning & signatures create a Fog of War. Quiet units are harder to see.

9.Units have lots of stats. Attack, Defence, die pool, range, movement points etc.

10.Terrain effects.

11. ZOC

Sounds a bit like a wargame, doesn’t it?

The main game has two campaigns to play through, Human and Hiver. There is also multiplayer (good luck getting that to work) and skirmish mode. In the campaign your small core will travel from battle to battle, so it is important to try to keep it intact. There are plenty of turns in most missions, so the game rewards tactical play as opposed to charging everything headfirst at the enemy.

Each turn has 3 main phases, Supply & replacements, command, and move/combat. (You also draw cards to replenish your hand at the beginning of the turn). The game is Igo/Ugo so players take turns completing the phases.

The supply phase checks all your units for supply. Units out of supply will lose stats and, if they remain out of supply for a few turns will begin to lose steps. Each scenario has a replacement pool which limits the number of replacement steps you can allocate to damaged units.

The command phase is the most unique phase, which wouldn’t work on a tabletop wargame. You roll a bucket of dice which is determined by the number/quality of your command units. You then pre-assign these dice to your units. If your unit is in combat, instead of rolling a die, you will use the pre-assigned die. Different units can be assigned a different number of dice. When attacking, supporting units and artillery need to expend their own dice (value doesn’t matter, they just need to spend one). This limits the number of attacks an artillery unit can support. You can allocate all or none of your dice manually. There is an option to automatically remaining dice. So if you expect little or no combat, hitting “auto” and skipping this phase is fine. When you have a detailed plan and you want your two “6”s on the right units, you can allocate every die if you wish.

During the move/combat phase the player can move units and attack in whatever order they wish. Once a unit attacks it can no longer be moved. Although units can support and still move. Combat is resolved on a CRT with your die being added and the enemy’s die being subtracted to create the DRM (Die Roll Modifier). Odds are determined by attack:defense ratio. Supporting units add half their attack value, artillery adds its full attack value. A typical combat result is A1D2R. If you’ve played any tabletop wargames, you would read that as “Attacker loses 1 step, defender loses 2 steps and retreats”. Supporting non-artillery can also sometimes lose steps depending on the result. So the result can be A1s0a D3s1r, which would be Attacking unit loses a step and may advance. Defending unit loses a step and retreats, defending supporting non-artillery units also lose a step.

After the player has finished moving and attacking, it is time to assign defensive support. Again, you can click on every unit and select which units will expend dice to support it if is attacked. Or you can just hit “auto” if you don’t have many concerns. Again, how much time you spend is up to you.

One other thing I should mention is the cards. Before battle you can create your deck of 32 cards from your card pool (or use the random one generated). What I have done after a few missions is I’ve built my “best deck suited to my play style” and I just use that one. The initial card pool is random so it will be different for each player. Also you can “win” random cards when victorious in a scenario. If you like the card you win, it is pretty simple to tweak your deck and add the card.

Cards can do a variety of things from adding movement points, +attack value, DRM, odds shift, increase artillery range, isolate enemies, lower signature, add AA to a unit, shorten enemy supply lines etc. I don’t know how many cards there are but there are lots. Almost everything appears to have a card that can affect it. Used cards are replenished back to your hand size (3-5) at the beginning of the turn. I presume it is possible to run out your deck, but it hasn’t happened to me yet.

Cards also have a “Space Superiority” (SS) number on them. At the beginning of the scenario you can discard 1-5 cards (take them out of the game). The highest total determines who has space superiority for the scenario. If you have SS you get additional powerful cards that you can re-use every 2-4 turns. These bonus cards can reduce steps (orbital strike), scan an area, reduce enemy supply range, or increase a units attack/defence for a turn.

And that, in a nutshell, is Ground Pounders!


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:

The Good:

Two big* campaigns provide plenty of scenarios covering a wide variety of situations. I’m actually quite impressed with the big variety of situations that are offered. Flanking manoeuvres, amphibious landings, head on assaults, fighting withdrawals and protecting fleeing civilians from the advancing horde are just a sampling of the different situations offered. (*Refer The Ugly.)

Tactical play is rewarded. This game requires careful play and is not just a tank rush. This is a real wargame. Most missions take 1-2 hours to complete.

Units gain experience through missions. When they reach a certain level they get a +drm. Also, they can choose a special ability when they reach veteran and elite status. These are little bonuses, such as “urban fighter”, “AA gun attachment”, “extra movement” etc. There are about 6 different choices at each experience level which varies to unit type. A nice little addition and preferable over the random leaders of Panzer General/Corps as you can tailor your units to your own play style.


The Bad:

The tutorial is poor and hardly explains anything. It took me about 3-4 scenarios to finally grok the majority of the game’s mechanics and situations. This game doesn’t have the slow learning curve of more streamline “wargames” but is instead pretty steep. UI isn’t always intuitive and it took me a while just to figure out how to assign Defensive Support.

Don’t be surprised by the “cartoon” sci-fi graphics. Although taking place in the Sword in the Stars setting, this is a real wargame.

The maps are drab, dull and difficult. There are different terrain effects, but it is difficult to tell what terrain each hex is on the washed out colour maps. Just because this is “another planet” doesn’t mean you couldn’t have had distinctively coloured maps with forests, rough, plains etc. clearly identifiable. A consolidated TEC (Terrain Effects Chart) would also be useful. It is very difficult to plan one’s advance when one is unsure how far your units can move across the different terrains. (You can get the information with a few clicks, but this is tedious and not intuitive).

Space Superiority should have been done differently. It becomes a no-brainer to discard 5 cards and hope you get it. The “free” SS cards are very powerful and reusable with a cooldown of a few turns. This affects deck construction a little as I am using some “inferior” cards with a high SS rating. If you lose SS there is the possibility (and temptation) to just forfeit and retry the scenario.

I recommend Ground Pounders. It’s not perfect, but scratches the itch in the right places. A good wargame marred by bugs and lack of support. 6/10

IF YOU MUST TRY THIS GAME, GET IT ON THE APP STORE OR GOOGLE PLAY. IT'S FREE THERE.

I've given this game as many chances as I care to. While it's fun and wildly addictive, the rules are extremely complex and inconsistent, always favoring the AI. You'll always be vastly outnumbered, and usually outmanuevered. Your ability to heal your units is restricted to some arbitrary number that occasionally gains points for absolutely no reason, and always stops as you make the final push needing it the most. This on top of only being allowed to heal each unit by one each turn make things needlessly aggravating to say the least. Every campaign mission gives you an extremely tight time limit, and throws everything it can at you. For the sake of argument, let me walk you through the last straw.

Campaign mission 1: Hold the ports. You start off with a limited force in the north and a small force of your choosing in the south, with air support. Honestly, this one isn't that difficult. Just keep everyone alive and the enemy away from the left of the screen, which they never really go to anyway.

Campaign Mission 2: Capture the cities. Small force in the east, single helicopter, your force, and transport boats capable of missing the mountains in the west. There's a gimmick to this one, as the time limit isn't counting down to your win. In order to clear this one, you have to pick up a troop in the east with your chopper in the west, and take him north while you use the boats to attack the northern city. Use your helicopter troop to capture the central area and bleed the enemy dry so they can't defend the city (or even attack, since their supply lines are cut). Then move the pinned down east troops north for a win. There's literally no other way to do it. I've tried everything I can think of and this all that works.

Campaign Mission 3: Reinforcements are coming from the east. You get a full deployment in the west, and are tasked with moving them through a narrow canyon, clearing hotspots along the way. You get 30 turns. Now even in the best of circumstances, this would be tricky as vehicles aren't effective if they leave the road. Regardless, I was able to push all the way to the east, where I met with a significant enemy force on top of the damage that had been done already. Despite having higher rolls, better tech levels, and better units, I was pushed back HARD and the largest part of my effective force was decimated. Then I timed out, failing the mission and having wasted a half hour of my time, at least. In what universe is an APC with no support able to take out a tank?

Honestly, the entire thing seems like it was made with freemium in mind, to sell you more reinforcement points or more time for your missions, or just more units in general. But there's not even than option. It's all the frustration of barely passable missions without paying, without the option of paying for the satisfaction of razing the map with nuclear orbital barrages in hatred for your enemy. I honestly have no idea how the skirmish mode or multiplayer modes play, but I have to assume that multiplayer is passable, but skirmish suffers from the same bullshit roll fudging and stat decimation the campaign does.

A relatively bare-bones and a bit too retro of a UI, but the AI is solid and the strategic element is pretty good. If you're more concerned about the War in your war games, this is an excellent title.

I enjoy this game until it crashes. It often bugs out so that when you either quit or end a mission it crashes. The bug carries through a save. My latest save just now in a mission crashes when I finish, so my victory can't be. I need to load another save and finish the mission, but that one could carry the bug too. It might be better for me to start the whole LONG mission over again, but it could still crash. What ever a defender might say, this is unacceptable. Know that it has game crashing bugs which prevent your enjoyment.

Uaaaaaaargh

I have no idea how to win at this game and these are literally the only type of game I play. I want this game to be good because I enjoyed their previous title and it seemed like such a fun throwback to the SNES Super Conflict. that said a new player should not start off out-gunned and outmanuevered before they place their first piece. doesn't encourage people to give this game the time it should deserve.

TL;DR This the turn based strategy game gotham deserves, not the turn based strategy gotham needs.

not reay for prime time - very frustrating - thngs like undergorund movement - reapir healing ... either don't work or way to hard to figure it out.

This game is a deep strategic game and therefore obviously has a steep learning curve! To say I can't be bothered to learn the game and therefore don't recommend it is naive. For those of us who don't mind a game with a steep learning curve, have the time, and don't want to play "simple" games I can not RECOMMEND this game enough. If you liked Panzer General get this game without delay !!

By all means play whatever type of game you prefer but to knock a game because YOU can't be bothered is ignorant and your post should be removed in my opnion as it clearly is not too helpful.

It only took a few minutes to see that none of the normal conventions apply and the learning curve is more than I want to invest .

Ok. Personally, I think this game has potential and there are obviously still issues needing to be worked out as the game is still pre-release.

Now, that said, I'm going to advise against buying the game now if you are looking for something to play. If you are wanting to support the development of this game, go ahead and buy it, play it, and give the company feedback. I'll give a brief bullet point list as to the current pros and cons with the game as I see it.

Pros:
1. Tutorials are worth the time and explain a lot of the game's mechanics. Do -not- skip them, thinking you'll pick up the game quickly without them because you've played games like this before.
2. Luck and skill both play a role in this game, without placing a premium on either.
3. The card mechanic is a nice touch, as it creates openings that you might otherwise not be able to take advantage of.
4. The campaign structure (from what I've been able to play of it) rewards careful husbanding of the units you buy, without punishing you unduely for taking risks with the temporary units assigned to your command.
5. The three layers of the battlefield keeps things fresh, as burrowers may sometimes pop up in your lines unexpectedly.
6. Keeps the flavor and expands on the lore of the Sword of the Stars universe.

Cons:
1. The game is buggy as hell. But it's early access, so...you should be expecting that going in.
2. The high-res texture pack will cause the game to crash when loading in. At least, that's been my experience.
3. The game has a sharp learning curve. As noted in the pros, the tutorials are worth the time, so...that helps curb that somewhat.
4. Some aspects of the game are counter-intuitive, adding to the learning curve noted above.
5. No adjustable resolution or window size.
6. It's early access, therefore not recomended for someone expecting a completed game. It's -very- much a work in progress.

Overall, however, I highly recomend this game and look forward to seeing the end result. Given Kerebos' track record with SotS games, I have high hopes for the end result.

Update:
This game must not be doing well: 8 weeks after launching on steam it was in an 80% off sale on an internet store; 9 weeks after launch it was in a cheap game bundle. I would guess that we are not going to see long-term support with this game, since it looks like it sold badly.

Updated review because of game leaving Early Access:
Everything in the review is still relevant. Only change is increased thread locking and post deleting in the forums. Here's a post I made about the Early Access price supposed to be lower than the release price before my reply was deleted and the thread locked:

http://imgur.com/FNe0Pdy

MAIN REVIEW FOLLOWS:
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I have been holding off writing this review because the game could be so good and I was hoping it would change.

This is a hex-based wargame in the SotS universe and that's exciting stuff. (I just realized that will sound like a joke to non-wargame fans, but it's true).

Based on the screenshots you would think was a cool, deep, fun game. The information in the encyclopedia in game is a nice touch.

Try to play the game though and you'll find a confusing, fiddly mess. There are far too many phases and lots of fiddly things you have to keep doing. The user interface is really bad both in usability and in showing you what's going on. A lot of this is because of the developers making the bad decision to have a "unified user interface" on mobile and PC, which means no tooltips, only one button used and no scrolling when you get your mouse to the edge of the screen. This cripples the PC UI and the developers flat-out refuse to change it to make the PC version easier to use.

The tutorial has been through a few changes but still remains awful at teaching you the game. This is both due to the content of the tutorial and the way it is presented, which makes it hard to tie together the UI with what the flash-card like windows are telling you.

I bought the game at the start of the Early Access on Steam and I was disappointed to find out that the game was not as finished as I thought it would be. From the store page it seemed like the only thing missing were some campaign missions, and the ironing out of the last few bugs:

"With this Early Access release, Ground Pounders is feature complete, and the main differences between now and final release - besides a few last minute cards and units - is there is only 1 campaign (instead of 2) and 5 scenarios (instead of ten)."

It turned out that early adopters really were unpaid beta testers and only by assiduously playing when it wasn't fun and giving feedback could we turn the game into the good game it had the potential to be. I mean, it wasn't just bug fixing, there were actually changes to how the game worked, and there was really the feeling that the game hadn't been tested at all before putting it on steam.

I did this for a short while but then I just couldn't be bothered any more- it was just not fun. I decided to put the game down until they finished it and see how it was. As of today the game is still in Early Access but is 66% off on a certain online game store. Because the Steam store page went out of its way to point out that we were saving money by buying into the Early Access game at the start vs. buying when it launched I felt a bit betrayed by this; I also took it as a sign that the studio may be in some sort of trouble. The game was planned to be released in March according to the Steam store page and it's almost June now with no release so maybe that's why.

Anyway, I suppose if you do get a deep discount on this or even get it in a bundle (there have been a lot of Early Access games in bundles recently) then it may turn out to be the game you expect, but at the moment it's unlikely that it is.

edited to say something positive: The music is good. That's the only thing to like about it though really.

This game is painfully bad.

It has no explaination of what's going on, no text anywhere, cryptic symbols, no way to tell what is art, UI or just plain broken... uninteresting mechanics (apparently), and just no appeal whatsoever.

And I say this as a person who loves turn based strategy games. But Ground Pounders reminds me of a bad 1970s boxed game with chits, only it forces you to play the game while hopped up on novacane.

This game looked promising in the description but it led me to actually doubt my way of supporting developers by buying early access...

The interface is horrible and I have seen some bad design etc. in my 25 years of gaming experience.

There is no tutorial whatsoever, so I was put off and had no nerve to even try and understand the tactical gameplay after 30 minutes into the first game of the campaign.

I can only advise everyone to wait for the final product or just skip this title. Sorry lads.