Seeing as how this section of the forum is dedicated to images of Model Warship Combat, I hope you guys don't mind if I post a few images of Computer-Modeled Warship Combat. Here are a few of my favorite screenshots from the computer game Jutland. They were taken during an extremely rare engagement between British, German, and French predreadnoughts and armored cruisers, where the German fleet's attempt to break through the British battle line and escape to home brought about a pell-mell battle in the finest Trafalgar style.. Who else on this forum plays Jutland? Introduce yourselves, and let's play a game
Basically it phones home every 7 days, if it cant phone home it switches to demo mode only. It also takes a 'fingerprint' of your PC and if you change it sufficiently, it considers it a different system and goes in to demo mode until you can relicense it. Now, none of these things are problems for me - I dont change hardware often and I have a constant net connection and I dont usually go on long road trips without network access. What I do dislike though is that I cant install it on multiple machines of my own, that only I use and play on whichever is most convienent to me at the time. What I also dislike is if they go belly up the game will no longer be able to phone home. They claim in that instance they would release a patch to free it of the phone home requirements, but lets face it, I'm skeptical that such a patch would happen. The same thing can happen on a smaller scale if your 7 days to phone home come up and their validation server happens to be unavailable/down/whatever. It happens to even the best of network setups from time to time. Natural disasters, manmade disasters, lousy networks (thank you comcast). Lastly, this isn't Quake4, this is not a high demand game. They've probably spent more money creating/using/supporting this scheme than they make up in sales. This is a niche market game, and its a niche market that is more likely to buy than to pirate I would guess. Lastly, they drive away people like me who would buy it, but dislike the 'assume the customer is guilty' approach to DRM and as a result won't buy it.
I hate when DRM discussions come up on the Jutland forum. It's important to know about and understand the protection scheme, but I often see those discussions devolve into flaming on both sides. Personally, I've already gotten enough enjoyment out of the game for it to have been worth my money, even if they go belly up. Of course I'll be disappointed, but it would be the same disappointment as having finished eating a particularly tasty cake. I'll simply find a new cake that I think I will enjoy: a new book series, a new TV show, a new game, a new model to build. I'm not concerned with their business model, as long as I have enough fun to justify having spent the money. What isn't worth my money is buying Command and Conquer 3 and never installing or playing it. I've fought some excellent battles in the campaign (I've included links to some screen shots of the Battle of Great Yarmouth, the biggest action to date in my campaign). I've also fought some excellent small multi-player matches, although the larger MP games still have troubles when connecting from the America to Europe. Anyone up for a MP match? The Battle of Great Yarmouth was a two day battle starting with a raid by the German Scouting Force in late January 1916. The High Seas Fleet moved to cover their retreat, but ecnountered scouts known to belong to the Battle Cruiser Force and pushed to engage. The HSF stayed around for too long, and encountered the Grand Fleet in the morning. After an all day chase, the HSF had to turn to engage the faster GF, smashing part of the BCF and inflicting damage on the GF before withdrawing into the gathering darkness. The climax was that night when a large part of the GF found the Germans and fought a close range fight to the death, inflicting heavy casualties. A predreadnought in action against British light forces from the Battlecruiser Force during the first night battle. Barham explodes during the daytime engagement. She was one of several British ships that exploded that day. Looking past two destroyed turrets on Prinzregent Luitpold to see Kaiser in action against the 5th BS during the daylight action. Kaiser was lost to the surviving QEs of the 5th BS. The opening of the second night battle, with a British CL exploding from a torpedo hit near a magazine. The other CLs slaughtered many of my destroyers before my predreads could finish them. One of my predreadnoughts drives off the British cruisers in the second night engagement. The final action of the second night battle: my exhausted battle line crosses the T of the British dreadnoughts as they loom out of the darkness. Low ammunition and prior damage makes this costly for me, but every single British ship in that line was annihilated. The final butchers bill and score card shows that the Scouting Force sank 1AC, 1CL, and 22DD while losing only 6DD. The High Seas Fleet sank 17BB, 4BC, 5AC, 19CL, 1CV, and 58DD. They paid the heavy price of 10BB (7 dreadnoughts and 3 predreads), 1CL, and 36DD.
A good naval combat game (although quite different) is Subcommand. It is one of the most realistic (and stressful) games I have ever played. You can drive a project 971 Akula, Los Angeles, and a Seawolf. It is fun- almost too realistic though- the missions can last hours!
This is probably something stupid but I have been wondering for a long time. What are those diagonal things running down across the hull from the gunwale to the waterline? They almost look like access stairways or something...
Yep, they are booms for anti-torpedo nets. One cool thing about Jutland is the damage modeling. Scorched armor, shattered lifeboats, dented and deformed turrets. I've looked at the German High Seas Fleet through a hole made by an 11" shell in the smoke stack of a destroyer. It reminds me of inspecting my boat after a battle and finding that a bb has found its way to strike a place I had previously thought impossible.
