Sid Meier's Ace Patrol

[Eagle Pursuit]

I just found out about this game coming next week. It's a turn-based air combat tactical game set in WWI. It looks interesting to me.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/1/4287666/sid-meiers-ace-patrol-comes-to-ios-devices-may-9

EDIT: Here's a video too.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/05/01/ace-patrol-developer-demo

Thoughts?

 

[Maniacal]

iOS only? Extremely disappointing, probably won't be very good. Won't be able to play it regardless.

 

[graspee]

What's more the game is that horrible model of "free but with in-app purchases".

What's even worse is that it doesn't work on the ipod touch because it doesn't have a digital compass. I mean seriously. WTF, firaxis.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I bought the game and play it both on my iPad and iPhone. Works great on iPad and is kind of laggy on my iPhone 4.

Great game in my opinion. It reminds of me an old Avalon Hill boardgame I used to play. Flight maneuvers, historical appearance of certain models, and upgrades available to your pilots is spot on for a WW1 airplane game.

All in all I spent a total of what 6.99 US dollar on the game. They have the French, German, American, and British campaigns bundled so for under $10 you can't go wrong.


And mind you, after my bitter disappointment with XCOM I promised myself never to buy a Sid Meier game again. When I saw Ace Patrol and read up on it and heard how my friends were enjoying it I bought the game.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I was so excited for the second or so it took the page to load. Not a new PC game.

 

[PeteMurray]

Hello, CivFanatics!

As you know, Sid and team released Ace Patrol, and Sid has asked me to invite you guys to check it out. The Civ community has always been a fantastic resource on Civilization, helping the designers here at Firaxis dissect the systems and help us find the fun. Sid would like your help because there’s no community more analytical and thorough and strategy-minded than the Civ fans. If you’d like to discuss Ace Patrol with Sid, he’s been reading and posting regularly on the 2K Forums. I understand that for many of you, CivFanatics is your go-to community, and so I’ll be checking in and posting to this thread for a while.

In the meantime, here are a couple of pieces of information. The first is the list of all the people whose portraits appear in the game:

Ace Patrol Team Members:

Brittany Steiner, UI Programmer
Lena Brenk, Producer
Pete Murray, Marketing
Rex Martin, Playtester
Sid Meier, Designer
Todd Bergantz, Artist
Jason Johnson, Artist
Scott Ramsey, Programmer/Tools

Firaxis Staff, Family, and Friends:

Amber Hinden, Producer
Brian Whooley, Programmer
Dave McDonough, Designer
Elizabeth Bairaj, Friend of Sid's
Greg Foertsch, Lead Artist
Jordon Limor, 2K Playtest Coordinator
Josh Barczak, Programmer
Katie Mann, Friend of Firaxis
Kiran Sudhakara, Programmer
Ned Way, Programmer
Pamela Weatherly, Friend of Firaxis
Steve Martin, Firaxis President
Susan Clark, Friend of Firaxis
Susan Meier, Sid's wife
Todd Smith, Programmer

 

[PeteMurray]

Secondly, here is a list of tips the team generated to share with you:

-Cloud banks are an excellent opportunity to gain altitude and wait to get a jump on enemy pilots

-If your plane is badly damaged, strongly consider a Forced Landing. Your pilot will be back in the air in less time than he or she would spend recovering from a crash.

-If you like turtling, consider taking the "Stormrider" perk if it is available. The protection of clouds plus your full complement of maneuvers gives you all your offensive options and protects you from damage.

-French pilots benefit from Loop and Ace Maneuvers that change aircraft direction quickly. Many French aircraft are fast, but turn very slowly.

-Engine fires are nature's way of telling you to head home - quickly.

-Don't be afraid to fall back over your own lines and the cover of your own antiaircraft guns.

-Aircraft upgrades are awarded when you complete a mission with all of your aircraft returning with >50% of their hitpoints

-You can rename your pilots! In the lower left of the pilot card, you'll see a pencil icon. Touch that to rename the pilot. Just like XCOM.

-Pilots learn new maneuvers when they are promoted. The time between promotions increases as the pilot levels up.

-Level 4 difficulty ("Hard") is about fair odds between the player and AI

-Rookie pilots can perform 3 High-G maneuvers in a row before they have to perform an easier maneuver. More experienced pilots can perform more consecutive high-G maneuvers

-Mission objectives and score are different factors. You can have a low score but still have a successful mission! Mission success affect the campaign, and score is used for the leaderboards

-Gang up on enemy aircraft. Keep your aircraft supporting each other and take advantage of planes that get isolated from their allies

-Pay close attention to your mission objectives and choose aircraft accordingly. Slow and maneuverable aircraft may be better for defensive missions, and a fast aircraft may complete a mission behind enemy lines without firing a shot.

-The pintle-mount machinegun on the front of the British DH.2 gives it the highest firepower of the starting aircraft. The Fokker Eindecker is the fastest starting aircraft.

-If you're going to fight an enemy ace, check to see what maneuvers he knows from the Intelligence Report to avoid unpleasant surprises.

-The most damaging attacks are made from directly behind an aircraft. Differences of altitude and angle of the attack reduce the maximum damage of an attack.

-If an aircraft is damaged severely, a wrench icon will appear over its pilot. The pilot must sit out as many missions as he or she has wrench icons, while his or her plane is repaired.

-Recon planes are fair game until they return to base. If you're defending, you can hit one as it returns; if you're attacking, don't relax until it's off the board.

-Jink and Spin are two of the strongest defensive maneuvers, but cause you to face in a random direction.

-Rotary-engined planes have the option to Rotary Right after a Right Bank. This followup move costs a point of altitude, but allows for an extra facing change to the right, and can be a fast way to turn the aircraft around.

-The Immelman Turn, Split-S, and Wingover are similar in how they reverse the aircraft, but differ in terms of what hex the aircraft ends in relative to where it starts.

-Crack Shot (ace maneuver) and Upgraded Machineguns (aircraft upgrade) are incredibly powerful when paired.

 

[da dick]

apple platform... didn't care.

 

[Seek]

I played it for an hour yesterday and I will say it's quite fun!

Thanks for the tips PeteMurray, I need 'em. In true Sid style, it's easy to learn yet very in-depth.

 

[EvenStranger]

I'd love to try it. Maybe it'll bee on Steam at some point for PC.

 

[Maniacal]

A PC version would be cool, as long as it doesn't have all the microtransaction BS.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I bought the game and play it both on my iPad and iPhone. Works great on iPad and is kind of laggy on my iPhone 4.

Great game in my opinion. It reminds of me an old Avalon Hill boardgame I used to play. Flight maneuvers, historical appearance of certain models, and upgrades available to your pilots is spot on for a WW1 airplane game.

All in all I spent a total of what 6.99 US dollar on the game. They have the French, German, American, and British campaigns bundled so for under $10 you can't go wrong.


And mind you, after my bitter disappointment with XCOM I promised myself never to buy a Sid Meier game again. When I saw Ace Patrol and read up on it and heard how my friends were enjoying it I bought the game.

I also ended up buying the bundle for $7. It's worth that cost at least. I've enjoyed playing all the campaigns and I'm going to play through them again. It's a fun, easy turn-based game for mobile devices. I intend to play it some more on a trip I'm taking next month.

Also, when I was playing as the Americans, I noticed that one of my squadron-mates looks suspiciously like Sid Meiers. Easter Egg, me thinks.

 

[Anhellia]

It was released on PC/Steam, but probably everyone knows it by now.

I've got it on Humble Bundle, it is quite fun, I like that the games are short, and I can just launch the game when I don't have much time for doing any serious gaming, finish a mission or two and feel like I accomplished something.

 

[civvver]

I got it in the bundle as well, only played a couple missions. Seems cool once you figure out all the moves and attack modifiers. Right now I'm flying around willy nilly not strategically planning my moves.

 

[GoodGame]

It is a pretty good game, especially the WW2 version. I think once you get an ace 'test pilot' with fully loaded gear, it gets too easy though.

Having played World of Warplanes, I find it kind of fun to rethink some maneuvers in turn-based mode.

 

[Michkov]

What shame I cant get it to start, it seems like a great game from what you are saying.

 

[GoodGame]

What shame I cant get it to start, it seems like a great game from what you are saying.

I've been reading that it has some technical compatibility problems because it is a port and designed for Open GL drivers (not DirectX).


From what I've read it won't work with XP, and needs at least Win7. And your video-card has to support a more recent version of Open GL (and you have to have your driver enable Open GL of course).

 

[Anhellia]

From what I've read it won't work with XP, and needs at least Win7.

I'm running it at Vista x64, I could maybe check it on XP as well, but I'm hoping some other user can share his experience with trying it to run on XP.

I'm not sure about Open GL/Direct X stuff.

 

[GoodGame]

I'm running it at Vista x64, I could maybe check it on XP as well, but I'm hoping some other user can share his experience with trying it to run on XP.

I'm not sure about Open GL/Direct X stuff.

From what I've read it is absolutely impossible to get it to run on XP.

 

[Michkov]

I've been reading that it has some technical compatibility problems because it is a port and designed for Open GL drivers (not DirectX).


From what I've read it won't work with XP, and needs at least Win7. And your video-card has to support a more recent version of Open GL (and you have to have your driver enable Open GL of course).

Mmh my GPU should be able to run OGL3.2, do you know if this is good enough? I should be well in the minimum specs though. I'm going to play around with my graphics settings a bit.