WARNO, Steel Division 2 or Wargame:Red Dragon?

[Demolition]

Witch one i should play first? I don't want to start a troll thread btw, my question is genuine.
I bought all 3, but i don't know with witch one i should start. The fact that i didn't play any of them, makes me think i could start in whatever game and be fine.

I like how warno looks, and i hear it has some cool features from steel division 2, like line of sight. But the other two games are .. "complete". Also, i'm interested in getting into ranked play at some point, so i'd like to have "normal" queue times. Think i'll play 1v1s. Not interested in 10v10 atm.

Can you guys give me some pointers?

[Groucho]

Covering the basics, all 3 games are virtually the same, you start by making a deck (by choosing either a nation or division) and you play with it.

Major differences are:

WG:RD has a national deck making, meaning you got access to the entire nation (or coalition) arsenal and choose if to make a specialized deck (Mechanized, Airborne, Support etc.), and it has primarly 2 game modes (economy dosen't matter, i've never saw anyone playing it): destruction and conquest, one is a TDM where you get points by destroying enemy units and the other by controlling more Control Zones than the enemy

SD2 insted rely on a division one, in this case you choose a division and make a deck with what that division had at disposal. also it has the frontline mechanic, that does influence the stats of many units and it's curcial when you play the conquest mode, not anymore based on zones, but on flags, and you cap them by advancing your frontline.

Warno kinda sits more close to WG:RD than SD2, sharing with it mostly the divison deck making and the presence of towed units, while the zones makes their return in conquest, and destruction is coming as well.

[Sabalias]

I would describe WARNO as Wargame 4 with some SD functionality. You are right though, Wargame and SD are both complete so they are likely to be a better experience for now. If you want a recommendation on which of the two to play first then I would say Wargame but I might be a little biased

[BlackFoxSamaki]

Play Wargame if you want to get cheesed by people who have played the game way too long and know every meta and exploit. Play SD2 if you’re a wehraboo and don’t want the Allies to have even the smallest chance of fighting back. Play WARNO if you want WW1 style artillery camping and overall abysmal game balance.

[quilargo]

I cant play SD2 and WARNO because of the catastropical UI- too much colors, too much bling bling and infos- but i cant see the Units!
And it doesnt solve the Problem, when you make more colors and bling bling around the unit, so that i cannot see them because of their washed out colours and the not helpful square around the units!
It is an absolut immersion breaker, i dont have any connections because of the washed out style of the units :(
Less is much more in a wargame, why must there so much information and why i cant see the units.
I think is an absoluty main aspect , that a player must can see or have a feeling for the units on the battlefield, not tons of unnecessary information around the units which makes the chaos complete.
I watched the Broken Arrow Video from today, they are heading the right way, not millions of colourfull unnecessary Informations like in Warno and SD2.

[Kaos]

Honestly warno has ruined red dragon for me. The ai in warno is actually intelligent and full release is very close. In wargame the ai just cheats and has like its full amount of points right off the bat, In warno and in my experience in SD2 they actually use some tactics instead of exploits. Wargame has fun campaigns but they still cheat. SD2 is overall easier to me. Id start with either SD2 or WARNO since they are so similar you can jump back in forth. red dragon is also just ugly asf and dated looking to me. I had my good memories but all thats left for multiplayer is a bunch of incels and wannabe nazis or just your general trolls. Ive been having a blast with the army general campaigns and in warno skirmish against the AI with my boys but even solo its fun. Also the sounds in red dragon are horrendous its def the most dated.

[Tellashim[GIF]]

I'll go with the "WARNO has ruined any other RTS game for me". W:RD is old as HELL. The UI is super dated, the balance is not what I want and.. it's just old. Get a life and move on from it. SD2 is.. OK, but again, getting old. WARNO beats the crap out of both of them.

[Major.Pain]

Taken on its own WG:RD is amazing game but if you play the newer Warno/SD2 with the improvements in AI and overall mechanics its short comings begin to show.
I do love going back and playing the WG:RD Campaigns i think are great because they are dynamic but after playing the later games the AI this older game is a bit of a sticking point.
I have said it before but if Eugene go back and update the AI to be more inline with Warno and add it as a DLC i would drop a few bucks in a Heartbeat for sure.

[Sabalias]

Originally posted by Major.Pain:

Taken on its own WG:RD is amazing game but if you play the newer Warno/SD2 with the improvements in AI and overall mechanics its short comings begin to show.
I do love going back and playing the WG:RD Campaigns i think are great because they are dynamic but after playing the later games the AI this older game is a bit of a sticking point.
I have said it before but if Eugene go back and update the AI to be more inline with Warno and add it as a DLC i would drop a few bucks in a Heartbeat for sure.

Agree with this wholeheartedly, although I was never able to get into the Steel Division games.

[Kamikaze Velociraptor]

Wargame campaigns were fun and oddly enough the map variations were better than in SD2. Wargame EE AI straight up cheated and knew the location of your CVs. ALB campaign was probably the best in UI and felt like a risk style game. RD was fun because it was large scale campaigns. Soviet invasion of Japan or Second Korean War are so much fun. The Pyongyang map was hard if you came from the south. The trick was to surround it in the north.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Personally I think Steel Division 2 is the best pick at the moment. I think it is the best rounded game with a tonne of really nice equipment and sides. It, I would say is also the slowest paced of them which gives you time to micro. The maps are nice bright earthy coloured maps for the most part which makes units really easy to spot.

It has a few advantages over red dragon and warno:

* Tanks cannot traverse thick forest but can go through light

* Their is a commander system that has the general unit passing influence to the squad commanders who pass them to nearby troops.

* The Frontline mechanic - This is a controversial one for a lot of people. Their is a line across the front which is constantly moving according to where each side occupies. If a big breakthrough is made you will see on the map just like you would on a real commanders map the line change to reflect that. The problem people have is that they think people can tell exactly where their units are "hiding". While this is true in general in ww2 you would know where pockets of enemy were in most instances. So for me in general it is a good system that enables surround and surrender mechanics, flag capture manoevers because the line moves just that little bit to cover a flag when the enemy are on the backfoot in an area. ww2 frontline combat was not generally about stealth and peoples main criticism is that they cannot hide their units perfectly, avoiding civilians and supply chain or support elements in the process, whether enemy or friendly. Sure the information is instant but then so is a lot of other information in game, you get instant feedback when your units die for instance. You know exactly where all of your units are at any given time. You have perfect intel and you have an idea of where the enemy is as well. In this regard the game is sped up. This is not realistic but it does enable the game to be played quickly and as if you were in charge of each squad yourself on the ground.
The frontline mechanics also stops what happens in WARNO where the AI early on and I imagine players like to take a lot of troops on rear area missions and ambush missions by marching them through massive forests especially on the flanks of the map. Which I find is pretty cheesy when this becomes the main focus instead of the battle.
The frontline system also replaces the red dragon/WARNO capture the pre-determined points and snipe the commander holding that point mechanic. Which I always thought was strange, making it compulsory where you set up your headquarters. The points are pretty arbitrary on each WARNO map as well.

* No fuel supply - THis might seem like a detractor. Supply is in game in the form of ammo and repair and even re-manning abandoned tanks. But they left fuel supply off but it is back in WARNO - fuel is problematic because a game that goes for 1hr should not have vehicles that are probably on full tanks of gas running out. I'd like Fuel in WARNO a lot better if the tanks came into the field half full as if they just did a long route march, then refuelling them lasted the rest of the game.

ammo types SD2 has different ammo types carried by vehicles. AP and HE are a thing. Even APCR special shells. You can control and save these shells or run out of one or the other if facing the same targets constantly.

Penetration mechanics and health bars No health bars in SD2. The mechanics for penetrate or not are fairly detailed. WARNO is much more a case of "my tank is so modern and advanced odds are it will hit almost all the time (where a ww2 tank will miss a lot especially at range), because of this we need to make hitpoints more relevant. Basically in SD2 I think first time penetrations and kills are probably far more common than in WARNO where tanks grind each other down making it more of a numbers game and less one of micro when outnumbered. So in Sd2 you need to get very close to guarantee hits and you need to STOP in order to be accurate. So at great ranges you can have some good tank duels while at close range things are more deadly.

You should check VulcanHD, atkpwrgaming and others that stream competition for steel division 2. They also occasionally do WARNO iirc

[Major.Pain]

^^
SD2 is great for sure and a different vibe but my main gripe with it is when playing a campaigns all the deployables you have to set up before the game. Yes you can auto deploy them but they are mostly then in poor positions and how the balancing is set up those Bunker placements ect are the difference between winning and losing.
Really wish there was an option where no deployables were used at all so you didn't have to spend 10 minutes before every fight setting all that crap up, maybe just give the Defender a statistical/numerical/or points bump to reflect its Dug In status.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Major.Pain:

^^
SD2 is great for sure and a different vibe but my main gripe with it is when playing a campaigns all the deployables you have to set up before the game. Yes you can auto deploy them but they are mostly then in poor positions and how the balancing is set up those Bunker placements ect are the difference between winning and losing.
Really wish there was an option where no deployables were used at all so you didn't have to spend 10 minutes before every fight setting all that crap up, maybe just give the Defender a statistical/numerical/or points bump to reflect its Dug In status.

I did not realise this, I really have not played the campaigns for a long time and did not play them much even then. Are their no battles in the campaign where you are not dug in? I thought you had to have units static for some time before they were considered dug in and got the deployables to use before the match started?

[Major.Pain]

Yes sure there are Battles where your not Dug In, when you are attacking for example then you don't need to set up all that crap before hand.
I do love the gameplay i just want to get to it but when you have the fights, most of the time when you are defending you will have to spend that 10 odd minutes with you line of sight tool going all over the map placing those Bunkers. Gun pits and Trenches before you even look at what actual units you want to bring in, tedious doesn't even come close, i cannot manage a couple of those Battles back to back to be honest so just end up turning off the game and maybe come back a few Days later when i have built up the willpower to go through it again LOL.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Major.Pain:

Yes sure there are Battles where your not Dug In, when you are attacking for example then you don't need to set up all that crap before hand.
I do love the gameplay i just want to get to it but when you have the fights, most of the time when you are defending you will have to spend that 10 odd minutes with you line of sight tool going all over the map placing those Bunkers. Gun pits and Trenches before you even look at what actual units you want to bring in, tedious doesn't even come close, i cannot manage a couple of those Battles back to back to be honest so just end up turning off the game and maybe come back a few Days later when i have built up the willpower to go through it again LOL.

I do know what you mean. I think it's a great mechanic for steel division 2 as well and I do love that they did it. It's good fun once in a while. But I don't like playing breakthrough games because the setup times are longer and the fortifications often make your men static targets if you put them in the open. They needed a take cover mechanic where your men ducked..... but honestly I was greatful just to get trenches. I would have liked to see them able to be taken in normal games of closer combat as well AS more expensive cards that took some of your points.

But yes I am with you, we used to have one person who if we played breathrough mode with the fortifications would literally take 30 minutes to setup, checking all the angles and ranges. He enjoyed it though. Fortifications are something I do not think we will see in WARNO although I think they were probably something taught to the troops.

[Demolition]

Originally posted by Verisimilitude de la Pole ⳩:

Personally I think Steel Division 2 is the best pick at the moment. I think it is the best rounded game with a tonne of really nice equipment and sides. It, I would say is also the slowest paced of them which gives you time to micro. The maps are nice bright earthy coloured maps for the most part which makes units really easy to spot.

It has a few advantages over red dragon and warno:

* Tanks cannot traverse thick forest but can go through light

* Their is a commander system that has the general unit passing influence to the squad commanders who pass them to nearby troops.

* The Frontline mechanic - This is a controversial one for a lot of people. Their is a line across the front which is constantly moving according to where each side occupies. If a big breakthrough is made you will see on the map just like you would on a real commanders map the line change to reflect that. The problem people have is that they think people can tell exactly where their units are "hiding". While this is true in general in ww2 you would know where pockets of enemy were in most instances. So for me in general it is a good system that enables surround and surrender mechanics, flag capture manoevers because the line moves just that little bit to cover a flag when the enemy are on the backfoot in an area. ww2 frontline combat was not generally about stealth and peoples main criticism is that they cannot hide their units perfectly, avoiding civilians and supply chain or support elements in the process, whether enemy or friendly. Sure the information is instant but then so is a lot of other information in game, you get instant feedback when your units die for instance. You know exactly where all of your units are at any given time. You have perfect intel and you have an idea of where the enemy is as well. In this regard the game is sped up. This is not realistic but it does enable the game to be played quickly and as if you were in charge of each squad yourself on the ground.
The frontline mechanics also stops what happens in WARNO where the AI early on and I imagine players like to take a lot of troops on rear area missions and ambush missions by marching them through massive forests especially on the flanks of the map. Which I find is pretty cheesy when this becomes the main focus instead of the battle.
The frontline system also replaces the red dragon/WARNO capture the pre-determined points and snipe the commander holding that point mechanic. Which I always thought was strange, making it compulsory where you set up your headquarters. The points are pretty arbitrary on each WARNO map as well.

* No fuel supply - THis might seem like a detractor. Supply is in game in the form of ammo and repair and even re-manning abandoned tanks. But they left fuel supply off but it is back in WARNO - fuel is problematic because a game that goes for 1hr should not have vehicles that are probably on full tanks of gas running out. I'd like Fuel in WARNO a lot better if the tanks came into the field half full as if they just did a long route march, then refuelling them lasted the rest of the game.

ammo types SD2 has different ammo types carried by vehicles. AP and HE are a thing. Even APCR special shells. You can control and save these shells or run out of one or the other if facing the same targets constantly.

Penetration mechanics and health bars No health bars in SD2. The mechanics for penetrate or not are fairly detailed. WARNO is much more a case of "my tank is so modern and advanced odds are it will hit almost all the time (where a ww2 tank will miss a lot especially at range), because of this we need to make hitpoints more relevant. Basically in SD2 I think first time penetrations and kills are probably far more common than in WARNO where tanks grind each other down making it more of a numbers game and less one of micro when outnumbered. So in Sd2 you need to get very close to guarantee hits and you need to STOP in order to be accurate. So at great ranges you can have some good tank duels while at close range things are more deadly.

You should check VulcanHD, atkpwrgaming and others that stream competition for steel division 2. They also occasionally do WARNO iirc

Woah. Thanks for the detailed reply, i really appreciate it. I go with SD2 for sure first. Because as you say, the gameplay is a bit slower, so it should be better for a noob. + they added Romanian divisions in that game. Overall it seems it has better unit variety. Then QOA stuff like line of sight and other stuff you guys mentioned.

Only "problem" is i don't really like how the maps look. I think devs wanted to get a retro look or smth, it's like there's a sepia LUT texture used as color correction. :) Warno maps imo look very cool. But will play that one later, when they add more divisions and overall content.

Again, thanks everyone for your posts. Have a great day!