Endless village visits, supply runs, and thoroughfare minesweeping… Angola ’86 refuses to sex-up counter-insurgency ops. Unleavened, the daily grind of keeping the land now known as Namibia free of SWAPO troublemakers/freedom-fighters could start to drag after a while. Fortunately, whenever* you’re starting to feel like an over-worked logistics manager, you can form an armour-rich battle group and go hunt Communist big game in the map’s northern region.
* Assuming, of course, you’ve enough of the game’s currency – Political Points – in the bank.
My burgeoning Angola ’86 confidence took a knock yesterday. Keen to take the fight to the source of so many of my COIN headaches, Angola itself, I purchased some pricy armour and artillery units, assigned them to a labour-saving ‘battle group’ then hurried said BG northward towards the border.
The adventure proved memorable, but not for the right reasons. On encountering FAPLA vehicles, I set up a temporary base (a necessary preamble to utilising the individual components of the BG) a short distance away from the threat then spent fifteen minutes struggling with combat mechanics that either require further elucidation or are bugged at present.
My arty and my Olifants refused to dispense devastation from afar, and I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why. Fortunately, the targets seemed happy to stick around while I fumbled and experimented. What should have been an exciting counterpoint to hours of dogged COIN activities in the South, ended up producing more frowns than thrills. Feeling somewhat cheated and deflated, I reluctantly abandoned my offensive and returned to less confusing village-focused toil.
Judging from the prompt, can-do manner in which Johan Nagel responded to yesterday’s diary entry (According to the email I received last night, icon/map improvements, a tree toggle, zoom changes, and a better route predictor, are all in the works) it won’t be long before I’m able to return to Angola in the company of battle groups I both trust and understand. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to crush the insurgency with logistical efficiency, attentive aid giving, and energetic/inspired patrolling alone.
(Tune in tomorrow for more Angola ’86 reflections)
Hi guys, finally found my voice on this forum 🙂
Game has been in early access for a week and we have received really good feedback, just like we have on this forum.
We encourage all feedback as that is exactly the reason for the EA on Steam.
We are currently publishing an update every weekday, todays has fixed the small issue preventing Tim from firing his G5 cannon, along with a number of other reported bugs.
Trees can now be toggled off with the ‘T’ key.
Added a bunch of new tooltips, something we will continue to do.
Catch the full version updates on the Steam Store page and the Discussions tab.
Sounds good! Always cool to see devs responding. Hope the Early Access is going well, it’s definitely a game I want to check out when I have time.
And great writeups as always Tim!
Morale +1.
Thanks for persevering with registration, Johan (unintentional hurdles now removed!) and for the speedy patching. Further Angola ’86 coverage on THC is inevitable.