iPad, PC •
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about Every Single Soldier‘s followup to Vietnam ’65, Afghanistan ’11. I’d like to say it’s because there’s just been so much other content that we haven’t gotten around to it, or there hasn’t been much to talk about regarding the title but neither of those are the real truth. The real reason why I’ve been hesitant to talk about Afghanistan ’11 lies with our resident tank-builder, Alex Connolly. Back in 2017 when he wrote about the game his title contained the best pun every unleashed on any website and I’ve been afraid to follow up and taint his brilliance. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you want more Afghanistan ’11 news), this week ESS announced new DLC coming to Afghanistan ’11, Royal Marines, and it’s coming next week.
Another reason I’ve been holding back on spilling these Royal beans has to do with the info being doled out by the developer. This is all we have right now:
Launching 6th of September ….
(Steam & iPad) pic.twitter.com/nWnbofDvr8— Every Single Soldier (@ESSoldier) August 28, 2018
Yep, that’s it. So, all we know is that DLC is coming on the 6th of November for both Steam and iPad. I’m sure most of you will download it, sight-unseen, anyway, but it would be nice to have a couple details to share.
I could probably find some info if I looked really hard, but if you’re expecting me to do that, Welcome! You must be new to the site!
[I couldn’t let this pass, so I merely copied some info from the Slitherine site. Took me all of 2 minutes. -ed.]
Royal Marines brings back the winning formula of Afghanistan ’11 and innovates on it with plenty new features. A new campaign, a new faction, plenty new units, civilian vehicles, car bombs, roadblocks, Afghan police… Royal Marines is a must-have for all Afghanistan ’11 players.
New UK faction
- Lead the British forces in their attempt to stabilize the region, with plenty new units such as the Warthog (capable of traversing mountains), the Scimitar or the Jackal.
New UK Campaign
- A new scenario campaign is included for the UK Army, following the deployment of the Royal Marines into Afghanistan. From Operation Ptarmigan to Operation Ghartse Dagger, the new campaign adds 10 new unique scenarios for dozens of hours of additional fun.
Civilian vehicles
- Civilian vehicles will now randomly spawn on the Highway and the Roads connected to it and travel across it to other villages. But beware of…
Car Bombs
- Civilian vehicles might be carrying explosives which will detonate upon reaching their destination village.
Roadblocks
- Build roadblocks to stop and search vehicles and you might be able to prevent a car bomb attack. Doing so will give you Hearts & Minds as well as give you Intel.
Afghan Police
- Win enough H&M in a village and you will receive an Afghan Police unit, capable of taking part to Roadblocks as well as to gather Intel in villages without the need of infantry.
Intelligence from Villages
- The window of opportunity for gathering intelligence from villages now occurs randomly and only remains available for a random period of time after the fire first starts to burn. This represent the village elders having a meeting and then disbanding.
FOB Capacity
- FOBs now have limited capacity to house troops and vehicles. Whenever a FOB is overcrowded, the player will incur PP costs for every unit over the limit.
Automatic trigger of ISAF handover
- Whenever a player has an overall H&M score of above 70 for four (4) consecutive turns, the ISAF handover process is automatically triggered.
Special Forces proximity combat modifier
- Whenever regular infantry are within the spotting range of a SF unit, they will receive an additional combat bonus.
Uniform
- A unique and separate uniform displaying new awards, badges and medals for the UK army has been added.
Look for the DLC to go live next week. Who knows, maybe we can get Alex to come up with another pun and tell us about what you can expect from the Royal Marines.
One of the best aspects of this game is the map generation. Seriously, I’ve been screenshotting them when I start, and this game does not give a fuck about you or your tears that escape your face when you see the monstrosities it creates. It regularly throws up areas you can only get units to on foot or by heli, it sees no problem in sticking you with looooooong roads to patrol, and the weather regularly shits the bed just when you think you have things running smoothly. It’s not too hard to throw up a good COIN network, but the terrain and weather complicate things terribly.
Between Slitherine’s mishandling of the Shennedoah titles (basically $30 flushed down the toilet for me) and their prices, I have avoided Slitherine titles for years. Is this one worth looking at?
I think so. It is fairly challenging. Really good depiction of a thankless task.
Never got this one when it released; it has pretty awful reviews on the App Store - confirm / deny?
I can see why. The game is demanding and difficult and often unrewarding, and it feels like it’s really indifferent to you. It’s possible to lash all your capital up the wall on units and fail very early on. The game doesn’t offer you a strong feedback loop in terms of how you’re doing - what you need to do - how effective each change is. You need to be brave and make decisions and see how they pan out. It can feel like you’re flailing even when you’re not. It can be really frustrating because you’re up against an enemy that hits and runs.
I love it.
So does Civ 6…
It hasn’t had the best of releases, 2.0 had an error on load because of missing DLC. The hastily submitted 2.0.1 does exactly the same!
Is it out?
Well, if you count added to the app, so the app crashes on load, yes!
The post says November. BRB, inventing an instrument of torture.