Casualties of War

General Info

Staff:

• StratComm
• Nuclear1
• ShadowWolf_IH
• TrashMan

Mods:

• GTD Raynor
• GTCivL Splendid
• Several combat spacecraft

Status: CoW 1 released; CoW 2 released 2006

Description

CoW 1:

Adhara - a relatively insignificant fringe planet, home to only a few colonists and astrophysicists. Until the last war. Adhara had already been designated a safe haven for Vasudan refugees from the NTF - soon it was full of the refugees from Capella. Filled with angry, dissilusioned Vasudans, Adhara is a troublespot for the Vasudan Empire. Already devolved from direct GTVA control, Adhara remains a hotspot of anti-GTVA and anti-Terran radicals.... prompting the GTVA to remove most of the defensive fleet away from the system. It is only a mothballed Typhon destroyer - the Queb - and a cluster of cruisers, controlled by Adharan miltia that currently defend the system - enough to dissuade any active attacks by the Adharans on GTVA ships in the surrounding systems, and any bid for independence. Until now........

CoW 2:

6 months after the Upuaat incident Deep in a nebula, a large deposit of ice has been found. Simple water, one of the hardest items to come by in space. Asteroids within nebula are almost 100 % pure water, and this find, if seen through to fuition, could conceivably yield 100's of trillions of barrels worth of water. These asteroids are simply chunks of ice floating in a nebula that until now has had little worth, strategically, tactically, or economically. Due to the little value placed on the system, ownership has never quite been established, and the area has been known as a free zone.

Two days after the find, a planetary governor for a neighboring system dies, his successor has already been appointed. However others quickly step up to fill the power vaccuum, including 1 person with popular support as well as military, and another who was responsible for economic growth within said system. 3 days after the premier dies, our military friend steps up and perform a coupe de etat on the rightful new premier and siezes all assets. He also sends the local military forces into the nebula and assumes control of the ice.

3 large corporations also have an investment within this system, and send mercenaries in.

this system of little value has suddenly become a hotbed of activity with far reaching ramifications, and the GTVA is forced to react, sending in the SOC.

Comments

CoW 1 is a sub-average campaign. While the missions and objectives could have been very original, the campaign was planned big and executed poorly because of faulty FREDding, not on par with the complexity that would have been required. Therefore, there are a huge number of FREDding problems, the most gamebreaking ones - but by no means the only ones - being that in most mission the player has no idea of what he is supposed to do, and has to RTB himself to see if he passes - or not. Missions are also either too easy or too hard. Apart from those FREDding, the story has a lots of plotholes, and the player has a hard time understanding what/who exactly he is facing and what he is doing. On the other hand, CoW 2 is a rather good campaign, with similarly complex missions but with the FREDding skill to match. CoW 2 could have been "very" good if the last three levels were comparable to the first seven. Unfortunately, the last missions of CoW are closer CoW 1's (lack of) quality.
If the team was to correct the few bugs in CoW2 and review / remake the CoW 1 with their experience from CoW2, this campaign has potential to become a GREAT one. Narwhal

Future releases

Casualties of War 1 and 2 are being updated. The rerelease will include numerous mission bugfixes, some balance changes, spellchecking, and graphical enhancements. The demo version of Casualties of War 3 is also in progress.

The revamped Casualties of War I is scheduled for release on 20 February 2011.

CoW Remake staff

• ShadowWolf_IH: Project lead, FREDding, tabling
• Dragon: Artist
• Mobius: Testing
• TopAce: Testing

Links

• Main CoW website
• CoW 1 and 2 download from FreeSpaceMods
• Forum at Hard Light Productions