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Welcome to The Drop Zone, the unofficial Airborne Assault web site. You'll find information here about Airborne Assault, the operational wargame from Panther Games. This space is yours. If you want to publish here, see the contact page. Pour la version française : |
Home & News |
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| Conquest Of The Aegean gets an update |
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April 28th, 2008 - JeF : Matrix Games just announced that the fourth COTA patch is ready for download. The update will bring the game to version 3.4.151 and is comprehensive. Get it from here. |
| Dave talks |
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April 20th, 2008 - JeF : On May 2007, Dave O'Connor, President of Panther Games gave a one hour presentation about Creative Artificial Intelligence in wargames at the Academy for Interactive Entertainment in Canberra. The full presentation that you'll find in the articles section details why the AI in Panther Games' games is truly special. |
| Conquest Of The Aegean Patch Three |
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March 1st, 2008 - JeF : After months of hard work, Panther Games delivers us a third patch for Conquest Of The Aegean. It is rather large (174MB) and is a comprehensive patch (3.3.147) : there is no need to have the other patches installed first. The list of changes include revised and new scenarios and various updates for the tactical AI. Testing was very intensive. Hopefully, this will prove the most stable version of the game. It is available from Matrix Games COTA downloads section. Now that this is over, the team at Panther Games is very busy incorporating those changes to the upcoming Battle From The Bulge. |
| Conquest Of the Aegean gets the Gold - again |
May 6th, 2007 - JeF : 
Once again, Wargamer's readers awarded Panther Games well deserved rewards. After the three awards in 2003, Dave and his team won another three in 2006, with Conquest Of The Aegean as Wargame Of The Year. Congratulations !!In other news, work on third COTA patch is slow but steady. And the first BFTB build is being tested as I write. Expect first AAR soon. |
| New incoming stuff |
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February 10th, 2007 - JeF : Rooster keeps on writing about the upcoming BFTB on his AAHQ blog. In the mean time, Panther War College started life. It is now the place for players to sharpen their command skills. Don't hesitate to continue the discussion on the forums. Last but not least, we now host the latest colourful AAR from Yackstock. So head on to the COTA AAR section for some new reading. |
| Conquest Of the Aegean gets the Gold |
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January 7, 2007 - JeF : Happy New Year ! Best wishes for 2007 ! 
This new year will be another good year for the Airborne Assault series, with the forthcoming release of the next game : Battles from The Bulge (BFTB)In the meantime, Conquest Of The Aegean earned the Golden Laurels from the French magazine Cyberstratège as the best historical wargame of 2006. A well deserved award for Panther Games. |
Back in 1995 when Paul Scobell and myself were sitting in my home office designing how this game would be, we wanted to harness the full capabilities of what computers can do and we knew that that was a lot more than just rolling a dice. We also wanted to put the player in the role of a commander. To do that meant we had to simulate a command system. Real operational level commanders do not have the time to manage every unit under their command. They rely on their subordinate commanders for that. So this meant that we had to develop an artificial intelligence ( AI ) that could do a reasonable job in managing subordinate forces. Only then would the player be able to trust it to carry out its orders and free him up from the need to micromanage every last detail.
The benefits of this approach are immense. Obviously players can macromanage like real life commanders do. They can focus on what's really important for their level of command - what is the enemy's intentions, how can I respond, what are my objectives, how can I best achieve them.
Dave O'Connor, President of Panther Games
