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jwduquette1 -> RE: Feedback (11/19/2012 5:22:02 PM)
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Bought the game last week. Finally sat down and played over the weekend. Played all the way through the 1914 - 1918 campaign game as the Central Powers (Germans, Austrians, Turks, Bulgarians) and managed a minor victory. Overall impression…Great Game. Lots of twists and turns and numerous moments of panic against the AI. Just when I think I have things stabilized ion the Eastern Front – Italy enters the War – or Romania enters the War – or the AI manages a breakthrough on the Western Front. It all kept me hoping around from crisis to crisis resulting in a “can’t put down the lap top experience”. I finished the grand campaign at about 2AM last night. Tough getting up this morning to drag my arse into work.
The AI actually works pretty well. Which I suppose is partly a function of the static nature of the War. But it seemed to be well scripted and pretty adapt at applying game mechanics – logical applications of combined arms attacks (infantry+armor+artillery+air; relief in-place of disrupted\depleted units -- counterattacking breakthroughs -- and etc.). The AI also executed a few interesting scripting surprises such as coordination of the UK offensive thru the Gaza Line along with the Arab Revolt coming up thru Medina. The AI Completely shattered my Turkish Line around Gaza and then Advanced up into Palestine and Syria. But then the AI stopped after Capping Jerusalem and Damascus. Why doenst the UK continue to Advance into Turkey?
I really liked how the game automatically reminds you to have a look at the Turkish Front. I kept forgetting to go down there during my turn. When you hit end turn, if you haven't touched any Turks, a warning note pops up telling you that you forgot to move your Turks.
Things I would have liked or things I think would have made the game just a tad better:
1) As others have indicated above – an “UNDO” command for moves which haven’t resulted in any sort of intell being gained. This isn’t critical, but I did make a couple of bad mouse clicks during the game.
2) As somebody else indicated above, the use of Gray for the Russians is tough on my eyes. I started with the 3D art unit representations (the 3D art is very well done). However, because I'm an old fashioned (old-fart) wargamer, I quickly switched to NATO symbols. Nice to have the option to use either. It was occasionally difficult to tell the difference between German Units and Russian units. I accidentally attacked a Russian unit that I thought was a German. I was looking at a number of units and their relative condition and had selected a friendly Bulgarian unit whos strength was "in the Red". I than clicked on what I thought was an adjacent German infantry unit only to have the Bulgarian unit attack. Because it was in the red, it was wiped out during the attack. Ouch.
3) As with above but less critical, it seemed like the UK units, Portuguese Units and Italian units color palate is very close to each other. Not a huge deal.
4) Air bombardment – both from fighters and bomber air units -- seems overly effective at reducing the strength of enemy units. I guess I’d be more inclined to see the strength loss effects reduced, but keep the “disruption” effects (not sure “disruption" is the right game nomenclature – but when a units strength points go from white – to yellow – to red).
Aside from the minor complaints above, Great Job with “Commander, The Great War”! It’s not a game of Blitzkrieg – so be prepared for a long slugfest. But it really felt like a strategic level portrait of WWI. On the other hand it didn’t feel overly ponderous or overwhelming or boring. I'm always worried about WWI wargames being overly boring because of the static nature of combat on the Western Front.
GTGW is a great mixture of wargaming fun and historical simulation. It's fun, but not over the top beer and pretzels. Perhaps a tad more complex than Panzer Corps. It was like a good book that I just could not put down until I got to the end.
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