jimwinsor
Posts: 1076
Joined: 11/21/2005 Status: offline
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I have 'em both, and comparison is real tricky because they are really apple-and-oranges kinda games, depite both being American Revolution themed. FL has a detailed battle system which is really the heart of the game IMO. The strategic game, while it has a lot of depth, can be considered, really, an adjunct to the tactical game. It serves to give each of the tactical battles some context. Of course you can play FL w/o detailed battles, but you are basically throwing out half the game by doing that, IMO, which is thus kinda silly. BoA, on the other hand, is purely a strategic game. Battle results are shown to you after the fact on a little report screen, with numbers and little icons telling you what happened. Players don't make any tactical battle decisions at all...even the computer decides for you if and when you are going to retreat or not. However...this more limited focus has given the strategic game in BoA more depth than FL, IMO. Naval units are represented in BoA, for example, whereas in FL naval matters are handled more abstractly. This difference in focus is neither good nor bad...just different. Hence you see why I say making hard qualitative judgment calls between the games is problematic. BOTH are great games IMO, and both succeed in capturing the feel of the period.
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