Matrix Games

"In the East, the vastness of space will… permit a loss of territory… without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds… consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time." — Adolf Hitler, 'Directive 51'.

Close Combat - The Longest Day is a highly enhanced rebuild of the critically acclaimed Close Combat Invasion Normandy, originally developed by Atomic Games. Take command of either the Allied Expeditionary Force or Germany’s Wehrmacht.  You will either carry out the world’s largest amphibious invasion to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation or defend Hitler’s Atlantic Wall! 

Close Combat – The Longest Day comes with expanded force pools, support for much larger maps, night battles with simulated flare effects, and more!  Also included in this rebuild is are 60+ battles, operations and campaigns including a new enhanced Grand Campaign as well as "classic" CC5 style Grand Campaign available for download!

Now in this classic top down real time tactical simulation, you take command of either US or German forces and either command the forces of the Allied Expeditionary Force or German forces and either successfully execute  the worlds largest ever invasion to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation or defend Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.    In this highly enhanced rebuild based on the critically acclaimed and award winning Atomic Games Close Combat series of games, you are in command!

See the feature list below for the new enhancements that come with the Mega Update.

Mega Update Improvements

• Noticeable improvements were made to the way vehicles and soldiers travel to way points and reach the end destination of both simple and highly complex, unhindered paths with a very high degree of success.
• Soldier pathfinding was improved so that when soldiers fall behind (heavy weapon or momentarily lost) they plot their own path to successfully rejoin their team.
• Vehicle driver and soldier decision making was improved to help them deal with unexpected obstacles (vehicle moving into their way , or wreck that was knocked out in the course of battle to block a path that was already determined), and get out of dead-end locations.
• AI improvements were made to be in concert with the re-designed pathfinder.
• The "Bee Dance" of CC2 that was related to conflicts between the AI for the vehicle driver and the AI that tried to keep the team moving along the team's path that would result in a conflict about which portion of the AI to follow or "which way to go."
• Many other minor improvements were made and reported bugs were fixed.

Game Features

• Highly enhanced rebuild of the critically acclaimed Close Combat Invasion Normandy title, originally developed by Atomic Games
• Expanded strat layer with new strat map image as well as 64 gorgeous hand-drawn tactical maps. That's an additional 21 tactical map slots over the original game!
• Comes with all new 60+ battles, operations and campaigns including a new enhanced Grand Campaign from the airborne landings and the beach heads to the advance inland as well as "classic" CC5 style Grand Campaign available for download.
• Battle the enemy in the darkness.
• Includes simulated flare effects and full lighting effects where ability to see the enemy troops is effected by flare deployment as well as light sources such as explosions and fires.
• Game can now be played in Windowed mode.
• Extended ForcePool list to display 25 of 25 available units as opposed to the 20 that stock CC5 displayed.
• New reports at the end of battle showing campaign cohesion and VL control track your progress after each bout. Also displays battlegroup cohesion and fatigue status.
• Game now accepts maps up to 4800x4800 pixels as compared to the stock CC5 map size of 3600x3600 pixels.
• Off-board or off-map support quantities now tied to difficulty level.
• Improved graphical communication of strat map connections.
• Tweaked User Interface graphics, with nearly all new planes, vehicles and map graphics.
• Also includes carefully crafted game play manual
• No longer requires third party utilities for modding to provide years of additional gaming excitement. Among the moddable features: ALL strat layer features, ALL campaign details including weather, turns per day, scoring, all support mission types for both sides and locations, battlegroup recycling, battlegroup retreat/disband, supply and much more!
• Teams, battlegroups, elements, forcepools soldiers, vehicles, and weapons files maximum number of entries extended.
• Capable of representing multiple nationalities with varying capabilities available to both sides.
• Capable of simulating airborne battlegroup deployment drop zones.
• Further improvements have been made to the AI to reduce some of the more inadequate performance issues, in particular with respect to vehicle pathing, the 'crawl of death', and Team and Unit morale and response in general.
• Enhanced Scenario Editor - Create your own "what if" Scenarios.
• Enhanced to run well on modern DirectX systems
• Accurately depicts World War II tactical warfare and its challenges Realistic soldier psychological profiles during combat.
• Accurate and realistic equipment modeling Close air support and direct and indirect fire
• Ability to protect your men in buildings, bunkers, and trenches
• Includes specialized squads, weapons, soldier types, attack Aircraft & Artillery
• Adjustable game speed scroll speed and sound volume ... and much more!

Review on Armchair General
84% - Plenty of battles to choose from, high replay value, strong strategic game.

Preview of Close Combat: The Longest Day

After Action Report of Close Combat: The Longest Day