Computer Wargames by Leslie KingMedieval Total WarThis is a game based on the same system as "Shogun", and anyone who has played that game will have no problems picking this one up. As ever, there's the ubiquitous strategy side of the game where you can plan your campaigns, construct buildings and move your forces, as well as the tactical battles side, where you can either fight historical battles or fight battles that arise as a result of your strategic plans. In the strategy game you play one of twelve factions from the early middle or late periods, so you can choose the English and play with longbowmen or go for one of the more exotic eastern armies where you might get to use naptha throwers (great fun, an early form of the hand grenade). I've played the English quite a bit and had a great time. If you start in the early period you already control half of France and have to decide whether to go for the French from the start and risk the Scots invading or deal with your own back yard first. You need to build your forces up - so you need territory to raise money - and you need troops to win you battles to control new areas. If you expand too quickly you can soon find yourself running short of money to support your current troops let alone buy new ones and can find things collapsing as fast as they were built up. There's loads of chrome in the campaign game as you can train spies and assassains, conduct spying missions, bribe the enemy, conduct seiges - or just fight. You have the option to fight battles or seiges yourself or let the computer work them out for you - I would recommend the former every time. The battles can be fought as part of a campaign, or you can fight some of the battles provided in the game. There's a whole variety of these and they are great fun, and there are loads more that you can download from websites. When you first go to the battle screen you get a chance to group your troops and have a look around the battlefield before you start. If you're defending you can re-position your troops too - attackers have to take them as they are. The key to the battles is high ground - your troops morale is improved, they charge better and can fire missiles further. You can guarantee that is where the defenders will be - so do you try a frontal assault or outflanking moves? Can you detach units to try a sneaky attack from the rear? Defenders can try to hide units in the woods to try for a flanking attack too - there's so many decisions to make. It's very much a game of paper, scissors rock too. Your spearmen are good defending against cavalry but are vulnerable to missile fire. Your heavy knights can sweep all before them ....until they meet longbowmen or well defended archers. You need to keep your leaders out of the fighting as if they are lost or run away then it's almost always battle over - but of course they are always in your strongest unit. Once a side starts losing it's difficult to stop and things go downhill very quickly - that's when you need to launch your uncommitted cavalry to hunt down troops running away. But don't forget that unit of peasants - they may be next to useless but if you can charge them into the enemies strongest unit then they will tie it up for a while whilst you can bash the rest of the army. The controls are mostly point and click and very intuitative and they don't stop your being able to enjoy the games.I've had very few problems with the game and it's very stable. This is one of the best computer wargames I've played for ages and is highly recommended. Waterloo, Napoleon's last battleDesigned by Sid Meier and based on his Gettysburg system this game is a very odd beast. As it says on the tin, it covers the Waterloo battles and it's all fairly agreeable - nice easy controls, an unusually good AI system, but as it only covers Waterloo I feel a little bit underwhelmed. It's nice and easy to play - to select a unit you can click on the units flag, or to select a formation you can click on the officer. You can then give the unit (or units) orders, change formation etc etc. You need to get your units into good positions and hope your frozen units activate in time. It's also a good idea to occupy and hang onto the farms of La Haye Saint and Hougomont if you're playing the English - and a good idea to take them if you're playing the French. It's all nice and easy and not too demanding, but having said that, if you're playing the full battle there's an awful lot going on. It's made more difficult by the Artificial intelligence being rather better than the norm. In my last game I got two good flank attacks going only to find that a huge cavalry attack led by Ney had split the centre and my forces were crushed. Your units will not attack if they think the orders you're giving them are insane (all too common in my case) and morale effects work pretty well. Overall I enjoyed playing it a few times, but I haven't really gone back to it much. I paid around £26 for it - it's now down to £20 - halve that and I think you've got a bargain. Airborne AssaultThis was a new one on me and found on the Internet. It's by Panther Games and I found it fairly different to any other game I've played. It covers the Arnhem camapign, but only around Arnhem itself, so you get to fight with the British (and Polish) and Germans only. It's different to many other games as you don't get a grid of hexes - just the map. So, units move along roads - or through whatever terrain you like as you can specify routes to take. Again, you can order units individually or in more formation - it definitely pays to order them in formation in this game as then your support elements such as artillery fire in support of your front line units. Control of your units is easy too, but it's a game where you definitely need to play through the tutorials to get the best from it. So how does it play? Hmmmmmmmm. It's not bad and offers a lot of detail but I have my reservations. The first time I played the campaign I decided to advance virtually all of the Allied Airborne units to the bridge and only left three small units to defend the drop zones. As a result, I was able to take and hold both ends of the Arnhem bridge as well as much of Arnhem itself. It didn't seem to affect my reinforcements landing successfully either, and when the 30th Division got close to Arnhem the airborne units were able to help break out to them too. There's also a slight problem if you order too many units to move at once - the computer cannot cope with all the calculations and freezes or slows up so much as to make the game unplayable. There are some smaller battles where this should not be a problem though. I quite enjoyed the game - it all looks pretty good and I've got a good deal of pleasure from it too. It's a battle I'm interested in, and it plays pretty well if you play the Germans too. There's a good manual with lots of historical information and the package was reasonable value. I ordered it over the Internet and it worked out at around £26 - with the exchange rate in effect then. |