Battlefield Commander WWII: Best to pay attention or they’ll stomp you.
A new take on hex-based WW II wargames.
Just typing the word “MicroProse” brings back so many memories from 40+? years ago. IIRC, almost every game I had came from that studio and/or SSI, Matrix, Battlefront, HPS, etc. Although, just because I listed a lot of companies, that doesn’t mean there were a lot of turn-based games among them.
Battlefield Commander WWII is no exception to the quality games they produced back then… and finally, after a long wait, even now it’s a superb, Early Access game.
Battlefield Commander WWII is still a brain twister. Hardcore strategy, man. Everything’s done in phases; So, you want them set to kill, not simply “stun”. (Oh!, sorry I was thinking phasers… but, still the settings apply, [not necessarily to the actual kinds of weapons…]) At least it gives you time to complete each phase… movement, battles, reinforcements, etc., due to it being turn-based.
One of the best starting options is that you can play as either Germany or Russia. From the overhead, strategic map, you don’t know exactly what units you have. It’s all done with ‘circled numbers’. Then, like any other game, when you and your enemy try to occupy the same region, the battle begins.
The next cool part of Battlefield Commander WWII is that you can auto-resolve each battle or play them out. Unless you’re a helluva lot better than I am, for example, if you get attacked by the enemy’s “300” troops and you have “43”… yeah.. something like that I’d auto-resolve. Once you start getting closer to ‘even’, that’s where the brainiac fun begins!
You have 235 versus the 300 they just attacked you with? Play it out and see if you can take them down. Play it out and see if you can just hurt them very badly? When/if you decide to go into battle, with units, and not on the overhead map anymore, then you find out what units you actually have. (Being in Early Access, I hope there’s a way for them to figure out how to ‘hover’ over your circled number on the overhead map… so you’ll be a lot less surprised when you go into actual battle.)
Regardless, if you decide to take them onto the battlefield… currently there’s only one map (again, it’s EA). However, this is where you (finally) get to decide which units go where. The game gives a list, for each unit, of placement: left, center, or right. “Left” is open ground but has immediate access to the treeline on the right OR use the open ground to allow your units to run/drive quickly into place of a more northern, horizontal treeline. “Center” is basically a combination of the, now three options (trees/bushes): left, right up to the trees in the middle, and/or the right’s open ground which the treelines are a leetle bit more accessible. Of course then “Right” is more like “center” but with the map ending on the east side, but it has the most hefty amount of trees at the beginning. Of course, there’s a large road between center and right if and when you get tanks and other wheeled, mobile units.
When you dive into Battlefield Commander WWII… again, like no other… you better be wearing your big-boy pants. The enemy, on either side of the one you pick to play, are both smart and vicious. You need to be paying attention to the enemy’s moves as much as your own. So far, the ‘new concept’ works for me extremely well. There are reinforcements once per turn… but *I* wouldn’t play as if they were coming in to save my ass. This is a change to what we’re used to I can really get behind… just don’t want to be behind on the battlefield.
Battlefield Commander WWII: Best to pay attention or they’ll stomp you.
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Battlefield Commander WWII is available now, in Early Access.
