Normandy, June 1944. An invasion force of more than 150,000 British, Canadian and American forces needs to be managed, and then their actions on the ground need to be coordinated in response to real-time events on the battlefield. The beginning of a true military crusade.
Crusade in Europe is a cla...
Windows 7 or higher, Pentium 4 or higher, 256 MB RAM, Direct X 9 compatible graphics card, Version 9...
Description
Normandy, June 1944. An invasion force of more than 150,000 British, Canadian and American forces needs to be managed, and then their actions on the ground need to be coordinated in response to real-time events on the battlefield. The beginning of a true military crusade.
Crusade in Europe is a classic real-time simulation game from the 80s designed by Sid Meier and Ed Bever. The first title in the "Command Series" of tactical wargames from Microprose, the game features real-time battles that test your skills as a commander.
Five different scenarios, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge, recreate the tactical decisions faced by commanders in the European Campaign. Each has multiple variables, so you can create “what-if” scenarios, and different levels of difficulty.
Accelerated real-time simulation
Historically accurate scenarios
Different skill levels
Single player campaign
Two-play head-to-head
Choose to lead either side
In-depth historical backgrounds and hints
The idea for the Command Series came from observation of actual tabletop military scenario exercises. The games challenge you to manage assets, strategically place and move them around the battlefield map, and try to out maneuver the enemy. Victory requires careful strategic thinking and fast responses to rapidly changing battlefield conditions.
Sid Meier, one of the most well-known and prolific strategy game designer-producers, collaborated with historian Ed Bever to make the games incredibly historically accurate.
I played this game for dozens of hours on my Apple II growing up. Even today, I'll occasionally haul out my Apple II emulator and play a game now and again every couple of years -- modern wargames have surpassed it for sophistication, graphics and detail, but, there is still an elegant simplicity to the "real-time" mechanics in this game that I haven't really found in any other wargame since. It helps if you have Sid Meier doing the design.
All that being said - this is definitely a nostalgia play. I don't think I'd pick it up at full price, but, if around Christmas it drops down to a couple of bucks, I think I'd grab it then just for the convenience of having it in a modern launcher framework.
Crusade in Europe is unlike many strategy wargames in that it simulates the historical actions of troops and their commanders. This is not a point-and-click game. Rather, you give general orders to your troops (reserve, move, attack or defend). The game session continues to run until you "freeze" the game to give additional orders to your units. It is truly brilliant and, in many ways, a highly realistic simulation of historical events/ weather and supply levels. A detailed manual give instruction on how to use commands as well as ways to maximize the realism of battle. This is a great game and deserves attention and careful review. Crusade in Europe covers the general timeline from the invasion of Normandy (June 1944) to the the liberation of France (late 1944). Highly recommended.
It is curious that the designer of this game, Sid Meier, known by the most iconic turn based game ever was really interested in what current computers could offer to the real time gameplay. Not metioning he was one of the inventers of the Flight simulation as we know.
This game was part of a series of wargames with the personality that they were focused in real time gameplay, easy to use, the user has the essential information he needs, the operations are more focused in the whole picture than extreme micromanagement, and the controls are streamlined to around four keys the played must know. the only weird control I encountered was the "too intuitive" or contraintuitive way of moving and attack (M or A to move or attack, and press H to end, this is, "Move to Here")
The units don't need to be babysitted necessarily. The AI is pretty decent for a such old game.
This simplicity and well design ends up in surprinsingly fun gameplay without sacrificing accuracy and how things happen in the batleground. It is Deep without being owerhelming.
In my opinion it is closer to a real big battle than other more complex wargames of the era. It reminds me to other game he designed later, Gettysburg!, were the well designed, and simply rules, ended up in battles being played and reacting like it was in the past.
Never played the game before, so nostalgia is not a variable for me here, In my opinion the game has something to offer even today, afterall there are not too many examples with such approach.
Imagine a traditional operational WWII tabletop wargame, mixed with concepts of "Command HQ" any "The Operational Art of War" scenario, Close combat series, and "Sid Meier Gettysburg!"
I've played this game back in the day on my C64.
https://c64g.com/games/crusade-in-europe
I recognized it from the graphics.
The game may or may not be good, but it's a freaking c64 game, from the freaking 80s.
How dare you sell it for 5€, wrapped in an emulator!
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