Order of Battle: World War II

Order of Battle is a great game with many, many hours of content. First off the game as it is on gog comes with the tutorial/s and the U.S. Pacific Campaign. Some copies of the game sold elsewhere are just the shell of the game and you need to add the DLC's you want. The number of DLC's initially might seem a bit off putting but each DLC adds a campaign to the game that is unique and has it's own flavor and you can add and leave out the ones you wish. The game centers around units on relatively larger scales and has a big strategic role of supplying and chains of supply. As with many Slitherine titles the graphics arn't as high in production values as some games but the heart of the game lays in the details and stratagy. Underneath the stats for various different units is also the terrain bonuses and strategic positioning. Many hours of game play are in this and await the player. The U.S. campaign that is included in this game is extremely fun and sees the player in many different roles from fighting naval battles at Midway with combined sea and air power, to Island hopping and digging out dug in Japanese positions. Some of the older DLC's can get a bit dry at points such as Blitzkreig but as the name says it is centered around Blitzing various positions in different locations, so probably not one to dive into if you are looking at playing more defensive missions. The makers of this game have also brought the game a long way since release and the potential for more campaigns in massive. Already there are a host of extremely fun DLCs out there as well as a free Battle of Britain mod that has been created and the game comes with an editor.

First the positives. Order of Battle: WWII sucks you in with exciting turn-based combat, a variety of unit types, and a combined forces air/navy/army control. The game looks good, sounds good, and the combat is fun. But then little things start to add up that make the game frustrating to play. First, there's no undo action when moving/attacking with your units. This would be fine except that often times the reason I want an undo action is because I've just misclicked. In order to deselect a unit, you need to either select that unit again or click far enough away so that you're out of movement range for that unit. This leads to the unit going somewhere you didn't intend to a lot of the time. Then there's the UI. Each unit has a bunch of stats (infantry damage, armor defense, etc.), but the game UI makes it unnecessarily difficult to access that info. Also, turn times are ridiculously long (can last 5 minutes) as you watch the AI move every single unit one by one. Finally, the content offered with the GOG version (the Pacific DLC) is horrible for a first time player. The first 2 missions involve evacuating the Philipines during the Japanese invasion. Ridiculously outgunned, your objective is to avoid being overrun for 25 turns while the Japanese send an army of tanks and infantry on your measly defenses. It's certainly an interesting challenge and I could see it being a blast once you're fairly into the game, but this is not fun for new players. No one wants to get blasted to kingdom come during their first campaign, they want to kick butt! Offer a more satisfying campaign for new players - Blitzkrieg as the Germans or Normandy as the Americans - something people can steamroll through. Pick this up on sale and you'll have fun for a few hours - but ultimately it's a mediocre war game. And I'm not even going to mention the Paradox-esque DLC pricing...

Well looking TBS with good gameplay and care for details, which goes as far as to batteries for submarines. But to say something new here, there are also many little flaws which bother me. While the game is still playable and fun, it could be much better without them, or even with a few less. Just to give an idea for interested, here is a brief list of some. Please note that space is limited, so can't list them all, go into details or be always accurate. It's expected that my opinion won't match yours in every case. You may not consider some of them to be a problem. They are most annoying all together. - no undo, even simple misclicks - on load, computer has to build all units somewhere in parallel universe, it's painfully slow - high CPU usage, especially by AI - AI thinks for ages, but is only capable to make best result attacks, without consideration to situation - lack of capabilities makes AI poor defender and tragical attacker, not even capable to use artillery or bombers before close combat, or do something about minefields (if it does, it's luck) - AI difficulty is in superior numbers and cheats - scenario maps are playable just for one side, AI side would be easy - multiplayer needs special balanced maps - gameplay has priority over historical accuracy or logic, so it's better game than WWII simulation - unit parameters are similar for all sides, infantry exactly same, fighters very similar and so on, only tanks differ more - unit parameters are very similar for early and late war models, especially fighters don't evolve much - very few unit types per most sides, basically only important or iconic models, but considering lack of diversity and game mechanic, makes sense to use just a few of those anyway - strange speeds, infantry almost as fast as tanks, tanks just a little slower than planes, recon planes slower than tanks and so mostly useless - ground recon for special chapter of complains - can't delete unwanted units from core list without rebuy

I have a little over 80 hours logged into this game. I have played the full base game, and I am currently playing the U.S. Marines series. Whether new the tactical, turn-based strategies games, or if your gameplay legacy includes the great Panzer General by SSI, I think you will enjoy this game. Each mission provides unique challenges, on land, sea, and in the air. Sometimes, you will have to coordinate on all three. A significant improvement over older tactical strategy games such as Panzer General is the supply system. It is not enough to simply click the re-supply button and wait one turn. Players must now strongly consider maintaining lines of supply, and protecting them from the enemy, and the enemy will try to cut off your supply lines. This will cripple your offense or defense! The base game will be enough to keep most players entertained for many hours. But, the game also has nearly a dozen series expansions, focusing on different campaigns of World War II, from both the perspective of both the Allies and the Axis. Order of Battle also has series expansions that focus on campaigns of World War II that are often overlooked in many other war games based on the WWII era. The only two downsides I can think of is while the game has many interesting series expansions, they cost between $9-$14 on average when not on sale, making Order of Battle a potentially expensive game. The other downside is the scenario editor: it works and has many options for the player, but almost not guidance in the game or in the manual are included. In conclusion, if you enjoy tactical strategy, you can hardly go wrong with Order of Battle.

The Free to Play version on Steam is the first scenario of every campaign, plus training. There are currently 12 campaigns meaning you get 12 scenarios for free. It's definitely worth paying for at least 1 complete campaign (cheapest way is in a bundle during a sale). I recommend the US Pacific to start with which is what this GOG version is bundled with. The game is similar to Panzer Corps but with a more prominant supply element, i.e. you can't just send one unit off behind enemy lines. You must always have a supply source traceable to your location. This is great as it means the AI are constantly trying to cut off your supply, either by surrounding units or attacking supply sources. Like most major "serious" strategic or operational level wargames (be it boardgame or computer), supply becomes perhaps the most critical thing in many scenarios. You will find yourself thinking about defending supply lines, something you probably haven't done much in other games of this nature. It plays like a tactical game but with an operational level of thinking. You can't just send every unit to spam attack like many games. They will quickly lose supply, lose efficiency and become useless. The game is definitely a "just one more turn" level of addicitveness. Scenarios can be challenging. "New Georgia" took me 4 or 5 attempts. The downsides: Constant crashes and slowdown. I don't think I have played this game even once without it crashing at some point. Looking at the error logs, they are very vague, and I believe the crashing is due to the memory usage of the game being extremely unoptimized. This also explains the slowdown. In almost every scenario, after maybe 15 turns or so, the AI movement becomes tediously slow, where occasionally the music will stop entirely, the game will freeze up, then the AI suddenly moves again 20 seconds later. AI turns which normally take up to 1 minute or so may halt to a 5 minute grind. Be prepared for a frustrating slow experience.