It is yet another example of a situation where gog "reviews" are utterly useless trollzone. 99% of the comments do not regard the game at all, but are useless opinions about the publishers posted by manchilds that don't get that *NO* *ONE *CARES* what they "think" (and yes, I am not a huge fan of Stardock too, but it is totally irrelevant!). Or, how they hate when game is split between 40 DLCs (also no one cares, and also - don't like it, don't buy, I just grab those games at discount for whole series. Patience pays off). --- Game itself is one of the best - if not the best - 4X space one. It takes good inspirations from Civilization series, of course, but got enough of elements (coming from the long history of the series) to make it unique and NOT feel like a rip off taken to space, but as a thing that sensibly takes notice of good things elsewhere, then builds upon it.
Awesome modern-day title which will appeal to old-school gamers (as in title, particularly Silent Service and overall, Microprose titles fans will feel right at home). It is rather easy to learn, but NOT trivialized, and *does* benefit tremendously from reading manual (which, as seen by some other comments here, is above skill check for many modern-day "gamers"). Main points: *Much historical accuracy, yet compromises exactly where needed for fun gameplay *dynamic campaign ("Battle for Atlantic" mode), which is main and most important aspect here (not twice the same), challenging but fair. In this mode, dynamic weather and historically accurate, grand-scale war efforts affect many aspects of gameplay, from unit visibility, weapon and planes availability etc, to convoy routes * Sinking ships based on buoyancy and flooding of compartments - and it works really well! You will jump with joy when your lucky AP shell hits the deck just above armor belt, piercing magazine under main turret and sink big ship in first salvo due to capsizing, Hood style. Or curse, when the enemy keeps sailing (if barely) after ton of hits that resulted in balanced flooding (albeit, ships that are damaged beyond practical repair/unable to reach port may be force-scuttled as *after* battle result). * As a bonus result from the above, no two ships (or instances of sinking same ship) ever sink the same - the morbid fascination of watching them submerge for the last time, even after hundreds of battles, deserves own bullet point. * Various configuration options, allowing it to have really decent and non-trivial battles on max realism and difficulty mode (no much sense to play on anything less IMO in game like that, but if you feel overwhelmed, you can change settings, even mid-campaign) * Hot-seat multiplayer (sadly single battles only, dynamic multiplayer campaign would rox!) and single-battles, both custom and historical scenarios. * Last but not least, the atmosphere. It is just the right mix of realism and playability to make you feel submerged (pun intended) in the "real" efforts of WWII Atlantic struggles. I, old fart, enjoyed it immensely, yet it worked as well to naturally make my 9 years old son interested in historical aspects of the struggle, without being pompously "educational". Cons are mostly nit-picking for veterans - like, Carriers could *really* use having CAP (Combat Air Patrol, if even by just few fighters without bombs in air during start of daytime battles, but they still can be utilized to great effects, by more experienced players), or torpedoes could have *little* horizontal direction drift added, less than in Pacific Fleet, but enough to make head-on torpedo attacks less reliable (as it was the case, historically), especially from planes. But those are, honestly, gimmicks. All in all, wholeheartedly recommending! Was owning it already, but insta-buying as soon as I noticed it (finally) arrived on GOG.
