It was about my 3rd restart when I finally saw that you can order weapons and equipment online. There is a 'Links' button on the A.I..M. page that takes you there, but there is absolutely nothing that indicates that such an important thing is, in fact, an important thing. The whole game is like that. Everything is funky. On my 2nd try, I saw that you can train your guys during their downtime. I was like, 'Wow! You can do that?' It was in a submenu, and it changed the way I looked at the game. Anyway, I ordered some ammo online, but when It showed up (in a crate, you'll never know where it is until suddenly, you decide to look inside the crate), some of it was missing... Everything is funky. Nothing is clear. How to do stuff is not explained. No hand holding, hell, there's not even a hand to hold. You're on your own. But when you figure it out, you're just that much more impressed with the depth. 3 more things: 1. One of the rare games, like Civilization and Diablo, that you can reinstall and play a year later and be totally in love with it again. It's the gift that keeps on giving, it never gets stale. 2. Any game that can make you say out loud, "Way to go, Ira! Great shot!" is a damm good game. 3. Get the 1.13 unofficial patch. You need it, if only to shut Skyrider up. A must play, must have game.
MOO 1 is a work of genius. The whole game weighs about 5 mega. There are only like 6 or 7 screens in the whole game. But, my god, what they did with that. Nothing is superfluous. The right (or wrong) response in the diplomacy screen can win (or lose) you the game. Spies can turn the tide of battle. Changing your ship designs can turn a losing situation into a winning one. You absolutely must play this game to see what tight, focused game design can do. Warning, you will not be able to put it down for a long, long time. What value for 6 bucks! And you get MOO 2 as well! However, I think MOO 1 is the better game, as it is just insanely addicting. Buy it, now.
So I'm setting up a 1000 point meeting engagement Quick Battle, with random terrain, and I'm picking out my troops, when I realize I've been playing Combat Mission for more than a year, and I've never played with Conscript troops yet. God, they're cheap! I can buy a buttload with my 1000 points! So I do. I chuck in a few conscript halftracks and some tanks, but I make the tanks Regular troops. I let the computer pick the Germans, they will have Regular troops against my conscripts, but I outnumber them 3:1. Now the map. Three Victory flags, left, right, and center. I need to advance and take the flags, the enemy will do the same. I have good cover, trees, etc on the left, not much in the center, and almost none on the right for the advance. No matter, I think, my swarm of conscripts will take that flank. I put my tanks to the left with another swarm. I'm weak in the middle but they are just going to move up to cover and engage. I'll sweep in, then crush the center. I have a lot of troops, but moving them is a snap. I can set up complex move orders with a few clicks. Run to cover, move cautiously to the edge of the trees, go prone and engage, click, click, click. On the right flank, I just drag select the whole swarm and tell them to march to the flag. The center and left flanks get more detailed orders as I want to be sure they get there in one piece. Now I just have to hit Go and see what happens. The first few turns are uneventful. Finally, gunfire. And there, I see why they are called conscripts. With the first shots, at least a third of my right flank panicked and hit the dirt. More shots, and my massive onslaught was in shambles. The whole flank was either eating dirt or running for whatever cover they could find. One more turn, and my plan was in shambles. The tanks had managed to take the left though. I moved whatever infantry I had into buildings and set up a defense there. The center was pinned and not returning fire. To the right, there was one little clump of trees, and half my troops had hightailed it there, while the other half were running for the hills. Now here, I zoomed in on that clump of trees and just kept hitting end turn. More shots would come in, and everyone was panicked or pinned, but I noticed that I had very few casualties. Basically, the sound of gunfire was enough to totally stop them. But by and by, they started to get comfortable with it as long as they stayed in the trees. More end turn. Near the end of the game, their morale had returned to the point I was able to order them, so I ordered them to engage. By now, I think the Germans were low on ammo from plinking away at us, so our fire was having an effect. In the last two turns, I took my least panicked troops and ordered them to advance to cover near the flag. By turn 30, I had put the ownership of that flag in question, and managed a draw.
The game came out when men were men and boys had 100's of hours to sink into each game. As such, the game is brutally unforgiving. I found that out when I lost the friggin' tutorial the first time I played it. Now I'm in the campaign, and it's kicking my butt. The first mission, I started over twice before I won the third time. The second mission, I lost 5 times in a row until finally winning the 6th time. I still give it 5 stars as it's an excellent game, as you will see when you read the other reviews (which I agree with). Still, the difficulty is something I think needed to be brought to the forefront. If your frustration tolerance is low, the campaign may require the purchase of a new keyboard, as it is tempting to break it across your knee following yet another defeat. Having said that, the scenarios do have a difficulty setting.
After about 20 minutes of playing Capitalism Plus for the first time, I almost uninstalled it and gave up on it. Thank god I perservered. Once you get past the learning cliff, the game will grab you and won't let you go. You'll spend hours running your company, usually running it into the ground, then clicking 'New Game' to try a new strategy. Two caveats: One, the game is hard, very hard. If you're like me, and know nothing about running a business, you will probably go broke, even on Very Easy. Out of my first 15 games, I probably went broke within 3 years on 12 of them. Heck, I'm still going broke. And you'll be asking questions, like 'How are my competitors selling their products so cheaply?' 'Why is my store not making money?' Why isn't my ad campaign working?' Rest assured, there are answers to all those questions, and finding out the answers is a big part of the fun of the game, and very satisfying once everything 'clicks' and you're raking in millions. Two, there are no graphics to speak of, and no animations. The only thing that moves are the cargos going in and out of your factories and stores, and the pie charts showing market share. Once again, once you start to understand what's going on under the hood, you'll be looking at those displays with rapt attention, as you try to figure out why cookie sales this year are down from last year. It's amazing that such an ugly game can generate such addiction, but it does. Final verdict: easily worth the 6 bucks, assuming you don't give up on it right away. Go through all the tutorials. I actually went back to some of the tutorials after losing a few games. Give it a chance. If Capitalism Plus gets its hooks into you, you'll get hours of gaming pleasure from it. Yes, even as you go broke for the 5th time.
