For a minute there, I thought I had stumbled onto a computer version of an old GDW or SPI wargame. Strategic Command: European Theater brought back memories of wishing that someone would stop the cat from knocking over my stacks of cardboard game pieces lined up on the Eastern Front in SPI's great Operation Typhoon wargame.
But, to be sure, SC: ET is not quite 'Operation Typhoon.' Neither, thankfully, is it the tragically poor computer version of the Avalon Hill's Third Reich boardgame. Strategic Command: ET is a good balance of strategic and certain operational principles. I found it fairly easy to learn, but difficult to master until I found the battle rhythm of using combined arms of the various units, supply lines, entrenchment levels, and the balance between cproduction and research.
Overall, I found the game very enjoyable. I played each level as the Axis, starting with the Default (normal, no advantage) setting. The AI is fairly aggressive, and does a good job positioning and repositioning forces. It concentraes forces well, and uses entrenchment values and airpower to slow down the Axis advance toward Moscow. It also uses Allied seapower and airpower very well, aggressively looking for opportunities to invade France (and even Norway) in 1942 after I had taken both fairly early in the game. When the US enters the war in Dec 1941, it begins pouring units into England. This led me to find a key to the game: build U-Boats as soon as you take France, and keep launching them from the Atlantic seaboard French ports.
I found that if I invested heavily in U-Boats, and set up a serious network of submarines between the US and England, it enbaled me to leave a minimum force defending France, stopped any early threat of invasion in France by the US and England, help Italy take North Africa and even invade Spain, and allowed me to wipe out Russia on any level of the game at the latest by early 1944.
Overall, this is a great game, and well worth the price.
