![]() ![]() The German armies you face are often on the defensive, but they hold strong positions and can easily retreat to even stronger ones if you manage to dislodge them. ![]() You’d send your simple tank sprites racing along the sparse but evocative hex-grid map of the steppe. The first game was about using breakthrough tactics and clever maneuvers to avoid fighting. This probably sounds strange, considering that we’re talking about a wargame after all, but the biggest change is how much more Unity of Command 2 feels like it is about fighting. It’s fussier than its predecessor, but still more straightforward than, say, XCOM 2. What’s amazing is that Unity of Command 2 manages to encompass all these campaigns and their unique challenges with what amounts to a single new set of fairly self-explanatory game mechanics. It’s a significantly more complicated game as it tries to wrestle with amphibious and airborne invasions, futile mountain campaigns, and grinding attritional campaigns amidst French hedgerows. Also, Soviets are always fun in WW2.Its sequel does not even attempt to repeat this feat as it moves the action from the Eastern Front to the Western Theater containing North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of western Europe. But when it offers chances to strike back, this is a great sample of wargaming. The focus on defending can mean a more passive gameplay approach, and this coupled with many expendable units can result in an exercise in using human molasses to stop a tank, which isn’t always fun. Moscow 41 is an interesting and intermittently fun diversion from the other campaigns, though more hit-or-miss in terms of standout scenarios. It’s not a campaign you should try for a “perfect” score on, by any means. The bonus objectives, which are meant to be tough to nab, are indeed very tough to capture, due to your inferior position in most of these scenarios. While I gripe about the passivity of sitting on the defensive, holding points is generally straightforward and attainable. I think that Moscow 41 is pretty tough, but not unfair (lest we forget Unity of Command 1). Speaking of difficulty, there’s been a bit of hubbub regarding how hard Moscow 41 is, compared to the other campaigns. A particularly cunning general can take advantage of extended German lines to sneak around and cut them off, and there are a fair amount of opportunities for this, but doing so is damn hard. The places where Moscow 41 shines are where it encourages you to push back against the attackers, though frequently doing so is a fool’s errand. Where we had daring rushes across large stretches of steppes to seize a railroad checkpoint, we have several hexes of units twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their turn to have the German army quite literally drive over them. Perhaps it’s because of the largely replaceable and ineffective nature of your units, but I wasn’t grabbed by this DLC like I was with the other ones. Sure, you can protect your supply lines and use your limited command points to tell your guys to pile up sandbags or use that nearby concrete truck to build a fort, but it’s a lot more passive than being on the offensive. While some of the missions involve counter-punches to over-extended German lines, a lot of them are “hold these cities or else, Comrade.” Defending is an interesting change of pace from the rhythm of “attack attack attack” in the other campaigns, and I’m not wholly sold on defending in the UoC2 model. It’s a strange thing to wrap your brain around, after a base game and 2 DLCs worth of campaigns based around keeping core units alive, but you will become hardened, and give nothing more than a curt nod to your conscripts as you toss them into a combat with the projected result of “5:0.” Note the amount of reconstituted units.Īll that being said, you do need men to man the lines, and can’t get too crazy with throwing bodies under tank treads. In practice, this means that a LOT of your units, particularly during the early part of the campaign, are expendable. It’s grim stuff, with many units bearing the “1” tag on their unit cards, signifying they will not return in future battles, likely meaning that the unit in history was wiped from existence. You as the player will be taking the fancy hat of Soviet Marshal, seeking to halt the German advance or at least provide speedbumps, made of lots of conscripts. Speaking of crazy chunks of time, I’m here to talk about the crazy point in time during the defense of Moscow in late 1941, where the Soviet forces were constantly being pushed back, throwing haphazard globs of units into the lines to slow the advancing Germans down (more or less, anyway). Been awhile, huh folks? Sorry for the delay getting this review out, it’s been a really crazy chunk of time. ![]()
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