And fair enough regarding Barbarossa. I’m actually inclined to agree with you regarding the imbalances in the political layer and the fact that the German side is definitely more fun/fleshed out than the Soviet. I personally attribute that to the fact that you’re Stalin himself when playing the USSR, while you play as Franz Halder with the Germans, and it’s simply more fun and challenging dealing with meddling superiors and needy subordinates. Plus, as with any historical strategy game from my experience, there is an innate appeal to playing as the historical losers to see if you can do any better.
I can also kind of see what you mean regarding potential propagation of the “clean Wehrmacht” myth with the presentation of the German side in the game, as there’s definitely an emphasis on the aristocratic Prussian mindset of most of the German generals to contrast with the ideologically-guided whims of Hitler, Himmler, etc. While this was certainly true, at times the game sometimes plays it up a bit too much, which can easily lead some players to overly sympathetic views to some figures: e.g., Fedor von Bock was certainly an outspoken general, but he also never once filed a complaint regarding the treatment of civilians by the SS or his own troops.
That said, I think the flaws there are largely offset by decisions elsewhere, such as the German game beginning with your choice to take the personal oath of loyalty to Hitler and agree (or disagree) with his war aims in the east. Above all, however, the fact that the game chooses to portray the atrocities in the east at all - something I think it does rather well overall, despite these and other issues - I think sets it head and shoulders above its competition. I’m of the opinion that games that try to be “above it all” and depict solely the military aspect of the Eastern Front often do far more to perpetuate the “clean Wehrmacht” myth.
Apologies for the mini-wall of text; as you can probably tell, I’m quite the fan of DC:B, flaws and all. While I know it will likely get me burnt at the stake by the Grognard Inquisition, I actually find it the superior game when compared to War in the East, though the latter certainly beats it in terms of scope.
No worries, the Inquisition can stay in the dungeon playing whist or some 16th century game of cards :) and I do think that DC:B did better in capturing the drama of the first 6 months of the war in the East.
I like reading about a game where someone is really passionate about it. That often leads me to great discoveries. You definitely got me to put DC:B in my cart.
For the third opinion on the matter, I feel like that those kinds of descriptions are the only thing that keeps me thinking that one day I’ll get into the damn genre, as it seems so daunting even for someone who loves strategy games. Haven’t been feeling like trying new things for a while either, so it might take a while.
I liked War in the West. I thought the air system was an improvement on that of War in the East. The Italian campaign doesn’t interest me as much as other theaters in WW2, but it was still good to learn something about it. I haven’t played any WiTE DLC. My favorite Grigsby game is still War in the Pacific / Admiral’s Edition, though.
I’m an outlier, but the only Decisive Campaigns game that grabbed me was Case Blue, flaws and all. Possibly because it was the first one I tried? I wanted to love Barbarossa, and all that political stuff was cool, but for whatever reason I never got into it. I should try it again. The cards were a neat idea.
Specialist wargaming developer “The Lordz Games Studio” and “Check Your 6!” board game developer Scott Fisher are happy to announce bringing the multiple award winning and popular set of WWII air combat rules and scenario books to the digital gaming arena.
I’ve always been sad that Bigtime Software switched over to Combat Mission and never made the planned third game of the series that was supposed to be set in the Pacific.
I’m not sure how many personnel changes there were in the transition from Big Time Software to Battlefront, but part of me thinks the Pacific game never got made in part due to a lack of interest on the developers’ parts. Unless something has changed recently, any time folks inquired about the possibility of a Combat Mission: Guadalcanal or something like that, they just got straightforward “Nope, because we’re not interested” answers from Battlefront.
