Unity of Command II - this time it's 3d

I think that’s a problem with the first campaign - the Black Turn DLC starts off with some curbstompings that are a very good way to learn the dynamics of the game (playing as the German player, of course) while the Red Turn one has some good Soviet scenarios that allow for experimentation on.

Unity of Command is definitely at the operational scale, not tactical. Strategic Command is strategical modeled down to operational.

/OCD

Sounds great!

Yes, I was thinking if I had correctly demarcated the gameplay genres. You’re right. Would it be fair to say, UoC is sort of like Operational/Tactical?

You’re literally killing Juan right now.

Seriously though, I never made it past the first tutorial mission last week so I look forward to playing this now.

I cleared the first Theatre.

Was loads of fun with Easy mode. The Objectives are all can be captured without feeling that I’m solving a puzzle. The game play is a lot more “natural”, I felt like there are many ways possible that I could reach all the objectives in time.

The HQ turns out to be HUGE in how you can breach seemingly unbreakable positions. The special abilities like feign attacks and suppression as well as emergency supplies are crucial. It would appear that saving prestige to tech up the HQ’s are key to how the other Theaters may become.

The ability to create supply depots are also quite an innovation, so is the capability to capture the enemy’s depots, they basically serve to resupply your near by units as well for 1 turn, on the turn you captured it. You can also build supply depots and allocate points to them. This is crucial in the 3rd mission.

In the 3rd mission, you’re required to rebuild bridges so that your supply depots can use the roads. Without repairing the bridges, it’s impossible to move forward, let alone win.

I had to replay the 2nd mission once to achieve all objectives. But I am surprised that I did the 3rd mission with 1 retry also after figuring the bridge and depot mechanics.

So, I dont think constant replay is necessary to achieve progress like the 1st UoC.

Regarding the how the Campaign may branch, I’m still not sure. I’m at the Conference Screen after finishing the 1 Theater. I’ll report back when I have more to say.

I’m selecting potential upgrades for my US HQ. As you can see, I have bumped up my Command Points to 7, and I have improved the special abilities (indicated by the gold dots), an Emergency Supply only cost 2 points instead of 3. So are the other abilities. This means that I can resupply up to 3 out of supply units per turn. It’s extremely powerful.

To improve your HQ, you can do it at conference AND during the missions, make sure to seize objectives with the units attached to the HQ you want to improve, every objective seized when your HQ is in range offers a choice of abilities to improve on. Save some prestige for those that require prestige to buy, but the choices will contain at least 1 free of prestige costs.

Yeah - it’s not quite as boiled down as UoC I was, but I like the flexibility about attacks, particularly the suppressing fire, even at the slight cost of making it feel a bit more gamey than UoC’s abstractions did. Onto Sicily last night, and the landing mechanics seem pretty elegant though.

And the AI is pleasingly just as vicious as finding the gaps in your front line.

Am I blind or does the game enforce an iron man save style?

The scenario can be replayed. But moves you make within each scenario is final. (There’s a single move rollback of travel.)

Getting further. Looking good. Some of the scenarios required me to hold defences instead of just executing flanking. The usage of paratroops is also key to victory I feel. Disrupting enemy supplies allowed me to destroy a huge concentration of armour and mechanized forces I could not possibly take upfront. So it’s true to form of the original UoC, but with less fiddly and puzzley gameplay.

I found something interesting on the Strategic Map.

I paid the 50 prestige for the Rush for the Apennines thinking that I’ll not be able to do the Operation Overlord missions.

But paying for that Campaign Path allowed me to take on both set of missions!

Seems like it would be a strange game design decision to make you skip Overlord. Maybe the rush option us just a different mission chain?

True. But I was not sure if they built in some fantasy scenarios where you can strike at Germany from the south.

Never played UoC, is it like Panzer General? How is the dynamic campaign in this?

It shares the same basic concepts and scale with Panzer General, but the game is very different in execution. UoC is more interested in manoeuvre warfare - encirclement, supply lines, that sort of thing - rather than PG’s focus on tactical assault. UoC is also much more streamlined: far fewer types of units, far simpler tactical situations. But I personally don’t think it compares unfavourably for that: less complexity but perhaps more depth. Also the AI is much superior in UoC. It will ruthlessly cut off your troops if you overextend.

The campaign in UoC is not dynamic. It’s a series of missions, some of which are gated behind having done well in previous missions. Sometimes you get a bit of choice over which mission to do next, but you’ll do them all at some point.

I’ve yet to play UoC2 (too much backlog), but I don’t get the impression it’s changed all that much in structure.

Ah I was asking about the UoC2 campaign because they advertise it as ‘dynamic’.

There’s is persistence in your HQ units mission to mission.

There might be also persistence in the individual units, but I’m unsure (would explain why landing on Italy was so difficult).

The game so far has, like the first one, an amazing UI for showing supply and operational matters, and at the same time it’s equally horrible at showing combat strength.

I managed to beat most of the first one going by the tutorials and UI, but for this one the added complexity means the next step before restarting the campaign will be a full read of the manual.

I’m finding it a totally successful refresh of the original, though. Most of my early concerns (too much detail losing the focus of the game) are moot. it’s still definitely and satisfyingly beer and pretzely.

There is. The levels that I had gain and the specialist units that I had attached to units seem to carry through in each theatre. I am currently bogged down in later scenarios after Normandy because I that wildly sacrificed my armor units in earlier scenarios; my armor units starts off very weak.