Unity of Command

Didn’t see anything in the Grognard thread, but I saw this profiled on RPS a while back, and a post on Kotaku (of all places!). Looks like a beer-and-pretzel wargame with a simple interface. Love the art style too.

http://unityofcommand.net/

Out November 15th via Slitherine: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/417/details/UnityofCommand

Yeah, it’s intriguing. The game’s forums have some interesting discussions with the developer, including discussions of the lack of Fog of War and HQ units, stuff like that. It’s the type of game that I’d really love to see a demo of.

Picked this up yesterday on a whim, as it had been getting good pre-release chatter and looked to have some interesting ideas.

I’ve been happily blown away. From firing the game up, playing the extremely well done tutorial, then diving in to some more scenarios I’ve been very impressed.

The graphics looked a tad cartoony in some preview screenshots, but they look quite good in person. The UI is simple and elegant. Hell, simple and elegant describes a lot of this games aspects. It’s obvious a lot of thought went into the design, and the implementation ain’t bad, either.

It’s about as playable as Panzer General, but there’s more depth here with a very good supply system that quite accurately affects gameplay. Ignore your supply lines at your peril, and it’s often in your interest to try to cut off that of the enemy. The AI is very good and quite ruthless, and will make you pay for mistakes.

Unlike PG, the AI is more good than cheap. PG would often obstruct your path with cannon fodder to make it hard to advance, but wasn’t really all that smart. UoC’s AI will go after your supply lines, defend it’s own, and will fall back from untenable positions to form another defensive line in depth between you and your objectives. I haven’t played any scenarios yet where it’s attacking so no idea how well it does there.

Even the tutorial was impressive. It looked standard at first, with a text box describing some game mechanic that you were supposed to emulate before moving on to the next step. But wait - there’s a “reload” button that lets you replay that particular segment until your heart’s content. The devs used that button to good effect, encouraging you to use it to see how movement was affected by different terrain or zones of control, and how combat would work when attacking a variety of units. Won’t take grognards long - I think it took me 10 minutes including the min-battle at the end - but for newbies I think it would give them the opportunity to play around with the various concepts until they “clicked” for them.

So far it seems like $30 well spent.

I dig this. Usually I buy Matrix games, read the manual, and delete them unplayed three months later, but this is right in the groove. It’s mostly beer and pretzels but the supply system adds meat and the UI is terrific.

Yeah I am liking this one as well. It is clean and playable. Could use a NATO symbol mod to get rid of the bobble head stuff but I am sure one of those will come soon enough.

If any of you have played Panzer Corps (the new PG remake), how would you compare the two? I’ve been thinking of picking up one or the other for a beer’n’pretzels run, but can’t decide which.

Don’t fool yourself because of the slightly cartoonish look, Unity is both harder in the game concept, and has a better AI. Unity is the chess to the Panzer Corps checkers (while Garys war in the east is the 4D, 3 player chess)

Unity:´
-Better and harder AI
-Better supply system
-Harder Campaign

Pz Corps:

  • More detailed and varied units
  • A core force that gains xp and progresses with you in the campaign
  • Better Air model

Both games share a major flaw in my opinion, no unit stacking in the same hex.

I’m waiting for Geryk’s opinion.

Yeah it would be awesome to hear Geryk’s review on a game regular human beings would consider playing (rather than a game about crossed cardboard chits that mostly represent mud :)

I’ll definitely pick this up in 2012 when I’ve cleared my 2011 busy season backlog.

Tony

I’m not a hardcore wargamer and I think its great. Its pretty tough at first though until you get serious about guarding your supply lines. If you leave a weak link of Romanian infantry holding a key part of your front (Soviet infantry is always average, while Axis infantry is a mix of good German infantry and awful Romanian and Italian forces that give you a real weak link you have to manage) the AI is very good at breaking through, cutting your supply lines and crippling your offence.

I’d say its a…um…coffee and pretzels wargame. Its not a mechanically complicated game but you’re going to need a clear head to avoid getting cut up by the AI.

Stalingrad in 6 turns! Used so much prestige to reinforce my breakthrough units but it just about worked.

I think the game does much better on the big expansive scenarios with fairly open terrain and longer fronts and supply lines than on the gritty knife-fighty city storming scenarios like Stalingrad though. The game rules make a lot more sense when there’s long front lines and room to maneouvre.

Still loving it, though only being able to save 1 campaign at a time is utter madness.

I got this after reading this thread. A brilliant implementation of a tactical wargame. The UI is just awesome, I wish all war games were like this.

BTW, on my first game “Karkov 2” I managed to get 255 out of 300 prestige. Is that good or do I need to replay it till I get 300? And did any of you use reinforcement from the pool?

Edit: Embarrassed with this but I only obtained 255 for the scenario because I spent 200+ on reinforcements, putting me in prestige deficit for that scenario… Found myself replaying the 1st scenario like 8 times this entire morning to achieve decisive victory without reinforcements! Really enjoyable. But I think it’s a bit hard as the AI seems really strong. Awesome game flow and interface. Can’t recommend it enough. If you are a fan of games like Panzer Gen, Panzer Corp, Strategic Command etc… This is just pure awesomeness.

Oh man, just got this as an early Christmas present (go figure). Took Sevastopol on my first try! Small victory for sure, but this is the most I’ve enjoyed a wargame. I will definitely be playing more of this.

Glad to see it getting so much attention on 3MA as well.

It’s absolutely a blast so far. I’ve been trying the scenarios until I get decisive victories.

By the way, don’t worry too much about having a single save slot in the campaign. There is not rpg elements as each scenario stands alone. The draw is the meta game where u accumulate prestige by beating each scenario using minimal prestige for reinforcements and specialists and achieve the victories required to unlock additional scenarios. E.g. In a scenario, you may need a brilliant victory, which is real hard, to unlock additional scenarios to play in. For me that is the time to spend the carefully saved prestige points and buy that expensive panzer unit or two.

For me, the meta game works out very well. But be warned, it’s not a career type system where u build killer units to bring to various scenarios like panzer general.

A super feature is the record and replay where u can trace through all the moves your and the enemy made in each scenario. Awesome.

It’s a shame not many ppl seem to be noticing this because of the steam sales going on. Perfect gift for Christmas IMO.

Saw Flash of Steel did a podcast on this and looking at it I’m intrigued. Not a huge risk for the price either.

It’s really well done. I’m a fanboi now.

I completed the German campaign with all but the first 3 scenarios being brilliant victories and is now almost done with the Russian campaign with all brilliant victories.

I can’t recommend it enough. Being a non-hardcore war gamer myself, I find the interface extremely well done. Units information is clearly displayed. Zone of control overlays the map beautifully without jarring effects some games exhibit.

A typical scenario will need you to plan ahead and utilize the armor units to punch holes in enemies lines and fortify the breaches with units to achieve success.

The supply system is very well implemented. Supply matters but you can fight for a turn without too much side effects, after that your units is drastically reduced in capability. This makes daring raids into enemy lines possible because u know you can save the units if you plan to link up with your main forces. The amount of tactical choices that can be made is awesome.

The AI is very good at exploiting weakness in your lines and cut your supplies. A miscalculated move will cost you time (and that brilliant victory) as you have to devote forces to cover the breach. I have not noticed any exploitable patterns in the AI behavior and it offers a lot of challenge, especially if you are anal like me and want only brilliant victories.

A thing to note is that there is NO save game slots for you to save and reload for better outcome. Some ppl may find this annoying. This is not much of an issue for me because the typical scenarios are not that long (8-14) turns. Each scenario can be replayed unlimited number of times till you achieve the victory you want. Still some ppl may be turned off by not being able to save and reload, especially if a blunder cost you that brilliant victory at the very last turn! EDIT: If you want to you can restart the scenario by exiting to the campaign map and retry if you made a blunder, you don’t have to do all the turns before restarting.

Like Strategic Command (the first one), this is a really well designed war game that can be picked up easily by casual gamers. They differ in scope and area of concerns (strategic vs tactical/operational) but both are very newbie friendly and most importantly, a tankful of fun!

I grabbed this on a whim based on the Flash-of-Steel review, and am quite pleased with the results. The $30 price-tag concerned me for a bit, since it was hard to tell if it was going to be more of a stripped-down indie game with a slick interface (which would have put it on the pricey side) or a deep “beer’n’pretzels” war-game with a deceptively simple veneer (in which case it would have been a bargain). I’d say the final product is somewhere in the middle, and it’s quite the sweet-spot.

In many senses, the game is not what you might call a “hardcore war game” – a lot of concepts such as air support, artillery, mixed units, and reinforcement are really abstracted and in some senses all mesh together into the unified combat resolution system. However, that system is both intuitive and nuanced enough to provide some really plausible results and present interesting tactical challenges. Likewise, any game that fully incorporates supply lines into your strategy, with multiple levels of supply for units and encirclement becoming a core strategy (and risk!) is far beyond the bounds what I’d consider a “dumbed down” strategy game. Most of the time, I find that advancing through my enemy’s army is no huge challenge – but figuring out how I can secure the bridge/road that keeps my spearhead in supply so that it’s not routed two turns later can be quite the hassle!

I think the heart of what makes it work is the Step/Suppression mechanic on units, combined with the unified “Shift-based” combat resolution. For those not familiar, each “unit” in the game (occupying a single Hex) corresponds to a specific class of division – Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, or Armor. Based on the specific sub-type (Panzer Column, Weirmacht Mountain Division, Romanian Conscripts, etc) the unit will have attack, defense, movement, and armor properties that determine how it behaves in combat. Beyond that, each division contains between one and seven “steps” which represent the manpower in that unit. Thus, a fully manned unit will have seven steps, while one badly needing reinforcements will have only one. When combat occurs, the number of active steps on the unit are multiplied by the base unit values to get the attack/defense/armor values for the division, as would be expected. In addition, however, steps can be replaced by Specialists – things like an attached armor group, towed AT weaponry, an NKVD company to execute your deserters, etc. These replace one of your manpower steps, and add a fixed attack/defense/armor value to your unit (as well as any special abilities).

The neat thing about this system is that you don’t just destroy units by reducing manpower – i.e. treating steps as hit points. Instead, steps can also become “suppressed” as a result of combat, meaning that they are not removed from the unit, but are effectively absent for the purposes of computing combat values. If you let the unit rest while in supply, suppressed steps will recover; however, if you continue push onward past your supply lines (or are under constant enemy fire) you will be able to push your advantage, but be fighting at reduced efficiency. Furthermore, your suppressed steps recover at a rate corresponding to the unit’s veterancy, perfectly balancing how hardened units are much more resilient than green ones in firefights without just giving them a flat bonus to combat. You also have things like Air Strikes, which may kill units outright, but are far more likely to just suppress several of the enemy steps – not really useful on their own, but crucial to softening a target before a ground offensive to break the enemy lines. Likewise, since units need supply to recover suppressed steps, cutting a unit off from supply by encircling it essentially cripples it after a few turns. Even the most elite infantry can be mopped up by Hungarian farm boys when they’ve been cut off for two or three turns. This dual-duty hitpoint system adds a second dimension to the combat and does a great job of incorporating a lot of secondary combat effects into the game, but unifying them into one fairly straightforward mechanic.

Ultimately, all of this just feeds into a simple odds table that determines the results of each combat. Relative advantage in the combat (called “Shift”) is determined by comparing the total attack strength versus the defensive strength, and choosing a value based on the ratio between the two. a 3:1 attack/defense ratio has a very positive value (favoring the attacker) while a 1:1 attack is likely more negative (favoring the defender). Here again, multiple mechanics are rolled into one interface instead of using a bunch of special-case rules: bad weather, rough terrain, and entrenchment all just apply negative shift (moving the lookup towards something favorable to the defender) while elite attacking units, artillery support, and armor “shock” versus infantry all a positive shift.

Each of these factors is clearly displayed with simple iconography before you choose to initiate combat, so rarely is there a case where you can say you weren’t fairly warned about the odds – It’s all laid out right in front of you in big colorful symbols and numbers, and detailed tool-tips if you care to look any deeper. I think the UI is the third pillar of the game, and is easily as much of a triumph as anything else. I won’t go into it too much since I’m already feeling a bit long-winded, but needless to say I’ve almost never been unable to figure out how to do something in this game and the solution NOT be something intuitive. The game comes with a great set of tutorials, but even without them the tool-tips are so clear and useful that many of the elements can be guessed out just by playing it. Of course, there is a tremendous amount of subtlety and strategy and difficulty to the game (as trying to seize the Caucasian oil fields in under 10 turns has proven to me) but it is all part of the game – very little of it comes from having to fight the interface itself.

All in all, it’s the best strategy game I’ve played in a long time – or at least one of the most interesting. I can see some people not being into it because it still is somewhat grognardy, but if you’re remotely interested you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Plus, PBEM!

I’ve got to agree with this. It’s a bit of an unfair comparison because these are specific scenarios and not an open sandbox grand strategy game, but it really puts Civilization 5’s tactical AI to shame and shows what kind of depth can be had in stack-less, one-unit-per-hex combat. Knowing Jon Shafer’s background, I have to think that he’d have liked the game’s tactical combat to get somewhere further in this direction if he could.

I, too, listen to Three Moves Ahead.

I’m playing the Panzer Corps demo now, but I’m a little cautious about it after the comments on TMA (puzzle gameplay, etc.). I might just play Panzer General, then buy Unity of Command, then maybe jump into this copy of Korsun Pocket that’s been sitting on my shelf for years. Does that sound like a safe progression for a new wargamer?

The gameplay is a bit puzzle-like, but it only applies if you are aiming for brilliant victories and if you don’t like to experiment.

This is due to the extreme time constraints required for reaching all the objectives in time and the force composition and location in the scenarios. They used historic information for most scenarios too so some of us may go read up on how the victory was achieved IRL and execute that particular strategy against the AI. But that is more the player’s fault for not being imaginative and see the different tactical possibilities.

I think there are more than one way to achieve brilliant victories in every scenario, (except maybe one German scenario where there seem to be only 1 way to solve it) this is because the specialist steps (e.g. You can attach anti-tank, engineers, rockets, arty, tank steps to your units at cost of prestige that you have accumulated) allows you to strengthen you units in locations of your choosing to achieve breakthroughs. Thus the options open to you is actually quite numerous.

E.g. In a Russian campaign, I remember utilizing 2 elite tank units in very different ways in different play throughs. In the first I charged them down south because my units were bogged there and needed a crucial break through against German veteran units which where holding up my inexperienced units. In a second play-through, I split up the 2 and used one to achieve a breakthrough in the north against 2 very dangerous motorized infantry units and sent the other to support supply line severing activities in the south.

I remember ignoring the scenario advise in one particular game where I rejected pivoting south along a river as stated and brute force my way in the middle with a nicely executed blitzkrieg (the lucky rolls helped) and finished early!

Otherwise, the game play is similar to Panzer General where you typically figure out the best way to reach all the objectives in time and hope the dice rolls well (if you had planned well, as long as the dice don’t roll badly you’ll be good) except that there is no reloading mid scenario here. :)

The game rewards planning, kinda like chess. And like chess, there are many many possible ways to achieve victories.