There are no bad games, only bad people who like them.
What about Duke nukem forever ?
Or Extreme Paintbrawl?
I picked this up a few days ago and really like it. It seems like most computer wargames are complicated for the sake of being complicated (Grigsby and Koger, I’m looking at you), but UoC is much more like a translation of an actual board-wargame. Plus it is operational-level WW2 east front, which is my favorite anyway.
If anyone wants to try a two-player game, PM me. I’m thinking I would probably do about one turn a day, in the evenings.
I think the UI of Unity of Command is simply a joy to use. Most wargames seem to wear a troublesome UI as a badge of honour. Lets hide away the important information, lets coat everything in awkward tables of numbers - lets give you only one item of information, and stick the rest on a keyed toggle, so you can see supply, but not victory objectives, or you can see morale, but not battle strength etc… It seems to me, the UoC devs have at least a grounding in basic User Interaction ergonomics, and they began the process thinking “Now what does the player need to know now, to make his operational decisions!?”.
When I first encountered the Scwherpunkt games, I was very intimidated by their appearance, but once you assimilate the wealth of info presented on the counters, the game is so easy to play at the map level. There’s no meandering around dialog boxes and lists to get to the information, its all there, and it makes your decisions easier to arrive at.
UoC takes the UI at this level, and one step further. To a point where you think this wargame has been made in this decade, rather than one or two decades behind the rest of PC gaming - like most titles.
The one aspect to UoC I completely overlooked was the lack of a fog of war. But I don’t think it hindered my enjoyment, especially on the Eastern Front, at this scale.
Ok this Youtube “review” has me convinced.
He’s still pretty inexperienced but I can see that it’s a sweet game. Kind of reminds me a bit of SSG’s Decisive Battles series the way he talks about “shifts” and how supply works except the actual combat is more Panzer General style simplified.
The price is wonderful and I want to put my money where my mouth is because I’m always complaining about Matrix’s terrible prices. Only thing holding me back is that I sort of wish it was on Steam. I can’t believe Steam turned these guys down-why would they do that? Do they not like money? I suppose I could got with Matrix. I would like to buy directly from the developers themselves so they get the most money but then I worry about losing the installer or just completely forgetting that I’ve even bought the game. That’s one of the nice things about Steam is that all the games you’ve bought from them are presented to you in a big list so you never forget that you actually own them.
The game is also on Gamer’s Gate, which I like a lot more than the Matrix site. I’ll probably get it there.
All of these reasons are why I stopped playing computer wargames and strategy games years ago and started playing board wargames and strategy games. With rare exceptions most computer wargame designers fell in love with their tools to the detriment of gamers, trying to perfectly simulate things that simply defy simulation. Meanwhile there was an opposite movement going on in the board game design community, with designers shifting away from the old Avalon Hill ASL paradigm of rules overload and into much more elegant models. Plus, they introduced new things like card-based engines and experimented with new uses of old things like block-based designs. There is just so much innovation on the board game side that rarely happens on the computer games side, so it’s always great to see a computer game like Unity of Command that is designed to be played by mortals instead of lived vicariously via a Bruce Geryk AAR.
Just click Add A Game, then Add A Non-Steam Game, and add it. It throws it on your list and even adds the little favicon. I’ve had to do this a lot lately now that other digital distribution services are beating Steam’s prices and I’m getting more indie games that aren’t available on Steam.
Agree. And one thing that totally blows my mind is that apparently the entire game is written in Python.
You can also buy it directly from the developers (at unityofcommand.net)
Holy crap, I’d not seen this publisher before (and, according to search, it’s never been mentioned on this forum). Do these play as non-unmanageably as they look?
NO they look much more intimidating than they really are. The UI can be a bit of an acquired taste - but most of the actions can be taken on the board, and right click context menus help. The games are really straight forward operational boardgames, down to combat tables and die rolls to determine winning actions etc. What I found interesting is that all the information you need is crammed into those intimidating counters. Once you get used to the positioning of the details, you really can play from the map, setting up offensives that can bounce retreating units of your lines.
If you look on my web site (sugarfreegamer.com), I have an AAR that takes you through a very simple scenario (the invasion of the Crimea Peninsula) and hopefully you’ll get a taste for how the games play. They get slightly more sophisticated, from RGW (Russo-German War) to AGW (Anglo-German War) to MDE (Middle East), and the dev is now working on a larger more honed evolution of the engine to cover the whole of WW2!
RGW looks very basic now, the maps are not as nice as the later games - but that game is about 11 years old, and a modder managed to take the AGW map and make an equivalent for RGW.
The games are not available for digital download, I bought them from the NWS Online shop and shipped them over to the UK. But they come with a decent manual thats worth a read.
Theres a suprising amount of freedom in the actions you can play out, such as air interdiction, supply, bombing - along with Naval support, before you start shuffling your men and armour chits around the map! I enjoyed the Schwerpunkt games much more than War in the East, but the UI is a bit more basic in places, and obviously not soaked in as much information. Theres normally about 40-50 scenarios and a large campaign to play. The Middle East title runs across Suez, Six Day War and into Iraqi Desert Storm! All good stuff!
I only brought up Schwerpunkt games, because I felt Unity of Command gave you a similar level of information on the counters on the map, and also a similar amount of operational freedom (although Schwepunkt give you more actual support options), but with a much slicker UI.
Heh, when I look at Unity of Command in the Matrix store, the price is in rubles.
I think I love that background music, but I can’t decide.
Actually it was the music that got me too! It’s wonderful! Just the fact that they’ve taken the time to think about something like background music leads me to believe that it must be a great game.
Guess I will pick this up in Matrix’s 2012 Christmas sale.
Just got this off of Gamersgate, lord help me. The extra 15% off pushed me over the edge.
Holy fuck this game is awesome. I love how I can just jump in without even glancing at the manual and everything just comes together naturally. I was a little worried when I saw that there was no tutorial but it’s fine. I got into some trouble with my supply so I’m going to have to read up on that a bit but other than that I think I’m ok. Awesome, awesome game.
So I think Unity of Command is a great game, but is anyone else wishing it were deeper / broader than it is? After getting the hang of what’s here I can’t help but wish something this easy to play and well designed had more meat on its bones.
It’s still an indie game, I think to get an indie TBS with this level of polish and good design you have to accept limitations on content. I think the devs are doing DLC to add more campaigns though.
Also I seem to recall an interview with them saying the AI is purely tactical and opportunistic. It’s a great game but I’m not sure how it would handle bigger scenarios with more extra bits and pieces such as an AI that had to attack as well as defend.
I do wish more of the scenarios were the wide open multi-front affairs this game does so well, some of the later German ones are a bit one dimensional - push down a long railroad and watch your one supply line, or just meatgrinders like Stalingrad.