Strategic War in Europe
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the GameStrategic War in Europe takes you back in time to World War 2.
This game is about:
Panzer Corps
Waves of Infantry
World War 2
Land, Naval and Air battles
Providing supplies
Following the ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ design principle, Strategic War in Europe combines accessibility with a plethora of strategic options. A compact, large-scale map and clear basic rules will not overwhelm you, yet the choices you will be presented with should satisfy all your tactical needs. From overthrowing governments and researching new technologies, to securing air supremacy and supplying your troops by water and railway, Strategic War in Europe is a strategist’s dream.
Seven scenarios with up to 25 controllable countries, each with five scaling difficulty settings make for an incredible replayability. When pitching yourself against the AI is not enough, Strategic War in Europe offers hot-seat and PBEM for all your multiplayer needs. Match your wits in an epic East vs. West showdown or try to survive together as Poland and Norway.
Muster Your Panzer Corps!
Prepare Waves Of Infantry!
The War Begins Now!
Main Features
- Take over one or more of 25 countries, ranging from Nazi Germany to Iraq
- Play through seven unique scenarios, including six historical from 1939 to 1944, and a fictional 1945 West vs. East campaign
- Command hundreds of historical units and leaders
- Declare wars, host elections and carry out coup d’etats
- Experience dozens of historical events with great repercussions on gameplay
- Enjoy tactical battles, with weather, supplies and terrain all being important factors
- Control the skies with air combat, recons, fighter interceptions, bombardment, and even nukes!
- Sail the seas using a naval system that includes convoys, raiders and sea battles
- Manage economy and research
- Fight against your friends in hot-seat and Play By E-Mail multiplayer modes
Steam User 161
This is a turn based, grand strategic, WWII game that can be played to conclusion over a weekend. If you prefer real time, micro management, or first person shooter games, this one is not for you.
I rate the game 9 / 10.
There are numerous negative reviews about this game and before I purchased the game, I read every single review. Personally, the negaitve reviews are just a big ole bunch of whining. Here's why:
1) The game will crash. So what? Save often or upgrade your PC. FYI autosave happens at the end of every turn.
2) The navigation and unit commands are unusual. So what? Read the manual, its full of useful information. Invest the time to learn how to play the game.
3) The balance of play is unsatisfactory (i.e. USSR tank armies are too strong, German forces are overwhelming). So what? Mod the game to your liking or figure out how to win.
Here's why I LOVE THIS GAME.....
1) It is a labratory of history. What if Operation Sea Lion or Operation Felix were successful? What if Germany developed an atomic weapon? What if the Italians stayed out of Greece? What if Spain entered the war? What if the Warsaw uprising of 1944 held and the city reverted to Allied control in between the German and Red Armies? All of these contingencies can be played out in this game.
2) Great value for the price. Steam just lowered the price too.
3) Takes me back to fond memories of other great grand strategic WWII wargames: Third Reich (AH), Storm Across Europe (C64) and High Command (IBM-DOS). Anybody remember these?
Steam User 111
A first impressions review. I've just played my first game without bothering to do the tutorial or read the manual. Of course I lost, but my point is that it's easy enough to figure out how to play it as you go along. Sure, there's things I still don't understand, but my first impression is that it's a quick, fun and easy game to play, even if you don't fully understand everything that's going on.
Some of the game mechanics are a little unusual, but simple enough once you get used to them. Navies are just set and forget, you send them to a sea area and they conduct battles on their own, so there's no naval manoeuvring as such, which is convenient if you just want to concentrate on the land combat. Multiple units can attack an enemy simultaneously, which is a nice touch.
It's a strategic level game of course, as the title indicates, so you have to deal with research, production, supply and so on. I didn't learn much about them in my first game but they seem straightforward enough. Compared to Hearts of Iron or Making History, this is a tiny game that focuses just on Europe. In spite of its relative simplicity (or perhaps because of), this is a great way to experience the European theatre of WW2 quickly, possibly in one sitting, which makes a nice change from games that take weeks to play.
As is typical of wargames, the graphics are hardly state of the art, but they are quite functional, and the game is highly playable as a result. They actually look better (sharper and clearer) than the screenshots above when you play it. There are options to display the map and units in different ways so you can choose the one you like the best.
Some have said that the interface is confusing but it seems straightforward enough to me. Once you become familiar with it you should have no problems. Others have reported crashes and bugs, but I've encountered none so far (I've been playing it on Win XP). Some also say the music is terrible but it sounds fine to me. Maybe they just don't like the style? You can turn it off of course, if you don't like it.
To sum up, this is a fairly simple (but not too simple) game of WW2 in Europe, which can be played quickly and easily on a smallish map. It would suit anyone who's interested in WW2 and wants to replay the entire war quickly and easily, without the insane depth and complexity of games like HOI. As such I think it's an ideal introduction for newcomers to strategic scale wargames.
Steam User 31
As a fan a WWII strategy games I decided to give SWiE a try. The game has several playable scenarios and you can play as any of the axis or allied countries (or multiple). Overall the game is fun and the ability to play different countries makes playing multiple games interesting. You can also choose to nerf or boost individual countries. The game also incorporates some of the historical treaties and invasions of WWII and prompts a player to follow history or go a different way. Playing a single scenario may take 5-10 hours.
A strength of the game is the number of combinations of land, air, and sea units. Land units can be pne of three: infantry, mechanized, or armor. Air units include fighters, tactical bombers, and stategic bombers. Sea units include three types of the following: subs, cruisers, aircraft carriers, and battle ships. These different types coupled with indiviudal unit strengths, levels, experience, and the ability to assign a handful of historical commanders to some of the units creates a variety of attacking strengths.
The negatives would be the AI, lack of Pacific Theater and network play. The AI is fair adept but after replaying it becomes easier and easier to counter upcoming moves. However, this AI is far superior to the AI in the Hasbro Axis and Allies game. The game would be greatly enhanced if the map were expanded to include the Japanese empire. By far the biggest downfall of the game is the ability to play against others online...you simply can't. The game has a play by email option which is almost laughable. I guess they figured nobody would be willing to find someone to play long enough to finish a scenario. Too bad the game makers didn't break down the scenarios into smaller chunks and add network games.
If you are fan of the Axis and Allies board game and looking for a good strategy game, this is a good choice. I would rate it an 8 out of 10.
Steam User 49
A decent entry level strategy game. While not as deep as games such as Hearts of Iron, it offers a fair amount of depth. Things like research and diplomacy are in the game, but not so detailed or timed consumer that they take away from the game. If you are looking for something fun that can be played in a few sittings then consider Strategic war in Europe.
Key points of the game
Unit types:
The types of units include Infantry, Mechanized, Armor, Airborne, Fighters, tactical bombers, strategic Bombers, and a verity of Naval units. Land units (except Airborne which are corps) can be bought as either army or corps. Armies are bigger and thus cost more. Depending on the size and type of unit it will be ready for deployment in 1 - 3 turns.
Research:
Players can research, infantry, armor airplanes, navel, subs and nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are only one level (you either have them or you don't) and once you do you gain a bomb every few turns which can be dropped by one of your strategic bombers.
All the others come in five levels (some countries start at higher levels than others) and each level needs 100 points to reach. Players spend production points to increase research effort in the area of their choice. Any area can have up to three investments (represented by light bulbs), the first one cost 200, but the price for future ones goes down as the research gets closer to the 100 mark. For example if you buy all three investments upfront it will cost you 600 (3 * 200); but if you buy the initial 200 and wait a few turns the next investment might only cost 170. I seen it go as low as 30 when it was 87 out of the 100 needed. Of course once 100 is reached that level is unlocked and all the light bulbs go out and the player must start investing again
Nukes work slightly differently, there is only one level that needs 800 point and the initial investment is 1000 production points.
As new levels unlock better units can be bought at an increased price. For example if you ahve 4 levels of infantry unlocked you can buy them at any of those four levels.
Mod support:
While there is not allot of stuff in the workshop yet the game does allow for mods. Want to change something, simply ask the developers on the forums and they will point you in the right direction. They even explain to one user how to remove the turn limit
Scenarios:
There are a great number of scenarios included; ranging from beginning of D-day (13 turns) to full campaign (70 turns). Other options start with Operation Barbarossa and even a what if, that has the Allies fighting the Russians after the fall of Germany
Play as any country or countries:
One thing I really like is the ability to play as multiple countries. Where most games let you only play one, here you can play as many as you like. This really helps in saturations like the invasion of Russia where in many games the players German troops get stuck behind the AI Italian or minor axis allies forces. In fact if you want to play as all the axis, all the allies or as Russia there is even a quick start where you pick a faction and control all the nations in it
Difficulty set by country:
You can set the difficulty level for each country in the game. The different levels adjust how much income the nations receives. This allows you to boost or subtract from nations for some interesting what if. Say the Italian economy was more in line with the other nations, or America was not the economic powerhouse that it turned out to be.
CONS:
Like any game Strategic War in Europe does come with its faults. The two biggest are: Random crashes and achievements not opening up. In both cases the developers are on the forums discussing the issues and are actively working the solution
Steam User 16
I like this game. It's a simple to learn game with plenty of tactics involved. I'd consider Strategic War in Europe a good introduction into the Grand Strategy genre.
There's a decent variety of units, all of which can either be leveled through battles, or you can spend extra in training them so that they come out at the level you want. There's a basic research and diplomacy which I found a bit disappointing, but I still enjoyed the game.
There are several small bugs in the game, UI mostly, and compared to Paradox Interactive's Grand Strategies, the visual map and map modes are bare in comparison to put it nicely. But it's not a game breaker. They do offer 2 map skins and 3 unit skins, so there's some customization there.
Overall, I think $15 is a bit much considering the bugs and lackluster map modes, but I'd still recommend, since it's a fun game. I'd wait until a sale, $5, maybe $10 at most.
Steam User 18
This is a very strange game, it is somewhat difficult to compare it to many other previous games based on the World War II Europe genre. For example, games like Panzer General, Making history, Axis and Allies or even Diplomacy to name a few. In truth, the closest I could think of to matching this format of game would be the old Avalon Hill tabletop game by the name of Rise and fall of the Third Reich circa 1970s. Although naturally this version is simpler or perhaps even somewhat overly simplified, it is not without its more pleasant charms. For example; the combat system is far less clumsy as well as boasting a production system that is not only fun and innovative but also more than a little challenging.
Before getting to that point however, it must be immediately noted that a patch will be required for anyone running Windows 7 or later. I found the necessary patch on Google, I admit it did take some patience and require no little amount of venting frustration but in the end I am more than pleased with the total game experience. The simple truth is, this is not a game for the arcade player or the typical armchair general.This game will require the player to command at least some knowledge of the second world war in Europe. The A.I.is not overwhelmingly challenging so much as it is historically based. When playing Germany for example, a typical player will most likely be tempted to over-run Poland as quickly as possible in order to focus more quickly on France. What sets this game apart however; is that the allies will not deal with German aggression simply militarily. In fact I have found a refreshing change with this game lies along the channels of diplomacy and containment. In truth the scope is limited only by the imagination and the options available are as broad as one's own individual planning. In short this may be the first wargame set in Europe in which I truly feel that neither side has a clear advantage.
None of this is to say that this particular version is not without its faults or problems. If anything I see it as a "concept game". Innovations in this game may eventually find their way into future ideas.
In conclusion I would recommend this game, if for no other reason, than the price is reasonable and as a "beer and pretzels" concept, it does succeed in delivering what it advertises, no more or less.
With the Pacific theater version, "Storm over the Pacific" now available, I hope to eventually try that one as well for a full war experience.
Hope I was helpful.
Jim
Steam User 42
The game is easy to pick up but at the same time allows you enough freedom and has enough depth to be enjoyable over many replays. You can take command of any of the countries represented in European theatre of WW2, including the small ones, you can also direct several countries, so if you want to e.g. control all Axis, it is possible. The economy and research are very simple, with the main stress placed on combat. The basic scale is corps size, but you can divide and merge units too, which gives a lot of control. In the spirit of simplicity the game displays actual effective strength, not the size of the unit, so you do not need to calculate things like lack of supply commanders etc. Land combat works really well, even modelling things like sieges. Unfortunately naval combat is a bit obscure and boring (especially sub raiding, with the results hidden in advanced reports and not displayed). Still, the game is really fun, easy to mod and occupies the middle ground between simplistic and very complicated wargames.