|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All the unit slots in the GIF file are used up. This gives you a lot of different military weapons to work with. It is much better this way than having a standard infantry, tank, cannon, fighter and bomber. Instead there are different models with different statistics that correspond to how successful that unit actually was in the war. I enjoyed commanding a force composed of British, Indians and Poles to take Taranto while at the same time commanding a force of U.S. GI's to take Palermo. The bombers and many fighters have a range more than one. This allows bombers to be intercepted on their way to their targets and an unfamilar concept comes into action, the "dogfight". Fighters take on a new role as you end their turn on the same square as a bomber just for protection. John made good use of the events, but could have done a little more. His events really did set the mood. For example, I got the feeling of competition between Patton and Montgomery even though I controlled them both. When Messina is captured, a message says that Patton made it there hours before Montgomery does. It goes on and says reports "chew up the story and Patton loves every minute of it." There are the other entertaining events. For example, when Monty dies, it says that Rommel cries over losing his favourite enemy but Patton dances an Irish Jig. That was great. My only problem with playability is the massive amount of units involved. The scenario requires this to be so for historical accuracy, but I think John could have used the extra event space to help this out. He could have shaved off several transports and instead used the random turn trigger and create unit action. Most of the units you don't use at first for battle because you have to wait for your air support to do the trick. If not, well I'll just call it lambs to the slaughter :-). |
The tanks and aircraft are appropriately named after real models used during the war. This also contributed to the mood. Cities were accurately placed and spelled. Actually, I would say they were superbly placed. There is enough to fill up the map but not enough to confine all the fighting to urban combat. Most of the fighting was done on the open fields which I liked. He took care of your leader's title. I was glad to see "General" instead of "High Priest". Impossible situations were eliminated. You could not do research and discover strange technologies. Your cities didn't produce much so you couldn't build an empire. Subs were placed everywhere to prevent transports unloading men at the mouth of the Tiber and skipping the Gustav line. John misses a point here because of the readme. Large scenarios like this require large readmes. The readme is often considered unimportant by the scenario maker. John did an acceptable job with it, but because of the diversity of units he should have explained more about their strengths and weaknesses and give strategy hints. Many players will make many mistakes on the first turn and see the massive amount of casualties they've taken and quit. A little help with information on how to capture a city would have been nice. |
How can you mark this guy off for originality? Offers a different perspective on WW2, the Allies. I don't think there are many scenarios out there where you can attack Italy as the Allies (or even play as them). A whole new type of scenario was introduced to us here. A campaign. Good for those people who like WW2 but are tired of the standard WW2 scenarios. |
| NOTES: This is a great scenario and if you are good at Civ2 it can be a lot of fun. At first the turns drag but as you progress (and have a unit shortage) you will be wishing those first couple of turns would have dragged even longer. |
HTML Design by Blackclove and Monk