Dictator 5 (techumseh review)

From SLeague

Score	Thumb	Title	Description	Reviewer	Designer
22/30		Dictator v.5.0	A scenario of the Second World War. Play as the Third Reich, Imperial Japan, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, China or the United States.	techumseh	Curt Sibling

World War Two scenarios which try to simulate the entire world war are amoung the hardest of all scenarios to do. The designer is faced with a shortage of available civs, challenges keeping the diplomacy running along realistic lines, a number of powerful nations crowded into the small area of Europe, vast areas of unoccupied land and ocean, and an AI that can't handle modern naval operations or strategic warfare. Curt Sibling's fifth version of the Dictator series does a credible job. It has flaws, but it works well anyway. And it's fun to play, which is the main thing.

The scenario is a player's game, with an operational focus. You can invade countries, fight naval battles, land on the beaches and fight for air supremacy to your hearts content. I found it all rather fun, and it had that "just one more turn" quality that makes a good scenario.

I played 2 games, one as the Germans and one as the Americans. The scenario starts after the fall of France and just as the Battle of Britain begins. Events seem designed with the Germans in mind, and make for a moderately challenging and historically realistic game. The Americans have a less interesting time; having to produce masses of units and ferry them across 2 oceans is a bit tiresome. The Japanese are not so challenging to fight, although I was surprised at the vigor of the initial naval offensive. Overall, it has a realistic and historical feel to it.

The Readme file is a bit disappointing. A project of this scale deserves more information for the player. It would be helpful for new players to know a little about what the designer had in mind and what his concept is. They may also want to know a bit about playing it, not to give away all the tricks, but to enhance the enjoyment of it. The author might explain what he's done with wonders and anything else interesting about the scenario. Any quirks or bugs or house rules should be documented. Are we allowed to place B-29s on aircraft carriers, or not? And so on.

The basic design is solid, with 6 playable civs: Germany, Japan, Britain, USSR, US, and China. Vichy France and a few other minor powers are represented by the "Commonwealth". True neutrals are under control of the Barbarians, who have been hex edited into an alliance with all civs. They can't be negotiated with or attacked, so their neutrality is guaranteed. Clever.

The scenario uses a gigamap of the entire globe which is good overall. There are several errors, however. Tibet is wide open and has rail links between India and China, when the Himalayas should extend all the way down to Burma. Central Siberia is empty grassland, when it should be heavily forested. Some city placement is inaccurate as well, eg. Honolulu and Pearl Harbour aren't two different cities.

Graphics are of very good quality, especially the unit and city art. Most are by Fairline and Curt Sibling, both outstanding artists. Icon art is also very good, and the author has taken the time to produce historical art for all the wonders and improvements. I was less impressed with the terrain art that was chosen; it's a bit dull and some of it looks out of place. But that's just a matter of taste.

The author has gone to town on the sounds, many of which are original or new mixes. There are SIX different fighter sounds, not including jets, which is a bit of overkill. For those inclined to play with the sounds on, it's pretty lively.

The tech tree is excellent, having been steadily improved over several versions. It's clear, well organized and balanced. All the bases are covered, with an emphasis on the technological competition to produce new generations of tanks and aircraft. In fact, this "arms race" aspect is one of the strongest aspects of the design. AI civs seem to move through the tech tree at more or less historical rates, which is good. Several techs are reserved for event triggers, such as Operation Overlord.

Events are good overall. The Normandy invasion is particularly well done. Others are good too, such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the allied landings in Italy. The Operation Torch event doesn't seem to work, though. The Japanese Pacific offensive could be stronger and the US Pacific counter-offensive is non-existant.

Events are cluttered with historical pop-up messages unrelated to the game, eg: "British Commandos make a daring raid on the Bordeaux harbour." Huh? They did? These just waste events space. Better to make the events a bit more sophisticated. For example, D-Day wouldn't have happened in Normandy, if the Germans controlled Britain at the time. It would be quite possible to change the location of the invasion to Ireland or south England if the Germans controlled London, for example.

The big weakness of the scenario is the unit mix. The AI simply doesn't build or use many of the excellent units the author has included. It usually builds air units, ignoring offensive ground units. I noticed that in their great contest, the Germans and Soviets used aircraft to clear cities and paratroops to capture them most of the time. When I checked using cheat mode, I found the Soviets didn't build any tanks at all.

These problems are compounded later in the game, once civs can research engineers and railways. The AI starts mass producing engineers at the expense of combat units. The problem gets so severe that cities start to shrink because all the engineers they're supporting use up their food. Clearly a civ in this condition is easy pickings. This tends to happen late in the game, otherwise it could have been a fatal flaw. The author would do well to eliminate railways altogether, as they unbalance a scenario in favor of the human player just by existing.

There's quite a bit of inconsistency between the combat strength of units and their shield cost. The author hasn't rationalized the cost/benefit of the units. For example, the He-111 bomber is less expensive than the 150mm artillery unit, although it has considerably better stats. Perhaps more effort to rationalize the scenario's unit costs might result in better build performance by the AI as well.

For playability, I'd give the Germans 9/10 and the Americans 7/10, for an overall Playability score of 8. Because of the unit build problems and the readme, the General Care is only 6/10. For Art and Originality, I'd give it 8/10, for a total score of 22 out of 30.

Doing a scenario on the world wide conflict that was the Second World War is the most demanding project a Civ2 designer can undertake. This is certainly the best effort so far. Dictator 5.0 has some flaws, but it's a solid piece of work and lots of fun to play. I recommend it.

Download it here: http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=Dictator_%28ToT%29