Commander – Europe at War spans World War II, allowing the player to control the Axis or Allied forces throughout the entire European Theater. Can Germany’s rise be stopped or will the jackboots of the SS march through London? This high level turn-based strategy game offers plenty of depth to satisfy seasoned wargamers while presenting an interface that’s easily accessible to newcomers as well. Fans of strategic war games will find themselves completely at home as they try to hold the Maginot Line, march on Moscow, or clear the shipping lanes of Sea Wolves!

User Reviews about Commander: Europe at War

I've been a fan of WW II strategy games for ages - my original introduction to the genre was through the old boardgames put out by Avalon Hill and SPI in the 1980s. Thus I'm fairly forgiving with computer simulations that allow me to dispense with the bother of unit counters on table top maps. MHC: Europe at War is not meant to be an extensive, detailed summary of the European theatre of WW II, but for what it is, does do a credible job of simulating the feel of the overall campaign.

The control scheme is a bit cumbersome. It's annoying to have to run campaigns on opposite ends of the map, using the keypad arrows to slowly move from one corner to the other. Certainly the DS buttons could have been used more creatively (say, as an alternative for confirming an attack outside of a double-click on the touch screen). The Zoom Out isn't all that bad, however, if one knows how to read standard combat map glyphs (X for infantry units, O for armor, and so on - reminiscent of similar symbols used for decades both on wargaming unit counters and actual military maps). I had no problem using these strategic maps for getting an overall operational picture of the game situation, or for planning my own strategy.

I particularly like the overall flow of the strategic situation simulated by the game, especially when playing the Nazis. One very clearly is on an unseen clock, and if continuous progress is not made, if timetables for knocking out each successive threat are not met, the Wehrmacht player steadily finds himself overwhelmed. Correspondingly, the massive advantage the Axis have in the beginning is offset over time by the successively increasing advantages in resources and numbers amongst the Allies, especially when the Bolsheviks and Americans enter the fray. An effective Allied player then is trying to delay collapse of his front and buy time for the rest of his allies to enter the war.

The mechanism of combat can be tricky, and requires both care with the interface and some operational planning. It is a valid criticism that moving units too quickly can lose one the ability to attack - if the player moves adjacent to an enemy unit, then clicks on something other than a valid target, he loses the option of attacking for that unit on that turn. Likewise, one cannot simply bash a way through enemy forces (unless the attacking units involved are armored or motorized and/or have a substantial technological edge or strength rating advantage). The units targetted are much easier to dislodge or destroy once they are out of supply, making grand envelopments and pincer movements (or Anzio-style landings by sea) critical for speedy conquests (especially in the Eastern theatre). Likewise, units that have been repeatedly pounded from the air are much easier either to send into a retreat or destroy than untouched units at full strength. An enemy that isn't put out of supply, or that isn't harrassed by heavy air and/or sea support, can potentially hold out indefinitely - especially if the unit is dug in and is well supported by reinforcements - but hopefully the player has already learned that lesson from studying the campaigns of WW I.

The AI is very slow, and that really is a problem, especially during a large, nail-biting multi-front campaign with high unit densities. I've never had the AI take more than a few minutes to make a move, but they are long minutes. It's probably the worst part of the game, along with the lack of a multiplayer option (which really is unforgivable, given how easy it should have been to implement, and why I'm forced to dock this game one star). That said, given the complexity of the game, the AI is not nearly as idiotic as I expected it to be - it runs a very good Atlantic War, for example, and as the Germans I have had a very difficult time keeping my submarines alive when going after Allied shipping.

The default settings end the game in 1945, but these can be changed at the beginning, in the Options screen, when setting up a new game. Other options allow the player to set up a "fog of war", or to impose fuel requirements on air, sea and mechanized ground units (something that really hurts the Axis player, just as it did historically). The research system is particularly clever, but I was annoyed by the lack of a "nuclear bomb" research option for the Allies. One problem is that units can either participate in movement/combat, or reinforce, or upgrade to a new technology level. This tends to mean that your most active frontline units tend to be the most technologically backward in your army, but that isn't entirely unreasonable give the scale of the combat being modelled - this simply encouraqes the player to cycle his forces for rest and refitting from time to time.

Lastly, I would have preferred something more elaborate than a statistics screen at the end of a game. There is a film clip in the beginning, so the designers could have put a bit more chrome in at the end of a battle - maybe a ratings system, or a series of different film clips, to give the player some idea of how well they fared.

Overall, however, I am quite satisfied with what the designers were able to accomplish. This is a fairly good, historical simulation of the European theatre of WW II from 1939 to 1945+ (outside of the wacky simulation of a Nazi invasion of North America, of course). I would recommend this game to any old World War II grognard gamer (you know who you are) who wants a quick "old school" wargaming fix on the run. This is a bit like having games like Clash of Steel or Strategic Command in your pocket, which frankly I've been waiting for since playing the better designed but annoyingly cartoonish Advance Wars series. Likewise, if you were disappointed by the operational nature of the battles in Panzer Tactics, and wanted something more by way of a grand strategy simulation, this is definitely your game. I've been playing it myself for a week now, and haven't become bored with it yet. -- Despite some bugs and obvious problems, a good WW II game