…a five-quid TBT from the team behind Orbi Universo (a game I once described as “Civ without bourgeois luxuries like maps and movable warriors”). Set in a gently fictionalised WW2 Stalingrad, this new release sandwiches thought-provoking force management sessions between its campaign outings.
The squads you manoeuvre are persistent, demoralisable, and composed of individual soldiers who require rations, weapons, ammo, and, sometimes, fuel and medicines, to remain effective. Some resources can be scavenged during battles. Others must be purchased between scenarios using score-related mission rewards.
A few missions into the German ‘Empire’ campaign, my early concerns about unimaginative combat mechanics and small venues have largely dissipated. While I’m still searching for camera rotation keys, and ways to streamline a few aspects of squad replenishment and reinforcement, stealth-friendly maps, a growing cast of assignable specialists (‘sniper’, ‘butcher’, ‘dog’…) and the periodic introduction of elements like armour and off-map artillery, are keeping war-weariness at bay pretty efficiently at the moment.
Once again you reveal to me a strategy war game I am unaware of and I am usually aware of most of them before they come out. Well done sir!
Wow, this looks so up my alley! And thank you for reminding me of Orbi Universo, I somehow failed to wishlist it way back when