Congratulations Master of Command, as you’ve passed your three-hour audition with flying customisable colours, Tally-Ho Corner’s next available feature slot (07/11/25) is all yours. Your next challenge is keeping me entertained for a full week.
Gosh, that was fun. Although my first MoC campaign just ended in a crushing defeat, the road to the hopelessly lopsided Battle of Hildburghausen was paved with so many memorable events and thought-provoking choices, the inglorious destination seems relatively unimportant.
While this new £22.50* Ultimate General-style creation from Armchair History Interactive comes with a trad linear campaign composed of scripted historical battles, the main attraction is a rogueish option in which you march a customisable army around a strat map, fighting dynamic battles, replenishing resources, and (ideally) growing in strength and confidence as you go.
* Until Nov 3. £25 thereafter.
Whichever faction and sub-campaign you select in this mode, the ultimate goal remains the same: cultivate an army capable of defeating the foe’s ‘headquarters’ force before winter comes. At present, I’m not quite sure how I feel about MoC’s unavoidable ‘boss fights’ (more thoughts on this topic next week) but I’m loving the freedom, freshness, and colour AHI have stitched into their martial rambles.
Pre-release talk of flag design, mascots, equippable coffee pots, and myriad weapon and ammo types, meant I launched MoC for the first time with a degree of trepidation. Would unit titivation trump tactics, and inter-mission management end up horribly onerous? Had the devs lost sight of wargaming fundamentals in their pursuit of period flavour? It turns out I needn’t have worried. Right now, I think I’m actually enjoying between-battles activities like equipping and upgrading units, trading and recruiting in towns…
and navigating the imaginative IF-style event dialogues…
more than the scraps triggered when two or more army busts meet on the strat map.
At the tactical level, although MoC is certainly engaging, ergonomic, and easy on eyes on ears, during my last couple of engagements I’ve started to notice things that may become irritants and illusion-injurers over time. Things like units firing at targets deep within woodland…
and infantry and cavalry blithely ignoring rivers and lakes…
In campaign no. 2 I plan to pay more attention to Master of Command’s battlefield AI, ballistics, and LoS modelling. Expect thoughts on these dimensions, along with mature campaign reflections, and lavish praise of the game’s lovely art…
on November 7.
Seems promising at that price point. Especially if the developers continue to iron out any rough patches. I expect I’ll pick it up this week.