The Prologue to a Dream of Home
One hundred years before the events of A Dream of Home, Dr. Seth Schumann’s reality simulation is nearly complete. With the birth of the Narcissus Project, Eridean scientists have discovered a means to project the soul as art. Who will finish Schumann’s unfinished masterpiece?
Read More: Best Cold War Experimental Games.
Arms Race - TCWE
Arms Race - The Cold War Era is pretty promising with the way game mechanics work and the AI is good. The recommended strategy in the guide section doesn’t work reliably for me and I ended up using a different strategy. The AI is also pretty good at adapting to what you are doing. The limited 3 budget changes ends up meaning every decision has long term implications.
Most games turn out slightly differently due to the AI choosing different tactics and the randomness of global crisis events.
The game isn’t as full fleshed as say Hearts of Iron but I feel like the mechanics are well thought out and the AI provides a challenge even on easy. It does a good job of abtracting the cold war and reducing decisions to the macro level (‘meaningful decisions’) compared to HoI3/4 which features considerable micromanagement. I personally prefer macro level games (less micromanagement) but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. If you prefer to play M&T in EU4 vs base EU4 or if you prefer to play Darkest Hour/HoI2 vs HoI4 then this is the game for you.
– Real player with 17.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cold War Historical Games.
This is a fun little game which plays a complete run in about 2-3 hours.
It runs through the whole of the cold war and includes extensive historical detail and research - history geerks will enjoy looking through the tech trees and space race just reading some of the interesting commentary.
The game itself is primarily about resource allocation - the resources being influence (generated by diplomats) spies, and military. These three resources allow you to control the board through a variety of diplomatic coups and military intervention.
– Real player with 14.9 hrs in game
Precipice
Its a pretty good 6/10 game that could be great but it can be extreamely frustrating to play. The concepts are behind it are strong and it does provide you with a sense of fighting the cold war, as you fund rebellions, rigs elections, strategically station your troops and try to come out on top of various nuclear confrontations. The art style and aesthetic are also gorgeous and i’d love to see more animalised takes on famous cold war imagery within the game itself.
That being said there are also alot of issues with the game that are also really frustating. The major issue that needs fixing is the lack of infomation giving to the player, especially in regards to how many turns you have left on a crisis or on how many troops an another nation has before you invade (maybe you should see the military strength of a nation when you deploy a spy.
– Real player with 21.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cold War Indie Games.
now that it has updated to a playable state, i can now approve.
08/22/20
I see that this review is one of the first to be read, so allow me to elaborate on some things that could be improved…:
1. Add and/or improve some perks. Example being some perks involve Warsaw/NATO regions that are utterly useless given that these regions have been nerfed to non-existence. Overall more unique perks to choose from would be nice.
2. (kinda 1-B.) Give an option to have Warsaw/NATO regions worth a lot more. If I recall correctly this is how it was originally designed, them removed in the update. I’d say compromise by giving a toggle option.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
Crisis in the Kremlin
Well I’m a Chinese and it’s my first time to write a comment on steam, so if I say something wrong or something you don’t like please forgive me.
For me I want to recommend you to use Romanov or Gromyko. Actually all 4 characters in 1985 have chance to win including Gorbachev, yesterday I play as him and it’s not impossible to save the country but use him will have two problems. One is reformer look like too strong to resist in the CPSU, other one is you cannot extract resources in Africa because you need to make conservative and Stalinism majority to open the mutual-aid in foreign policy part, but you can’t legalize Stalinism when you play as Gorbachev. For Grishin, a conservative, well I think is no problem to use him but I’m Deng supporter. And maybe it’s not a good news that Gromyko died in 1988 though he is really, really good man. So personally I choose Romanov. Year 1985 or 1986 is a better choice because you can change the country more easier.
– Real player with 266.2 hrs in game
It’s incredible really for a game to be so vague in how the mechanics work, so rough in design, so lacking in proper translation (seriously, the translation is a real problem here), and yet, I’d still definitely recommend it to any modern history buff or, of course, any aspiring Red with a taste for revisionism, and what Red doesn’t like a bit of Revisionism? I know I do.
Graphics: Nothing too much to mention here, they’re largely functional, and while many of the event pictures are nice Soviet posters or photographs, beyond that it’s very much just a text adventure with a red border. Not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, but don’t expect a 3D sprite of Yeltsin to go stumbling across the top of the screen in his signature drunken fashion. (Hm, suddenly I feel a real sense of loss)
– Real player with 264.5 hrs in game
Espiocracy
Disclaimer: Trailer & screenshots are early work in progress
GRAND ESPIONAGE STRATEGY
Choose one of 102 countries and guide character-driven national intelligence agency through rough seas of the Cold War. From Soviet KGB and American CIA, up to Israeli Mossad and British MI6, expect different approaches to grand strategy gameplay.
INNOVATIVE MECHANICS
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Espionage finally made as it should be
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Precise modelling of views & ideologies
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Direct links between causes and effects
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System of geopolitically active actors
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Emergent multipolar simulation
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Operation plans, campaigns, and opportunities
MEANINGFUL DECISIONS
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Prioritize grand scale and leave micro to your operatives
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Establish contacts, threaten, exploit, and trade
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Manipulate public opinion, support and establish political factions
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Launch coups and proxy wars, falsify casus belli
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Hunt spies and terrorists, protect internal stability
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Form alliances, prepare all-out attacks, break rules
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Advise country leader on critical decisions such as military interventions
DANGEROUS TIDES OF HISTORY
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Nuclear race: first atom bombs, thermonuclear revolution, mutually assured destruction
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Huge progress in technology, simulated in the game with Kuhn’s paradigm shifts
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After-war poverty, civil wars, controversial past
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Configurable balance between alternate history and determinism
The Cold War Era
If you have an itch for a Cold War themed game, this might scratch the surface. And by that I mean it’s not a complex, grand-scale type of game, but a rather simple, yet fun and engaging little battle of world dominance which can be played in a single session. In fact it doesn’t even have a save feature, so if you want to go all the way make sure you have an hour or two to spare. It plays sort of like a board game, you start with an equal score in January 1950 as either side (US or USSR) and you have to manage and juggle your resources and instruments (like spies) to influence and obtain new countries which add to your score. The game ends in 2000 when the side with the higher score wins.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
Pretty basic gameplay, but its a captivating time sink none the less. Definitely worth a fiver.
Read the manual before playing, it’s simple to pick up if you’ve done that.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
DEFCON
One of those games that is both well programmed and well made to make nuclear war just another giddy joyride.
The game focuses on a world during the late 70’s and early 80’s, where nuclear war is taking place, and up to 6 nations can declare into it, the nations include The European union (and several other nations not currently in the EU) The USSR, (A and some parts of Kazakhstan) Asia (Not Ocenia, Australia, or Mongolia) Lain America (Not including Cuba) Africa, and North America including Canada and the United States.
– Real player with 113.2 hrs in game
This was my first game bought online on steam… years ago. It’s an an-and-off relationship, and recently I got back into it a little, and the old fever caught on again!
Pro:
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not much required in terms of specs (although it can blow the fan a lot in certain situations)
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UI has a great visual design
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soundtrack is fitting
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game mechanics depend on other players to work out one way or another: good online games are common
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interesting game modes, for example: diplomacy. Everyone sees everything at the beginning, being in one team. Who defects first? Lots of maneuvering and chit-chatting among parties and backstabbing! Oh the backstabbing! Boy did we have fun with that!
– Real player with 90.3 hrs in game
First Strike: Classic
I love the game, but it has some issues that bother me. I’d love to see them fixed in an update at some point.
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Sometimes I start the game and there is some kind of bug that doesn’t allow me to click on anything and expand or build nukes/cruise missiles. I end up backing out of the game and starting a new one, then it just starts working and lets me click things.
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I can have a single warhead headed towards my country, but when I send up a missile to take it out, the missile instead goes after missiles heading to/from allies or enemy countries. This means that sometimes I have to send up three or four warheads just to finally hit ONE warhead that is actually about to hit my country. A lot of times I can’t launch that many in time to stop it from hitting mine. This is frustrating. Surely this could be changed so that missiles only target incoming warheads for OUR country only and not outgoing from some other ally/enemy country that aren’t even headed for my country.
– Real player with 170.8 hrs in game
For the past 3 years I have been playing the mobile version waiting for this PC port.
The game has its flaws , but generally I am not disappointed.
-Pros:
+Nice arcade graphic
+Nice set of soundtracks
+Not too hard to master
+Decent replayability
+You get to nuke the world…enough said
-Pros compared to the mobile version:
+It does look much better
+12 unique superweapons , a significant upgrade from the mobile’s 6
+I felt more control of the game
+Savegame
+Diplomacy
-Cons:
+Few bugs here and there
– Real player with 19.8 hrs in game
Socialism Simulator
At first I loved this game. What a fun and cheeky way to go though some of history’s greatest failed states ;-)
Either other people got the GOOD VERSION, as in the code in their game works, or the achievement system is somewhat broken in it’s link to steam.
Where the hell are these “multiple endings” they were talking about? There seems to really be only three. Either you die of old age, your people betray and overthrow you, or they goal of your State is fulfilled. To be fair, the NK knock off actually did offer more than three endings.
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
Okey… finally won on each of the four campaigns… this game is fucking amazing, thats all that im going to say.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall
It’s hard to really describe what makes this game so much fun.
Is it the ability to save the Warsaw Pact? Maybe, but that’s not quite it.
Is it the possibility of reforming the Eastern Bloc? Hm, perhaps…oh, no, got it!
It’s the ability to do both those things, while building an excessive number of TV towers and imagining that you’re broadcasting the amazing in-game soundtrack to every citizen of Europe, constantly, at 100 decibels, forever.
Seriously though, this is one of the best ‘small’ games I’ve played in a while now. It’s fairly short, spanning three ingame years, and although you can go longer, not much really happens after 1992, but what happens in those years is enthralling.
– Real player with 258.0 hrs in game
Reminds me of the old-school Paradox Interactive games. You want tooltips? Clear explanations of what is what? Too bad. Stare at a statistics screen for a while, you’ll figure it out.
There is a neat game here, but good luck surviving for even a year. It is very hard.
edit: Okay, I have played enough I can write a little more.
Did you play Crisis in the Kremlin? It was about leading the USSR through the time of political turmoil and reform when there were many factors that would eventually bring the country to its collapse into many autonomous states. In the game you had a lot of freedom to pursue your goal. You could become a liberal reformer, play as a hardline-communist or somewhere in-between with many other variations. However, you were the main actor. You could decide how you would play. The only real condition of the game was “don’t let the USSR collapse outright.”
– Real player with 250.2 hrs in game