Airships: Conquer the Skies
-All statements are relevant as of 1/31/21. No guarantees are made for future versions of Airships!-
Let me start off by saying that I am utterly and hopelessly addicted to this game.
Ever since I bought Airships (Or ACTS, as I’ll be using) back in late 2018, I fell in love with it. The game’s kept giving, the developer has remained true to his word and an amazing gentleman, and the community (Especially on the Discord) continues to grow and develop in wondrous ways. As I don’t expect you to go through my various paragraphs of gushing, I’ll put the TL;DR statement here:
– Real player with 424.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Combat Mechs Games.
Pretty cool game for those who like relatively free-form building, designing units to deal damage and mitigate it for themselves. Especially if you’re into diesel- and/or steampunk.
The things you have to account for and balance out in a unit’s design are quite numerous and varied; Everything costs something and everything weighs something. A ship’s maximum altitude - which is very important -is determined by its weight vs. lift, for example. This is probably the strongest part of the game.
So in combat, you’ll be witnessing how those designs fare against the NPC (or enemy player) units; Did you actually give your ship enough coal to stay aloft through the average battle? Oh, it turns out this one has a massive structural weakness and will be cut in half by one or two rockets. Great job!
– Real player with 82.3 hrs in game
Battle Fleet 2
Now six years later I thought I would take a look one last time at a now classic turn based game. If you remember the old Panzer General series games or if you loved Naval tactical games. Then Battle Fleet 2 may be for you. Let’s take one last look at what Battlefleet 2 did well and what they can do to improve if they continue the series.
PROS
Game play: Let’s face it. You don’t need much for great naval fun. It has a lot to offer for the price. Great Carriers, subs, destroyers, planes, all on an overhead risk type map. Solid sounds, effects, colors, layouts, all you need to get started.
– Real player with 97.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Combat Simulation Games.
There are two parts of the game, the overall map of the pacific and naval battles. Both are turn-based.
The naval battles are fun if you enjoy turn-based fights based largely upon positioning your ships and estimating distances. Though unfortunately, you don’t choose the starting formation of your fleet. It is definitely satisfying to see the shell hit from over a mile away, you can really feel the distance between the ships, and then see it crash into the ship and possibly disable some critical component such as one of their guns, or engine. The armament of your ships will also play a role in how things go. For example, the submarine can be shielded from most damage by being submerged, but can only hit the enemy from 1500 yards while the largest guns have a range of 4000 yards. It pays to have a versatile fleet. The enemy may have a tightly formed fleet with many AA guns, making your carriers less effective, or battleships with big guns but few/no torpedos, making your subs more effective. The battleship can otherwise outshoot anything, but can fall prey to repeated airstrikes from an aircraft carrier that is too far away to shoot. Ramming is possible and could be fun, but I’ve only accidently rammed my own ships. Try not to do that. When your ships can destroy the enemy from miles away, you tend not to end up getting so close. The AI on hard provides enough of a challenge to be interesting.
– Real player with 94.1 hrs in game
Navy Strike
Navy Strike is a fine flight sim from Rowan Software from teh MS-DOS era, however this release of the game has been sloppily done by the publisher - the dosbox settings have not been optimised (which is a problem for anyone who is not familiar with dosbox and so not aware they can fix these up themselves) and the have stripped the music out of the game - the music was originally on the cd, but as no cd image is mounted with this games install, only the sound effects will play and not the dynamic music
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Naval Combat Simulation Games.
Sadly, this Rowan public domain classic game, Navy Strike, only runs in a minimized DOS box with no apparent way to maximize into anything approaching a full window. And critically, the game runs at only about 4fps, and without its dynamic music (and yes, music is turned ON.)
Back in the day on a 486, this game ran beautifully, but on a newish Win 10 computer it appears to be a non-starter.
Disappointing.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Victory At Sea Pacific
Dev activity
They’re quite active. They reply promptly to direct contact on the Discord and are equally ready to implement suggestions into the game. Most notably when it comes to expanding modding support. Some reviews claim the game is dead or the devs have run off so the patch history follows.
9-14-2018 Public release, 9-19-2018 Patch 1.0.4, 9-20-2018 Patch 1.0.5, 9-25-2018 Patch 1.0.6, 9-28-2018 Patch 1.0.7, 10-5-2018 Patch 1.1, 10-11-2018 Patch 1.1.1, 10-18-2018 Patch 1.1.2, 10-26-2018 Patch 1.1.3, 10-30-2018 Patch 1.1.4, 11-8-2018 Patch 1.1.5, 11-23-2018 Patch 1.2 (introduced modding), 11-26-2018 Patch 1.2.0p2, 11-27-2018 Patch 1.2.0p3, 12-17-2018 Patch 1.2.1, 12-20-2018 Patch 1.2.1p3, 12-21-2018 Patch 1.2.1p4, 1-9-2019 Patch 1.2.2, 1-11-2019 Patch 1.2.2p1, 1-23-2019 Patch 1.2.3, 3-4-2019 Patch 1.3.1 Royal Navy added, 4-2-2019 Patch 1.4 Custom battles, 6-19-2019 Patch 1.5 Minor factions, 10-30-2019 Patch 1.6, 11-4-2019 Patch 1.6.1, 11-13-2019 Patch 1.6.2, 2-6-2020 Patch 1.7, 2-7-2020 Patch 1.7.0p1, 2-26-2020 Patch 1.7.1
– Real player with 181.7 hrs in game
As someone who really want’s to like this game, and I truly do want to like it, I’m sorry to say that I can’t really recommend this game in it’s current state. The gameplay is fine and can be fun, specifically when your right up in the action having the ship maneuver to avoid torpedoes and air attacks, and launching submarine attacks on convoys and task forces.
But while the core gameplay is really solid, the fact that it is so filled with bugs and glitches makes it really difficult to enjoy what’s there. Ships can just disappear from a taskforce, even though it is possible to find their models and still click and control them manually. I’ve had a case where I lost an entire taskforce of submarines to limbo because of a glitch despite the fact I was able to use said submarines to sink a flotilla’s worth of destroyers. I’ve had a similar case where I lost three battleships to limbo when I tried to control them manually.
– Real player with 133.5 hrs in game
Frozenheim
First, the TL;DR: While the game still feels rough around the edges, it is a fun game if you like games/matches that can last as little as 30 minutes and as long as 3 hours (exploring to get Ragnarök).
GREAT:
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Aesthetically pleasing with good music
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Building options
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Enough maps (4) to play skirmishes, games and 2 campaigns
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Minor customization (color selection) of your colony
NEUTRAL:
- You colony can expand 3 times, each with prerequisites and materials required, but the expansion is small. Depending on your starting location, it can matter a lot or none at all.
– Real player with 247.5 hrs in game
Game, building and personal information:
(Detailed)
- Frozenheim a “serene Norse city builder” that absolutely feels serene when focused on creating a settlement. I begin with just a Jarl’s longhouse and a handful of citizens standing around, and I build a lumber camp, fishing and hunting huts, a gathering station (for stone), and then a training camp so I can begin to create some soldiers. I put down some houses to grow my population, and there are windmills for wheat fields and farmhouses but they won’t generate resources in the harsh winters that cover the world in snow and ice so be aware of that.
– Real player with 65.0 hrs in game
Battleships and Carriers - WW2 Battleship Game
Total FRUSTRATION! Ui is gamer unfriendly. You start out with default chosen units IN CAMPAIGNS. You CANNOT change them. In scenarios YES but not campaigns. Why NOT allow the player to choose their own units in campaigns? Also WHY no multiplayer?
@BurgerKing 1941 Dev,
This game could have been so much better if you had allowed more customization in the settings. I see you made a second game based on the American/Japanese War in the Pacific. Is it pretty much like this one? Basic ui & hardly any customization allowed in the settings?
– Real player with 42.5 hrs in game
Unfortunately the game is buggy and I have not had a reply from the listed email for reporting the bugs. The error messages are all seem to be in Czech.
– Real player with 36.7 hrs in game
Gemini Wars
“So i had around 40 hours in this game, it is not good it is not bad either. Missions lack in challenge, they are mostly the same, protect this, defeat that. The later part where the aliens apears was slightly better but i wish game is longer, more ship classes and details. However for people who like this kind of game its okay. Graphics, could be better, much better.
Would i recommend this game?
Game recieved many negative reviews,and mostly because it didnt deserve positive ones, for the current price of 14,99EUR i wouldnt recommend this game. If you find it on sale, for cheap, try it, you wont lost anything except few hours of your life. I would give positive on this one since i did had fun in skirmish with this game, and because i love some of the ship designs. Otherwise if there is neutral button i would hit instead.
– Real player with 43.6 hrs in game
This game feels like it is still in beta with all the glitches.
Pros:
Good concept. I enjoy how quickly bases can be built if you have the resources which makes comebacks not entirely out of the picture. Easy to pick up.
Cons:
Ships will shake violently when trying to move and sometimes won’t even move when part of a large selected group. AI is horrible for skirmishes. I played a skirmish where the AI player sent its starting construction ship to where I was building my fleet about 5 minutes into the game and it was destroyed easily ending the game.
– Real player with 28.0 hrs in game
Eormor: Shattered Lands
Instant Action!
Nice strategic thinking!
Play and continue whenever you want!
– Real player with 82.8 hrs in game
Fun, good gameplay. The AI is ruthless
– Real player with 24.2 hrs in game
Frontline: Panzer Blitzkrieg!
Simple little simulation. NOT going to test an Avalon Hill fan. Wait for it to be on sale, as it has no scenario designer so you only get what it comes with. Limited replayability. A few minor glitches where the game wont let you attack or even move into a grid that you should be able to. So sometimes, you cant eliminate an enemy unit.
– Real player with 110.0 hrs in game
just got the 4 game bundle was looking for a break from high stress turn base games the bigger devs make .
wow was this a surprise a lot is packed into the game some is not , so will not be for everyone .
but looking for a good shot out game with minimal supply planning this can be it .
One thing I like is no max turns just objectives But you have to keep going since you will run out of supply but collecting objectives or Parachute drops gets you more . I played on normal and a few battles had to restart .
– Real player with 56.7 hrs in game
Frontline: World War II
the animations are nice and the system is well made. Use the tactics of the era and you’ll do just fine.
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
IN A WORD: MAYBE
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: WW2 themed turn-based wargame. ‘Beer and pretzel’ play style. Attritional combat model. Chess-like battles. Unit class levelling and combat abilities. Tactical combat states. Tiny hex-grid maps. Good-looking combat models. No core force. Dynamically purchased order of battle. Some annoying bugs. GUI obfuscated game rules/mechanics. Incomplete scenario implementation. Active dev. Single-player only.
ACHIEVEMENTS: NONE.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game