Attack at Dawn: North Africa
Attack at Dawn: North Africa is a strategy game set in WW2 North African theatre. In the game you take command of battalions, brigades, divisions and air wings. The game begins with the German troops probing into the Libyan region of Cyrenaica, and finishes either with the total defeat of German-Italian Panzer Armee, or with the British loss of Egypt and their retreat across the Suez Canal.
FAST AND INTENSIVE GAMEPLAY
The game can be played in a Real-Time, or Turn-Based (WeGo) mode. That reflects the speed and chaos of the desert mobile warfare. Combine this with the fog of war, and the experience of being in command vehicle of a Panzer Corps comes to life. The game will immerse you in one of the most intensive and nerve-wrecking experiences of the Second World War.
POLISHED INTERFACE
Game map and the units have been designed to be uncluttered, informative and easy to understand. You can choose how will your units look like: as top-view models or unit counters. With the ability to zoom out and see the entire battlefield with a glance, you will have the best possible situational awareness.
HISTORICAL
The game features campaigns and scenarios - both historical and hypothetical. They have been designed after an in-depth research of the historical orders of battle and battle histories. Special attention was given to the composition of the armies, combat values of individual units and overall authenticity of each scenario. Check out our series of maps and historical articles that were created based on our research: https://www.attackatdawn.com/news/categories/blog
LARGE MAP
The game features a large map, covering a distance of almost 2000 kilometres and you can use the Scenario Editor provided within the game to create your own scenarios anywhere on this large battleground. Starting at the bay of Sirte in Libya and spreading to Suez Canal in Egypt, the terrain varies between sea, desert, mountains, wadis, ports… There is one long asphalt road “Via Balbia” spanning the whole length of the map, and a handful of well-known desert tracks leading towards the deep Sahara.
Read More: Best RTS World War II Games.
Rome: Total War™ - Alexander
Oliver Stone’s Alexander Revisited being one of my favorite sword and sandal epics, I was looking forward to playing this standalone expansion after having finished Rome: Total War.
Big mistake; should have played Alexander before Rome’s Grand Gampaign, as this feels like another tutotial campaign with many limitations compared to the Grand Campaign.
Not only is the world map smaller (in the sense that there is only Asia to conquer but this is something we all expected), no, even the Asia part is SMALLER than its size in the regular Grand Campaign of Rome Total War!
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best RTS Grand Strategy Games.
I finally got around to playing this 2006 expansion (11 years old) to a 2004 game (13 years ago) that at the time was a true gamechanger and a “game of the year” level historical RTS game. The age is important to note because from my experience, the lack of recent patches has made the game buggy on, say, Windows 10. There was a particular bug which sometimes (maybe 33%?) led to game crashes in the transition from the battlefield back to the world map. What that meant (and because the battlefield can take a while) is that I had to do frequently crazy saves (some 2-3 minutes apart). And that’s because there’s nothing quite as annoying as pulling off a brilliant battlefield win (that you easily could have lost)… and then have to do it all over again !
– Real player with 37.0 hrs in game
M.A.X. 2: Mechanized Assault & Exploration
I’e always liked this game. I’ve played it +1000 hours on a different account.
It’s very simple, easy to learn, a lifetime to master.
5 different types of humans, plus a pod species much like Alien(s). You can choose or do it random. Six different maps. 1-on-1 up to 5-on-1. You can call it a city builder, but then again, you could call Napoleon an adventurer.
Never plays the same way twice.
– Real player with 322.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best RTS Turn-Based Strategy Games.
DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Having played the original M.A.X., which was brilliant, I thought that I would try M.A.X. 2. Game loaded OK and it took a little time to work out what the differences from the original game were. This resulted in me taking about 1 1/2 hours to get to turn number 36 when the game crashed. It had done an automatic save at turn 35 so started the game again and again it crashed. I then checked that my system was compatible with the program, loaded it up again and tried a different scenario. It crashed again around turn 30. After two more scenarios and crashes I had spent 4hours trying to get it to work and thought that a refund was in order. Of course steams rules say so refund after 2 hours. How on earth do they expect people to test a game, that always crashes, in two hours. The game should be taken off their site until the software anomalies have been rectified.
– Real player with 143.6 hrs in game
Lords of the Realm II
As someone who started playing strategy games years after this game came out, I’d never heard of the Lords of the Realm series until a couple months ago. After watching a video showing this game’s gameplay and seeing that it was basically a more primitive Total War game with some unique twists, I went “What the heck” and bought it.
I was not disappointed.
Gameplay has you managing your kingdom and armies on the turn-based map. You keep your people fed (grain cattle), assign your peasants to gather resources (iron, wood, and stone), forge weapons, build and upgrade castles, and raise and move armies. You have to check on your provinces each season to make sure your peasants are all working and you’re not going to starve, but this is easily done with the Idle Peasant button on the minimap.
– Real player with 92.7 hrs in game
I will preface this Review by saying that I had very little idea what I was getting into when I bought this game. I remebered hearing about it, and heard that it was a hidden gem of retro games or somthing. I was looking for somthing Fairly inexpensive and Slightly entertaining, I decided, hey I know that this game is on steam, it looks mildly fun, I saw the low price tag of less than five dollars and thought, well it’s really cheap, I might as well buy the whole set of the lords series while I’m at it, and so, having spent 13 dollars on some games from the early to late 90s, decided to play them. quickly, I discovered that they didn’t work due to my computer being so new, and so I spent about an hour getting them to work. that was an hour of boring work while spent though, because one of those games was Lords of the Realm II.
– Real player with 55.6 hrs in game
ValeGuard
ValeGuard places you as a commander charged with the protection of the Vale. You journey town to town and with the assistance of heroes and villagers, you build and strategize during the day to prepare for assaults that can come at any given night. Each village has a set amount of days in which to defend before the arrival of the big baddies on the final night. This all leads to the big show down with the Big Bad Head Honcho and his Dark Generals…don’t worry, the final boss isn’t named ‘Big Bad Head Honcho.’ If your heroes die or the Inn is destroyed, game over…and I think we can all agree that a village without access to booze simply deserves to go up in flames. So keep that sweet, precious Inn upright.
– Real player with 48.7 hrs in game
Early Access (5/14/18): I am really enjoying my time with this game. ValeGuard is an addicting mix of Tower Defense, Real-Time Strategy, and City Building. Each village (level) has a different setup, so you’ll want to figure out where you want to build, and where to defend. There are many types of heros with different abilities that will also level up after experiencing some combat. If those heros surive they will also be carried over to the next village (I was very happy to see that). The game has depth to it, and there are a few different systems in place that you must keep in mind to be really efficient, but it’s not super complex or the type of game that is going to take a long time to figure out either. Once you hit that sweet spot of increasing your population, so they can do different tasks, while building up an army and improving your heros it gets really satisfying to see your plans come to fruition. Also, some great music that really sets a mood that goes well with this type of game (if you like good and relaxing video game music I recommend getting the soundtrack). As of this review I am over 4 hours in, and it already feels polished and more complete than any Early Access game I’ve played. The game starts at a great price, so if it sounds like something you’d enjoy I’d say give it a shot.
– Real player with 20.7 hrs in game
Siegecraft Commander
EDIT: almost 12 hrs to end the campaign, difficulty is not very high just now but a couple of last levels required some specific approach to be beaten. Still had to try the online multiplayer, great game anyway, VR owner insterested in strategy should really watch on this one.
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I need to wrote a review even if I’m just at the start, because this is a VR game than could be played also with a monitor, and many negative reviews came from monitor players (where you can play best RTS of the world). They miss anyway the virtual reality implementation, than is just gorgeous.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Siegecraft Commander is an interesting take on the RTS form, where instead of constructing buildings to spawn units which you would then micro, you are managing a variety of structures. First is your Keep, which is your home - losing it means a loss. From here you can spawn a variety of buildings, such as Outposts, a sort of cannon-fodder structure used to rapidly expand your base, Garrisons, which can spawn unit-spawning buildings as well as repair utilities, and the Armory, which is used to build offensive structures.
– Real player with 10.1 hrs in game
Total War: WARHAMMER II
As you can see I have a TON of hours in this game. Absolutely fantastic, best 4X game I’ve ever played with unparalleled battles in a setting that can’t be beat. Simply the best strategy game out there bar none.
– Real player with 2201.7 hrs in game
Graphics/animations: 9/10 (zoom in for awesome animations)
Fidelity to the franchise: 9/10
Replayability: 8/10
AI: 3/10
Depth: 10/10
There are only four negatives. One you feel nickel and dimed for all the expansions, but it’s worth it. Two the AI and seige battles are very problematic. The AI…is…well…stupid…compare the AI to games like Starcraft 2 and you’ll quickly find yourself wanting human opponents. Online ladder needs a rework and the loading time for the campaign map is long. But other than that it’s a fantastic game. 7.6/10 Over 1300 hours played.
– Real player with 1414.4 hrs in game
Total War: WARHAMMER
I’ve played total war games since Rome and I have to say that yes, it’s BS that you have to pay another 60 bucks (easy) to get the “full experience” and even MORE SO to pay 4 flippin dollars for BLOOD EFFECTS in a TOTAL WAR game; yet with that being said, this is probably the most epic, amazing, awesome game that I have in my library thus far- can’t tell you how many times I banged my head against inanimate objects before taking a step back and appreciating the algorithmic-type cunning that the AI uses against you; as well as the deep and engaging gameplay aspects- morale has always been a thing but steamrolling an entire Orc Waaaaagh by concentrating fire and having nearby units re-charge the lines, close to routing, themselves- is fantastic.
– Real player with 408.1 hrs in game
It’s worth the money and a little more
– Real player with 289.8 hrs in game
Divinity: Dragon Commander
This review contains of three parts:
1. What game is it actually/what does it contain?
2. How do I feel about certain parts of it?
3. Summary.
1. Divinity : Dragon Commander
This game is an interesting mixture of turn-based strategy, RTS with a possibility of turning to TPP and continuing the fight, and to some degree a Empire builder. I will use few comparisions in order to describe it for newcommers. If You liked Total War series for the turn based strategy and the possibility to command Your troops on a RTS battlefield, but You found both parts a bit too complex this game may just fit Your taste. How is the RTS part handling? Well it can be compared to Warhammer 40K Dawn of War, but again in a more simplistic way. The places on which You build are not only limited but also fixed, and the whole game is basing on the land controll with one resource involved. The number of units avaiable is smaller and there are no fraction specyfic units. That doesn’t mean that there is no micro/macro cntroll involved. In fact the ‘rock-paper-scissors’ mechanic seems fair enough and even the most low tech units remain usable in late-campagin matches thanks to their special abilities. Storyline? Hymmm. I can’t say I did not sink into it, but it really is a rather linear story with one ending. Again I would compare it to the Witcher style of handling the storyline. You can do various things by anwsering many choices. There are no good anwsers as each option rewards ou with something and punishes You with a other one. But ultimately there are three acts, that lead the main storyline. You can either win the campagin or loose it. There is also a random campagin mode that takes out only one part of the story and gives You a chance of discovering personal plots and endings without the need to go through the same three maps again. Multiplayer. As it stands the UI is a bit lacking at the moment but still the matches give a lot of fun. With dragons fighting in the skies while micro managing their armies and macro managing the factories the RTS gets really interesting.
– Real player with 92.5 hrs in game
It’s a pretty good game that could have been really awesome. They were really ambitious with it.
The main issue is that they didn’t have the budget for this one and Divinity Original sin, which they were developing at the same time.
So they had to pick one or the other, and they picked D:OS, which makes sense because it was more in line with what they’re good at doing.
Even so, Dragon Commander got made, though they ended up cutting a HUGE amount of content. Like, the game that you see is about 30% of the final product that they strung together and published before moving over to D:OS
– Real player with 55.6 hrs in game
M.A.X.: Mechanized Assault & Exploration
By far IMO the most inviting game I have ever played has everything. A must have for strategic players of resource , exploation and combat. Its graphics could use a redo but MAX is tremandous again IMO. The games are lokb the combat is awesome staratgy very key.
Con: Game plays well vs one opp. 1 Funab vs, AI exoert good solid game.
But go with a Human vs. 2 AI game crashes. just like it did when it was released and was never updated or patched properly
MAX 2 came out….Absolutly SUCKED!
This release on Steam was dreat down side is NO Mulyi player Abilty to connect to other uman OPP.
– Real player with 672.5 hrs in game
Freedom to upgrade anything you want, however you want, and whenever you want! This game is the only game that allows such freedom, I have yet to play any strategy game with such freedom to upgrade. Because of this base building is fun, your upgraded turrets kill everything at a distance allowing you to just build to your hearts content. There are 2 ways to upgrade, gold for instant upgrade and research buildings which take a number of turns. AI is not to bad and will rush you if you have poor defenses early on. However once you have built a strong base with a number of long range missiles and anti air defenses, the AI attacks on your base becomes easy to defeat. Despite how old a game this is, it is still the best base building game that i come back to when i have the itch to build a base.
– Real player with 121.2 hrs in game