Swords and Sandals Crusader Redux
I’ve played all the version of Swords and Sandals.
I like the franchise.
I also, suggested to some friends to buy the “Swords & Sandals Crusader Redux”
But there are major issues I have with the game, regardless of the bugs.
As I always say, bugs can be corrected, but fundamentals always remain.
My problems are mainly with the fundamentals that drive the game, if it makes any sense…
This review is more about addressing the fundamental issues I have with how the game operates and the design of it’s mechanics - most of all, rather than a suggestion not to buy the game. Because if you don’t have any problems with the issues ill state, then certainly go ahead and buy the game.
– Real player with 26.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy RPG 2D Games.
I played this on version 1.0.5C so some of the bugs or rng stuff(I know Oliver - [game maker] must have add some of these) or locked features the game had to offer are no more. Just giving it a note.
SaS Crusader Redux - I never though any of the future Oliver’s games could beat my all-time favourite SaS2ER classic, but this one did it! It’s greatest SaS game to me so far, and I can’t wait to play every other game mode it has to offer in the future!
This game solves all the frustating problems the original Crusader had. One really good thing to say about this game to compare it to the original Crusader, Pirates, and maybe some other SaS games is that it’s totally not RNG(randomness) based, it truly feels like a strategy game to me, or just a game where simply human skill matters and is on top, not your luck, a good example to show that, is that I managed to win at #1st place all the knights tournaments in a row that I had during the campaign mode. This is fantastic!
– Real player with 25.4 hrs in game
Conquest!
For the type of game this is, it is well polished! I spend countless hours a day playing it and the community is nice and talkative too!
This is a game that you use up movement points for, then return in a little bit. Very strategic, lots of possiblities on what to do within the game, and a great balance on how long an “age” lasts. (ages are like seasons for other games)
There’s much more that i can say about this game than i can here, but I gave it a 4/5. The details are shown in my video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vt-7MwCviQ&t=29s
– Real player with 60.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy RPG 2D Games.
Loving the game so far, very friendly and helpful developers in the discord as well. after playing the game for 20 hours or so, its a lot more in depth then the style would have you believe from the different classes and how they work, to the diverse amount of spells that can do anything from give you resources, reinforcements during fights, and just straight kill you. The game is definitely worth trying at least if you like strategy games.
– Real player with 54.2 hrs in game
Lost Patrol
As a kid, I used to play this game on the Commodore Amiga when it first came out….it was frustratingly hard, but had a good story and was really atmospheric (including the music).
When I saw it on Steam, I was really excited and looked forward to trying out an ‘old classic’ again.
Unfortunately, the game has no sound and the controls (after figuring them out) can only be described as horrendous, at best. No mouse, no instruction, no music, and I’m sure a couple of the features don’t work. Such a shame - not a good version of the game.
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy RPG Tactical RPG Games.
WARSAW
Some words to describe this game in the first place: dark, difficult, sad, beautiful and mind-blowing.
-As a history fan myself, I love this game; it contains beautiful artworks and a sad background, characters and encounters' artworks are worth collecting. You can see those faded historical moment vividly, while not as grand as those moments of Normandy, Pacific or Stalingrad, it gives people that feeling.
-As for the gameplay, not only the combat is difficult, player also has to manage the resources and ammunition they’ve got (yes, there’s an independent “supply” consumable item for purchasing stuff); unlike other games, this one is based on a true history event, with the ending of the story set, a heavy-hearted player must try to help those men and women to survive longer before they meet their ultimate destiny of doom. For me, it is like a mixture of darkest dungeon, this war of mine and valiant heart.
– Real player with 100.1 hrs in game
(Hopefully) FINAL UPDATE:
One month ago I said that I would keep my WARSAW review negative until more changes for the better were made to the game. I saw changes being made, MANY changes, so here I am again. So, with that being said, let’s (again) get to the bulk of it now (this time trying to not let emotions get too in the way of things like in my original review).
WARSAW had a VERY rocky launch but now it has been polished and updated so much that it can barely be compared to the way that it launched in. Game became better in basically every department, along with getting more content too.
– Real player with 87.5 hrs in game
Field of Glory II: Medieval
This is a fantastic game, but it’s not for everybody.
What it is:
The best generator of realistic tactical ‘battle narrative’ covering the period available on PC - wild swings of fortune, men uncontrollably pursuing and fleeing. The goal is to drive the enemy from the field, with morale and terrain being the key factors. It’s unforgiving, with an extremely high skill ceiling - though I at least found the series approachable playing against the AI at lower difficulties. The feel of tabletop wargaming, but with the computer adjudicating all the math, and obviously sans all the painting of expensive minis.
– Real player with 472.7 hrs in game
A terrific game. A wargamer’s dream. You have all the units, the great models (especially the knights), and the tactics. A very large multiplayer scene with zillions of official tournaments organised by Slitherine and competitions organised by players such as the infamous Digital League (see the Slitherine forum for news on all the competitions). This would be one of the best PC wargames of the decade in my view. And, there are plans for further DLCs covering the Crusades and Late Medieval period. The development and updates are constant.
– Real player with 263.4 hrs in game
Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
I am very happy with the new “Fight for Freedom”. I am a big fan of “The Pacific”. The game plays well like the other Starni titles. The developers have always been attentive to the players concerns.
This title IMO seems to be a little more inline with historical information, more or less. That is my only negative for “The Pacific”
If I have any negative feedback so far is with the music. Tracks like the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” are USA civil war music. If developers are going to use music it should be era tracks. There are numerous WWII era music tracks that are much more fitting for the Allies and the Axis. For me the wrong music departs from immersion. So I do not let it play.
– Real player with 117.2 hrs in game
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the graphics and especially the hexes are extremely shiny and weird looking, like everything is constantly soaking wet and neon lit
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the videos are interminable and filled with atrocious voice acting. it’s a blessing that you can skip them
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history is at best a very rough guide to the theme only and mission design takes no account of it ex: Germans and UK with hordes of tanks in Norway (along with ZERO French presence), giant Norwegian navy fighting the Germans off of Norway, absolutely massive British airforce showing up once the airfield is captured… it’s a clown show that makes Panzer Corps look like a serious historical take by contrast
– Real player with 53.0 hrs in game
Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism
This is an outstanding game, and the first of the Strategic Mind games I have played
I’ve played almost all the panzer corps and the other many WWII wargames that use similar, and often improved, mechanics. This game is very similar in its basic concept but much improved. It is much more immersive in the well voice-acted cut-scenes before and after scenarios, and some dialogue during a scenario. Your units are also quite chatty (reminiscent of Stronghold) and I’m particularly fond of the female bomber pilots.
– Real player with 357.5 hrs in game
IN A WORD: WORTHWHILE
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: WWII strategy wargame. Tactical turn-based battles. Narrative linked campaign of 20x historical battles. Cutscene briefings with voice-overs. Command a core force. RPG style army and unit customisation. A number of genuine stand-out combat mechanics. Detailed prestige reward model. HQ unit and command points Requires much more strategic planning than other games in the genre. Scenarios can feel heavily scripted and overbalanced. Some GUI ailments. Single-player only.
– Real player with 70.3 hrs in game
Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty
A story from the legends, but in real history
Winter War: over 500,000 Soviet soldiers attack Finland, a country with a population of 3,700,000, and the Finns drive them back, inflicting 5 times their own casualties. Continuation War: the Reds return with a total strength of 1,500,000 - almost half of the entire Finnish population - and the Finns stop them again. Finland’s survival in these two brutal wars against an enemy so vast was a true historical miracle. A miracle of heroism and valor. A miracle of the Finnish spirit of liberty.
Experience heroic struggle and make tough choices
You are the commander of the scarce Finnish troops. Your only goal - to save your homeland and your people from total annihilation. Would you risk losing your experienced troops to try and capture the enemy tanks? Would you try to save the stragglers during the retreat and risk losing everyone, or cut your losses and establish a new line of defense? Would you agree to negotiate with the Soviets that had treacherously attacked you twice before?
Play two campaigns: historical and “what if”
Historical campaign
Play through a number of missions throughout the 1939-1945 timeline, spanning three wars: Winter War, Continuation War, and Lapland War. The historical campaign will have smaller-scale but action-packed operations, covering all of the iconic historical battles.
Alternate history campaign
Play a shorter campaign with larger operations, centered around the “what if” events. Help the Germans take Leningrad, cut off the allied aid shipments to USSR by taking the port of Murmansk - that is only the beginning.
Immerse yourself into the (hi)story-driven gameplay
Primary and secondary objectives
Complete numerous objectives grounded in history and narrated by a number of historical characters.
Cinematics before and after each operation
Watch history unfold through the eyes of the key historical figures of the time - over 60 minutes of in-game cinematics with characters such as Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Risto Heikki Ryti, and others.
Create and grow the army of your own design
Variety is the spice of war
The Finns had only 12 Vickers British tanks in 1939 against up to 6000 Soviet tanks. Even the odds by getting units from various other countries, and shape your rag-tag forces into a well-oiled war machine.
Trophies for everyone!
Where Finnish production is struggling to catch up, make up for it by taking advanced equipment from the enemy. Turn the Soviet guns against their creators.
Faithfully recreated historical units
Command the Finnish ski troops and captured Soviet vehicles, including BT-7, T-34, and KV tanks. Purchase German Pz-IV tanks, StuG assault guns, and Ju-88 bombers. Make use of pre-war British Bristol Blenheim bombers, covered by Dutch Fokker and US Buffalo fighter planes.
Upgrade your units to newer models
Make sure your forces are always up to date and up to the task. New models become available at historically accurate points in time.
Train your troops and choose equipment
Gain combat experience
Choose various skills for your men as they gain combat experience.
Combine units from different classes
Compose your own force from ten classes available: Infantry, Artillery, Tanks, Reconnaissance units, Assault guns, Armored trains, Anti-tank guns, Anti-aircraft guns, Fighters, and Tactical bombers. Utilize their unique skills and equipment to maximum effect.
Acquire diverse equipment
Equip units with various special equipment, such as Machine guns, Mortars, Smoke grenades, Anti-tank rifles and Molotov cocktails, Winter equipment, and many more.
Use transport vehicles
In the harsh Finnish winter, speed may be the difference between life and death. Provide your units with vehicles to improve their mobility, or have your Infantry use skis to outmaneuver the enemy in winter operations.
Assign historical heroes to your units
Unique heroes system
Every unit in your army could meet certain high requirements to generate a historical personality - a hero with a unique set of powerful skills.
The deadliest sniper in WW2 history - Simo Häyhä - will join your troops
With 542 confirmed kills, and an unconfirmed total number of 705, not only was Simo Häyhä the deadliest sniper of World War II, but perhaps the deadliest sniper of all time. His nickname “the White Death” was well-earned.
Manage your Headquarters between the operations
Learn Headquarters skills
Choose in which direction your HQ staff will improve as the campaign progresses. Your decisions will result in new passive and active abilities for various units: your artillery could fire twice per turn, or you could call in the air reconnaissance to get better intel on the enemy positions.
Get promotions and awards
Every operation is an opportunity to get new ranks and awards, increasing your Command points, which are used to activate your Headquarters skills and deploy more units.
Confer with your staff
Consult other high-ranking officers for their opinion on the upcoming battle, and get useful advice.
Use elaborate combat mechanics to overcome any foe
Manage Lethal vs Nonlethal damage
There are two types of damage: lethal and nonlethal. Dealing nonlethal damage to your enemies will make them surrender. Different units are prone to deal either lethal or nonlethal.
Use terrain differences to your advantage
Tanks are vulnerable in difficult terrain and cities, while Infantry can occupy buildings or hide in the forests to gain large defensive bonuses. All units suffer large penalties in swamps or while crossing a river, etc. Be aware of your surroundings, and use them to your advantage.
Take the “line of sight” and the “zone of control” into consideration
Some terrain and building obstruct firing unless you are using artillery or mortars. Approaching an enemy unit up close will finish your movement, unless you are using a Recon unit.
Activate various skills and equipment
Use incendiary or subcaliber shells to maximize your damage to the enemy. Order forced march in the most desperate situations. Employ aerobatics to increase your air force efficiency. Use your HQ skills to affect the entire battlefield.
Use a complex spotting system that represents the importance of reconnaissance
Call upon the air and ground reconnaissance to gather intel about the enemy before ordering your troops forward. No one likes to be ambushed.
Adapt to various battlefield conditions
There is a day-night cycle in the game as well as weather types such as frost or rain. All of these conditions impose penalties that must be countered with special equipment and skills. The finest of your troops may even use such conditions to their advantage. Use the cover of the night to sneak up on the enemy, or strike when the foe is freezing and immobilized.
Utilize the most advanced supply and infrastructure system in the genre
Ammunition and fuel
All units have limited ammo and fuel. Without ammo, your units cannot fight, and without fuel, your vehicles cannot move - and any aircraft will simply crash.
Supply hubs
Generate supplies and transfer them to your troops throughout an entire system, like a heart pumping blood through veins.
Supply points
Connect different infrastructure facilities and redistribute supplies. Supply points also allow your troops to change special equipment and renew its charges.
Airfield
Allows aircraft units to land for refuelling, repairs, and refit of equipment. Damage to the airfield would also damage all landed aircraft.
Seaport
Allows resupply and change of equipment for naval units. It also generates supplies, if there is a maritime hub nearby and the Seaport is not under enemy blockade.
Damage the infrastructure
All infrastructure facilities can be disabled if their HP drops to 50% or lower. It will then gradually regain its HP and its functionality. Strike at the enemy facilities to prevent them from resupplying.
Cut off the enemy supply lines
All infrastructure facilities are considered connected if a simple truck vehicle could move between them in one go. If you put your unit between the enemy facilities, it would create a zone of control, and prevent the enemy from transferring supplies. Leave the enemy units without much needed ammunition and fuel, then hunt them down.
Make sure your own units are supplied
There is a limit to how far your supply vehicles can deliver supplies - make sure you take that into account when planning your next offensive.
Welcome the successor
Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty is the fifth installment in the Strategic Mind line of games, featuring Finland in its 3 wars during WW2. It has two campaigns: historical and alternate history one.
Previous titles in the series:
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Strategic Mind: The Pacific - the first game, featuring both the United States and the Empire of Japan waging war in the Pacific.
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Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - the second game, featuring Germany in WW2.
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Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism - the third game, featuring the USSR in WW2.
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Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom is the fourth game, featuring both the United Kingdom and the United States in WW2 European and Africa theaters.
Warlike
This is a delightful little indie game. It’s focused and simple, but works in what it wants to accomplish. I bought because I’m old as the mountains and it made me remember playing the ancient Brotherbund Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It did scratch that itch and added some other elements from old school gaming that I really liked.
The reviews saying it’s unbalanced are kind of wrong and also not getting the point. Differently good leader picks is how you set the difficulty, but since this is organic and not spelled out a lot of gamers seem to miss what it actually does. The units are not terribly imbalanced either. Skeleton archer do a lot of damage, but you can deal with them if you’ve made proper strategic choices. Nor is this an RNG fest (I hate those kind of games, see my review of The Darkest Dungeon if you want to see me being salty about such nonsense). It is stately and predictable, you weighs risk vs reward and get to think a little bit about your next few moves. Old school indeed.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
A well-rounded and entertaining game, especially considering the price. Everything runs super-smoothly and I am yet to see a bug. You need to think ahead in this game as selling or using up too many reinforcements before a major battle can cause you to die. Overall, I really like the gameplay.
There are still some things that could be ironed out in future patches, like unit balancing and gold gain, but this is IMO pretty minor, and I have no doubts in the dev’s dilligence. Game is otherwise solid.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa
It’s sort of a medium-heavy version of Gary Grigsby’s War in the East, some of the more arcane details tracked in WitE are extrapolated here. But not many, the logistics system is still very realistic in that if you don’t pay more attention to it than about anything else, your army groups are going to grind to a halt.
It also has considerably more internal political realism that WitE, you have relationships with all the generals in OKH/OKW and your theater commanders and of course Hitler, and how good or bad those relationships are can significantly alter gameplay. There are even small story lines, like your Chief of Staff is being a jerk and pissing off all the theater commanders, but he’s von Brauchitsch’s (your CO) nephew and you have to figure out what to do with him.
– Real player with 1209.0 hrs in game
I am a grand strategy junkie. I love world military history and am a master of Hoi 1,2 &3. I also have played ck2, panzer corps and other games in the multitudes of genres to death. I have stayed away from these Decisive Campaigns because of what I perceived as a limited scope. I said to myself, I don’t want to just fight to paris or just to fight the eastern front then have the game be over. This kept me away for years from these types of games and damn I’ve been cheating myself.
This game is the perfect mix of strategy, tactical combat and role playing. It is a an excellent addition to any fan of military history, strategy, tactics or lovers of the turn based game. What is so very unique is the multitude of decisions you get to make as the overall commander of operation Barbarosa. I can not stress enough the journey you get to make as both officers above and below you haggle, beg, demand and interfere with how you execute the war. While these games have been around awhile, they are relatively new to steam and this is absolutely a fresh take on ww2 that I’d like to see more of……what this game does absolutely better then another other is put you in the generals chair.
– Real player with 677.5 hrs in game