Strategic Command Classic: Global Conflict Reviews

It's great fun taking over the whole world, and the map isn't so huge that it takes weeks, it takes me a solid 2 days as Axis. Although it's hard to win as Axis the game has a great editor, you can edit to make whatever makes the game fun and winable for you.

I played this a lot 10+ years ago and recently found it again on Steam (it's a game from a small company that I bought direct back in the day). Not a flashy interface like some newer games, but a great way to "what if" a variety of WW2 alternatives. Want to execute OP Sealion or repudiate the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty? These and many other paths can be taken as either the Allies or Axis. Do be prepared to invest a lot of time, as you won't get through 6 years of war in one sitting. It's a lot of mouse work, and I suggest setting the animations and combats to "quick" as it speeds things up a lot. This is a turn-based game and you can play it against someone else but I've never tried it. The AI has a number of difficulty ratings and gives a decent challenge. It is definitely "strategic" as the smallest units are corps or equivalent. This is that old Third Reich board game you and your (Gen X) friends tried to play in high school, without the annoying setup or risk of the cat knocking your counters around. I'm not sure if people too young for that era of gaming will appreciate this as much, but if depth is more important to your game play this may be worth your time.

This is the best grand strategy video game on World War II that I've been able to find, by a pretty wide margin. It has everything you need for a complete experience: diplomacy, technology, terrain, weather, a flexible force pool, morale, supply, and a reasonable variety of weapons systems, from Katushya rockets to submarines and strategic bombers. There is enough realism to make the game actually feel like WW2 without so much realism that it all becomes tedious or constraining. If you want to go off in a different direction and send the Americans to land in Spain instead of Morocco, or have the Japanese aim for New Zealand instead of Burma, you absolutely can. The AI is not brilliant, and it is a little too rigid in some of its scripts, especially with respect to amphibious invasions. As Germany, for example, the AI will literally never invade the United Kingdom until the Soviet Union is completely defeated, no matter how undefended you leave London. Still, the AI plays competently and can take advantage of your errors; I once blundered away an entire season of progress because I didn't leave enough of a German garrison in northeastern Romania, and the Soviets rolled in through the gaps and pushed all the way to Bucharest before I could recover. There are a few frustrating areas of the map that could have used a bit more playtesting; Malta is essentially impossible to conquer, and British possession of Malta means that Axis supply lines in North Africa are automatically crippled, even if the British have no Mediterranean navy and no Mediterranean air force. The Japanese war with China is basically stalemated for the first few years of the game no matter how hard you push on either side; you need to look carefully at each unit and figure out how to make units dance around each other to deliver a useful series of attacks that will win you control of one hex at a time, or else you won't make any progress at all, but it can be annoying to invest all that energy for several turns and wind up with control of a city worth 0.2% of your global economy as the grand prize. Some areas of the map don't have any production at all, although this isn't immediately apparent because they do provide supply; as the Italians, for example, if you conquer all of British East Africa, it won't make a single dent in your finances. That said, these are ultimately minor drawbacks in a solid, well-made game. The graphics, sound, user interface, and mechanics are all well-designed and fun to use. The game does not crash, and it comes with a variety of difficulty levels and scenarios. I would firmly recommend it to anyone looking for a medium-heavy WW2 grand strategy game. (4 out of 5 stars).

Very disappointing purchase. The land war in China is particularly frustrating. 1) not being able to switch the location of units. If two units could move into eachother's square, they are both locked in place. It is sometimes possible to use a third square to do a a docy-do, but mostly you end up with units locked. 2) unit's literally locked into place: a unit can retreat into a square from which it can then not leave. Literally your only choice of action with the unit is disband. In general, the design decision to require you to conduct all operations with a unit before moving to a new unit is real challenge, and, I expect, will be very non-intuitive to players of other "table-top" wargames, in which you can, for example, move a unit, move another unit, attack with the first unit, etc. If you swith off a unit with movement or attacks left, you lose them. You can not do anything with that unit until next turn. Similarly, while it is hard to get German units actually stuck in France, having air units and ground units occupy the same spot creates very tight formations, with much jockeying back and forth of units. Really more effort in positioning units (remembering that once you move a unit, even one square, you're done with it for the turn) than seems necessary. I had significant trouble achieving a historical timetable. The stacking limit on naval units is also odd - only one per square. Since most of the powers have more units then ports, you end up with naval units hanging out in the oceans, at which point they take damage from rough seas. Too bad you can't actually put them in port. The game does seem to offer some opportunity to explore non-historical paths and has considerable modding capability. Unfortunately, it's just not fun to play.

I love this game. I also hate this game. As a wargaming veteran, I can appreciate that this game isn't overly complex and can be played a bit more casually. In that it's kind of nice having a "Tank Group" rather than getting lost in the details of whether to choose between a Panzer II or Stug III or whatever. That's better suited for other games. There are a lot of different scenarios (more so than the newer version) making for a lot of replay. I also like the isometric map more than the flat newer version. There are some balance issues. The AI can be sadistic and the RNG at times, totally sucks. I swear that Barbarossa campaign is impossible as the Germans. I've played this scenario more than any of the others. I've tried a different strategy each time and the result is always the same. For some reason "Army Group South" (there's no designation between army groups, I'm just using that as a reference for area) has absolutely no armor. The Romanians, Bulgarians, and Italians are completely useless. I can't ever do as well as the Germans did historically. They reached Leningrad in Sept '41. Which seems totally impossible in game. I get that one would need to blitz their way straight there, but there's not enough time. If you haven't done as well historically by the onset of Winter it's basically game over. By November, the Soviet's will spam a ridiculous amount of divisions (the mid-tier infantry level that has no apparent limit). Once that happens there is no point in continuing. tl;dr - Fun game, balancing issues with some scenarios.

A very good game I think.Ok if you want a quick 10 minute blast on something sh**t hot and shiny, before tea , this aint your type of game. 20 years ago this would have been described,perfectly ,as a pipepuffer. It's not particulary pretty but it doesn't need to be. There are 3 games in this , and they all functions properly, I'm running it in Win 7 x64 and that works a treat. No long delays it just stomps through the AI's turn and lets you dither as long as you like... Sometimes I'd like to burst out with my armour, est la Patton into open country and because that doesn't happen, much, may be my tactical shortcomings rather than the game being a bit cluttered. It is truly global in some scenarios and it is amazing just how many units there are... If you have played the ww 1 version (which I also really like due to the wonderfully diverse historic battles therein)the controls are the same. It's tough,certainly not easy,some thought is required and it has a degree of complication which makes it enjoyable when it's an "ah now I see how I get my reinforcements " moment.. So if you like tough,clever, reasonable hard,WW2 wargames then you should buy "Strategic Command Clasic :Global Conflict" and as a wee sweetener it's on sale....