My mate said to me . . .

[stockwellpete]

"The Commander series is not very good - it is "history lite"".

But I was undaunted as I am very interested in WW1, both in the history and the literature. So I have had the game a few days and I now could not disagree more with my good wargaming buddy. There is plenty of history the game, to be sure. "History-lite" it certainly isn't!

So I checked back to previous Commander titles - first of all there was a WW2 game "Commander, Europe at War" that is now replaced by "Military History, Commander Europe at War"; then 3-4 years ago there was the second Commander title "Commander: Napoleon" which was stated to be "easy" in terms of its complexity; and now we have "Commander:The Great War", which is stated to be of "medium" complexity. My question is - has there been a developmental progression through these earlier versions that has culminated in this latest release or does this new game represent a clear break with what the Commander series has offered before?

Suffice to say, I think this game is bloody good, so well done to the developers. The AI on "balanced" is very tough - I cannot get much beyond the beginning of 1916 for the Cental Powers at the moment, but I expect there are loads of things I am missing/not understanding properly at the moment.

[Samhain]

Napoleon runs more smoothly and has a different style of map than CEAW and The Great War's map style looks similar to Napoleon's so that's one thing.

[adherbal]

"Europe" and "Napoleon" were developed by Firepower Entertainment, not The Lordz. We did the graphics, sound and music for Napoleon, but had very limited input in the design. After that the previous developer showed no interest in continuing the series and Slitherine gave us the opportunity to pick it up.

Everything was done from scratch with an entirely new team, so in that way there is a very clear "break" from the previous titles - but we are trying to stick to the "simple to play but hard to master" design philosophy of the series.

[stockwellpete]

"Europe" and "Napoleon" were developed by Firepower Entertainment, not The Lordz. We did the graphics, sound and music for Napoleon, but had very limited input in the design. After that the previous developer showed no interest in continuing the series and Slitherine gave us the opportunity to pick it up.

Everything was done from scratch with an entirely new team, so in that way there is a very clear "break" from the previous titles - but we are trying to stick to the "simple to play but hard to master" design philosophy of the series.

Thanks very much for your reply. I'll pass on the information to my friend. I have no knowledge of the earlier two games in the series but this new one has everything a historical wargamer could want from a game. A really excellent production that your team should be proud of. (the winter map even makes me feel cold!)