The former push supplies into backwaters far from roads and railways and are an important element in many scenarios. Other sage additions to the tried and tested UoC formula include hand-placeable/sizeable supply dumps and footloose on-screen HQ units. If rolling into hexes occupied by disordered skedaddlers didn't also slow movement, you'd do it every chance you got. Not always possible, straggler round-ups sometimes furnish intel about enemies hidden by FoW in addition to depriving your opponent of potential reinforcements. Because units now shed AI-controlled 'stragglers' when savaged, and these sorry remnants (represented by light blue man-shaped icons in the image above) try to make their way back to the supply dumps and HQs which eventually feed them back into the fray as replacements, it generally pays to apprehend after you've annihilated. One new distraction from the encircling is mopping-up. Aware that units cut off from supply quickly wither, you're constantly looking for opportunities to turn enemy-stuffed salients into enemy-stuffed pockets. UoC was a veritable Artful Dodger when it came to pocketing and the follow-up is no different. All these choices make for much more interesting and replayable ops. Replenished at the end of every turn, CPs may also be frittered away on entrenching, motorising, reorganising, reinforcing and manually supplying units, and building, demolishing and repairing bridges. Selected with a roll of the mousewheel, these variations offer low-risk, low-gain alternatives to conventional attacks, and alter the way your units react to attacks. Units within range of their parent HQ can, assuming that HQ is suitably upgraded (you customise your brassy base units at intervals in the campaign) and still has Command Points in the bank, execute fancy attacks like feints, set-piece assaults, and contested river crossings, and prepare for special defensive roles like rearguarding, forlorn hopes, and sly counter-attacks. In the sequel things are a bit more involved and a lot more colourful. There was a dash of bomber tasking, bridge building, and unit reinforcing/customising, but UoC was, at root, a pared-down game of thoughtful manoeuvre and careful Schwerpunkting. Turns in the minimalist 2011 original - pictured above - were dominated by two questions: “Where should I move this unit?” and “What, if any, foe should it attack?”. Transfer to Tunisia (UoC2's basically linear campaign starts in North Africa, and travels to Normandy and the Low Countries, via Italy and the South of France) straight from the Eastern Front, and, once you've admired the bust-free, Fog-of-War shrouded, fully rotatable 3D maps, what's likely to strike you most forcibly is the way 2x2 have broadened and enriched decision-making. Logical basics, decent tooltips, and top-notch presentation provide it with the smooth edges necessary to snare genre-curious outsiders. Innovative treatments of things like supply and HQs (In it's own way, UoC2 is just as bold, just as 'New Wave', as Radio Commander, Rebel Inc and Afghanistan 11) together with unusually accomplished AI, give UoC2 the novelty, plausibility, and tough adversaries it needs to win-over even the most jaded grogs. The unmissable Unity of Command 2 recognises this with a set of mechanisms that are masterpieces of abstraction, and in doing so, breathes new life into operations ludologised countless times before.Īlthough 2x2's second hex-clad, IGOUGO WW2 offering can trace its origins all the way back to Panzer General, unlike the clutch of modern PG descendants, it's a game silver-templed strategists like myself can play without risk of déjà vu. While an antique army could fragment at will and locust everything it needed from the countryside it passed through, its 1939-45 equivalent was an essentially indivisible organism, a tangle of dangerous tentacles emanating from a cumbersome organ-clump of vital support staff, equipment, and stores. The awesome destructive might and continent-shrinking mobility of a WW2 army came with strings.
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