The Operational Art of War 3 Scores 9/10

<strong>[ Review ]</strong>

<p>The Bovine Conspiracy took one look at <a href="http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=317" title="TOAW3">The Operational Art of War 3</a> and fell deeply in love, giving it an impressive score of 9 out of 10. </p><blockquote><p>The game is an incredibly deep approximation of operational warfare. It is also one of the best war games you&rsquo;ll ever play, and it will have legs for years, both due to the amount of scenarios the game ships with and the amount of community-made scenarios, you&rsquo;ll be getting your money worth here. </p></blockquote><p>Besides the seemingly endless pile of scenarios, BC also admired the turn-based combat system.</p><blockquote><p>The turns are somewhat unique in wargames. Basically, each player takes turns moving and planning attacks. Movement is limited by unit-type, and of course it changes when moving over different types of terrain (of which there are a lot). You move your units into place, then begin planning an attack. In simple-rules mode, this planning is removed (even though this is, to me, the best part of the game). In the advanced mode, you select which of your capable units will participate in the attack. You can also select from artillery (which must be in tactical-reserve mode, please don&rsquo;t forget), air, and naval units that will support the attack. Then, when all your attacks are planned, you resolve the combats. You are presented with a list of statistics of how many casualties each side sustained and information on the success of the attack. Each attack, depending on how many units participate, take up a certain amount of time, represented in a percentage of your turn. This means that a small attack will only take a small percentage of your turn, while a larger attack may take up your entire turn. At times, this seems odd, as not all your planned attacks will occur, but it makes sense that commanding 10 divisions to attack would take a great deal of preparation. After each combat, each of your units has their movement points reduced to account for the passage of time. Most wargames do not separate combat and movement, but I find this system pretty intuitive. It forces you to make sure your combat plans are solid before you resolve them.</p></blockquote><p>Read: <a href="http://www.bovineconspiracy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=308&Itemid=42" title="Review">TOAW3 Review</a></p><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.bovineconspiracy.com/index.php">The Bovine Conspiracy</a></p>

 

Nico has been talking about this game and he seems to have been enjoying it. It's pretty cheap, too, only 30 bucks. I'll pick it up next time I have a chance. Of course, I still ahve a buttload of games to get:

*T2CM
*Birth of America
*CotA
*Warlords
*Dark Avatar
*Earth 2150 Trilogy
*Supreme Ruler 2010
*Defcon (whenver it comes out)

 

Get Birth of America first and then you can tell us all about it.

 

Yeah, TOAW3 is definitely worth picking up. Am currently having a great time playing some of the 'Nam and WW2 campaigns. Some pretty good shit right there.

The only bad thing about the game is the fact that there are so many campaigns you'll have a hard time making your mind up on which one to play, eh.

 

Just downloaded Birth of America and it's speeding along. Don't ever say I never did nothing for the peoples.