Ayo yo yo, what up nigguhz? So I gave Combat Directive a try and to my great and pleasant surprise - its actually p. gud. It is also fairly unusual in the way it plays:
- its real time without a pause, you command only a small number of units (in most missions I have played in the first campaing you have less than 10) and are expected to micro them closely
- fighting is very hectic, but missions are very short - there is always a timer, I dont think I have seen a mission longer than 10 minutes or so and those are the long ones
- because of the short time and the need to micro the units closely, the missions offer a very intense time of experience that I dont recall seeing in an RTS very often, you need to pay attention and be on the top of your game all the time to suceed
- with each unit type you need to order movement, formation type, foccussed firing (infantry units fire on their own, but can fire much more effective volleys on the targets right in front of them) and charges
- interesting thing is that once you issue an order, each unit needs some time to carry it out (ie there is an order cool down and you cant issue a new order until its over), this plays a huge part in the game and needs to be watched closely - for example if you see an enemy cavalery unit starting to charge from afar, good micro can allow you to move your unit out of the way, successful maneuvers like this can turn the tide of battle easily)
- formations are also hugely important as the units move faster, but are more vulnerable in columns, skirmish formations are better in the woods or build up areas, while squares are vital when enemy cav shows up - here again micro is immensely important, since get huge debuffs if they are caught while forming up into a new formation, so charging or ordering a formation change in the right time (like forming a square just before a cav charge hits) is often the difference between victory and defeat
While the missions are short, there are tons of them, just the first campaign has 28 missions and there are 6 campaigns in total. Briefings have a form of conversation between two bros who talk about how the fight went down. Conversation is p. monocled, though there are some problems with translation into English.
There are multiple unit types - line infantry, grenadiers (better in melee), jaegers (cant charge, better at shooting, can use skirmish formation), light and heavy cav, and multiple types of arty. Units have various traits, some of which depend on the formation or terrain they are currently in.
Moreover, there are also elite variants of the units (for example Napoleon´s Old Guard and such) that have better stats. Nationality also plays a role (for example Prussian infantry cannot use skirmish formations due to their outdated tactics at the time).
So yeah, formations, terrain, micro and intense combat that requires your full attention from the start to the end.
The game is focussed on the rusniggerian point of view (though all missions are playable for the other side, being France, Sweden or Ottoman Empire, depending on the campaign). The graphics are OK (its an indie garage project), AI is passable (certainly not as agressive as a human player would be, but winning missions is not easy in most cases, especially if you want to get the best possible results), art and music are top notch. The sound of musket fire is p. bad though, it sounds like a typewritter or something like that and gets annoying in larger firefights.
In any case, this is a very pleasant surprise. I am sure its not gonna be for everyone, but if you can handle the high speed, micro-intensive small scale combat, you should defnitely give this a try. It would be great if the dev(s) survived and managed to release a sequel or at least a DLC for this.