"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Sir Winston Churchill. From his speech to the House of Commons on August 20, 1940 as the Battle of Britain peaked.
Sir Winston Churchill contrasted Britain's struggle at the opening of
World War II to the Great War. He asserted that a primary difference
was that in this war the fronts were everywhere, with trenches dug in
the towns and in the streets. But he directed special gratitude to the
men in the air.
The Battle of Britain was one of the most decisive struggles in
the twentieth century. TalonSoft's latest wargame recreates the
strategic aspects of the struggle, modeling intricate details such as
each aircraft and radar installation.
The action is centered over central England, around the
industry and airfields surrounding London. At the focus of the game are
the best known aircraft of that conflict: Spitfires, Bf-109s, and
FW-190s. But the famous German bombers, the He-111s and the Ju-87
Stukas, are also present in numbers.
The longest campaign in BoB lasts six months. The full historical
campaign is set in three months in 1940. I thought it was very cool
that the game designers included a six-month hypothetical campaign
which postulates that Hitler didn't commit himself to Operation
Barbarossa against Russia and instead decided to continue the struggle
to defeat Britain.
Whose Side Are You On?
The decision as to which side you will play determines the gameplay.
The Germans offense has their work cut out for them. If you play on
this side you get to choose targets and plan the raids and monitor
recon info. Once your orders are set the game is handed over to the
British player (or the AI.)
The British defense is less strategically oriented, and as a
result less interesting to play. The British side is relegated to
monitoring fatigue levels and rotating squadrons to the rear for rest.
If you are motivated and feel you can anticipate the German assault,
you can also shuffle anti-aircraft guns about.
The German game is won when sufficient damage is inflicted on the
British air force or industrial capacity, or when civilian morale falls
sufficiently low. German objectives are time limited, or else the
British win by default.
The German battle makes a pretty good game, and there are mechanisms in
place that nicely ease the learning curve. Initially the most you have
to do is choose a primary target and the AI will manage the raids. As
you become more comfortable with the interface and dynamics, you can
tweak the raids to your hearts content.
The tactical dimension comes into force when you get more involved in
planning raids. You can plan waves such that the defenders are
distracted from your actual target, or force them to split their forces
in three or four directions. You can use feints and diversions, and of
course you can even plan night time raids.
The British game is somewhat less interesting, in part because
there is less to do, but secondarily because having less to do you will
notice that the graphics aren't that great. So if you are no longer
deeply involved in the tactical game, what will keep your interest?
Planning and The Info War
What you see in the game is a nicely rendered Britain and the area of
the North Sea and Western European coast. Small aircraft move about,
with their shadows floating below on the landscape, airfields and
buildings. Small movies play to represent some events (you can
configure the frequency in the preferences.) Overall the game looks
nice and sounds alright, but this isn't the heart of a good wargame.
Information isn't always handled well enough.
For example, that batch of aircraft that are now intercepting your
bomber group: how many are there? What altitude are they coming in at?
Your decisions are made from lists, but none of the lists can be
sorted. Furthermore, how does the player relate the lists to the map?
The map lacks place names and needs more display filters. The inclusion
of an actual paper map would have helped.
There are deeper gameplay issues here as well, though it's
tough to tell whether they are a function of actual historical issues.
If you play for the Germans, bombing British power plants will bring
the game to an end quickly, as the manual points out. Mind you, after
the first patch additional AA units were added around power plants so
the task has become more difficult.
Prior to the 1.02 patch playing for the British was also less
interesting because German AI concentrated on British airfields. It
wasn't possible to destroy aircraft on the ground, and airfield damage
was always repaired in record time. Post patch, the AI has been tweaked
and aircraft are destroyed on the ground while airfields themselves are
not so quickly repaired. British AA accuracy has been slightly improved
and fatigue AI is now working properly.
A feature added by the 1.01 patch is the ability to click on any HQ
shown on the map to highlight all attached airfields and subordinate
commands (blue highlights above.) Once you have a command group
highlighted and then click on a British target to view the range the
game will find the nearest airfield of that highlighted group. And,
depending upon the max range you've set on the "Set Bomber Targets" tab
(see feature #5 below), a red range circle appears showing you the
maximum mission range that units from that command group will fly (if
you allow your staff to plot raids for that Luftlotte).
This feature works nicely, but is hampered by the challenge of finding
a particular HQ. An additional filter is needed to highlight HQs for
quick selection.
The ability to auto-plan missions is another new feature added to the
German Raid Planning tab. If this feature is toggled ON, your staff
will auto-plot all your missions for the upcoming day. The plotted
raids appear immediately in the "review missions" list, and you may
modify them normally.
Other additional features post patch include the ability to set maximum
target range and maximum target damage. Setting a max range in miles
tells your staff to plot raids against targets within the range
indicated. So, if you set the range to 100 miles for LF2, your staff
will only plot missions against targets within 100 miles (give or take)
from the form-up airfields. This new feature is also connected with the
new features mentioned above.
Setting the max target damage tells your staff to plot raids against
targets within the damage range indicated. For example, if you set the
max damage range at 65, your staff will review its recon photos and
plots missions against targets with 65 or less points of damage. It
will not plot a raid against a target with 66 or more points of damage.
Finally, an Order of Battle display has been added to the score
SUMMARY tab. You may then select a specific command to highlight all
airfields on the map attached to that command. This is one way of
locating an HQ, though a tedious one since you have to page through a
number of menu levels.
It's been well over a year since I played a wargame and my world is
dominated by simulations. I suspect that the future of wargames may be
destined for the 3D RTS we are seeing now in the likes of Force 21,
WarTorn and others. I can envision a real time 3D Battle of Britain in
the Force 21 mold, perhaps even a Harpoon IV type of setting? It would
add much to this game.
With the 1.02 patch gameplay is quite a bit better. Graphics
are ho-hum okay. Sound and effects are quite good. The interface
remains a bit weak but control ability is much improved over the
original release. Sometimes the map filters do odd things. Additional
features are need, like the ability to clone settings across
Luftflotte, such as target range and damage percentage.
I had some fun with multiplayer, but I find I want to always play the
Germans, as did my buddy. Historical military buffs will probably enjoy
the game. Others might want to look over a shoulder before making the
leap.
I tested on a PII 400. My friend ran a PII 266 and his system
was a bit challenged. You can attempt this game with less than a PII
system, but you will have to turn down graphics options. So it goes
when the CPU is laden with the huge number of calculations taking place
behind the scenes! (Click HERE for another shot of the action.)
Download the 1.02 patch by clicking HERE. For information on changes with the 1.01 and 1.02 patch, click HERE.
