How does this compare?

[GBS]

The Battlefront game of WWI has a demo, which I downloaded. Since this game has no demo could someone tell me how this game would compare to that one. I want a WWI game and don't want to make a mistake. Wish this had a demo. They have sold me more times than not.

[Duck Doc]

I have found that there is an apples & oranges factor when comparing games which treat a given conflict at the same scale. I have not played Battlefront's Strategic Command WWI but I have played earlier ones. I have found Commander: The Great War the most well & tightly crafted game I can remember. I cannot imagine a better treatment of the subject at this scale. It is early in my playing and I hesitate to pass judgement prematurely. I am not a harsh critic and I am sure I will find some warts & blemishes as I play. I have been gaming a long time & C: TGW has already earned my admiration for how well it has captured the essence & expressed the details of a strategic treatment of WW1. It comes close to my ideal. I don't believe there is or will be any better.

[jwduquette1]

I agree with Dale's comments. I haven’t played Battlefronts game.

For its scale and even with the various abstractions CtGW is a really good simulation. I've played through the 1914-18 campaign on both sides vs. the AI several times each since I purchased it and I still feel like there are some military as well as production strategies that I want to try out. Next step is to the take the plunge and try it PBEM. If it's also fun in PBEM, then the 'replayability' part of the equation makes this game a good entertainment investment.

After the stimulation CtGW has had on particular my gaming tastes, I'm actually thinking about getting a copy of Battlefronts WWI game. What I mean to say, is that while I've been a long time student of WWI history, I've never been much of a fan of WWI games. CtGW has definitely made me a convert.

[Jim D Burns]

One big difference, you don't own the Battlefront game. You get a license so it's just a rental and once your activations have all been used, you have to buy it again if you need to do a new install. Haven't bothered to even look at their stuff in years so I don't know how many activations you get. But I usually need to do re-installs about every 2 years or so for my games due to getting new PC, hard drive failure, whatever, so eventually I won't be allowed to use the game I paid for, so no thanks to anything they make until they change their DRM.

Jim

[Bossy573]

Battlefront's licensing scheme can be highly annoying but they are pretty reasonable about granting you further activations. But it definitely sucks having to ask permission to activate a game you paid a lot of money for. They need to change that system and the perfect model is found right here.

Anyway, SC: WWI and the add-on Battlefront are absolutely outstanding, IMHO. I love that engine with the WWI material far more than the WWII games.

CTGW amd SC: WWI are both excellent. You will not regret buying either one. But as long as you are at the Matrix site.......

[jwduquette1]

thanks Jim. It's been awhile since I played anything from BattleFront. It sounds like a rather odd business strategy on their part.

Nothing to do with anything...Not exactly the same as Battlefront's weirdness, but speaking of business models for computer games, I also thought offering games up for free was an odd approach. But look at "World of Tanks". Those dudes are going like gang-busters. All based upon their ability to suck folks into the game and than get some percentile of those same folks to breakout the VISA to buy premium stuff for the game. How crazy is that? [:D]