Should I Buy?

[GaryChildress]

I like to play single player games a lot. I've heard that the AI in Commander Napoleon at War isn't quite up to par. How is the AI in this game? Is it challenging? How would others rate this game?

Thanks. [:)]

EDIT: The game sort of looks like Panzer General except with a production system. Is that a pretty fair assessment of the game?

[GaryChildress]

One other question: Do units get their combat ratings improved the more they see battle? For instance do units start out as "Regular" and then work their way up to "Elite" as they win battles? Just curious.

Thanks.

[IainMcNeil]

Yes units gain xp and yes it is a bit like Panzer Genreal on a theatre level

[hazxan]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
EDIT: The game sort of looks like Panzer General except with a production system. Is that a pretty fair assessment of the game?

I'm a PG fan too <edit: just realised you didn't actually say you actually like PG, though!>, and after a couple of sessions with the CEAW demo, I bought it yesterday. Now I've only had 1 evening with it so I wouldn't dare offer any overall impression about how objectively 'good' the game is. However, the fact is that the basic combat is virtually identical to PG[8D] The underlying unit attributes are not the same. Similar but CEAW has a couple of factors I've not quite got yet.

The main thing is that the way you conduct the combat, move a unit, get odds for each enemy, attack and get a result is identical to PG, even down to not being able to reselect a unit after you've 'let it go'. Strength is recovered as in PG, you either move or repair a unit. But the strength points come from Production (rather than 'prestige') , which is what drives you to capture enemy cities.

Without offering an opinion as to whether this is good or bad, if you imagine a HUGE PG map of europe + atlantic ocean, with production points also available for research, basic diplomacy, a naval model incuding convoys, vastly improved graphics and interface, I think that's a reasonable overview of CEAW. It's PG with nothing taken out, but a lot more added in! Not too everyones taste, but as someone who hates spending valuable game time setting the cheese sandwich quantity for every ship in a convoy, I'm enjoying it immensely!

With regard to the AI, on my first full game, as the Axis I've taken Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France. And as I'm not a hardcore grog, that implies the AI may be a bit weak. However, this is on 'normal' difficulty, there are 2 higher, I believe. And it's not that the enemy are dumb so much as there's not enough of them. On higher levels, production bonuses will make it harder.... Also this has take me to the begining of 1941, so it's taken much longer than in history.

[HansHafen]

CEAW is a great game. Highly recommended. Speaking of PG, I was wondering/fantasizing who held the rights to that game and its progeny and if it were for sale etc. Any ideas? I thought about alot of the old games that were excellent fun and wondered how much it would be to buy the rights etc. Thanks!

[El Condoro]

PG and PG2 code are still proprietary even though SSI left the scene ages ago. There are attempts to create open source code for PG2 and PG occurring now.

[rgw]

I tend to like my strategy games equipment represented and appearing in the right time period-how does this game do?