Overview
Wargame: European Escalation is a real-time tactics video game developed by Eugen Systems and published by Focus Home Interactive, released on February 23, 2012. It is set in Europe during the Cold War, most specifically in the years 1975–85 with alternate history scenarios portraying open war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Overview?Wargame: Red Dragon? Is the sequel to the 2013 title,? Wargame: Air Land Battle,? And the third game in the series which started in 2012 with?Wargame: European Escalation.? To the casual viewer, the games are nearly identical. The biggest addition to? Is naval units and naval combat.?Air Land Battle? Included naval actions, like bombardments, but they were all.
?Wargame: Red Dragon? is thesequel to the 2013 title,?Wargame: Air Land Battle,? and the thirdgame in the series which started in 2012 with ?Wargame: European Escalation.? To the casual viewer, the games arenearly identical. The biggest addition to?Red Dragon?is navalunits and naval combat. ?Air Land Battle?included naval actions, like bombardments, but they were all strategic mapbetween-turn items rather than in battle units like ?Red Dragon? has. ?RedDragon? is an incremental upgrade to the previous version of the game.
?European Escalation? had noair units aside from helicopters, ?AirLand Battle? added fixed wing aircraft and, as previously mentioned, ?Red Dragon? added naval units. Justas ?Air Land Battle? air units lackeda fleshed-out air superiority mode and really only allowed for close airsupport and extremely limited air to air elements, ?Red Dragon? adds naval units in the same model, where they areadded mainly to support ground combat and not for open ocean naval combat.Another big change in 'Red Dragon'is that unlike the previous games in the series, the theater of operations shiftsfrom a Cold War gone hot in Europe to Asia. The timeframe of the game isbetween 1975 and 1991. The game adds several new nations as a result of theshift in geography such as, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and more.
Game Modes
Game modes have not changed since the last installment of theseries. The game includes two different game modes and a tutorial. Thetutorials are effective, yet brief. The first mode of the game would be thecampaign game, which includes five different campaigns. The first campaign isvery small and almost feels like a tutorial of the campaign game, while thelarger campaigns have the potential to last many hours. The second game mode isskirmish mode, which could be accurately described as a sandbox mode, where yougenerate random or player-defined battles in a single engagement. The skirmishmode is also essentially the online multi-player mode and allows for playinganywhere between 1 vs. 1 up to 10 vs. 10, but multiplayer does not allow acampaign to be fought in single battles.
Gameplay
Thegameplay in 'Wargame: Red Dragon'is almost identical to previous 'Wargame'installments, in that the game uses the same engine, the same interface, andthe vast majority of the units are also ported over from that game.
First,let?s look at what?s the same. Now when I say gameplay is almost the same as 'Wargame: Air Land Battle', I mean it?s literally the same. So here?s aslightly modified excerpt from my previous reviewof 'Wargame: Air Land Battle' (see the quotedsection below if you are unfamiliar with the series). If you?ve already playedand want to know what?s new, you can skip this segment and see below where Italk about naval combat.
Modified Excerpt from Wargame: AirLand Battle Review on Gameplay
?Gameplay isalmost like a melding of more traditional RTS's in the Ageof Empire vein,and more tactical based games such as the Combat Mission series.Battles start with a deployment phase. Players are given a set number ofinitial points with which to purchase various units and place them on the map.Once the battle is underway, a player slowly accumulates more points. Thisallows the player to call in new troops once the engagement is underway but,unlike most traditional RTS's, there is no resource gathering or base building.The only user-created building of any importance is the FOB (Forward OperatingBase), which allows units to resupply both ammunition and fuel. Unlike moretactically- oriented real time games, such as Combat Mission, you are able to callin reinforcements on the fly using your initial points as you see fit. The gamehas no scripted reinforcements, and in this sense you are able to adjust yourstrategy based on how the battle unfolds. Reinforcements can only be called infrom certain parts of the map. The battlefield is split up into numeroushex-like regions and, while these areas have no impact on movement or gameplay, like in a hex-based game they do handle how reinforcements are allowed toenter the field of play. Reinforcements can only be brought into a battle froma region that boarders the edge of the map, though not every boarder region isallowed to bring reinforcements in. Additionally some regions earn youreinforcement points that can be spent on said reinforcements, you earn statednumber of points for each of these sections every 5 or so seconds while othersections of the map earn you nothing and have limited value. This does give asense of tactical importance to certain parts of the map over others. Also it?sworth noting boarder sections that can are annotated on the map with arrowspointing from the outer part of the map inwards. This appears to be an attemptto simulate the impact that roadways and other transportation systems have on abattlefield.
Typically each army will start with one or two regions along theborders, with which they can deploy forces into and call in reinforcementsthrough. Reinforcements can only be called into a region that a side controlsand in order to control a region, a player must have at least one stationarycommand unit in the region. Command units come in various sizes andcapabilities and represent senior officers on the battlefield. These units canvary between lightly armed and largely helpless jeeps, to command tanks whichare more than capable of defending themselves against enemy units. As alreadystated, reinforcements can only be called in from the regions on the edge ofthe map and, similarly, each side almost always starts in possession of aregion capable of calling in more reinforcements.
When maneuvering your army terrain plays an important role: wooded areasprovide concealment, open fields are death traps for infantry, bridges canbecome fatal funnels, buildings provide useful defensive cover for infantry,and rivers provide natural barriers and should be used to provide protection toyour flanks as you advance down the other side of the map. With that said, heightfields don't seem relevant. Apart from some buildings, you rarely see a chanceto get your troops higher than the enemy. Tanks may get slowed down by treesand mud, but they rarely have to navigate mountainous passes or hills. The maphas some nice eye candy along the corners, but despite the theater ofoperations being in some mountainous areas like Korea, most battles still feelfar too flat. The terrain has improved somewhat from ?Wargame: Air Land Battle?but overall it?s still a huge disappointment, though at least there is someprogress. Also, while you have multiple choices for setting up skirmishbattles, all the battles still feel like meeting engagements with defensivelines with other defensive tactics having only a limited importance. Sure,defensive tactics can still be used, but it's less relevant to holding the lineor strategic location, but rather for the purpose of destroying the enemy. Thevarious victory points awarded by parts of the map and the reinforcement pointsprovide some strategic incentives but for a war and conflict as fast as a coldwar gone hot it feels there should be a way to make these pretty large battlesfeel more epic and like something bigger than just a battle of attrition.
Whilst the impact of elevation and engagement variety might be somewhatlimited, what the game does have in spades however, is units. There are over1,200 units included (an increase of some 400 units from Air Land Battle anddespite being focused in the pacific theater the majority of Air Land Battlesunits do carry over and can be used in skirmish modes and multiplayer) in thegame from a seemingly endless list of nations: The expected, American, Russian,Chinese, Korean and Japanese troops are there but there are also, Polish, EastGerman, and the list goes on. ?Red Dragon?s? biggest addition in terms of gameplay and unitsfrom its predecessor is the inclusion of naval units.?
Naval Combat/Gameplay
Naval units can be broken down into a few broad categories,Destroyers, Frigates, Corvettes and Patrol crafts, in addition to that thereare aircraft carriers that partake in the campaigns and can be moved around theoperational map which basically acts as a mobile airbase. While just like airunits, naval units are mainly a side show to the ground pounding they are a bitmore involved in Red Dragon. That?s to say unlike air units it?s possible tofight strictly between two naval forces over control of the sea. This gives thegame an ability to model the fight for naval supremacy through ship onlyengagements, as well as supporting the now possible amphibious assaultlandings. Naval combat however is extremely arcade like. Battles take placebetween ships at obscenely close ranges and ships fire off surface to surfacemissiles at ranges that look like they should be trading broadsides during theage of sale rather than firing SSMs and what?s incredible at these close rangesmissiles often miss, in fact surface to surface missiles act more like rocketsin that they don?t follow their targets but seem to fly a straight course andare unusually inaccurate and underpowered. I love using naval forces to supportlandings as it seems a genuinely fun and interesting addition to the game, butthe naval on naval battles just feel poorly done and really don?t work well ina small map environment or within this type of game engine that?s clearlydesigned for land combat first. It?s an interesting experiment but it doesn?tfeel like it works very well.
Both land and naval battles can be won in two ways: everyunit is worth a certain number of points and each battle will have a pointsthreshold for the battle. If you hit this threshold before the enemy, then youwin the battle. The second way to win a battle is by destroying all the enemycommand vehicles. If a battle ends with time running out and neither side meetsthe afore mentioned victory goals, then the fight is considered a draw and willcontinue during the next turn if the battle being fought is part of a campaign.
Continued on page 2 ?
Comments
Log in to join the discussion.
Related Posts from Wargamer
Order of Battle: Pacific
30 May 20140Wargame Red Dragon - Driven back to Pusan
23 May 20140Wargame: Red Dragon - The Second Korean War - The Battle of Daegu
12 May 20140Featured
Field of Glory 2: Medieval has been announced
16 Oct 20203The Complete Guide to Combat Mission
08 Sep 20208Upcoming War Board & Miniature Games 2020
30 Jul 20206Upcoming Wargames 2020
06 Oct 202013Matrix Games & Slitherine release schedule - what to expect from the next few months
16 Oct 20200Hearts of Iron 4: Battle for the Bosporus Review
15 Oct 20200Hearts of Iron 4’s 1.10 ‘Collie’ patch releases today alongside the new DLC
15 Oct 20200Top Articles
The Best WW2 War & Strategy Games
29 Sep 202030The Best WW1 Strategy Games
23 Aug 202010
Focus,Eugen Systems – Shareware –
Wargame: European Escalation is a real-time tactics video game developed by Eugen Systems and published by Focus Home Interactive. In the game, players can choose various units from the four subfactions of the side they are playing on, unlocking new units or improved variants as they progress. In all, there are 361 historical units recreated in Wargame. Each country has its own arsenal of units, reflecting their military doctrine.
Overview
Wargame: European Escalation is a Shareware software in the category Miscellaneous developed by Focus,Eugen Systems.
The latest version of Wargame: European Escalation is 1.0.0.1, released on 01/19/2015. It was initially added to our database on 05/06/2012.
Wargame: European Escalation runs on the following operating systems: Windows.
Wargame: European Escalation 2012 Native American Heritage
Wargame: European Escalation has not been rated by our users yet.
Wargame: European Escalation 2012 Native Americans
Write a review for Wargame: European Escalation!
10/12/2020 | Rockstar Games Social Club 2.0.7 |
10/17/2020 | Genshin Impact 2.3.3 |
10/17/2020 | Kate's Video Converter (free) 5.494 |
10/17/2020 | Webcam Video Capture 7.811 |
10/17/2020 | Kate's Video Joiner (free) 5.198 |
10/16/2020 | Free UpdateStar Packs to setup your computer |
10/15/2020 | Firefox 81.0.2 available |
10/13/2020 | Adobe Flash Player update available |
10/12/2020 | How to shrink PDF files easily |
10/09/2020 | Thunderbird update improves security for your emails |
Wargame: European Escalation 2012 Native Peoples
- » wargame european escalation mac
- » wargame european escalation
- » european escalation
- » wargame c
- » wargame european escalation update
- » wargame european escalation download