WW1 games: gotta catch'em all?

[JasonPratt]

I'm playing around with running a huge strategic WW1 cross-game next year, comparing the various platforms, and want to make sure I've got all the relevant games.

Currently I have:

Guns of August (arguably the first good modern WW1 game)
World War One Gold (duh)
Commander: The Great War (just installed)
Strategic Command WW1+Breakthrough (not installed yet but in hand)
Darkest Hour Hearts of Iron (which has a WW1 mode)
Victoria 2 (which has a WW1 campaign, if I recall correctly)

Does Pride of Nations have a WW1 start? I know it doesn't have a dedicated expansion for it.

Am I missing anything important?

My intention is to play all the games as one nation with the same basic plan, and see what happens between them.

[steve58]

Making History: The Great War might be out next year, maybe in time for you to include it.  And there is also a WWI mod in development for HOI3.  Not sure how far along it is though...

update:  here is the Paradox forum link to the WWI mod.  Looks like it requires the Their Finest Hour DLC.

[Jarhead0331]

Making History: The Great War might be out next year, maybe in time for you to include it. 

Hey...thanks for posting this. I had no idea this was in the works.

[steve58]

I've been keeping my eye on it for a year (or two?) now.  Hope they get it out soon...

[Gusington]

^Me too.

There is also a Great War mod for Napoleon Total War. Don't know if it's groggy enough for you, but here you go:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1608-The-Great-War-%28TGW%29

[Wolfe1759]

TOAW - The Great War 1914-1918 (not played it myself though)

[Nefaro]

Does Pride of Nations have a WW1 start? I know it doesn't have a dedicated expansion for it.

Am I missing anything important?

PrON has a DLC named The Scramble For Africa 1880 which allows you to start at that time, instead of the base game's 1850 or whatever it is. 

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/493/details/Pride.of.Nations.-.The.Scramble.for.Africa.Campaign.1880

Since PrON takes so long to play, people had been requesting something closer to WW1.  This is a good compromise since it still allows for some colonization & conquering of native areas and the corresponding tension when some of the european powers contest them.

I have the DLC but haven't played it yet.  I had put off starting a new PrON campaign until a good patch without any notable issues hits the web.  I believe the last time I looked, months ago, there had been some nice fixes and such on a newly released patch but there was some new bug it caused and they hadn't released a new update or quick fix for it yet (at the time).  Then I pick up AGEOD's AJE, BOR, and Civil War 2 and I'm swamped.  :D

[em2nought]

I've been keeping my eye on it for a year (or two?) now.  Hope they get it out soon...

So they're still working on it then, good.  Thought maybe it went bye bye.

[em2nought]

Shouldn't really talk WWI gaming without at least a sidebar for Steam and Iron http://www.navalwarfare.net/steam&iron.html

[JasonPratt]

Hm, yes, I knew at least one of the TW games had a WW1 mod, but had heard it was buggy and unstable; that one still seems buggy and unstable, and I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of mod installation. Good thought, though!

I used to have Pr0n from GG, but apparently I switched accounts shortly after buying it, and it doesn't show up in my games list anymore. I think I still have it installed on my old computer, although I don't know if I bought the 1880-start DLC -- possibly I did because the whole game was dirt-cheap at GG at the time. I'm doubtful the Matrix official expansion would run with the GG install if I didn't get the expansion from GG at the time; and I don't really feel like running 30 years of Pr0n gameplay to set up that game for a parallel run.

I feel reasonably sure, even though I have found exactly no external confirmation, that the designers of the Cossacks and American Conquest games once made a similar WW1 game; but I recall the nice fellow at NWS refusing to sell it to me years ago after I ordered it, because it was so horribly broken, which might explain why I can find no evidence of its existence anywhere now.

I also know for a fact that some of the people connected to the Battle Isle games made a WW1 game long ago, because I used to see it in a store I frequented at college, and eventually bought it -- only to learn it wouldn't run on my computer for some reason (buggy or something) so I brought it back and the store owner credited me for it since I was a good customer (though he was grudging about it). I think I picked it up in passing the past year, or thought about doing so, at GoG, while looking into some retro-Battle Isle titles, but I don't know how much of a strategic game it is, and I'm dubious that it will run anyway.

[ComradeP]

I feel reasonably sure, even though I have found exactly no external confirmation, that the designers of the Cossacks and American Conquest games once made a similar WW1 game; but I recall the nice fellow at NWS refusing to sell it to me years ago after I ordered it, because it was so horribly broken, which might explain why I can find no evidence of its existence anywhere now.

That would be Entente/WWI The Great War, but it's only a Cossacks clone, it wasn't made by the same developer.

[JasonPratt]

ORLY! That would indeed explain why I couldn't find reference to it when searching through the Cossack-dev literature.

But it's horribly broken, right? (And/or has no relevant strategic side?)

[Nefaro]

I'm doubtful the Matrix official expansion would run with the GG install if I didn't get the expansion from GG at the time; and I don't really feel like running 30 years of Pr0n gameplay to set up that game for a parallel run.

I'm pretty sure all the latest AGEOD patches still work with their games which you had purchased elsewhere, before they came to Matrix.  The old keys you were issued should still work - they always used the same kind of key system that Matrix does.  I'm quite certain I have updated to some of the latest patches since they made the move, with my old version bought in various places. 

I'd be shocked to find out that they cut patch support only for certain retailers and not others.  Matrix may be getting some bad press for some of their pricing, but changing post-release support only for certain customers, based on where they bought the game, would be something very bad.  They're not Battlefront.

[Gusington]

I think you're talking about Entente: WWI Battlefields above. I have that game but I still haven't unwrapped it from its package because of the bad rep it has.

I have read about some instability with the Napoleon: TW WWI mod but not a lot lately. I plan on starting a campaign as Serbia soon (this week) so if you want I can report back. The mod is really ambitious, and you can play as a lot of powers that aren't ordinarily available in WWI games, like Romania or Portugal.

[JasonPratt]

Hm, yes, certainly report back on the TW mod! I hope it works well after all (or enough to run a game feasibly anyway). I have NappyTW from Steam or GG one, can't remember which offhand.

Nefaro, if that's true the main problem would only be that I have Pr0N installed on a different computer, and no longer recall what my account at GG was where I originally bought it, so cannot port it over to my new one for convenience. That might not be overly problematic, but given how sluggish Pr0N naturally tends to run I'd rather have it on my new supercomputer. But perhaps my old supercomputer will run it well enough. ;)

In which case my remaining main problem would be that I don't want to run 30 years of Pr0N as Russia (for example) in order to set up a WW1 scenario; although if I did, it would make for an interesting alternative plotline start (so to speak), assuming my nation survived that long.