Are there any grand strategic level ww2 aerial games out there? Something like HoI but only for the aerial conflict over Europe?
Your best bet is probably Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich. I believe War in the West also has a detailed model of the air war, but you bite off a lot more than just the air war with that one.
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich (https://www.matrixgames.com/game/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich)
I wouldn't exactly call it good but there's Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich.
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich (https://www.matrixgames.com/game/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich)
There's also Defending the Reich from HPSSims. It's light but decent. You have to get special files from HPS to get it to run on Win 7 or 10 pcs though.
https://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/defreich/defreich.asp (https://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/defreich/defreich.asp)
WOW....Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich is still $50 for an old game? yikes...I'll wait for a sale.
Thank you for the recommendations.
I did consider WitW, but I'm not very experienced in those sorts of games and I think I'd just overly frustrated. Hell, I might with Eagle Day, but I'm willing to learn.
Or get an Atari 800 simulator for your PC and play Grigsby's USAAF, the distant predecessor of Bombing the Reich. You can actually finish a campaign in that one as compared to the later game.
I played the heck out of USAAF. It was a great game. I liked it better than Bombing the Reich for some reason.
The GUI for Bombing the Reich is pretty bad. Playing on a PC with a resolution greater than 1280x768 makes it worse.
Every once in a while I fire up GGs Eagle Day / Bombing the Reich for fun. As mentioned above, the graphics and interface are out of the last century. Also the game is a very deep experience, and takes some commitment to play.
Here is my old review of it:
http://armchairgeneral.com/eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich-pc-game-review.htm (http://armchairgeneral.com/eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich-pc-game-review.htm)
However, I think GG's War in the West is probably a better choice for most folks. The interface is pretty well done, and I feel running the air war is not as complex as in ED/BtR. There is even an "air war only" scenario in WitW (a short one unfortunately). Sure, you also have to run the ground war, but I think once you play the game a bit this is not a heavy lift.
Ground war aside, Probably the biggest difference between the games for the air war is that ED/BtR has day by day turns. You can see individual missions play out on the map as the day progresses. You can also set up the details of each mission (or let you robo-staff do it if you don't feel like a deep dive). You can get detailed reports on individual dog fights as they are happening. Because of this, a full campaign is 700 turns...something rarely finished by a human...the time commitment is tremendous. However, smaller campaigns, such as some of the Battle of Britain ones or the Ploesti campaign are very playable.
WitW has one week turns by contrast. While you can set targets and priorities, you really have to do some hunting within the reports to find information on individual missions. Still, because of the ease of interface and fairly quick pace, finishing the air war in Europe is doable. Of course you do have to play the ground war at some point.
Thanks ArizoneTank
The most experience I've had with any grand tactical/strategic WW2 game was HoI 4 and I quit about 2 weeks into it (way too much for me to handle) so I'm guessing WitW would be about the same for my pea sized brain :D
Does any one remember SSG's Europe Ablaze, an old C64 game for the C64 & AppleII from 1985?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_Ablaze
Quote from: planetbrain on August 07, 2020, 04:23:53 PM
Does any one remember SSG's Europe Ablaze, an old C64 game for the C64 & AppleII from 1985?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_Ablaze
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/europe-ablaze-4xv (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/europe-ablaze-4xv)