Best WWII Eastern Front PC Games - Sims, Tactics, Strategy

[GDS_Starfury]

Believe it or not I'm reading aome pretty deep titles on WWII armor, etc. Fascinating stuff.

whats on that list?

[MengJiao]

ASL via VASL if you must use a computer.   O0

  And once you are off the computer and have played enough ASL, you can look at Roads to Leningrad and Roads to Moscow for a grand tactical look at 1941.

[Gusington]

I played Close Combat years ago and liked it alot...Battle Academy sort of reminds me of CC in some ways.

Star right now I am reading Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions 1939 - 1945 by Jorge Rosado. It's an Essential Histories title basically for modellers. Lots of beautiful renderings and art.

Going to buy Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1941-1942: Schwerpunkt by Robert Forczyk.

Also looking at Jagdpanther vs. SU-100: Eastern Front 1945...part of the Duel series from Osprey.

Also looking at Last Citadel: A Novel of the Battle of Kursk by David Robbins.

[Hot lead and dirty talk!]

Steel Panthers World at War(SPWAW), the Das Reich Campaign.

[glen55]

Thank you guys, some good posts above. I know Gary Grigsby's games are the end all be all as far as detail, but are they fun? I'm leaning towards CM:RT...if I downloaded it today would I automatically get the latest version or do I have to patch it up myself?

And Glen I used to be uninterested in the late WWII era myself but for some reason I have become very interested in the final days in 1945, especially in the Soviets final push into Germany.

I would like to hear somebody's comments on War In The East (and WITW, too, although that's off-topic), but War In Russia was a lot of fun and to me at least, again quite playable, although you do have to set aside some learning time, which is something I personally have kind of gotten out of the habit with on computer games.

His Apple 2e game The Guadalcanal Campaign, is one of my favorite computer wargames ever.  Of course, that was over 30 years ago and I would probably have a very different reaction to it now, but basically I have had a great deal of fun in my life paying Grigsby games - Mech Brigade, Steel Panthers, War in the South Pacific, and more - but mostly not very recent.  The only Grisby game I have played in the last few years was The Blue and the Gray, and although I definitely enjoyed it, that game had the misfortune of coming out at about the same time as Forge of Freedom and Ageod's ACW game, and that was very unfortunate and odd that they all came out the same time, because those are easliy the 3 best ACW strat games I've seen.

[Gusington]

I also have lost most of the time I used to dedicate to learning new games, which is why I like Battle Academy so much...it is deep enough to be interesting but easy to pick up.

[Tuna]

Yeah.. I enjoyed Close Combat III when it came out.. I'm not sure what the new Matrix one is.. I think maybe Iron Cross after the movie?

[Tuna]

Cross of Iron, kind of a high price tag for such an old game, wait for a sale!

[Gusington]

How about the newest IL2?

[Father Ted]

How about the newest IL2?

Can? Check.  Open?  Check.  Worms? Ewwwww. 

Actually, I bought into this game early and I like it, but if you're just looking for something eastern front with not too much learning time, then I'd look elsewhere.  It's a proper sim, and the FMs are a step up in fidelity from the old IL2, so you probably wouldn't just be able to slip into it (not to mention HOTAS, TIR and pedals).  I hate to be negative, but IMO this is something you'd have to give all your gaming time over to in order to enjoy.  If you can't/don't want to do that then it's not worth the cash.

Play "old" IL2 if you have it (or buy it for $10) - it has a wealth of content (another issue with the newer game)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Hop onto War Thunder Gus.  I could use some fellow Soviet tankers (most of the GH types seem to prefer the evil facists or, even worse, FREEDUM TANKZ in arcade mode).  I just switched up my super awesome T-34-85 (DT) for a goofy bobble-head KV-2.  It's slow; the turret traverse speed is glacial; reload speed is even worse and it's tiered up against Tigers and Jagdpanzer IVs that tear through it's armour as though it were paper but the stupid thing can be great fun when things do go your way.  The 152mm howitzer is intensely satisfying when you land a hit with it. The game's free to play and you never really feel and pressure or need to spend money if you don't want to.

I'd also advise steering well clear of IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad.   It had such promise in the early stages of development but the devs have gone full-retard and seemed to be hell bent on driving the thing into the ground as though out of spite towards the early backers who were mostly negative on the direction development took in the final weeks leading up to release.

Red Orchestra 2 is a decent, light tactical shooter.  Death to Spies is a very challenging Hitman-style 3rd person stealth game where you play a SMERSH agent during and immediately after WWII.

Theatre of War 2 is a decent tactical RTS type game if you can get it on sale for $5 or so. 

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea and South Gambit are sim-light naval games set during WWII where you control Soviet torpedo boats and can jump around from station to station as well as hop up a level to a tactical map and direct engagements. 

Iron Front: 1944 is based off the ArmA 2 engine.  Single player was and still is pretty buggy in campaign mode but individual skirmishes can be fun and multi-player co-op was fantastic.  The SimHQ guys shut their server down 5-6 months ago but Major Mayhem's server is still up and running on weekends.  Their style of play is  a little too chaotic for me though (common comms channel for all squads and multiple respawning allowed.)

Have you put much time into Operation Star?  That's still one of the best once you come to terms with the unusual UI and language quirks.

[Wolfe1759]

Thank you guys, some good posts above. I know Gary Grigsby's games are the end all be all as far as detail, but are they fun? I'm leaning towards CM:RT...if I downloaded it today would I automatically get the latest version or do I have to patch it up myself?

And Glen I used to be uninterested in the late WWII era myself but for some reason I have become very interested in the final days in 1945, especially in the Soviets final push into Germany.

I would like to hear somebody's comments on War In The East (and WITW, too, although that's off-topic), but War In Russia was a lot of fun and to me at least, again quite playable, although you do have to set aside some learning time, which is something I personally have kind of gotten out of the habit with on computer games.

His Apple 2e game The Guadalcanal Campaign, is one of my favorite computer wargames ever.  Of course, that was over 30 years ago and I would probably have a very different reaction to it now, but basically I have had a great deal of fun in my life paying Grigsby games - Mech Brigade, Steel Panthers, War in the South Pacific, and more - but mostly not very recent.  The only Grisby game I have played in the last few years was The Blue and the Gray, and although I definitely enjoyed it, that game had the misfortune of coming out at about the same time as Forge of Freedom and Ageod's ACW game, and that was very unfortunate and odd that they all came out the same time, because those are easliy the 3 best ACW strat games I've seen.

I've had WITE since not too long after its release and have bought both scenario packs as well. That said it has taken me a number of good intentioned efforts to get into it, but I think I'm finally getting there.

It is a huge game, I don't foresee me playing the campaign game any time soon (maybe when I retire) but the scenarios, with c20 added by the scenario packs are where it is for me and I'm now getting over feeling that I have to know all the rules before I play and having fun just pushing counters around  :)

I'd highly recommend having a look at this youtube letsplay, it got me to push the counters around rather that worrying about all the rules I wasn't using http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3782045

In regard to WITW - lovely lovely manual, if you get it get the physical edition, if you are in the UK it is just 98p more expensive than the download edition, if you are in the Euro Zone I believe it is cheaper then the download edition. Not much beyond browsing the manual and looking at the maps on this one myself so can't really comment further.

P.S. I've also had War in the Pacific Admirals Edition for probably 3 years now, fire it up every now and again, wonder at the grandeur of it, scroll around the map and then regretfully close it down having been overwhelmed, some day I'll get round to it.

[JasonPratt]

Of course, Red Orchestra necessarily beats the old CoD games; and the music for CoD was dreadful (and suffered worse from comparison to the Michael Giacchimo score to the Medal of Honor games, which from all of his music I've heard far surpasses his other work, practically a John Williams film score).

But saying that, the Russian campaigns for CoD (1, United Front, and 2) were at least inventive. (CoD3 was console only, which I didn't have at the time; and I haven't played their callback to WW2 yet, though I own it.) I can never hate a game that starts me on a boat crossing the river under NKVD guard (so we don't jump and swim away) into the defense of... can't recall if it was Stalingrad or Leningrad... and learning on disembarking that they only have enough kit to give one man a rifle with one reload, and another man only the one reload. AND THE PLAYER GETS THE RELOAD NOT THE RIFLE!  :D


On the other hand, for squad-based tactics (sort of) set in 1943 Russia (sort of): Silent Storm Gold.

How you lose a normal TBS game:
The enemy slowly picks off your squad because they are way too powerful for you to take on.

How you lose Silent Storm:
You take a shot, it misses and goes through the floor hitting an explosive barrel, the resulting chain reaction destroys 75% of the house and kills all of your squad except the guy who took the shot. He is then blown out of a second story window by a guy with a machine gun.

50/10

[Nefaro]

On the other hand, for squad-based tactics (sort of) set in 1943 Russia (sort of): Silent Storm Gold.

How you lose a normal TBS game:
The enemy slowly picks off your squad because they are way too powerful for you to take on.

How you lose Silent Storm:
You take a shot, it misses and goes through the floor hitting an explosive barrel, the resulting chain reaction destroys 75% of the house and kills all of your squad except the guy who took the shot. He is then blown out of a second story window by a guy with a machine gun.

50/10

Yesss.   O0


There is a mod to remove the Steampunk suit stuff later in the game, if you want to stay historical.  Good either way.  The destructible environment mixed with the most detailed X-Com style squad tactical makes it one of the best of it's kind.  Think Soldiers At war but with much better graphics and features. 

GOG currently sells it IIRC.

[Slick Wilhelm]

I still think Close Combat:Cross of Iron is a great Eastern Front game, with a gentle learning curve.