Unity Of Command II Blitzkrieg

[al_infierno]

Have not sunk my teeth too deeply yet, but this comment from Reddit sparks joy.

The UOC2: Blitzkrieg campaign is kicking my butt right now. I knew better than to dive in without lots of map study but American/British logistics made skipping that step not as important. You can't do that here. This game seems to be returning to the original's vision where stretching your supply lines past the breaking point is the only way to win.

[Gusington]

Guess I'll play my first round on 'easy.'  ;D

[Apocalypse 31]

I absolutely love Unity of Command. More specifically, I love how it depicts operational maneuver; how it makes players focus heavily on logistics and terrain. Very realistic.


With this DLC...

I made it through Poland and Denmark.

Wow. Not easy, AT ALL, and some aspects require players to adjust significantly-

German Amy HQ cannot move nearly as far and have limited Command and Control capacity- the DLC definitely makes players adapt their style to much more risky maneuvers than what I felt with the vanilla campaign. 

Early war Panzers do not give you the punch that I was used to- Armored Divisions are back to a more Cavalry-like mission. I have used them to pursue weakened and retreating enemies as well as driving deep into enemy territory to cut supply lines (then return, before they are cut off). They cannot stand and fight against regular infantry divisions, and will die trying to attack anything in 'close' terrain (forests and cities).

This has been a major contrast to UoC 1 and the UoC 2 vanilla campaign - my normal tactic was to use Pz Divisions to crack open the front lines, and then exploit the gap with infantry and motor. This no longer works. Again, the early-war equipment doesn't give you that same 'punch'.

Thankfully, and only after a rough go at Poland and Denmark, I'm at a point where I have 3x experienced Armies, and have developed my Divisions nicely. Most divisions have gained a ton of experience and I have distributed as many enablers as I can, so hopefully the low countries will be easier.

[Apocalypse 31]

My Steam review:

Yes, absolutely a must-buy if you enjoyed UoC I and the UoC II campaign.

More of the same, but different.
This DLC preserves the core gameplay mechanics of UoC, with an exceptionally heavy focus on operational maneuver with relation to terrain and logistics. This DLC adds a whole new experience than the previous releases with the depiction of early-war equipment and forces players to revisit their tactical approach to finding-then-exploiting enemy weaknesses.

I cannot wait to see what else the developers produce for UoC II.

[Jarhead0331]

^high praise coming from you, indeed.

[Apocalypse 31]

^high praise coming from you, indeed.

You know how picky I am with games.

UoC just does things right.

The game runs smoothly and has a wonderful UI that presents information well and makes it easy for players to navigate.

The graphics, unit icons, and map are nicely done (the map was hand-drawn from UoC I)

And most importantly- I find the game to be exceptionally realistic. Operational maneuver with a focus on terrain, logistics, enemy, command & control- we call these "Warfighting Functions" in real life, and that is exactly what we analyze to make decisions in the military.

[al_infierno]

A quick little anecdote I wanted to share - I feel it's pretty indicative of how realistically and rationally the AI reacts to your moves.  I call this screenshot: Hungry, Hungry Hans.   

In my screenshot, you can see two German infantry units in the top-left who are completely out of supply.  On the previous turn they were cut off from the south 2 Polish divisions (1 mounted, 1 foot) who occupied the 2 highway tiles south of them (now occupied by my own 2 infantry).  With a major river and some swampy terrain to the West, they didn't have enough movement to get back into supply by fleeing that way, so they were effectively stuck in place until someone could rescue them.

I put myself into this predicament because I had them push too far to try and cut off the enemy, and ended up getting cut off themselves.  I lost 1 unit to KIA, as the AI is very good at focusing its attacks on your weak links and putting them out of commission quickly.  None of my other forces were in position to really assist as the bulk of em were thrusting around Lodz.

Not wanting to turn this particular engagement into a slog-fest (the map is quite huge, this screenshot only covers about half my forces), I decided to make a ballsy move.  I took my 2 cut-off & beat-up foot divisions, and I pushed them East, deeper into enemy territory, and edged them against an undefended Polish supply depot at Kutno.  They didn't have enough movement points to actually take it, unfortunately, and I was risking potentially losing both those divisions if the AI managed to keep them trapped AND move someone to defend the supply depot.  However, the plan worked as the 2 Polish units occupying the road quickly fell back to defend the supply depot, leaving open a perfect gap for me to push up my own forces, retake the highway, and open supply lines to my hungry, hungry Hanses in the North.  They had just enough movement points to get themselves back to relative safety.  However, it remains to be seen if the Poles will aggressively push and try and KIA one of my units while they're weakened and low on supplies.  The AI is quite good at that.

[demjansk1942]

I bought the game question,,  is the invasion of Russia part of the dlc?

[al_infierno]

^ No, it's Poland, Norway, France, plus some hypothetical scenarios like Sealion.

[demjansk1942]

Thanks al

[JasonPratt]

I bought the game question,,  is the invasion of Russia part of the dlc?

They may remake the invasion of Russia in this engine, but the first Unity of Command covered the total East Front / Great Patriotic War.

Specifically, the "Black Turn" DLC followed the Germans through Barbarossa up until the Stalingrad campaign; the main game gave the German campaign to take Stalingrad, and then the Russian campaign to save Stalingrad; then the "Red Turn" DLC followed the Russians after Stalingrad to the fall of Berlin.

[Gusington]

If you had to choose between UoC II and Panzer Corps II...what would you choose?

[JasonPratt]

Haven't personally played both yet, so I can't have a good reply to that question.

However, if I cared more about a classic Panzer General scope to my game, Panzer Corps II would be the obvious pick, even without its DLC yet. Or even PzCor Gold (or whatever the full version is called nowadays) over UoC2. UoC2 is obviously very topically focused in its scope(s).

For engine differences, I like both concepts, but my impression is that PzCor2 allows more typical flexibility, so for people who care more about designing and upgrading their play force that would weigh more.

Having said all that: the fact remains that I own UoC2 (and its DLC), even though I haven't played it yet, while I haven't bought PzCor2 yet. Why? Because I don't know that PzCor2 does enough better than PzCor1 yet, and if I want a more traditional PzGen game there are plenty of other options on the market already aside from PzCor2 (not least of which is Order of Battle, which has a supply management similar to the UoC design combined with a more traditional PzGen approach.) Do I want flashy 3D graphics in my Panzer General game? -- Strategic Mind Blitz (and its predecessor) have that covered already, even if they lack some polish.

[Gusington]

Order of Battle I own and love, along with the majority of the DLCs.

[al_infierno]

With a decent amount of time spent with each, I would wholeheartedly go with UoC2 over PC2.  PC2 just doesn't add or change much gameplay wise to justify the price, the graphics are a bit ugly and unit types can be hard to discern, there's still no supply line system whatsoever, encirclement mechanics are wonky and very gamey, and the random map maker was a joke.  UoC is the opposite on all those points, except there's no random map maker at all.