Your Indispensable WWII Game

[Steelgrave]

Grand Strategic - Strategic Command II Global Gold (with the SOE Fast Play Scenario for playing just the ETO)

Strategic - War in the East

Operational - Unity of Command

Tactical - Conflict of Heroes

Good list!

[Father Ted]

Darkest Hour is fun, but the level of detail and tactical immersion you get in a good round of online co-op in Iron Front is, for me, much more satisfying.  The pacing is slower and more methodical, but the firefights are more intense.  For me, Darkest Hour is like the original Ghost Recon and Iron Front is more like SWAT 3.

I've not played Recon or Swat, but with my limited knowledge of them, I'd agree with your analogy.  I just have a real soft spot for DH and haven't got into playing IF online.  BTW Gus, DH is the Western front mod for Red Orchestra: Ostfront .  Whilst RO2 is improving, I wouldn't get it for single-player.  Talking of eastern front stuff, I really loved CMBB, but I think those CMx1 games won't run on Win 7 (?)

[W8taminute]

Civilization 5 with R.E.D. WW2 scenario.  Seriously.  It's HOI but in turn based form. 

But if you insist on a WW2 dedicated game then it would be Combat Mission Barbarossa to Berlin.  The reason is that I can play it the way it's meant to be played, i.e. a tactical wargame.  Or I can create a scenario in the editor and make a map that looks like Europe and play this as a strategic game. 

[Greybriar]

I've got Unity of Command too. How hard is it to get into and learn?

I quit playing when I saw that all the units were heads moving across the map. There may be a mod for NATO symbols, but I want to see images of tanks, half-tracks, cavalry, etc.

The eye candy of recent games has spoiled me.  :P

[JasonPratt]

I've got Unity of Command too. How hard is it to get into and learn?

Not in the least hard. Easier than Panzer General by several orders of magnitude.

I wouldn't call it an indispensable game, though. Very good for what it is, yes; indispensable, no.

(I wouldn't put Battle Academy in the indispensable list either; swap out with one of the other Command Ops games. Or Ostfront. {g})

Of course, if what you want is Panzer General, but with highly respectable modern updates, Panzer Corps is the way to go. (That links to the final grand campaign expansion, but the core game and its missions are literally a direct but improved Panzer General remake. The GC expansions add a bunch of optional missions that were covered with only four or five in the original PG.)

HOI 2 & 3 and various standalone HOI super-mods, as suggested by others, are fairly unique grand strategy. For a more traditional super-ultra-hyper version of what boils down to Axis vs. Allies (i.e. simpler than monsters like HOI and SC2Global, but still kind of groggy), I'd look hard at World At War: A World Divided.

[JasonPratt]

Grey,

I'm 98% sure I've heard there's either a mod or an in-game option for NATO symbols in UoC, added almost the first thing out of the gate. (The game was built to be highly moddable anyway.)

[Greybriar]

Grey,

I'm 98% sure I've heard there's either a mod or an in-game option for NATO symbols in UoC, added almost the first thing out of the gate. (The game was built to be highly moddable anyway.)

I know. Read my previous post a little more carefully.  ;)

[JasonPratt]

Oh, duh, I see now.  ::) Sorry. You wanted MOAR BLING, not less.

That being said, at least half the icons on the map are mech; I seem to recall them being distinctly different mech classes, too, so various German tank corps looked different from other German tank corps. The heads are subtly different depending on type, too.

[Al]

HPS Panzer Campaigns
Command Ops
Advanced Tactics Gold

[Barthheart]

I've got Unity of Command too. How hard is it to get into and learn?

Unity of Command is dead easy to get into and learn..... But it can very hard to win.... Great game! 8)

[panzerde]

^What about War in the East?

Btw, if I had to choose an indispensable East Front CMish game, I wouldn't go with CM:Barbarossa to Berlin (now increasingly outdated), and maybe not even the Star games. I'd look into PanzerCommand:Ostfront. Graphics aren't as good as Star, but there are dynamic campaigns and the whole Eastern Front is simulated.

+1 to this.  Ostfront really is a great game, if not as pretty as either CM or Operation Star.  If you're cool with the actions around Kharkov in late '42 and early '43 being your focus, Operation Star is hard to beat, though.  I thoroughly enjoy them both when I'm in an East Front tactical mood.

[JasonPratt]

^^ Well, Ostfront is significantly prettier than the only Combat Mission East Front game currently available (Barbarossa to Berlin, itself not as relatively gussied as the final CMx1 engine game, Afrika Korps). The CMx2 engine runs the Western and Southern European fronts currently.

True though that the Achtung Panzer games look significantly better than even Ostfront, and the tighter topical focus lends to some superiorities that way, too. No doubt by now the AP games have been modded to cover the whole east front anyway.

[Gusington]

Unity of Command easier to get into than Panzer Corps (which I also own)...inconceivable.

OK so I have Unity of Command, Panzer Corps (and the '41 expansion) and the Company of Heroes anthology...I am in a solid WWII gaming starting position. Since I am fascinated by the Eastern Front, I am leaning towards Panzer Command Ostfront and Operation Star from what guys have collectively said so far.

[sandman2575]

No doubt by now the AP games have been modded to cover the whole east front anyway.

If only this were true!!  There's little mod content for AP to speak of -- modder friendly it is not (much unlike PC Ostfront).  It's a crying shame, really.  So much potential here that I can only assume Graviteam is deliberately keeping the lid on.

[Greybriar]

....I have Unity of Command, Panzer Corps (and the '41 expansion) and the Company of Heroes anthology....

Play those for awhile, Gus. There may be some new ones released before you're ready for another game in the same vein.