Strategic Command is a series of computer video games developed by Fury Software and Battlefront.com, and published by Excalibur Publishing.[1] Since the premiere of the first game in the series, Strategic Command: European Theater in 2002, eight further new titles and six expansion packs have been released, with the ninth game released in 2022, Strategic Command: American Civil War, being the most recent one. Including re-releases, expansions, and the 2019 bundle Strategic Command: Complete, 22 different titles are included in the series.[2]
Strategic Command games are turn-based strategies set in World War I, World War II, World War III, and the American Civil War, as well as other minor conflicts. The first games of each new generation of the series (i.e., European Theater, Blitzkrieg, and War in Europe) took place in the European Theatre of World War II. Two games have been released focusing on the entire global conflict of WW2 (Global Conflict and World at War). Two games have also been released focusing on the World War I (The Great War 1914-1918 and World War I). One-off games have been released focusing on the Pacific Theatre of WW2 and the American civil war.
Three different game engines have been created for different generations of Strategic Command. The first title featured a hex map. In the second generation of the series, the games are played on maps divided into squares ("tiles"). The third game-engine saw the return of hexes. Games from the first and second series saw the player assuming control over either Axis, Central Powers or Allied, Entente Cordiale states of World War II and World War I. The Patton Drives East expansion in the second series added a conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. The third series repeated the WW1 and WW2 focus of the preceding games and added a game focused on the American Civil War.
Common elements
Strategic Command games are all turn-based strategies. With the exception of the Patton Drives East expansion pack of Strategic Command 2, which also features post-1945 campaigns and scenarios,[3] and Strategic Command: American Civil War, all the games are set during the first and second world wars. In campaigns, the player can controls all of the states on one side of the conflict (e.g., the Axis or Allied states for games set in the second world war). The most important part of the game is commanding the military units, but the player also controls the research of technologies and diplomatic relations. Neutral states may join the war in certain circumstances (for example, in European Theater, Spain may become an Axis state, if other Axis powers first manage to defeat the United Kingdom),[4] or when one side directly declares a war against them.
Apart from campaigns – in which the game takes place on a whole theatre of war – Strategic Command series also feature scenarios taking place on smaller maps,[5] and portraying only single events, such as Operation Market Garden or the 1974 war on Cyprus.
Since Strategic Command 2, weather and diplomatic pressure are modeled in the games.[5] Using diplomatic pressure, the player may eventually persuade a neutral country to either join the war on his side, or to prevent it from becoming his enemy.[5]
AI
The AI (artificial intelligence) for the first game engine, that of European Theater, the AI was hard coded with a few targets which it would attack or defend depending on circumstances. As such it was not capable to adapting to different maps, but only the targets present on the map of Europe provided in European Theater. For the second game engine, that of Blitzkrieg, the AI was updated to be capable of adapting to differing maps. This was achieved by dividing the AI into three layers: a first layer that measured the strengths and weaknesses of opposing forces on the map in differing regions, a second layer that determined whether a defensive or offensive posture was appropriate for each region based on the output of the first layer, and a third layer where a campaign-dependent script was used to give the AI a campaign-specific focus.[6]
The first game in the series, Strategic Command: European Theater, was released in 2002. It took place on a hex map, with one hexagon representing 50 miles of terrain.[29] The game featured six campaigns, all taking place on the same map, but with different starting dates. Creating fan-made campaigns was also possible.[29]
The player could choose the neutral states to act "random", "historical" or "neutral".[4] With the "random" option, neutral states may decide to join the war depending on current situation, while "historical" means joining the war on an exact, historical date, regardless of the circumstances (for example, the USA will always become an Allied country on December 8, 1941). With the "neutral" option, those states won't join the war, unless it will be directly declared against them.[4]
Strategic Command: European Theater was re-released in 2006 as Strategic Command Gold with additional campaigns.[30]
Second game engine
Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg, released in 2006, was the first game in the series using maps divided into squares (or "tiles"), once again focusing on the European Theater of World War II (although a free "Global War" campaign was later added with a patch).[5] Unlike the previous installment, Blitzkrieg features not only campaigns taking place on the map of whole Europe and Atlantic Ocean, spreading from 1939 until the end of the war, but also scenarios played on smaller maps, such as Battle of Kursk or Battle of the Bulge.[5] Diplomacy and weather conditions were also added to the game.[5] This time, creating not only fan-made campaigns, but also custom maps was possible.[5]
Two expansion packs were released: Weapons and Warfare and Patton Drives East. The first one added new terrain types, roads and rail lines to the game,[31] while the second one included new campaigns and scenarios, some of them post-World War II or fictional, including the titular "Patton Drives East", which portrays a hypothetical conflict between the US and USSR following the defeat of Nazi Germany.[32]Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg was re-released in 2018 as Strategic Command Classic: WW2, bundled together with the two expansions and Strategic Command: WWII Pacific Theatre.[33]
Strategic Command WWII Pacific Theater, which premiered in 2008 and was based on the same game engine as Blitzkrieg, was the first game in the series not taking place in Europe, instead focusing on Asia and the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II.[34] The game also introduced more advanced options for controlling aircraft carriers and submarines.[34]
Strategic Command WWII Global Conflict, was released in 2010 and based on the same game engine as Blitzkrieg.[2] It takes place on a map of the whole world.[2] Since then further releases of add-ons to Global Conflict have included larger scale maps and additional unit types initially as a "Gold" release. Two expansions were released for this in 2013, Assault on Communism and Assault on Democracy, the former being World War II from 1941 mainly relating to USSR, and the latter a very much larger (x 4) world map with both a complete World War II scenario plus some extra more localized campaigns.[35][36] This was re-released in 2018 as Classic Strategic Command: World War II - Global Conflict, bundled with the two expansions Assault on Communism and Assault on Democracy.[37]
Third game engine
Strategic Command: War in Europe (essentially Strategic Command 3) was announced in 2016, featuring an updated version of the game engine using hexes.[38] It was followed in 2018 by Strategic Command: World at War, a WW2 war-game based on the update engine of War in Europe and played out on a world map. In 2019, Strategic Command: World War I was released.[39] The first three titles in the third series were released bundled together as Strategic Command: Complete in 2019.[40]
Strategic Command: American Civil War, a game focusing on the 1861-65 American Civil War, and the first official game outside of the 20th century, followed in 2022, again based on the updated game engine of War in Europe.[41]
Strategic Command games were given average to favorable reviews from game critics. GameSpot described the first game as being "a notch or two above Hasbro's Axis & Allies board game and nowhere near the daunting challenge of Avalon Hill's intimidating Third Reich", concluding that "fans of SSI's Clash of Steel from 1993 will feel right at home".[46] Reviewers noticed a contrast between the game's interesting gameplay and rather plain graphics and sound effects. IGN commented: "loads of substance, but not much style,"[47] while Strategy Informer described the second game as being "for the hardcore of turn-based strategists, as otherwise you could soon be finding yourself turned away by the lack of visual and audio passion".[48]
World War II Online: Blitzkrieg is a World War II massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS) developed by Playnet, Inc.'s internal game studio, "Cornered Rat Software", and it was originally released on June 6, 2001 for Microsoft Windows, with a Mac OS version being released in 2002. In 2005, WWII Online was re-released under the new name of WWII Online: Battleground Europe.
Blitzkrieg is a 2003 real-time tactics video game based on the events of World War II and is the first title in the Blitzkrieg series. The game allows players to assume the role of commanding officer during the battles of World War II that occurred in Europe and North Africa. Each country has its respective historically correct military units. Similar to the Sudden Strike games, Blitzkrieg focuses on battles rather than real-time strategy aspects like base building.
Star Wars: Battlefront II is a 2005 first and third-person shooter video game based on the Star Wars film franchise. Developed by Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts, it is a sequel to 2004's Star Wars: Battlefront and the second installment in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. The game was released in PAL regions on October 28, 2005, on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable (PSP), Microsoft Windows, and Xbox platforms, and in North America on November 1 of the same year. It was released on the PlayStation Store on October 20, 2009, for download on the PSP. The PSP version was developed by Savage Entertainment.
Matrix Games is a publisher of PC games, specifically strategy games and wargames. It is based in Ohio, US, and Surrey, UK.
World in Conflict is a 2007 real-time tactics video game developed by the Swedish video game company Massive Entertainment and published by Vivendi Games for Microsoft Windows. The game was released in September 2007, receiving generally favorable reviews and several awards. The game is considered by some to be the spiritual successor of Ground Control, another game by Massive Entertainment, and is generally conceived by its designers to be a real-time tactics game, despite being marketed as a RTS game.
Combat Mission: Shock Force is a computer wargame by American studio Battlefront.com in the Combat Mission series of games that covers a fictional United States invasion of Syria, focusing on U.S. Stryker brigades. It was released in 2007, marking the debut of the CMX2 game engine, the second generation of Combat Mission games.
Blitzkrieg 2 is a real-time tactics computer game based on the events of World War II. The game is an evolution of its predecessor Blitzkrieg and is the second title in the Blitzkrieg series. The game takes place in North Africa, the Pacific and Europe, and features the 6 different factions portrayed in the game that fought in their battle respective grounds during the war.
Strategic Command: European Theater is the first game in the Strategic Command strategy game series, and is a turn based strategy game set in World War II. It allows you to play the Allies or the Axis. The smaller European nations can go either way depending on how the Axis or Allies act towards them. Although on historical mode some nations join the allies or axis by default while others depend on the course of the war and aggression of the major powers.
Star Wars: Battlefront is a series of first- and third-person shooter video games based on the Star Wars franchise. Players take the role of characters from the franchise in either of two opposing factions in different time periods of the Star Wars universe. The series was launched in 2004 by LucasArts with Star Wars: Battlefront, developed by Pandemic Studios for LucasArts. The game received positive reviews and sold well. In 2005 Pandemic developed a sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, which was also critically and commercially successful.
Star Wars: Battlefront is a 2004 first and third-person shooter video game based on the Star Wars film franchise. Developed by Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts, it is the first installment in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. It was released in September 2004 for PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows to coincide the release of the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. Aspyr released a Mac OS X port in July 2005, and a cellular phone version, Star Wars Battlefront Mobile, was released on November 1, 2005.
Battlefront.com is a video game developer and publisher. Battlefront specialises in war-related games, including turn-based and real-time strategies, as well as simulations of air, land and naval military vehicles. On August 27th 2024, the 25th Aniversary of Combat Mission, Battlefront was aquired by Matrix Games.
Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg is a grand strategy computer game developed by Canadian studio Fury Software, and published by Battlefront.com in 2006. The second game in the Strategic Command series, Blitzkrieg is a turn-based strategy set in World War II, focusing on the European Theater. The player controls all of either Axis or Allied states.
Strategic Command WWII Pacific Theater is a grand strategy computer game developed by Canadian studio Fury Software, and published by Battlefront.com in 2008. The third game in the Strategic Command series, Pacific Theater is a turn-based strategy set in World War II, focusing – for the first time in the series – on Asia and the titular Pacific Theater. The player controls all of either Axis or Allied states.
Strategic Command WWII Global Conflict is a grand strategy computer game developed by Fury Software, and published by Battlefront.com. The game was released on 5 March 2010. It is the fourth title in the Strategic Command series. As the previous installments, it is a turn-based strategy set in World War II. For the first time, the main campaigns don't focus on a particular theater of war. Instead, the game features a map of the whole world. The player controls all of either Axis or Allied states.
Roger Keating is an Australian computer game designer. Along with Ian Trout, Keating co-founded of the video game company Strategic Studies Group, which is known for its strategic war and fantasy games with artificial intelligence. Keating and Trout worked together on the majority of SSG titles.
Combat Mission is the name of a series of computer wargames simulating tactical battles. The series has progressed through two distinct game engines. The original game engine, referred to as 'CMx1' by the developer, Battlefront.com, powered a trio of games set in the Second World War. Combat Mission: Shock Force was released in July 2007 as the debut of the 'CMx2' game engine. The Combat Mission games are a mixture of turn-based gameplay and simultaneous real-time execution. The game environment is fully three-dimensional, with a "Wego" style of play wherein each player enters their orders into the computer simultaneously during pauses in the action, and then are powerless to intervene during the action phase. More familiar turn-based games use an "I-go/You-go" system of play.
Panther Games Pty Ltd is an Australian games developer, best known for the WWII Airborne Assault and Command Ops PC video game series. Panther Games specialises in developing operational level wargames for the PC Wargame market.
Typhoon of Steel is a 1988 computer wargame designed by Gary Grigsby and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) for the Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga, and IBM PC. A follow-up to Grigsby's 1987 game Panzer Strike, it simulates military conflict during World War II.
Strategic Command WW1: The Great War 1914-1918 is a grand strategy computer game developed by Canadian studio Fury Software, and published by Battlefront.com in 2011. The fourth game in the Strategic Command series, The Great War is a turn-based strategy set in World War 1. The player controls either the Central Powers or the Entente states.
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