Making History: The Calm Amp; The Storm

Making History: The Calm Amp; The Storm http://picfs.com/16y8bc

7aa9394dea Making History: The Calm Amp; The Storm Due to me putting 130+ hours into the game, I feel like I have a right to review it.Compared to other games such as Europa Universalis or any other Grand Strategy game, The Calm & the Storm is pretty simplistic when it comes to gameplay. Diplomacy is simple and combat is relatively easy to learn. One thing I will mention though, is that the world market is your best friend. if you play as anyone but the U.S USSR or Germany (I'm not sure about the U.K or China) then you will become dependent to the world market. Surprisingly, the same goes to self-sufficient countries if you want to keep a fairly steady income. That's all I'm going to mention about the game because if you download custom scenarios (which I HIGHLY recommend) then the gameplay, research, resource consumption, world market, etc will change depending on the scenario.For an example, I downloaded a scenario that let me played as the Holy Roman Empire in 1936, I fought the Nazis, conquered Europe, and fought the USSR and the U.K as a pro-Fascist SuperPower. Yes, Hitler was beaten by Julius Caesar.I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to get into Grand Strategy games. This is a good place to start with it's cheap price and its simple gameplay mechanics.. Best 99 cents I've ever spend. I'd have even paid the full price, maybe more for it. At first you might think: "EWW DIS GAME IS FROM 2007 IZ SO OLD AND DA GRAPHIZ IS\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665\u2665SO IT MUST BE BAD". If you think so, you're wrong. It's one of the best games i've ever played, I got addicted from playing the demo and persuaded my friends to buy it too cause they thought the same as I mentioned earlier. But hell, this game is f*cking fun! Play in single- or multiplayer (LAN connection or Hamachi) with maximum 8 players as one if the leading nations in WW2 (Italy, Germany, UK, US, France, China, USSR, Japan) in 6 different scenarios in the time before and in WW2 (20th Jul 1936 - 1st Oct 1945, 1st Sep 1938 - 30th Mar 1939, 1st Sep 1939 - 19th Oct 1945, 1st Aug 1940 - 4th Oct 1945, 7th Dec 1941 - 7th Oct 1945, 6th Jun 1945 - 9th Oct 1945). In singleplayer you can even play as one of the "smaller" Nations (afghanistan, spain, etc...). It's really realistic and shows many aspects, not only "I HAVE MOAR TROOPS SO I WIN BATTLE" but also how advanced the troops are, how many arms were produced for them and which vehicles support them. Combine war tactics, alliances, production, research and trading on the world market to push up your nation in war. Before you start a game you can either pick if the biggest alliance, nation or ideology wins in the end.TL:DR: Buy it, f*cking buy it. NOW. Due to me putting 130+ hours into the game, I feel like I have a right to review it.Compared to other games such as Europa Universalis or any other Grand Strategy game, The Calm & the Storm is pretty simplistic when it comes to gameplay. Diplomacy is simple and combat is relatively easy to learn. One thing I will mention though, is that the world market is your best friend. if you play as anyone but the U.S USSR or Germany (I'm not sure about the U.K or China) then you will become dependent to the world market. Surprisingly, the same goes to self-sufficient countries if you want to keep a fairly steady income. That's all I'm going to mention about the game because if you download custom scenarios (which I HIGHLY recommend) then the gameplay, research, resource consumption, world market, etc will change depending on the scenario.For an example, I downloaded a scenario that let me played as the Holy Roman Empire in 1936, I fought the Nazis, conquered Europe, and fought the USSR and the U.K as a pro-Fascist SuperPower. Yes, Hitler was beaten by Julius Caesar.I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to get into Grand Strategy games. This is a good place to start with it's cheap price and its simple gameplay mechanics.. I would most certainly hope you would buy this game during the sale, or even when it's not on sale(it's a quite small price). Pros:*GREAT learning experience, easy to get into, very user friendly.*Easy moving system, nice controls.*Easy economy system.*Easy region control and production control.*Not all full of reports and pop up's about battles and the economy like in Hearts of Iron III or similar games.*Cheap and fun.*Never really gets boring. Has different campaign starts incase you don't want to spend a lot of time playing.- First campaign starts from 1936 and is mostly economic based up until 1939 when the war starts and then ends in 1945. It also involves a lot about the Spanish Civil War and lets you ask, or change\/repeat history, whether Republican Spain would win or if Nationalist Spain wins and whether Nationalist Spain joins the Axis beyond political support or if Republican Spain joins the Allies, or vice versa.- Second campaign starts shortly before the war, in 1938, showing the rise of Germany and their moves in Czechoslovakia and the Rhineland. Ends in 1945.- Third campaign starts at the brink of the war, 1939, with the invasion of Poland and sorrounding countries. Ends in 1945.- Fourth campaign starts in 1941 with the entry of America into the war after Pearl Harbor. Ends in 1945. Also involves the invasion of the Soviet Union(Eastern Front). Ends in 1945. Also has the battle in Africa.- Last campaign starts in 1944 and involves the invasion of France by the hands America, Britian and Canada(Operation Overlord\/D-Day). Also involves the final stages of the Pacific War and the end of the war. Ends in 1945.*Has other historically correct events(unless you are the country that would've caused that event, in that case it is your choice if you follow history), such as the civil war in China with Communist China and Nationalist China, economic problems in America, Japan's crazy expansion, etc.*Easy way to make your own scenarios.*Lets you do what you always wondered and see what happens. Play as Germany and avoid a war with the Soviet's and see if you can conquer all of non-Soviet Europe. See what happens as Japan if you had not declared war on America. See what happens if, as the Soviet's, you make a move against Germany first. SEE WHAT HAPPENS!*Area that was formally Allied is given back to the former country when conquered by an Allied army. Ie. Normandy is given back to France after America wins the battle in Normandy.*Countries are never defeated until the whole alliance is destroyed.*Turn based instead of real time(might be a con for some, but it makes it easier for planning purposes and reviewing mistakes quickly.)*Almost no lag.*Great mod support\/custom scenario sharing support.Cons:*Area that is occupied is given to the country that fought first, not the country that contributed to the battle the most.*Hard to recover from major losses in an area.*No way to have production to reinforce in areas that you conquered back for a country you are Allied. Ie. America can't build stuff in a French factory in a region that they conquered for France.A very fun game!8\/10 for strategy.9\/10 for fun.10\/10 for length.7\/10 for occupation system\/conquering system.Overall: 8.5\/10Category:Five star+ game!Great gameDecent gameBuy on a saleNot that badPretty badHorrible, do not buy!. This game quite confusing when you first start to play. You will want to build up your army and invade everyone around you. That isn't always the best idea you soon learn. This game makes it difficult to manage your goods, arms, coal, metals, oils, and the many wars you will get into.8\/10. Started with D-DayEverything went to planThen Canada Requests suppliesI say noCanada Declare war on meUK Join the fight with CanadaGermans use the chance to wipe out Canada and Commonwealth forcesGermans wipe out everyone10\/10 would declare war on Canada again. I find that I usually only write reviews when I don't like a game, but I'm going to force myself to write one for this game, because I feel its one of the best games I've played in this genre.Firstly, the graphics are attractive and detailed, which I find a plus for a war game. The unit organization is easy to get the hang of, dividing, combining, and renaming armies are quite intuitive. Supply levels are limited to one type, Arms, which helps you focus strategically instead of trying to micromanage many different kinds of supplies for your armies.Trading is as complicated as you want it to be. You can just put in trade requests, or you can micromanage the trades as more resources come into the market. However, trades will be handed off to other parties automatically, which is a benefit if you don't want to pay particular attention to trading. Although if you don't watch it, you'll find yourself trading with a nation you didn't want to, because they took over some of your 'contracts' so to speak.Improving your infrastructure is easy and involves upgrading your roads, agricultural improvements, and reducing or expanding your mine output. It keeps it out of your way, and you get easy updates on progress. This is the same as choosing production, it's easy, and there aren't so many options you can get lost.All of this is a boon to you, because it makes it easier to focus on your strategy and tactics, which to be fair aren't incredibly in depth, but enough that you can benefits for cutting off enemy army supplies (combat penalties), and you can blitz behind combat to disrupt enemy production. Air units can be assigned to support a battle, or you can target reinforcements, producing cities, attack enemy fleets, provide air cover, they are a help but not overbalanced. Combat is a bit abstract with the computer AI sometimes splitting up a huge number of units into small groups, it can be hard to maintain a cohesive front, but generally they will try to overcome your largest troop concentration by refocusing their units, so it isn't uncontrollable.Historically the game tries to be accurate, with some events coded into the game, but you can have an immense impact on outcomes, even if you play a smaller nation. I've had crazy match-ups where Japan allies with America to fight the German and Soviet menace. You can stall the Nazi menace, or you can join it and help out, you can preempt the entire war and launch an unprovoked attack on the Germans with America, or try flip the world on its head by trying to become an Argentinian Axis super power. The depth and fluidity of the diplomacy system is also simple, perhaps more simple than it should be, but it works well with the rest of the mechanics.In short, the game is unbeatable at this price, and even if it cost more it's literally pennies per hour of play, and if you get bored of the included scenarios there are a vast amount of user created ones to choose from. Did I mention the game includes a map\/scenario editor? It does, and if you wanted to create the Drakon world of S.M. Stirling, go ahead.. I was initially excited by this game, but cannot recommend it as it is seriously flawed. The main issue is that the economy of the game is completely screwed. Your citizens demand "goods" and your armies demand "arms", but you'll find it impossible to meet your nation's needs in these areas and while you can earn cash from exporting food, coal, and oil, I've never actually see any country export either arms, or goods, which means that international trade is largely pointless. Cash in this game is useless. While you are penalised for running a deficit, you gain no benefit from running a surplus and all that additional money is useless, because you can't use it to buy the things that you need, namely arms and goods. As the US, I had over 20 billion dollars in cash and literally nothing to spend it on, because nobody on the whole damned planet was selling what I needed. While you can research new technologies, you need to devote city production to this, which means that you are once more behind with your production of arms and goods. There also seems to be no way to share technology between countries, so each country is left having to reinvent the wheel.Alliances are useless, as you can't actually co-ordinate your attacks between nations. Forget D-Day landings, where the US, Canada, UK and other countries invade. You'll invade, while the other countries will sit around watching your forces either win, or die. The tactical aspects of this game are bland. As the US, I simply pooled all of my ships into one fleet and sailed right into Japanese waters. After destroying the Japanese fleet that were deployed in a piecemeal fashion, I simply landed my armies on the Japanese mainland, thereby bypassing the "island hopping" campaign of the US historically used to gradually claw their way within range of the Japanese home islands. Also, given that aircraft carriers can see into adjacent squares and detect all ships there, forget the idea of the Japanese launching a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. Finally, the manual is awful, the in game tips are pointless and there are almost no online guides, which is both disappointing and surprising, given how old this game is. By way of example, it took me ages to figure out how to repair damaged ships. This is done by putting them into port and changing the city production to repairing ships, but the in game tooltip just says that the ships need to be put into port. While this game pretends to mimic aspects of WWII, it fails on far too many levels to be an enjoyable experience.. Very fun UNTIL you run out of coal during the war, at which point NO ONE wants to sell any and unless you have a 2 billion dollar coushon your economy is going to tank, this was playing as mexico anyway, basically I've found that there is a lot of skipping to the next turn because you have to skew your build more towards economy than military or research, as far as the actual combat goes, eh not TOO exciting but it'll give you a kick the first few times, however Civ V has better looking combat but less realistic strategy so it's a horse a piece, also if you play as mexico... DO NOT ATTACK THE SMALL PEEPS. IDC HOW TEMPTING IT LOOKS DO NOT. YOU WILL RUIN THE REST OF THE GAME FOR YOURSELF.Solid 7\/ 10