Command Ops 2 Core Game

I've been playing Panther Games - from Highway to the Reich, to Conquest of the Aegean, to Command Ops 1 and Command Ops 2, for at least the last 10 years. Great to finally see them on Steam. There are literally hundreds of WW2 video games. So why should you care about another one? Well Command Ops 2 does what no other game does - puts you in the shoes of a real commander in highly detailed scenarios set in different theatres of the war. From the German invasion of Greece, to North Africa, Malta, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and on to the Westwall. [b]The Good:[/b] [list] [*]Unlike traditional wargames (and Civ 6), this game gets rid of hexes and turns and models everything in pausable real time on an open map, making the gameplay more dynamic. [*]The AI. If you're sick of dumb units who couldn't pathfind themselves down the Yellow Brick Road, this game has no such issues. You can order units to take the quickest route or safest route to a goal. They will probe...

A real treat for all the armchair generals amongst us. A great WW2 strategy game on an operational level. The cool thing about Command Ops 2 is its command structure. Every unit you get is part of a hierarchy, ruled by HQ's. Let's say you want to capture a small town. You can just detach one of your brigades from your division HQ and order them to attack the town from a certain flank. The brigade with all its companies will deploy itself and move out in a coordinated fashion. If you have bigger objectives you can coordinate with multiple brigades. The AI (both friendly and enemy) does a good job of actually reading each situation and reacting to it. Don't like what your subordonates are doing, intervene and give them new orders. It is also possible to micromanage and give orders to each of your companies individually. This is only ever useful in smaller scenarios or some specific situations like deploying fire support units or using recce units. Daunting at first, but really enjoya...

I love strategy games but I couldn't make this work - on either my smaller laptop or on my 4K desktop screen, there were missing dialogue boxes, text was scaled so small I couldn't read it, and lots of text overlaps each other. I couldn't launch a mission from my laptop at all. It looks like some buttons were missing. On my desktop I managed to launch the tutorial mission but there was no instruction or direction on how to play. All I could do is highlight units with my mouse.

One of the greatest real-time operational wargames ever conceived. The fact that people can get in on a couple scenarios for free is huge, because most of us, who have played this for several years already had to drop $30-40 to figure just how good this game is. Now people who love this kind of game don't have to commit a bunch of cash and get to experience the game engine firsthand.

This is a great wargame. I used to play Highway to the Reich, and it's good to see Command Ops 2 carries on that tradition - the AI is one of the best I've seen in a wargame if you let it do its thing and don't try to micromanage too much. Of course, if you want to issue orders to every unit you can, but where this system shines is in its ability to translate your general orders (attack/move/defend/probe etc) into meaningful actions on the ground. It doesn't always get it right, or rather, it will sometimes put a plan into effect that has you scratching your head and wondering why it had chosen to carry out your orders in such and such a way, but that's part of the fun as well - reacting to your subordinate commanders' decisions and re-planning gives an idea of the sorts of challenges senior commanders faced in the field all the time. I had some trouble initially getting the game to run, but Dave and his team at Panther Games went above and beyond to get it fixed, so a big thanks to ...

I have been intrigued by this game since the command ops 1 series. I haven't played it until now for various reasons the main ones being: 1) price, 2) I like lots of games and it just kept not being at the top when I made a purchase and 3) it is so ridicolously grognard I was scared of it! Now that I am finally played it I confirm its fantastic! I also confirm that it is ridiculously deep as a game. As far as game play goes its not nearly as difficult to get into as I percieved. However watching the intro video at panther games or at least some of the lets plays that are starting to be produced is a must to get any idea of how to play. Then unless you want to be frustrated to the point of rage quit keep the manual handy to refer to. After all this is not an arcade game. With those caveats and a little effort I can see this 'game' (or more accurately a game like military command sim) will reward manyfold. Despite the abstraction of the unit icons and this stripped back graphics...

i like the concept of this game because it is a hyper-realistic strategy game and it stands out but they need a proper word based turorial level because i dont know how to even move the units but i have only been playing for twenty minutes

The game looks quite involved so I jumped straight into the tutorial, which much to my dismay didnt teach me anything or even do anything, I admit im pretty new to this type of game but my first experience has left me feeling prety dumb. As a fan of strategy games I would consider myself a target customer of sorts but this has put me off and I dont think it's unfair of me to expect a bit of hand holding at the start. If I am going to spend money on the game then I dont really want to spend ages reading a manual, it kinda takes me back to the Amstrad cpc 6128 days. I have gone tumbs up though as i like the principle and it would be unfair to judge it from just that.

Magnificent, extraordinary one in its type these words come trough my mind when I think about this game. What astonishes me is the wonderfull translation of a combat commanding at the brigade/division/corps level into game mechanics. You are issuing commands at brigade level to your battalion commanders they might pass them down to company commanders as they see fit, it always generates some sort of extra chaos that you would like to micro manage but after some time you notice that commanders do a decent job in commanding on their own. Another part of the features in this tiltle is the latency of orders it takes a time to process the orders so your micro solution for chaos in the battlefield might arrive late and interfere with a current situation. Making a long story short this game show why it took around to twenty years to prepare divisional level commander to his job. It shows the importance of correct orders composition and a lot of staff work that was necessary to processes du...

I've definitely enjoyed my time playing the Command Ops series. There's nothing like it at this level that isn't a hex-and-counter dinosaur. The AI is very crafty and you'll find yourself with a company of Panthers rampaging through your supply lines if you're not careful. It does have it's downside. The UI is a bit clunky. The windows don't dock. The pan and zoom can feel a bit weird at times. But you've got a ton of info at your disposal so I can give them some leeway on how to best present it all. The really cool part of the game is selecting an HQ unit, setting an objective, and watching as it coordinates an attack between a bunch of different units and pulls off a better victory than you could have micromanaged on your own. I'm not aware of any other game that you can delegate command like that and actually see it happen. I'm looking forward to some user made scenarios in the steam workshop. First person who makes a Red October Factory scenario gets a cookie!