WWII Grand Strategy Buyer’s Guide

The last eighteen months have been very good to strategy gamers interested in World War II grand strategy. Since April 2006, five great PC game titles have been released covering the subject. Each of these games is recommended, and presents World War II with different mechanics and play styles. To help our readers who are wondering which title to buy, Armchair General presents an apples-to-apples comparison of the games.

A quick summary chart is below. But more details of each game are presented in alphabetical order on the following pages.

1) Commander – Europe at War, Slitherine and Matrix Games
2) Gary Grigsby’s World at War: A World Divided, 2 by 3 and Matrix Games
3) Hearts of Iron: Doomsday, Paradox
4) Making History, The Calm Before the Storm, Muzzy Lane and Strategy First
5) Strategic Command 2, Fury and Battlefront

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5 Responses to “WWII Grand Strategy Buyer’s Guide”

1. 1
   Robert Riethmiller says:

   10/3/2008 at 8:25 pm

   I have owned and played this game for a couple of years now. It is always enjoyable and I like the fact that you can take Russia out of the picture and see how the world would be with only a one front ware.

   Reply
2. 2
   Adam Lloyd says:

   1/19/2009 at 1:20 pm

   Hearts of Iron 2 has about as much realism as a glossy version of Risk. The game has a “face” of realism but the mechanics of the game don’t give realistic results. The game system can be appreciated by itself without any of the WW2 references painted on but if you ignore the game system and expect to get results based on the WW2 stuff you will be disappointed.

   Reply
3. 3
   Robert Tippin says:

   4/9/2009 at 7:44 pm

   Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday is a great, but very complex, grand strategy wargame. There is no such thing as a quick game and the learning curve is a little steep. That said, it is a thoroughly enjoyable game. It presents the entire world and ever aspect of the war while giving you, the player, the opportunity to follow or change history. The results are indeed realistic, but with the great number of factors contributing to each situation it can be hard to understand at times why things happen the way they do. All that said, for anyone looking for a serious and long running grand strategy World War II game, you can’t beat Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday.

   Reply
4. 4
   Fred Baker says:

   8/31/2009 at 6:49 pm

   Hearts of iron is the most comprehensive ww II strategy game ever created. It is awesome in scope, time consuming and very addictive.

   Reply
5. 5
   Al says:

   2/23/2010 at 3:57 pm

   Ive played all of these games and Strategic Command is a good measure better than the other 2. The game lets you focus on playing it rather than micro managing it. It has plenty of units, a good uncomplicated tech tree, an excellent (best really) editor, lots of mods made, excellent interface, high playability without even reading the instructions, and its fun.

   Economics, Spys, and Diplomacy is simple which lets you focus on what players really want to do with WW2, move armies.

   Graphics are the least appealing of all the games but it has high visibility. There is no trying to figure out what the map is, its obvious where units are and what their strengths are.

   Overall very well built and streamlined. The company really cares about the game and keeps putting out a better and better product.

   Reply