By Jim Rossignol on May 24th, 2012 at 11:00 am.
You will recall that one of Comrade Gillen’s many, many, many returns from retirement included this Unity Of Command review, in which he reported a strategy experience that was “accessible yet deep, attractive and with an AI which teaches you the core of the game by beating you around the head.” Despite that kindly recommendation some folks thought it was a little pricey to take a gamble on. And yet now there’s a sale, and also a demo. So there’s really no excuse for you not to take a look, is there?
24/05/2012 at 11:11 ChainsawCharlie says:
That still seems like a tenner too much.
24/05/2012 at 11:13 Fede says:
The game is very, very good.
Here it costs a little less on GamersGate (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-UOC/unity-of-command), as BMT Micro’s exchange rates are a bit steep, at least for me.
24/05/2012 at 17:26 Colonel J says:
For UK, cheapest place to get it is Gamestop / Impulse where it’s £15.19. Which is how much it ought to be straight from the dev ($23.99 to £) if BMT Micro didn’t have a poor $ exchange rate and then added 20% VAT.
http://impulsedriven.com/uoc
And yes, it’s very good indeed.
If they could get it on Steam at say £14.99 initially which seems fair for an indie game like this, I reckon they’d sell a truck load. Their original pricing was set at a bit below the going rate for the Matrix Games hardcore strategy market, which I think does them no favours as UoC is accessible enough to be a hit in the mainstream.
24/05/2012 at 11:13 yandexx says:
They have now (in v1.2) added ability to undo movement or attack in case you misclicked, and that have quite improved the experience.
24/05/2012 at 15:18 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Yes.
24/05/2012 at 11:14 Cinnamon says:
Not buying it because it blindly didn’t have a demo is a reason not an excuse.
24/05/2012 at 11:21 theleif says:
If you are like me, and prefer not to buy directly from the developers because you can’t keep on what games you have bought, there is a 20% sale in Gamersgate as well.
I know the best thing is to buy directly from the developers, and I have done that on a few occasions, but at the end I forget I even have the games and end up never playing them. Keeping track on what games I have on Desura, Gamersgate, Steam, GameStop and Gamestreamer is enough already.
Sorry developers. It’s not you, it’s me.
24/05/2012 at 20:23 Solomon Grundy says:
Jeez, you’d probably step on a puppy if it meant you didn’t have to walk your lazy-ass around it. They’re a 4-man-dev team fer pete’s sake! They need every $ they can get…
24/05/2012 at 21:38 Bonedwarf says:
Well perhaps they shouldn’t overcharge in the first place then if they’re that desperate.
25/05/2012 at 02:45 theleif says:
No doubt they need the money, but I have a online game library with something like 400 games now. There is no way in hell to manage that if I bought all games directly from the developers. I just realised I forgot to list GOG and Matrix on my list. See, I can’t even remember all the stores.
Oh. Indievania too.
24/05/2012 at 11:28 Dana says:
Haha, 25 euro. Thanks but no thanks. Open General is free.
24/05/2012 at 11:35 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
Well so is your mother.
24/05/2012 at 11:37 theleif says:
They have nothing in common except for the fact they are turn based and about WW2. And it’s about 20€ on Gamersgate.
24/05/2012 at 11:41 Fede says:
I suggest you to try the demo anyways; I don’t think that you’ll change your mind, but it is fun and very different from Open General.
There’s also a nice Three Moves Ahead podcast about Unity of Command: http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2011/12/22/three-moves-ahead-episode-148-unity-of-command/
24/05/2012 at 12:19 lhzr says:
So, the “sale” means that from the full price of 25.59 € + VAT you get a 5€ discount, so you end up with 24.36, with VAT included. I guess that you /could/ call that a sale, if you really wanted to, but come on.
24/05/2012 at 12:22 Zeewolf says:
It’s a good game, well worth buying.
24/05/2012 at 12:28 Ravelle says:
Played the scenario, not sure what to think about since it’s just moving dudes around and block the enemy from moving forward, I also ran out of supplies and then suddenly lost.
24/05/2012 at 12:49 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
We call this “war”.
24/05/2012 at 13:09 qrter says:
If there’s one thing I remember from Gillen’s review of the game, it’s your supply line is everything. Just like a real war – you need materials to kill people with (and keep your own people alive).
24/05/2012 at 14:28 Ravelle says:
How do you refill your units?
24/05/2012 at 14:59 wengart says:
I highly recommend the tutorial levels, but in the upper right hand corner there are 4 buttons. They display objectives, supply, terrain, and weather. By clicking the supply button you can see what square your supply and your opponents supply comes from. Each of these areas has a number by them showing how many squares they supply. The supply button shows you what squares are in supply and which are not. By keeping your units in the supplied areas they can recover suppressed steps (greyed out circles).
If your unit takes losses then you check the force pool to see if you have any available steps to add to it. You can also recycle units (top left) to put their steps onto the force pool to add to units.
24/05/2012 at 15:01 wengart says:
The game is more about controlling the flow of supplies than it is killing the enemy directly
24/05/2012 at 16:04 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Indeed, the most effective way to neutralise opposition is to encircle (and hence cut off from supply) as much of the enemy line as possible using your most mobile units, i.e. yer armour, while avoiding encirclement yourself. Or at least that’s the theory, I’ve found it somewhat tricksier in practice.
24/05/2012 at 14:31 Arathain says:
I’ve heard very good things about this. I shall look forward to trying the demo.
24/05/2012 at 18:52 Ranger33 says:
It’s really quite good. At a glance it seems simple, but then the AI beats you bloody for an hour and you realize that coming up with a solid strategy actually takes a lot of thought. Just winning the scenarios is hard enough, getting even close to the max score takes some real skill. They apparently have a scenario editor coming out eventually, which would really up the already high replayability.
25/05/2012 at 00:19 Sian says:
The demo registered as a trojan with my anti-virus. Probably a false-positive, but still.
27/05/2012 at 16:12 peschi says:
sadly the sale is over. price is at full again.