Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Battle of the Bulge wargames aren’t exactly novel, but it’s been ages since anyone recreated the last major German offensive of the War without using hexes or turns. Spanish studio Games GI are the people behind – deep breath – World War 2: General Commander: Watch On The Rhine. Going by the surprisingly hefty demo they seem to know what they’re doing. Though the swarmy AI and simplistic logistics won’t impress Airborne Assault aficionados (who, incidentally, are waiting patiently for their own Bulge game) the trim UI and understated 3D visuals possibly will.

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Dave O’Connor, the boffin behind the smartest, most plausible strategy game AI I’ve ever had the pleasure to pit wits against, has been sharing some of his secrets with students in Canberra. His hour-long lecture sheds light on many of the features that make the Airborne Assault wargames so singular: the micro-management eliminating delegation system (31:10), the ingenious route-finding routines (36:50), the inertia modelling (18:45), the representation of ’soft’ factors like leader temperaments (25:30)… If mainstream RTS developers adopted just a fraction of these ideas the world of strategy gaming would be a far more interesting place.