A New, Brutal WW1 Strategy Game - The Great War: Western Front 

100% agree

Yeah, even if the gameplay is sometimes not as “fun” as WW2 it’s still interesting. Although I think Battlefield 1 did a great job at mixing the vibe of WW1 with faster gameplay like in other war games. Totally not realistic in the slightest but definitely a fun game.

@@sharppixels0885 verdun 1914-1918 is probably the kost realistic ww1 experience anyone could get because the lines barley move in the game and when they do they get pushed right back meaning the devs captured ww1 fighting pretty well

It's easier to sell WW2 than WW1, that's why it's so overused

I still remember the pain in that Captain's eyes when The Doctor says World War 1 instead of _"The Great War"_ and the Captain said "World War one?..." you knew in that moment hes hopes of a wars end will never truly come.

Makes sense there would be a max since in real world it would also be limited how many soldiers could fit in a trench.

I haven't even played the game yet, first video watching about it, and even I caught on to how that works. There's a physical limit to how many bodies you can jam into one trench line

Look anywhere but the western front in 1916 and you’ll see that the war was very multifaceted. Even trench warfare wasn’t as stagnant as it’s represented in film

@@ewangrainger2898 Its represented in the game, tanks are insanely good at taking ground.

@@ewangrainger2898 dude has no idea about the sturmtruppen with flamethrowers and grenades storming trenches and the italians fighting austria hungary in the mountains with bayonets lol ww1 was not all stagnant

Praise pravus! And you too

Have a nice Easter

And neither does this game, really. The tactical gameplay isn't particularly realistic, and while the strategic layer does try to show a hint of the problem, it hides too much away to make it obvious to someone who isn't already very familiar with how the Western Front worked. The point is to capture the rather depressing experience of the commanders in the horrid stalemate. Games are a lot about control, and the loss of control. Mainstream games rarely risk removing that control from the player, which is certainly unrealistic, but it's definitely not the only unrealistic thing about games. More realistic games tend to be about removing options - you want to do something that would win you the battle, but you can't, because that's just not how command in battles really works. Which of course in turn means that most so-called strategy games are actually about micro-management of units _in battle_ , something that is almost impossible in reality (especially before radios). Unsurprisingly, real-life horse archers were _not_ actually able to kite their enemies with no risk to themselves, and an untrained peasant mob wouldn't heedlessly charge into enemy elite troops or stand their ground against a charge. Of course, we're still seeing just the very early points of the war (though already after the earliest mobile phase is over). But I don't expect the game will change to show the _massive_ imbalance between infantry and artillery that developed in the war, for example. The game still keeps a ridiculously unrealistic amount of control in the player's hand - not that I'm saying that's bad design, mind, just don't overplay the "realism" card - it doesn't even seem like there's a morale system in the game. It's still designed for a fun battling experience, just with the extra layer of showing some of the dread of how little your victories mean in the big picture. It would be nice if they included more of the costs of those victories, too - even very early on, many of the commanders realized this is going to be a horrible war of attrition with no decisive battles, just waiting out for who runs out of supplies, morale and reinforcements first. And yet, there was nothing anyone could really do about it, militarily. Heck, plenty of the commanders were sacked for proposing (and executing) the strategies that ultimately won the war - just... a few years later, which noöne wanted to admit is the only real choice.

Yeah you need to take some realism away because in the end your objective is to have fun, but also find a balance so it doesn't get ridiculous

Like number 69 lol

Well, the western front was just a Major loss of life over a few metres of ground. The North Sea, the Eastern front, Africa and the Middle East was not trench warfare. It was completely different.

Lol 8 million lives? No.

@@cubefreak123 no because I actually win, and your average RTS isn't going to model civilian casualties

i hope the next tw emodies the core of this game you see battle fields and thechnology progress witch i rarely get that sense from tw

@MesterWilliam at first, I was annoyed with the Warhammer series, but with Warhammer 3 I've loved how they've pushed a lot of mechanics that would make for a great WW1 or even W2 game. There are tanks, helicopters, bombers, artillery, gatling guns, nukes, flamethrower, small elite units. All they need are easy trench deployables or a unit that can build them and it's WW1 lol

@@MrAdamArce i have always loved warhammer since i am into to the lore and painting figures but i do miss the historical games now

Personally I'd like to see a TW in the 1830-1899 Europe era not quite up to WW1 but close

@@MrAdamArce they may or may not make a great war game but they really help to create mods for it huh?

It applies to all nations... if you have troops of difference nationalities you will get the penalty.

Yeah, the lack of having almost everything WWI was known for killed my interest. No persistent destruction, no persistent bodies, artillery craters look to be painted on and disappear after a while, pretty small unit cap. Just overall disappointing.

100%. AI is cheating and will often pre fire and pre barrage when I’m about to charge. I’ve noticed this multiple time after clearing OBS balloons. When I send a horde the AI will pre fire the staging ground despite having 0 reason to see it

@@ahuman7199 Don't you do that? It's quite an obvious time for a counterstrike. Heck, that was what people did in the actual war too - being blinded and suppressed by the enemy is a dead giveaway of an impending attack. Of course, in real life, there was also a preceding massive artillery bombardment, which got shorter and shorter as the war progressed to give the defender less time to bring in reinforcements and prepare the counter-attack. Somewhat counter-intuitively, attacks on the western front had _very favourable_ casualty ratios _until_ the counter-attack hits. That was the stalemate - the idea of people breaking apart against a barrage of machine gun fire is _way_ overrepresented in popular consciousness and media. You attacked, you achieved your objectives... and then got kicked out because of the massive defence in depth and the support lines. Over time, this developed into a strategy where you did your massed attack and retreated _before_ the counter-attack came - no longer hoping to actually hold territory, just having an attrition advantage. And that of course meant that you didn't actually want to have much strength in the forward positions, since they were too exposed... That said, I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't see the _same_ way the player does. That's actually quite hard to do. Fog of war is unsurprisingly complicated, and you want to avoid exposing the AI to too much cheesing (like teasing it to start the barrage too early etc.).

Total War

During some gameplay of the early access I noticed light arty fires a lot more shots than heavy, also since they are firing for suppression, the shot scatter everywhere (which could explain why the suppresion is actually bigger than the target area). While heavy arty fires way less but more precise shots (the ingame text says the heavy arty fire 5 precise shots per gun) that also deal way more damage. Also (at least with lvl 1 trenches) you can clear a trench with 2-3 heavy arty barrages, while lights deals negligible damage to it, unless the target is a basic mg nest or a charging infantry group (with a little luck 2 light arty barrages can destroy a mg). Edit: they changed the light artillery attack, now the suppressed area size is correct and it's really big