Battle Strategy Favourite (Western Front (PC))

Member Name: FraserP

Product:	Western Front (PC)
Date:	13/02/01 (520 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: brilliant for battle tactics, use of terrain, combined arms

Disadvantages: wonderfully addictive

This games is for people who love to work out strategies for battles. You are usually faced with an enemy with slightly superior weapons or technology, which you have to overcome by learning battle tactics. The 3D views are great; you can view the terrain from any angle and work where best to fight the battle or set up your defences.

One element I particularly like is that although you have to gather resources, and guard them, it is not a central issue and does not dominate the game.

You move through different areas of a huge map, and as the game progresses you find yourself coming back to defend bases that you set up perhaps 3 or 4 stages earlier, now facing a superior enemy, so plan ahead.

At first the fact that you are allotted only a limited time to complete a stage is frustrating, but a way of dealing with this is to slow the speed of the game down to, say, half speed, so that you can have time to deal with the frenetic battles.

If you preserve your tanks or troops they gain points and get promoted, so keep them alive by recycling them in the early game and when you have repair units, use these.

I could write a book on the tactics, such is the potential of the game. The only units I found to be of marginal value are the air units; very fast and powerful attacks, but fragile and easily shot down by anti-aircraft units or defences.

Artillery is awesome if carefully positioned, and can be very satisfying. Massed attacked can be coordinated with the use of commander units, which also gain experience through the kills of its troops, getting promotions and the right to command more troops / units.

I enjoy strategy games and rate Command & Conquer, Dark Reign, Starcraft amongst others, but this would be my desert island game.

Summary: