Making History: The Great War

I'd consider leaving a neutral review if I could. The games has some amazing pros, but is held back across the board by the cons and isn't worth $30 at this point in time.

The game's premise is very good. However, as others have complained about weird AI, trading, politics, and incredibly tedious empire management hold it back. Additionally, bugs or lack of clarity with things like trading and resource consumption each turn make it really hard to understand where your economy stands turn to turn, and sometimes you have to hope things don't implode without knowing why if you're in a tough spot. I'd get it again on sale, but it's not worth $30, and doesn't have the polish that a finished game should have.

This is unfortunate because there's some gold in the game too. Requiring logistics for many things including trade is often overlooked, but present here. The revolts and independence movements give simple counterplay for humans (with resource management required) but makes things interesting with the AI. The supply chains and optimal building patterns are deceptively complex. There's a lot of flavor for smaller, often overlooked nations. It just doesn't properly execute on any of the ideas quite in the way it needs to.

TL;DR - High complexity in economics, industry, diplomacy, and government paired with a lack of automation and really poor user interface; Too little complexity in military. Broken/stupid AI. Bugs galore.

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I've been conflicted about this game since I first played it. I see the potential, and I really wanted to like this game, but in the end I just can't leave a good review.

In the gaming industry, World War I is a very under-represented event in world history, despite the massive impact it had on the world. Sure, the later conflict of WWII featured a lot of interesting military strategy and tactics like tanks blitzing through the front lines or epic battles between aircraft carrier fleets in the Pacific, which have been simulated extensively. But it's not like WWI was this uninteresting event not worth simulating. Most people think of slow, grinding, trench warfare when it comes to WWI, but it was not always so on all fronts! And the world political climate wasn't so static either.

So why can't I give this game a good review? Because its attempt at simulating WWI and its events falls flat in pretty much every category. Let's take a closer look:

Province/City Management - This is the most tedious aspect of the game. Every province and every city has large dropdown menus of options for you to choose from to make improvements. The problem is, there's no context given behind any of the options, besides the name of the option. So, in order for you to understand what exactly every option does and what could be the benefit of selecting it, you have to close the dropdown menu and then find the game encyclopedia menu and look up what it does, what's its costs and benefits are, etc. Then repeat for each menu option. Needless to say, it gets tiresome really fast. A much better solution would have been to have a GUI where you can click pictures, buttons, adjust sliders, etc., rather than have to swim through dropdown menus. The other major problem is that, from what I can tell, there is absolutely no automation available to assist you. In order for you to produce or improve anything at all, you have to manually set it. And, there are no queues, so you can't just set a production/improvement list one time and then let it do its thing. With dozens and potentially hundreds of provinces and cities at your command, this can just get absolutely exhausting.

Empire Management - WWI occurred at the pinnacle of the era of European empires. If you play as any major power, you will have some kind of empire to manage. But unfortunately, just like you have to do everything manually for your provinces and cities, you also have to do the same for your subject nations. And if you are playing Britain or France, there are a ton of them to manage. Again, the lack of automation kills the vibe here. If only you could set a policy for your subjects and leave them to it: for example, direct them to improve infrastructure in provinces where there are natural resources, then prospect them, harvest them, and ship them to you. But no, sadly you have to manually do all of this too.

Trade (including intra-empire trade) - No automation here either. I think you get the point.

Diplomacy - This is very underdeveloped, and the game suffers greatly for it. For one, basic things like having military access to your allies' territory is not a given. I'm not kidding. If you are France, and Belgium is your ally, if you attempt to move your units into Belgian territory to help defend them, it will say that you have to declare war on them or ask for permission to move your troops there. And when you ask for that permission - wait for it - you will be rejected! Every time! Why?!? I don't understand at all how you are supposed to make the AI accept something so obvious that it should be trivial. And the game does nothing to explain it to you. Good luck doing any diplomacy that's more complex than that. And then, there's the random declarations of war that happen for no reason. In one of my games as Italy, the Allies refused my entry into their alliance despite the fact that I was at war with the Central Powers. And when our mutual enemy was finally defeated, the very next turn Australia declared war on me and with them the entire Allies...................................................

Units and Combat - This should be the fun part, after all you can't have a conflict without battles. And with all of the detail and options available for infrastructure and industry, the military system should be just as detailed, right? Wrong. Essentially, the level of complexity for units and battles is about the same as you would find in Axis & Allies. And that wouldn't be a bad thing if the game didn't have such high complexity for economics, diplomacy, empire management, etc. It's so bizarre how low complexity military is in this game, while everything else is such high complexity. It should be the other way around. This game has no concept of command and control, generals and other types of officers, supply lines and logistics, or battlefield tactics. Instead, you just form huge stacks of units and push them into enemy provinces, where they will engage in long battles that take several turns to resolve. In most cases, whoever sends more units to the battle wins. That's about the extent of tactics in this game. One of the strangest design decisions in this game, too, is how artillery is implemented. Artillery attacks from neighboring provinces, even though the distance between those provinces in reality is far greater than the range of those guns. This is WWI, remember, not modern times with long range missiles, yet you wouldn't know the difference in this game. And, if you stack enough artillery in one province, and have them all target the same neighboring province, you can automatically win a battle there in one or two turns. That's because the single biggest bug in this game is that artillery is unbalanced and a large stack of artillery can erase entire stacks of enemy units in an instant. You can even attack neighboring provinces without sending any infantry units there, and still destroy entire stacks of units. It's just stupid. Oh, and you can capture artillery and use it for yourself, never mind the fact that in reality every military in WWI had its own standard for sizes and types of ammunition and in no way would have been able to use captured artillery in any extensive way. What about airplanes? They are basically useless. Sorry, no epic dogfights with the Red Baron here. And according to this game, airships were the most powerful type of aircraft and can single handedly destroy entire squadrons of fighter planes.

AI - Let's just get this over with. The AI is dumb; really, really, dumb. In my Britain game, I destroyed over half of the German army at sea. No, that's not a typo. They embarked half of their entire army on transports which I promptly sunk. Enough said.

So as you can see, nothing in this game works well or like it should. As of writing this review, I still have yet to play as the major Central Powers. For the heck of it, I probably will, and then never play this again. If you're looking for an authentic WWI simulation, look elsewhere.

The game had potential to be really good, but it looks and plays like it wasn't fully developed. It is unbalanced, has numerous bugs and just a complete lack of features to set it apart from previous entries of the Making History titles. Almost all mods are outdated and or don't work properly, console commands would help fix alot of these issues but despite numerous people trying to reach the devs about it over the years none have been published. Since it's release almost no updates have been added if any to fix the issues with the game. To ask 30 dollars for this dumpster fire of a game is just flat insulting, at most i would say its worth 5. Id suggest any other turn based strategy over this game. (Update: Instead of updating the game they have re released this game with the same name but different picture that has a few changes but is exactly the same game with all of the same major bugs, they will also ban you from they're forumns if you point out the facts to them. DO NOT BUY THEY'RE PRODUCTS.)

Each turn in this game represents one week of time. The first 100 or so turns involve researching one scientific/military breakthrough every five to ten turns (depends on the number of research labs you have built), forming a few new divisions to quell minor regional/colonial skirmishes, making improvements to provinces, planning your long term strategy, saving up resources so that in late 1913 you can start purchasing new fully researched divisions in anticipation of August 1914. It's a lot of planning and not much action.

Every turn three of four wars of all sorts break out all over the world. A lot of the wars are colonial, the rest are tribal. The colonial wars generally involve the British Empire. This ends up with members of the UK lead allies, most of whom are members of the British Commonwealth fighting regional wars against provinces allied with other members of the Commonwealth. That ends up with the alliance being partially fractured. The so called historical trench warfare/positional warfare of WWI never happens in this game. It seems that every time one side is about to make a break-out the other side calls for peace and the leader of the other alliance signs off and the war ends. There was no reason to stop the war - the side that signed off was winning. A few weeks later war breaks out again. Wash, rinse, repeat. An otherwise ally always seems to refuse to allow you to cross their border to initiate a breakout - and then a peace treaty is signed. Your armies are blocked and you end up trapped in an enemy province surrounded by provinces and you are not allowed to withdraw across "friendly" borders without declaring war against them. This results in there being no clear battle lines. When peace breaks out Europe is dotted here and there with allies and Germans surrounded and immobile. When war breaks out again you go to battle with the enemy force that was trapped with you and before the battle is resolved peace is again declared. This is very frustrating.

Researching new units gives an advantage but not a great one. For example it is possible, playing the US, to research Tanks prototype 3 (the most advanced tank in the game) by August 1914. You can build up a large tank force, go to war against straight leg infantry and cavalry and lose. The fact that it is armor versus military formations with no anti-armor defense appears to be completely ignored. All that seems to count is the number of attack points versus the number of defense points with terrain and fortification modifiers - just as if it was infantry vs. infantry. An armored unit just has a lot more attack strength than non-armored units.

For some reason the AI has Germany and Russia always splitting in to two or three countries; some allied with one side, others allied with the other side and a the rest are neutral. There's not a lot of logic going on with the AI's choices.

Ultimately the war screeches to a halt not because of positional warfare but because there are so many new countries with varied allegiances that enemies can't get at each other because neutrals are in the way. The world is at war. Most of the "world at war" has nothing to do with the historical WWI. It is regional/tribal conflict that makes little sense. And it is boring.

There doesn't seem to be a manual for the game. In 2015 some players started a self-published manual but it was never finished...and it wasn't their job in the first place.

Do I recommend the game? No. Not even for the hardcore gamer who likes fiddling with all the minutia and details. Its the terrible way the AI handles the country's choices.

This game could be so much more. The economic portion is great you can completely influence a major change by how you develop your country economically. But the military portion is basic and unrealistic. My 10 tanks beat your 4 mountain divisions ...in the Alps?

I have been an historical game designer since 1972, back before we had computers to do marvelous things for fog of war, combat results calculation, hidden movement, and counting the logistical beans. I have noted a tendency for “big games” (grand tactical and strategic) to immerse the player in waves of micro detail of factory production, natural resources, weather, and cultural nuances. Why? The key element of any design is the Point of View (POV) of the player and what he has as a “span of control.” Is the player Churchill, or the British Cabinet, or all of those players plus the British Army Chief of Staff? It makes a difference. I got news for you, Winston may have worried about overall armaments production targets, but he was not counting the 17-pounder anti-tank guns rolling off the assembly lines.
So how do today’s computer-assisted game designers handle POV? Well, in this game, it is rather difficult to tell. Playing France for 35 hours and having to set the production quotas for individual factories, decide what individual cities would produce, and determine what internal improvements (infrastructure) would be engaged in a province-by-province slog through France, West Africa, North Africa, Madagascar, and Indochina, did not bode well. There must have been a hundred of them.
As France, the player is mired in minutia and repetitive detail to the exclusion of the ability to exercise executive agency over the French government and military. (And, contrary to what the game would teach us, the government does not directly dictate production and R&D to industry; stockholders and market forces wield a greater hammer in that department.) Literally, with all these micro-controls at his disposal, the player has incredibly few tools with which to set strategic and national policy direction for the French Empire. There are few tools to set diplomatic policy and influence allies and coalition partner policies. There are very few controls for setting and changing colonial policies on taxation, military conscription, and overseas infrastructure and development. Overall, policy is only directed in micromanagement and repetitive setting of parameters in each province.
If this resulted in a superb simulation of the origins and actions in World War One, it might be worth it. But what do you conclude about a simulation that requires the French to have to declare war on Belgium to be able to cross the frontier to counter-attack the Germans pummeling the Belgian Army? Stupid is the only word I could come up with. Likewise, with the inability to easily transfer ships between fleets, support armies with artillery (from a province away?), and aircraft squadrons to support armies. And, somebody please tell the designers that trench mortars were designed to be used at the lowest level and do not work well as general support to a corps.
In short, a lot of effort for not a lot of satisfying results. You can spend your time better elsewhere.

Overall, a very good game. There aren't a huge number of WW1 grand strategy titles out there, and if like me you've gotta get that '14-'18 fix, you could do worse than giving this one a try when the next sale rolls around.

Pros

• In-depth resource and infrastructure management.
  
• Addictive. It's easy for time to run away with you while playing this one.
  
• Does an admirable job of recreating the era with units, empire management and the political situation at the start of the game. The DLC "The Red Army" gives you a new starting scenario of September 1918, to add to the vanilla options of 1914 and 1912.
  
  Cons
  
• Tutorial could be a bit more informative. There were lots of things I only recently discovered I could do while playing the base game. These may have been covered in the tutorial but if so, not memorably.
  
• Different nations' units are equal in quality at the start. A unit's ability, supporting defensive structures aside, is determined by its moral. So while you may think X nation's soldiers were the best trained in the world, in this they're all going to start off equal. It's as the game goes on that the weaknesses set in, and there aren't always historical.
  
• Could really use a proper supply system for more than just naval units, where it is often bizarre.
  
[*]The display of resources in your hud apparently often shows incorrect amounts and this bug hasn't been addressed since the game's start.

I love the concept of this game. The ability to use combined arms. I spent many hours playing this game. Trying to change history and Have the central powers of Europe come on top. The gas attacks. I love it. Most games of this type are usually the same. You simply move all your units to one province and let them have at it. But this game concept allowed artillery pieces to remain in adjacent provinces and rain death upon the battlefield. This was my favorite part of the game. The game actually built a realistic WW 1 battle strategy game. It is a pure slug fest of vast numbers of casualties. You can\'t simply overwhelm a province or run throught it and the battle for europe is done in so much time. The amount of resources and men needed to take a province that is well defended is quite staggering.

No other strategy game I have played has better simulated trench warfare on a massive scale than this one. I have had a lot of fun with this game.

For the negative part of the game. Theyre are some very critcal flaws. No matter how much fun and enjoyment ive had with this game. You simply can\'t recommend a game that has some severe problems. But if you want to enjoy some serious simulated trench warfare. The game is very available. Just do not have any grand visions of conquering the whole of europe.

Eventually the game will become unplayable. I have never finished a game before the game breaking flaws come in. Its a real shame that it is severly unpolished. Initialy the game will run smooth enough but due to the continued numbers of troops. The game simply breaks.

If these critcal flaws could have been addressed. This game could have been one of the best simulated strategy games of its kind.

This game does not work if you have windows 10.
It will freeze as soon as you scroll, click on anything on the map, zoom out or anything else.
Its unplayable and the Dev's are aware.

Just a headsup before u purchase.

Pros:
+Includes extreme precision in historical accuracy around every corner
+Allows for in depth nation to nation relations
+Quite literally no goal set for you
+Play as any nation that existed in WWI, varying from Haiti, Germany, to Abyssinia
+Easily subscribe to download community made scenarios such as World 1860 (A personal favorite), Moden Day, or Alternate WWI aftermath
+Without a doubt the best scenario editor I have ever seen in any game
+Detailed models for soldiers, ships, and air units that vary from unit type and ethncity
+Fantastic AI

Cons:
-Very buggy
-Not many multiplayer games
-Very small updates that usually fix bugs or add small changes

I'm a big fan of all the Paradox games like Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron. I really wanted to like this game, set exclusively in the First World War. But the problems with it are too great to overcome.

PROS
- It's nicely complicated, like the Paradox games.
- The graphics are as good as one would like for this type of game.
- Naval warfare is better than any of the Paradox games.

CONS
- First and foremost, there is no concept of supply, really. The AI sends units to the most outlandish places with no hope of being supplied. For instance, I was playing Austria Hungary and late in 1914 I was attacked by several Japanese infantry units coming from Finland. That is not an isolated incident.
- Provinces are empty, leading to constant whack-a-mole in your rear areas. Bad enough with rebel uprisings, but when a random cavalry unit from a country 12,000 miles away pops up and conquers half your nation, (see above), it's a real problem. Every game designer should program the EU model where every province has some sort of garrison automatically.
- The AI in general is just poor. No concept of depth in defense, reinforcing weak areas or bottlenecks, and so on. Pretty common in these types of games.

SUMMARY
Nice ideas, nice-looking game, but hamstrung by bizarre AI, lack of supply, and various small bugs with units popping up in the middle of nowhere.

I start out my game as the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the year is 1914. For the past decade or more Europe has been increasing in tension and agressiveness. Germany Russia and France seem determined to drive the world to war and destruction. In the last two years Bulgaria has expanded its holdings in the Balkans to include the region of Thrace thus giving us access to the Aegean. However this is not enough, there must be more. Bulgaria shall be a great and respected power on the world stage once more, no matter how many of our neighbors will have to sacrifice themselves to attain our goals.

I begin by increasing our military training capabilities by construction many recruitment centers across the land. The Bulgarian people shall be trained in the ways of war and will never be compared to some lowly militia. However it will take several months before the army becomes a true war machine worthy of its name.

Yet it seems that fate has other plans. News reached Sofia early on the 29th of June that the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by Serbian nationalists. The cabinet and several high profile generals were assembled quickly to decide what to do. It was soon declared that the military would move all forces to the Serbian border in case of war between Serbia and Austria.

Weeks pass and it seems that things have taken a turn for the worse. Austria is demanding terms that no leader of a respectable state would accept. And the Serbians have categorically refused to meet the Austrian terms. As many countries move to some state between war and peace Bulgaria call its reservists to their posts for an indefinite period of time.

The date is July 29th. News reached us that the Austrians have declared war with Serbia and are intent on making them pay for their crimes. Over the next few days Russia, Germany, France, England and all her subjects are at war. News has also reached us that Italy has abandoned her alliance with Germany and A-H. Japan has invaded Germany's Pacific holdings intent on claiming them for itself. As of now America. Romania, the Ottomans, and Spainards are neutral in the war. We are not sure whether or not any of these countries will intervene in the war.

It is now August 13th. Events have snowballed faster than we could have imagined. Germany and Austria have won astounding victories in the east over the Russians and Germany has completely taken over Belgium and Luxembourg and is now advancing into northern France. Germany offered us an alliance and a chance to form Greater Bulgaria out of the Balkans. We would not pass up the chance as we knew that Austria would soon swallow all of Serbia and might not stop there. We launched an invasion that had been planned many years ago. We sped into Vardar Barnovina and Morava. However it seems that we were too late and could not get any more of Serbia as our forces soon met with our Austrian allies.

A month passes. Our forces have smashed into Albania and taken the country by storm giving us access to the Adriatic Sea. However our forces were surprised and horrified to learn that the Russians had launched a naval invasion of eastern Bulgaria and had taken Southern Dobruja and Eastern Rumelia from us. They were marching on our capital and that would not be allowed. We used what little train rails in the region we could and sent our elite forces to create a wall 30km east of the capital. The rest of the army arrived as fast as they could. With our new artillery captured from the Serbians and Albanians we strike the Russian lines and push them back to the sea. Bulgaria is safe once more.

Several weeks later Bulgaria is better than ever. With the crushing defeat of the Russian invasion troop morale is higher than ever. The public is also happy as we have disbanded 15 divisions of farmers being held in reserve to go back to their farms and families. These men are being replaced by new Bulgarian Infantry being trained by German military advisors lent to us by the Kaiser.

It is now January of 1915. Under the cover of winter we have launched an invasion of Montenegro and captured the country. This mountainous land will be a good proving ground for our Alpine units. With this our Balkan aspirations are almost complete. Bulgaria is once more a great power on the world stage. Germany has pushed the French and English armies out of continental Europe. Their victories in the east have shaken the faith of the Russian people and many of their lands are in out right rebellion. The Uzbeks. The Kazaks. The Finns. The Armenians. The Germans have also granted the Poles a land of their own and have joined us in our fight against the encirclement of Europe.

In March the next phase of Bulgarian expansion is put into action. The invasion of Grecce has started. This will be the true test of our miliary skills. Even the Kaiser himself has travelled down here to observe the invasion in person. We start with a full out invasion of Macedonia complete with our entire artillery arsenal. However the real strike comes when our elite veterans smash into Epirus in western Greece. It works fantasically, the Greeks send the majority of their forces to Salonika while we head straight for Athens.

However, it seems that fate again would have other plans. The Greeks hold out much longer than expected in Macedonia, they are indeed worthy opponents. Our new young recruits are sent straight into the baptism of fire as soon as they have gotten a basic sense of survival on the battlefield. We are wearing them down, slowly ever so slowly. Word reaches us that the Greeks have crossed the Aegean and invaded Anatolia. It would also seems that because of agressive German submarine tactics America joined the war on the side of the Entente. It matters not they are an Ocean and three Seas away they can do no harm to Bulgaria.

It is now May of 1915. Events have taken a turn for the worse. In our brash rush to invade Greece we have overlooked our eastern territory. The English, it seems, have staged a massive landing in Gallipoli. However, most of the Turkish forces that would be guarding the capital are in Anatolia trying to establish a link with the rest of their empire in the east. The damned Brits quickly spread out their invasion reaching the Romanian border and linking up with the Greeks outside of Salonika. The Italians have also invaded Albania seeking to claim what they see as rightfully theirs. Our forces are spread too thinly across the land and we start to lose land.

Quickly our cavalry forces are pulled back from the siege of Athens and charge to Valona. However it seems that the Italians have already come and gone and word reaches us through the terrified civilian populace that they have headed north. For once in this campaign fate has smiled on us. The Austrians, sensing a larger Italian force coming shortly behind have sent troops to their southern border and help us reclaim our lands from the Italian.

Our brave soldiers have finally taken Greek Macedonia and the rich port will help to improve the Bulgarian economy. Our battered army heads eastward to confront the British menace. Though we have taken many a beating we still hold our heads up high as we have yet to lose a battle in the war so far. And we are right to be proud. Our brave young men destroy the English at the Second Battle of Plovdiv. We free Constantinople from dread Russian rule and return it to the Turks. We reclaim our coastline on the Black Sea and turn our heads east again, ready to finish the job of conquering Greece.

But it seems that fate has a cruel hatred of Bulgaria. The Greeks have pushed into Southern Bulgaria from their holdings at the south of the continent. The Italians have taken the Albanian coastline and have begun to march inland. The Romanians have launched a full invasion of our lands. All we have left is the land of Montenegro to hold out until the end....It is near.

This game isn't terrible, but it has a few problems that makes it a terrible Great War simulator. Here is the run-down:

1. Allied forces are HEAVILY favored. What do I mean by that? Simple, all the units on the different sides of the conflict are equivalent. A German infantry is equal to that of a French or Russian infantry. The German military was the best trained, the best equipped, and the best supported army in the conflict. Some would even put this military on par with the greatest militaries of all time. Russia, on the other hand, was supposed to be slow to mobilize and ill-equipped. I played a game where AI Russia was in Berlin before the end of 1914. Because the units are equal in strength, the Allies, with huge size advantages, will likely always win.

2. Serbia is too weak. Historically, Serbia lasted a surprisingly long time. In this game, Serbia doesn't have even close to enough resources to supply its comparatively huge military. Austria-Hungary rolls them up as a matter of course, because the Serbians starve to death and run out of guns.

3. Belgium is too strong. I played a game where Belgium completely repelled Germany (one of the greatest militaries in history), and even took ground in Germany.

4. The Allied forces start with Great Britain already involved. GB wasn't keen on getting in on this war, and only planned on doing so if Belgium's neutrality was violated. GB also only had the expeditionary forces on hand to wage a land war, in this game they seem to have a pretty healthy army from the start.

5. Austria-Hungary is too good. The Great War is the tale about how Austria-Hungary constantly did the exact opposite of what Germany wanted, and as a result, they were getting pummelled by everyone, including the Kingdom of Serbia. The only force AH knows how to fight is Italy, which leads to the next point:

6. Italy is too strong. Historically, Italy failed to take the exact same river 9+ times against Austria. In this game, it's only a little harder than taking any other position.

I'm sure there are other problems, but let's move on to mechanics:

1. The Great War was insane. Battles went no where, and the defenders always had the advantage. Hence, both sides would put up trenches, and fortify, fortify, fortify. Attacks were suicidal. This game doesn't do trench warfare well because the units and regions are too large. These trenches were separated by only a few hundred yards, loaded with barbed wire, and supervised by machine guns and artillery. Units would stand at a stalemate for months at a time, with no progress being made, constantly under a hail of shells. In this game, you have to commit massive armies to an attack, and the attack lasts until one side loses. Smaller units or smaller regions would help solve this issue.

2. You can always see all the units of the enemy. Observation planes and observation balloons only give your artillery bonuses to hit (which they need, because they can barely ever hit). This is not a good feature for a game where air superiority meant you knew where your enemey was, and they didn't know where you were.

3. Big, important advances (such as metal helmets) aren't commented on in the game. You also can't upgrade units (as far as I can tell), which makes no sense, considering the only different based on technology would be equipment. Upgrading a units defense by giving them helmets sounds pretty easy to me.

4. Diplomacy is difficult to achieve, because it takes place over lengthy, incremental time periods. Far longer than the scope of the game. I tried playing the US in the 1912 campaign start, with the goal making a Western Hemisphere alliance, but for some reason only Nicaragua was interested. I offered aid to many countries, and every couple of turns, they cancel the aid (why give up free money, I ask). The AI just sells you stuff until they run out of stuff, and they buy stuff until they think they have enough stuff. There is not indication of a desire to reach sustainability. Aside from war, that is every diplomatic choice you really have with them, except for the absolutely pointless support factions options. I say it is pointless because I couldn't find a point. I couldn't see any change over time whatsoever.

This is just a short list of what I found disappointing about this game. What I wanted was an accurate, defensive shlog that would reflect the Great War. What I got was a game where offensive movement is far too easy to accomplish.

The game is currently the best in my opinion, but also realistic version of turn-based strategy game, with involvement of the egologia, as well as the state economy. The game also will be able to play in their own State, and the impact on the game completely all potential economic and course of the war. Most similar games such as Civilization game or beyon Earth game, so this also includes similar elements such as industry or armejan updating with the difference that they have been implemented in this game better. How so?

Above all, I personally very much appreciate the simplicity but, versatility, and it is in this well executed, as opposed to a series of civilization, and that's why I like the game, even better than more of the same game. That's why I like this game!

Includes also quite functional map editor. I highly recommend, especially if you like to play with friends. Forced purchase startegia games lovers, referral! :3

(See also the older version of the game)

I really want to likie this game. It has a very high level of economic detail. It is a micro-manager's paradise. The learning curve is sharp, and the game doesn't seem to try very hard to help you. There are a bazillion messages popping up on the screen after every turn, and you just cant read them all. They tell you trivial things, like unit recruitment, but not that your towns are not developing and such.

The real snag is the gameplay. This is such an old school interface that it seriously interferes with gameplay. You are constantly merging and reforming armies... armies that you can't even drag a box around!

Then the fighting... well it certainly captures the charnel house effect of the great war, but what it doesnt do, is readily identify the size of enemy forces roaming around. Some are a unit or two, and others are hundreds... this should be very obvious on the map. As for balance, it seems messy. France is easily defeated in Europe. Conversely, Russia feels conspicuously powerful.

But after a a healthy 40 hours of gameplay I have to conclude it is a bit lacking. Hopefully future patches will address some of these things.

3/5

Making History II: The Great War is a grand strategy game set around the time of World War I (there are two starting scenarios, one starting in 1912 and another starting before the assassination at Sarajevo in 1914 going into the 1920s and the Soviet Revolution) This game consists of the entire world cut into small regions, accurately representing the borders and geography of all countries that existed at the time of your chosen scenario, with various populations, cities, and resources in each region. In this game (it is a turn based strategy game with each turn taking 1 week) you can choose any country in the entire world and lead that country, industrializing it, modernizing it, engaging in diplomacy with other countries, waging war, facing crisis such as rebellion, invasions, and famine. This game also implements an event system with some events that follow actual history such as the building of the Panama Canal, and others that will be triggered by drastically changing history such as the unification of Scandinavia or the resurrection of the Byzantine Empire. Another interesting thing is that at any time in the game you can save your game and then resume it playing as another country (even countries that didn't exist at the beginning of the scenario you are playing) Another thing that this game possesses is an internal editor that can be used to change many aspects of the game, from creating new countries to changing the values of regions such as nationality or religion. Using the editor you can create amazing new scenarios of alternate history that you can then play and publish to the main website. After about 70 hours of this game I can definitely recommend it,

If you are a fan of Paradox Games, Imperial Glory, other Geo Political games such as Super Power 2 you will enjoy this game. The game can be a little overwhelming at first, There is a bit of a learning curve but can easily be learned even with out the tutorial if you have played similar games.

I love the amount of depth this game has, Although war is a major focus point it is far from being the only point. One thing i dislike in similar games is a vast amount of waiting around with nothing to do. This game has plenty to manage while you are waiting for troops to build. If i had to compare this game to another game Supreme Ruler comes to mind as far as what you can do micromanaging wise. As much as i love the Supreme Ruler series this is in my opinion a superior game for the sole reason that i find this game more of a joy to play.

If you are looking for a strictly historical game you may be a little off put as the game is guided towards world war 1 events however it is only a suggestion, I have yet to play a game that was the same, There were times that world war one happened without a hitch and i was fighting off Germans in Belgium, Other times I became the cause of a World War due to my military expansion of Romania. There were times that other conflicts would prevent world war one but start other conflicts around the globe such as Colonial territories rebelling against their owners. The randomness of this game can be a blast.

The game also comes with an Editor that anyone can use, This means that if you want to build a world war two scenario you can, Do you want to recreate the Roman Empire you can, Whatever your imagination can come up with. These scenarios can also be uploaded on the Making History website for all to download.

The Developers are extremely active and listen to the community, I have never experienced the amount of help that is given by the developers to the players than in this game. They have made it clear that this game will continue to be a major focus with continued updates and added features for the foreseeable future.

If you are looking for a game in which you will keep telling yourself one more turn and you realize that was the 30th time you said that then here is the game. Would highly recommend.

The devs have done a lot to this game since beta, the release version is a very good game. A bit like Paradox's grand strategy games like Victoria 2 this strategy game is however tightly focused on the Great War, so you have observation planes, trenches, observation balloons, bombardment artillery, airships and even gas attacks.

It's got a lovely simple GUI, which for a game like this is very important. You need to be able to control all your production etc in one place. This game does that really well - one screen set to control production of factories, infrastructure and resources - its really easy.

Messages are well presented with popup screens and clear notification icons, you are given opportunities to make grand changes from these popups as well like when playing as the Austro Hungarian Empire you can choose to ask Serbia for harsh terms or go easy on them. Interesting diplomacy options then, but there could be more choices like being able to raise bad relationships or insult other countries, which would just add a bit more gameplay into the diplomacy.

Graphics wise lovely looking clean map, sprites all have authentic uniforms. Externally applied anti-aliasing works well here to improve the whole look of the game (but it should be made configurable from within the game I think) - BUT choose enhance game settings for AA in the Nvidea Control Panel, not override game settings, which seems to blur the text in the game for me.

You can trade for food and other resources that you need which is good, its taken me two years of gametime but my economy is now pretty sound in the game - it is a struggle when you start a new game getting your production and resources working well. But dealing with that stuff is more fun than it sounds and it all works well.

The AI is quite passable - it tends to attack pretty well and goes after badly defended provinces, it keeps you on your toes - I am presently fighting on four fronts! But it doesnt seem to protect its high value provinces very well - I walked straight into the Ottoman's Constantinople without a fight. There are some other AI bugs like countries taking trade agrrements then cancelling them again next turn. But they are relatively minor. Combat seems to go on for ages and it should be lengthy where trenches are utilised, but perhaps should be made a bit quicker for small skirmishes in open ground. I know this is being looked at by the devs at the moment trenches are a bit to easy to build so battles drag on too much.

Turn generation for me has been very fast i am up to 1915 after 130 hours in my game and the generation is no different to when I started - takes at most ten seconds which seems very fast to me.

I am playing AustroHungary and wouldnt even think of playing such a large country in Paradox's Victoria II but in this game its dead easy. I really got the game though to be able to play Great Britain which has so many colonies that in more complex games it looked a nightmare. In this game though I think it will be possible.

My present epic game as AustriaHungary has me fighting quite a historical war although Russia is starting its civil war in 1915 (thank goodness) and Italy is proving to be rather stubborn to fight on when it has no chance of taking my mountainous provinces. So enjoyable watching how these sorts of things pan out, watching the Chinese Communists fight against the Nationalists, and watching small countires like Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro banded together against me (not that it made much difference in the end).

Overall is a nice simple looking, but deceptively complex, game that is more immediate and less faff to play than Paradox's offerings. It is only going to get better over time as the devs tinker with it - and they are very dedicated to make their game as good as possiboe which is very nice to see. So yeah I like it, nice to see a good WW1 game at last and this is certainly the best WW1 game out there by far.

A very... VERY detailed Geo-political simulator with a plethora of unit models, playable countries, and modability.
However, the UI is rather out of date and it is definitely a time sink. At first can be incredibly overwhelming, but the ability to completely control the economic and military power of your chosen country is hard to resist. What's even better? The editor. I've spent countless hours building new scenarios using the editor which is so simple, someone new to strategy games could figure it out.

I'm about to spend a lot of time making my own history out of the Russian Empire >:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRJysP7xZo

10/10
Excellent Game.

To whom ever enjoys historical strategy, and wondered about "what if" alternate history, this is a game for you. I have been waiting for a WW1 game for a long time; I finally have one. It is very detailed and there is plenty of stats and data, i.e. Diplomacy, Research, Economy, Resources, Trade, Government, Military, and much more. Pretty much everything you would expect from such a game. But what i really like about this game is that its simple enough for new players to learn quickly, but not to simple that hardcore players will be bored or disapointed. The UI is clean and crisp, easy to read and to understand. Army managment is easy and streamlined compared to other games of this genre. A welcome improvement IMO.

Now of course this game is still early access so there is many features that are absent or not working as it should. The AI still needs improving and tweaking also. But that is to be expected with any beta. I am very much looking forward to the fully completed version of this game. IMO i like this game more then any of the Paradox games i have tried because the UI is beter organized and easier to interact.

Making History: The Great War has huge potential and will not disappoint when it becomes fully operational ;)

This game is awesome, at the moment you can play as germany, France, and a few others. as it is now i have been playing for over a couple of hours and its really good. If you like the previous making history games you will love this one. The game has been running really smooth and I havent experienced any bugs yet. There area few thing that havent been finished like casualties in battles show up for me as "XX" but so far its running really smooth and is a lot of fun I think you will be pleasently surprised. The game is a hudge overall from the previous making history's. You can really see this in the recuritment and development of infurstructure. Overall as a early access i give it buy as it runs smooth and delivers on the prmoises the dev's gave. Like I said only a few countires are playable, but more will come. only other issue i have experienced is for some reason AH will not deploy their troops to the russian border even though they have lost two provicnes so far. Many of their larger armies stay stationed in the center of the country or on the allied western border. Not sure why as Italy has helped me with France to the point that mainland france is all but one provience away from being defeated.