Strategy and Wargaming

New Expansion Promotes New Development

Why voyage to distant shores when there is treasure and plunder so near by? The gold of our vassals will decorate our palace, and piles of plunder from looted rivals will fund our improvements. It is said that true growth comes from within, that nothing lasting can be built on the ashes of war. We say that true growth can also come from the enemies you make along the way. Now, with Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan, you can harvest your foes for development and profit.

Available today, Leviathan is the latest expansion to Paradox’s celebrated historical grand strategy game, and the first developed by Paradox Tinto. Leviathan adds a number of new diplomatic and domestic options, with more opportunities for expanding and improving your nation’s position as it competes for power from the Renaissance to the Age of Revolution.

View the Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan Release Trailer HERE.

Features of Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan include:

• Improved Diplomacy: Cultivate relationships with your neighbors, curry favor so you can request gifts, military support and even provinces.
• New Regency Options: Regency councils represent the interests of the most powerful estate, and can be extended to delay the ascension of an unfit monarch.
• Specialized Colonial Nations: Let your colonies focus on military help, trade power or self-government.
• Concentrate Development: You can now steal development from your vassals or territorial possessions to enhance the power of your capital city.
• Pillage Capital: Loot an enemy capital as a condition of peace, hauling development back to the capital metropolis.
• Expand Infrastructure: Provinces can expand their capacity to build new structures and manufactories, allowing smaller nations to create centers of wealth for a modest cost.
• Centralize State: Reduce the cost of government by spending unused Reform points.
• Totemism: Nations that follow the Totemist religion can revere a pantheon of past leaders, earning bonuses that reflect the skills they had in life.
• Monuments: Expand and establish great projects, adding new bonuses to your empire.
• New Unit Models: New army sprites for Southeast Asian nations, including Indochinese, Indonesian and Polynesian nations.
• And more: Including the ability to carpet siege enemy provinces, draft transports as a plutocratic nation, watch heirs gain legitimacy as they wait to inherit the throne and other changes.

Leviathan is accompanied by a major free update available to all Europa Universalis IV players. The “Majapahit” update includes modifications to the maps of Southeast Asia and North America, with major gameplay changes for North American First Nations. It also adds Australian Aboriginal nations.

Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan is available at the Paradox Store and major online retailers for the suggested retail price of $19.99/£15.49/€19.99.

More game information is available at the Europa Universalis IV: Leviathan webpage, or on the expansions Steam page.

It is now just a few days until Warplan Pacific releases. Already, our beta testers are sharing their opening moves, hoping for the best possible start in what are sure to be epic campaigns.

If you’ve joined us for our previous tours, you’ll know that Alvaro too, is quite the cunning strategist. So for this tour, he is doing something a little bit different and is bringing you a guide to his favourite opening moves, playing as the Axis.

If you are looking to learn or just excited to see more gameplay, be sure to give our final tour a watch.

Episode #7, Axis Opening Moves Tutorial

Remember, the official PDF manual is now available! You can download it here.

For more information on Warplan Pacific, you can check out our product page on Matrix Games.

Warplan Pacific will be released on the 29th of April.

New DLC adds brand-new modes, sandbox elements and more to real-time tactics game

Developer Alter Games and Publisher Daedalic Entertainment are happy to announce Partisans 1941 – Back Into Battle, a major DLC for the modern take on the real-time tactics genre. Partisans 1941 – Back Into Battle releases Thursday, April 29th and adds brand-new sandbox gameplay for high replayability, including two new game modes, customizable scenarios and more.

Watch the new Partisans 1941 – Back Into Battle gameplay trailer HERE.

Partisans 1941 – Back Into Battle expands the main game with new gameplay features and modes that are tailored for high replayability. In Missions mode, choose your own team of Partisans, their skills, and their equipment to tackle a variety of existing and new maps. Five familiar locations are playable by everyone who owns the main game, while owners of the DLC will receive access to seven exclusive missions.. The DLC-exclusive mode Heroic Defense is a wave-defense scenario that offers additional challenges for fans of the genre.

DLC Features:

• Missions Mode: even more brand new challenges in seven new locations.
• Never seen scenarios with modifiers. Freely choose your Partisan team, skills and equipment.
• Heroic Defense mode: New wave-defense mode for the toughest of commanders.
• Additional campfire dialogue for the Partisans, giving you new insight into their personalities.

Partisans 1941 is a unique take on the genre set on the occupied Eastern Front during WWII. It features tactical squad combat, stealth elements, character progression, and resource management. Take control of Partisans, a brave group of resistance fighters, opposing the Nazi occupation behind enemy lines. Players can recruit soldiers and civilians as unique allies to tackle a variety of challenges – from focused sabotage to extensive attacks on German supply lines. The expandable home base deep in the forest serves as a hub in-between missions to arm and upgrade Partisans troops, manage and distribute resources, and take a break until the next objective awaits.

Visit the Partisans1941 Steam page for more game information.

As announced during the last Tea Time, the release of Combat Mission Cold War has been officially postponed to the beginning of June. This is to allow the implementation of the PBEM system for multiplayer.

To find out more, tune in to our Twitch channel on May 11th, for the “Home of Wargamers 2021 Live+” event.

You will not only have the chance to preview Combat Mission Cold War, but also discover other important news from Slitherine’s gaming world.

Find out more on the official Combat Mission Cold War product page.

A new episode of the Warplan Pacific Tour is now available. Find out how the use of ports has been made easier and more flexible. We are also going to be discussing in detail naval blockades and how naval blockades function. Lastly, we are also covering how naval leadership interacts with ground combat, including how naval leaders can affect nearby ground battles and how ports can draw (or not draw) supply from a ground source.

Remember, the official PDF manual is now available! You can download it here.

Episode #6, More on Naval Operations

For more information on Warplan Pacific, you can check out our product page on Matrix Games.

Warplan Pacific will be released on the 29th of April.

Panzer Division Games has released a first gameplay video of their game Attack at Dawn: North Africa. In the hour-long video, the designer Tomislav Čipčić shows in depth how to play the game in one small but exciting historical scenario – Operation Battleaxe.

To quote the designer: “We wanted to show the players the intensity, dynamics and historical accuracy of the game we’re making. And we chose one of the most interesting operations in the WW2 North African theater – operation Battleaxe. The players will be able to see how to move and fight, how to order air strikes and call in the artillery support, how to plan and redeploy their forces. We hope that this video will give the future players more insight and hopefully raise interest in our game.”

Watch the gameplay video HERE.

About The Game
Attack at Dawn: North Africa is an operational level wargame set in WW2 North African theatre. It features 3 campaigns, and 15 scenarios which can be played in solo or multiplayer modes. It can be played as a real-time, or turn-based (WeGo) game. The game begins with the German troops probing into the Libyan region of Cyrenaica, and finishes either with the total defeat of German-Italian Panzer Armee, or with the British loss of Egypt and their retreat across the Suez Canal.

For more game information, please visit the official Attack at Dawn: North Africa website, or you can visit the games Steam page.

Patches are In! This is a Must Have!

Another Year of Upgrades, Fixes and Additions have arrived.

First, DO NOT apply the upgrade patches while in the midst of a secure PBEM game as the game will fail. The 2021 winSPWW2 v 9.0 – v. 14.0 consolidation patch will upgrade v. 9.0 or above to v. 14.0 and the 2021 winSPMBT v. 10.0 – v 15.0 patch will upgrade v. 10.0 and up to v.15.0.

Available for immediate download, these two patches are loaded, fully loaded. So, let’s take a look at what the great guys at Camo Workshop have added…

winSPMBT, upgraded to version 15.0 includes:

• 2 New Scenarios
• 32 Revised/Updated Scenarios
• 1 New Campaign
• 2 Revised/Updated Campaigns
• 26 New or Revised Map files
• 77 New or Revised OOB Photos
• 47 New or Revised vehicle/aircraft Icons
• 93 Updated OOB Files
• 15 New or Revised Icon files
• 104 New or Revised Text files

And winSPWW2, upgraded to version 14.0 has:

• 9 New Scenarios
• 86 Revised/Updated Scenarios
• 7 New/Updated Campaigns
• 9 Revised Campaigns due to OOB changes
• 1 New map
• 261 New or Revised OOB Photos
• 36 Updated OOB files
• 46 New or Updated Graphic SHP files
• 504 New or Revised vehicle/aircraft Icons
• 353 New or Revised Encyclopaedia/Help Text files
• 3 New/Revised sound files

Head on over to the Shrapnel Games website and check out the press release detailing the full list of changes in these two great games!

A new episode of the Warplan Pacific Tour is now available. Find out how Air and Naval specialties allow you to adapt your units and enable them to excel situationally. In addition, some specialist roles have also been added, such as the “screening” role, which focuses on dealing with hostile air threats. Warplan Pacific has also made some systemic changes to how shipyards work, to better represent the Pacific War.

Episode #5, Air and Naval Specialties

Remember, the official PDF manual is now available! You can download it here.

For more information on Warplan Pacific, you can check out our product page on Matrix Games.

Warplan Pacific, the second game in the Warplan series, will be released on April 29th.

The new episode of the Warplan Pacific Tour is now available. Find out how hidden naval fleets, communications intelligence and encrypted codes were added to Warplan Pacific to better represent the Pacific War.

Episode #4, Hidden Naval and COMINT

Also, the official PDF manual is now available! You can download it here.

If you are hungry for more information on Warplan Pacific, you can check out our product page on Matrix Games.

Warplan Pacific, the second game in the Warplan series, will be released on April 29th.

“Reconquista” The first DLC of Field of Glory II: Medieval brings the battles related to the Middle Ages in South West Europe.

Feudalism did not have such a dominant impact in Spain and Italy as it had in the rest of Europe and both these lands had unique factors which affected the conduct of warfare:

• Spain 1050, with more than half of the Iberian peninsula under the rule of Islamic states, the era of Christian Reconquista began. It would last until 1492, after centuries of clashes between Berber Empires (Murabits, Almohads and Hafsids) and Christian Kingdoms (Aragon, Castile y Leon, etc.).
• In Northern Italy the big cities formed the Lombard League to counter the attempts of the Holy Roman Emperor to enforce his authority over them. This was a part of the Wars between Ghibellines who supported the Holy Roman Emperor and the Guelfs that supporting the Pope.
• In Southern Italy, the Normans rose from humble mercenaries to conquer the whole of southern Italy and establish the great kingdom of Sicily, after conquering the island from the Arabs.

These are the backgrounds, stories and wars that lead to the new DLC, which will include:

• 20 more nations and factions covering Spain, Italy and North Africa from 1040 AD to 1270 AD. These include Andalusians, Almohads, Arabs, Aragonese, Byzantine Catapanate of Italy, Castilians/Leónese, Catalans, Granadines, Hafsids, Italian Guelfs, Italian Ghibellines, Italo-Normans, Lombards, Marinids, Murabits, Navarrese, Papal, Portuguese, the Kingdom of Sicily and Tuaregs
• 41 more units and 45 more army lists
• 8 more historical scenarios covering key engagements of the period on an epic scale. These include Monte Maggiore 1041, Civitate 1053, Cabra 1079, Sagrajas 1086, Legnano 1176, Las Navas De Tolosa 1212, Montaperti 1260 and Benevento 1266.
• 33 more historical matchups added to Quick Battle mode, increasing the total to 98, playable from either side.
• 4 more historically-based campaigns covering major leaders and conflicts of the era: El Cid, Muhammad II of Granada, Normans in the South and Frederick II Hohenstaufen.
• Sandbox campaign expanded to include all the new army lists, allowing you to lead any nation (and their historical allies) against any other nation (and their allies) – giving thousands of permutations.

Find out more about Field of Glory II Medieval on the games the official product page or via Steam.