Strategy and Wargaming

In a dark alternate timeline, a weakened United Kingdom falls to the overwhelming might of the Third Reich. In a new trailer for Hearts of Iron IV, you can watch the key events in the fall of Europe’s last hope as played out in the game’s Clausewitz engine. Paradox Development Studio presents Operation Sea Lion as a success:

The trailer shows air strikes on the British homeland, combat around the capital and demonstrates how players can follow the war on the map through descriptive arrows and animation. In Hearts of Iron IV, like all Paradox grand strategy games, history changes the moment you start your game.

Hearts of Iron IV will be your chance to revisit the last titanic military struggle between the world’s greatest powers. You have complete control over a nation’s industry, military doctrine, political goals and strategic planning. Assign your fleets and air wings to areas of operation, draft your invasion plans and keep your war economy running by protecting your convoys.

Hearts of Iron IV will be a 2016 release on major digital distributors.

For more information on Hearts of Iron IV, check out the games official website.

Source: Gamer’s Hell

Paradox Interactive has unveiled a new video and eleven fresh screenshots for Hearts of Iron IV, a game by Paradox Development Studio that challenges players to face the brutal conflict of World War II in a multifaceted grand strategy game, where history can be fully relived or rewritten from the perspective of a global superpower attempting to change the world, or a small nation simply trying to survive.

Hearts of Iron IV aims to be the most authentic real-time simulation of World War II to date, with authentic historical figures battling on land, sea, and air with period-accurate armies, vehicles, and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction – along with plenty of diplomatic and trade tactics.

Find out more about the game at the official Hearts of Iron IV website.

Source: PC Gamer

Here’s the last in Relic’s series of videos introducing the new units of Company of Heroes 2′s upcoming multiplayer expandalone, The British Forces. This time, it’s all about emplacements—that’s your mortars, your anti-tank guns, and your AA. Basically, all the stuff designed to make other stuff explode. Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces will be out on September 3.

Source: Blue’s News

A new “Know Your Units” trailer introduces the Centaur, a tank in Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces, the upcoming standalone RTS expansion. Word is:

“In this third installment in the series of four “Know Your Units” videos for Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces, Relic unveils the Centaur tank. Featuring twin 20 mm Polsten guns, the Centaur helps control the battlefield by serving as an excellent anti-aircraft and anti-infantry tank.”

Source: Blue’s News

A new trailer from Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces is a “know your units” feature profiling the sniper in the upcoming standalone World War II RTS expansion. They explain these snipers are not just to take out individual soldiers:

“In addition to targeting infantry troops on the battlefield, the sniper has two additional capabilities: the ability to order all 25 pound howitzers in the area to fire on a designated target, and armor piercing rounds that can damage, or even destroy, select vehicles on the battlefield.”

You can view the trailer here.

“Never do any enemy a small injury for they are like a snake which is half beaten and it will strike back the first chance it gets.” – Niccolò Machiavelli

Boots are pounding the ground for days. Dirty and grimy soldiers are marching in the ranks with the sergeants trying (mostly in vain) to keep them disciplined. Too many days have passed since the last plundered town and now food is starting to run out. The men are nervous. Suddenly a cry from the head of the column. Scouting cavalry have spotted enemy heavy pikemen formations supported by artillery.

It is time to spill some blood!

Pike and Shot: Campaigns is a brand new all-in-one package. It includes the Pike and Shot base game and the Tercio to Salvo expansion, plus 21 new skirmish army lists for the rest of Europe during the period of the Italian Wars (1494-1559) covering the armies of England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, German States, Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, the Ottoman Empire, Poland-Lithuania and Russia!

But the main new feature is the strategic map system, implemented to allow you to lead your armies to victory over an entire theatre of operations, taking into account strategic considerations such as terrain, available manpower, supply, attrition, sieges and economic damage.

Pike and Shot: Campaigns includes 4 campaigns:

• Gustavus Adolphus, set in the “Swedish phase” of the Thirty Years War, allows you to play as Swedes or Imperialists.
• English Civil War allows you to play as Royalists or Parliamentarians.
• Great Turkish War, set in the period of the famous Siege and Battle of Vienna in 1683, allows you to play as Austria and Poland or as the Ottoman Empire.
• Pike and Shot allows you to match any two armies from 1494 to 1648 in a struggle for dominance.
• With Pike and Shot: Campaigns the infamous Iron Century with all of its military innovations is depicted at its best!

If you already own Pike and Shot and Tercio to Salvo, prepare for a great promotion. The game launches on August 13th!

Get more information about the game from the official Product Page.

Source: Blue’s News

This video is the first developer diary for Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces, the recently announced World War II standalone RTS expansion. The clip features Relic’s Quinn Duffy offering an overview of the British perspective on World War II and how their “unique character and military doctrine influenced the design and development of Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces.”

Also, a new Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces - Know Your Units (Churchill Tank) Trailer has been released. You can view the trailer here.

Matrix Games and WarfareSims have updated Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations to version 1.08. This is a very huge update (over 20 pages!) with new features, fixes, additions and the databse completely incremented!

Some of the highlights of the new free update:

• New toys to try out: Anti-torpedo torpedoes and related torpedo-warning systems, new warhead types such as “superfrags”, new weapon types such as “Contact explosive” (for the discerning saboteur or suicide terrorist), a brand-new ship type (Mobile Offshore Base (aka “Battle Island”)), and more.
• User interface enhancements: Players can now observe the engagement arcs of a unit mount, permission-dependent color of targeting vectors, coastline/border fade-out on zoom (as in GE), the manual weapon allocation window can present to the player the “soft” restrictions (WRA/WCS/other doctrine settings), various tweaks to mission editor UI. etc.
• Simulation improvements: Major speed boost on large scenarios, more accurate uncertainty areas for long-range passive detections (SOSUS, ESM etc.), reliable sub battery recharge, improved sub-captain AI on chasing after unreachable targets, snap-up/down limits for AAW guided weapons, side-firing gunships (e.g. AC-130) now manouvering properly, more realistic UNREP transfer rates, speed-dependent aircraft IR signatures (that supercruise may now really cost you if the enemy has decent IRSTs), tweaks to damage modelling related to light-caliber automatic weapons, realistic “no scan while painting” limitation on older mechanical radars, and more.
• Scenario Editor improvements: “Can Auto-track civilians” side-level ability, Lua speed enhancements and more.
• Updated & rebuilt versions of all official scenarios, plus a new scenario addition to the official-bundled scenarios (Pyrpolitis 1-14, from the community scenario pack).
• A brand-new series of tutorial videos by Baloogan.

But the changelog is very long so be sure to check it here.

You can download the patch from here.

Get more information on Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations from its official product page.

The kurultai has concluded and good news, my lord! You have been chosen the Great Khan! Paradox Development Studio arms you with new territories, new armies and new ways of ruling the restless hordes at your disposal in Horse Lords, the newest expansion to Crusader Kings II, our best-selling medieval strategy simulation.

Lead grand armies to victories on the steppes of Asia as you cut new paths towards the wealth of the Silk Road, India and Europe. Force mighty foreign potentates to become your tributaries and manage the cutthroat rivalries and feuds of nomadic society as only a Great Khan can.

Horse Lords introduces a wide range of new tools and mechanics to add even greater variety to what is already one of the most diverse titles in strategy gaming history.

• Larger Map: The steppes of Central Asia are now open for you to conquer or develop.
• New rules for nomads: Now distinct from other pagan tribes, the Mongol and Turkic nomads draw strength from open pastures and large populations.
• Clan management: Struggle alongside rival clans within your nomadic nation, even launching civil wars to keep your khan on top.
• Tributaries: Vassals are often a lot of trouble, so why not simply force a conquered enemy to send u a load of gold every now and then?
• The Silk Road: This great historical trading route linked the Mediterranean and the Far East. Exploit its wealth or pillage its trade posts.
• Forts: New temporary structures you can build to hold enemy territory while your army marches onward.

And more! Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords is available now from major digital retailers.

For more information on Crusader Kings II, click here.

Nival, an independent game developer renowned for their strategy games, have announced the largest update so far for Blitzkrieg 3 in the form of the new and much requested PvP mode: Active Defense.

Blitzkrieg 3′s multiplayer is a simulated front line, in which one player attacks the key points of an opponent’s fortified garrison while the other player defends them. Up until now, the multiplayer mode in Blitzkrieg 3 was always “asynchronous” where the defending side was chosen from players currently offline. After feedback from its community, Nival has now introduced real time PvP to Blitzkrieg 3, where both players – attacking and defending – are directly controlling their units in real time.

“We were looking for some really fresh ideas for the continuation of the Blitzkrieg 3 series, and the “attack-defense” tactical scheme as the basis for online battles seemed to be an interesting solution”, commented Sergey Orlovskiy, founder and CEO of Nival. Orlovskiy continued, “While in a real war sides are never put in symmetrical conditions, the PvP modes in games invariably present abstract duels in which opponents fight in equal conditions. The only wide-known exception to this so far has been CounterStrike and we thought that implementing this tactical scheme as the basis for online battles not in a shooter but in a strategy genre might be that fresh idea that will breath new life in to the RTS genre.”

In this sizeable update the in-game matchmaker will look for players online initially. If players are not able to directly control the defense of their garrison the AI will do it for you, exactly as it was before.

Blitzkrieg 3 is currently in Steam Early Access and the playing community continues to provide valuable input and feedback in to the development of the game.

The Early Access launch trailer can be viewed here.

For more information on Blitzkrieg 3 head to the games official website.