Its sequel does not even attempt to repeat this feat as it moves the action from the Eastern Front to the Western Theater containing North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of western Europe. It’s a significantly more complicated game as it tries to wrestle with amphibious and airborne invasions, futile mountain campaigns, and grinding attritional campaigns amidst French hedgerows. What’s amazing is that Unity of Command 2 manages to encompass all these campaigns and their unique challenges with what amounts to a single new set of fairly self-explanatory game mechanics. It’s fussier than its predecessor, but still more straightforward than, say, XCOM 2.

This probably sounds strange, considering that we’re talking about a wargame after all, but the biggest change is how much more Unity of Command 2 feels like it is about fighting. The first game was about using breakthrough tactics and clever maneuvers to avoid fighting. You’d send your simple tank sprites racing along the sparse but evocative hex-grid map of the steppe. Here, that’s very rarely an option. The German armies you face are often on the defensive, but they hold strong positions and can easily retreat to even stronger ones if you manage to dislodge them. If the first game was like fencing, where you just wanted to find the thrust that would get through all the enemy’s defenses, this is more like boxing, where it’s more about wearing someone down by getting the better of each punishing exchange. A lot of missions still have you going for that logistical throat, but it’s usually very well-guarded.