A note - the game is "Free to Try". It's "Free to Play" only the tutorials and a sample scenario of every campaign, with individual purchase of campaigns. Essentially, a free demo with the "real game' as DLC. (Although you can choose not to buy the more expensive original game and only buy the later DLC campaigns if you want.)

As someone who plays both the "absurdly complex" hardcore strategy games you need to spend 10 hours reading the manual to even start playing and seemingly-simple-but-actually-deep, colorful strategy games like Advance Wars, I can say this fits into a comfortable middle-ground that is approachable, yet not quite as goofy and gamey as Advance Wars. (So no, you can't block a panzer division by keeping a plane on the one bridge to your base since air and land/sea units are on different layers.)

This game has definite "I'm tired, but just one more turn an- oh, God, does the clock say 4 AM?!" potential.

The game really does lean more the "Advance Wars" route, with the clear-cut unit types and one-unit-per-tile (excepting air units flying over land or sea units) that generally have rock-paper-scissors vulnerabilities to one another. Battleships cost only a few times as much as destroyers, which are on par with infantry units in cost. Expensive tanks are countered by cheap AT guns that can interrupt attacks against neighboring units while on the defense, but are severly vulnerable on offense and generally just eaten by infantry. Unlike Advance Wars, where Infantry was just there to capture towns, infantry are totally viable and actually a highly deadly unit since they are more generally flexible and don't have a whole class of units designed specifically as their counter. More than Advance Wars, the game also has an "efficiency" score that really serves as a combined/abstracted organization/morale/supply meter. Artillery, strategic bomber, and naval bombardment all deal less direct damage than they disorganize/demoralize the enemy for your infantry to storm in.

One thing that the game does very well in comparison to many other "serious" hex-based historical strategy games is incorporate land and sea forces into the same battles fairly well. Land units can spawn their own transports at ports, and sail to beaches to land and invade new islands, a somewhat gamey, but highly strategically interesting prospect. Along the way, they're at the mercy of naval units, which are also capable of heavily bombarding coastal emplacements when not fighting for naval supremacy.

This game also features "core units", which are units you keep from scenario to scenario in a campaign, gaining experience. You can even rename them, which I highly recommend doing, as having your favorite tanks and ships (named after your dog or friends or favorite fictional characters) pull through the war with elite status makes it more enjoyable. It also makes moments where the unit is in real trouble far more tense, and keeps you far more invested in the well-being of your troops in a game that otherwise tends to prioritize speed of advance over keeping your troops in a cohesive state.

With all that said, there are some weaknesses; The AI doesn't rely upon a single general strategic script that is rather sophisticated like they do in Advance Wars, instead, units are assigned to individual scripts that tend to be extremely single-minded. On scenarios where you are on offense, the AI often just sits in place and waits for you to come and swarm them, with the exception of the units that really need to sit in place, the AT and AA guns that bizarrely are super-aggressive and break out of their entrenched positions so your infantry can obliterate them more easily.

Likewise, the game relies upon giving you very limited units, but letting you repair them with absurd ease, provided you have the cash. Since you have a super-low unit cap, however, once you've deployed your units, there's literally nothing else to spend that money upon, anyway.

The naval combat in particular feels like it needs a rebalance; There's almost no role for cruisers at all. Battleships are just clearly better at ranged surface gun battles, and cruisers aren't significantly less expensive enough in comparison to battleships (especially in the ever-so-crucial unit cap department) while they are significantly less effective in combat. Destroyers redeem themselves with sub-hunting, torpedoes, torpedo-blocking, and cheap repairs to justify themselves, but cruisers are left in the cold. And when I say "cruisers", I mean "heavy cruisers". Light cruisers aren't even available for purchase! Too bad if you're an Atlanta or Agano fan, they aren't there.

Likewise, if you're a naval buff, you'll find that many units become "obsolete" and removed from the lists of purchasable units when they really shouldn't be. Having the air force phase out the A5Ms for A6M (zeros) makes sense, as does making new infantry units come equipped with the year's latest model of panzerfaust. Ships, however, weren't so easily replaced. If you want a Fubuki, you better buy one in the first mission, even if you can't really use it there, because it goes obsolete by the second mission!

Logistics exists, although I'm not entirely sure why. It is nearly always a non-factor since you have a super-low unit cap and essentially always start out with more supply than you need for your whole army, and then are sent out to capture more cities that expand your supply more. It would only matter if you used paratroopers or landing craft to outflank the enemy by taking towns and using supply ships and destroyers to supply the troops as they became established... which the game's scenarios basically never allow to be a sane option. It feels like a totally wasted oportunity, since this game does combined forces combat so well, but fails to capitalize upon it with true land/sea/air combined scenarios, instead splitting them into a "naval battle before the landing" scenario and then a "land battle after the landing" scenario, and skipping the landing portion entirely. (I say this not having played the Marines DLC yet, however - that may change things.)

Look at the people's reviews with high hours played - including myself who has 442 hours booked on Steam plus I was a beta tester for every expansion booking over another 100 hours. This is an outstanding turn based war game and the next generation to Panzer General and Panzer Corp. If you want a great war game with realistic rules of supply and logistics that nevertheless do not bog you down in minutae - this is it - excellent play on land / sea / and air.

Also highly recommended for military veterans who want a taste of the authentic. ( such as me - retired Royal Canadian Engineers )

On the other hand if you are looking for another FPS, something with tactics a 5 year old can understand or just anything with "free" in the description please look elsewhere.

Look at this face - did I ever lie to you? I rate this game as 9 / 10 and getting better

I really enjoyed this game, even as the free demo for the limited time I have played it. Very solid play style and not loaded with crazy graphics to hide dry game play. Missions are not a cakewalk, but not frustratingly complicated either. Try the demo, it was definitly worth the time for me! Now i know, "This sucks, you gotta pay for the packs!!" is getting kinda old, but lets be realistic. People make these games to make money so dont get all Emo when you have to pay for something. I will say the packs are pretty expensive though. Makers would increase sales if they cut prices, but i will be waiting for a sale to get me some.

Order of Battle: World War 2 is a turn-based strategy game developed by The Artistocrats and published by Slitherine Ltd. It was released in April 2015. It is set in World War 2 and there are multiple paid DLC campaigns that unlock new settings based on 'What Ifs' in the war. For instance, Winter War is a paid DLC that covers Finland. Order of Battle primarily is free to try, and this means that with the free version you can play the boot camp tutorial campaign and try the various paid campaigns. Furthermore, if you want to play more campaigns you need to buy them and if you want to play multiplayer you need to own at least one DLC.

Order of Battle incorporates fun strategic and realistic elements. Notably, there is an excellent supply system which alters the course of battle. For example, if your army controls one island and want to invade another island, you need supply ships so when you gain a foothold on that other island you can resupply and build units. But, Order of Battles' basic premise is turn-based hexagonal combat. This is very similar to the Civilisation V game in which you build units, capture territory, and move using a turn-based system. Each faction also has specialised units, which relates to the realistic aspect of history. These units, such as the M1 Stuart Tank, have special abilities and obviously are stronger or weaker than other units. For instance, tanks are stronger then infantry.

Tactics are essential to outsmarting your enemy and this is also apparent with the enemy AI, which can easily outsmart you and cut your troops off from support. Lastly, I adore the mission completion system. Specifically, in mission two I captured both island checkpoints, but did not complete the optional objective of destroying an enemy submarine. This resulted in the enemy submarine appearing in the following mission, providing a very realistic tone to the game because in war, if a unit retreats he will regroup with the rest for following missions. Overall, I really do like this fresh take on the strategy series through an alternate history turn-based style game. There are multiple consequences to think about, such as whether you complete all objectives, or where you should move onto the map. In other words, choices and tactical thinking matter.

Order of Battle features beautiful artwork. The artwork is cartoon-like, which I compare to the upcoming Civilisation VI. The idea of the artwork is that with a more friendly approach to characters and the UI, it allows for more information to be presented to the player in a simple and non-cluttered way. Furthermore, I believe the cartoon-like graphics showcase the brilliance in map design and elements within such as the terrain, the landscape, and even friendly or enemy units.

This is a very good game. I enjoy the gameplay and the alternate take on history through campaigns in various settings. I like the game mechanics in how balanced they are, but also how game mechanics affect the overall game. There are a large amount of units that differ with factions, meaning things are not repetitive, rather each faction feels fresh. The UI is user-friendly and the graphics fit the nature of the game. My only negative with the game is the lack of a free portion. I do not like I have to spend minimum USD$9.99 to play a major campaign or even just play multiplayer. Personally, it turns me off. In saying that, as a mild-loving strategy fan, I highly recommend this game to strategy fans. Furthermore, as I am not one to put hundreds of hours into strategy games nowadays, I do not see this as an everyday must play game, therefore, I recommend the DLCs on sale.

As a side-note, I understand I have only played this for about 100 minutes, but I was quick to grasp the game mechanics and overall strategic gameplay style.

7.5/10

- Turn-based gameplay that feels fresh and smooth.
- Beautiful graphics that balance land, units, and information on screen.
- Variety of units that separate factions.

- The lack of free content due to the dependency on paid DLC.

If you found this review helpful, please give it a thumbs up. If you would also like to follow my reviews more easily, be sure to join my group Antwog's Analysis (Reviews).

I must admit I was somewhat wary of trying OOB: WWII due to some of the negative reviews. I have been playing strategy/hex games since Panzer General and Norm Kroger's Operational Art of War series, and I must say that playing this game did my heart a whole lot of good. Modern graphics and animation breathe new life into the genre, as well as a supply system that makes sense and is easy to grasp. For those that play Panzer Corps (myself included) there are some features that will be familiar, but also many more that make the game more robust and realistic than Panzer Corps is at times.

The base game is free to download, and includes a bootcamp campaign and sample scenarios for some of the DLC campaigns which will cost you a few dollars. This is by no means a bait and switch, as many people who have written reviews seem to think. This is actually an extended demo with a generous amount of content which allows you to get a great feel for the game before deciding whether or not to purchase. There are a couple of issues which need work on this otherwise fantastic game---

1) The game can become very choppy and slow even on machines which exceed the minimum requirements. Hopefully in the near future the devs can work on optimizing the coding.

2) Artillery is quite weak, although in this game its stated purpose is to disrupt enemy efficiency rather than kill them. Bumping up the killing power slightly would make artillery far more relevant in the game. As of now, I do not deploy artillery at all unless I have extra command points.


9/10 All in all, it is a solid, fun, and addicting game that is well deserving of a try by any strategy fan.

Bought this on the strength of the FTP which is essentially 4+ demos rolled into one,

Having played and enjoyed both Panzer General and its often forgotten successor Peoples General i have to say this game comes closest to capturing both the spirit and feel of both games and manages to Improve them. In a way its a shame Pearl Harbour is the first level as of the scenarios i have played (up to midway so far) it is by far the most Gameiest. To unlock all the secondary objectives you have to use your units in both an ahistorical and counter-intuitive way.

Get past that and things improve considerably, The game makes good use of scripted special event triggers to make you adjust your strategy on the fly, plus the AI doesn't just sit in the fog of war waiting for you to activate it or throw ground units blindly forward hoping to grind you down with attrition, if things are going badly it will pause and wait for its heavy guns to come forward in support. Watching the AI come up with strategies to overcome your defences in the scenario Bataan is uncanny,one time i managed to eliminate the AI engineers, and lay a minefields to channel units into a killing zone only for the AI to send units through the mountains, terrain it had previously ignored to flank me.

If you liked PG give it a go

I bought this game for full price when it was released. You can read reviews in a "not recent" section.
Then devs released China DLC, which has only Japanese side payable. Then USMC DLC, which has some of the "Island Hopping" battles added. Now Finnish wars. You had to purchase full game and DLCs separately.

Now they essentially are offering a demo mode for main game and every DLC. But for some reason call it free-to-play. It is free-to-try. Good marketing.

Does it change the quality of the game? No. Does it mislead the players. May be.

I haven't played many strategy games, but I got this one because of the Winter War DLC (few games have this interesting theater). I'm completely hooked now.
Without DLC, there's about 10 hours (probably less for hardcore strategy enthusiasts) of gameplay in the Bootcamp campaign, plus the first mission of every DLC campaign, plus an entire Battle of Britain free DLC campaign. It's certainly not lacking for free content.
I played through the Boot Camp campaign first and had a great time. I hadn't wanted to buy the DLC in case I didn't like strategy games, but the Boot Camp campaign convinced me I'd love it.
I'm now playing through the Winter War DLC and, at this rate, will be getting the other DLC later too. I'll wait to leave a review for them until I've finished them, but I consider it well worth the $15 I paid already.

The units are interesting and feel different from each other and other nations, it doesn't seem like a "puzzle" like the few other stategy games I've played (it feels like there's a lot of ways to win, rather than finding the exact combination that will win), the sound and visual design is great, and the game is very fun for me.

I'd elaborate more on what I like, but really, you've got 10 hours of free content (ignoring the free DLC and first campaign levels) to figure out if you like this game or not. If you're interested, give it a try.

Order of Battle: World War II is honestly one of the better free to play strategy games I have played as of late. I feel like anyone interested in a free to play Strategy game should give Order of Battle: World War II a look. Turn based gameplay, multiplayer, a pretty large selection of units, all these things make for a game that could be pretty fun. I dont have that much time with the game yet, but I recommend anyone interested give it a try, especially now that the game is free to play.

Surprisingly fun. Good old fashioned hex wargaming, with some nifty modern RTS elements. I've only played the free to play tutorial so far, but it's been tons of fun. I do plan to get at least several of the DLC.