Decisive Campaigns may just become the single greatest historically important World War II based strategy game franchise ever developed. The amount of depth, complexity and adherence to he facts and statistics is simply astounding. Of great importance, of course, is just how much the game allows you the freedom to divert from the historical facts and play missions on a ‘what if’ basis for those who desire and do complete the game as authentically as possible. Along with the great Barbarossa campaign being available on Steam are the fantastic Case Blue and The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris.

There is no way that my own play time within the game does the game justice. I genuinely believe that the over ten hours that I have played this game is only scratching the very surface of what the game is capable of. I feel that there are hundreds if not thousands of hours of potential game play available within the game. I believe that the amount of playtime you need to put into the game counts against critics at large reviewing this game in the manner in which it thoroughly deserves. You’re going to struggle to find professional reviewers who can afford to drop a couple of hundred hours into the game needed to do so. It’s one of very few games on Steam where those who have poured tens of hours of play into the game feel that they have done enough to properly review it. I believes that this shows the amount of care and love that they have for the game and its developers but also how much work the development team poured into making this one of the truly great strategy games – video game or otherwise.

Strengths that I have already discovered within the game are the sheer amount of customization you can create within a single mission let alone playing throughout the entire campaign. They are literally endless and each change can change how the game is played in monumental ways. It’s not just change this for minimal effect type things. It is really full on. Obviously this means that your game type, style and strategy will undoubtedly vary dependent upon the style of game you are after. Political decisions and effects profoundly effect the status of the game. The choice of whether you play by the code of the Geneva Convention and have a clean war compared to a dirty war also pushes the boundaries of the game one way or the other, etc. the list goes on.

There is a focus on the relationships and the historical figures within the game unlike many strategy-based games that I have ever played. This is almost the perfect game for a student of the war. You’re going to learn an enormous amount on some of the most important players in global political history through the playing of the game. If you have a thirst for historical knowledge then this will be a real boon for you and easily justifies the full retail costing of the game – and the other games within the title.

I want to also suggest that the tutorial videos that were intelligently designed and clearly spoken are some of the best tutorial videos that I have ever watched in my life. They are a real blessing for the game as they will educate even the most naive of new players how to play the game and what is expected of the player. This is something that not many video games do well and to see such a niche title do it so perfectly is a real god send. You need to watch the videos even if you’re familiar with the type of game this is and dare I suggest even more so. It will alleviate so much of the potential frustration that you will have otherwise.

This may be the one time that I’m not even disappointed that the game lacks achievements or trading cards. They just do not matter to the target audience of this game. The only thing that I can remotely criticize the game on and it does take away some of its accessibility is the learning curve. It is a steep one. One of the steepest that I have come across. It has a tendency of making games with notorious learning curves such as Europa Universalis appear like child’s play in comparison and this is even with the fantastic tutorial videos. However, allow me to assure you that the more that I play the more I know that the learning curve will be one worth enduring with.

I think that I will close on this note. Decisive Campaigns is the first franchise that is focused on World War II that I have ever felt truly comfortable playing. My father lost his hearing in the war serving for Australia and if not for an American doctor he would have died at the scene. Instead they saved his life and some thirty five or so years later I was conceived. So World War II has always been a topic of great trepidation for me. However, I love the way in which this game presents everything in such a manner that it makes me want to learn everything about it. It is simply superb and if you have any interest at all in the war it is something that you must have.

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Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa covers the initial German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and paints a unique picture of what goes into conducting a successful military operation. It can be played solitaire or against a human opponent, and sports some of the strongest AI in the industry.

The game combines an easy-to-play but very deep turn-based divisional scale wargame with an extended role-play of command management. This combination creates a brilliant and unique game system that is as important and revolutionary as the invention of card driven games for board wargames. After playing Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa you will never look at another wargame in quite the same way, because without the role-playing command layer something very important will be missing.

The German player has to slalom around cranky colleagues, unruly subordinates, and irrational superiors while conducting a demanding military campaign that threatens to come unravelled if you run out of fuel or if too many of your trucks or panzers break down. The Soviet player gets to be Stalin, wrestling with ineffective subordinates and growing paranoia while trying to keep the military situation from falling apart.

The game is not an orgy of micromanagement. Many things appear to be handled abstractly, but appearences can be deceiving. The game focuses on the important decisions an overall theater commander must make and their influence on short-term combat operations.

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organization has at some point taken a proposal to senior management for approval. You may already know the executive who has to sign off on the proposal, and you scan his face while he reads it hoping for advance warning on what is going through his mind. You listen carefully to his questions, trying to understand his thought process. You answer even more carefully, trying to steer him into your way of thinking. And to your delight, the questions that he come back at you with tell you that he is thinking about the proposal the way you want him to. When he summarizes the issues and the decision he has to make, you know that he fully understands why he needs to sign off. And then the unfathomable happens: he turns you down.

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa played from the German side puts you into the role of that senior manager. You are constantly being asked to make decisions or delegate the choices to a subordinate, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. It is often painfully clear what the intellectually correct choice should be, and you repeatedly find yourself compelled to make a poor choice, or even the worst choice, with full understanding of what the unpleasant consequences are likely to be.

Any action you take is likely to upset someone. Antagonize a subordinate and he'll be slow to carry out your orders, which won't do wonders for your next performance review. Annoy your peers and your fuel allocation will get diverted to Western Europe, or your supply trucks won't get repaired when they break down. Anger your superiors and count yourself lucky if all that happens is early retirement. Anything you do or don't do comes at a political cost, and you rarely have enough political capital stored up to do what absolutely needs to get done, let alone what you really want to do. So you perform a heart-breaking triage on the decisions you have to make, repeatedly making bad choices so as not to upset the apple cart because you need to keep your political powder dry for the big fight over that one thing you think you absolutely need.

Make no mistake, this is a wargame. There's a big detailed map, with lots of units to move around and lots of places for them to go. But you're playing as theater commander. You sit there looking longingly at the map, thinking of all the brilliant maneuvers you could make and all the clever things you could do, if only you could get your subordinates to follow orders. And then you remember your inbox. It's a big inbox.

So why do you have to read through all those reports instead of focusing on moving your troops around ? You could delegate to your staff, and you can even ignore your inbox entirely. Many commanders throughout history have done precisely that. But it's part of your job, and sooner or later not understanding fuel consumption, railroad track gauges, and broken down trucks will bite you in the ankle, especially when the weather is starting to freeze over and your troops haven't been supplied with winter coats.

Played from the Soviet side the game presents you with a different but equally challenging set of problems. You have to figure out how to get a brain-dead, incompetent, and terrified officer corps to do something (anything) while navigating around Stalin's episodes of paranoia. Less than ten years before the game begins the functional part of the Soviet officer corps had been purged, and the consequences of that purge are still very much in evidence in 1941. You survive in the Red Army by towing the party line and not being too prominent or conspicuous: showing too much competence or initiative was a one-way ticket to Lubyanka prison or the Gulag. In that environment, the natural inclination of a Red Army general with any hope of life expectancy is to do nothing. When he isn't descending into paranoia, Stalin can nudge the Red Army into action by dispatching Zhukov or Khrushchev to keep things under control or restore order. When playing the game from the Soviet side a player will find himself in a constant war with inertia.

Playing from either side you have the option to remove the management exercise layer from the game before it begins, and what you'll be left with is an engaging division-level wargame in the style of its predecessors in the series, Decisive Campaigns: Blitzkrieg Warsaw to Paris and Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. But playing with the management layer turned on elevates Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa to a unique experience that demonstrates at a visceral level that there's a lot more to being a good general than just making the right moves.

This game is a winner. The last few years no other wargame managed to suck me in like this. Either they were too much on the easy side or to complex. This one is exactly right. The feeling you get managing the Ostfront is unparalelled.

First there's the basic hex wargame. I don't have to manage each and every little artillery regiment, special unit or air wing. It's all on the divisional level with a fair amount of abstraction. This makes the game playable. No micromanagement slugfest here.

Note: It's still a hex counter wargame, so complexity is rather high if you're used to RTS games or Risk or something like that. Learning and knowing unit stats, supply behavior and action point costs is a must. Good thing: the guys made help videos, accessible in the game. Grab a beer, coffee or whatever else and take some time watching them - else I predict frustration.

Second we have the political meta game. This is such a nice, well done thing - I can't praise it high enough. See the tears in my eyes? These are tears of joy. The meta game is what sucked me in. I feel as if I'm actually in a chain of command. I feel that my decisions matter. That's awesome. Having to manage my political relations with Generals, my Chief of Staff, Hitler, bloated Goering and many others is what makes the game stand miles above any wargame I played in the last 25 years.

I am in my second game vs the AI, turn 3. This turn I mainly brought my armies in position, Army Group Centers and Army Group Norths Panzer Groups stand ready to encircle large contigents of soviet troops next turn. I can't wait to do see my glorious plans come to life. Once I played 2-3 games vs the AI I will look for human enemies. Just you wait! :)

So, enough talk. You like wargames? You like WW2? You like making hard decisions? You are able to concentrate and read text? You like the feeling of being a commander in the biggest war in history?

Get the game, it's worth every penny - a labor of love. Support your independent wargame developer.

I am a grand strategy junkie. I love world military history and am a master of Hoi 1,2 &3. I also have played ck2, panzer corps and other games in the multitudes of genres to death. I have stayed away from these Decisive Campaigns because of what I perceived as a limited scope. I said to myself, I don't want to just fight to paris or just to fight the eastern front then have the game be over. This kept me away for years from these types of games and damn I've been cheating myself.

This game is the perfect mix of strategy, tactical combat and role playing. It is a an excellent addition to any fan of military history, strategy, tactics or lovers of the turn based game. What is so very unique is the multitude of decisions you get to make as the overall commander of operation Barbarosa. I can not stress enough the journey you get to make as both officers above and below you haggle, beg, demand and interfere with how you execute the war. While these games have been around awhile, they are relatively new to steam and this is absolutely a fresh take on ww2 that I'd like to see more of......what this game does absolutely better then another other is put you in the generals chair.

As far as specific mechanics go.....the learning curve is actually very reasonable as far as strategy games go. Inside the game are 14 approximiately 2-2:30 tutorial videos explaining the mechanics and it is clear, concise and all relevant material. The game has a huge manual is thats your thing but you don't need it, after the videos, play one turn, get the reports from your next turn and it all falls into place.

Another thing i was concerned with was replay value, this value is different to each person but to me it does that job in two ways. You can play as stalin and control the soviets, which is excellent and because of how each side had to wage the war you really get 2 games in one. Another way they make it replayable is by having some very important option buttons for your game, you can choose to play historial or a more fluid game with more possibilities. You can also choose to have geneva convention rules apply or more realistically where they arent being followed. I applaud them for the historical context and the choices you have to make as commander.

the tactical game is easy to learn yet mastering it is going to be on your individual ability to handle not only combat, but logistics and juggling priorties since you are in overall command of all 3 theatres or army groups north, south, and center.

If you like strategy, tactics, turn based gameplay i highly recommend this. If you are a beginner or veteran war gamer that wants a deeper, richer and more immersive experience I highly recommend this game. Feel free to ask me any questions I'm happy to share my thoughts with like minded gamers.

This game really gives you the feeling of being on the general staff. Quite the accomplishment and not really much else like it. The feeling fo pushing papers around is great, and it is nice to see some new ideas in wargaming.

Really enjoying my first campaign, though I don't think it will end well.

An extremely refreshing addition to the Slitherine Catalogue. Have you ever wanted to make your own decisions in WW2's eastern front? Maybe even defying the fuhrer himself to further your own Military goals? This is the game for you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0sDiBn6jW4

There isn't much I can't say that has been preached to death in these reviews, so I'll just say this:
Probably one of the more unique and refreshing wargames I've played in ages. Strong role-playing mechanics that make for some interesting decisions and a political system that kept me playing for a solid 6 hours straight without coming up for air. While I'm no where near finishing my first campaign, I can safely say this game deserves at least a glance from strategy gamers... whether they are fans of wargames or not. Plus you get to play as both the German Chief of Staff or as Stalin himself, both campaigns are completely different and offer a differing perspective of the Eastern Front.

Gameplay Footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7F1IcyQbxg

This game simulates the invasion of the Soviet Union from June 22nd, 1941 until the end of January 1942. The Germans code-named the invasion Operation Barbarossa and their intent was to defeat the Soviet Union before winter. Anyone who knows a bit of history knows how that worked out...

As the German player you are placed in the role of Franz Halder, the Chief of Staff of the eastern Theatre of Operations. You are not Hitler - you are not even the highest ranking German officer! This is VERY important to game play as you navigate a myriad of relationships with superiors (including der Fuhrer) and subordinates (Army Group commanders) who EACH have a bias in favour of (or against) you and an overall "relationship" level with you (from say Terrible to Superb and everything in between). This relationship network is variable from game-to-game.

On the Soviet side, you play as the big guy, Stalin, and get a larger measure of control than Halder, but you are paranoid! If things start to go wrong on the front (losing territory) you have a "paranoid episode" and start executing commanders who you perceive to be a threat to you! Needless to say, this grinds the whole Soviet command and control apparatus to a halt for a few days.

At its core, DC:Barbarossa is a hex and counter wargame but the role-playing aspect outlined above makes this game unbelievably immersive and interesting to play. Casual players will not like having to move and attack with hundreds of divisions while managing supply etc... but for grognards this is no problem. It takes about 30 minutes to do a turn so this is not a "twitch-fest". The game is more streamlined than monster games like those of Gary Grigsby, however.

I have played exclusively against human opponents, but according to the forums, 90% of people play against the AI and many have a LOT of trouble winning even against lower levels of difficulty! As a human-human struggle, this is BY FAR the best computer wargame experience I have ever had in over 40 years of board wargaming and computer gaming back to the C64 days.

The designers are actively tuning the game balance and supporting the fan base's requests for new features but they are also turning their thoughts to a new game using this engine. This is great news.

If any of this is remotely intriguing for you, check this game out!

NOTE: I have several dozen PBEM games completed and hundreds of hours of play prior to the Steam release today!

I have owned this game since it's first release at Matrix Games, I transferred it to Steam today.Simply amazing,this game has many options that let you defy the same linear game that most Russo-German strategic world war two games follow. You get to choose, A-LOT of variables that are very nice, giving the player their choice as to tweaking many options as to how the actual campaign is fought, definitely granting a WIDE historical, and ahistorical scope, that defiantly does not follow the handcuffs of history as a simulation! The High Commander RPG will consume you, or if you want just combat it can all be done in the options menu!

Delightfully easy to learn and play. The dynamics of the command system they have developed makes for an incredible experience. Runs beautifully and while you can feel a strong engine underneath, the game is surprisingly easy to play. Love it, congrats to the developers on this incredible game and I cannot recommend it enough!