Jon Shafer

Unity of Command

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I love this game, so I just had to start a thread about it. :) Doesn't look like there's one already in the main Gaming forum, and I figured this may be a better place for it (is that alright Chris?).

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, UoC is a hex-based WWII wargame in the vein of Panzer General. The main difference (aside from being better) is that the design for both the gameplay and the UI is much cleaner. There are no superfluous fiddly bits included to make it more historically accurate, or (worse) just to make the game more complex for the sake of making it complex.

The main gameplay focus is on keeping your units supplied by capturing and defending territory, rather than trying to figure out what matches up well against what. You're constantly making trade-offs and making tough decisions as to how to spend your limited resources. There are really just a ton of things the game does well, and it oozes good design. In fact, that tempts me to actually write up something a bit more detailed on my site...

For anyone who hasn't yet listened to it, here's the episode of Three Moves Ahead where Troy and Rob talked about the game.

Oh, and if you haven't already, go buy it! Well worth 30 bucks.

- Jon

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This might be heretical but I kind of rank Unity of Command as 'historical Advance Wars' in every good way that can be taken! It's so simple to understand and play yet the victory conditions really do drive you to push yourself to see how well you can do.

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As a prospective buyer (probably will soon), it looks like the turns are limited. I am curious about how that effects the gameplay. Is that a strict turn limit, as in a mission failure if you go over the limit?

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This might be heretical but I kind of rank Unity of Command as 'historical Advance Wars' in every good way that can be taken! It's so simple to understand and play yet the victory conditions really do drive you to push yourself to see how well you can do.

If I were to point out any flaws in UoC, this would indeed be one of them. The fact that every time you play a map the starting situation is completely identical does really limit replayability for each scenario to 2-3 times, as that's about how long it takes to attain complete mastery, and once that happens there's really nothing new to see. Some kind of randomization might help here, but hey, it's not a full-price game so I'm not expecting a game like Civ. :) It's also kinda hard to add too much variance in a game based on an extremely well-known bit of history.

The only other issue I think one could bring up would be the lack of need to adapt to new rules as you progress through the game. As you gain experience with the system you'll come up with new strategies, but the mechanics themselves change very little from the first couple missions. Again, the historical context makes this a challenge, but it is an issue nonetheless.

As a prospective buyer (probably will soon), it looks like the turns are limited. I am curious about how that effects the gameplay. Is that a strict turn limit, as in a mission failure if you go over the limit?

Turns are limited and there is a certain number you must finish each scenario within, but for the most part you're racing to achieve a 'better' victory than you would get if you were a few turns slower. So there is the pressure of time, but it won't end your game unless you're really slow in meeting your objectives. That having been said, there is definitely the feeling that time is of the essence and that you're on the clock. For players who hate that, UoC may not be the game for you.

- Jon

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If I were to point out any flaws in UoC, this would indeed be one of them. The fact that every time you play a map the starting situation is completely identical does really limit replayability for each scenario to 2-3 times, as that's about how long it takes to attain complete mastery, and once that happens there's really nothing new to see. Some kind of randomization might help here, but hey, it's not a full-price game so I'm not expecting a game like Civ. :) It's also kinda hard to add too much variance in a game based on an extremely well-known bit of history.

It is at this point that surely you transition to the (allegedly) balanced PVP maps and have at other players? I admit to not having tried the multiplayer yet but that is where the replayability would come from for me.

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It is at this point that surely you transition to the (allegedly) balanced PVP maps and have at other players? I admit to not having tried the multiplayer yet but that is where the replayability would come from for me.

Possibly... I haven't tried it yet either!

However, MP and SP tend to be very different experiences even when the gameplay mechanics are identical. Most people just tend to prefer one over the other. For that reason, I think it's always a bit of a stretch when developers claim that MP is the answer for replayability - it certainly is for some people, but you don't really see most players 'graduating' from SP to MP (or vice versa). If there's not enough meat on the SP side, most SP players will simply stop playing.

- Jon

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Yup, Unity of Command is a problem for me. I ain't got time nor money for it right now. But I will enjoy discussions of it and live vicariously through them. Someone say something important.

Signed, Strange "I Gots Too Manee Gamz" Blades

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Unity of Command is one of my favorite games in a long time and I agree with much of what was said about it. My biggest complaint is the tension to avoid using prestige for reinforcements or extra units. I like the mechanic, but I try not to use up prestige since it lowers your score. I always feel like I should win without using up the prestige. This leads me to keep trying to win without using it for my first attempts, and only using it on subsequent attempts if needed. It makes it feel gamey to me and breaks the illusion that I am a commander with resources at my disposal.

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Unity of Command is one of my favorite games in a long time and I agree with much of what was said about it. My biggest complaint is the tension to avoid using prestige for reinforcements or extra units. I like the mechanic, but I try not to use up prestige since it lowers your score. I always feel like I should win without using up the prestige. This leads me to keep trying to win without using it for my first attempts, and only using it on subsequent attempts if needed. It makes it feel gamey to me and breaks the illusion that I am a commander with resources at my disposal.

That's a really interesting and important observation. I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I even tend to horde items or mana in RPGs, "just in case." It's only when I'm fighting the last boss that I realize that I probably could have been a bit less frugal.

As a designer I wonder if there's a way to encourage horders to actually use the cool stuff they have. Maybe it's just a difficulty issue, where if you're able to get by without needing them then you just don't see the point in 'wasting' something.

- Jon

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That's a really interesting and important observation. I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I even tend to horde items or mana in RPGs, "just in case." It's only when I'm fighting the last boss that I realize that I probably could have been a bit less frugal.

As a designer I wonder if there's a way to encourage horders to actually use the cool stuff they have. Maybe it's just a difficulty issue, where if you're able to get by without needing them then you just don't see the point in 'wasting' something.

- Jon

We actually discussed this issue a little bit over here -- in that thread, poster after poster "confesses" to hoarding the strong recovery items in games like Final Fantasy, never using them. They're a wasted mechanic.

Players are leaving options like strong recovery items on the table, and favoring other ways of getting through challenges -- basically, grinding for power levels that allow you to ignore recovery items. The irony is that these same players might complain about the necessity of grinding.

From a game design perspective, one form of answer is to give players a behavioral "nudge" towards more interesting solutions to gameplay challenges, away from the boring path of least resistance. A case study from the RPG context: I've been playing Persona 3 Portable (which is fantastic), and often find myself reaching for powerful recovery items, including Soma, which is the equivalent of Final Fantasy's Megalixir. P3 takes a number of measures to make grinding less attractive compared to the alternatives: whenever you go into the dungeon to grind, it takes up in-game time you could be using to pursue social links; if you fight too much, you will be "Tired" the next day and face gameplay penalties; you can almost never grind safely, because easy monsters give hyperbolically discounted XP rewards, hard monsters are dangerous, and there are no save points to camp at, and out-of-dungeon recovery is expensive. These features tweak players' incentives and help them rely less on grinding and more on systems that might be neglected otherwise, like the recovery items.

It's fair to think about it as a difficulty issue, but more importantly not all solutions to a difficult problem are equal. If a difficult boss can be dealt with either by 1) grinding or 2) tactical use of recovery items, we might find that 1) is the default solution people will choose if allowed, whereas 2) might be much more interesting if players are encouraged to try it.

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Players are leaving options like strong recovery items on the table, and favoring other ways of getting through challenges -- basically, grinding for power levels that allow you to ignore recovery items. The irony is that these same players might complain about the necessity of grinding.

In many cases I feel it's the permanent loss of resources that is an issue. In Unity of Command those force pool units impact your prestige which is a long term campaign resource. If I can achieve my goals by fully utilising the units that are on map already then why should I damage resources I might need later on?

Consumables in RPG's are a similar thing, mostly those cost money, what if I need that money to buy something else? I must be able to get by without using those things that impact my 'net worth' so to speak.

As soon as something is a temporary resource (in UOC that's the units I have in this current scenario, in an RPG it's my health which, at least in FF games, regens after the fight) or something that I can get back by taking a minimal action like resting or something, it's acceptable to exploit that resource to it's fullest.

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In many cases I feel it's the permanent loss of resources that is an issue. In Unity of Command those force pool units impact your prestige which is a long term campaign resource.

Worse still, Unity also uses prestige as a secondary scoring metric. The presentation does everything short of saying "don't use it!" on the tool tip. Feels a very intentional design choice. They could have buried the numbers, used reinforcements differently when succeeding wildly/failing miserably thru a campaign, etc.

I've found the only thing for me to trump hording is in-game goals. I'll gladly hand over the 92 health potions I've stashed since the start of the game for a 1% stat boost or making some faction happy with me. Even when the maths all stupid against, I'm a sucker for permanent perks. Not sure if thats a permanent loss corollary or just quest hoarding.

In UoC, if burning prestige deploying a unit did something additional... change the cost of future units or hitting certain target levels opened different units up on the following scenarios, I would pay more attention to it. Definitely not good enough at the game to be invested in a grognard score chase.

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That's a really interesting and important observation. I'm exactly the same way. In fact, I even tend to horde items or mana in RPGs, "just in case." It's only when I'm fighting the last boss that I realize that I probably could have been a bit less frugal.

As a designer I wonder if there's a way to encourage horders to actually use the cool stuff they have. Maybe it's just a difficulty issue, where if you're able to get by without needing them then you just don't see the point in 'wasting' something.

- Jon

I do exactly the same thing when playing RPGs. I just finished playing Legend of Grimrock (a pseudo RPG). I finished the game with a ton of potion reagents left. Every time I needed to heal, I would trudge back to a healing crystal instead of making a potion and fighting on. You never know when you're really going to need those potions. If I've got legs to walk back on I make the trip. I never know if the game is going to get a lot more difficult and I will require those potions. Nobody wants to get to a point in a game where they have to start over because they expended too much of a resource, specially a game where the content will be identical on the next play through. I believe I would enjoy these games more if I could get over it, but I still hoard.

Rob

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Question for you about Unity of Command -

I've watched videos of UoC and gazed at the pretty screenshots. It looks like a beautiful game with a gorgeous interface. I've been tempted to buy it every time someone on the podcast goes on about it. But I'm torn.

I'm much more of a game fanatic than a history fanatic. I tend to be wary of historical games because I don't want to be punished for my ignorance. Since I don't know much more about historical warfare apart from "never get involved in a land war in Asia," would I be gimped from start? I mean, I can read terrain and know how to flank and compare unit numbers, but I couldn't name much that happened during WW2 that wasn't portrayed in Patton.

So should I continue to play this game vicariously through you all, or would I be able to play it as a game that just happens to also be historical?

Sorry if this gets me kicked out of the club. I'll get me coat. :getmecoat

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So should I continue to play this game vicariously through you all, or would I be able to play it as a game that just happens to also be historical?

Historical context might give you a better appreciation of the specific operations going on but it really has little bearing on the gameplay itself. If you swapped all the units for cutesy anime tanks and teenage schoolgirls carrying large rifles the game would be just as good, honestly.

If anything, not knowing about the battles means at least you are learning something about the Eastern Front whilst playing, it's educational! :)

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If you swapped all the units for cutesy anime tanks and teenage schoolgirls carrying large rifles the game would be just as good, honestly.

Well... I'm not sure I'd go THAT far... ;)

In all seriousness, I agree with Destrin. Knowing how things actually played out isn't very important to having fun or even succeeding, really.

On a slightly related note, some of the discussions in this thread and my own experience with the game got my writing juices flowing, and I whipped up an article which talks about the game over at my website. In it I mainly examine the game from a design perspective, but there's probably also a lot of good info that could help people decide if they want to go ahead and spend $30 on it (hint: yes, you do).

- Jon

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Thanks for the replies, and thanks for the article, Jon. I suppose I'll just have to own this one.

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Downloaded TMA 166, and after I listened to Mr. Shafer make out with Unity of Command, I cranked it up again to take a crack at the Russian side of the campaign. Like the rest of the hivemind, I really enjoy the game. The interface is awesome, the action compelling, the decisions, delicious. But...

I play strategy games, but I love story machines. Unity of Command falls short of the stories I see with other great strategy games like Combat Mission, EU III, Civ, SMAC, or XCom. I've been wrestling with why it falls short; certainly I've had my run of very close victories, and more than my share of harrowing blunders (look at all the little red exclamation points!). I'm attributing it to the lack of detail. I am no rivet-counter, and I hold with Dr. Geryk's thesis that detail in the name of realism is the last refuge of design scoundrels. I do suspect that all that gritty, silly detail is where I hang stories, especially if it's a detail I have to dig for. When I pop open a unit screen to see just how little ammo it has left, suddenly the unexpected overrun is that much more compelling. The moment I open that detail screen, I'm running into a bad UI, so another UoC strength may be running contrary to its ability to show me stories.

Are you able to tell stories in UoC? If you aren't, then is that another argument in the "Puzzle not strategy" discussion?

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Hell-Mikey, I suppose this actually goes to the foregoing discussion on whether knowing the historical context is necessary to make this game enjoyable. I just read Von Manstein's memoirs last summer, so the historical context is pretty fresh in my mind. That makes the "story" pop quite a bit more than if I only had a basic understanding of the Eastern Front. Of course, you are only telling an original story in a very limited sense. I'm not sure whether that goes to "puzzle vs. strategy", as it might simply reflect the scale depicted in the game.

I think with UoC, you find your stories in the ebb and flow of the battle, turn-to-turn.

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Well, based on the info here and Jon's article and the praise lavished upon it in several podcasts, I went ahead and gave 2x2 Games my money.

The interface is even better firsthand than the screenshots and videos convey. Everything, from the clean layout to the audible but unobtrusive clicks when you select something, lets you get that much closer to the actual gameplay right off the bat.

My historical ignorance isn't preventing me from enjoying the gameplay. I can certainly see where knowledge of the battles would enhance my enjoyment as they wouldn't just appear to be randomly generated scenarios.

Is it just me or is there no record of my past playthroughs? I can't tell which scenarios I've played before or what my final score was. The best I can do is Save Game at the end and view my saves to see which I've completed. I would at least like to see a different menu color for the scenarios I've finished, especially for a game that already suffers from limited replayability.

I'm looking forward to the Campaign, but I can already tell I'll be a Prestige hoarder. I'm the same way in RPGs and MMOs. I have a little of that personality in real life as well.

Thanks for the recommendation and for writing about the game. It's a shame that a UI this well-designed is hiding in a game many people will just ignore.

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Just a heads up to people on the fence that there's now a demo available on the game's website here. I haven't played it, so I can't comment on the scenario that's included, but I can comment on how incredibly small the filesize is. At eighty-one megs, I half expect the "demo" to be the main menu and maybe a midi version of the menu music...

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Neckbeards rejoice! Unity of Command is now available for Linux. You can get a download link directly from the developer or install it easily through Steam for Linux. I had some issues with font rendering on Xubuntu, but recently wiped my laptop and installed Lubuntu, Steam, and UoC with no issues at all.

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I picked up Unity of Command not too long ago when it was on sale on Steam, and now I totally get all the hype! I am not particularly great at it, I seem to have a real knack for almost consistently being 1 turn away from capturing the objectives I need to capture, but maybe that is what makes the game so addictive, never seeming to be quite good enough...

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I'm getting slowly, mildly better at this game, although I still can't beat any scenarios 2 turns before last turn, which I guess is normal for a lot of people.

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