Games Thursday : Theatre of War 2 : Africa 1943 Promotional Mini-Game
Caught this promotional mini-game for Theatre of War 2 : Africa 1943 published by Battlefront who created the very fine Combat Mission series, from the equally fine Tacticular Cancer (which would be even finer (more fine?) with a RSS feed 
).
It’s time to show the world the power of Italian armour!
Choose one of four nations – USA, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, represented by the M4 Sherman, Valentine Mks I/II/III, Tiger I and Ansaldo-Fiat M15/42 respectively and wage all-out armoured warfare!
If you’ve played games like Benoit Freslon’s Nano War, Rudolf Kremers and Alex May’s surrealist Dyson or even Dreamspike Studios’ Space War Commander, you’ll know what you’re already in for – an abstract game of resource management and conquest. Each of the bases under your control generates tanks which you can then deploy to garrison other friendly bases or to launch attacks to conquer neutral or enemy bases.
Your tanks will engage any opposition in its path while on the move so take that into account when reinforcing your bases near enemy territory or when planning a major offensive deep into enemy territory – hardly advisable with a small force when you have to run a gauntlet of enemy bases to reach your final objective. Battles between tank groups on the move always favour the larger groups so it might be wise to assemble larger battle groups at bases nearer to the enemy instead of attacking piecemeal.
The game may seem deceptively simple but a population cap on each base i.e each base can only produce a fixed number of tanks, means that a wise commander will keep an eye on rear bases which have produced their maximum allotment of tanks and move thems to reinforce the forward bases to allow these bases to start production again, hence increasing the overall number of tanks in your army.
Coupled with the map layout and the occassional unfair advantage AI nations have in numbers and default base location, this Theatre of War 2 : Africa 1943 mini-game can be very challenging at times – I gave up trying to complete level 3.
It’s a pity that the nation you select doesn’t seem to make any difference to the gameplay since that would make an even more tactically challenging game – I would have expected that Germany would generate their more powerful Tigers at a lower rate but it appears that they are churned out as fast as Shermans and go down like one.
Play this Theatre of War 2 mini-game over at Battlefront.
MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Retro Tactical Warfare in Nectaris for Windows
Stomping Grounds
Combined Arms Warfare in Battalion : Nemesis
Battle of Tiles
Aliens – The Board Game (Flash Version)
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