Armchair general here.
Haven't played on of these since Sudden Strike 4 when I was a wee boy.
Quite new to the game (less than 10 hours), so only an outline review. Really solid 2010's warfare simulator as far as I can tell. Haven't undertaken any combined arms or contemporary warfare (i.e. drone and autonomous platform) missions yet, not sure if there are any in the workshop/editor, but is a great architecture of thinking about how to command at levels and use the terrain. Kind of highlights why command structures are a thing in the first place, as at times it feels like you're having to do the work of the Lt's and Captains (and sometimes higher) simultainiously.
I've found it quite challenging on easy, as have many others, hence only 12% of players completing the USA 2010s mission 'Invasion' on easy mode.
Fog of war can be turned on and off, and this sort of simulates having or not having a satellite feed of the battle, which changes whether you make decisions proactively or reactively, which is a nice feature. IRL sadly there's no minimap with red enemies showing their current movement when you're about to make a decision.
This really does completely change the game and the difficulty, as the AI is quite fluent and proactive in its countermeasures.
Tempo control in battle is one of the US military's core doctrines and I confess, I had to use the 'backspace' speed control on 2 (slowing down events) to beat the Invasion mission that only 10% of players have. This highlights this point quite well.
The game is very educational, from an active operations simulation point of view, as far as I can tell.
The take control and fight aspect is quite useful, especially in tank warfare as 'peer and shoot, then take cover' procedure is easier to do on your own than with orders. Also taking control the point man when rushing and enemy positions works well as your generally a better short than the uncontrolled characters.
You are outnumbered on basically every mission, and therefore its a shame there's no British campaign as generally the US IRL would have the numbers and air support, which they don't have in this. For instance, in the Invasion mission the US would get a read on the enemy positions then just drone strike them.
This is the first time I've played one of these and learned something about myself and generally thought, if I have to actually do this tomorrow, I'll be less likely to cook it. For instance, I naturally leant into a kind of thinking that makes small unit raids and recon missions really fluent, while force concentration in dense areas required me to drop that mindset (at least in this game).
Looking to smash it when I get used to the controls a bit more and have some time. There's no real tutorial as far as I can tell, so you just sort of learn by doing. Once I learn more I suspect the difficulty curve will feel a bit less.
Feels like a less shooter leaning Battlefield 4 with an overlaying command simulator.
In summary, good for psychological evaluation of your own decision making, if nothing else. Like genuinely, screen capture your decisions and then think about your errors, and why you made them. It's like having a risk psychologist/game theorist in the room with you.
Will update the review when I have played more. Looking forward to building some missions/checking out the workshop.
