Out of the 3 different Wargame games this one is by far the best. See the first one, European Escalation, had an interesting idea on unlocking new units and with its more linear campaings but that unlock system meant you couldn't do skirmishes against AI or humans properly without finishing all the campaings, earning all the stars and that way unlocking all the units. Interesting ideas, not so fun execution. Definitely the weakest in the series by far. The 3rd game in the series, Red Dragon, is the best for skirmishes. Tons of countries not just Western but Eastern countries too and so many units. No unlock system so either go wild on the campaings or go wild making decks and doing skirmishes. If you want unit variety and fun skirmishes Red Dragon is the one you go to. But if you want a fun campaing? You come to Airland Battle. Less nations and unit variety compared to Red Dragon but much more fun campaings. I'm not including European Escalation in this because like I said it is the weakest of the series for sure. So what makes Airland Battle's campaings so much better while the skirmish isn't as good as the final game in the series, Red Dragon?
+This might be the 2nd game in the Wargame series but its the final one I've played. I played Red Dragon first and European Escalation next so by now I've gotten very used to the UI as well as the controls. You won't have issues on this part and while the game may be old its not ancient. It'll start up with 0 technical issues as soon as you get it downloaded.
+Controls aside, graphics and sounds are the same as always. Its pretty big scale anyways and you won't zoom in a lot on the units. If you do, they don't look bad at all but things definitely look better when you watch from up above and not right next to the units. Sounds are alright, nothing new, nothing too exciting. Aside from one issue which exists in all 3 games, the "something is happening watch out!" alarm is very loud and it doesn't differentiate between if an unit of yours is dead or if it just engaged in a firefight. You can press space when the alarm rings so the map jumps to whatever is happening but that alarm is so loud, so panic inducing and so hard to understand what its actually warning you about that it gets annoying. Its an issue in every Wargame, Red Dragon or Airland Battle. Voice lines like "WE'RE GETTING ♥♥♥♥♥♥ OUT HERE" or "Oh hey! Targets! ♥♥♥♥, they shoot back!" would be so much nicer to tell you the situation then the LOUD ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ALARM THATS THE SAME EVERY TIME. That aside, graphics are fine and sounds are fine too.
+The campaings are, by far, the best thing about Airland Battle for two simple reasons. You can play the campaings multiplayer with your friends or against your friends and if that reason isn't enough you can actually change the difficulty of the AI in the campaing. Its hard enough trying to control so many units, so many different units, everywhere they move and getting in vehicles, getting out of vehicles, artillery and planes and oh god the reinforcements you need to call in on top of it all, its overwhelming and the AI is better at this no matter how hard you try so being able to knock down the AI from normal to easy makes the game SO MUCH MORE FUN. Bring your friends along for the campaing if you can and if you can't you won't tear your hair out like in Red Dragon's campaings in which you're stuck with whatever difficulty AI the campaing gives you which is usually higher then my skill level.
+/- Unfortunately for me I've played Red Dragon first before Airland Battle and even before European Escalation. Starting with the 3rd installement in the series was kind of a bad idea it seems. That game simply has so many nations and so many units that I can't compare Airland Battle to it. Unit variety in here isn't bad but its nothing compared to Red Dragon.
+/- One big advantage Red Dragon has is that you can actually slow down the game. You have a small menu in matches which you can use to either speed up the match or slow it down. You just placed down all your units, the match is beginning and you need to give orders to each and every single one? Put the game to its slowest speed, give all your orders, put it back up to normal speed and play. A huge battle just ended and both sides are recovering? Put the game to 2x speed so it goes by faster while you wait for your AI opponent to attack. That speed up part isn't important but that slowing down part when a match has just begun and 20 different units are awaiting orders? Thats a life saver right there and I miss that.
-The best part about this game, the campaings aren't well... enough. There is only 4 or 5 of them with one of them being a "training" campaing where the game teaches you how to play. While they are the best in the series due to the simple fact that not only can you play them along or against friends but on top of that you can change the AI difficulty so you can still have fun no matter how good or bad you are while these two facts help a lot it doesn't help that there's such a limited amount of campaings that you're gonna be done with them after what 15 hours? After that you'll move onto Skirmish and why do that in Airland Battle when Red Dragon does skirmish battles better? More units, more nations, more maps...
-This goes without saying but the AI isn't great. Obviously nothing compared to a human opponent or a human ally. Thankfully I'm not skilled enough so the AI being bad isn't an issue for me, yeah its stupid on easy but I can't beat it unless I have the AI set to easy. Medium and higher and I get my ass kicked, badly so while I don't care too much about the AI sitting in place or rushing me with all its units, its stupid but I'm bad enough to still be challenged by that, other people will care about this. People that are better at games like this then I am.
Its unfortunate really but I can't tell you whats more unfortunate. The fact that Airland Battle, due to being able to change the difficulty of AI in a campaing and being able to play with/against your friends, has the better campaings but doesn't have enough of them or the fact that Red Dragon the 3rd and final installment in the series somehow missed out on these great ideas. Its campaings are singleplayer only and you're stuck with whatever AI the campaing gives you and that means that someone like me can't actually beat any of them without tearing my hair out or trying to cheese the AI. Red Dragon shines in its unit variety, nation variety and skirmish oppurtunities. Its campaings sound cool but they're so difficult that a noob like me just can't beat them. Airland Battle might be missing out on the nation and unit variety thus making it skirmish game mode not as fun as Red Dragon's but it definitely wins on the campaing category. Not only can I actually fight against AI thats similar to my skill level but I could invite friends along to play the campaing together or against each other. It just sucks that there isn't more campaings. But either way I think my thoughts are very clear. You want variety and fun skirmishes? Go with Red Dragon. You want fun and coop campaings? Go with Airland Battle. And stay away from European Escalation.
