“It’s a huge strategy game, but if you want, you can play it just like a classic turn-based strategy game. “At every turn, you’ll be managing every battalion displayed on the map,” says Pierre-Yves Navetat, Eugen’s communications manager.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, but also a lot of infantry and vehicles to cover it. Recon units can travel much further than heavy tanks, for instance, while all units benefit from using roads. How far battalions can move within a turn on the campaign map-simulating half of the day-is determined by both the their movement value and the terrain. Reinforcements will need to be moved from elsewhere to protect them. The dispirited Soviet attackers end the battle out of moves and staggered, meaning that they’ll be overrun if engaged by the enemy. Phase A actually went quite well, but then the enemy brought in more troops during Phase B, and again during Phase C, leaving the Soviets in a bit of trouble. Instead of fighting manually, the battle is auto-resolved-the whole game can be played this way if you want-and it’s left up to the battle report to tell the sad, sad story of the Soviet defeat. The hope is that it will be a quick strike that’s able to punch through the German line and allow the Soviets to pour out of the leak. The Soviets throw everything into Phase A. You won’t always have the luxury of having artillery, air support, and top-tier units.

While Steel Division tasked players with building the best divisions, the size of Steel Division 2’s campaign maps means that there are going to be lots of occasions where you have to make the best of a bad situation-even if that means relying on the poorly-armed, roll-up-smoking partisans. There are quite a few battalions near the targeted area on the German line, but they’re not exactly an elite fighting force. And if you need to think long and hard about your next move, you can pause the battle. In solo games, the speed of the action can be tweaked, giving you more time to order your units around or just sit back and watch the things unfold. That’s around 30 to 40 minutes of real-time fighting per RTS battle, depending on how the speed controls are used.

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