To me, the best games are the ones you stumble on and go “Oh, yeah, this is what I have been looking for all my life.” Master of Command is a game I have always wanted: a muskets-and-bayonets-era strategy game covering a war very few people care about (the Seven Years’ War, which you should care about, because I assure you, it is very cool) with a very intriguing take on the usual war/strategy game formula.
Master of Command
Developer: Armchair History Interactive
Price: $29.99
Platform: PC (reviewed)
Meaning…it’s kind of a wargame if it were a roguelike. Y’see, you pick one of the big sides in what was a world-spanning war (arguably, an early World War), those being:
- The British: They are highly disciplined with devastating infantry firepower, but their troops are relatively few in number and slow to promote
- The Habsburgs: They are Flexible with great artillery, but their troops train slowly and slow reload time.
- Prussia: They have fast moving and heavy infantry, but their artillery isn’t great, and their units are expensive
- Russia: They have cheap recruits and excellent morale, but are disorganized and move slowly.
- France: They have massive armies and heavy cavalry, but bad morale and poor logistics.
And then you get to pick one of three goals to begin your campaign. Sometimes, you’re trying to conquer a region. Sometimes, you’re trying to support outposts. Sometimes, you’re razing slums. They’re kind of randomized in the manner of a roguelike, and you get a reward for completing your goal for that chunk of the campaign, which is an Act.
Once you have chosen that, you are on a…kind of an overworld map that feels a lot like a party-style RPG, only instead of ordering around fighters and wizards and rogues, it’s infantry and cavalry and artillery, and instead of Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft, it’s, oh, let’s say…Silesia. But the general vibe is very familiar: random events, towns to pillage and/or shop in, loot to be found, and the meat of Master of Command, combat.
Because, of course, all those enemies you are at war with aren’t exactly thrilled about you roaming around the countryside pillaging and/or reinforcing outposts and/or looting and/or ambushing their patrols and/or looting their supply caravans, and they will send out armies to stop you. This can become a cat and mouse game across the countryside, since obviously it is extremely unwise to get in a fight against a much larger or better trained force…unless you think you’re a better general than the AI, or you want to give it a whirl or they have you cornered or you’re running out of food and ammo and money or otherwise have to fight.
Master of Command Is the Seven Years’ War Game You’ve Been Waiting For
The actual battles feel a lot like Total War, though obviously the engine isn’t as pretty. Generally, the combat feels right. The tactics are intuitive and feel appropriate: setting up on a hill or in the woods and building a defense around it works. Making the enemy charge into the face of your artillery works. Finding a low morale regiment of conscripts and focusing your fire on it until it wavers, then bayonet charging works. Breaking a unit on the flank and using that to start rolling up the enemy army works. It feels right. If there’s a critique I’d make, it’s that sometimes the enemy AI is perfectly happy to march into an obviously disadvantageous position, such as “my troops are entrenched on high ground with artillery and heavy cover and they’d have to march across a lot of open ground”, but then, Robert E. Lee did exactly that, didn’t he?
There is a constantly-ticking clock in the Act, which you can call a…boss fight. The enemy Headquarters is getting its shit together as you rampage around the countryside building up and training and equipping your army, and it can be delayed but not really stopped and eventually, you’re going to have to fight a big, tough fight with the Headquarters, framed around “winter,” which also means your army moves slower and consumes more supplies, so you can’t slowly and inevitably steamroll. You have to fight.
Beating the Headquarters gives you that nice prize and moves you into the next Act in your campaign, but you’re not going to win easily. Figuring out your side’s nuances and building up your army takes a few playthroughs.
With five factions and multiple difficulty levels and the quasi-roguelike structure, there’s a lot of game here. This is the kind of thing I can play basically every day, plow hundreds of hours into, and never actually “beat”. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some Russians advancing on my position and I need to rally my riflemen.
The Final Word
Master of Command is a deeply replayable, razor-smart strategy roguelike whose historical flair and tactical depth outweigh minor AI quirks.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
