Historyline 1914-1918
| Developer: Blue Byte | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Blue Byte | Sound: |
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| Year: 1993 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 simultaneous | Rating: |
8/10 | |
I refer you to the page for Battle Isle (by the same authors) for a rundown of the genre. It’s essentially the same thing, but with a World War I skin slapped on top. Admittedly, its static, time-consuming nature does fit rather well with the trench warfare theme!
Two campaigns of 24 missions each are on offer, where you lead either the French or German army. Between battles, animated text boxes, accompanied by maps of Europe, weave a “historical” atmosphere—or, dare I say, even an educational one.
As in the previous episode, turns alternate between two phases: movement and actions. While one player plans their troops’ movements on their side of the screen, the other is busy making things go boom. Then, in the next turn, roles are reversed.
The missions follow historical chronology quite closely. You’ll find yourself traversing famous battlefields in every season, and the composition of the armies reflects the latest technological advances: from ancient cavalry units to the first tank regiments, not to mention naval and air units.
Your troops, like the enemy’s, gain experience through combat, which greatly increases their effectiveness. It’s therefore crucial to keep them safe, bringing them back to base before it’s too late to replenish their numbers. In some missions, it’s even possible to manufacture new units. If you want the advice of a strategic genius, a surefire way to lose your troops quickly is to cram them into a truck and send them to the front lines under enemy artillery fire. You’ll be amazed to learn that it took me four attempts to get past level 1…
To conclude, the paradox of this game is that it doesn’t innovate technically compared to its predecessor, Battle Isle. That said, it’s still fabulously refined in its presentation and deserves recognition for that.
In the Amiga emulator, don’t forget to enable the three secondary floppy disk drives before starting the game. It’s truly unbearable with just one drive! A hard drive installation is preferable but not essential. I do strongly recommend, however, that you disable the combat animations in the options menu (“settings”, “no combat”) to speed things up.
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