Strategic War in Europe (SWE), by Wasteland Interactive is an interesting game and potentially a great introduction to wargaming in general and World War II in particular, but there are a few serious misses that make this game inferior to other choices out there such as Paradox Interactive's "Hearts of Iron" franchise.

SWE is a close descendant of Wasteland's previous creation, Time of Fury (ToF). ToF also covered World War II, but with a much larger map and units split into divisions and corps, while SWE uses corps and armies to minimize the number of units you need to keep track of and allow for sweeping movements, such as the Blitzkrieg through the Low Countries to end-run the Maginot Line.

The basics of the game are simple enough: Move around a hex-based map of Europe, engage and destroy the enemy, try to conquer their cities. The more you have, the more 'money' you get each turn to spend on new units, upgrading old units and technological research.

On the plus side, you have some customization of land units (tech level, infantry/motorized/armored, corps or army, add a commander?), and air/naval units are given similar care. Other than taking and holding cities you don't need to worry about the economy. Most of the game's controls are intuitive enough, especially if you go through the tutorial. (The tutorial uses a different, larger map which strongly suggests they just used the one from ToF.)

There are some minuses however. The naval tutorial is bugged, and naval movement is frustrating to say the least. Nowhere is it clearly explained why your unit may not be able to pass through a given strait, or why it may not be able to land your troops...or even fight in a battle. The manual gives you some insight into these mysteries, but even then an onscreen explanation of why your action failed would be useful.

Further, while it is technically true you can play most of the European nations (Lumping together Belgium and the Netherlands takes some getting used to) there's really no point to play anyone outside of the Allies, Axis or Comintern. You need diplomatic points to accomplish anything outside of your territory including declaring war, and you might not get any. I just finished an 'interesting' game as Spain looking to take on Portugal, but never getting the opportunity.

Lastly, the game is strongly geared towards the historical route. There are events included to encourage historicity. Theoretically they can be ignored, but refusing to start Operation: Barbarossa, for example, just means the USSR will invade you soon thereafter. Further, most nations start as pro-Allied/pro-Axis/pro-Comintern, and getting them to change sides is very, very difficult. This means each game is going to develop in a very similar manner: Great for actually replaying World War II, iffy for replayability or 'what if' scenarios.

Again, this is a fairly simple introduction to wargaming and so has merit on that basis. If you want to kill a few hours and don't mind fighting whatever naval rules the game is using, then this game works...though you might be just as well finding a copy of Axis and Allies. Players ready for a challenge should probably head straight for Hearts of Iron, or if HoI is too indepth for them there's always 'Making History.'

Strategic War in Europe lets you take command of any of the European (plus the United States) nations during the Second World War. The alliance that earns the most victory points (earned by holding cities) is declared most awesome. The game comes with six scenarios, giving you the starting conditions for each year between 1939 and 1944. You can choose to control one or multiple countries (even those from opposing sides) and allow the AI to take the helm of the remainder. Strategic War in Europe lacks the alternative scenarios provided in the previous title, which is a bit disappointing.

Units in Strategic War in Europe consist of corps and armies (instead of divisions and corps), which is appropriate for the increased scale of the map. Like before, ground units include infantry, motorized, and armor types, while fighters, tactical bombers, and strategic bombers take to the air, and carrier group, battle group, patrol group, and submarine group rule the seas. Each unit is rated according to strength, a health value that also determines attack and defense, and the effectiveness, a combination of battle experience, commander values, and supplies available. A selection of commanders can be assigned to important units, which generally increases attributes according to the rating of the commander. Supplies are automatically ferried from nearby cities to your units, the amount of which is inversely proportional to the distance from the city. While you don’t have to worry about managing supplies directly, the system does allow you to control rail lines and cut off supplies through flank movements.

Each unit has a number of action points (determined from the type of unit) that it can use to move and attack each turn. In addition to conventional movement, units can take advantage of strategic rail movement, sea transport, amphibious invasions, and paradrops. Air units can rebase, scout, and nuke targets, while naval vessels can raid supply convoys. Units can join an attack once per turn, adding to the strength of the assault and allowing you to take down powerful armies by surrounding them and simultaneously attacking them. The victor of a battle is determined from the unit strengths, terrain, and weather conditions. Units will get damaged, so you can spend production points earned from cities under your control to reinforce existing units (preserving the experience they have earned) or purchase new units that can be placed near any city once completed. Existing units can also be upgraded to a higher experience level or changed to a new type, if they are in friendly territory and you have the production points to spend.

Diplomatic points can be spent delaying or hastening your country’s entry into an alliance, triggering an election, or changing political parties. You can also pressure other nations into a specific alliance, attempt to change their political affiliation, or declare war. And that’s it: no trade or dealings other than pure alliance. Research is even more primitive: you invest money to increase the focus in six areas (infantry, tanks, aircraft, submarines, navy, and nuclear weapons), allowing for more unit upgrades. Neither of these areas get much focus during a game of Strategic War in Europe, so most of your energy will be spend moving units and attacking your foes.

Sencillo pero muy jugable.

The game is pretty deep, it's even complicated to start with it and the tutorial could be more extensive, or at least have some nice in-game help. The graphics also look a bit old, although it's hard to something really fancy in this kind of game. Despite these things, when you look under the surface and get how things works it's very fun, and the maps can be completed faster that other games in the genre -for many you can take weeks to complete a map-.

So this is a turned based strategy game based in WWII. You get to play as nearly every country you want and you can easily change history if you wanted to. The graphics are dated but perfectly acceptable for this type of game. The naval aspect of this game is quite weird I find but the ground combat is quite amusing and fun. Definitely a game worth buying if you like grand strategy games.

It is not worth the money to be very short. I regret buying it, it has to many frustrating little details i dont like. It is another game produced in a hurry just to make money out of us.

To bad really, it could have been a good game- but it has to much to be frustrated over.

Fans of the genre aren't going to place a lot of stock into graphics, the gameplay is what they're after. And in this regard, Strategic War in Europe pulls through. This game captures the spirit of old school strategy board games. However at the same time, 'old school' brings down other areas of the games as well. With multiplayer so prevalent in gaming nowadays, why doesn't this game offer matchmaking? There were also a few times that the game crashed on me, and a few other strange quirks.

The game itself reminds me a tad of Risk. But added with a few things.

There is good and bad things in this game though.

First some good things:

The interface, is a nice and clean one. Easily able to see the stuff and differences.

The game is easy to learn and fast to get into without really knowing too much already.

Then bad things:

I feel it misuses the environment. Areas where you feel could be more of a unit, well it can't. There does not really seem to be a difference if the units walk on roads or in wilderness.

Will i recommend this to people as it is?

No i will not. If the stuff aint fixed this is not something i would really bother with.

If HOI takes too much of your life and is too hardcore then this is the answer: a strategic wargame which harks back to the Clash of Steel days of simple yet compelling mechanics and a quick resolution. Planning ahead for all eventualities and making sure you have a clear objective in mind is what will win the day here, not grinding down opponents over the course of dozens of hours of gaming. Perfect game for those couple hours you have spare if you are into wargaming but don't always have the time for them.

So , this is board game in reality of Second World War. First + is tutorial from which we fast learn how to use units, modyfing them and similar. Second + is good interfece. We have quick access to usfeul commands, reports, etc. So, what's wrong? As it is board game we should not expect any advanced graphics and animations and in fact we have no any. This is accepptable. But not acceptable is many aspect that Wastelands Intercive ignored. First - if we conquering some country there should be any form of pratisants units. There is no any teher. Second - countries has a very less number of armies. For example Denmark - only ONE UNIT to defend and nothing more... Similar big Finland - two units at all. Of course we may buy new units for our army, promoting them, etc. But is it not stupid when country who has an aggressive neighbour has very samll army...?

What else - sometimes I was suprised of movement points of units. On road they should walk faster than normal but some infantry troops walking only 1 hex per round wherever they are - road or wilderness.

Very strange is when we try to control fleet - rules of it are almost understandable. Also I dont see reasone why air fighter are included in units if we cannot make airstrike with them - only with bombers. WTF?!

Conclusion: it could be good game but there is many things too repair. So I don't recommendng it yet.

My gameplay here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAOQPCsM56A&list=UUQBdOkeUwuFLaxxM3J2PhDQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Great little wargame. Unlike many other Grand Strat games this one can be completed in less than a day. Good crisp graphics, plus a good UI.

This is a solid game as it's really the culmination of three previous releases. I also recommend Time of Fury. ToF has alot more units but is a superb game aswell. Even has a choice of map and unit graphics, some in my opinion are works of art. On top of that it's easy to mod.

Anyway if your looking for a quick Grand Strat game you can't get better than this, the one word I've seen on forums more than any other describing this game is "FUN". I also think it's a great intro game to someone who wants to dip their toes into old school wargames or even a youngster who shows an interest in WW2.

If you fancy something more involved track down Time of Fury which is a much improved version of Time of Wrath.

Just try playing as the Russians for example. By the time the Germans attack Russia, you don't have a chance of stopping them from walking into Moscow. You can't build enough strength in time to hold back the German's overwhelming strength. No play balance to make the Russian player even competitive.

If you are looking for a WW2 game that you can play and finish in a few hours instead of months this is the game for you. I think it will make for an excellent PBEM game since it can be finished in a reasonable amount of time. The game play is simple and it can be modded so others can create there own custom campaigns.

A great place for beginners of WW2 or any strategy game to start.

Well I have played this since it was released last Friday and I find it to be a "dumbed-down" version of Time of Fury. Now don;t get me wrong, this game has tons going for it. It games like Time of Fury or some of the more advanced games from Sliterine and Matrix are well "too complicated" then by all means "Strategic War in Europe" is well worth your time and at the price it is, well worth your investment! As far as I can tell this game uses the exact same "engine" as Time of Fury but is way more simplified. I had a great time playing this. I can take Poland no problem quite handily in this game but it was not so easy in their "advance" version "Time of Fury".

This game is ideal for those curious about the genre and for those who want to get their feet wet playing a WW2 strategic game. Heck! even for players more experienced, I am sure that they will still get a kick playing this. For the price and for the quick fun, I strongly recommend giving this game a try!

I did notice a couple of "non-breaking-gaming bugs" especially in the last part of the tutorial (ship battle tutorial) that I am sure will be fixed in a future patch. All and all some great fun can be had here.