World War I is contained in its naval entirety. The first screen allows the player to tailor a set of fundamental options, such as the number of players (you can even watch the computer playing with itself if you wish, something I've never seen offered by a war-game before), handicap level for non-historical scenarios, and the speed at which system messages are displayed. An important choice offered is whether to play a historical scenario (of which there are four offered for each war) or to build your own.
Initially, building your own scenario is recommended. If you choose to, further options' screens offer you the chance to fight on the open sea or to design your own landmass to play around; you can also specify the time and date of the conflict down to the minute, with the year chosen affecting the availability of ships. There is also a chance to introduce further handicap levels by deciding who has air/sea control of the battle area, which is best at damage control, and what the visibility level is.
Play proceeds in a fast, free mixture of order giving and order execution. Through a system of menus, movement and combat instructions can be given to ships individually or en masse by divisions. The orders are then executed in real-time
during the action phase, which indefinitely extends itself unless the player requests another order phase. If anything interesting happens during the action phase, the player is informed by messages which may flash by very rapidly or very slowly depending on which message speed was selected. To change the fleet's orders in response to these messages, the player presses a key to exit the action phase at the next opportunity -- the response is not instantaneous, as the game seems to want to finish what it's doing first. This is a free-form system which releases the game-play from the artificial rigidity of fixed-length turns, and gives the player a good degree of control. A save game option is automatically given before each orders phase.
Points are scored for sinking ships and driving them off the edge of the map. The number of points scored for ships lessens if the victorious side has air/sea control of the battlefield, so there is a price to be paid for favorable handicap conditions.
Together with the eight historical situations, the infinite choice of player-defined open sea combat and the option to custom-build maps, the potential variety of play is enormous and I rate sustaining interest as about as high a virtue as any game can have.
