Despite the popularity of World War II in movies and games, History Line 1914-1918 deals with World War I and is indeed successful. As a historian, I notice how enterprises prefer taking a historical framework, but then, they invent everything else to create an exciting game.
History Line 1914- 1918, however, combines both: it is historical adequate and thrilling. People tend to forget the horrible battles of World War I and the great impact that this war left on European society. This game tries to catch this “new warfare” by focusing on the new inventions of World War I such as airplanes, trench warfare, tanks, artillery, etc.
Actually, World War I was the first war in history which is described as a battle of material and new destructive technologies.
Indeed, this game reflects these aspects: the trench warfare replaces the cavalry and is a superior defensive strategy, while the artillery is placed behind the trench – to secure it and fires deadly assaults on enemy lines. Airplanes and tanks supplement an attack by using their new strategic advantages. However, this game does not implement all technological breakthroughs of the early stage of the XX Century. Nevertheless, it offers exciting new strategies which have to be carefully planned since leading an attack is much more difficult than defending. Indeed, military management is somewhat tricky since buying new units (with some technological improvements) is not always a successful policy.
Rescuing veteran units and spending “industrial points” to heal, repair them can be much more efficient. Militarily, all countries get the same strength of units at the beginning though, as the war progresses, differences between the parties get more and more obvious.
The Game control is somewhat difficult and it takes getting used to it. Nevertheless, once you know how it works it is a lot of fun since you can fully focus on gameplay. The music on the other hand, which in my opinion is very important for getting a “feeling”, is just great and makes the hours of game play pleasant.
All in all, this game – though it has its weaknesses – is a good strategy turn based game offering good strategies and a historical adequate insight in the first world war of human history. I gave it a try and figured out how this game works. I still do not regret it. Finally there is a game that deals with the First World War and successfully demonstrates how fascinating this particular event of history actually is.
