I've heard good things about Making History: World War I, and after I read your post I figured I'd go and check it out for once. It looked good until I saw this review of it by AVB Gaming on steam-
"I'm a big fan of all the Paradox games like Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron. I really wanted to like this game, set exclusively in the First World War. But the problems with it are too great to overcome.
PROS
- It's nicely complicated, like the Paradox games.
- The graphics are as good as one would like for this type of game.
- Naval warfare is better than any of the Paradox games.
CONS
- First and foremost, there is no concept of supply, really. The AI sends units to the most outlandish places with no hope of being supplied. For instance, I was playing Austria Hungary and late in 1914 I was attacked by several Japanese infantry units coming from Finland. That is not an isolated incident.
- Provinces are empty, leading to constant whack-a-mole in your rear areas. Bad enough with rebel uprisings, but when a random cavalry unit from a country 12,000 miles away pops up and conquers half your nation, (see above), it's a real problem. Every game designer should program the EU model where every province has some sort of garrison automatically.
- The AI in general is just poor. No concept of depth in defense, reinforcing weak areas or bottlenecks, and so on. Pretty common in these types of games.
SUMMARY
Nice ideas, nice-looking game, but hamstrung by bizarre AI, lack of supply, and various small bugs with units popping up in the middle of nowhere."
Or from Strangest Danger -
"This game isn't terrible, but it has a few problems that makes it a terrible Great War simulator. Here is the run-down:
1. Allied forces are HEAVILY favored. What do I mean by that? Simple, all the units on the different sides of the conflict are equivalent. A German infantry is equal to that of a French or Russian infantry. The German military was the best trained, the best equipped, and the best supported army in the conflict. Some would even put this military on par with the greatest militaries of all time. Russia, on the other hand, was supposed to be slow to mobilize and ill-equipped. I played a game where AI Russia was in Berlin before the end of 1914. Because the units are equal in strength, the Allies, with huge size advantages, will likely always win.
2. Serbia is too weak. Historically, Serbia lasted a surprisingly long time. In this game, Serbia doesn't have even close to enough resources to supply its comparatively huge military. Austria-Hungary rolls them up as a matter of course, because the Serbians starve to death and run out of guns.
3. Belgium is too strong. I played a game where Belgium completely repelled Germany (one of the greatest militaries in history), and even took ground in Germany.
4. The Allied forces start with Great Britain already involved. GB wasn't keen on getting in on this war, and only planned on doing so if Belgium's neutrality was violated. GB also only had the expeditionary forces on hand to wage a land war, in this game they seem to have a pretty healthy army from the start.
5. Austria-Hungary is too good. The Great War is the tale about how Austria-Hungary constantly did the exact opposite of what Germany wanted, and as a result, they were getting pummelled by everyone, including the Kingdom of Serbia. The only force AH knows how to fight is Italy, which leads to the next point:
6. Italy is too strong. Historically, Italy failed to take the exact same river 9+ times against Austria. In this game, it's only a little harder than taking any other position.
I'm sure there are other problems, but let's move on to mechanics:
1. The Great War was insane. Battles went no where, and the defenders always had the advantage. Hence, both sides would put up trenches, and fortify, fortify, fortify. Attacks were suicidal. This game doesn't do trench warfare well because the units and regions are too large. These trenches were separated by only a few hundred yards, loaded with barbed wire, and supervised by machine guns and artillery. Units would stand at a stalemate for months at a time, with no progress being made, constantly under a hail of shells. In this game, you have to commit massive armies to an attack, and the attack lasts until one side loses. Smaller units or smaller regions would help solve this issue.
2. You can always see all the units of the enemy. Observation planes and observation balloons only give your artillery bonuses to hit (which they need, because they can barely ever hit). This is not a good feature for a game where air superiority meant you knew where your enemey was, and they didn't know where you were.
3. Big, important advances (such as metal helmets) aren't commented on in the game. You also can't upgrade units (as far as I can tell), which makes no sense, considering the only different based on technology would be equipment. Upgrading a units defense by giving them helmets sounds pretty easy to me.
4. Diplomacy is difficult to achieve, because it takes place over lengthy, incremental time periods. Far longer than the scope of the game. I tried playing the US in the 1912 campaign start, with the goal making a Western Hemisphere alliance, but for some reason only Nicaragua was interested. I offered aid to many countries, and every couple of turns, they cancel the aid (why give up free money, I ask). The AI just sells you stuff until they run out of stuff, and they buy stuff until they think they have enough stuff. There is not indication of a desire to reach sustainability. Aside from war, that is every diplomatic choice you really have with them, except for the absolutely pointless support factions options. I say it is pointless because I couldn't find a point. I couldn't see any change over time whatsoever.
This is just a short list of what I found disappointing about this game. What I wanted was an accurate, defensive shlog that would reflect the Great War. What I got was a game where offensive movement is far too easy to accomplish."
Now, I won't bother with it.
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