Wargame: European Escalation – 40% off sale & content patch

Eugen Systems has released a new content patch for Wargame: European Escalation (officially a “free DLC” – the only practical difference is that you’ll have to download it separately), while for the weekend, Amazon and Steam are now selling the game for US$24, representing a 40% discount. Reader Wolfox wonders whether the game is worth it, for an offline gamer, at that price.

My answer is “probably”. At a design level, Wargame is fantastic, and the new patch has fixed two issues that had marred player-vs-AI games. You can now do comp stomps, and you can now unlock new units by playing the skirmish mode or comp stomps (albeit more slowly than through PvP). The skirmish AI still offers less challenge than an experienced human player, but it plays well enough to make me work for victory. (Think one of the better Total War games, or, well, most strategy games.) And there’s a fun way to enhance the challenge – play with a themed deck, e.g. by restricting yourself to units of just one nationality.

Meanwhile, my recommendation for the game’s target audience (folks who enjoy PvP multiplayer) hasn’t changed. Wargame was worth it at full price, and it’s definitely worth it at 40% off!

Going forward, I’d still like to see more options to handicap the game or customise victory conditions. However, Eugen’s track record (in addition to the above additions, it’s patched in a new gameplay mode, more maps, and continued balance tweaks) makes it very plausible that we’ll see future additions along these lines. Keep up the good work, Eugen!