Call of War is a free to play browser strategy set at the onset of World War 2, players can rule over their own countries on the global stage as war is set to break out, but who will be the heroes and villains? Where will the alliances be formed? All of that is still unwritten. In our “Things You Would Change About...” article we take a look at the game and isolate a few of the things that we think take out a bit of the fun and could really help improve the title overall.
Uninspiring Combat
The actual combat is uneventful. Whilst we enjoy the focus on the game being a strategy, what we don’t like is how combat resolves itself, simply units parking up next to each other and then seeing an outcome of the battle; it’s just maths. Perhaps this is because we’ve always been big fans of similar strategies like Sid Meier’s Civilization, where even though there is a steady pace to the game and lots of strategy, there’s something satisfying about watching your units shoot at each other, or the explosions as artillery decimate the opposing forces, not just moving next to them and finding out if you won the battle or not. We’d like to see a little more action for our strategy, some animation, some replays of how the battle went down, just a bit of animation so it doesn’t feel quite so static.
Steep Learning Curve
The tutorial is very limited. The game is very much designed for players to find out information on their own, whilst the basics are given through a very brief tutorial, the rest is a bunch of popups and having to trawl through the forums to work out how to play the game. We’ve no problem players having to make efforts, the problem with having too much emphasis on this in Call of War is that you can really hinder yourself very quickly in the early game if you make the wrong choices; to have to essentially read a full manual to work out what your first steps should be is a bit much. We’d like to see maybe a mini single-player campaign with a faster speed setting, or days that players can manually “end turn” to get an idea of how a full game would normally play out, but in quick time.
Gold Purchases
We’re just not a fan of paid advantages. If you are willing, and have the cash, you can literally buy victory by spending your way to the top of the tech trees, buying resources to train units, and keeping your morale artificially inflated with cash. Whilst the tech tree is locked due to certain techs only being available at certain days (e.g. Day 20 of the current round) it does have some limitations, but there’s no doubt that gold spending is so dominant in the game to stay competitive to the point where players have set up their own leagues where gold spending is banned, just so that they can enjoy the game and its strategy without the pay to win advantages. Real cash also allows players to buy the High Command VIP position, which gives boosts and access to additional features, we really think that this is the way the game needs to go, forcing players to pay gold to stay competitive (because there’s always some players who will do it) is just a bit shady for our liking.
The Pace
The slow pace isn’t for everyone. Now, whilst we also put “The Pace” in our recent “What Do We Love About…” article for Call of War, we have to say that if you want to focus on the game and play it a lot then it definitely isn’t for everyone. Actions take a hell of a long time, moving your units around, researching techs and training new units, even if we loved Call of War and wanted to spend a lot of time playing it, the reality is that unless you are playing multiple games then you’re going to run out of things to do during your turn and have to wait a long time. So whilst we don’t actually mind the pace, one thing we’d change is maybe offering an option to play the game at various speeds, similar to Civilization, for those who enjoy the strategy and detailed map, but want to be a little more active in their gameplay.
Nukes
We don’t think they should be in the game. This is for multiple reasons, firstly the game is staged before the first nuke was ever dropped on Hiroshima and yet they are so freely available towards the end game of Call of War that it steps way beyond a WW2 strategy. Secondly, if players can make and drop nukes… they will... there’s very little penalty for doing so, and not only is that just not realistic but it creates a very large power imbalance, particularly when techs and units can be rushed, nukes have no upkeep, and you can stockpile as many as you like. Gold combined with nukes is never a good mix and is the best way to completely skew a game that has otherwise been extremely tactical up to the point of global nuclear war.
These are some of the things that we would change about Call of War, but what do you think? What would you change about this game? Would you add anything else to the list? We await your opinions! Let us know!!!!!
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