I bought this sevral weeks ago but did not try it untill yesterday.
It's the most wargaming computer game I've tried.
The game is stacked.
Game by mail with friends.
1 tortural campang on with 4 learing battles. It's a very good totural, and the last one is hard as hell battle, you are transylvania and have to stop the imperials with basicly just skrimish infantry. you have to hide in the woods or the tercios will get you. Still havn't beaten it.
Then you have 3 campaigns, Italian wars with 10 battles. 30YW with 10 battles, and ECW with 11 battles.
You also have an extencive skirmish mode. were you choose the war. then get the option of sevral army lists. Only played italian wars in skirmish but you got like 5 diffrent army list for each side.
When you have choosen an army list, you have a certian number of points(you can choose the size of the battle, from 2000 to 100 000 troops on each side.
I just played a big battle some 30k troops on each side. I was Swiss of the 1494-1515 period against France of 1494-1525 period. It was a bloody battle, I had like 8 massive pike blocks each almost 2000 man strong. My pikes were stronger then theirs. But they had much more heavy cav. I had 3 italien Gerdarmies against their 8 french gerdermies. We were equal in arqebuses and mounted arcebuses. we also had a few crossbow men and mounted crossbow men.
The battle lasted well over an hour, It was tuch and go, I almost lost my flanks, but stabilized it. It was done in the center. After slugging it out, in the center the army moral of the french collapsed.
As I said it's very wargamey. It's turn based IGOUGO. At your turn you fire and move, do charges, upon charge you get first round of combat. When you end your turn, all units on both sides that can fire will fire(unless allready fired) Then mele, If mele ends in rout the victors might automaticaly pursut.
Then it's the other guys turn, they move, start charges, fire. they end, and another turn of automated fire and mele. Before it's your turn, so in one full round there is 2 meles 2 automated fires. and one 1 charge and manual fire for each side.
You can not break of meles, some units can break of automaticaly(like heavy cav) A unit will can get Distrupted, which gives it penelties in fire, mele and moral, or fractured(one step from breaking) units do not always need to go from stedy-distruped-fractured. if they get enough of a pounding, they can got from stady to rout in one go. Pursuts may lead your own units of the map, they might or might not come back…
Arqebuses, crossbowmen, archers, mounted archer, mounted crossbow men and mounted arqebuses, will try and evade any charges. Making them perfect for harrasing fire. It can be quite anoying to try and catch a unit of mounted arqebuses with heavy cav. It also means it is possible to "dance" around the pike blocks with "skirmish units"
As you change periods, you get the more classic pike and shot formation with musketeers and pike in one unit.
They fight more or less the same, there are some diffrences, the imperials got more pikes, the swedes got savlo fire and battalion guns ect.
Units can "shake" off DP and fractures. if they are out of combat or managde to fight off en enemy ect.
Pike blocks and early trecios do not have flanks, later more liniar pike and shot formations have flanks.
Pike and shot formations can not charge steady cav. only D(distruption) and F(fracture) units. Older pike blocks can charge well any thing.
I've bearly played and have passed 4 hours.
I love the style of the graphics
There is also a map editor.
In skirmish mode the map is random, you do not know what you get, so even if you have same OOB the game will play diffrently. The Ai is smart, and will vary it's OOB.
First game I was Italy vs france, and I went for lots of guns. the next game, the one I descriped france had gone heavy on the guns.
It's very fun and very intense, if you've played any pike and shot rule(or any minature game) you will feel right at home.
The game comes in German, English and French.
It's on steam, but you can also get it here
link