Making History II: The Great War is a grand strategy game set around the time of World War I (there are two starting scenarios, one starting in 1912 and another starting before the assassination at Sarajevo in 1914 going into the 1920s and the Soviet Revolution) This game consists of the entire world cut into small regions, accurately representing the borders and geography of all countries that existed at the time of your chosen scenario, with various populations, cities, and resources in each region. In this game (it is a turn based strategy game with each turn taking 1 week) you can choose any country in the entire world and lead that country, industrializing it, modernizing it, engaging in diplomacy with other countries, waging war, facing crisis such as rebellion, invasions, and famine. This game also implements an event system with some events that follow actual history such as the building of the Panama Canal, and others that will be triggered by drastically changing history such as the unification of Scandinavia or the resurrection of the Byzantine Empire. Another interesting thing is that at any time in the game you can save your game and then resume it playing as another country (even countries that didn't exist at the beginning of the scenario you are playing) Another thing that this game possesses is an internal editor that can be used to change many aspects of the game, from creating new countries to changing the values of regions such as nationality or religion. Using the editor you can create amazing new scenarios of alternate history that you can then play and publish to the main website. After about 70 hours of this game I can definitely recommend it,

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.

If you are a fan of Paradox Games, Imperial Glory, other Geo Political games such as Super Power 2 you will enjoy this game. The game can be a little overwhelming at first, There is a bit of a learning curve but can easily be learned even with out the tutorial if you have played similar games.

I love the amount of depth this game has, Although war is a major focus point it is far from being the only point. One thing i dislike in similar games is a vast amount of waiting around with nothing to do. This game has plenty to manage while you are waiting for troops to build. If i had to compare this game to another game Supreme Ruler comes to mind as far as what you can do micromanaging wise. As much as i love the Supreme Ruler series this is in my opinion a superior game for the sole reason that i find this game more of a joy to play.

If you are looking for a strictly historical game you may be a little off put as the game is guided towards world war 1 events however it is only a suggestion, I have yet to play a game that was the same, There were times that world war one happened without a hitch and i was fighting off Germans in Belgium, Other times I became the cause of a World War due to my military expansion of Romania. There were times that other conflicts would prevent world war one but start other conflicts around the globe such as Colonial territories rebelling against their owners. The randomness of this game can be a blast.

The game also comes with an Editor that anyone can use, This means that if you want to build a world war two scenario you can, Do you want to recreate the Roman Empire you can, Whatever your imagination can come up with. These scenarios can also be uploaded on the Making History website for all to download.

The Developers are extremely active and listen to the community, I have never experienced the amount of help that is given by the developers to the players than in this game. They have made it clear that this game will continue to be a major focus with continued updates and added features for the foreseeable future.

If you are looking for a game in which you will keep telling yourself one more turn and you realize that was the 30th time you said that then here is the game. Would highly recommend.

So when I initially wrote this review, I did so when the game was nothing but a few days old. Now that time has progressed, and I felt that this game has come a long way, I would like to update this to give possible buyers a better perspective of what they are getting themselves into.

One of my favorite things so far is the uniqueness you find among the buildable armies. Typically in strategy games such as this, you are often handed a few sprities for a variety of nations. This somewhat lessens the visual appeal of the game because how fun would it be when "everyone" looks like a german soldier. In TWG, the visuals are better such as when you play Japan, your troops look unique compared to what they would look like in Korea. They approach this in a cool way and while minor I think it goes a long way.

Next is the micromanaging and complexity. In previous MH games, players were able to research and produce one item per city which could be a soldier, tank, goods, and so forth. But in TGW, players can actually assign individual factories to produce goods, weapons, or tanks while also training your next batch of troops. Research is going on in the background while you focus building a nation or war machine. This expands the possiblities when it comes to determining how your nation will go but can be consuming to the average joe who just wants to build stuff and fight. Players also must also keep in mind the resources in which you must have to keep your factories turning out new stuff and goes into a new system of trading.

Overall, this game is headed in the right direction, and from a gamer whos been gaming for ages, and a long time MH fan, I feel this game can be the next great stepping stone for this company. The AI is getting better, and has at times made me bang my head because it actually out smarted me on several occasions. If you are into strategy and nation building games, TGW is for you.

In my opinion, it brings a new breath of fresh air to a genre i've long loved and has provided something new. Hopefully they continue on the path to success!

If you want to buy this game for the multiplayer, don't. Reason being, the number of players playing this game is very low. Other than that, this is a good, deep game. Quite addictive. Strategy fans would enjoy this game immensely. It is quite complicated, like the Paradox games.

I have been an historical game designer since 1972, back before we had computers to do marvelous things for fog of war, combat results calculation, hidden movement, and counting the logistical beans. I have noted a tendency for “big games” (grand tactical and strategic) to immerse the player in waves of micro detail of factory production, natural resources, weather, and cultural nuances. Why? The key element of any design is the Point of View (POV) of the player and what he has as a “span of control.” Is the player Churchill, or the British Cabinet, or all of those players plus the British Army Chief of Staff? It makes a difference. I got news for you, Winston may have worried about overall armaments production targets, but he was not counting the 17-pounder anti-tank guns rolling off the assembly lines.
So how do today’s computer-assisted game designers handle POV? Well, in this game, it is rather difficult to tell. Playing France for 35 hours and having to set the production quotas for individual factories, decide what individual cities would produce, and determine what internal improvements (infrastructure) would be engaged in a province-by-province slog through France, West Africa, North Africa, Madagascar, and Indochina, did not bode well. There must have been a hundred of them.
As France, the player is mired in minutia and repetitive detail to the exclusion of the ability to exercise executive agency over the French government and military. (And, contrary to what the game would teach us, the government does not directly dictate production and R&D to industry; stockholders and market forces wield a greater hammer in that department.) Literally, with all these micro-controls at his disposal, the player has incredibly few tools with which to set strategic and national policy direction for the French Empire. There are few tools to set diplomatic policy and influence allies and coalition partner policies. There are very few controls for setting and changing colonial policies on taxation, military conscription, and overseas infrastructure and development. Overall, policy is only directed in micromanagement and repetitive setting of parameters in each province.
If this resulted in a superb simulation of the origins and actions in World War One, it might be worth it. But what do you conclude about a simulation that requires the French to have to declare war on Belgium to be able to cross the frontier to counter-attack the Germans pummeling the Belgian Army? Stupid is the only word I could come up with. Likewise, with the inability to easily transfer ships between fleets, support armies with artillery (from a province away?), and aircraft squadrons to support armies. And, somebody please tell the designers that trench mortars were designed to be used at the lowest level and do not work well as general support to a corps.
In short, a lot of effort for not a lot of satisfying results. You can spend your time better elsewhere.

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.

I start out my game as the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the year is 1914. For the past decade or more Europe has been increasing in tension and agressiveness. Germany Russia and France seem determined to drive the world to war and destruction. In the last two years Bulgaria has expanded its holdings in the Balkans to include the region of Thrace thus giving us access to the Aegean. However this is not enough, there must be more. Bulgaria shall be a great and respected power on the world stage once more, no matter how many of our neighbors will have to sacrifice themselves to attain our goals.

I begin by increasing our military training capabilities by construction many recruitment centers across the land. The Bulgarian people shall be trained in the ways of war and will never be compared to some lowly militia. However it will take several months before the army becomes a true war machine worthy of its name.

Yet it seems that fate has other plans. News reached Sofia early on the 29th of June that the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by Serbian nationalists. The cabinet and several high profile generals were assembled quickly to decide what to do. It was soon declared that the military would move all forces to the Serbian border in case of war between Serbia and Austria.

Weeks pass and it seems that things have taken a turn for the worse. Austria is demanding terms that no leader of a respectable state would accept. And the Serbians have categorically refused to meet the Austrian terms. As many countries move to some state between war and peace Bulgaria call its reservists to their posts for an indefinite period of time.

The date is July 29th. News reached us that the Austrians have declared war with Serbia and are intent on making them pay for their crimes. Over the next few days Russia, Germany, France, England and all her subjects are at war. News has also reached us that Italy has abandoned her alliance with Germany and A-H. Japan has invaded Germany's Pacific holdings intent on claiming them for itself. As of now America. Romania, the Ottomans, and Spainards are neutral in the war. We are not sure whether or not any of these countries will intervene in the war.

It is now August 13th. Events have snowballed faster than we could have imagined. Germany and Austria have won astounding victories in the east over the Russians and Germany has completely taken over Belgium and Luxembourg and is now advancing into northern France. Germany offered us an alliance and a chance to form Greater Bulgaria out of the Balkans. We would not pass up the chance as we knew that Austria would soon swallow all of Serbia and might not stop there. We launched an invasion that had been planned many years ago. We sped into Vardar Barnovina and Morava. However it seems that we were too late and could not get any more of Serbia as our forces soon met with our Austrian allies.

A month passes. Our forces have smashed into Albania and taken the country by storm giving us access to the Adriatic Sea. However our forces were surprised and horrified to learn that the Russians had launched a naval invasion of eastern Bulgaria and had taken Southern Dobruja and Eastern Rumelia from us. They were marching on our capital and that would not be allowed. We used what little train rails in the region we could and sent our elite forces to create a wall 30km east of the capital. The rest of the army arrived as fast as they could. With our new artillery captured from the Serbians and Albanians we strike the Russian lines and push them back to the sea. Bulgaria is safe once more.

Several weeks later Bulgaria is better than ever. With the crushing defeat of the Russian invasion troop morale is higher than ever. The public is also happy as we have disbanded 15 divisions of farmers being held in reserve to go back to their farms and families. These men are being replaced by new Bulgarian Infantry being trained by German military advisors lent to us by the Kaiser.

It is now January of 1915. Under the cover of winter we have launched an invasion of Montenegro and captured the country. This mountainous land will be a good proving ground for our Alpine units. With this our Balkan aspirations are almost complete. Bulgaria is once more a great power on the world stage. Germany has pushed the French and English armies out of continental Europe. Their victories in the east have shaken the faith of the Russian people and many of their lands are in out right rebellion. The Uzbeks. The Kazaks. The Finns. The Armenians. The Germans have also granted the Poles a land of their own and have joined us in our fight against the encirclement of Europe.

In March the next phase of Bulgarian expansion is put into action. The invasion of Grecce has started. This will be the true test of our miliary skills. Even the Kaiser himself has travelled down here to observe the invasion in person. We start with a full out invasion of Macedonia complete with our entire artillery arsenal. However the real strike comes when our elite veterans smash into Epirus in western Greece. It works fantasically, the Greeks send the majority of their forces to Salonika while we head straight for Athens.

However, it seems that fate again would have other plans. The Greeks hold out much longer than expected in Macedonia, they are indeed worthy opponents. Our new young recruits are sent straight into the baptism of fire as soon as they have gotten a basic sense of survival on the battlefield. We are wearing them down, slowly ever so slowly. Word reaches us that the Greeks have crossed the Aegean and invaded Anatolia. It would also seems that because of agressive German submarine tactics America joined the war on the side of the Entente. It matters not they are an Ocean and three Seas away they can do no harm to Bulgaria.

It is now May of 1915. Events have taken a turn for the worse. In our brash rush to invade Greece we have overlooked our eastern territory. The English, it seems, have staged a massive landing in Gallipoli. However, most of the Turkish forces that would be guarding the capital are in Anatolia trying to establish a link with the rest of their empire in the east. The damned Brits quickly spread out their invasion reaching the Romanian border and linking up with the Greeks outside of Salonika. The Italians have also invaded Albania seeking to claim what they see as rightfully theirs. Our forces are spread too thinly across the land and we start to lose land.

Quickly our cavalry forces are pulled back from the siege of Athens and charge to Valona. However it seems that the Italians have already come and gone and word reaches us through the terrified civilian populace that they have headed north. For once in this campaign fate has smiled on us. The Austrians, sensing a larger Italian force coming shortly behind have sent troops to their southern border and help us reclaim our lands from the Italian.

Our brave soldiers have finally taken Greek Macedonia and the rich port will help to improve the Bulgarian economy. Our battered army heads eastward to confront the British menace. Though we have taken many a beating we still hold our heads up high as we have yet to lose a battle in the war so far. And we are right to be proud. Our brave young men destroy the English at the Second Battle of Plovdiv. We free Constantinople from dread Russian rule and return it to the Turks. We reclaim our coastline on the Black Sea and turn our heads east again, ready to finish the job of conquering Greece.

But it seems that fate has a cruel hatred of Bulgaria. The Greeks have pushed into Southern Bulgaria from their holdings at the south of the continent. The Italians have taken the Albanian coastline and have begun to march inland. The Romanians have launched a full invasion of our lands. All we have left is the land of Montenegro to hold out until the end....It is near.

A very... VERY detailed Geo-political simulator with a plethora of unit models, playable countries, and modability.
However, the UI is rather out of date and it is definitely a time sink. At first can be incredibly overwhelming, but the ability to completely control the economic and military power of your chosen country is hard to resist. What's even better? The editor. I've spent countless hours building new scenarios using the editor which is so simple, someone new to strategy games could figure it out.

I'm about to spend a lot of time making my own history out of the Russian Empire >:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRJysP7xZo

This game is awesome, at the moment you can play as germany, France, and a few others. as it is now i have been playing for over a couple of hours and its really good. If you like the previous making history games you will love this one. The game has been running really smooth and I havent experienced any bugs yet. There area few thing that havent been finished like casualties in battles show up for me as "XX" but so far its running really smooth and is a lot of fun I think you will be pleasently surprised. The game is a hudge overall from the previous making history's. You can really see this in the recuritment and development of infurstructure. Overall as a early access i give it buy as it runs smooth and delivers on the prmoises the dev's gave. Like I said only a few countires are playable, but more will come. only other issue i have experienced is for some reason AH will not deploy their troops to the russian border even though they have lost two provicnes so far. Many of their larger armies stay stationed in the center of the country or on the allied western border. Not sure why as Italy has helped me with France to the point that mainland france is all but one provience away from being defeated.