Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 is a sequel to the original Theatre of War; set during the later stages of the war in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Players engage in tough desert, canyon, and suburban battles either in one of three campaigns or in multiplayer against other players accomplishing objectives to achieve victory.

Being a Real-Time Tactics game, ToW2 features the management of divisions, regiments, and an army via pre-battle preparation, mission interludes, and post-battle debriefs in which players can assign stats to surviving veteran units and manage their deployment. If doing particularly well players may receive reinforcements from high command and then assign these new units to their army.

Focusing on realism above all else, this is not an RTS like Command & Conquer or Company of Heros, this is very different from Steel Division or Wargame, you will carefully place your military assets; moving them sparingly in the interest of a proper defense as not to interfere with ingame RNG/stats and attack at precise moments to inflict massive damage on the enemy for a smug Bernard Montgomery or ungrateful German High Command

ToW2 features three campaigns in the vanilla game(with the Centauro DLC adding a new campaign and faction: the Italian Army) centering around the exploits of US, UK, and Wehrmact Army forces; each campaign varies in length, some missions have decisions for the player to make, and each has a distinctly different play style making for good singleplayer replay value. US Army missions focus largely on the quick and active use of light and medium tanks during and surrounding the events of Battle of Kasserine Pass, UK/Desert Rats missions comparatively demonstrates the use of ambush tactics and anti-tank guns to make for 'swift and precise' battle also around the Kasserine Pass, lastly the Wehrmacht focuses on combined arms warfare in which the player will frequently use their Panzers in conjunction with Stukas and FW190s to overwhelm the Allies during the final offensive into Algeria. It's worth mentioning that Centauro has the longest campaign compared to the others or "Commander of a Stuart" which serves as a side-story to the US campaign. Italian Army missions take on a wide variety of objectives not to mention roles giving the Italians their own unique play style and I highly suggest getting it with the base game at the extra ~$2 it costs.

Compared to ToW; one will ask what the biggest differences are: for one the game's interface has been made more friendly and useful, there is less of an emphasis on keyboard strokes and more an emphasis on placing units and overlooking the battle play out, when units die the game will pause and allow players to quickly asses the overall situation and if a change in tactics is needed. The field of view has been augmented to better account for range and the addition of smoke rounds and more clearly defined classes make the game easier to pick up than it's predecessor.

At the same time ToW2 has an awkward status compared to the first in that it is more or less a game that after being cut up ended up as two games, which try to focus on their specific 'theatres' to greater degree than simply World War II as a whole. Despite this ToW2 simply does not compare to the degree of content found in ToW and have a clear feeling of dissonance between them when it came to the effort put forward to make Africa: 1943 vs Kursk: 1943. ToW featured campaigns from five armies(Polish, French, British/America, USSR, German) across multiple fronts and at the heights of WW2, each army featured full arsenals of units to throw at each other, with it coming down to how they were used rather than playing to the strengths and weaknesses of unit types and introduce a kind of 'meta' into the game as ToW2 tries to do and sometimes succeeds at but also sometimes fails at.

A:1943 lacks many units one would expect to find on the battlefields of Tunisia and this is not exceptional to any one side in the game. This seems to be in the interest of forcing players to play differently with each side and learn them but your personal mileage on this design decision may vary greatly for this game compared to ToW, ToW3, or even Kursk: 1943. For the record here is a list of units missing (by type) for the vanilla sides(not including things added in Centauro):

US - Any Anti-Tank Guns, Mortars(M7 Priest), Scout Vehicles (Centauro Adds: Assault Guns, Heavy Tanks).
UK - Churchill, Matilda II, Howitzers(25-pdr), Assault Guns (Bishop SPG), Static AA, PIATs, Boys AT (Centauro Adds: Crusader Tank, Daimler)
GR - Panzerfausts, StuG (Centauro Adds: Pz.II, Howitzers, Sdkfw variants)
Italy: Mortars, Air Forces, Howitzers

The move to put a meta in the game works very much in the games favor when wanting to learn the game(which even then can be described to have a steep learning curve) but on other hand it can make battles unnecessarily hard, particularly for the British, gameplay can feel very static owing to their lack of tanks and reliance on M3 Stuarts, if available , having only one real tank in the base game: the Valentine Tank, which does nothing to the Tiger I and will struggle against any model Panzer II+. This issue is also true for the Americans, who can only really play to limited aggressive styles due to a lack of unit variety(without the DLC they only really use M3 Grants and M3 Stuarts with the rare sight of an M4 Sherman being just that), and the Germans that can have their weaknesses exploited consistently to the point of defeat (the Italians are no different and can have the same problem in it's own flavor for their faction).

This imbalance is quintessentially demonstrated with how the game handles Anti-Tanks in which, besides tanks, only the British have AT that can destroy tanks from an exceptional distance and all other AT weapons in the game are largely infantry based and usually result in infantry death with the slightest miscalculation.

Partially I chalk this issue up to the fact the game took this brand new approach, the team lacking experience with the approach, and applied said approach to *four* different factions without a clear guiding idea of what 1C was going for; it results in nothing short of a storm at it's worst.

Yet I come back time and time again to this game due to its commitment to the setting, the sheer attention to detail, and the mechanics that while initially seem difficult have their own built in rewards and give me a consistent feeling of satisfaction when having pulled off a victory or even just opening the turning point, this game is the beginning of ToW being more accessible and playable to a wider audience. It's still a niche war simulation but it's one you won't regret playing if you give it an honest chance and games set after it (Kursk, BfC, ToW3) only improve further on the solid foundation laid by this game's interpretation of series mechanics.

NOTE: While I hold this game close to my heart I compare it often to Kursk. If you are curious how they are similar, and how Battle for Caen weathers with the "meta problem" as a DLC, I suggest checking out my review of ToW Kursk: 1943 and ToW2: BfC.

Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 is a sequel to the original Theatre of War; set during the later stages of the war in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Players engage in tough desert, canyon, and suburban battles either in one of three campaigns or in multiplayer against other players accomplishing objectives to achieve victory. Being a Real-Time Tactics game, ToW2 features the management of divisions, regiments, and an army via pre-battle preparation, mission interludes, and post-battle debriefs in which players can assign stats to surviving veteran units and manage their deployment. If doing particularly well players may receive reinforcements from high command and then assign these new units to their army. Focusing on realism above all else, this is not an RTS like Command & Conquer or Company of Heros, this is very different from Steel Division or Wargame, you will carefully place your military assets; moving them sparingly in the interest of a proper defense as not to interfere with ingame RNG/stats and attack at precise moments to inflict massive damage on the enemy for a smug Bernard Montgomery or ungrateful German High Command ToW2 features three campaigns in the vanilla game(with the Centauro DLC adding a new campaign and faction: the Italian Army) centering around the exploits of US, UK, and Wehrmact Army forces; each campaign varies in length, some missions have decisions for the player to make, and each has a distinctly different play style making for good singleplayer replay value. US Army missions focus largely on the quick and active use of light and medium tanks during and surrounding the events of Battle of Kasserine Pass, UK/Desert Rats missions comparatively demonstrates the use of ambush tactics and anti-tank guns to make for 'swift and precise' battle also around the Kasserine Pass, lastly the Wehrmacht focuses on combined arms warfare in which the player will frequently use their Panzers in conjunction with Stukas and FW190s to overwhelm the Allies during the final offensive into Algeria. It's worth mentioning that Centauro has the longest campaign compared to the others or "Commander of a Stuart" which serves as a side-story to the US campaign. Italian Army missions take on a wide variety of objectives not to mention roles giving the Italians their own unique play style and I highly suggest getting it with the base game at the extra ~$2 it costs. Compared to ToW; one will ask what the biggest differences are: for one the game's interface has been made more friendly and useful, there is less of an emphasis on keyboard strokes and more an emphasis on placing units and overlooking the battle play out, when units die the game will pause and allow players to quickly asses the overall situation and if a change in tactics is needed. The field of view has been augmented to better account for range and the addition of smoke rounds and more clearly defined classes make the game easier to pick up than it's predecessor. At the same time ToW2 has an awkward status compared to the first in that it is more or less a game that after being cut up ended up as two games, which try to focus on their specific 'theatres' to greater degree than simply World War II as a whole. Despite this ToW2 simply does not compare to the degree of content found in ToW and have a clear feeling of dissonance between them when it came to the effort put forward to make Africa: 1943 vs Kursk: 1943. ToW featured campaigns from five armies(Polish, French, British/America, USSR, German) across multiple fronts and at the heights of WW2, each army featured full arsenals of units to throw at each other, with it coming down to how they were used rather than playing to the strengths and weaknesses of unit types and introduce a kind of 'meta' into the game as ToW2 tries to do and sometimes succeeds at but also sometimes fails at. A:1943 lacks many units one would expect to find on the battlefields of Tunisia and this is not exceptional to any one side in the game. This seems to be in the interest of forcing players to play differently with each side and learn them but your personal mileage on this design decision may vary greatly for this game compared to ToW, ToW3, or even Kursk: 1943. For the record here is a list of units missing (by type) for the vanilla sides(not including things added in Centauro): US - Any Anti-Tank Guns, Mortars(M7 Priest), Scout Vehicles (Centauro Adds: Assault Guns, Heavy Tanks). UK - Churchill, Matilda II, Howitzers(25-pdr), Assault Guns (Bishop SPG), Static AA, PIATs, Boys AT (Centauro Adds: Crusader Tank, Daimler) GR - Panzerfausts, StuG (Centauro Adds: Pz.II, Howitzers, Sdkfw variants) Italy: Mortars, Air Forces, Howitzers The move to put a meta in the game works very much in the games favor when wanting to learn the game(which even then can be described to have a steep learning curve) but on other hand it can make battles unnecessarily hard, particularly for the British, gameplay can feel very static owing to their lack of tanks and reliance on M3 Stuarts, if available , having only one real tank in the base game: the Valentine Tank, which does nothing to the Tiger I and will struggle against any model Panzer II+. This issue is also true for the Americans, who can only really play to limited aggressive styles due to a lack of unit variety(without the DLC they only really use M3 Grants and M3 Stuarts with the rare sight of an M4 Sherman being just that), and the Germans that can have their weaknesses exploited consistently to the point of defeat (the Italians are no different and can have the same problem in it's own flavor for their faction). This imbalance is quintessentially demonstrated with how the game handles Anti-Tanks in which, besides tanks, only the British have AT that can destroy tanks from an exceptional distance and all other AT weapons in the game are largely infantry based and usually result in infantry death with the slightest miscalculation. Partially I chalk this issue up to the fact the game took this brand new approach, the team lacking experience with the approach, and applied said approach to *four* different factions without a clear guiding idea of what 1C was going for; it results in nothing short of a storm at it's worst. Yet I come back time and time again to this game due to its commitment to the setting, the sheer attention to detail, and the mechanics that while initially seem difficult have their own built in rewards and give me a consistent feeling of satisfaction when having pulled off a victory or even just opening the turning point, this game is the beginning of ToW being more accessible and playable to a wider audience. It's still a niche war simulation but it's one you won't regret playing if you give it an honest chance and games set after it (Kursk, BfC, ToW3) only improve further on the solid foundation laid by this game's interpretation of series mechanics. NOTE: While I hold this game close to my heart I compare it often to Kursk. If you are curious how they are similar, and how Battle for Caen weathers with the "meta problem" as a DLC, I suggest checking out my review of ToW Kursk: 1943 and ToW2: BfC.