Steel Division 2 proves to be a much better game than its predecessor in terms of graphics and mechanics, even if it still needs to solve a few balancing problems before it can be called 'definitive.' May 24, 2019 Deck building Dynamic Strategic Campaigns Real-Time Tactical battles Steel Division 2 Play with all the 18 Divisions and 600 units in the Steel Division 2 Beta!

Steel Division II’s existence is surprising. Not only did the first game, just release last May, but developer Eugen Systems was beset by some sort of labor dispute around the same time.

To emerge with a sequel ready for Gamescom fifteen months later? Seems impossible.And yet I spent 30 or 40 minutes with Eugen’s Eastern Front-themed sequel last week.

It’s more than just a quick cash-in sequel too. Judging by my demo, Steel Division II is even more complicated and layered than I would’ve guessed. To the west, comradesThat’s quite a feat, considering the original Steel Division is complicated in its own right. Boasting one-to-one recreations of real Normandy locations, historically accurate battalions, and so on, Steel Division: Normandy 44 is one of those games I loved to dabble in but will never, ever master. It’s real-time tactics for the hardcore wargamer.

Steel Division II adds a whole new layer on top though: Turn-based strategy. Our demo took place on the Eastern Front during, just two weeks after the Normandy landings.

With the Germans distracted by the newly opened Western Front, the Russians launched a massive offensive to take out the German Army Group Centre.That offensive eventually succeeded, and led directly to Russia’s advance on Berlin. It’s also massive, with the number of troops involved dwarfing those on the Western Front.And so Steel Division II adds this strategic layer. The numbers Eugen quoted to me: The front lines stretched over a thousand kilometers, the Germans fielded 336 thousand troops, and the Russians brought 1.25 million.

The turn-based map we demoed on was slightly smaller but still stretched over 100 kilometers in every direction, encompassing Borisov, Minsk, and other towns key to the Army Group Centre’s fortifications. Steel Division IIIt’s impressive, and I love the toy-box aesthetic—3D units moving across an abstracted 2D map. As with the original Steel Division, Eugen continues to impress me with how it makes its wargames visually appealing. It’s an outlier, in that regard.Make no mistake though: It’s still damn complicated.

Each “turn” lasts twelve hours, as you move entire battalions of troops into position on the campaign map. We rushed through our turns, as Eugen had very specific features to show me.

I expect Steel Division II to move glacially slow though, because you’re quite literally moving thousands of troops into place each turn—in groups, sure, but even that can mean 50 clusters of units needing orders.But hey, that’s what commitment to realism gets you. It’s more concrete than the original Steel Division as well. In the last game, battles were recreations of famous events in Normandy, and your situation was predetermined. In Steel Division II, your choices on the turn-based map directly affect the battles you fight. Steel Division IIIt’s like Total War, but denser. The three-stage system returns from the original game, so you’ll gain reinforcements as the battle progresses.

Your recon units will often be first into the fight for instance, with tanks arriving later as they slowly trundle down the road. Those stages are set by the turn-based map though, so if you take an extra turn to get the tanks into place they’ll be available earlier in the battle, and so on.At the moment you can take five units from the campaign map into the real-time battles, so the scale is about the same as the original Steel Division—probably a good thing, as those battles were already difficult to manage at times. Maps aren’t necessarily one-to-one recreations of the location you’re in, although some will be. Generally the game picks from a selection of maps and tries to match terrain as closely as possible.And then you fight. This aspect is very similar to Steel Division: Normandy 44. You spend points to field units, gaining more points over the course of the match. A line runs down the center of the battlefield, demarcating zones of control for both you and your enemy, with the line perpetually shifting as you move units forward or retreat under heavy fire.

Steel Division IIEugen tells me slight changes have been made though. On a visual level, the camera now gets closer to the action.

If you watch the trailer above, every shot was apparently taken with the in-game camera. Drakengard 2 breakthrough. You can get really tight on units, riding along on top of a tank or almost crawling through the dirt with the infantry. It’s one of the best action cameras I’ve seen in a strategy game, although most of the time you’ll probably stick to the standard bird’s eye view. There’s too much happening to spend time admiring scenery.Combat’s also been tweaked—mostly the scale of combat. As I understand it, Eugen modified tanks and artillery in Normandy 44 to make them match the scale of those maps.

It was a short-range game, to an extent. With the Eastern Front covering much larger areas, tanks and artillery now behave more like their real-world counterparts. Expect to see shells arcing across the map in spectacular fashion.

Bottom lineThe turn-based layer is Steel Division II’s biggest addition though, and it’s one hell of a change-up. The pace of conflict is entirely different when you can see the whole operation in broad strokes, letting you set your own goals—lose a battle but win the war, as it were. It also fixes the “card deck” unit deployments from the original Steel Division, keeping the persistence that warranted the system in the first place but grounding it in a way players can actually understand.Smart changes, in other words. It probably won’t make me play any better, but I’ll certainly be back to admire Steel Division II in all its wargame glory.

Army General, ‘s Dynamic Strategic Campaigns, is a single player turn-based strategy game mode in which you can, if you wish, fight every single battle in real-time. More than just a new game mode, our philosophy is to develop it as a new game within the game. As the General of your army, you are in charge of dozens of historically-accurate battalions, hundreds of companies, thousands of men, in up to 150km-wide maps. During each turn (representing half a day), you will have to manage their movements, their combat, and make sure the supply line is intact.In this first article, we’ll give you the first details on how it is played. The Battle of the Berezina River, one of the available campaigns.Important note before reading: All of the images & videos in this article are from an early development version. They contain work-in-progress elements, as well as some typos and baguette language. Will be fixed for the final version, obviously, and you will be able to watch the evolution of the game throughout the dev diaries.Relive History“Bagration” was one of the most massive WW2 operations that ultimately led to the war’s end.

In June 1944, just a few weeks after Operation Overlord in Normandy, the Red Army launched a massive offensive in Belorussia, resulting in 17 Wehrmacht divisions being completely destroyed, a blow from which the German Army never recovered.When starting ‘s development, we identified what was missing in the previous game by spending an incredible amount of time reading & analyzing our community’s suggestions. It greatly helped us to obtain a pretty clear idea on where we wanted to go with this new game’s campaign, which can be roughly summarized in three points:A. Massive, time-consuming Single Player Campaign: Even if will have way more skirmish content than its predecessor on day one (10 more maps, 200 more units, new game modes, etc.), we wanted to make sure that a solo player could enjoy a long, highly replayable and interesting campaign in addition to the skirmish experience.B. Reinforced & contextualised Historical Accuracy: While Steel Division: Normandy 44 offered an authentic real-time tactical combat experience, it could feel that some gameplay elements, like phases for example, were here only for gameplay purposes. Moreover, despite explanatory intro videos, fighting a battle in solo kinda felt like missing an element: “Why am I fighting?”; “How does this fit into Operation Overlord?”. The Dynamic Strategic Campaigns are a good way to provide more context, to understand why you fight a specific battle, and how it affects the story you’re playing. Moreover, as you’ll see in this article, gameplay elements -such as phases- are now fully understandable and logical.C.

Innovative Strategic & Tactical experience: We didn’t want to simply reproduce a dynamic campaign as we did, for example, in Wargame: AirLand Battle, but to push the experience further, and explore new exciting ways of playing. For example, it was important for us that you are able to play not only one battalion against another, but to have the possibility of building your own assault force with multiple battalions.

We also wanted to get rid of the cells on the map and allow complete freedom of movement. Of course, being able to fight every battle in real-time was never off the table!We have selected massive 1:1-scale operations from Bagration; key-moments that offered the most interesting strategic and tactical situations, and the most exciting divisions. In these campaigns, playable from either the Red Army or the German sides, you will start with the actual divisions & battalions that fought during Operation Bagration, and aim to lead your men to victory.A New Game within the GameIf the Real-Time Tactics put you in the boots of a Commander, leading your men in 3km-sided battlefields, the Dynamic Strategic Campaigns make you a General, supervizing your army on an operational level.

In order to provide an authentic feel, each map is designed from original Ordnance Survey maps, and battalions are represented as pieces on the map. As a General, you have access to detailed information on every battalion, such as its combat values (Assault, Armored, and Support) and, more importantly, the companies and the units within them. You can also display the units’ stat sheet at any time with just one click.Each battalion has a number of Action Points that will allow it to move, assault a position, or execute an order.

These points will recharge at night, every two turns, if the line of supply is intact. A battalion’s movement capacity will depend on its type, and will be affected by the nature of the terrain.

You will want to use the roads as much as possible, as they provide solid ground. We’re providing all the decisional tools you might need to make the proper order.

The dotted area indicates the battalion’s movement range.Selecting an enemy battalion will display the battalions you will be able to send to battle, and an indication of the phase where it will be available. The combat phase will depend on its movement capacities (influenced by the distance and the nature of the ground); some of them will be able to arrive in phase A, B or C, representing different moments of the battle. Before starting the combat, you will be able to select up to six battalions for a battle.If you are a pure Strategy player, and you prefer Strategy to Tactics, you will be able to auto-resolve the combat instead of fighting it.

After a short animation showing the different battalions in action, you will have access, phase by phase, to a detailed summary of the battle, including the losses and out-of-combat units. Of course, the nature of the terrain will affect the outcome of the auto-resolved battle. For example: wooded areas will reduce tanks’ efficiency.Another option is to fight the battle yourself in Real-Time. Depending on the situation and the terrain, the tactical map and the game mode will be different, reflecting a realistic combat situation.

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Launching an assault on a defended position near a wooded area will result in an Attack/Defense situation on a Forest map. Three different game modes and 25 maps will be available, allowing a wide array of situations.We’ll tell you everything you want to know about Steel Division 2’s Strategic Game’s Combat in a future article. There’s so much to talk about, it wouldn’t all fit here. Spoiler alert: it’s different from the pure Skirmish mode.Last but not least, as a General, you will also have access to important information, such as the current strategic situation on the general front, and the Order of Battle. The Order of Battle can be displayed at any time. A part of a far larger game.As a final note to this very first dev diary, a quick reminder on the game’s content. If the campaigns are designed to provide hundreds of hours of gameplay and a unique experience by itself, will also offer, on day one, 25 maps, 600 units, an improved skirmish experience, and multiple game modes, all playable in Single Player, Co-op and Multiplayer.

The game will be packed with a brand new Deck Building System (oh, this one will have its own dev diary!) allowing more tactical freedom, as well as a brand-new Armory. And we’re not talking about unannounced stuff (wink-wink). If you haven’t yet, don’t hesitate to add the game to your Steam Wishlist:We have lots of things to reveal in the coming months, so stay tuned!