The Great War: 1914-1918

The Good
Historyline has many different kinds of weapons systems: infantry, motorized and armoured units, artillery, navy, air force of both the Central Powers (Austria and Germany) and the Entente (France, Great Britain and Italy) and all units available were actually used in World War I.

The game is played in sequential turns like Warlords, Heroes of Might and Magic. That means that each side completes all its moves before ending its turn then the other side does the same and so forth.

The military units are moved on a map divided in fields. some units can move only on roads like armour, heavy artillery. Navy units can move only in deep water fields. Airplanes can move everywhere and the furthest.

Each unit has a different range of attack which varies from one to nine fields. Knowing those ranges and using them in battle is essential to victory.

Each unit receives a qualitative upgrade of one star up to a maximum of six after each successful shot. A unit with more stars shoots better and kills more of the opponent unit. Some units like heave artillery, rail guns or battle cruisers cannot shot and move in the same turn.

The objective of the game is to either destroy all enemy units or conquer a specific field on the map.

Historyline can be played against the computer or another human player, which is recommended since the strategic capabilities of the software are limited.

The Bad
It would have been nice to have more (larger) maps to play or even a map and campaign editor.

The Bottom Line
Historyline was release before Battle Isle, which is the same kind of game but takes place in the future and has naturally more kinds of weapon systems.