Making History: The Great War
- January 29, 2015
- Factus Games
- 66h median play time
Get on Steam"Making History: The Great War" is a strategy game that simulates World War I. Players can choose to lead any nation involved in the conflict, managing resources, diplomacy, and military tactics to achieve victory. The game features a detailed economic model, historical events, and a dynamic front line that allows for strategic decision making. It offers multiple scenarios, multiplayer modes, and a map editor to create custom scenarios.
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Linux
Reviews
- The game offers a complex and engaging economic management system that allows for deep strategic planning.
- The premise of the game is intriguing, with the potential for unique alternate history scenarios based on player choices.
- The game features a lot of flavor for smaller nations, providing a rich historical context and variety in gameplay.
- The AI is often criticized for being unresponsive and making illogical decisions, which can detract from the overall experience.
- The game suffers from numerous bugs and a lack of polish, leading to frustrating gameplay and crashes.
- Empire management can be tedious and overwhelming, with unclear mechanics regarding trading and resource consumption.
- graphics24 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 21 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many players noting that they are outdated and lack clarity, particularly on higher resolution screens. While some appreciate the period-appropriate design and find the overall aesthetic acceptable, others criticize the poor detail and garish artwork, suggesting that a graphical upgrade is necessary to enhance the game's appeal. Despite these shortcomings, some players emphasize that the gameplay experience compensates for the visual deficiencies.
“The graphics are fine; they have a dated look, which is great because it fits the period.”
“Graphics-wise, a lovely looking clean map, and the sprites all have authentic uniforms.”
“The overall feeling of the game is smooth, and even if graphics are less important in a game like this, there is nothing to complain about.”
“Extremely ugly graphics; on a 4K screen, it has tiny unreadable letters and symbols, giving me a headache looking at it.”
“Not only does the map suck, but the graphic clarity of the units is very fuzzy and lacks detail.”
“Bad graphics and bad UI; if I could return it, I would.”
- gameplay24 mentions
- 25 % positive mentions
- 63 % neutral mentions
- 13 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by a mix of strong mechanics and a steep learning curve, with many players appreciating the depth and complexity, particularly in economic aspects. However, there are notable frustrations, including cumbersome controls, unclear mechanics, and issues with battle and diplomacy systems, which detract from the overall experience. While some players find the gameplay rewarding and immersive, others feel that certain features, like the prevalence of rebel uprisings, can hinder strategic planning and enjoyment.
“The mechanics, in my opinion, are better and more complete than pretty much any other grand strategy game.”
“While it can seem overwhelming at first, once you get the hang of the mechanics and where the various items you need to keep track of are located, it actually becomes quite simple.”
“The gameplay is easy to get into, and you can get immersed immediately into carving out your own history - indeed, making history.”
“Very cumbersome game mechanics.”
“The real snag is the gameplay.”
“It had unclear and sloppy mechanics, much too macro-focused while having abstract controls over your nation at this level.”
- stability9 mentions
- 11 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 89 % negative mentions
The game's stability has been criticized for being unpolished and buggy, with frequent freezes, crashes, and lag, particularly when managing large troop stacks. Users have reported issues with specific map views causing the game to freeze, although some appreciate the overall design and ease of access to features. While the game is currently in development and fully playable, many hope that these stability issues will be addressed in future updates.
“By the way, if you are a Mac player, this runs great on Mac :)”
“Love playing grand strategy games, but this game feels unpolished and buggy.”
“I really enjoy the Making History series and although this is probably my favorite, it's really laggy and freezes or crashes when you get a large stack of troops, which is really annoying and makes it hard to play towards the end of the game.”
“Good game, but it freezes every single turn.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and frustrating, particularly due to the micromanagement required for province and city management. While some appreciate the strategic depth, many feel it detracts from the overall experience, making it feel unrewarding and overly complicated. Additionally, issues with AI behavior contribute to a sense of prolonged and monotonous gameplay.
“Province/city management - this is the most tedious aspect of the game.”
“It's a micromanaging paradise, but for someone looking for a less complicated approach to strategy, this game is infuriating, tedious, and unrewarding.”
“This effort revealed that the AI apparently has no sense of continuous frontlines; after a couple of weeks of grinding down the Belgians in Wallonie, I then found nothing standing between me and Paris.”
- humor5 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the game's humor to be a highlight, particularly enjoying the chaotic scenarios and absurd situations, such as military units targeting an air balloon and the ability to create puppet states with any ideology. However, some users express frustration with technical issues, like frequent crashes, which detracts from the overall experience.
“This game is really clunky, but it is really funny to see the entire world collapse into chaos.”
“Just imagining some dad's army dudes shooting at an air balloon is a really funny sight for me.”
“Oh, I also find it funny that you can create puppet states and make them any ideology you want.”
- music5 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- -20 % neutral mentions
- 60 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received mixed reviews; while some players appreciate the quality of the soundtrack, noting it as "pretty good" and "nice and imperial," others criticize the limited variety, with only a few repetitive tracks leading to a lack of engagement over time. Overall, the music enhances the experience but could benefit from more diversity.
“To give some credit to the game, the soundtrack is pretty good and the tutorial does a good job explaining most of the game features and game mechanics.”
“The sound is a little better, but the music is nice and imperial.”
“The soundtrack features a few musical themes that create a unique atmosphere.”
“The map is too flat and totally ugly, but what it does is blare ugly music at the start.”
“There are only about 3 songs in the game, so after an hour you turn that off and can't see the trenches you have made, only the level number.”
“The soundtrack consists of the same 2 'musical themes' (if you can call them that) that repeat themselves over and over.”
- replayability4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- -25 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
The game offers significant replayability due to its vast selection of nations to play as, along with additional workshop content. While currently only a limited number of countries are playable, the promise of future expansions enhances its replay value.
“The number of available factions is huge, which is great and would theoretically bring a lot of replay value.”
“Only a few countries are playable now, but more will come.”
“The number of available factions is huge (which is great), which would in theory bring a lot of replay value.”
“You can play as any nation, plus workshop content, which gives it a lot of replayability.”
“Like I said, only a few countries are playable, but more will come.”
- optimization2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Users have reported notable performance issues, indicating that optimization requires further tweaking to enhance the overall experience.
“The only downside is that there are some notable performance issues.”
“Performance does need to be tweaked, though.”
