[Skybird]

Tried, and refunded.

I played a single mission for 100 minutes, the first in the German campaign, which i know quite well. I played the same strategy and moves. I noticed the Germans had not those two mortars additonal to their howitzers anymore, else evertyhing seems to have been the same. I noticed no differences. None. The looks are the same, too. The sounds. Its practically identical to the first version. I am not certain that the textures were new, if they are, the difference does not spring to the eye. The landscape at a distance is slightly more "smeary" and more difficult to read, I would not call this an improvement, I have been in these regions, it simply is not like this. The differences they list to have made, like hull down, infantry watching at both corners of a wall or house etc, did not make themselves felt at all. Whatever they have changed under the hood, it is of practically zero relevance in practical gameplay. Worse, the aI has not improved, makes the same silly things on occassions as before, runs on the point while slowly sneaking to the door in assault or fast mode, tracks terribly bad a route to waypoint on occasions. Here would have been the most obvious opportunity to improve the game. I read they have amphibious swimming units now, well, honestly said, I do not care too much. This is Syria. In the Black Sea game that might be more relevant.

That is way too little for a verison 2, and another call for money. They obviously shied away from investing some real work leading to a worthy version 2, me thinks. The graphics engine is - how old? It performs the same in this game as it doesin the version 1 game for me. I can run it easily, but with plenty of units in sight it has low frames for s second, becasue in no way does the engine make use of multi core processin, it uses just one. Heck its the year 2020 and i use an i7 8700K and 32 GB.

Its a good game, still, if you are new to the series, go for it, its probably the best of its kind, I am just about that if you already have version 1, there is no reason to think of this one and pay much or ltitle money for it. Even for a up-polish for 30 bucks updating fee from a previous version, its too little what you get new, additional. And as I said, the sometime sshowing obvious weaknesses of the aI all are still there. I do not say the game drowns in aI bugs, it does not, but on some critical superhot occasions you see them doing stupid stunts that make you yell and curse and can turn a squad into freshly grinded meat within two, three seconds. My fsvourte was three Marders for no apparent reason starting to crisscross through a small settlement, in reverse, wildly, while not beign under fire (but then attracting missiles from the distance while trying to advertise their presence,: they finally succeeded.

In principle this game is so good it desperately deserves a complete new engine, and massive AI overhaul. If they would do that, and then market it via Steam and Slitherine, then they would have a potential hit on offer. But this way as it is in CMSF2, it is just 13+ years old coffee powder used for the x-th time. The original SF1 was second version of their CMX game engine, this SF2 now should be version 4.

Disappointing a bit.