From: jtgorman@cs.arizona.edu (J. Taggart Gorman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Command HQ is out.  Here's a review.
Keywords: command hq
Date: 25 Jul 92 06:12:32 GMT


  Yep, it's true!  I've been waiting for almost 9 months now and I finally got
it on Wednesday at my local Egghead.  (Thank God they finally came to Tucson!!)

  I've been playing it off and on for the last 3 days, so I have a good idea
of the game.

  First and foremost, Command HQ is a game of strategic warfare.  You are the
supreme commander of red or blue side in a world war.  You have at your
disposal many types of units : infantry and tank armies, air units, carriers,
subs, carrier units.  Depending on the selected time period, you might also
have recon and killer satilites and nukes.  The game is played on a global
scale, and the units are large sized.  Armies represent 500,000 men.  Cruiser
units are 20-30 cruisers and battleships with 100 destroyers and such.  And
don't forget that each plane units is 1000 planes, so don't get the idea you
will be controlling each brigade.  But don't worry, you'll still have too many
to keep an eye on at once.  (In my conquest of NATO, Warsaw Pact had nearly
60 armies (30 million men!) and 20 cruiser units (2000 ships!).
  You have the choice of 5 time periods, WWI thru WWV.  You know what WW1 & WW2
are, WWIII is NATO vs Warsaw Pact, and WWIV & WWV are fantasy set ups with
different starts.  WWV is remarkably like Strategic Conquest - you start out
on map with no allies and an enemy somewhere else in the world with you.  Each
war comes with a standard set up, but there is a menu option to change the
set ups.  (I haven't tried it.)
  You can play against a human (Appletalk, direct serial link, or modem (even
against a PC person!)) or against one of 5 computer opponents.  The first
level computer is a breeze, and the third level opponent will either win or
lose in the opening minutes.  Haven't tried 4 or 5, I'm afriad of a pounding,
but I know my stuff and I am ready.

  The key to the game is oil and money.  Oil comes from the 20 oil wells on
the world, and money comes from one of ~60 cites.  You control these sites
by moving an army onto the site.  Once you take a site, it can only be lost by
either an enemy unit taking it over or by the enemy "bribing" a city onto
the other side.  (It's really foreign aid.  Who ever spends the most can
control entire countries.  I even saw NATO sneak Poland out from underneath me,
but a tank army stopped that revolt!)  If you don't make enough oil, you can't
move your units.  Money buys you new units, which are placed in friendly
cities, so you must take cites and hold them.  No money, no reinforcements,
no territory conquered.

  Nukes are powerful, for they destroy major amounts of units, but they cause
friendly cites to lose trust and become neutral, causing you to lose income.
(NATO nuked 3 soviet armies in Iraq to prevent them from taking the oil in the
Gulf, and as a result, 10 cites became neutral!  A potential loss of 150
billion dollars!)  I avoid nukes.  Large amounts of sea and air power can
reduce any stack of enemies, so avoid the short cut, and plan for things.

  The game is put out by Microprose, and is based on a PC game.  The manual is
for the PC, with a supplement for the Mac.  The supplement says the game was
rewritten for the Mac, and I believe it.  They windows are seperate and
resizable.  Menus are properly organized and use good key equivalents.
(Command 1-0 are used, but to invoke "macros".  They are not used for major
menu selections, unlike RailRoad Tycoon.)  The game can be run in 1bit, 4bit,
or 8bit, but 4 and 8 seem to be nearly the same.  Memory requirements are
stiff - 650K for B&W, min 1500K for 4bit (more memory - more speed), and a
whopping 2500K for 8bit.  Seeing that I have a 5meg IIsi, I run in 4bit when
possible.  Disk space required is large too.  The game comes on 5(!) 800K
floppies and take up 3.3Meg on my hard drive, and that's with a bit of 
AutoDoubler.

  If you like Strategic conquest and games in that vein, I recommend this game.
If you want to see Soviet tank armies roll into Washington DC or help defeat
Hilter without learning the rules of a complicated game, this is for you. I was
up and running after just one tutorial.  After a few games, I felt at ease with
the game and it's rules.

  (My hints : cruisers, cruisers, cruisers!  Use them to soften up _all_
invasion sites.  Infantry cost half as much as tanks and hold ground almost
as effectively, although tanks are needed for quick blitzkreigs to take cites.
Don't overlook subs and always watch airpower.  Try and shoot down all of your
opponent's planes.  They can drop a unit to 20% strength before it ever gets to
the front.  Make sure you have plenty of oil.  Plan your first attacks to take
oil wells and cities.  If you make more money, then you can settle into a slow
build up in which you will win, but don't get sloppy and forget to watch the
enemy while you build!)

|--------------------------------|    "If you were happy all of your life,
|      J. Taggart Gorman Jr.     |     you wouldn't be human - you'd be a
| jtgorman@caslon.cs.arizona.edu |     game show host."
|--------------------------------|             Winona Ryder, in _Heathers_
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games