Historical Wargames have been thin on the ground. Total War, the leader in this genre, released Pharaoh last year but it was a bit of a flop.
Master of Command mixes up RTS gaming with a kind of Battle Brothers rogue-like system where players move their armies round a procedurally-generated country, attempting to destroy enemy armies, as well as obtain rewards from tasks like relieving outposts or salvaging battlefields.
Your army has up to five four-regiment brigades, which are made up of 18th century infantry, cavalry and artillery from Britain, Prussia, Austro-Hungary, France or Russia, as they battle it out against each other. Your troops get upgraded by winning battles, but also you can purchase all sorts of goodies, from better muskets and swords, to hiring a chaplain (helps morale) or giving your men cheese rations to up their stamina.
As your army travels round the map it encounters patrolling armies, encamped armies, encounters, and finally a beefed-up HQ army, while having to manage replacements, ammunition, and food. This becomes critical when winter sets in, so your food runs out as your soldiers die or desert.
The tiny dev team only consists of three people, and the game has some issues in its first month of release such as a limited number of battlefields and overpowered artillery, but has been a hit with the online wargaming community. It manages to be skilful, and engaging. A strength is the customisability of the units: you can rename them, change the flags and uniforms in a large number of ways, so the units feel unique to you, not just anonymous cannon fodder.
Like all historical games there is a balance to be had between playability and historical accuracy. MoC manages this ingeniously: there are all sorts of custom unit paths you can take for each nation, for example, Prussia has access to freebooting Freikorps, Russia light cossack marauding cavalry, and England Hanoverian and Hessian corps. This gives the game a lot of replayability, as you can get a completely different army to utilise each run through, even with the same nation.
The devs have committed to upgrades, new maps and play balance modifiers, so you can game at the right level for you. No multiplayer but the roadmap promised modding, which is usually a good way to engage users, enabling a long life for the game.
Now I have over 150 hours of gameplay in a month, which is a positive sign of a value-for-money game. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and some of the “Grogs” (hardcore wargamers) don’t like the rogue-lite elements of the campaign map. It’s got very positive reviews on steam; a big reaction against the way the total war franchise has descended into tedious mediocrity. It proves how you don’t need to have big bucks or a AAA format to succeed as a satisfying game if you have enough imagination.