Gameplay

An intriguing aspect of WW2O is how it's balanced. Not necessarily between Axis and Allies, but between the different units. Infantry, though they have a poor kill/death ratio compared to tanks, are actually a tanker's worst nightmare. The idea of leading a Matilda, arguably the best tank in the game, into an area possibly littered with enemy infantry is a lot scarier than engaging in a duel against said nigh-on-indestructible Matilda while piloting the anemic Pz IIc. Sappers and British grenadiers are more than capable of turning a valuable tank into nothing more than twenty tons of scrap metal. In the open infantry doesn't stand a chance, but neither do tanks when enemy aircraft show up.

The game is of course based on the capture of territory. For a city to be captured, infantry need to go into various depots, factories and other control points, find the radio room and hold it for a certain amount of time. The force that owns the city can spawn infantry from a variety of depots and infantry as well as vehicles from the army base. For most units to spawn, a mission has to be posted, otherwise only default units are available. Missions can be posted by anyone of the rank of lieutenant or higher, but priority 1 missions give players the most experience points and are only posted by the highest ranking officers - fortunately those are many by now.

Ranks are gained with experience points. As infantry or a transport, it's easy - just survive ten minutes and return to base. All other land units need to score a kill and then return to base after the 10 minute minimum. Returning to base is vitally important, and accomplished by getting close to a depot, army base, dock or air field - depending on the unit. If the unit isn't returned, the player doesn't gain the experience from the mission and the unit is lost, no longer available in the pool.

Generally, there are too many tanks to use, but they're widely distributed among all the cities. During a big attack or defense, players often find themselves shuttling tanks and sometimes even trucks, infantry and anti-tank guns from nearby towns in order to reinforce. This is a boring and often thankless job, but vitally important to the war effort. It would be nice to have it automated, but this takes away from the squads that are organized and motivated enough to launch such a large-scale attack.

Attacks are usually launched from forward bases. Cities are linked by depots. Vise connects to Maastricht and Liege and several others, thus it has depots for those cities and those cities have depots for Vise. Between an Allied and Axis city that are connected by depots, will be a forward base. This base can only belong to one side at a time, and is closer to the enemy city if the player's side owns it, and closer to the player's city if the enemy owns it. To get the forward base, the enemy's must be blown up with sappers. Once that's done, a forward base for the player's side appears near the enemy city and can be used to launch attacks against that city. A forward base uses resources from the host city's pool, so the ideal situation is to attack from several forward bases at a time. Since there are no forward bases between friendly cities, any reinforcements to the attacked town will require driving those reinforcements from nearby friendly cities - a much longer line of supply.