Getting Started

Note: I'd like to take this opportunity to clear up some mistakes of mine from the WW2OL review. Allies are winning this map, not losing. They pushed the Germans back before the Pz III H was researched, then stopped the German counter-offensive afterwards and are now gaining ground on them again. My apologies to the Allied players for misrepresenting their high command.

So you've bought World War II Online or downloaded the free trial. Now what? For starters, make sure you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer to launch the game, it's currently the only one capable of doing so. Also, be sure to check out the hints and tips at the end of the article.

Well, with most games, it's sufficient to click the desktop icon to start the game. However, World War II Online uses a web login to start the game. The game's icon will take the player to the main page. This page contains automatically-generated news summaries that hint at the state of the war. Up top is a thick menu bar with several options on the left, but the important ones - "Click to play for Axis/Click to play for Allies" are on the right. Pick either side for now, it doesn't really matter. You'll be taken to the dedicated "news" page for your side, and the thick menu bar up top now has an option that says "Click to play for XYZ Forces - Click to Play! " That's what you're looking for. Keep in mind that you can't switch sides between Axis and Allies for 2 hours after you last played.

The main page, pick your side

Click to play

Once you are in the game, it is going to be mighty confusing. There's a map and a multitude of buttons to press, it's almost like a smorgasboard of goodies. The map starts out in a zoomed out view. The flashing yellow areas represent what are roughly the front lines. If you double-click one of those, the map zooms in for a closer look. You'll see a lot of cities, towns and villages with strange-sounding names.

The ones with dull-colored flags, be they Axis, French or British, are towns behind the front lines and thus will, for all intents and purposes, see no action in the immediate future. The interesting towns are the ones with bright-colored flags over their names. But which of these to choose? Here things get a little more tricky.

You might notice some of the cities have different icons near them. Some show a flashing tank outline, others infantry, yet others will show both. This means that the town's early warning system (EWS) has kicked in. It does so automatically whenever an enemy unit gets within a certain range. This doesn't mean the city is under attack, it could mean that an enemy is simply sitting outside town preparing to attack or simply scouting. Other cities will have an exploding icon, this means it's under attack. Action is happening. Unfortunately there's no way to tell how big an action, but odds are there will be something to shoot at.

Early warnings, plus a the box to zoom in on

Couvin selected, shows Mariemburg depot

A radio tower icon means the town is overrun. This is a command that players in the city can type into their chat, which triggers the icon. Overruns are called either when defenders are facing an overwhelming number of attackers and are trying to get an attention on the map, or when the enemy has the spawnable buildings camped and it's very dangerous to leave.