History Line 1914-18 by BlueByte Old Dos PCGame

This takes me back.

I have sort of a love/hate attitude toward the Blue Byte war games (this, Battle Isle, etc). I love that they used detailed graphics for the maps and units rather than just letters or little symbols and I love the whole idea of the game, but I HATE the alternating move/attack phases. Why? Because during the move phase, you're planning moves and strategy based on units which may not exist by the time they're supposed to move, since the enemy's attacks are carried out first.

For example; There's an enemy infantry unit with only 3 soldiers and you have a full cavalry unit with lots of experience, so you tell it to move next to the infantry so you can attack it. You end your turn and your cavalry gets pummeled by artillery, leaving only three guys. OK, you should still be able to take the infantry. Whoops, it's getting pounded again by artillery and now there's only one guy left who moves next to the infantry. Attacking them would be suicide, but they're never going to get the chance to retreat anyway because the computer will attack them during the next turn.

If the designers had implemented a normal move & attack control method, you would see that your cavalry was almost dead before you told them to confront the enemy and you could have pulled them back and sent them to a depot to get repaired. No, instead you lose them because you didn't realize that they were in range of the artillery and were going to get destroyed before they took even a single step.

Military Madness/Nectaris was much better in this regard. You were never wasting your time planning moves for units that were doomed. It would also have been nice to have the option to use the whole screen, not just half of it. Unless you're going to sit there and watch the computer plan all of its moves, there's really no point to having a split screen in a one-player game. And if you do watch all the computer's moves, then any supposed time advantage to having both players plotting moves at the same time goes right out the window.

In the end, it's a decent game that could have been so much better. :(

Used to love this on the Amiga. I have brought the battle island platinum pack on gog just for this.

History Line is so far the only World War I strategy game I heard of and some great fun to play, though the artificial intelligence is so poor that it has to be given a lot more units, so that it can at least put up a fight, but still it seldom drives you into despair; the only real damper is that your actions are insignificant and unlike Panzer General you can’t change history by gaming and this certainly hurts the personal power delusion a lot, which does haunt the player’s mind.

God, what a great game.

nights long played, hearing deep forrest and reading books ( battletech ) waiting turns. 386 with 25 mhz and 40 mg hard disk ( sooo nice memorys, snif )

seriously? June 18, 1914? It was June 28....

best ww1 strategy game ever!

why does it appear a guy with a gun in front of a plane every time we capture a factory?

One of the coolest Strategic Games of the World!!! The first was Battle Isel from Blue Byte . Germanys First PC Strategie Game Factory. I think.

Used play it a lot, on Amiga. Best games were played with friend, with screen splited with sheet of paper to avoid looking at other moves. It was our "paranoid mode". Now wish to see it online :) With two players capability.

I played it to the end. A Classic game, brings back the good old child days.

I loved the ability to change the uniforms of the armies thus giving yourself Neon Nazis. Class game.

Thats really an odd game lads

OMG thats my all time favorite strategy.highly trained artillery was crusing everthing:)thx for this video

cool game - I remember the good old times with hexfields and me playing this. I miss those kind of games.

Great game, love it!

One of the best games ever. It is still attractive to me after 15 years.