Allied General Download (1995 Strategy Game)

The second edition of SSI's award winning Panzer General, Allied General is a complex and challenging, large-scale simulation of battle tactics. As American, British, or Russian Generals, players take command of troops and vehicles to destroy German forces. This World War II, turn-based strategy game, offers thirty-five scenarios, including three desert campaigns, and the Eastern and Western Fronts.

Battlefields in Allied General are divided into hexes. During your turn, you use your units to perform limited tactical maneuvers, after which, the computer performs counter-measures. The game proceeds until one side meets its objectives. Players had better brush up on their tactical planning to defeat the enemy and bring peace to the world, or they will learn firsthand that "war is hell."

Allied General is the sequel to Panzer General and uses the same turn-based gameplay mechanics. This time the player experiences World War II from the Allied point of view during two British, one U.S. and one Russian campaign. The settings are Europe, Russia and Northern Africa.

The most important thing to have are prestige points. These are earned by solving scenarios (more for a little amount of turns) and used to buy replacement units. But this is not the only reason to be concerned about the detailed mission results: surviving units are transferred to the next mission and receive experience points. The campaign is also not completely linear, and the next mission depends on the result of the last - this means a lost scenario does not necessarily result in a game over, and a scarce victory can have devastating results. Of course a great victory has positive effects on the next missions.

Every turn the player plans the actions of his units and tries to defeat his enemy. The complexity of the game mostly comes from the many different units and weapons - everything has their use and weaknesses. It is vital to use the resources in the correct order and combination. There are also other factors to think about, e.g. fuel. Allied General tries to be player friendly by giving feedback during turns, e.g. by showing the probable combat result before the player issues the attack. He can also undo a turn as long as no new enemy units are scouted. Other extras are historical film material and optional combat animations.

First sequel to SSI's breakthrough wargame Panzer General, Allied General is essentially the same game set in a different theatre in World War II, with some slight improvements and Windows engine that makes the game much slower than its predecessor.

As opposed to the first game's emphasis on the Germans' operations, Allied General covers the Allied campaigns in the World War II European Theater of Operations, as well as North Africa. Gameplay is essentially unchanged from Panzer General, except that you can now command a wider range of units, and certain features of the engine have been tweaked to make for a more realistic game. The Allied's anti-aircraft guns, ships, and anti-tank units, for instance, are much more powerful than their counterparts in Panzer General (or at least that's my impression). This means that, as Allied, you now stand a chance against the Germans' formidable Panzer tanks. The scenarios and campaigns are all well thought-out and follow a logical progression, although anyone who wants to try to change history will be disappointed: you can only relive it in this game.

Overall, Allied General is a solid sequel that is more evolutionary than revolutionary. As with most sequels, SSI decided to stick with the safe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. As a result, Allied General just does not feature any revolutionary ideas to surpass its predecessor in terms of panache and originality. Given how original and playable Panzer General is, however, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is unfortunate that SSI decided to port the game to Windows platform, because it runs much slower, and the interface is much more cumbersome, than the DOS-based engine of Panzer General. Crisper graphics and better sound effects make up for this weakness, though.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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Panzer General, Pacific General, Panzer General 2, Panzer General 3: Scorched Earth, Civil War Generals 2, Panzer General for Windows 95, Axis & Allies, Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943