It’s certainly not in your two nine-mission campaigns. They’re as predictable as they come – dreary slogging matches with almost no room for tactical experimentation. Something is badly wrong in a WWII RTS when you find yourself counting your teeth with your tongue during an Omaha Beach assault, or fabricating an origami frog while the Screaming Eagles storm Sainte-Mere-Eglise.
The scenario designers can’t shoulder all the blame. The folk that devised the combat mechanics also deserve Panzerfaust enemas. Despite a plump unit roster, incorporating everything from Tigers and Nebelwerfers to Sherman Calliopes and P-47s, Order of War’s warfare is deathly dull. There are no clear rock-paper-scissors relationships here, no role for cover, fog-of-war, morale, or veterancy. Nothing encourages you to employ anything but the crudest swarm tactics.
