History Line: 1914-1918

History Line: 1914-1918 transplants the proven hexagonal system of Battle Isle into the setting of the First World War, a period when tanks and aircraft were only just emerging and warfare was still largely static, offering turn-based battles with infantry, artillery, tanks, and early aircraft in trench warfare on both the Western and Eastern fronts. The player plans moves on a hexagonal map, deals with supplying units with ammunition and fuel, and must account for the period's weapons, whose limited range and slowness give the battles a different rhythm than in the sci-fi-flavored predecessor, where technology allowed for much more decisive and faster campaigns.

The campaign leads the player through historical battles and front sections, combining fictional scenarios with references to actual events of the First World War, which gives the game an educational dimension alongside pure strategic entertainment and forces the player to adapt tactics to the period realities of slow trench warfare. On the Amiga, the game benefited from graphics as clear and functional as Battle Isle's, with clearly distinguishable units and a map on which the progress of the front and the state of one's own supplies can easily be followed. Like Battle Isle, the game also offered a scenario editor, allowing custom battles to be assembled using period maps and units.

The sound accompaniment is austere and war-tight, which fits well with the grim theme of trench warfare and its slow, exhausting pace. History Line: 1914-1918 was received at release as a well-made and thematically bold expansion of the Battle Isle concept, one that showed Blue Byte's hexagonal strategy could work even outside a sci-fi setting. It is still valued today as one of the few strategy games devoted specifically to the First World War and its particular, slow and exhausting character, which sets it markedly apart from most war games set in the Second World War.

Why play it: If you're looking for a strategy game set in the First World War rather than the usual Second, History Line: 1914-1918 offers a slow, exhausting trench-warfare pace that sets it markedly apart from the competition.