The first Unity Of Command was designed for the open steppes of the Eastern Front. There, the major battles were about manoeuvre, with tank units chasing and covering miles of ground for their objectives, and lines of infantry moving to counter and support. The steppes were perfect for UoCs unique focus on maintaining your armys supply lines.

So, when designer Tomislav Uzelac began thinking about turning to the Western front for its sequel, he knew he had a problem. The big battles of France and Italy were slow and attritional, crossing mountain ranges and facing enemies dug into forests. The question was, how do you go from Case Blue, where you cover 1,000 kilometres in Russia over a month and half, to Monte Cassino, where you stay pounding on one position for six months? he tells me.

The answer lay in pushing and pulling at the frontline between military accuracy and game abstraction, and in exploring tiny design details which youd never think could lead to making a vast theatre of war this fun to play. But as well as dealing with Europes topography, the sequel would also have to be a lot more complex than the first.

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