A World at War (2003)

Welcome to A World at War, an immersive exploration of the grand strategies of the Second World War. With roots tracing back to the classic Third Reich, and its eventual successors--Advanced Third Reich and Empire of the Rising Sun--A World at War pushes this gaming system even further, expanding on the detail and choices of what was already a fine family of wargames.

A World at War--the game that brings you everything in one meaty box, a far-ranging battlefield where marines and paratroopers slog it out with infantry and armor; where carriers and submarines spar with cruisers and battlewagons; where army planes and carrier planes crisscross the skies with bombers and interceptors and ultra-fast jets. Yet unlike in other games, in A World at War you decide what to build, and you decide where to deploy it. Will this corps storm across Europe, or sail to the Pacific? Will these planes patrol The Steppes, or hunt the shores of the Med? Choose carefully--for in A World at War, the deployment of troops is crucial. But don't go thinking armaments comprise the only battlefield. The struggle extends deep into other arenas, like into foreign parliaments, through diplomacy, and into your skunk works, through research, and behind enemy lines, through partisans. So seize every advantage you can get--not just in drop tanks and detonators, but also in spy rings and wool parkas. Most of all, stay flexible. For when the worst happens and you find yourself outwitted and outgunned, you'll tend to obsess over mistakes, like how you cracked too few encryptions, or gobbled too many islands, or skimped too much on Murmansk. But now isn't the time for recriminations--now is the time for action! Will you gamble and surge-research the atomic bomb? Or will you take the exigency--less glitzy and less risky--of barricading your beaches and erecting flak near your factories? Whatever you decide, decide carefully, for this is bare-knuckled warfare not only across land, sea, and air--but also on trucks and in treasuries, on lab benches and in diplomatic pouches. With so many elements in play, can winning strategies ever be more than a cobble or winning choices ever more than an anguish? It's a question only you can answer. But whatever your approach, if you hang on long enough to unleash your final hoard of weapons in one last grand assault, you just may earn that rare chance to annihilate armies and rule empires . . . even if they're only cardboard.