Master of Command Review – A Fun Strategy Game With a Roguelike Twist To Shake Up The Formula
I often joke that the key to happiness is keeping your expectations low – that way, you’re rarely disappointed. That’s how I approached playing Master of Command. I wasn’t thrilled with the game’s setting, and I was skeptical about its roguelike elements, even though I generally enjoy that genre. Plus, the game’s visuals didn’t really appeal to me. But to my surprise, I lost four hours on my first playthrough and almost finished the campaign! It turns out that the combination of roguelike gameplay and 18th-century warfare is strangely addictive, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it for the past week.
- Genre: Turn-Based Strategy | Turn-Based Tactics | Sci-fi
- Developer: Firaxis Games, Feral Interactive (Linux)
- Publisher: 2K, Feral Interactive (Linux)
- Price: $34.99 | 32,99€ | £25.99
- Release Date: 12 October, 2012
- Reviewer: Nuno Marques (PC)
- Target Audience: Real-Time Strategy players, history buffs, and Total War fans.
- Final Score: 7.5/10
Master of Command is a strategy game with roguelike elements – meaning each campaign is different and unpredictable. Set in the 1700s, you choose to lead one of five major European powers – France, Prussia, Russia, England, or Austria – through a randomly generated single-player campaign. It’s important to know that this game isn’t aiming for historical accuracy. Instead, the developers focused on making a genuinely enjoyable gaming experience.
Let’s talk about how campaigns work in Master of Command. They aren’t fixed – except for a short, 4-mission introduction. When you start a new campaign, you’ll pick one of five nations, each with unique advantages and disadvantages, and then choose a main strategic goal. Each goal has two smaller objectives, and completing them earns you rewards. Finally, each campaign ends with a challenging battle against a major enemy army.
One of the best things about this game is how customizable the difficulty is. You can adjust settings to make the experience more relaxed when you’re first learning, trying out different nations, or experimenting with new army combinations. You don’t have to play at your absolute best right away.
Once you start a campaign, you’ll explore the map, battling smaller forces, capturing key locations, and collecting resources. The goal is to build a powerful army for a final showdown. Each campaign consists of around 10 to 20 real-time strategy battles, varying in size from small skirmishes with a few thousand soldiers to larger conflicts involving over 10,000. What I particularly appreciate about these campaigns – and something I’ve come to enjoy more as a gamer – is their manageable length. Unlike games like Total War that can take weeks to complete, these campaigns are relatively quick. If you stay focused and use the 3x speed option in both the campaign and battles, you can finish one in just a few hours.
Okay, so the random campaigns are cool and keep things fresh, but honestly, the best part of Master of Command for me is the real-time battles. They’re a really fun blend of fast-paced action like you get in Total War, but with a bit more realistic depth, kind of like Ultimate General: Civil War. The RTS stuff is just solid. Each unit feels unique because they all have detailed stats – things like attack power, speed, accuracy, and even morale. Plus, you can customize them with different equipment, upgrades, and even find items during battles that change their stats. There’s so much to mess around with and really tailor your army to your playstyle!
The game takes place in the age of muskets, so expect traditional battles: lines of soldiers shooting at each other, supported by cannons. Cavalry will try to outflank the enemy. You control battles easily, pausing and issuing orders with keyboard shortcuts. Positioning is key – line of sight, cover, and high ground all affect how gunfights play out, and the game’s interface clearly shows these effects on your units. While battles can feature many units, they happen on smaller maps. This might not appeal to everyone, but it suits the game’s fast-paced style. Sometimes you can even stretch your lines across the entire map, which is amusing, though not strategically helpful.
I really enjoyed the battles in this game, and they’re definitely the best part. However, they aren’t flawless. While I can’t test how well it runs on less powerful computers, I’ve noticed some slowdowns during larger battles. Because this is a line battle game, it would be great to be able to move entire formations forward and back with simple controls, like directional arrows – similar to how it works in Napoleon: Total War. That would make maneuvering much smoother.
Sometimes the enemy AI isn’t very smart when it comes to defense. They often rush towards you, even if you start the attack, instead of holding their ground. This lets players easily play defensively and gain an advantage by using terrain like hills and cover, which can make battles a bit too easy. For example, I was outnumbered in one fight and sent my cavalry units to opposite sides of the map. Instead of attacking my main force, the AI sent just two soldiers to chase my cavalry all the way back to where they start, which was a really bad decision.
Following each battle, you’ll earn resources like gold, supplies, reserves, and ammunition. Each resource has a specific purpose, but gold is the most versatile. You can use gold to purchase new units, equipment, and items, hire officers, and acquire other necessary supplies. You can also sell items earned in battle for extra gold, or equip them directly to your units. And if that doesn’t excite you, you can even equip a Brown Bear and a Dachshund as mascots! While fun, the game’s inventory system could be improved. It really needs a way to compare equipment stats without having to hover over each item individually, otherwise it detracts from the overall experience.
The camp serves as your army’s headquarters. You can control up to five brigades, and each brigade can contain four units led by an officer. Units and officers earn experience after each battle, unlocking upgrades and improvements. Officers develop new traits, which mostly boost stats but can sometimes be incredibly powerful, like the ‘fire-by-rank’ ability. It’s also great that you can customize the flags and uniforms of each unit. This camp system, combined with randomly generated campaigns and item drops, is surprisingly effective and easy to play around with.
Let’s talk about how the game looks and feels. There’s a four-mission campaign, but it’s unlikely to be a major draw for players. The missions themselves aren’t particularly engaging – they feel like a series of disconnected battles with basic cutscenes. You could easily finish the whole campaign in a couple of hours, or even less if you speed things up.
I really like how the game looks overall – especially the menus, interface, and campaign map, which remind me of the classic Armchair Historian style. However, the real-time battles aren’t as visually appealing, though they aren’t terrible. It just makes the experience a little less immersive for me. Of course, this is just my personal opinion!
The game’s maps feel repetitive because they use the same elements frequently, making battles start to blend together. I suspect the maps aren’t randomly created, as I’ve encountered the same layouts multiple times. The units themselves lack detail, and while the animations are decent, they appear blocky – a style choice seen in many games. Considering the historical accuracy of the uniforms, more detail in this area would be appreciated. Luckily, you usually play zoomed out enough that these flaws aren’t noticeable. However, this simpler art style does make it easy to quickly understand what’s happening on the battlefield, with all the important information readily visible.
The sound and music are perfectly adequate – they work as intended without being particularly impressive or unpleasant. It’s nothing special, but also not something to complain about.
Final Verdict and Score
7.5/10
Overall, I want to end this review on a high note by highlighting two great things about the game. First, it’s highly replayable. If you want a game with plenty of content, you likely won’t be disappointed with Master of Command, thanks to its blend of large-scale strategy, unpredictable roguelike features, and engaging real-time battles. Second, the game is built on a strong base, which makes it perfect for future expansions. I’m really hoping we’ll see new nations added soon – Portugal would be a fantastic addition!
Game Score Breakdown
- Core Gameplay & Mechanics: 8/10
- Content: 8/10
- Graphics & Artstyle: 7/10
- Sound & Music: 6/10
- Technical Performance: 5/10
- Replayability & Value: 8/10
- Monetization & Business Mode: 9/10
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2025-10-23 14:44