Mission variety is very good, in no small part due to the variety in units and tasks they can perform. You might, for example, have to clear a minefield, steal a supply truck, go repair a bridge or capture a village on the far side of the river, then hold it for a set period of time before reinforcements arrive.
Many battles, particularly in the Russian campaign, feature large unit counts, but some still focus on smaller scale encounters with specific tactical objectives. Instead of a handful of units on each side, you'll frequently see a couple of hundred men on each side at any one time, and post-battle debriefings can show as high as 500 or more casualties. The scale of the action is much greater than Close Combat. More importantly, while the view range is limited, terrain obstacles affect line of sight in a reasonably realistic way, so you can hide in woods, and you can also gain a significant advantage by defending from high ground. Scouting ahead with jeeps, motorcyles or infantry is very important, and while tanks can be damaged by grenades they're pretty much invulnerable to infantry fire. But that's not to say that realistic tactics don't pay off. This design decision makes the game play like a typical RTS rather than a classic wargame. As a result, you won't have battles where Tigers hold off swarms of Shermans at long range.
All units are restricted to a maximum view range of a few map inches, which might correspond to 100 yards or so of real terrain. Most notably is the fact that Sudden Strike does not make any significant attempt to be a realistic game. There are a number of features that set Sudden Strike apart from Close Combat in the real-time stakes. However, each campaign will likely take a good few evenings each, so there's plenty of play in the game as is. The customisable "skirmish" creator in Close Combat was a feature I made heavy use of, and its exclusion here may deter gamers looking for long-term value. However, longevity is not all it may be as while you can go online for Internet opponents once you've completed the campaigns, there's no mission editor or battle builder included. With an additional 14 stand-alone scenarios Sudden Strike rounds out at a healthy 50 missions. Three campaigns are featured, one each for the Allied, German and Russian forces spanning 12 missions. Sudden Strike is not a realistic wargame (for that, turn to Close Combat 5 or Combat Mission) but it is a very well-presented, enjoyable game that has a lot going for it. So it's good to see that CDV's new WWII RTS Sudden Strike, while remaining a tactical game bereft of typical RTS base-building and harvesting, manages to at last meet the bill. It's thus quite surprising that while Westwood has just released its eleventh Dune 2 RTS derivative, no-one's managed as yet to produce a decent WWII RTS.
And even then, that's a game which puts its emphasis squarely on small-scale tactical action. If you mention the words "WWII" and "RTS" in the same sentence, little springs to mind with the exception of Close Combat.
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