Ironclads: Schleswig War 1864 Demo

Naval warfare has its challenges and it almost never ends pretty for the losing team, given the fact that there is nowhere to run most of the time. There have been a few famous battles throughout the ages, some of which played huge roles in history, by deciding the fate of entire wars. Now, you have the chance to experience one of them and see whether your place is out on the sea or not.

Ironclads: Schleswig War 1864 is part of the Ironclads naval strategy series and it concerns itself with the war between Denmark and Prussia, caused by territory issues and probably a lot of other factors. You only have to deal with the shooting, however, so there are no politics or diplomacy involved in the game, only a tiny financial aspect that comes into play at the beginning of each mission.

As it happens, you are allowed to personally choose and buy the desired ships, in order to create the desired fleet. The funds only allow you to buy a couple of them, but the composition of the fleet is important as well, because there are multiple types of ships to choose from. Hence, you can either opt for speed and agility, or exchange them for firepower instead, depending on the strategy you have in mind.

It must be mentioned that the game is very slow, mostly due to the fact that it takes a lot of time for the ships to reach each other. Even so, the cannons are only capable of dealing an almost insignificant amount of damage, which means that the battles can drag for a very long time before they are over. Hence, unless you are prepared to sacrifice a lot of spare time, you might want to reconsider your options.

There are bugs and inconsistencies plaguing the gameplay as well, which can make the experience that much more difficult to enjoy. On the other hand, the graphics are not half-bad, at least when it comes to ship modeling and the amount of detail that went into them. Everything else is rather poor, considering the fact that no customization options are available and the water reflections are atrocious.

All things considered, Ironclads: Schleswig War 1864 is way too slow, unfinished and unpolished to be worth the purchase. However, if you want something easy and somewhat tactical to make a boring afternoon drag for even longer, you can try this game out.