''NATO Commander'' is a

strategy video game Strategy is a major video game genre that emphasizes thinking and planning over direct instant action in order to achieve victory. Although many types of video games can contain strategic elements, as a genre, strategy games are most commonly def ...

Sid Meier Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is a Canadian-American programmer, designer, and producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization'' series. Meier co-founded MicroProse in 1982 with Bi ...

for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE ...

and published in 1983 by

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization'' and '' X-COM'' series. Most of their inte ...

. Ports to the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

, and Commodore 64 were released the following year. The player takes the role of the

Supreme Allied Commander Supreme Allied Commander is the title held by the most senior commander within certain multinational military alliances. It originated as a term used by the Allies during World War I, and is currently used only within NATO for Supreme Allied Com ...

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

forces in Europe as they respond to a massive

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...

attack. The goal is to slow their advance and inflict casualties, hoping to force a diplomatic end to the war before

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

is overrun. The same game engine was also used as the basis for ''Conflict in Vietnam'', ''

Crusade in Europe ''Crusade in Europe'' is a book of wartime memoirs by General Dwight D. Eisenhower published by Doubleday in 1948. Maps were provided by Rafael Palacios. ''Crusade in Europe'' is a personal account by one of the senior military figures of Wo ...

'' and ''

Decision in the Desert ''Decision in the Desert'' is a computer wargame designed by Sid Meier and Ed Bever and published by MicroProse in 1985. Versions were released for the Apple II series, Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compati ...

''.

Gameplay

The scenario involves a Cold War

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

invasion of

. The player is given operational control of

land armies, while the computer controls the Soviets, and must repel the invasion by deploying his forces geographically and choosing their offensive or defensive roles.''NATO Commander''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

As the battle progresses, both operational and political factors influence the outcome. NATO may lose or win back cities and territory; according to the scenario chosen the player had the option to decide to stave off the

onslaught by countercharging head-on, buying time for space awaiting a diplomatic solution, or mounting a counteroffensive. The game's interface has strong similarities to the seminal '' Eastern Front'' in the way the map is displayed and various orders are given to the units. However, ''NATO Commander'' takes place in real-time, with one second of time representing 5 minutes passing in the game. It also has more unit types including armor and infantry, armored infantry (mostly for reconnaissance), airborne troops and air forces and helicopters. The latter are useful for attacking Soviet units that are isolated or surrounded, which protects them from

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

s from the Soviet side of the map. Another major change is the hidden movement system, which only displays Soviet units that are visible to the allied units. Air forces can be used for air superiority, ground attack or as a reconnaissance force to help reveal the hidden Soviet forces. The game has a variety of scenarios, each one larger than the last. The first is simply a limited encounter on the front, while the next include a counterattack around the

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

axis, awaiting the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...

's mobilization or the

Italian Army "The safeguard of the republic shall be the supreme law" , colors = , colors_labels = , march = ''Parata d'Eroi'' ("Heroes's parade") by Francesco Pellegrino, ''4 Maggio'' (May 4) ...

's decision to enter the fray or not.

Tactical nuclear weapons A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territo ...

and

chemical weapons A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as ...

are available to both sides but their use often carried heavy image penalties and could initiate an escalation. In the end, either the player or the Soviets surrender, based on how much land and combat-ready forces remain.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'' in 1984 criticized ''NATO Commander'' for being imbalanced in favor of the Warsaw Pact, but concluded that the game was one of the first combat games to take advantage of computer power, resulting in a "superb strategic simulation". A 1992 survey in the magazine of wargames with modern settings gave the game three stars out of five. and a 1994 survey gave it two-plus stars.

References

External links

*
''NATO Commander''
at Atari Mania * *{{Internet Archive game, a8b_NATO_Commander_1983_MicroProse_US 1983 video games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games Cold War video games Commodore 64 games MicroProse games NATO Real-time strategy video games Sid Meier games Strategy video games U.S. Gold games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in East Germany World War III video games