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[Anvilfolk]

Lowengrin's DCG for IL-2 was kickass back in the day. I don't think they've adapted it to the latest patches and modpacks, but it could still work. Best of all was a server running DCG - where the impact of you being online was felt throughout the server. Good times!

Didn't the old Red Baron have something similar to this? I think at least one of the Close Combats did. Good games - they are remaking them and they should be out at some point, which is good news.

I'll need to try MoW:AS DCG!

[Rolan7]

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War: Dark Crusade had a campaign map made up of several tiles that you had to control. The only "scripted" events were main base assaults and the mission that led up to them; everything else is a generic battle that you can win or lose, with the appropriate effect on the larger world map.

Unfortunately, Dark Crusade is pretty much impossible because of the Eldar. You will grind your entire army to dust against the penultimate Eldar mission, no matter how many or what Honor Guard units you have. Maybe you can win as the Crons, but I haven't played DoW in a long time.

Interesting, I had by far the most trouble with the tau city.  The cloaked snipers at first, but later on the sheer mass of tanks and artillery.  I remember the Eldar mission having lots of "Oho, we teleport away!  And that wasn't even our final base!  Also our bases are cloaked!" but a lack of hard resistance.  I was mostly playing on easy, though.

Sid Meier's Gettysburg had a branching campaign.  Most victory points came from holding certain objectives, and after the map it would rate the battle on a spectrum from total victory to total rout.  I think it just chose the next map based on your average victory rating, but it was pretty convincing.  The campaign could diverge from history a lot... I think Pickett's Charge only happened if the battle was more-or-less even.

Better yet, there were often regiments on your side that you couldn't control, set up in stationary battle lines which gave the sense of a larger ongoing battle.  In some cases you could demand control of these reserve troops, with a dialog indicating the General would be displeased.  It cost a lot of victory points but could be worth it if the extra men secured an objective.

[Julius Clonkus]

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War: Dark Crusade had a campaign map made up of several tiles that you had to control. The only "scripted" events were main base assaults and the mission that led up to them; everything else is a generic battle that you can win or lose, with the appropriate effect on the larger world map.

Unfortunately, Dark Crusade is pretty much impossible because of the Eldar. You will grind your entire army to dust against the penultimate Eldar mission, no matter how many or what Honor Guard units you have. Maybe you can win as the Crons, but I haven't played DoW in a long time.

I never found a problem with the Eldar. Except when they had me as sitting duck on a small plateau in a battle against them and just kept coming at my defenses as if they were sodding tyranids.

And then my Baneblade finished production. Problem solved.

But yes - DCG for Men of War is probably the best thing ever, even if it is immensely frustrating at times. Does anyone know if there's a way to merge it with the War Realism Mod that adds the Maus , E-100 and all the other fun toys of WW2?

[Draco18s]

!

<3

Posting to watch and come back to read all the suggestions.  I've been on the lookout for a dynamic campaign type game for a while.

[Eduardo X]

Steel Panthers is an old wargame with a dynamic campaign. It's considered a classic and still sells quite a bit. But I came to it late and couldn't get into it.

Dynamic campaigns make things very appealing for me, but they're usually in games where you have to really work to get good enough to take advantage of it. Even Men of War is really tough!

[sambojin]

Not really a dynamic campaign type game, but it can sort of be played as such (especially if you're going the historical route of the standard American map) is Colonization. There's a good, free version of it called FreeCol that can be found here:
 http://www.freecol.org/download.html

While a Civ-like game, it's able to be played with a couple of different win conditions and isn't nearly as "war'y" as your average 4X game. Dynamic in the sense that everyone is your friend or your enemy depending on a massive range of factors and strategies, with these allegiances changing as the game progresses. FreeCol has a slightly different rule-set and some extra starting bonuses/nations (with Fur Trapping being a bit OP'd), but it does make for some fairly varied routes to winning.

Things to try: Arm the natives on purpose so they'll be a nuisance to your competitors.
Never sell a thing to your home-country.
Immediately take an opposing capital as your only or main city, letting England win with Ville de Quebec as their capital.
Convert every native village. Work out what the hell to do with the massive native population now under your command.

The game does have some rather worrying overtones, but the colonisation of the Americas did historically anyway. You can win quite easily without a single indentured servant or native convert if you want (and punish other civs that use them if you please), with options for full citizenship through founding fathers eventually possible.

[Neyvn]

Apparently the new "LOTR: Shadow of Mordor" game coming out soon will have Dynamic Combat events.
Depending on how you deal with certain enemies they can effect your next encounter...

Throw an Orc Boss through a Fire but let him Escape/leave him to burn without killing him, will result in him being Heavily burnt in appearance AND will also 'remember' that his last encounter you burned him and will be effected by it some way as in how he addresses you on encounter or maybe (unsure on this) fearing fire or such. Sounds plausable actually...
OR even better, you can force a minion to submit to your Wraith powers and get him to set up an Assassination against his master, which you can then start as an event to happen before you fight his boss...
If you haven't seen it check the preview...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpRXiyIvvX4

[SquatchHammer]

I dont know what you people are on about when you had problems with the Necron or Eldar in the Dark Crusade game. Yeah it took a bit of work but it wasn't that difficult.

[sambojin]

I dont know what you people are on about when you had problems with the Necron or Eldar in the Dark Crusade game. Yeah it took a bit of work but it wasn't that difficult.

I was actually saying not to play as the Necrons. They're not too bad in the AI's hands, but they do wreck the enjoyment of the campaign due to how powerful they can become under human control. Once you've taken a territory, you'll never lose it (although that's similar with most races) and one of their low tech units is incredibly powerful and cheap (flayers? The teleporty claw guys). With a bit of an honour guard and a slightly levelled general, most battles are over pretty damn quickly (you can have flayers and heavy flayers in your honour guard as well if memory serves me correctly).

Probably not too much worse than ork rocket or flamer spam, but easier to do. Plus your general is a monster very early on. Just a very quick and powerful ramp-up, but one that gives map knowledge and lets you completely screw up the opponent's chance of establishing a reasonable army (you're already destroying stuff in at least one base). Then build whatever you like and win.

(Same as Fur Trapping in FreeCol in a way. That first 300-500 gold from coats and furs gives you 1-2 scouts before anyone else, which then gets gifts and lost cities, often giving 1000's of gold. You then get artillery and galleons/privateers before anyone else, with excellent map knowledge to boot. You then win however you want).

[mastahcheese]

The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 has a pretty good game mode where you take over Middle Earth by territories.
Star Wars: Empire at War (and forces of corruption expansion) has you taking over planets and whatnot.
Sins of a Solar Empire might count, sorta.

[scrdest]

Cortex Command, basic is pretty, uh, basic, but there's a module by the modder recently hired to the dev team expands on it a lot (Unmapped Lands 2).

[NobodyPro]

Flotilla?

[Mech#4]

Jagged Alliance? Those series (at least the first 2) play with you creating/hiring a party of mercenaries to take over territories. Which territories you take over has some strategic element depending on whether you want resources or to prevent enemy retaliation.

[Lucidvizion]

You might want to check out Drox Operative by Soldak.

[TripJack]

Jagged Alliance? Those series (at least the first 2) play with you creating/hiring a party of mercenaries to take over territories. Which territories you take over has some strategic element depending on whether you want resources or to prevent enemy retaliation.

while JA is indeed a great game it really does not have the kind of dynamic campaign that the OP is talking about