"Defending The Reich" is a strategy / wargame title from 2006. It brings to mind old war movie classics from the past, both in its scope and in the art used. The game concerns the nighttime raids over Germany between 1943-1944. You can play as the British who with their armadas of Lancasters and other prolific bombers and escort planes, did their best to return the favor from the Blitz on Great Britain. And as the title implies, you can of course choose to try and defend the Reich from the Tommies using the radars, air defenses and night fighters at your disposal. As the British you must plan and carry out various types of raids, as well as carefully administer your fleet of bombers, try to keep them intact and ready for action. As the Germans you should try as best you can to intercept these raids and to a certain degree predict them. Keep an eye on your critical industrial target areas so they don't get badly damaged, and upgrade your night defense assets when possible. It is a challenging but also fun and engrossing game in my view. In many ways it can remind a bit of TalonSofts "12 O'Clock High: Bombing The Reich", but on a much more manageable level due to the smaller scope. DTR was created by Jim Lunsford who also made some of HPS Simulations more hardcore wargames, such as "Decisive Action", a game based on his earlier US army tactical simulation teaching program.

What could need improvement? Well one thing that really stuck out to me is one of the most important assets of the game, namely the main game map! The original is hugely cluttered and of too low resolution to support the realistic / historical map idea behind it. I found it incredibly hard to even see the icons that the game overlays on it. In my view, what was needed was a sharp and more procedural line-art style map, that is to the point and easy on the eyes. I also made both day and nighttime maps the same, seeing as all action takes place at late evening and night anyway. Mostly the planning is done by daytime and the light/dark map change is quite redundant. Readability is put before anything else but I kept it relatively dark, as I do think this is a game that definitely should be played late at night. The map also makes the icons and planning layers stand out more. The entire game area is carefully hand drawn from scratch to match the original ingame locations such as cities, factories and airfields. I also chose to draw city names since that was a mouse hover-only feature by default. I hope this mod will bring new enjoyment to this otherwise fine but forgotten gem!

Note on Compatibility:

To make "Defending The Reich" work on Windows 11 you need to manually register the file "dx7vb.dll" with the command "regsvr32 dx7vb.dll" in folder windows/system32 using Command Prompt or PowerShell, else you will get a "Class not registered" error. Otherwise the game runs completely fine on Windows XP, 7, 10 and 11 using the CD version. HPS originally offered a Vista fix as well as an 1.0.1 patch. I recommend installing the patch over the CD 1.0 version (Before the mod!). Personally I did not install the Vista fix DLL files, but you may want to depending on your setup.

 

Defending The Reich - Map Mod

Support Files:

Windows Vista fix for DTR by HPS Sims
DTR Version 1.0.1 Patch by HPS Sims

Since the game is for all intents and purposes abandoned as well as extremely hard to find, I choose to offer it here:

Full CD-ROM of "Defending The Reich"
 

Click below to view the full new map!