No, I've only played Advanced Third Reich.
But in general I don't have a problem with people using these forums to discuss historical games.
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But in general I don't have a problem with people using these forums to discuss historical games.
Originally posted by Sire Enaique
Moreover, I feel it is strongly biased in favor of the Axis.
And the map (well, the one I remember) is just as nice as the other ADG game I know, EIA (THAT one's great), that is to say throwupable upon. And the counters suck. And I really should have some dinner because those five martinis are getting to my head
It is biased a little in favour of the Axis (or it was under fifth edition rules.) The obvious bias is in upping Italian and Japanese production capacity above historical levels......but they still have a nightmare getting the resources to use it all (particularly Italy!) Sixth Edition rules (FE) have a "MUCH" superior map (it looks great, although fifth ed. players don't like it!-you may want to run a quick search to find images of it to see what you think.) A general consensus appears to be that Final Edition rules are marginally biased in favour of the Allies.
Although........there's two major playing conventions in the world, one in Europe, one in America. The AARs of the 2000 events made for interesting reading, or rather the results did. In America, out of ten or so games, the Axis were clear winners (in terms of objectives held over expected at game-end point, which varies, not world domination) in about three-quarters of them, in Europe, the results were exactly reversed!
As for the counters......since the representations of them on the box are what persuaded me to buy it in the end, rather then A3R, I have to disagree with you 100% there!
Could you provide an address where those AAR's are posted?
I should probably check on the latest version. Maybe I'll have a pleasant surprise?
But I still maintain that rules designed for a primarily corps-level game are totally unsuited for the PTO.
I should probably check on the latest version. Maybe I'll have a pleasant surprise?
But I still maintain that rules designed for a primarily corps-level game are totally unsuited for the PTO.
Sorry but the AARs were printed material, published in their 2000 annual (not published 'til 2001, dratted ADG!)
As for a pleasant surprise for the latest version-there's still a lot of your dislikes there (the naval system's pretty similar-although at least the submarine side works now ie. you're going to lose convoys in this version!) I like it.....but I'd say you've guessed that. i suppose I do have a bit of an advantage as well since I started playing the FE version, even if optional/special rules or alterations pop up every few months.
Oh, if you're interested in a possible Nazi invasion of the Americas ("America in Flames") or a Capitalist-Communist post WWII conflict ("Patton in Flames") this is the game system for you-I don't think the competing systems have expanded that far yet (although latest reports suggest that the next release of A3R will include a lot of the much-derided "chrome" elements of WiF!
)
Originally posted by Agelastus
Oh, if you're interested in a possible Nazi invasion of the Americas ("America in Flames") or a Capitalist-Communist post WWII conflict ("Patton in Flames") this is the game system for you-I don't think the competing systems have expanded that far yet (although latest reports suggest that the next release of A3R will include a lot of the much-derided "chrome" elements of WiF!
My personnal fantasy is playing a Grand Europa game to completion, and then going on with a 1945 capitalist/communist conflict.
Of course that would involve 1) the completion of the Europa series and 2) a dozen or so people motivated enough to take a sabbatical!
both rather remote possibilities
still, I guess it would provide useful material for that thread about that very subject!
Originally posted by Sire Enaique
My personnal fantasy is playing a Grand Europa game to completion, and then going on with a 1945 capitalist/communist conflict.
Of course that would involve 1) the completion of the Europa series and 2) a dozen or so people motivated enough to take a sabbatical!
both rather remote possibilities
Knew I'd heard of that before, but just had to go trawling the web to remind myself. Game company's site appears to be down, but I've remembered how massive it looked!
By the way-rumour has it that ADG's next WiF project will be the long-mooted divisional-scale version! With even bigger maps!
For WiF (and DoD II) AARs, there's a number on the web (along with additional rules, special counters, new scenarios etc.)
http://home2.inet.tele.dk/hah/WiF/
Is a good place to start (well, first page at the top of my search, anyway!
)
Europa: you know, it's actually playable... I've managed to get through a Scorched Earth (East Front 41-Dec44) game once (took us three years, though...), and the 1943-45 Western Front game, Second Front, can actually be completed in under 10 week-ends.
That last one, despite some real problems, is really great, in that it is the only operational game that I know of that gets you into the nuts and bolts of operationnal invasion planning. I only started to comprehend the magnitude and difficulty of Overlord after I'd tried my hand with SF.
and Fall of France is IMHO the best game ever on its subject.
try http://www.generalstab.org/ if you want a look at some Europa AARs.
WINF: I'd sure be very much interested in a divisionnal level version of the game!
and thanks for the link!
That last one, despite some real problems, is really great, in that it is the only operational game that I know of that gets you into the nuts and bolts of operationnal invasion planning. I only started to comprehend the magnitude and difficulty of Overlord after I'd tried my hand with SF.
and Fall of France is IMHO the best game ever on its subject.
try http://www.generalstab.org/ if you want a look at some Europa AARs.
WINF: I'd sure be very much interested in a divisionnal level version of the game!
and thanks for the link!
Thanks for the link yourself! I will be perusing that site shortly.
Have you ever played any of GMT's games-they did one on the "Fall of France" too that I believe is reasonably well regarded.
Divisional WiF sounds fun-but you couldn't play it on the existing maps, and I can barely squeeze them in-by moving a bookcase as it is!
Have you ever played any of GMT's games-they did one on the "Fall of France" too that I believe is reasonably well regarded.
Divisional WiF sounds fun-but you couldn't play it on the existing maps, and I can barely squeeze them in-by moving a bookcase as it is!
I have the game (Victory in the West), it looks nice (I mean, the rules, too) but I never had the opportunity to play it (the ETO maps for Second Front aren't larger, so given a choice...).
In fact, I've got several GMT games but have never played any. This is one company that started to publish games after I started working for a living but before I realised how much that ate up on gaming time and basically stopped buying boardgames: my - now mostly ex - gaming group plays Europa when we have the time to set up anything anyway, so why spend the money?
In fact, I've got several GMT games but have never played any. This is one company that started to publish games after I started working for a living but before I realised how much that ate up on gaming time and basically stopped buying boardgames: my - now mostly ex - gaming group plays Europa when we have the time to set up anything anyway, so why spend the money?
I do play GMT games (they produce a lot of good stuff-although there recent expansion into different gaming areas is actually putting me off a bit!) However, they're the "Great Battles of History" series games.......so I bash people armed with spears, rather than tanks.
Solitaire too, I'm afraid......wargamers are rare in my vicinity, and I prefer the face to face experience if I can get it.
Solitaire too, I'm afraid......wargamers are rare in my vicinity, and I prefer the face to face experience if I can get it.
Wargamers are EVERYWHERE, and I can prove it:
When I was in boot camp (well, the boot was rather of the suede persuasion and the camp, more like camp as in a camp movie , but anyway...) during my military service, I'd brought along a couple of S&T mini-games.
As we started to settle down in the barracks, one of my bunkmates brought out a chess board and asked me wether I played the game. I answered that yeah, well, but that I preferred wargames. Bingo! he knew that CNA can stand for something else than Currently Not Available, and I ended up playing a lot of Gettysburg battles during those two blasted months.
And this isn't the only time this kind of thing happened to me.
So don't be afraid to come out of the closet!
And you can always PBEM anyway.
Europa (did you know I just love those games? ) has this wonderful freeware PBEM kit: http://www.microteam.fi/jet/
You need the rules and OB's to play, and that's it: no map, no counters, it's all in the PC.
I'd be surprised if there weren't something like it for WiF...
And if you like the Great Battles series, do you know http://digilander.iol.it/zak965/hoplites.htm ?
When I was in boot camp (well, the boot was rather of the suede persuasion and the camp, more like camp as in a camp movie
, but anyway...) during my military service, I'd brought along a couple of S&T mini-games.As we started to settle down in the barracks, one of my bunkmates brought out a chess board and asked me wether I played the game. I answered that yeah, well, but that I preferred wargames. Bingo! he knew that CNA can stand for something else than Currently Not Available, and I ended up playing a lot of Gettysburg battles during those two blasted months.
And this isn't the only time this kind of thing happened to me.
So don't be afraid to come out of the closet!
And you can always PBEM anyway.
Europa (did you know I just love those games?
) has this wonderful freeware PBEM kit: http://www.microteam.fi/jet/ You need the rules and OB's to play, and that's it: no map, no counters, it's all in the PC.
I'd be surprised if there weren't something like it for WiF...
And if you like the Great Battles series, do you know http://digilander.iol.it/zak965/hoplites.htm ?
How could I miss it-although it is time for me to look and see what the latest update is on the site. It's quite an enjoyable little game, and having played the original board games I understand the reasoning behind much of it!
Maybe I just like winning-it's hard to lose to yourself!
what's your favorite army?
mine's Mordor. It's amazing what you can pull with it, even if you get to draw the dragon as your last card (which seems to happen to me more often than not...)
mine's Mordor. It's amazing what you can pull with it, even if you get to draw the dragon as your last card (which seems to happen to me more often than not...)
So what! We have Dark Knight's permission, after all!
Mordor's probably my favourite army too-although I've had some fun with custom armies with the minimal infantry and as many heavy cavalry as I can afford!
Well, when I get a moment I'll download that Europa stuff........and maybe, just maybe, if I can find all the rules, challenge you!
C'mon and try me, dude
I like my meat minced REAL fine
A piece of advice on trying Europa out:
The smaller games aren't much fun because they're either one-sided (First to Fight - Poland 39, Balkan Front - Yugo/Greece 41) or more valuable as part of the whole monster Grand Europa (War in the Desert - North Africa 40-43, wrong scale) than by themselves.
Winter War (Finland 39-40) is OK, but you'll grow tired of it quite quickly. Nice for first tries, though.
By far the best is to start as part of a team playing Fire in the East / Scorched Earth. That one's a real beast, but what fun! And I've yet to see a better game on that subject.
Second Front (Italy/France/Germany 43-45): wait till you've played a few other games first. I've played 4-5 games of that one with two friends with a combined (the three of us) Europa experience of maybe 5-6000 hrs (not a typo) and it's still taking us a couple hours to go through a combat phase with a couple of attacks during the bridgehead part of the fighting (the only thing more amazing than the kind of defense the Germans can setup around the beachheads is that the Allies can actually attack those flak-saturated monster stacks at reasonnable odds, but man! it takes skull sweat by the bucket!)
I'm not even mentionning amphibious landing (and that not even counting the time spent trying to understand those damn rules!)
Errr hope I didn't scare you off? SF's great, really. It's just that it's, like, if you know ASL, well, the same kind of complexity. (btw, I once knew a guy who actually used ALL the rules in ASL. Incredible but true. Playing him was more like receiving a lesson than playing. You always lost, anyway)
Oh yeah, and if you can find it, jump on Their Finest Hour. Not much ground action in that one, but as a Brit, you should find other compensations!
I like my meat minced REAL fine
A piece of advice on trying Europa out:
The smaller games aren't much fun because they're either one-sided (First to Fight - Poland 39, Balkan Front - Yugo/Greece 41) or more valuable as part of the whole monster Grand Europa (War in the Desert - North Africa 40-43, wrong scale) than by themselves.
Winter War (Finland 39-40) is OK, but you'll grow tired of it quite quickly. Nice for first tries, though.
By far the best is to start as part of a team playing Fire in the East / Scorched Earth. That one's a real beast, but what fun! And I've yet to see a better game on that subject.
Second Front (Italy/France/Germany 43-45): wait till you've played a few other games first. I've played 4-5 games of that one with two friends with a combined (the three of us) Europa experience of maybe 5-6000 hrs (not a typo) and it's still taking us a couple hours to go through a combat phase with a couple of attacks during the bridgehead part of the fighting (the only thing more amazing than the kind of defense the Germans can setup around the beachheads is that the Allies can actually attack those flak-saturated monster stacks at reasonnable odds, but man! it takes skull sweat by the bucket!)
I'm not even mentionning amphibious landing (and that not even counting the time spent trying to understand those damn rules!)
Errr hope I didn't scare you off? SF's great, really. It's just that it's, like, if you know ASL, well, the same kind of complexity. (btw, I once knew a guy who actually used ALL the rules in ASL. Incredible but true. Playing him was more like receiving a lesson than playing. You always lost, anyway)
Oh yeah, and if you can find it, jump on Their Finest Hour. Not much ground action in that one, but as a Brit, you should find other compensations!
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Originally posted by Sire Enaique
C'mon and try me, dude
I like my meat minced REAL fine
I tend to learn games by playing the largest, most monstrous scenario around! I learned WiF by playing the entire war.
So come on and try me!
There's one thing about WiF though, over Europa.....at least you can play the entire war!
Errr, well, it's THEORETICALLY possible to play the whole war. (at least in Europe, I'm not sure the Pacific games were finished).
I know of at least one group who played a 1943 ETO scenario, at least it's a start...
And I'm pretty sure Grand Europa is actually more playable than CNA
I know of at least one group who played a 1943 ETO scenario, at least it's a start...
And I'm pretty sure Grand Europa is actually more playable than CNA
Originally posted by Sire Enaique
And I'm pretty sure Grand Europa is actually more playable than CNA
I've lost track here-demonstrating my ignorance of course, but what's CNA again.
Still, in a few days........we'll see about PMing you a challenge.
Where's Dark Knight to shut us down-no one else is participating here.
It just means this Thread is OURS! ALL OURS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
CNA is Campaign for North Africa, one of the last (true) SPI games, a company/battalion level game of (guess what?) North Africa 1940-42.
It's the only game ever made that I know of to have realistic supply rules.
So it's like, you must manage items like POL, water, ammo, food, spare parts and maybe a few others. vehicles break down, so you must repair them using spare parts brought up to the field workshops by trucks that break down, too, apart from using up POL for themselves and food & water for theirs crews.
All that before firing a single shot, of course. Just getting there's a headache... (as it actually was)
And then, supposing you won a battle, you get POWs who need to be fed and brought back to POW cages thousands of miles away using up transport, and...
Oh, and if you've managed to capture ennemy vehicles, not only can you use them, but you also can modify them to suit your tastes...
I've never played it (we had plans, a few years ago...), but I've read the rules and one of my friend actually has played a small scenario.
Nobody ever reported completing a game, even the playtesters.
CNA is Campaign for North Africa, one of the last (true) SPI games, a company/battalion level game of (guess what?) North Africa 1940-42.
It's the only game ever made that I know of to have realistic supply rules.
So it's like, you must manage items like POL, water, ammo, food, spare parts and maybe a few others. vehicles break down, so you must repair them using spare parts brought up to the field workshops by trucks that break down, too, apart from using up POL for themselves and food & water for theirs crews.
All that before firing a single shot, of course. Just getting there's a headache... (as it actually was)
And then, supposing you won a battle, you get POWs who need to be fed and brought back to POW cages thousands of miles away using up transport, and...
Oh, and if you've managed to capture ennemy vehicles, not only can you use them, but you also can modify them to suit your tastes...
I've never played it (we had plans, a few years ago...), but I've read the rules and one of my friend actually has played a small scenario.
Nobody ever reported completing a game, even the playtesters.