vyshka
6455
Reading through it I didn’t see it stated explicitly, is this designed by Bomba and Miranda?
Yes, it says so at the very bottom of the details section.
I shall not be backing it, methinks.
Syzygy
6457
Jealous of the EotS Bruce! Was fun following on Twitter.
I was thinking it might be interesting to play a demonstration game here on Qt3? Any takers?
Tom_Mc
6459
@Brooski
Anything Empire of the Sun I’m interested in. I’d really like to play. It’s one of those games whenever anyone comes over I like to show and see if I can entice them into playing. I’m not up to date on the rules so I’ll have to do some re reading and most importantly I have never actually played so I’m still missing the crucial step of seeing the rules in action. So we would be a pretty low starting level.
Ok, let’s play what Mark and I played: 1942 to the end of the 1943 scenario with 1943 scoring. I can play the Japanese and give you some hints.
Syzygy
6461
Damn you @Tom_Mc! ;)
If there is a second game with any folks or a fourth person is interested in doing another in parallel let me know!
Tom_Mc
6462
Sounds good I’ll be re reading the rulebook here after work today.
I’d be glad to play a second game with you, Sz.
If you haven’t played Empire of the Sun but want to follow along, the rules are here and the awesome VASSAL module by Francisco Colmenares is here. If you want to know what I think about the game, you can read my review here. But I’ll try to focus on the gameplay here with the goal of making the actual mechanics understandable.
Empire of the Sun is a card-driven game something like For the People or Paths of Glory but instead of point-to-point movement, it uses a hex grid and a very clever combat system. Mark Herman tried to convince me that because of the activation range mechanic, the game really is an area-movement game, but you can argue that one with him.
We’re playing the 1942 scenario start with the 1943 scenario end, which is what Mark and I played at Consimworld Expo last month. It gives the Japanese player the enjoyment/frustration of the whole early-42 operations puzzle, while giving the Americans some nice counterattack opportunities later. @Tom_Mc is playing the Allies and we did the first turn over live VASSAL, which took approx. 2 ½ hours.
Japanese opening hand:
(2) US Joint Staff Debate [#7]
(3) Operation C [#8]
(3) Tokyo Express [#44]
(3) War in Euope [#54]
(1) Submarine Attack / Reaction [#56]
(2) Kamikaze Attack / Reaction [#61]
(2) Kamikaze Attack / Reaction [#63]
Not a bad hand. I’ve seen much better. I’ve seen much worse.
While I do have two Military cards, they’re not that great. Operation C only allows me to activate naval units. Tokyo Express actually isn’t bad, as it gives me an extra Amphibious Shipping Point, but with a Logistics value of 4 it’s just one better than a 3-Ops card. The reason Military cards are so valuable in this game is that without one, you can only declare one Battle Hex per operation. That’s a big handicap when I’m trying to take down Manila, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies.
I also have three Reaction cards, which I almost certainly won’t be able to use as I doubt Tom will be making any attacks or even activating naval units for an operation. This leaves them as low-Ops cards to clog up my hand. The US Joint Staff Debate doesn’t do me much good as an event (it puts the US into Inter-Service Rivalry, which is basically irrelevant on the first turn of 1942) but it does allow me to draw another Strategy card. Maybe I’ll draw one of the Force cards that give me paratroopers that I managed to not draw any of in my opening hand. It also means I can draw a bonus card and thus move last (unless Tom has a bonus to draw as well). That come in handy on the first turn.
Thanks for the walk through and commentary! Please keep it going if you can!
Because it is so important to put the Philippines and Singapore headquarters out of supply on the first turn, I decide to burn my best Military card first. I can use one HQ per operation (round, card use, whatever). If I use Combined Fleet, I can get seven (7) activations: 4 Logistics on the card, plus 3 for the Efficiency value of Combined Fleet. Command Range is 13 hexes, which the VASSAL module displays nicely (shown in yellow). I need to wipe out the air units at Manila and Singapore, which will remove their Air Zone of Influence and allow me to block their supply.
My activations include the 2nd Army Air Wing (Zeros) in China, the 5th Army Air Wing in the Philippines (also Zeros), the 21st and 23rd Navy Air Fleets on Formosa (Bettys and Nells), the 22nd Navy Air Fleet in Saigon (French Indochina), the heavy cruiser Takao on Formosa, and the reduced 17th Army in Hong Kong. I’ve marked these on the screenshot below:
All seven of these are within 13 hexes of Combined Fleet. The activation path cannot go through any hexes where there is unopposed enemy Air ZOI, but that’s not a problem for me right now. After I move, I will declare battle hexes in Singapore and Manila. Note that the battle hexes do NOT have to be within activation range of the HQ I am using–just the units themselves.
Thanks for this AAR @Brooski!
Really well done, @Brooski
SamS
6470
Actual War in the East 2 news http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3933956&mpage=58
Could WITE2 provide an effective pbem replay of opponent’s turns?
Sorry, there are no plans to add in a replay. This was ruled out in WitE1, WitW, and now WitE2 as simply too hard/time consuming to provide something useful. As it is we have plenty to do.
Recent progress has been made on several fronts, literally. We’ve got all the action in the theater boxes to deal with. We’ve been balancing and hooking up parts of the air game on the map and the theater boxes (Germans lose as much in he air in Western Europe as in the east). We’ve also decided to automate pilot training (this is advanced pilot training as the basic training is done already for many of the pilots.
We recently implemented the rest of the campaign victory system. Below is the graphical info for victory (not final art) at the start of the Stalingrad to Berlin scenario (starts Nov 22 1942 with the Soviet counterattack). The Axis have a High Water Mark score of 661, which is also the current score. If the Germans reach 750 on turn 8 (the next sudden victory check), they win (this isn’t going to happen). When their points fall to 594 or lower, the initiative will switch to the Soviet side at which point the Soviet will have a score that grows over time. The Soviets will then have a chance for a sudden victory check every 3 months. Otherwise, they must beat the German High Water Mark score by the end of 1944 or the Germans win (if they do exceed the German HWM then the game can go into 1945 where there are some additional victory conditions). Points are scored by cities captured, bonus points for capturing cities by a certain time, recapturing cities, and event points (positive or negative) based on Theater Box requirements.
Lots still to do, but we are making progress.
Will there be a to the bitter end option?
No plans to include that at the moment, but it’s something that could be considered. One of the ideas of the German High Water Mark is to give a reason for the Germans to push East, and do it quickly, while giving the Soviets a reason to not run away in the early stages (or at least face a penalty if they do). If you remove the auto victory you remove some of the reasons for this, especially if you don’t make the check at the end of 1944. In fact even in the bitter end scenario we’d want to make the end of 1944 check. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t find a way to let people continue to the end after the check, but victory might be already determined. It’s very possible that this is a scenario that would be added after release. Sudden victory is not something that will be easy to achieve. We’d expect most games to make it to the Dec 1944 check.
Any idea of a date of release?
We expect it will come out in 2020, but there’s no guarantee as we’re a small group. We still have some major work to do on the air game and also the interface face-lift. We have had several health issues come up over the past year that have slowed us down. Also, one of the two programmers is part time and he’s had less time to work on the game this past year. We’re not happy it’s taken this long, but we have been making good progress recently. We didn’t expect it to take this long, but there’s a lot of new things in the game (like the Theater Boxes and the event system) that have been a considerable amount of work. The flexibility of some of these systems is off the charts, but its taking time to get it all in, working and balanced. We’re effectively now trying to balance the entire War in Europe, even though half of it is taking place via the TBs and the event system. Luckily we’ve got a great group of people working on the data and scenarios, and a handful of strong testers providing us with a lot of feedback. Gary thinks that of all his games, WitP was the most complicated to design and code, and he thinks that WitE2 is now 10x the internal complexity of WitP. Let’s just say it’s a challenge for all of us, but we’re determined to get it done.
Will there any new naval aspects of the game?
We decided to continue to abstract the naval war as it was done in WitW. The Soviets do have a naval unit in the Black Sea that provides a limited amphibious and bombardment capability (if the unit is heavily damaged it is removed from for the rest of the war). Ports project some naval power automatically based on port size, but aircraft can take control of water hexes through naval patrol air directives. This can add to the damage or block transport and cargo ships from moving troops and supplies over water. Ports can be important, but they are limited by the number of cargo ships in the area so they provide a finite and often limited supply capability.
Desperately fighting off Snowbarossa?
Maybe he meant it won’t happen between roughly equal players? I imagine an excellent German player will be able to pull it off against the normal AI setting or a weak Soviet player.
