Exactly the same victory conditions as No Retreat: Russian Front!
Yeah this isn’t coming out in “2020”.
My favorite quote from that thread, from a poster:
So, Gary said that the complexity of WitE2 will be 10x as for WitP.
But then, why spend 4 or 5 years in the development of a wargame in which at least 30% of the simulation will take place through abstract (and extremely complex) theater boxes?
I wish they had gone back and made WitP2 (which is by far and away the most popular game on the Matrix forum, and their best game) instead of spending over a decade (WITE came out in 2010!) futzing over European titles.
I’m curious to know what the state of Steel Tigers is. Especially if the team is having health issues and a part time programmer hasn’t been able to focus on the project as much. I’m wondering if that (part-timer) is Pavel, or someone they have working with Pavel on wite2. I thought Gary was supposed to be working on Steel Tigers.
I dunno. No one is getting rich on this, though, so maybe Gary Grigsby really enjoys “perfecting” his East Front model. Who knows. At this level of renumeration (i.e. not much) it probably makes sense to work on what you most enjoy and not what is the most logical seller. Maybe they can get more help on WitE. Whatever works for them. The game design itself has gotten so stagnant, but that’s ok, too, because in the end, these things have gotten so far away from being games and so far along toward being historical holodecks for the imagination that it’s all about whatever historical verisimilitude they can create for the audience that likes this stuff. Computer gamers get really snippy about board wargames being too abstract, but when the people who play computer games are ok with whackadoodle things like Snowbarossa, it just means they’re responding to different stimuli. In the end, in both places, the history is where you can get it.
Speaking of historical abstraction…
MOAR EMPIRE OF THE SUN
Here is where people who try to learn Empire of the Sun get confused, so I’ll explain this part in detail:
I now move my activated units. The naval units get 5 movement points (MP) per Ops point. The ground units get 1 MP per Ops point. The air units get one “leg” of movement per Ops point. What is an “Ops point?” It’s the number on the top left corner of the card I just played. Recall that it’s a “3.”
That means my naval units get 15 MP, my ground unit gets 3 MP, and my air units get 3 “legs” to use their extended range (the red number on the middle right side). Each leg must begin and end at an air base. So for my 2nd Army Air Wing in Peiping (for example), it has an extended range of 4. For its first leg it moves three hexes to Shanghai. For its second leg it moves three hexes to Tainan (on Formosa). With its third leg it moves three hexes to Clark Field on the Philippines. It is now within range of Manila, and I can declare Manila a battle hex and include that unit and the activated unit that started in that hex, the 5th Air Wing. That’s 44 combat factors against Manila and that means problems for the USA.
My air fleets from Formosa go first to Hanoi, then to Kota Bharu, while the Saigon air fleet flies to Kuala Lumpur. That’s 20 + 16 + 16 = 52 combat factors over Singapore, which is my second battle hex.
My army in Hong Kong is a ground unit, so it gets three MP, right? Yes, if it were moving by ground. But it isn’t – it’s going to invade Borneo. That means it needs to use Amphibious Assault, and thus moves like a naval unit. Thus, it gets 15 MP, and moves over water hexsides only. It sails southwest from Hong Kong so that it is three hexes from the Philippines, then sails south to the northeastern tip of Borneo, then around the Borneo coast until it gets to the target, Bandjermasin. Note that this is THREE hexes away from the Dutch air in Tjilitjap, and thus outside its AZOI as well. Since there is no Allied unit in the hex. I do not need to declare it as a battle hex. I just invade.
The path is important. Note the under rule 6.4 Aircraft Zone of Influence on p. 12, it states that, “Ground units conducting amphibious assault may not enter or exit a ZOI (8.44).” This is actually a typo: the rule itself is actually 8.45 B, on p. 18. It states: “An Amphibious Assault unit may not enter or exit a hex within an un-neutralized opposing aircraft Zone Of Influence.”
I could do one of two things here. The first would be to send an aircraft carrier to Hong Kong and escort the 17th Army through any AZOI. But the problem with that is even though my card is a 3-Ops, that only gets me 15 movement points. And the closest CV can’t get to Hong Kong and then to my intended invasion hex with 15 MP. So the second option is to stay out of any AZOI. That I am able to do. Note the path from Hong Kong to Bandjermasin.
Tom actually has air units at Manila (one hex south of my Zeroes) and at Menudo (two hexes south of CVL Zuiho). But my Zeroes neutralize the AZOI around Manila in the hexes traversed by my 17th Army, as does the Zuiho for the bomber based at Menudo. Note that even though the Zuiho is not activated for this operation, its AZOI still counts. The unit itself hasn’t gone to sleep–it’s still carrying out routine ops, and its air contingent neutralizes the Allied air (which also isn’t activated, btw).
Had the invasion hex been within the AZOI of one of Tom’s units, AND within the reaction range of one of his headquarters units, Tom could have made a “Special Reaction” die roll (see 7.27 on p. 14) and, if successful, he could have placed a battle marker on the hex. He could then have reacted a naval unit in there, and because I had no escorting naval unit, I would have had to turn back (and would have lost a step, which on that reduced army would have resulted in its destruction).
But the hex is outside of AZOI, so Tom is helpless there. He can only make a reaction roll for the rest of my operation, which has to be less than or equal to the “Intel value” on my card. Because it is a large operation, it’s pretty easy to detect. Tom just has to roll a 0-7 on a d10 to succeed. Because I moved within his AZOI at some point in my move (in this case, I moved aggressively into his AZOI in several cases) he gets a -2 to his die roll. That should mean he can’t fail, but because a “9” is always a failure on Intel rolls, he just needs to roll 0-8. Which he does.
Tom now gets to activate one HQ and use its Efficiency value plus the Ops value of the card I used for my operation to activate units. Here is his problem: he can activate the Malaya HQ (Wavell). That HQ can only activate Commonwealth units. He can activate the Dutch HQ (ter Poorten) in Tjilitjap. That HQ can only activate Dutch units. He can activate the SW Pacific HQ (MacArthur). That HQ can only activate US units. (Hey, what about SEAC? Sorry – there is no battle hex within its command range (10 hexes). So it canna do nuthin’. Same with the US CentPac HQ at Pearl Harbor.)
This is what I see as part of the genius of Empire of the Sun. If there were an Allied HQ that could activate multiple nationalities, it could send units of different nationalities to different battle hexes. Certain people here have (with some justification) complained about the power of ABDA (the joint American-British-Dutch-Australian command) in terms of activating units, but to me, it’s not about what ABDA can do as much as what you can’t do without ABDA: generate a coordinated response. The resistance in the Far East can only be described as heroic (you should read some of the Dutch accounts) but they were in no way able to effectively resist the Japanese, and neither is the Allied player if the Japanese player plays effectively. But with mistakes … the resistance might get stronger. That’s the kind of thing that a game needs to allow in order to punish mistakes, and the activation problem is an elegant illustration of this. While playing Empire of the Sun, there will be time after time when you think, “that’s a pretty neat way of showing that.” This is one of those times.
I am the referred to “Certain People” and I hereby take this bait and swallow it whole.
I actually have no problem with ABDA “as is”, prior to the fall of Singapore. Singapore’s fall immediately led the US to abandon ABDA as a going concern, as the US immediately dropped any participation in ABDA (since the “B” in “ABDA” was eliminated and was the lynchpin of the whole affair, or certainly considered as such by Stimson, Leahy, Marshall and everyone else making strategic decisions for the US). Seeing any of the Enterprise, Lady Lex and the North Carolina basing in Sumatra after Singapore’s fall enters the historical fiction realm for me.
All other permutations of ABDA in the game are spot-on, historically.
But that’s just a quibble.
Edit: I also have no problem with ABDA “as is” if Singapore holds through Spring 1942. Heading into Summer 1942 with Singapore hanging on and ABDA a going concern could very well change US perception going forward even after ABDA becomes “ADA”.
Overall though, I prefer ABBA.
I think I agree with erring on the side of ‘giving people options’ in questions like this ant not just forcing ABDA out of the game once Singapore falls. It’s a fairly reasonable way for a part of the map that’s normally mostly empty to be used in an interesting way and forces the Japanese to consider their southern flank more.
I don’t think it should be forced out at all after Singapore’s fall (in Spring 42). I just think the US being able to send its only CVs/BBs to Sumatra if that occurs turns the game from “Empire of the Sun” into “Victory in the Pacific” for a turn.
Perhaps, though this is a game that also lets you sit MacArthur in India and try to launch a US offensive from there if you want.
But that is was viable and considered (the War Department Plans folks actually thought about that).
I though about it, but decided he is better in Darwin.
Empire of the Sun is hitting that sweet spot for me. I appreciate the relatively low counter density and the tense decision space. Everything counts. You’re not moving stacks and stacks and basically relocating your entire army each turn. Every little bit is at the cost of an operation. I really appreciate that. Maybe because I am just a simple guy deep down I like having my decisions boiled down to crucial plays.
Historical fidelity? I’m not a scholar so I can’t speak to that but as a guy that’s at least heard of World War II and can understand the distinct between the European Theater of Operations and the Pacific Theater at a basic level it feels pretty good to me.
Computer gamers get really snippy about board wargames being too abstract, but when the people who play computer games are ok with whackadoodle things like Snowbarossa, it just means they’re responding to different stimuli.
Did you take a poll of “computer gamers”? To be honest, you wrote it better than anyone quite a few years ago
Wargames are, like all games, ultimately about our imaginations. The ahistorical outcomes in most wargames arise from avoiding known historical mistakes. But creating rules to restrict these outcomes eventually leads to games which do nothing but pantomime history, which limits the extent of imagination. A good wargame lets players play, and in order to do that it has to be somewhat elastic. When gamers stretch that elastic, weird things can happen. But that’s the difference between, for example, a historical wargame and a historical sports replay game. The latter is set up to have a predetermined outcome. The closer it comes to this outcome, the better a game it is. A wargame with a predetermined outcome is a re-enactment, not a game.
My favorite quote from that thread, from a poster:
A bit of a bullshit post, honestly. WitW already has one huge theater box where 80% of the game “actually happens”, while the western allies get bogged down. They called it the “eastern front box”. Theater boxes are that concept revised, and tied in with the event engine. So the “gameplay” for that is basically that you need to strike a balance between the “combat power needs” of the theaters, abstracting what as far as I know has only been tried by WiF.
Which has lots of abstraction too, but at least doesn’t revel in the “whackadoodle” as Axis & Allies/Panzer General computer clones revel in, like a pig in the mud. Parachute drops over Paris in May 1940 to support armored spearheads come to mind… luftlandschlacht doctrine was invented by the Nazi Wehrmacht generalstab after all and copied by NATO, right? :)
Regarding complexity… in terms of the gameplay, and from what I see in the playtesting, the major complexity increase for the players lies in placing depots and prioritising supply across these and their forces. So folks can shoot themselves in the foot in pretty much the same way that in OCS you can do that too. Challenge is to give the players fairly clear and advance warning that they are taking a dump on their chances (and some important work on this has already happened on the UI).
Is the result of the WITW system of Theater boxes, WITE minus the naval aspects an order of complexity more complex for the player? Gary was definitely talking about the development effort.
I tend to think this was a challenge that Gary and Pavel put onto their shoulders, as Bruce said before, pretty much because they found an intrinsic motivation for it. Forum opinions, digital tastemakers/influencers, and I would say that players too, were quite irrelevant into that decision-making process. Does that make sense?
There will be some AI routines - and “AI” isn’t a synonym for “magical” they just implement a “recipe” copied from playtesters - to help people get into the game (same thing for the aerial operations). For a small team is a big ask, and a test imo of how serious they are about their game, that they spend substantial effort in making the game more approachable and manageable for new players, knowing that the feature in question will be likely abandoned by most players that stick with the game, as we all left behind the side wheels on our bikes at some point.
WitP2 (which is by far and away the most popular game on the Matrix forum, and their best game) instead of spending over a decade (WITE came out in 2010!) futzing over European titles.
WITP2 already exists, it is called WITP:AE and still is played by quite a few brave souls. I think it would be a quite hard sell to come with a complete shakedown of the old WITP codebase, if not a rewrite, fill in the glaring blanks in the original WITP release, and then ask to a bunch of gamers to buy again pretty much the same game.
Same applies to WITE2, by the way, and it is my major worry about it at the moment.
Give WITP:AE a decent interface that lets you manage tedious crap like pilot training and convoys easily, a working land combat model and a basic AI that doesn’t spaz out after 1944 and even the most curmudgeonly WITP grog will jump at it. It is in much more need of an upgrade than WITE.
But if that’s not 2by3’s bag, then that’s fine, but I still wish they would do it.
I am sorry to say Compass games is going on my “Wont buy from again” list.
Trying to play Hearts and Minds 3rd edition with the solo rules, which are broken. I discover that they are refusing to post the fixed rules online as a pdf (the designer wants to) as it might let owners of the older editions get the game for “free”.
What a crock of shit.
Sorry rant over. This kind of bullshit really pisses me off.
How exactly are you supposed to get them? Snail mail? Order another copy of the game? Rain dance?
You dont. You get to wade through the errata (which is also wrong as the designer has noted). Or you can wade through some BGG threads and try and guess how to play.
The solo rules in the box simply are wrong. The designer has admitted this and accepted blame (although he implies this is Compass’s mess up and I believe him). He asked “Bill” (I guess some dude at Compass?) if he could post the pdf rules and “Bill” refuses.
I am happy to make my own rules, and one way or another I am going to get my fun our of this game. But Compass isnt getting any more of my money unless they fix this. I mean I have already had to scribble on two cards to fix the printing errors and some counters to fix THOSE errors. I am not even demanding they mail me replacement parts , they have already informed the developer they will not be fixing these components so it would be pointless.
I just want the damn rules fixed and put online. It doesnt seem like a big ask.
Its a real mess.
They’ve been on that list for me since Korea Fire and Ice’s debacle release.
I hear Rumor of a War maybe even worse!