Eastern Front please.

s_pixelgeek
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Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

I know the first game isn't technically out but I would like to toss my vote in for an Eastern Front title. I know that North Africa is the next announced title but I've always had a soft spot for East Front titles and I think that the game engine you have would do wonders to help make the huge campaigns from that front more manageable for gamers.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_nkarp »

Any particular battle or campaign?
s_pixelgeek
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

Stalingrad since it has a wide range of possible game scenarios based on the ebb and flow of the campaign and the initial German attacks and the Soviet counter-attack.

The Caucasus campaign is also an interesting choice.
jeffd
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by jeffd »

Stalingrad's an interesting possibility, although I'm not sure how well a system designed for an open-field battle of maneuver would adapt to house to house fighting. The Caucasus campaign a good one, and I think the Kharkov campaign and the initial drive on Moscow in '41 could also be interesting. Everyone always says Kursk, but it's hard to make an interesting game there.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

Kursk is just a gigantic grind. Works for small-unit scale but nothing larger I suspect. I was thinking of Stalingrad at a higher level. The real battle, outside the ASL-scale rubble battles, is in the drive to capture the city and move south and then later to defend against the Soviet counter-attacks.

I will trust your judgement re: the scale suitable for the engine though :-)
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by jeffd »

The real problem with gaming Kursk is that in retrospect the Germans never had a prayer on anything bigger than a small-unit scale. There was one decent tank fight on the southern pincer, and that was it. The Soviet defenses were so thick that I'd say it was impossible for the Germans to make any meaningful progress. They just didn't know it.

Most of the research I've done on Stalingrad has been for The Hell of Stalingrad, which was pretty abstract, or has concentrated on what you so aptly call rubble battles, so that's something I hadn't fully considered. Don't think it's the best fit we can find on the Eastern Front, though. If we did anything related to that, I'd be inclined to do a grand-level game of the entirety of Case Blue, with both Stalingrad and the Baku oil fields as objectives.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by Pat »

I'd vote for Kharkov or the drive through Smolensk to Moscow. John B mentioned on Kickstarter that he'd be interested in a Market Garden game. Stalingrad would be interesting as there was a lot more to it than just the city fighting and a number of distinct and different phases.

But since I'm always keen to learn more I'd be interested in tackling some of the lesser known but equally significant battles. Cholm is the wrong scale but facinating. The many battles of Army Group North are always overshadowed by the South but were unique in their own right.
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s_pixelgeek
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

I'd certainly not object to Market-Garden either :-)
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by Pat »

Tell you what else could be interesting . . the fall of France because they basically outgunned and outmanned the Germans. I could be wrong but it was mostly, AFAIK, down to poor leadership and doctrine.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

Pat wrote:Tell you what else could be interesting . . the fall of France because they basically outgunned and outmanned the Germans. I could be wrong but it was mostly, AFAIK, down to poor leadership and doctrine.
Doctrine more than anything I would think.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by AdmiralEggman »

jeffd wrote:Stalingrad's an interesting possibility, although I'm not sure how well a system designed for an open-field battle of maneuver would adapt to house to house fighting. The Caucasus campaign a good one, and I think the Kharkov campaign and the initial drive on Moscow in '41 could also be interesting. Everyone always says Kursk, but it's hard to make an interesting game there.
+1 for the Caucasus campaign. Feels like the right scale ad flow for this system.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by jeffd »

Pat wrote:I could be wrong but it was mostly, AFAIK, down to poor leadership and doctrine.
Add poor strategy in assuming the Germans would attack through the Low Countries, almost complete German air superiority, and the often-overlooked point of abysmal communications. The French insisted on using telephones rather than wireless, which meant that as headquarters were forced to relocate comm links were regularly broken and you were back to dispatch riders.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by John Butterfield »

These are all cool suggestions.

One of the parameters driving choices for battles in the Crisis in Command series is time scale. The games should be playable to conclusion in under 20 game turns, with each turn representing 1/2 day to 2 days of real time. In BotB, a game turn represents one day, with units getting one activation each in that time frame. How to sequence those activations is a major decision set for the players. This works in the game because it feels right historically for a unit to receive one major command a day, and that units will be operating in priority relative to other units; for example, move unit A to protect B's flank before B advances.

Applying the system to a longer battle would mean an unmanageable number of game turns or stretching the time scale out to as much as a week per game turn. The idea that a unit receives only one command and that activations occur one at a time does not hold up when a turn represents a week.

Therefore, battles or parts of battles that cover periods from 5 to 25 days are our sweet spot. El Alamein and MarketGarden fit nicely, as do several others we are kicking around, including WWI and other 20th century conflicts. Stalingrad might work if the game offered multiple battle scenarios over the same ground. Mark Herman is doing something like this with El Alamein.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_pixelgeek »

John Butterfield wrote:Stalingrad might work if the game offered multiple battle scenarios over the same ground.
I think that would be a great idea not only to keep the game manageable but also to serve to highlight the different stages of the campaign there as well as allow a "reset" of the game state to allow the creation of those historical starting points.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by Pat »

I'm all in favour of unusual or little gamed scenarios. WW1 sounds fascinating and I can picture the map art already. Just before starting with Shen I started planning a redux for the maps of Landships. We never really got on with the game but I thought the maps had huge potential.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_davidov »

How about Operation Little Saturn?
jeffd
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by jeffd »

Now there's a thought. Eric and I got a few turns into A Victory Lost and I quite enjoyed it. Might be worth digging it out again.

Ironically, the first part of Little Saturn ran from Dec. 16th to Dec. 29th, 1942. So two years before Battle of the Bulge, almost precisely.
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by Amaranthus »

Somewhat left field, but this would be a great gaming system to try some of the more dynamic WW1 battles (not machine gun mowdowns like the Somme, obviously).

First battle of the Marne is an obvious choice - things were hectic around Paris at that time, and the war was still mobile in Sept 1914. Would provide opportunities for CP and Entente.

Tannenberg Aug 1914 would work well - if the Russians avoid the trap of pushing too hard in the centre. Gorlice-Tornow June 1915 for a stunning Russian counterattack.

Nivelle Offensive in 1917 - idea of a 48-hour massed strike was interesting, but failed due to tactical German withdrawals to the Hindenberg Line.

Caporetto 1917 would introduce mountain terrain effects - Italy played it badly due to the incompetence of Cadorna, but could have a chance with a decent commander. This was also Rommel's first standout - as a Captain!

Second Marne, July 1918 - the Kaiserschlacht's new mobile tactics broke the trench deadlock, and tanks and aircraft played a major role here. Might be the single best choice?
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by s_davidov »

jeffd wrote:Now there's a thought. Eric and I got a few turns into A Victory Lost and I quite enjoyed it. Might be worth digging it out again.

Ironically, the first part of Little Saturn ran from Dec. 16th to Dec. 29th, 1942. So two years before Battle of the Bulge, almost precisely.
My interests are a bit personal My Father-in-law served in the 207th Auto Transport BN of the 3 Alpine Division- Julia 8th Italian Army... he was one of the very lucky few that got back home... He never talked much about it, but he did have a pronounced dislike for the Wehrmacht...

Anyway little is written (that i can find in English) on the Italian army in that campaign...
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Re: Eastern Front please.

Post by TexMurphy »

What about Karelia? One scenario from Winter War (39) and one from Continuation War (41)?
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