I haven’t seen much action on these posts, so I thought I’d offer some comments as a new owner of the combined Europe-Pacific game. Four of us are playing our first game and it has taken a good deal of time to digest and in some cases wrangle over and agree on exactly what some of the rules actually mean. Mark has been most helpful in providing feedback to our questions.
Since we were printing our own map, instead of 12’ by 4’ we shrank it to fit our tabletop, so it’s 84” by 28” and this is working very well. The only issues are with some smaller/italicized print in white which we replaced with expanded print. The full-sized counters fit fine on this. The graphics on the map and the counters are very pleasing.
For anyone who is looking for a step up from the world of A&A, as we were, this game is ideal, more on the order of at least two steps up. The variety of units, the economics and production, and the approach used in combat resolution are refreshing and much more involving, but still very intuitive. A lot of new thinking has been brought in, not altogether new to gaming perhaps but in how the ideas could be adapted to a game of this scale. I already mentioned combat, which now includes front line units, reserves, leaders, enhanced integration of air with both land and naval combats, and meaningful modifiers for terrain and weather, plus armor effects and more. Paratroop units have considerable value, partisans are factored in. The USSR and USA move gradually toward declarations of war, forcing the Axis to initiate hostilities or lose the chance to capture the initiative. Speaking of “Initiative”, another element new to a game of this scale is having variable initiative on each of three fronts. Sub warfare, threats to the Atlantic lifeline and the ASW campaign are modeled effectively and interestingly.
While admittedly we’re still only halfway through our first game, as “historical” gamers we’re impressed that the European theater has been able to be played along historical lines, and the Pacific has started out that way too. China was just too tough a nut to crack, but the Japanese have expanded rapidly once initiating war with the West. Next time around we may try to stretch the design some, but the first test is whether the game can mirror the historical outcome, and it appears to be successful in that so far..
There’s only one element of the game which has given us fits, and it stems from the fact that this game, like A&A, depends heavily on die rolling to determine combat outcomes. For whatever reason, there seems to be a high propensity for dice to deliver extreme outcomes. In a real-world situation, and in games using odds tables, a 4:1 will result in a loss/retreat outcome for the defender and at worst the attacker would lose the same as the defender, though generally losses would be minimal. With dice, the outcomes are wildly unpredictable, so that in a 4:1-type situation the attacker could lose numerous key units which could blunt an entire offensive. Since this can ruin a contest that we’ve invested lots of time in, it’s something we’re giving some thought to.
One piece that has yet to be tested is the concept of tying game play to a fixed timeline. Each turn is intended to represent three months of time, and the game end time is fixed. We don’t know yet how well this works, it’s a challenge with any game, and we’re not sure that we really like the idea that everyone knows the duration of the war – certainly no one had this foreknowledge in real life. We’ll keep playing and hold judgment till we get through it.
Anyway, we really are into this game and we thank the designers for putting this together!
