From: Francois Charton <deef@POBOX.OLEANE.COM>
Subject:      Re: SPI Compendium - Con't

D. Holte wrote:
>
> Berlin '85
> James F. Dunnigan

Berlin 85 simulates an invasion of West Berlin by the Warsaw Pact, back
in the 80s. An excellent "modern siege" simulation, and a great solo
game; unfortunately, winning the game depends a lot on one or two lucky
die rolls, which spoils it for face to face.

The NATO player controls a few French (4), British (7) and American (10)
battalions (plus germans in another scenario), as well as a large number
of police companies (36). The WP player controls 6 divisions (each with
about 10 battalions), plus a few (8) police units.

The game system is quite simple: WP player moves and fights, then NATO,
units have zones of control and combat is mandatory. Some chrome has been
added: bridge demolition, collateral damage (ie hexes being ruined
because of artillery concentration), but altogether, the game plays very
fast, even though there is quite a number of units on the map. As
expected in such terrain, the combat CRT is extremely bloody: many shifts
for the defender, and a lot of exchange results.

The game ends after 16 turns or (which always happens) when Berlin falls.
At the beginning of each turn, the WP player has the possibility of offer
"honors of war", which may result in either a combat shift for next turn,
a cease fire (next turn is skipped), nothing or a surrender. The
likeliness of surrender depends on how many NATO units have been
eliminated, and how many "objective hexes" are controlled by the Warsaw
Pact. In fact, a standard game is more around 5-7  real game turns long.

When the city falls, victory levels depends on the number of WP military
units on the map, times a factor which decreases as time passes: the
sooner the better.

So WP strategy is: be very offensive so as to accumulate as many
surrender points as possible, so that the city falls early; but do not
lose too many units in the process, as this reduces your victory level.

Terrain can make this very difficult if the NATO player uses it well.
Combat shifts are impressive: a unit in a ruined urban hex, attacked
through water hexsides (and there are many of them in Berlin!) get a
defensive shift of seven columns, on a table which has 12 columns (and
there are NO offensive shifts, except on the first game turn and when a
unit is unsupplied).

Altogether, this makes a fast moving simulation, which gives a good
insight of modern city combat.


However, as with many siege games, Berlin 85 is more a good solo
simulation than a real two player game.

First, the NATO player does not have many things to do: use the terrain
at best, and wait for the Reds to come. He has very little opportunity
for counterattack (both because of the terrain and the lack of
combat-worthy units).

Second, there is too much luck involved. The main reason for this is the
surrender system. A lucky WP player can win the game in one turn, and
this will always be a decisive victory. Even when the number of surrender
point is highest, there is 1 chance out of four that a surrender offfer
will actually have adverse results on the WP player.

Third, the surrender system makes the game length very unpredictable. I
have played quite a few which ended in one turn: the WP player was lucky
on the first game turn, and accumulated enough surrender points, then
rolled a city fall on the surrender table.

This importance of luck makes Berlin 85 an excellent game for arguments
and player misbehaviour... To cure this I'd suggest either a tournament
mode: playing many games in a row (quite feasible given the fact most
games stop after just a few turns: 1 hour games should be common), or
modifying the honor of war table to make it less random.

For those interested, here are the probabilities of outcomes on the honor
of war table:
(sp=surrender points; natosh= nato shift, wpsh=wp shift,...)

sp      6_10    11_15   16_20   21_25   26_30   31_35   36_40   41+
natosh  45%     35%     25%     16%     9%      5%      2%      0%
wpsh    38%     38%     34%     26%     19%     12%     6%      2%
cease   11%     17%     23%     30%     32%     31%     28%     22%
nothing 0%      0%      0%      2%      6%      12%     19%     25%
surr    6%      11%     19%     26%     33%     40%     45%     50%

I'd suggest reajusting the table for 1d6, like this:

surr pts 6-15 1-3= nato shift, 4-6 wp shift
surr pts 16-20 1-2= nato shift, 3-4 wp shift, 5-6 cease fire
surr pts 21-30 1-2= wp shift, 3-4 cease fire, 5-6 surrender
surr pts 31-40 1-3= cease fire, 4-6 surrender
surr pts 41+   1-3 nothing, 4-6 surrender

(note that this table increases a little the probability of surrender,
maybe unbalancing the game in favour of the warsaw pact).

Francois