Subject: Re: SPI's War in Europe/War in the Pacific From: bprobst@ibm.net (Bruce Probst) On Wed, 7 Jul 1999 01:30:29 +0200, "Christian Schlobach" wrote: >I tried to find out more about SPI's War in Europe/War in the Pacific >but without much success. Grognard.com has no review on them so I hope >somebody here would share his or her thoughts on these games. If somebody >could post a (mini-)review I'd aprreciate it. What I am especially >interested in is how they relate to to the competition, e.g. AH's >Advanced Third Reich/Empire of the Rising Sun, TSR/SPI's ETO/PTO or >ADG's World in Flames. Are WIE/WITP still worth playing or are they >hopelessly out of date? First off, despite the similarity in names, WIE is *nothing* like WITP. WIE is a huge, dumb game. It's attraction is in its size and scope; the actual rules are so mundane it's almost painful. That's OK, if you like your games simple. (Personally, I prefer a bit more meat in my games, but there you are.) WITP is the opposite in almost every respect (except for size; it's BIGGER than WIE). While not going to quite the same extremes of detail as, say, Campaign For North Africa, it comes close. From memory (I haven't seen a copy of the game in something like 15 years, alas), basic ground unit scale was divisions, with possible breakdowns into brigades/regiments etc. Aircraft are measured in groups of 10 (planes), differentiated by make and model. Ships are individual capital ships and cruisers; destroyers etc. I think are represented in flotillas of 10. Ground combat is the simplest of the three forms of combat; the air-surface and surface-surface rules are mini-games in their own right, using tactical displays etc. However, the big bugbear is supply. If you haven't got any, you're stuffed, and you have to keep track of it in pretty precise detail. How many trains do you have spare on the Burma railway? How many riverboats can you sail up the Yangtse? How many transport aircraft do you have available to fly to New Guinea? Knowing the answers to these questions can mean the difference between winning and losing; actually fighting battles is almost irrelevant. I regard WITP as a thing of beauty and amazement, but I'd hazard a guess that it's functionally unplayable (even assuming you can find somewhere to put it; something like eleven mapsheets IIRC). WIE, for all of its rules faults, is possible to actually play in less than a lifetime. My ideal game would be a hybrid of the two rules systems. Europa comes close, but suffers from inane air rules and worse naval combat rules. WIF is the wrong scale for my tastes; just a personal preference, I prefer to push divisions around, not corps. (Admittedly WIF is much more playable than most of the alternatives.) Victory Games' "Pacific War" was a valiant attempt to make a WITP-clone on a playable scale, but I think it went too far in shrinking the map size down. It's a monster game that pretends to be a "regular" one, and that doesn't quite sit right with me. Could be a great game to play though; I own a copy, I must break out the counters one day and give it a try . ---------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Probst bprobst@ibm.net Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759 "Elf tastes just like chicken." MST3K-OZ Newsletter http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/pimlico/131/oz.html ASL FAQ http://www.tne.net.au/njh/ASL/FAQ/FAQ.html