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Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East

 
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Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/10/2012 11:17:25 PM   
BletchleyGeek


Posts: 4713
Joined: 11/26/2009
From: Living in the fair city of Melbourne, Australia
Status: offline 		I've been following for some time the series Bruce Geryk is running on Tom Chick's site, Quarter to Three, and I must say I think it's one of the most interesting and deep analysis of WitE game mechanics I've ever seen. On top of that, it's beautifully written (or at least, his writing quite appeals to my personal taste).

His last entry in the series deals with the problems of scale and discusses the uncanny similarities (and huge differences) between WitE and Mark Simonitch's 1992 Campaign to Stalingrad just a couple examples



and



This particular paragraph of his article sums up quite well one major design issue that 2by3 had to address with WitE, that of scope vs. detail

quote:


That is a factual account of my capture of Sevastopol on Turn 1 of this scenario, as evidenced by the above screenshot. But it also illustrates that theater-scale games like this sacrifice a lot of drama in detail for drama in scope. And this is a big problem with Stalingrad games, where the battle for the city is dwarfed by the scale of the campaign’s landmass. If the battle for Sevastopol is diminished by reduction to a single combat over one hex, what about Stalingrad? That city is just a single hex on the map, also (technically it’s two, but only one is a victory location). Yet this was one of the most contested “hexes” in history, where daily gains were measured in yards. It’s a difficult game design problem to solve. Some of the attempted solutions are quite interesting.


You can find the whole thing here, and past entries telling us about his acquaintance with a veteran from 26th Panzer Division and the rather disturbing fact that J.R.R. Tolkien could well pass as a relative of Erich Von Manstein.

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/10/2012 11:29:10 PM   
Helpless


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quote:

I think it's one of the most interesting and deep analysis of WitE game mechanics I've ever seen. On top of that, it's beautifully written (or at least, his writing quite appeals to my personal taste).


Yes, probably the best reviews on WITE I've read..

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/11/2012 12:16:47 AM   
Peltonx


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Joined: 4/9/2006
Status: offline 		Cool thanks for posting that.

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/11/2012 2:45:13 AM   
ceremony

 

Posts: 10
Joined: 9/13/2011
Status: offline 		Thanks a lot for the comments and the thread link. I'd love to hear feedback, positive or negative. Anything constructive is welcome.

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/11/2012 9:34:25 AM   
morvael


Posts: 11762
Joined: 9/8/2006
From: Poland
Status: offline 		That guy's reviews made me buy WitE, and it was worthy purchase!

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/11/2012 9:50:54 AM   
Apollo11


Posts: 24082
Joined: 6/7/2001
From: Zagreb, Croatia
Status: offline 		Hi all,

quote:

ORIGINAL: ceremony

Thanks a lot for the comments and the thread link. I'd love to hear feedback, positive or negative. Anything constructive is welcome.


Bruce, just as Pavel wrote above - good review!


Leo "Apollo11"

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/11/2012 7:37:24 PM   
Scook_99

 

Posts: 301
Joined: 6/20/2007
Status: offline 		I have an unhealthy amount of interest in the Battle of the Crimea, 1941-42. What happened here is a microcosm of the whole Eastern Front: epic battles with the Axis heavily outnumbered but pull the bacon out of the fire by having better training and intelligence, along with leadership that jumped all over mistakes the Soviets and prevailed...at a high price. This is one area that has actually made me consider doing game design.

As far as having mini-maps in a game to represent cities battles within a larger scope, it would be difficult to pull off, and would be extremely fun if possible. In WitE, you would be able to see why you keep your tanks moving through clear and light woods and away from cities. Yes, it's not just the armored units, every formation pays a horrible toll in street fights, aka, the German pioneers. Great review of WitE!

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/12/2012 12:23:28 AM   
BletchleyGeek


Posts: 4713
Joined: 11/26/2009
From: Living in the fair city of Melbourne, Australia
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Scook_99

I have an unhealthy amount of interest in the Battle of the Crimea, 1941-42. What happened here is a microcosm of the whole Eastern Front: epic battles with the Axis heavily outnumbered but pull the bacon out of the fire by having better training and intelligence, along with leadership that jumped all over mistakes the Soviets and prevailed...at a high price. This is one area that has actually made me consider doing game design.


It's not a battle which has received much attention from wargame designers. A current game covering it is Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. While the game engine is quite solid - and flexible enough to allow you model certain "soft" operational events through a card-driven system - I feel that too little research/work went into force and unit modeling. If you want to try your chops at modeling the campaign, you might want to give it a try.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Scook_99
As far as having mini-maps in a game to represent cities battles within a larger scope, it would be difficult to pull off, and would be extremely fun if possible. In WitE, you would be able to see why you keep your tanks moving through clear and light woods and away from cities. Yes, it's not just the armored units, every formation pays a horrible toll in street fights, aka, the German pioneers. Great review of WitE!


As I commented on Bruce's post over at Quarter To Three, it's not only fun: it also allows to portray quite faithfully the fact that what was a large scale tactical engagement - the battle for the city of Stalingrad itself - had a major operational impact - tying down significant numbers of German units in a small area weakening the flanks. That was a quite neat design, in my humble opinion.

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RE: Bruce Geryk's take on War In The East - 12/12/2012 7:05:20 PM   
jwduquette1

 

Posts: 110
Joined: 3/5/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

On top of that, it's beautifully written (or at least, his writing quite appeals to my personal taste).


I see what you mean. Great write-up with a lot of unanticipated humor by the author. Great stuff...

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