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RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 3:50:27 AM

belechannas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Klydon
I saw later versions of 3R after they ripped off some ideas from WiF.

Just for the record, the designer of Advanced Third Reich and later incarnations of the game (Bruce Harper) has never played, or even laid eyes on WiF. Not once. Some players suggested he check it out, but he absolutely refused to.

His reason, when I asked him why, was (laughing): "What if I liked it?"

< Message edited by belechannas -- 6/3/2015 4:50:47 AM >

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Post #: 31

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 3:51:57 AM

Jagdtiger14

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Belechannas: I was on that A3R mailing list ('95 to '98)! I also went to Avaloncon in 1995 and 1996...was the Wooden Ships and Iron Men Champ in '96. Remember in '95 the guys from Finland?...they played well and spoke Finnish over the board...I was very impressed!

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Conflict with the unexpected: two qualities are indispensable; first, an intellect which, even in the midst of this obscurity, is not without some traces of inner light which lead to the truth; second, the courage to follow this faint light. KvC

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Post #: 32

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 4:33:13 AM

brian brian

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Bruce Harper was one helluva Third Reich player, I remember his name from being a long-time subscriber to The General. I never kept up with the game in the 90s. I started playing World in Flames in 1989 and by 1991 I never looked at Third Reich ever again, after playing it through most of the 80s including at small tournaments at my University and home state though never at any of the big tournaments.

In the early 80s I played Third Reich with my friends one turn per day every weekday. Our most epic game came down to die roll for the Battle of Berlin on the very last turn.

I even played it by mail through a 'zine where you mailed your moves to the editor and he printed the results and mailed a new issue back to you for your opponent to make his moves; there was usually a dozen games going simultaneously in each issue. At one point he wrote a review of the first edition of World in Flames, along with a similar game called East Wind Rain. Most of us didn't notice though. My first game of WiF was in 3rd edition.

It was a really great game. A grand strategic level game of a humongous 6 year war but on par with the operational AH Classics in that the limited scope made it simple to discuss openings and on into mid-game strategy.

About the only thing I would want out of the game now would be to watch an AI-vs-AI match scroll by on the screen. I'd probably buy some Two Hearted Ale and make some popcorn for that. Two Hearted is to beer as World in Flames is to wargames.

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Post #: 33

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 5:16:27 AM

belechannas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

Bruce Harper was one helluva Third Reich player, I remember his name from being a long-time subscriber to The General.

Fun fact: Bruce was also a Master-level chess player, and a moderately big deal on the Canadian chess scene from what I gather.

He also designed Advanced Civilization and Wrasslin'.

quote:

I never kept up with the game in the 90s. I started playing World in Flames in 1989 and by 1991 I never looked at Third Reich ever again, after playing it through most of the 80s including at small tournaments at my University and home state though never at any of the big tournaments.

In the early 80s I played Third Reich with my friends one turn per day every weekday. Our most epic game came down to die roll for the Battle of Berlin on the very last turn.

Yeah, we had games like that too. The problem was, in the era before email and web-based information, that getting answers to rules questions (and there were *a lot* of gray areas in the first and even later editions) took forever.

Being in Junior High School, my friends and I had some MAJOR rules arguments. I learned rules-lawyering from trying to play the first edition of Third Reich...

I think I discovered WiF 3 some time between 1985 and 1987. I never really had a steady group of people to play with, though, and got back into Advanced Third Reich when play-by-email became a thing in 90's (A3R was designed to be PBM/PBEM friendly, and even had some instructions in the rules).

On the whole, I think I liked WiF 3 or 4 a lot more than the later versions, which piled on detail at levels that were extremely dubious given the scale of the game, while at the same time obscuring the elegance of the basic design with a lot rules that were neither elegant nor even effective at what they were trying to do.

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Post #: 34

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 5:22:05 AM

brian brian

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Chrome is so irresistible. I've met some great WiF players that play Classic though.

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Post #: 35

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 5:40:02 AM

CrusssDaddy

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Speaking of East Wind Rain, anyone here play it? Looking at it on BGG, it looks very odd but somehow charming...

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Post #: 36

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 6:22:10 AM

belechannas

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I bought it when it came out, but was unable to make enough sense out of the rules to play it solo. I wrote about 10 pages of Q&A to the publisher, and they eventually answered about half. It seemed like an extremely unfinished and half-baked product.

I'd recommend Fire in the Sky as a far superior product at a comparable scale.

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Post #: 37

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 6:27:33 AM

paulderynck

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Like many others I was a dedicated 3R player in the early 80s and then along came WiF and the 3R game boxes (somehow I ended up with two copies) have been in storage ever since.

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Post #: 38

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 6:38:37 AM

CrusssDaddy

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Fire in the Sky looks gorgeous, but a review says it features no production, which is my favorite part :(

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Post #: 39

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 6:58:07 AM

Rasputitsa

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quote:

I am running it on Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit, is there any way of slowing down the AI movements of units?

Bo

I think DOSBox has key commands to set frame-rate and cycle speed, but it is years since I first set them up and 'age hath it's privileges', but memory is not one of them. I'll look at the set-up and see if I can remember how it's adjusted.

I have kept 'War in Russia', Third Reich' and other titles, going on all my laptop and desktop computers right up to Windows 8.1, although I only play them occasionally, just to remind myself what real games look like. I am a fan of WEGO, which some of these games use and, to my mind, this is the only way to play, giving a realistic uncertainty in a game world of 20/20 hindsight.

The more modern alternatives are Frank Hunter's games 'Piercing Fortress Europa' and 'Campaigns of the Danube 1805-1809', both using WEGO, I can take manual movement of unit counters in a grand strategic game like WiF, representing weeks, or months, of real time planning, but not shoveling countless units in weekly turns, such as WiTE and WiTW, no commander ever had direct command of all his units in this way.

WEGO represents the need to work through subordinate commanders and, in this, some of the older games are much more realistic than modern offerings, even if they are clunky, quirky and very frustrating, war is hell.

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Post #: 40

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 7:11:08 AM

belechannas

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Lack of production seems to be a feature of many of the PTO games I would classify as successful:

Victory in the Pacific
Pacific War (Victory Games)
Empire of the Sun (GMT)
Fire in the Sky (MMP)

While we're on the subject of 3rd Reich and the Pacific theater, anybody remember Pearl Harbor by GDW? Came out in 1978, IIRC. This was John Prados' original attempt at porting the 3rd Reich system to the Pacific. With the second edition rules (can't remember if 1978 was the original pub date, or the 2nd edition pub date), it was quite playable, and had a definite 3rd Reich strategic flavor to it. Main problem for me was that the air/naval combat system, while upgraded from Third Reich, still felt clunky and wrong.

It had chrome, though! There was an optional system for determining which Japanese service (Army or Navy) had the upper hand in the political sphere (win a victory on the Emperor's birthday for a +1 on the Imperial Decision Table!), and also an optional system for tracking Axis progress in Europe that could lead to the Tirpitz sailing into the Indian Ocean in 1943...

The production and economic system was nearly identical to those in Third Reich.

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Post #: 41

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 7:30:18 AM

Jagdtiger14

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Anyone play the wooden block WWII game by Columbia Games? I played it once a long while back and really liked it...fog of war element was awesome!

< Message edited by Jagdtiger14 -- 6/3/2015 8:31:55 AM >

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Post #: 42

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 8:10:45 AM

belechannas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: bo

I am running it on Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit, is there any way of slowing down the AI movements of units?

Bo

I poked around a little.

In the DOSBox subdirectory, there is a file called dosbox.conf that contains a lot of settings. Use Notepad or a similar text editor to modify it.

The settings are all explained in the file. About 1/4 of the way through the file are settings for CPU emulation.

I changed the setting "cycles" to be "fixed 16000" and it made the game progress very noticeably slower.

cycles=fixed 16000

Nothing magical about the value 16000, you could try smaller or larger values.

Also, while in-game, you can adjust this setting using Ctrl+F11 (slow down) or Ctrl+F12 (speed up).

By default, Ctrl+F11 changes the CPU clock rate by -20%, and Ctrl+F12 increases the CPU clock rate by +10%. Those values also can be changed, as explained in the file.

When I play in windowed mode, the clock speed is displayed on the top bar of the window.

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Post #: 43

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 4:20:00 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: belechannas

quote:

ORIGINAL: bo

I am running it on Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit, is there any way of slowing down the AI movements of units?

Bo

I poked around a little.

In the DOSBox subdirectory, there is a file called dosbox.conf that contains a lot of settings. Use Notepad or a similar text editor to modify it.

The settings are all explained in the file. About 1/4 of the way through the file are settings for CPU emulation.

I changed the setting "cycles" to be "fixed 16000" and it made the game progress very noticeably slower.

cycles=fixed 16000

Nothing magical about the value 16000, you could try smaller or larger values.

Also, while in-game, you can adjust this setting using Ctrl+F11 (slow down) or Ctrl+F12 (speed up).

By default, Ctrl+F11 changes the CPU clock rate by -20%, and Ctrl+F12 increases the CPU clock rate by +10%. Those values also can be changed, as explained in the file.

When I play in windowed mode, the clock speed is displayed on the top bar of the window.

Hi belechannas appreciate you looking into this I am pretty good when I use osmosis to solve problems

I tried f/11 but it does not seem to matter and I am leery going into the sub routines to change my cpu as it might effect my cpu in other programs, could that happen?

Bo

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Post #: 44

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 6:11:17 PM

Ostwindflak

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My wife bought me A World At War this past Christmas. I am looking forward to opening the shrink wrap and diving in to it soon. I was wondering if any of you guys here have played it?

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Post #: 45

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/3/2015 10:01:25 PM

Klydon

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quote:

ORIGINAL: belechannas

While we're on the subject of 3rd Reich and the Pacific theater, anybody remember Pearl Harbor by GDW? Came out in 1978, IIRC. This was John Prados' original attempt at porting the 3rd Reich system to the Pacific. With the second edition rules (can't remember if 1978 was the original pub date, or the 2nd edition pub date), it was quite playable, and had a definite 3rd Reich strategic flavor to it. Main problem for me was that the air/naval combat system, while upgraded from Third Reich, still felt clunky and wrong.

It had chrome, though! There was an optional system for determining which Japanese service (Army or Navy) had the upper hand in the political sphere (win a victory on the Emperor's birthday for a +1 on the Imperial Decision Table!), and also an optional system for tracking Axis progress in Europe that could lead to the Tirpitz sailing into the Indian Ocean in 1943...

The production and economic system was nearly identical to those in Third Reich.

Buddy of mine had this game and we played the heck out of it. Good game for the Pacific Theater for the time. We used to go to I believe Decatur where GDW was located and go game shopping, so I was able to play quite a few GDW titles back in the day.

Like many of John's games from back in the day, there was a lot of errata and I caused some of it with my first turn "Invade Pearl Harbor" with a 66% chance success.

Also some of the optional rules were way out there including German intervention in the Pacific war complete with German units, etc.

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Post #: 46

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/4/2015 2:22:45 AM

Numdydar

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14

Anyone play the wooden block WWII game by Columbia Games? I played it once a long while back and really liked it...fog of war element was awesome!

Europe Engulfed and Pacific Engulfed

I've played Europe Engulfed twice now and really loved it. Someone (God bless them) wrote a VB player assistance that helps immensely with the sequence of play, dice rolling (and there is a LOT of dice rolling

), and the small but important rules of the game. They even put the entire rule book into the app and so you can easily pull up the section that that section of the game is dealing with. Like Combat for example. Beyond useful. Using this app it is actually pretty easy to play solitaire as there are too many blocks on the map to remember them all.

I have not played the Pacific one yet but want to some day.

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Post #: 47

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/4/2015 5:03:54 AM

belechannas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: bo

Hi belechannas appreciate you looking into this I am pretty good when I use osmosis to solve problems I tried f/11 but it does not seem to matter and I am leery going into the sub routines to change my cpu as it might effect my cpu in other programs, could that happen?

Bo

It might affect your other games. But we are only talking about editing a line in a text file. You could make a copy of the original file with a different name, and copy it back if you don't like the results.

And also, it is Control+F11/Control+F12 to interactively change the cpu cycles, not just F11/F12. It's possible that the interactive commands don't work if you are using the default "maximum possible cycles" setting. I didn't try it.

There is a file called stdout.txt in the Dosbox folder that will have printout messages if interactive command works.

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Post #: 48

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/4/2015 5:08:46 AM

belechannas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ostwindflak

My wife bought me A World At War this past Christmas. I am looking forward to opening the shrink wrap and diving in to it soon. I was wondering if any of you guys here have played it?

A World At War is the most recent version of Third Reich/Advanced Third Reich.

The complexity and scale of the game is comparable to World in Flames. I am in a minority here, I'm sure, but given the choice I would play AWaW over WiF. Partly just due to greater familiarity, but also the design decisions are more to my taste (in part because I helped to make some of them...).

I'd say that where WiF puts a lot more effort into detail, AWaW has more attention to the depth of interaction between systems.

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Post #: 49

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/5/2015 4:28:27 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: belechannas

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ostwindflak

My wife bought me A World At War this past Christmas. I am looking forward to opening the shrink wrap and diving in to it soon. I was wondering if any of you guys here have played it?

A World At War is the most recent version of Third Reich/Advanced Third Reich.

The complexity and scale of the game is comparable to World in Flames. I am in a minority here, I'm sure, but given the choice I would play AWaW over WiF. Partly just due to greater familiarity, but also the design decisions are more to my taste (in part because I helped to make some of them...).

I'd say that where WiF puts a lot more effort into detail, AWaW has more attention to the depth of interaction between systems.

I do not like to disagree with someone who is trying to be helpful to me

I mean that.

But when you said about the complexity is on a scale with MWIF I might have to challenge that. Ostwindflak said that his wife bought him "A World at War" for Christmas, now that is cool but if my wife bought me a computer game I would have to think twice before I played it

Is he talking about the original by Gary Grigsby or is he talking about the later version", Gary Grigsby "A World at War A World Divided".

I just fired up my version of Gary Grigsbys original A World at War, put patch v1.202 back in and started playing. Let me say first I am not a Gary Grigsby fan by any means. Some might like big monstrous epics but I do not.

A world at War, WitP, WitE, and now another monstrosity WitW, when will it ever end

If you are a player who likes skillions of units then this game is for them. No rhyme or reason for some of the things that happen in his game. He makes things up as he goes along, he has no plan to follow if something does not fly he redoes it changes a few things and moves on.

I do not believe that he could do MWIF because he would have to use the redefine or define rule that Steve uses in his posts, follow exactly RAW or some other WIF code. I give Steve a pass on this because of the difficulty of programming such a game, but it was Steve's choice and Matrix's choice not ours so they have to live with the criticism as to why the game has taken 10 long long years to get to a place where the game is still unplayable other than solitaire.

Anyway enjoy A World at War, it is fast and not very deep and not very re-playable.

Bo

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Post #: 50

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/5/2015 7:11:35 PM

Ostwindflak

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Hi Bo,

Sorry I should have clarified, she bought me GMTs A World At War, the board game.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7614/world-war

That will link you to a page to view it if you wish.

Edit* I asked if anyone had played as it is the latest version of the game this thread is about, Third Reich. Wanted to get an idea of what I am getting myself into from folks that may have played it.

< Message edited by Ostwindflak -- 6/5/2015 8:16:11 PM >

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Post #: 51

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/5/2015 8:57:43 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ostwindflak

Hi Bo,

Sorry I should have clarified, she bought me GMTs A World At War, the board game.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7614/world-war

That will link you to a page to view it if you wish.

Edit* I asked if anyone had played as it is the latest version of the game this thread is about, Third Reich. Wanted to get an idea of what I am getting myself into from folks that may have played it.

Ok I have no idea of board games as I have never played them, enjoy your board game

does it have a workable AI

Ooops just kidding.

Bo

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Post #: 52

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 3:46:55 AM

Jagdtiger14

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I have yet to play AWAW (board game), but have played A3R+Rising Sun...which I think is pretty much the same thing. Its quite good (does not compare to WiF but is a good change up), and takes less time to play compared to WiF.

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Post #: 53

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 11:43:36 AM

AlbertN

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quote:

Anyone play the wooden block WWII game by Columbia Games? I played it once a long while back and really liked it...fog of war element was awesome!

I played with my current WiF pal the Eurofront serie for a looooong time.
It is an excellent game, which I'd suggest to anyone. It kept us entertained for a good amount of time, and we could wrap '39 campaigns in 3 weekend sessions (As per playing Sat & Sun from 11 of the morning to 6 of the afternoon) once we mastered the rules.

There is afair abstraction of naval and aerial operations, and it is focused on the ground units with logistic elements. (The use of HQs to operate).

Someone above mentioned Europe Engulfed - that I played for long too (That was like 8-9 years ago!), it was fun but once we learnt how to play it, the game revealed crippling and fatal issues in how it is designed, which made us ditch it (and we moved to Eurofront; and next we tried Axis Empire of Decision Games.).

But to move on from a game it does not mean that the game is mandatorily bad. Simply at some point a game gets somehow "exhausted" in its replayability.

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Post #: 54

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 2:11:01 PM

Ostwindflak

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I haven't played any of the wooden block games. There is this one too by VentoNuovo Games called Blocks in the East.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129204/blocks-east

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Post #: 55

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 3:12:41 PM

AlbertN

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Have all 3 of the VentoNuovo WW2 games, played on Blocks in the East though (There is also Blocks in the West and Blocks in Afrika for the whole WW2 campaign!).

It has some good ideas (One of the best ideas is the capture of enemy equipment / manpower; pratically all the enemy units / blocks that surrender because of OOS, are converted in production for you) and it is also good fun, but some holes in the rules (or better intended mechanics which for me are a bit iffy) sort of ruins it over time.
I've had occasion to meet the designer and play with him a few times (We're both Italians!).

I just lack the time (as I play a MMO and WiF atm!) and anyhow the people to squeeze a Vassal Game of that.

Also I feel the historical OOB at times restrictive. I understand the strict OOB the moment you play a tactical game representing a battle (like a game on Kursk, or Ardennes, etc), which can allow minimal variables on forces at hand (A division or some moved from other sectors or added to a generic reserve to mobilize, etc).
But the moment I've a very large campaign ahead with production and all - I feel that if I want to save my planes from Battle from Britain and have one extra Luftflotte - I should be able to. (Example wise).

And there was that moment (in more than one game) that the Germans in Winter'41-'42 could not attack (Too many penalties) but the Soviets can only do localized, minor attacks. And I was having excesses of German production (Like all force pool of blocks maxed, at maximum strenght, and stocking up production points for the summer '42).

That did not felt right design wise.

On the other hand, Germany has not won by end of '42, it's game over. Germany gets mauled terribly - I played two games with the Soviets, and by November '43 I was in Poland already in one. (In the other I lost because I moved poorly in one turn and on top of that an attack was tragic due to dices).

The Soviets have -more- troops (normal), better -troops- in general(not so normal), much better -artilleries- once late autumn 1942 hits.

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Post #: 56

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 3:55:07 PM

Jagdtiger14

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Cohen: Would you say the block game from Columbia to be the best? I assume your report above being about the VentoNuovo game, what about the Columbia game...what were your experiences about that? Did you see any flaws? I only played it once (east front) a long time ago and liked it.

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Post #: 57

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 6:06:55 PM

AlbertN

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About the Columbia Games one the major flaws are the scripted decline of Axis (As the years progress the airpower and naval power changes are enforced); the general idea the Axis will never attack the Allies in '43 and onward unless they play silly (Most of the W.Allied units are mechanized, which attack like infantry and defend like armour) because it's masochist (The only reason for Axis to attack W.Allies is if they can nail a beachead and wipe it pratically; or if the W.Allied won a battle but their forces are exhausted.)

Another big flaw is that the Germans can easily surrender most of Russia and run away with their forces intact. Then for the Soviets it will be hard, due to how the blocks are (Many Soviets are 3 combat factor capped, and only few 4; pratically all the Eastern Front german units have 4 strength).
When it comes down to the same stacking per hex, with the Germans shortening the front (Like '41 Barbarossa starting position), the Soviets can have hard time breaching through that - even if they get bonuses over time the Germans have enough reserves to counterattack bridgeheads past the Vistula.

But that falls down in the Victory perspective. In general I believe in a WW2 game it is not as important the final conditions, which in general are known where the game leans; but for how long the Axis keeps hold / how fast the Allies liberate things.

Because in the moment to hold for 2 more turns some position, implies to lose like 4 times the production value of that position in terms of troops at hand - and then you'd lack the forces for a defence later on, what's the point? Run, reinforce, find a strong position and surrender these zones that you'd struggle to hold to the enemy.

But in WiF it is sort of the same. Nothing stops the Germans to run later on from Russia - and it is so in most of the games I've seen around
Design concept there is an old tabletop game that I never played but only read of - I found it quite amusing; the two players split Germany; situation is '44 at Ardenne's vigil. - One plays the W.Allies and the East Front germans; and the other the Soviets and the West Front germans. Not just maybe the ahistorical race for Berlin, but maybe a race for Vienna, or Munich, etc. I forgot the name of that game though!

< Message edited by Cohen -- 6/6/2015 7:10:23 PM >

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RE: 3rd Reich - 6/6/2015 11:57:00 PM

Ostwindflak

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I believe the game you are referencing Cohen, about one player being W. Allies and controlling Eastern Front Germans and the other player using Soviets and controlling Western Front Germans, is MMPs The Mighty Endeavor which I own. It is the second printing that introduces the Soviets and this play style.

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Post #: 59

RE: 3rd Reich - 6/7/2015 12:34:23 AM

rkr1958

Posts: 23483
Joined: 5/21/2009
Status: offline

Here's a great game and one I have a personal connection to: Commander Europe at War - Grand Strategy (CEaW-GS). It has an AI, which is not very good to say politely, but it's a great game for PBEM.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=18

http://www.slitherine.com/games/mh_ceaw_gold_pc

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Ronnie

(in reply to Ostwindflak)

Post #: 60