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Les_the_Sarge_9_1 -> (10/26/2002 9:44:18 AM)
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Just a guess (cause my home town is in Ontario Canada not outside Hamburg Germany hehe) but I think that game name is german for Fire in the East.
Might be an earlier release of the same game my buddy has of that name. A 6 mapsheet game (paper so forget moving it) that ends up 6'x 8' in overall area (hmmm last I checked my arms were like a 3 foot reach).
The game is 1941 Barbarossa to 1943, which means it is not the entire war. You need the Urals expansion (which of course means more maps, and yep you guessed it, my arms didn't get any longer in the process though).
And here is the kicker, its just Russia. Europa has maps for France of course, as well as all the way down into the Mediteranean war in North Africa. And yes, my arms never seem to get any longer:) ).
It is the pinnacle of the battalion/divisional level of gaming experience in my own gaming experience. Just that it is also the pinnacle in room eating wargaming too hehe.
Bad news is this game won't be appearing as a dedicated wargame anytime soon. Good news is it is not required (if some recent news I have gleaned personally is to be believed).
The links of the earlier posts take you to options that will possibly eleviate part of the problem (playing these monsters).
On a different tack, if you can acquire what is currently called Century of War (look for it at CDAccess.com if you can't find it elsewhere). I have Operational Art of War Elite Edition Volume 1 and Volume 2 (which is what Century of War was before being combined). This program is perhaps not a lot easier to play as far as simple is concerned, but being on your computer, it is a great deal easier to store hehe.
It is my opinion, that if you can't actually play the board games, you can often at least play the same level of game through Operational Art of War (or whatever name it is when you acquire it).
You will find detractors out there that don't like this program, but then you will also find people obsessed with abolishing hexes:)
The neat thing about Fire in the East (from a computer program perspective) is that while it has a large map and comes with 10k unique counters, that has nothing to do with program memory (but it takes you a couple of days sorting out 10k counters heheh). And the game, in spite of it's size, is really just a simple board game (where rules are concerned)
Fortunately, todays wargames only require massive computer resources when they have to entertain psuedo wargamers with Baywatch features (Combat Mission might look cute, but it is really just a broad with big hooters in my opinion).
A game with a large map and 10k counter images in the database, is really just a game with a large map with a large counter database. I don't know much about programing, but I do know that much hehe.
Assuming you wished to even waste time on an AI, it would not take a modern computer a long time to decide whether to move this piece to that hex (even if it had to move 10k counters). Remember people, a computer is just a machine, they are able to make purely mechanical mathematical decisions in nano seconds.
Of course those decisions that we take minutes (or hours) to make are often coupled with actual thought. Which explains why a computer can move 10k counters all in a few minutes, and in the process, achieve at best uninspired results.
It takes my buddy half an hour to take a turn in wargames at that level, but at least he is thinking eh.
Fire in the East could likely be played through any of the above mentioned software options. I think (I don't know as yet, more info is needed), but I think you must actually possess these games in some way to use the software. Or it is possible they can be played entirely through a computer graphical representation.
But I am confident, that they possess no AI. It is assumed you are playing another person that also already knows how to play the game (and that usually means the person has at some time already purchased the original thing).
For interest sake, my friend bought Fire in the East a few years back for 100 bucks Canadian. Hmmm so that tells you how I feel about people explaining how 50 bucks is the highest they will pay for a computer wargame.
Whiners!!!!:)
I drop down 50 bucks for ASL modules without even thinking about it. That's modules eh, things that have no worth if you don't have the base system as well.
You couldn't even buy my ASL collection for the price of a fully maxed out P4 system eh (including all the common peripherals).
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