OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play

OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (Full Version)

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KMCCARTHY -> OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 2:59:42 AM)
See http://warisboring.com/articles/the-wretched-excess-of-the-campaign-for-north-africa/ I had several dozen SPI games, including War in the East (I graduated from High School in 1979), but I was never foolish enough to buy this.[:)]

CaptBeefheart -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 3:31:59 AM)
I had that game. I played one scenario for about four turns. Unfortunately, I dumped it somewhere along the way. Probably worth a fortune nowadays. Cheers, CC

crsutton -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 3:47:31 AM)
About 400 bucks if new in the box. Other games will fetch as much. Scorched Earth (a much more playable game) will fetch about that much if not more.

Zorch -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 3:56:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: crsutton About 400 bucks if new in the box. Other games will fetch as much. Scorched Earth (a much more playable game) will fetch about that much if not more. I own a copy in mint condition. [:)] Never tried to play it...the game really cries out for computer assistance.

BillBrown -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 3:59:37 AM)
It is fun, but it was hard to get all the people together at one time to play for a while. Never got more than about 15 - 20 turns into the game.

CaptBeefheart -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 4:06:01 AM)
As I think more about it, I liked the air part and did a solitaire air campaign for a while. That's about all I got out of it. Paid $25 for an advanced purchase and it ended up being something like one to two years late. I probably gave it to a Goodwill in Arizona. Hopefully a grognard stumbled on it. Cheers, CC

KMCCARTHY -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 4:29:42 AM)
Alas, I gave all my SPI games away to a friend during my 2nd year on active duty in 1982. He passed away early and the last time I talked to him was 1989. I still remember the thrill of getting a new game every month in S&T in the '70s. Great memories of a few nerd friends, when nerds were not cool. Luckily, I keep in touch with the other two.

Yaab -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 7:38:56 AM)
Why can't they port it to PC?

wdolson -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 7:54:10 AM)
Need to find the programmers willing to write it and there would be no guarantee of success. If you had to pay programmers, it could cost $100,000 easily, probably more. A really hot product in the war game market sells about 10,000 copies over its lifetime. Most sell a lot less. If you sell the game for $50 and only sell 1000 copies over its life, that's a $50,000 return on a $100,000 investment. Bill

Yaab -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 8:01:19 AM)
Thanks. Théoden: "How many?" Aragorn: "Ten thousand strong at least." [Théoden turns to face Aragorn.] Théoden: "Ten thousand?!" Aragorn: "It is a game bred for a single purpose: to destroy the spare time of Men." Aragorn: "It will be available by nightfall."

pontiouspilot -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 6:48:15 PM)
This looks like a little cousin to SPI's "War in Europe". I managed to get several years into that monster. It filled the whole rumpus room. I can't remember if it was a jealous girlfriend or an over indulged cat that finished it off. I found that even with a whole room I had to chop the top half of the Scandinavian countries.

Zorch -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 8:56:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot This looks like a little cousin to SPI's "War in Europe". I managed to get several years into that monster. It filled the whole rumpus room. I can't remember if it was a jealous girlfriend or an over indulged cat that finished it off. I found that even with a whole room I had to chop the top half of the Scandinavian countries. There is a computer version of War in Europe, if you didn't already know. Unfortunately no AI.

Chris21wen -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/5/2016 9:02:00 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Commander Cody .... I dumped it somewhere along the way. Probably worth a fortune nowadays. Cheers, CC I do hope so.

Alpha77 -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/7/2016 6:50:38 PM)
"52.6] The Italian Pasta Rule One of the biggest mistakes the Italians made during the entire Desert Campaign was to provide their troops with a diet which was composed, in large part, of spaghetti and macaroni. Aside from providing insufficient protein (this wasn’t Buitoni Brand) pasta has one serious drawback in the desert: you need water to cook it! Therefore, each Italian battalion,when it receives its Stores, must receive an additional 1 point of water when stores are distributed. Any battalion-sized unit that does not receive their Pasta Point (one water point) may not voluntarily exceed their CPA that turn. Furthermore, Italian battalions not receiving their Pasta Point that have a Cohesion Level of -10 or worse immediately become Disorganized, as if they had reached -26. As soon as such units get their Pasta Point,they regain the original cohesion level(i.e., the level they had before they disintegrated.)" NOW that is great, I never thought of that problem before :)

blueatoll -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/7/2016 7:15:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alpha77 "52.6] The Italian Pasta Rule One of the biggest mistakes the Italians made during the entire Desert Campaign was to provide their troops with a diet which was composed, in large part, of spaghetti and macaroni. Aside from providing insufficient protein (this wasn’t Buitoni Brand) pasta has one serious drawback in the desert: you need water to cook it! Therefore, each Italian battalion,when it receives its Stores, must receive an additional 1 point of water when stores are distributed. Any battalion-sized unit that does not receive their Pasta Point (one water point) may not voluntarily exceed their CPA that turn. Furthermore, Italian battalions not receiving their Pasta Point that have a Cohesion Level of -10 or worse immediately become Disorganized, as if they had reached -26. As soon as such units get their Pasta Point,they regain the original cohesion level(i.e., the level they had before they disintegrated.)" NOW that is great, I never thought of that problem before :) Well, I used to peripherally know Richard Berg (the designer) and he said that he'd created this rule because the supply system in the game was broken and SPI playtesters (yes, apparently this was playtested, poor volunteers) couldn't figure out how to fix it so that the Italians didn't always occupy Cairo even BEFORE the DAK shows up. The solution was to cripple the Italian's supply situation to slow them down. It was a convenient 'recipe' to slowing the Italians down and went along with the general idea that the Italian Army in WWII was substandard. Yes, they weren't great but in 1940 they were a match for what the Brits had deployed in Egypt until they overextended their supply lines and the Brits got serious. In the context of the game, that's about 3 months of the Italians running rampant without a 'Pasta' rule in effect. More than enough time to get to the Nile (and it's plentiful source of water for field ration carbonaras). I never delved into the game but my buddy Karl played it TWICE! solo.

Fallschirmjager -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/7/2016 7:28:03 PM)
Is this the infamous game where you had to ensure your Italians had enough water to boil their pasta or else suffer morale check rolls?

HansBolter -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/7/2016 10:07:52 PM)
Only well known mega-board game I never owned or played!

Big B -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/7/2016 11:30:45 PM)
I still have my original copy of this (the game that got me here) War in the Pacific – The Campaign Against Imperial Japan, 1941-45 is a multi-level simulation of the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War Two. The game enables players to recreate the entire course of the war, from the opening Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 to the climactic Allied assaults in the closing days of 1945. This Monster sized game simulates the conflict in the Pacific on a seven section map representing some 30% of the globe, across which cardboard playing pieces move and engage in combat through an hexagonal grid, which functions much like a chessboard in regulating movement. Game components: Rules booklet (56 pages) Scenarios booklet (12 pages) Two charts and tables booklets (16 pages) 3,200 die-cut playing pieces Seven 22" x 34" colored soft map sheets Playing aids, displays and cycle tracks Air/Surface Tactical Display Allied Air Display Allied Game Turn/Cycle Record Track Allied General Record Track Allied Naval Task Force Display Allied Off-Map Movement Display Japanese Air Display Japanese Game-Turn/Cycle Record Track Japanese General Record Track Japanese Naval Task Force Display 2 Dice 2 Plastic trays for playing piece storage Errata (as of December 1978) Level Of Complexity: Very High Average Playing Time: 6 hours (Midway scenario) to 200+ hours [image]local://upfiles/16855/31DBE69A85514250A154B47C46C3D083.jpg[/image]

rustysi -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/9/2016 2:30:53 AM)
quote: SPI games, including War in the East Have many SPI games, including the two (I think ETO and PTO) that you can put together and play the whole war. Plans are to set them up when I retire. Need two rooms for the maps though.[:D]

Chris21wen -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/9/2016 8:47:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi quote: SPI games, including War in the East Have many SPI games, including the two (I think ETO and PTO) that you can put together and play the whole war. Plans are to set them up when I retire. Need two rooms for the maps though.[:D] Only two?

warspite1 -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/9/2016 8:54:59 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi quote: SPI games, including War in the East Have many SPI games, including the two (I think ETO and PTO) that you can put together and play the whole war. Plans are to set them up when I retire. Need two rooms for the maps though.[:D] warspite1 rustyi, if you want to play the whole war I would recommend World In Flames (WIF) instead. Pre-WIF I played the ETO and PTO and yes, they were really good games to play. However because of the scale, there are various amendments you have to make if you combine the games. However WIF has the advantage that it is designed to be played as the whole war and so there are no such fiddly things to attend to. The other advantage with WIF is the counter content and detail - particularly for ships (where you play with every ship from light cruiser up (+ some "what-if" units too) and the air units which are all named and in excellent colour!

rustysi -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/9/2016 9:59:48 PM)
Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that?

Zorch -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 12:21:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that? I enjoyed Operation Olympic, too. They did another solitaire game about the Battle of the Atlantic called 'Wolfpack' that could have been better.

warspite1 -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 9:21:42 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that? warspite1 Sorry I was not talking about MWIF the computer game. You mentioned setting the ETO/PTO boardgame up when you retire, and so I was referring to the boardgame version of WIF as a possible alternative.

ndworl -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 10:43:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Zorch quote: ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot This looks like a little cousin to SPI's "War in Europe". I managed to get several years into that monster. It filled the whole rumpus room. I can't remember if it was a jealous girlfriend or an over indulged cat that finished it off. I found that even with a whole room I had to chop the top half of the Scandinavian countries. There is a computer version of War in Europe, if you didn't already know. Unfortunately no AI. I played the original War in Europe on a couple of notice boards set up on trestles, in the early 1980s when I was in the army. I have played the computer version a few times. While I loved the scope and scale of the game, the ability for replay that computerisations gives just underlined the shortcomings of the game. In summary, while the convenience of the PC version made it more playable, I probably enjoyed the board game more, because everything was new and a risk.

rustysi -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 9:43:28 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: warspite1 quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that? warspite1 Sorry I was not talking about MWIF the computer game. You mentioned setting the ETO/PTO boardgame up when you retire, and so I was referring to the boardgame version of WIF as a possible alternative. That is an option. Is it still in print? Don't like buying used games as I've had problems in the past with things missing, etc. Even after I was assured they were complete.

warspite1 -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 9:50:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi quote: ORIGINAL: warspite1 quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that? warspite1 Sorry I was not talking about MWIF the computer game. You mentioned setting the ETO/PTO boardgame up when you retire, and so I was referring to the boardgame version of WIF as a possible alternative. That is an option. Is it still in print? Don't like buying used games as I've had problems in the past with things missing, etc. Even after I was assured they were complete. warspite1 Oh yes! [:)] http://www.a-d-g.com.au/

spence -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 10:19:50 PM)
I thought neither "Operation Olympic" nor "Wolfpack" were particularly interesting but (IIRC) "RAF" (Battle of Britian 1940) was a great solitaire game. I ordered "War in the Pacific" early for some discounted price and ended up getting it something like 2 years later when my ship went to GITMO for refresher training. I don't even think I was assigned to that ship when I ordered it. Kudos to the FPO.

rustysi -> RE: OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play (4/10/2016 10:31:58 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: warspite1 quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi quote: ORIGINAL: warspite1 quote: ORIGINAL: rustysi Was always interested in that game, but AFAIK there's no AI at the moment. Yes, I understand an AI opponent is not very accomplished, but... Not that I expect to find an opponent for the other game either, but if I have to play my head-to-head I'd rather do it on a board. BTW I own one rather good, if simple, solitaire game (I believe its by SPI). Its called Operation Olympic, which as the name implies, is the invasion of Kyushu. You play the Allies, who else. The rules for Japan are simple and straight forward... Banzai!!![:D] Now where did I put that? warspite1 Sorry I was not talking about MWIF the computer game. You mentioned setting the ETO/PTO boardgame up when you retire, and so I was referring to the boardgame version of WIF as a possible alternative. That is an option. Is it still in print? Don't like buying used games as I've had problems in the past with things missing, etc. Even after I was assured they were complete. warspite1 Oh yes! [:)] http://www.a-d-g.com.au/ Now you've done it.[:D] Seriously, thanks. Was always interested in the game, but for one reason or another never bothered. quote: Five full-colour maps portray all the theatres of war: Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, India, Asia, the Pacific, the Atlantic and (most importantly) Australia. What's up with that? Just kidding. Don't want to get our Aussie friends annoyed.[;)]

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