Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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(Cross-posted on my Blog)
Sturm Europa! is a game I have been following for quite some time. I was disappointed in Europe Engulfed for a few reasons and was looking for something similar that addressed my issues with EE. The designer of SE! (Michael Tan) told me himself that the spark for this game idea started out with a desire to make a better EE. First I will lay out my own issues with EE and then discuss why I think SE! is a better game. Finally, I'll discuss the actual mechanics that I played with and how the game went.
What's wrong with EE: The Special Action mechanic encourages grouping all units into a single area.
It turns out I shared this EE gripe with the designer of SE!. We both disliked the blobby mess that the game became as a result of the special action system. The special action system is a great concept, but I think the execution was poor. Michael Tan and I both agreed that EE would have been better off putting a unit limit on the special actions in EE rather than an area limit. Seeing two huge blobs of german units fight and manuver around 2 huge blobs of Soviet units on the east front felt quite awkward.
Sturm Europa's Solution
Rather than using a special action to represent supplies and resources used for major actions, SE choses to go with Ops Points and a card driven system. You can only play a few cards per season (depending on stance, you could play 3 at peace, 4 at war, and 5 at total war). As a result you always have a limited ammount of ops points which you must use to do a lot of things (build units, move units, activate units for battles, build entrenchments, improve units (repair steps), affect diplomatic preassure, etc.). These ops points are the abstraction of logistical and organizational resources that any given country has. They (generally) take the place of Special Actions in EE.
What's even more interesting is that because each side (Axis, Western Allies, and Soviets) have their own deck, they can have differing values of these ops points. In addition, each deck is divided into early, mid, and late war (think Twilight Struggle - the decks are shuffled in at certain triggers). As a result, the card play can elegantly model the slow breakdown of the German war machine, as well as the powering up of the soviets and the Western Allies. The Axis deck starts out filled with 3 and 4 ops cards (quite a high average). The Western Allies seem to have a lot of 2s and the Soviets have a decent amount of 2s and 3s (I may be incorrect on this, I only really examined the Axis deck heavily).
There are a few more things that help prevent the blobs in SE. Besides the fact that the above ops points activate units and not areas, no more than 4 blocks may participate in land combat (the rest are held in reserve). Also, only 2 blocks may cross a clear border per card play (only 1 for river boundaries). This forces an attacker to try and come in from multiple directions in order to be successful, and provides some areas on the board with better positions than others.
What's wrong with EE: Too many fiddly little rules.
One thing I really don't like about wargames is how often a designer will create a brilliant system for, say, diplomacy; then they will riddle that system with 5-10 special rules for all the major countries. Europe Engulfed has a huge problem with this. It's got a great movement and combat system, building system, etc. but each power has at least a page or rules (or more) detailing all the special exceptions to the normal rules. This is a huge turnoff for me as it not only adds a huge amount of difficult things to remember but also severely reduces the options of the player. It's a Grand Strategy Game people! What the hell is the point of a grand strategy game if the only choices I'm making are operational ones? I want to form a grand plan and execute it. Special rules that prevent you from being effective/able to do something until turn X may increase historical accuracy, but all that means is that you are forced into following in Hitler's footsteps, not making your own way!
Ok, enough about EE, lets talk about SE!
Flow of Play
Each turn starts with the Initiative Phase. This is very similar to the Headline phase in Twilight Struggle. After drawing up to 6 cards, each player chooses a card from hand and plays it face down. All 3 cards are revealed simultaneously, and are then resolved with highest ops going first (ties are resolved in a neat way: Axis always win ties, WAllies always lose ties). When cards are played in this phase, the event is triggered (you cannot play a card for ops in the headline phase, although some cards have ops built into the event, see the Cardplay section below). The ops points also determine turn order. The side with the highest ops gets to determine where they will be in the turn (first, last, or second). This provides with some very difficult decisions. If you really need to be first player this turn, but you really don't want to use that 4 op event yet. And what if you really need that 2 op event to trigger right now but at the cost of perhaps choosing to go first?
Also in the Initiative phase the players will allocate their capitol, more on that in the Economy section.
Following the Initiative phase, each player takes turns playing cards from their hand. this continues until each side has reached it's maximum card plays for the season (at peace = 3 card plays, at war = 4, total war = 5). Getting to the total war phase is a different requirement for each side (I think). IIRC, Once Italy goes to war and is under control of the Axis they start getting 5 card plays.
After each card play, you check your own side for supply, pretty standard supply rules. Once every side has finished their card plays, you advance the turn marker and start again with initiative. Each of these rounds represents one season (spring, summer, fall, winter). There are some weather rules that are similar to most other games (randomish weather in spring/fall).
Flow of Play Conclusions
The game feels surprisingly fast. Even though it was my first game I was able to pick up the cards and (with a little help from Michael) see which ones were viable at the moment and which were worth keeping for later. Since the game alternates card plays it doesn't feel like one player is ever sitting there with nothing to do for a long time (like in EE).
In addition, the card system provides some very interesting decisions. Some events can only ever happen once. Cards that have a * next to the name are removed permanently whenever they are played for the event. these are special one time cards. You have a choice with these cards:
1) Play the card for the event now, and it is gone forever
2) Play the card for ops and it goes into your discard pile, and will come back later.
3) "Pocket" the card, which means keeping it in your hand so you can use it in a turn or two. Some cards are so valuable that you might need to pocket it for 3 or 4 turns in order to guarantee you get to use it at the right time.
For example, the Lebensraum event is the massive buildup of resources prior to Barbarossa. This event can only be played once and gives the Germans a massive 5 ops to kick off the headline phase of a turn (plus some other goodies I believe). If you get this card on turn one, you can pretty safely play it for ops and discard it and expect it to shuffle through the deck by the time you need it in spring of '41. If you get the card on turn 2 or 3, however, you start getting into a more risky situation. It's no longer "safe" to just play it for ops and get it back later. Later might be too late! But pocketing it means you've got less space to pocket other useful cards that you might want to use in the interim! Good, hard choices here.
Economic System
SE! uses a very different and new Economic system. I've never quite seen it's like before. Here's how it works:
 There are 5 main resources in the game; Four of them work the same and the last one (capitol) works a bit differently. Each of the first four is represented by a different color cube that you collect and spend.
Manpower (Yellow) Used to build steps of most infantry/cavalry (and maybe the first mech step? Can't remember).
Steel ((White)) Representing much more than just Iron and carbon, this is all important metals and ores abstracted into one resource. It is used to build the first steps of tanks, planes, and naval units.
Oil (Black) Ah, Black Gold! This valuable resource builds the highest steps of Armor, Air, and Naval units.
Cadre (Red) Representing the men and material that separate a "good" army unit from a "great" army unit. I think of Cadre as the extra officers and supplies necessary to fight more effectively. Maybe every german company has 4 MG42s, but they only carry 250 rounds of ammo. They are still a decent fighting force, but with more ammo they would be more effective. This is just a small example of the abstraction I believe Cadre represents. The Cadre step might represent more prepared troops with an oversupply of experienced officers/NCOs and ammunition. You can be much more effective and use your MGs more offensively if you are not worried about running out of ammo! Cadre is required to upgrade units a step on the firing chain (from C to B, of B to A, for instance - See the Combat section for more details).
Capitol - Representing the industrial potency and available industrial factories required for major war production, Capitol is not collected and spent in the same way as the other resources. The map contains "factory" markers which represent concentrated machining industries as well as the manpower (large cities) to staff them. During the Initiative phase of each turn you allocate all of your factories on your player aid card:
You only get as many capitol tokens as you have captured (and home) factories. You also only get to allocate as many factories to armor as you have on your player aid sheet. So the Germans can never make more than 3 armor steps per season. This forward planning has to be done at the beginning of each season. You need to decide here what your plan is going to be this turn. Are you going to spend your capitol on armor steps to replace losses/build new units? Are you going to spend it on manpower conscriptions (taking the factory workers and throwing them into the army - this gives you a free manpower cube at the cost of a capitol)? Are you going to free up the rail lines to transport troops instead of resources? Or maybe you will go for some U-boat steps this turn? You can't have it all!
 Every time you play a card, you first look at the bottom and will find 3 map regions along with 3 resources.
If you control the region listed, your faction gains the resource indicated (in the form of small colored cubes). The last region is bolded (hard to see in this pic) and it means that whoever controls that region gets that resource. So while the first two resources are usually resources that you would control, the third is often one that could change hands. Say the Axis capture the Netherlands. Since the Netherlands is usually a WAllied leaning country, you normally find Belgium on Wallies cards. But since it is one that can and usually does change hands, it would be the third listed on the card. If Germany has captured and garrisoned Belgium, they will get the resources when allies play the card!
There are also some cards that say "Spanish Trade" or "Romanian Trade" for example, which means if you have enough influence with that country you can gain resources from trade. Romanian Trade is very important for the Axis, as this is where most of their Oil comes from. In the game we played, the allies spent ops to influence Romania until it was under their control, at which point it no longer provided oil to the Axis. This crippled the axis attack on France, which took longer than it should have due to this lack of oil.
To help players understand which regions produce which resources, the regions with large numbers of production listed on cards have icons in them.
Ploesti has an oil symbol in black; Berlin has a manpower symbol in yellow, etc. This allows new players to simply look at the map and figure out how often a given region "pays out" when cards are played. And since every single card must be played in some way (whether for ops or for event, there is no way to discard cards) this guarantees that all of the resources will be generated each game, but only differs on the timing of that production. This helps produce slight changes in pacing that should keep the game fresh each time.
When you go to spend these resources on something, it's all color coded. You want to build that infantry unit from scratch? The first two steps are yellow, so they cost manpower, the 3rd step is red, so that requires a cadre, and the final step is yellow. So if you want to build just the first 2 steps, you put the unit on the map and discard 2 manpower from your cup. Oh, that's right, I forgot to mention that you put all your resource cubes in a cup to hide them from your opponents!
Air steps are color coded as well, white on the first step and black on the back, costing steel then oil to build. It's all very easy to understand. Huge thumbs up for the color coded UI!
Economy Conclusions
I really like this economy system. It is much faster and easier than trying to recount production on the map every turn and reduces the number of "phases" in a turn (there is no "resource collection" phase). The integration with diplomacy also produces very interesting consequences for alliances and trade rights. The color coding of the resources works very well. I never had to ask a single time how much or what kind of resource something cost.
Diplomacy
SE! handles diplomacy in a great way. Lets take a look at the picture below:
You can see a close up of the diplomatic tracks here. These tracks are color coded as well. Red box is for war. Yellow boxes are for a little influence but still neutral. White is an alliance, meaning if that country is attacked by another player power, it will automatically side with the power that has alliance influence (slide it over to "control"). Green is control, it means that country is now mobilizing for war and will collect resources and you can move them around.
There are a few other wrinkles, however. Along the bottom of the track are other indications that trigger when you gain that level of influence:
Trade: If you have reached the "trade" step with your sides influence, you can collect trade resources listed on the cards during card play (See Economy).
Coup: If you have reached the "coup" step, it means that you are allowed to coup the country when specific cards come up (card event might say "coup in country X if you have influence at the coup step" or something). These cards model real world instabilities like the middle eastern revolts, it's not just that every country can/will have the opportunity to change sides.
Transit: A really important one! This lets you move your blocks across that country. If the Axis ever get Transit rights through turkey...
You can gain influence by spending ops points to improve your position with any country (unless that country is already under control of another power). However, your influence is only "pending." It becomes certain at the end of the turn. Before that time, your opponents can block your influence points by spending 2 of their own ops during their turn. This means that if you want to make sure that you get the last say in diplomacy, you want to be third in turn order. If, however, you want to gain an advantage in combat, you want to be first. You can't have both! Speaking of combat...
Combat
SE! does combat not entirely dissimilar from other block games. Each unit has a number of steps that you indicate by rotating the block. In SE!, however, not all steps are equal. An Infantry unit might have the following steps: C1, C2, B3, B4. The number indicates how many dice you roll (1 is the lowest step, 4 is the best). The color indicates what resource is required to build that step (yellow for manpower, red for cadre). The letter represents which phase in combat the unit fires.
Armor blocks tend to look more like this:
B1 (White), B2(White), A3 (Red), A4 (black).
So a single step or 2 step armor unit will roll combat dice in the same phase as a 3 or 4 step infantry unit (they roll during the "B" step).
Now lets talk about dice. SE! will ship with custom dice that indicate certain types of hits.
6 = Attrition Hit
5 = Assault hit
4 = Armor Assault hit
3 = Air Hit
Armor will hit on 4s, 5s, and 6s. Infantry hits on 5s and 6s. If you have air units supporting the battle, they add an extra die side to your fight.
So when the battle starts, the defender can choose to keep some units in reserve. These units can help prevent blitz attacks from achieving a breakthrough. Next you check for units that are an "A" step. First all defending As fire, then all attacking As. Then defending Bs fire, followed by attacking Bs, etc. Units in reserve do not get to fire.
When resolving an assault hit, the owner has a choice: He can retreat a block or take a step loss.
When resolving an attrition hit, the owner has a choice: he can take a step loss, or discard a cube of the step-color he would otherwise lose. So if you have a full strength Armor unit (black oil step) and it gets hit with an attrition attack, he can take the step loss (down to red A3) or the owner can spend an oil (and an armor step from his capitol allocation) to keep the force at full strength. For this reason it's often important to horde supplies right before a major offensive, so you will have enough to pay for losses to your units rather than having to spend ops later to build them back up. Full strength units must take these choices before other units.
Air hits can factor as either type of hit.
Now earlier I mentioned Blitz attacks. The way you actually commit units for combat is by activating an HQ, which then activates up to 4 units in it's region or an adjacent region (4 is the max that can fight in combat anyway, any more than that stay in reserve). If the HQ is in a black step, it can choose to activate a Blitz battle. If it is in a white step, it can activate an assault battle. If it is on a yellow step, it can only activate an attrition battle (6s only).
Blitz battles mean that mech and armor sacrifice one hit side of the die for a breakthrough side instead. Breakthroughs do great things for you but an enemy who put units in reserve makes it harder to achieve a breakthrough.
Breakthroughs can let your armor and mech blocks either encircle enemy units (one block per step of armor performing the encircle) or break out into an adjacent region to start a new battle. Encircled units immediately take one step loss, and are out of supply until they are relieved (not sure how that works yet, it didn't take place!). Your own units that are OOS at the end of your turn all take a step loss.
Now you have a decent idea of how the combat system works.
Combat Conclusions
The combat system seems both streamlined and at the same time filled with small decision points that provide interesting choices. I don't have any problems with it, and it doesn't feel altogether different from the "original" combat system detailed a year or so ago.
Card Play
Card play can be very interesting in this game. There are a variety of cards, here's a few different types (each type has permanent events that keep cropping up and some are one time events):
Military Cards: These give some minor boost to your combat related abilities and also count as ops points even if you use the event! Gudarian is a Military card that lets you place the good general on the map (he gives bonuses in combat) and spend 4 ops points. He's a great card to play for the war with France!
Event Cards: These cards can be played for event OR the Ops, not both. When you play one time events for the ops points, they go back into your deck.
Tech Cards: Are kind of like event cards, but usually grant some new or temporary ability (access to new units, or convert one steel into oil (synthetic oil tech)).
Poison Pill Cards: These are not a real card type, but there are cards that can fall under this category. These are cards with events that produce a negative effect for your faction. They represent the major blunders made by the different powers (Stalin's Purges, Hitler taking over the eastern front, Italy getting caught up in the Yugoslavian Campaign, etc.). These negative events are coupled with a very low ops value. Lets take a look at an example to see how they work:
Mare Nostrom: a one time, 1 ops card that forces Italy to attack either Yugoslavia or Greece. You have a few choices with these kinds of cards.
A) You could pocket the card. It's going to take up valuable space in your hand, but it is better than playing a 1 ops card when you need a 3 or 4 ops to finish off France! This represents resources being spent to prevent Mussolini from making a huge mistake and invading at precisely the wrong time!
B) You could play the card for Ops. If you have a little breathing room, you could play this card for ops and take the reduction in choices. Unfortunately this is only a stop gap measure, as the card is thrown into your discard and shuffled back in when your deck runs out (think space racing cards in Twilight Struggle).
C) Swallow the poison pill. Let Italy attack and get bogged down in Yugoslavia. You can choose the timing on this to some extent so maybe you choose to do it when Germany can come help and get it over with quickly. At least now you don't have a 1 ops card polluting your nice 3 and 4 ops deck.
The ops let you do a lot of things, and are really the most important for the Axis. They need lots of ops to build units, move units, and attack with. Occasionally there are some really nice events that they might want to stop and utilize.
So What Happened?
Well the '39 game starts out on the cusp of the Poland attack in fall of '39. The Western Allies got really lucky and pulled a great card on the first turn and played it during the headline initiative phase. It was a 2 ops card called "appeasement." What it did was "give" the germans a region as part of an agreement(the polish corridor in this case). This gift will take effect at the end of the entire turn (the fall season). If I (the Axis) were to attack before that time, the world would see the Axis as going back on their word, and the WAllies would get to remove two of my influence.
Well, I couldn't just let poland sit there right? I went for it anyway, and lost Turkish trade rights and Romanian trade rights. The germans blitzed in to poland and took the capitol by the end of the fall. Unfortunately, the Polish army forced 3 step losses on the Germans, which Michael said was unprecedentedly good for Poland (they usually get 1 or 2).
I was able to re-establish trade with Romania during the winter card plays. I had Gudarian in my hand and had to keep holidng on to him so I could use his great abilities during the attack on France in summer of '40. I wasn't paying attention to the diplomacy tracks (working as hard as I could to get the units moved over and built up for the attack on france) and while I was distracted the WAallies put enough influence into Romania to take control of it. This effectively cut off Ploesti Oil flowing into the Axis side. That Oil was sorely missed when I didn't have enough blitz HQ steps to take out france the next turn.
Gudarian did a decent job (he rolls extra dice for whatever unit he's leading) but the BEF arrived with a 4 step unit stopping him dead in Calais. Meanwhile a trivial French force in the Maginot line held off superior german forces for quite some time.
I was finally able to take Paris in the Fall of '40, but I was way behind the ball on getting ready for Barbarossa. In addition, when France fell, all allied influence in Eastern Europe collapsed (a special rule) and the Eastern European nations were ripe for the picking of Axis ops points. This is where we stopped.
Final Thoughts
The designer (Michael Tan) asked for my criticisms after the game, and I honestly couldn't come up with any. I am a huge fan of the color coding utilized to make everything consistent and easy to learn. The combat system doesn't feel at all gimped or lacking like some worried. I am a huge fan of the resource system and diplomacy system and how they engage with each other to provide an abstraction of trade.
Speaking of trade, I forgot to mention how the strategic warfare aspect of the game happens. Essentially there are a few different sea zones that the axis and throw submarines (or surface raiders) into. When the Western Allies check their cards for resources, you might see "commonwealth SA/WA Manpower" which means this manpower resource is coming from the commonwealth (Australia, South Africa, or perhaps India) and it comes in through the South Atlantic and Western Approaches sea zones. When that resource is triggered, any Axis units in the Raiding boxes of those sea zones get to "shoot" at the resource. After they shoot at the resource, the allies hunting the subs in those areas get to shoot at the subs (I might have this reversed, allies might shoot first). This allows the axis to try and maneuver their Uboats around, and really gives them a lot more leeway when they capture france (more ports to launch the Uboats further out).
In addition the bombers are simply put on top of the region you want to bomb, then when that region shows up on a card the bombers get to bomb and the defenders get to scramble air units to try and kill the bombers. It's a wonderfully simple and consistent with the air combat system (which I didn't outline above).
My main hesitation would be teaching this game to anyone with Analysis Paralysis. There are quite a few decision points and the game is so free form that it can sometimes seem like a lot to think about. "So I can spend this ops on diplomacy, building, or movement?" There is no structured "move phase, then build phase, then combat phase, etc." This may hurt the time for players that take a while to make decisions. Michael says the time span for a game between experienced players is about 8 hours for the '41 scenario and 12 for the '39.
Speaking of players, this is a 3 player game. There doesn't seem to be rules to play the grand campaign with 2 players. You can play an eastern front scenario with 2 players, but it does away with the diplomacy and such other considerations. The 3 player game is where it's at. All 3 sides have their own agenda and their own method of scoring/losing victory points. The Axis powers lose victory points for every region controlled by the soviet union at the end of the game. The allies lose a victory point for every block they lose in combat. The soviets get an extra VP for each country adjacent to the soviet union they control (lets start the iron curtain! There may be more than those, but I am a huge fan of asymmetrical victory conditions 
Anyway, I had a huge blast, and all the fears that I was going to be let down once I finally saw it were all for naught! Thanks to Michael for showing the game and thanks to Andy for letting us play at his house!
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Christian Moura
Australia
Melbourne
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Fantastic summary and review.
Looks like the game is ready? What is Michael Tan working on it still?
Michael, it would be so so sweet if this game could have a mounted board - with the wooden cubes, it looks like a euro wargame classic!
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John Brugge
United States
Germantown
Tennessee
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droool
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Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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Ah! I had some criticism after all!
The "Entrench" ability that you can perform with an ops point only helps on clear region sides because all it does is reduce the number of blocks that can cross a specific border by 1. I felt that it should have some kind of advantage to entrenching along a river boundary too. Maybe units crossing a river boundary against entrenched units take an automatic step loss unless there is a unit crossing into the region from a clear boundary? Not my favorite solution but I can't think of another at the moment.
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Captain Planet
Canada
Montreal
QC
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Bridger wrote: Ah! I had some criticism after all!
The "Entrench" ability that you can perform with an ops point only helps on clear region sides because all it does is reduce the number of blocks that can cross a specific border by 1. I felt that it should have some kind of advantage to entrenching along a river boundary too. Maybe units crossing a river boundary against entrenched units take an automatic step loss unless there is a unit crossing into the region from a clear boundary? Not my favorite solution but I can't think of another at the moment.
Maybe the attacking player should have to pay an extra resource to attack?
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Chris Heap Senhouse
United States
Somerville
Massachusetts
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Wow, what a fantastic review!!!
I took over the Soviets for the last two turns played in this game after playing a game of Warriors of God.
I really was impressed by the way that the resource system and bombing/uboat/sub mechanics worked smoothly and "just-in-time" instead of being clunky or an extra phase at the end of a turn. This felt like it was leveraging the great design aspects of euro games to make a more engaging experience with less downtime and less bookkeeping.
The one thing I left unsure about the cards. I would worry that not knowing the deck would be an issue. It's one thing to not know the deck in Twilight Struggle, where the game can be over in an hour or two when you are learning it... but in this game, you are talking about a serious time commitment so you aren't going to get a lot of chances to play it. I might suggest an inclusion of a "deck management basics" section to the rules to point out the most obvious things you would discover after playing once or twice, like "don't play this card if you draw it on turn 1, hold it at least until turn 3".
Chris
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Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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Well you can always peruse the Early War deck beforehand, look through the mid war deck while you are waiting for your opponents to finish their turns during the early war.
That having been said, I agree that if there is a playbook it should include a few tips of "save this card for a big military push" and such.
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Great article.
I'm waiting for this game for such a long time. I had big hopes, that it will be something more than EE, something more accessible, and - from what You've written - I was right
WHEN THIS GAME IS PLANNED TO BE RELEASED????? 
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Chris Buhl
United States
Pittsfield
Massachusetts
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Thanks for such a great review. This makes me so upset I missed the chance to play it. Everything you described got me more and more excited. The only think I didn't like a lot was the idea of "pocketing" cards, which is in general something about CDGs that I don't like. That was a minor concern though. I was ready to go start sleeping out at the factory to be able to buy the first copy, when my world came crashing down.
Bridger wrote: Speaking of players, this is a 3 player game. There doesn't seem to be rules to play the grand campaign with 2 players. You can play an eastern front scenario with 2 players, but it does away with the diplomacy and such other considerations. The 3 player game is where it's at.
Is that for real?!? There's no way, in the rules, to play the campaign with 2 players?!? Is there, or has there ever been, another game like this where that's the case?!? If that's really true, it makes it un-purchasable for me. How am I going to find not one, but TWO other guys nearby who have 12 hours free to play a game of this? I was, literally, stunned when I read that. I'd love to hear from Micheal Tan if that's actually true, and going to remain true in the final release.
Thanks again for the great review!
Chris
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Rolling bad dice in wargames since 1977
United States
Austin
Texas
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According to the review, the Allies got lucky with an "Appeasement" card play. But when Germany went back on her word, only Turkey and Rumania expressed their disapproval.
The Poles did unprecedentedly well by knocking German units down a whole three steps. I have no idea what that means, but I guess that's somehow bad for Germany. But not bad enough to delay a German attack on France.
France didn't fall till late in 1940 and supposedly put Germany behind the 8-ball for Barbarossa. But never mind, all Allied influence in Eastern Europe fell and so that area was "ripe for the picking" for Germany.
I would not have guessed that set-backs of that sort would give the Germans an optimistic outlook for a war in Eastern Europe. Unless the Soviets are quite obviously weak.
It sounds to me like for every German disaster, there is an equal and opposite counter-balance built into the system so that Germany continues to fight on regardless.
In history, there was a heavy price paid for under-estimating German war prowess. Germany paid this heavy price, too. In this game, it looks like no early set-back is too great for Germany to overcome. And no way for the Germans to under-estimate Soviet or Allied strength.
In any event, based on this review, it sounds to me like this game still needs some development. If the Germans receive supposed setbacks early, there should be real penalties for them.
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Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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Er, I didn't mean to give that impression at all Brady. Poland's 3 hits onto german units meant that I had to spend additional oil resources to bring my armor back up to full strength. As a result, I could not build up a 3rd HQ to blitz status before the attack on france.
As a result of that, france took a lot longer to take down. As a result of that, my Barbarossa opening would have been weak or late (according to Michael, based on previous playtests).
The allied influence in eastern europe did collapse, but that doesn't mean germany just "gets" those nations. They still have to invade or spend ops to influence them until they are under control. All it means is the allies lost all their influence, not that germany got any. This (according to michael) models what really happened when the allies lost france and thus, they had no presence on continental Europe. This is (historically) why Romania and Hungery lined up with the Axis. They had no other choice (except the soviets, and that is posible in this game. See the other AAR posted where the soviets gain control of Bulgaria and use them to invade an undefended ploesti!)
As far as the games player limit: to my knowledge that is not changing. The purpose of the game was to create a real 3 man struggle. There are 3 player powers, 3 decks. The soviets and the allies cannot be played by a single person without some major concessions to the game design. They have different VP goals that often cause them to work against each other. Michael mentioned that if Germany has a very bad opening (for whatever reason) they might seek an alliance with the Soviet player (who doesn't want to see Germany fall early, because he will not have many VP and the allies will surely win). This kind of interaction would be impossible if the Soviets and the Allies were controlled by the same person.
I am, for one, very happy with this decision. Often we'll have 3 people together to play a game, but there are very very few decent 3 player wargames. This one is designed specifically with 3 players in mind, so that helps my situation out. I can see how it would be disappointing if you don't have 2 people to play with though.
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Chris Buhl
United States
Pittsfield
Massachusetts
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Bridger wrote: As far as the games player limit: to my knowledge that is not changing. The purpose of the game was to create a real 3 man struggle. There are 3 player powers, 3 decks. The soviets and the allies cannot be played by a single person without some major concessions to the game design. They have different VP goals that often cause them to work against each other. Michael mentioned that if Germany has a very bad opening (for whatever reason) they might seek an alliance with the Soviet player (who doesn't want to see Germany fall early, because he will not have many VP and the allies will surely win). This kind of interaction would be impossible if the Soviets and the Allies were controlled by the same person.
I am, for one, very happy with this decision. Often we'll have 3 people together to play a game, but there are very very few decent 3 player wargames. This one is designed specifically with 3 players in mind, so that helps my situation out. I can see how it would be disappointing if you don't have 2 people to play with though.
That is, literally, the greatest disappointment to date in my gaming life. I just can't make sense of a WWII grand strategy game that is impossible for 2 people to play. I understand making three people on option (that's the case in Europe Engulfed, for instance), and even a game that is better with three than two. But no way to make it work? As I said, I can't understand that decision, and it's a major bummer. But it's not my game, so I don't pretend that I get to make those decisions. Thanks again for the write up, it was first rate.
Chris
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Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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fatgreta wrote: Bridger wrote: As far as the games player limit: to my knowledge that is not changing. The purpose of the game was to create a real 3 man struggle. There are 3 player powers, 3 decks. The soviets and the allies cannot be played by a single person without some major concessions to the game design. They have different VP goals that often cause them to work against each other. Michael mentioned that if Germany has a very bad opening (for whatever reason) they might seek an alliance with the Soviet player (who doesn't want to see Germany fall early, because he will not have many VP and the allies will surely win). This kind of interaction would be impossible if the Soviets and the Allies were controlled by the same person.
I am, for one, very happy with this decision. Often we'll have 3 people together to play a game, but there are very very few decent 3 player wargames. This one is designed specifically with 3 players in mind, so that helps my situation out. I can see how it would be disappointing if you don't have 2 people to play with though. That is, literally, the greatest disappointment to date in my gaming life. I just can't make sense of a WWII grand strategy game that is impossible for 2 people to play. I understand making three people on option (that's the case in Europe Engulfed, for instance), and even a game that is better with three than two. But no way to make it work? As I said, I can't understand that decision, and it's a major bummer. But it's not my game, so I don't pretend that I get to make those decisions. Thanks again for the write up, it was first rate. Chris
Certainly. Perhaps when Michael gets back from Vacation he'll explain why he chose this route. I'm wrong and he's working on a 2 player campaign game.
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Rolling bad dice in wargames since 1977
United States
Austin
Texas
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Bridger wrote: Er, I didn't mean to give that impression at all Brady. Poland's 3 hits onto german units meant that I had to spend additional oil resources to bring my armor back up to full strength. As a result, I could not build up a 3rd HQ to blitz status before the attack on france.
As a result of that, france took a lot longer to take down. As a result of that, my Barbarossa opening would have been weak or late (according to Michael, based on previous playtests).
The allied influence in eastern europe did collapse, but that doesn't mean germany just "gets" those nations.
Right but...
Quote: In addition, when France fell, all allied influence in Eastern Europe collapsed (a special rule) and the Eastern European nations were ripe for the picking of Axis ops points.
Sure makes it sound like the Germans would be fools to not take advantage of the windfall.
Quote: They still have to invade or spend ops to influence them until they are under control. All it means is the allies lost all their influence, not that germany got any. This (according to michael) models what really happened when the allies lost france and thus, they had no presence on continental Europe. This is (historically) why Romania and Hungery lined up with the Axis. They had no other choice (except the soviets, and that is posible in this game. See the other AAR posted where the soviets gain control of Bulgaria and use them to invade an undefended ploesti!)
But you miss my point: Why would Germans carry on with Barbarossa, even weak or late, if the Germans have the setbacks you describe? I don't think the Western Allies would wait for Germany to catch their breath and deliver Barbarossa if they had such a hard time taking down Poland and France. I would think history and reactions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would be significantly changed, not just significantly delayed. As in, for the game situation you describe, Hungary and Rumania should join Russia's orbit, with a snowball's chance to join Germany's. But that's not the outlook for Germany based on the review.
I'm glad you had a good time with it. Since my criticisms stem only from your review, I'd have to see the game for myself to be sure. Just shaking the tree and kicking the tires for now...
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Chris Buhl
United States
Pittsfield
Massachusetts
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Bridger wrote: fatgreta wrote: Bridger wrote: As far as the games player limit: to my knowledge that is not changing. The purpose of the game was to create a real 3 man struggle. There are 3 player powers, 3 decks. The soviets and the allies cannot be played by a single person without some major concessions to the game design. They have different VP goals that often cause them to work against each other. Michael mentioned that if Germany has a very bad opening (for whatever reason) they might seek an alliance with the Soviet player (who doesn't want to see Germany fall early, because he will not have many VP and the allies will surely win). This kind of interaction would be impossible if the Soviets and the Allies were controlled by the same person.
I am, for one, very happy with this decision. Often we'll have 3 people together to play a game, but there are very very few decent 3 player wargames. This one is designed specifically with 3 players in mind, so that helps my situation out. I can see how it would be disappointing if you don't have 2 people to play with though. That is, literally, the greatest disappointment to date in my gaming life. I just can't make sense of a WWII grand strategy game that is impossible for 2 people to play. I understand making three people on option (that's the case in Europe Engulfed, for instance), and even a game that is better with three than two. But no way to make it work? As I said, I can't understand that decision, and it's a major bummer. But it's not my game, so I don't pretend that I get to make those decisions. Thanks again for the write up, it was first rate. Chris Certainly. Perhaps when Michael gets back from Vacation he'll explain why he chose this route.
Maybe. Just to be clear, I don't think he owes me an explanation or anything like that. Sometimes posts like this on BGG take on a ranting quality, or read as if the poster is saying "what I want is what the designer should do!" I want to make it clear that I'm not ranting (or raving, for that matter). I'm disappointed, but that's my deal, not a reflection of what I think about the designer (or the game, which sounds just plain awesome).
The good news is, I imagine at least someone in the GBAG will get a copy, and I can probably find my way into a game with them at some point. Or maybe I'll move to Boston, to be closer to... nah, let's not get carried away.
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Chris Buhl
United States
Pittsfield
Massachusetts
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BradyLS wrote:
But you miss my point: Why would Germans carry on with Barbarossa, even weak or late, if the Germans have the setbacks you describe?
Because they had an absolute madman making those decisions?
Or, in game turns, because it would be lame for one player to say "Well, I'm getting my ass kicked, how about if we just quit?"
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Adam Ruzzo
United States
Vernon
Connecticut
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BradyLS wrote: Bridger wrote: Er, I didn't mean to give that impression at all Brady. Poland's 3 hits onto german units meant that I had to spend additional oil resources to bring my armor back up to full strength. As a result, I could not build up a 3rd HQ to blitz status before the attack on france.
As a result of that, france took a lot longer to take down. As a result of that, my Barbarossa opening would have been weak or late (according to Michael, based on previous playtests).
The allied influence in eastern europe did collapse, but that doesn't mean germany just "gets" those nations. Right but... Quote: In addition, when France fell, all allied influence in Eastern Europe collapsed (a special rule) and the Eastern European nations were ripe for the picking of Axis ops points. Sure makes it sound like the Germans would be fools to not take advantage of the windfall. Quote: They still have to invade or spend ops to influence them until they are under control. All it means is the allies lost all their influence, not that germany got any. This (according to michael) models what really happened when the allies lost france and thus, they had no presence on continental Europe. This is (historically) why Romania and Hungery lined up with the Axis. They had no other choice (except the soviets, and that is posible in this game. See the other AAR posted where the soviets gain control of Bulgaria and use them to invade an undefended ploesti!) But you miss my point: Why would Germans carry on with Barbarossa, even weak or late, if the Germans have the setbacks you describe? I don't think the Western Allies would wait for Germany to catch their breath and deliver Barbarossa if they had such a hard time taking down Poland and France. I would think history and reactions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would be significantly changed, not just significantly delayed. As in, for the game situation you describe, Hungary and Rumania should join Russia's orbit, with a snowball's chance to join Germany's. But that's not the outlook for Germany based on the review. I'm glad you had a good time with it. Since my criticisms stem only from your review, I'd have to see the game for myself to be sure. Just shaking the tree and kicking the tires for now...
FWIW, I agree with your assessment. We had no soviet player for a while (michael just played both) so the game was mostly just a demonstration against the allies (poland and france) and it was only a short while. I also made significant mistakes as a new player which contributed to the weak France attack. Michael would be better suited to respond to your points.
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Robb Minneman
United States
Tacoma
Washington
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BradyLS wrote: But you miss my point: Why would Germans carry on with Barbarossa, even weak or late, if the Germans have the setbacks you describe? I don't think the Western Allies would wait for Germany to catch their breath and deliver Barbarossa if they had such a hard time taking down Poland and France. I would think history and reactions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would be significantly changed, not just significantly delayed. As in, for the game situation you describe, Hungary and Rumania should join Russia's orbit, with a snowball's chance to join Germany's. But that's not the outlook for Germany based on the review.
That criticism's not unique to this game, but would be a general critique of WWII European Theater games in general. WWII ETO games assume that there's going to be a war between the Germans and Soviets, sooner or later. It's part and parcel of the genre, because it's something that players expect. (And because, well, there's not much of a game there without it.)
As to the three-player question, you can look back through some of the archives and see some of Mike's comments on the subject.
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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First of all Adam, incredible review. I'm astounded at how well you absorbed the game system after just one partial play. You didn't even read the rules yet I couldn't find one inaccuracy in your AAR! It's comforting to know that the game is so intuitive for a CDG / block game veteran. That being said I'd like to expand upon the very few areas that you weren't entirely certain about:
Bridger wrote: Cadre (Red) Representing the men and material that separate a "good" army unit from a "great" army unit. I think of Cadre as the extra officers and supplies necessary to fight more effectively. Maybe every german company has 4 MG42s, but they only carry 250 rounds of ammo. They are still a decent fighting force, but with more ammo they would be more effective. This is just a small example of the abstraction I believe Cadre represents. The Cadre step might represent more prepared troops with an oversupply of experienced officers/NCOs and ammunition. You can be much more effective and use your MGs more offensively if you are not worried about running out of ammo! Cadre is required to upgrade units a step on the firing chain (from C to B, of B to A, for instance - See the Combat section for more details).
I've intentionally tried to keep cadre abstract since the scale of the game is grand strategic, but more so than anything it represents military doctrine that has evolved from combat experience as well as the core officers and NCOs that are needed to continually impart that knowledge to new recruits. At the start of the war Germany has a virtual monopoly on cadre but that gradually shifts and eventually reverses as the war progresses. As a game mechanic, it serves two functions. First, it is the resource that is required to "unlock" the better steps for land units. This allowed me to seemlessly pre-program all sorts of subtle but significant qualitative differences. A 1945 Soviet army is far superior to it's 41 predecessor and no extra rules must be remembered - though it may behoove players to examine their blocks a bit! The second function of cadre is that of the wildcard resource - it can serve as a substitute for any other. This really helps smooth out anomolies that may occur with resource distribution. There are many instances in which a player may wind up with a pile of one resource and a dearth of another not to due to poor planning, but happenstance. Using cadre as a substitute makes this a pretty rare occurance while also introducing a "euro" aspect - each use of cadre as a substitute implies suboptimal use of resources and if it happens enough times, there is a very noticeable drop in the efficiency of your "economic engine".
Bridger wrote: Breakthroughs can let your armor and mech blocks either encircle enemy units (one block per step of armor performing the encircle) or break out into an adjacent region to start a new battle. Encircled units immediately take one step loss, and are out of supply until they are relieved (not sure how that works yet, it didn't take place!). Your own units that are OOS at the end of your turn all take a step loss.
As the encircling unit is reduced in strength, encircled units "break out". So a 3-step armor that is encircling 3-blocks, can only keep 1 encircled if it reduced to 1 step. Owning player chooses what is encircled.
Bridger wrote: The ops let you do a lot of things, and are really the most important for the Axis. They need lots of ops to build units, move units, and attack with. Occasionally there are some really nice events that they might want to stop and utilize.
It's really most important for all three sides; it just manifests itself in different ways. The Axis need ops to do everything and never seem to have enough. The Soviets usually find themselves in a situation where they have ample manpower but not enough ops. In order to use up their manpower as fast as they can produce it, they need to spend so many ops on builds that they have nothing left over for attacks. This inherently makes the Soviets tough to KO but much less capable of offensive warfare than the Wehrmacht - that is until the Late War when their ops dramatically increase. The Allies have lots of events that need to be played so they also feel the ops pinch unless they forego many of the historical events that occured.
Bridger wrote: Speaking of trade, I forgot to mention how the strategic warfare aspect of the game happens. Essentially there are a few different sea zones that the axis and throw submarines (or surface raiders) into. When the Western Allies check their cards for resources, you might see "commonwealth SA/WA Manpower" which means this manpower resource is coming from the commonwealth (Australia, South Africa, or perhaps India) and it comes in through the South Atlantic and Western Approaches sea zones. When that resource is triggered, any Axis units in the Raiding boxes of those sea zones get to "shoot" at the resource. After they shoot at the resource, the allies hunting the subs in those areas get to shoot at the subs (I might have this reversed, allies might shoot first). This allows the axis to try and maneuver their Uboats around, and really gives them a lot more leeway when they capture france (more ports to launch the Uboats further out).
U-boats indeed shoot first. Although the strategic warfare system is highly abstracted, there is a great deal of strategy built into what seems like a relatively simple system. Some sea zones have many more resources passing through them but are typically much easier to protect. For instance, almost all Allied shipping passes through the Western Approaches, expect a huge Royal Navy and RAF presence which would make u-boat losses very high unless they force the WAllies to fan out and provide coverage all over the map. The Atlantic Gap is easy pickings for u-boats until B-24s are introduced, but expect far fewer convoy spottings that far out to sea...
Bridger wrote: Speaking of players, this is a 3 player game. There doesn't seem to be rules to play the grand campaign with 2 players. You can play an eastern front scenario with 2 players, but it does away with the diplomacy and such other considerations. The 3 player game is where it's at. All 3 sides have their own agenda and their own method of scoring/losing victory points. The Axis powers lose victory points for every region controlled by the soviet union at the end of the game. The allies lose a victory point for every block they lose in combat. The soviets get an extra VP for each country adjacent to the soviet union they control (lets start the iron curtain! There may be more than those, but I am a huge fan of asymmetrical victory conditions
There will be several 2 and 3 player scenarios spanning 2-hour to 12-hour play times. It is true that the campaign game is best with 3 players. Someone asked what is left to be worked on. Definitely, a 2-player version of the campaign game is top priority, but since there are three dedicated decks, there are more obstacles than one might have if the game had a shared deck. With the addition of Operation Orient, the game can be played with 3-5 players.
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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Epee wrote: Fantastic summary and review.
Looks like the game is ready? What is Michael Tan working on it still?
Michael, it would be so so sweet if this game could have a mounted board - with the wooden cubes, it looks like a euro wargame classic!
All the major mechanics are finished. I'm primarily working on details like the weather system, play balance, final cut list for event cards, and overall "tightening up" the rules. The 2 player campaign scenario is also a huge deal.
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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Bridger wrote: Ah! I had some criticism after all!
The "Entrench" ability that you can perform with an ops point only helps on clear region sides because all it does is reduce the number of blocks that can cross a specific border by 1. I felt that it should have some kind of advantage to entrenching along a river boundary too. Maybe units crossing a river boundary against entrenched units take an automatic step loss unless there is a unit crossing into the region from a clear boundary? Not my favorite solution but I can't think of another at the moment.
This is partly due to my desire to keep dice modifiers and special rules to a minimum. There are no dice modifiers per se. Basically entrenching, snow, mud, etc... "change" a normal attack into one as if you were fighting in a different type of terrain i.e. entrench = river, snow = mountain, mud = marsh. Also, one aspect of river/entrenched combat that didn't arise - assualt hits force the unit to retreat rather than take the step loss (unless Zhukov is in command or SS units are attacking).
The rulebook is designed to teach you a very simple and streamlined "system". All the fiddly stuff is either printed on a block, a card, or the map. Very very little needs to be looked up. As some have already inferred, I intend this to be a universal grand strategic rule set that can be adapted to almost any setting. Just change out the cards, blocks, and map and viola - same rules, new game.
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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fatgreta wrote: Bridger wrote: Speaking of players, this is a 3 player game. There doesn't seem to be rules to play the grand campaign with 2 players. You can play an eastern front scenario with 2 players, but it does away with the diplomacy and such other considerations. The 3 player game is where it's at. Is that for real?!? There's no way, in the rules, to play the campaign with 2 players?!? Is there, or has there ever been, another game like this where that's the case?!? If that's really true, it makes it un-purchasable for me. How am I going to find not one, but TWO other guys nearby who have 12 hours free to play a game of this? I was, literally, stunned when I read that. I'd love to hear from Micheal Tan if that's actually true, and going to remain true in the final release.
This is the only possible remaining design consideration that could significantly delay release. The simple solution for two players is to have the Allies and Soviets played by one player. It would be easy to modify the VP system and handicap/limit Allied Soviet cooperation. It may even be as easy as take the lower of the two VP scores. My biggest concern is that it may just not "feel" right to take double turns and manage two card hands. The extreme solution is to rework the cards into one single deck but I'm not a fan of the Twilight Struggle "screw your opponent" style card play in a classic wargame. But no matter what, the game will have a 2-player campaign option.
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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fatgreta wrote: The good news is, I imagine at least someone in the GBAG will get a copy, and I can probably find my way into a game with them at some point. Or maybe I'll move to Boston, to be closer to... nah, let's not get carried away.
How about remembering your anniversary for starters?
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Adam, Michael, thanks so much for all the information. Sounds terrific and I am astounded once more by the fascinating ideas implemented in this game.
Looking forward to the release!
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Michael Tan
United States
Santa Monica
California
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BradyLS wrote: According to the review, the Allies got lucky with an "Appeasement" card play. But when Germany went back on her word, only Turkey and Rumania expressed their disapproval.
Losing influence in Romania and Turkey is a huge deal in the long run. The oil shortage was directly repsonsible for his struggles in France. With Axis influence removed in Turkey, the Allies could get control of Turkey pretty easily. It's an excellent staging ground for the Allies to attack Russia or Germany with all it's mountain terrain. There would be no need for an amphibious invasion of Europe. In short, the game was probably lost because of the influence lost. If he had knocked out France quickly, that might not have been the case.
BradyLS wrote: The Poles did unprecedentedly well by knocking German units down a whole three steps. I have no idea what that means, but I guess that's somehow bad for Germany. But not bad enough to delay a German attack on France.
No offense to Poles who died defending their country, but Poland should really be nothing more than a speed bump for Germany in WWII games. Adam lost 3 steps when the median is about 1.2. Considering Germany produces about 10 resources/steps a turn, that is not a huge deal but it wasn't a good start.
BradyLS wrote: France didn't fall till late in 1940 and supposedly put Germany behind the 8-ball for Barbarossa. But never mind, all Allied influence in Eastern Europe fell and so that area was "ripe for the picking" for Germany.
I would not have guessed that set-backs of that sort would give the Germans an optimistic outlook for a war in Eastern Europe. Unless the Soviets are quite obviously weak.
It sounds to me like for every German disaster, there is an equal and opposite counter-balance built into the system so that Germany continues to fight on regardless.
In history, there was a heavy price paid for under-estimating German war prowess. Germany paid this heavy price, too. In this game, it looks like no early set-back is too great for Germany to overcome. And no way for the Germans to under-estimate Soviet or Allied strength.
In any event, based on this review, it sounds to me like this game still needs some development. If the Germans receive supposed setbacks early, there should be real penalties for them.
I think under any circumstance in which France is conquered in 1940 would have been a great shock to rest of the world. It just so happens that with hindsight we know that the only way Germany could realistically invade the Soviet Union is with a swift defeat of France. There is no built-in counterbalance system for Germany however. To clarify, Eastern Europe refers specificially to Romania, Poland, the USSR, and the Baltic States. A major power (Germany, USSR) cannot influence another major power and Poland and the Baltic States are usually occupied by the Fall of France. The rule is really intended to enable Germany to gain Romania as an ally. A very precarious sequence of events (Fall of France, Vienna Award, Iron Guard, Antonescu) enabled Germany to gain Romania as an ally and that is not the expected result when one looks at the political landscape of 1939 Europe - afterall they had a pact with France. You really don't have WWII as we know it if Germany doesn't have Ploesti oil. There would be no blitzkrieg without it. That's not a very interesting wargame...
Thanks for kicking the tires / shaking the tree. Honestly. I was slightly bummed when I asked Adam for NEGATIVE feedback and he said "None"...
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Posted Mon Jun 28, 2010 4:29 am
