My thoughts on PFE

Piercing Fortress Europa is a new game from veteran game designer Frank Hunter, which covers the campaigns of the Western Allies from July, 1943 through the end of April, 1945 in Sicily and Italy. Each area has its own map and time scale to best represent the campaigns for Sicily and Italy and the player is offered complete freedom, limited only by a historical order of battle and logistics model, to plan his operations and explore all of the many “what ifs” that the Italian theater has to offer.
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conger
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My thoughts on PFE

Post by conger »

I've completed several of the smaller campaigns and fooled around with the bigger ones a little as well and here are some of my thoughts thus far about the game.

--The Good--
-Easy mechanics: I found the game is easy to pick up and play, I did read the manual to clear up a few things though (mostly in regards to supply).
-Interesting AI: The Germans mostly just react to you, as you'd expect, but the Allied AI can be quite fun. I've seen the Allied AI play it historical, advance solely up the boot from the toe with no landings (for half of the main campaignat least), and land everything in the south east (at Bari) and move up only the east coast. Not all of its moves are wise, but it's nice to see the AI trying a variety of things.
-UI: Everything thing you need to know to wage war is easy to find and there's no need to wade through lots of menus to do what you want.
-I want more: I like the system, the scale, the level of complexity, and I want to see more of it.

--Possible Suggestions--
-No Italian units: Neither the Italian Co-Belligerent Army or National Republican Army are present in the campaigns, which features I scale I think they should be able to fit into.
-It's a bloodbath: By the end of the Southern Italian Campaign I (Axis) had suffered close to 100k losses while the Allies suffered close to 200k. These numbers along with others I've seen while playing the game are far to high in comparison to the historical numbers.
-Lack of Partisans: Maybe they could be included as a little mini game similar to the way Airpower is dealt with or some such?
-Add some chrome: When clicking a unit maybe have its unit insignia appear in the information tab, include little historical notes (Mussolini's death, D-Day, etc. when those dates are reached).
SMK-at-work
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RE: My thoughts on PFE

Post by SMK-at-work »

I agree with all of the above - now being a veteran of 4 whole games as the Allies :)

EXCEPT - the bloodbath comment - although the Allies lost a lot in your game the scale is not entirely out of hand - historically the allies lost 12,000 in 14 days at Salerno & advancing up the "toe", and ~300,000 for the whole Italian campaign. Given that this is a simulation, and you almost certainly fought a lot harder than Rommel did (he essentially abandoned Sth Italy) I don't have a problem with the numbers.
Meum est propisitum in taberna mori
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conger
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RE: My thoughts on PFE

Post by conger »

You're right my friend, I do tend to fight hard in the south. I have noticed something of a habit for the AI however: it tends to land UK Para and Commandos at Bari, these can be easily destroyed by using nearby German Para and Armor, after this it then moves the bulk of its forces up the "toe" part of Italy, these forces can then be quite effectively held at bay (because it's narrow the Allies can't fan out and force you to divide your forces). You're probably right that this is why I'm seeing such heavy losses so early on.
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