OT: The mother of all wargames is impossible to play

[KMCCARTHY]

See http://warisboring.com/articles/the-wre ... th-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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Why can't they port it to PC?

[wdolson]

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]

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]

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]

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]

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody

.... I dumped it somewhere along the way. Probably worth a fortune nowadays.

Cheers,
CC

I do hope so.

[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

[blueatoll]

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]

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]

Only well known mega-board game I never owned or played!

[Big B]

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

[rustysi]

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]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

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?