Matrix Games

As a team, we wanted to create a new series of games with the type of War in the Pacific-style gameplay that we all enjoy. After we released WITP-AE back in 2009, that team continued to work on a War In the Mediterranean Game for the WITP/UV2 engine - on and off through about 2012. At that point, interest waned and we stopped. Then in 2018 Alessandro showed up with a New Engine and we pulled some of the old team (and some new members) together and restarted working on several games. It turned out, not by design, that WIS got the most energy behind it and it became ready for beta first.   

There were a number of changes I had dreamed of making to the AE engine, but with Alessandro’s new engine (zero lines of code shared with AE) we had an opportunity to make larger changes easier. Two of those areas I picked were Land Combat (and movement) and Logistics. 

Land Combat

This really includes more than “land combat”. It includes redoing how we represent land units. In AE, we still used the “generic” division breakdowns present in WITP. In War in Spain, we can represent LCUs (Land Combat Units) at the battalion level and allow them to build up to brigades and regiments, allowing those to build up to divisions. All the units at all these different levels are now represented in the database and that’s a big change that I’d wanted since first playing WITP!  

So in the above image we see the “Jubert Sector” - which is a Republican division-sized unit. Note, at the start of the war the Republicans especially, are very disorganized and have “clumps” of militia units grouped up with a tiny few regular army units. For example the 2o/No.14 Batalion de R.I.  highlighted in green, is a regular army battalion, assigned to the “Pajarero Columna de Milicia” (see the indentions) which itself is assigned to the “Jubert Sector”. The Pajarero Column being a regimental equivalent and the ”Jubert Sector” being a divisional equivalent.

Later in the war, both sides get more organized and their armies begin to more closely resemble those seen in major power armies, with named divisions, brigades and regiments. Here’s an example from late 1937, Republican side, the 24th Division.

Note the independent artillery units assigned to the division as well as the 16th Brigade and the 8th Vitoria Regiment. We can also see their various battalions and companies underneath. All this is a new and welcome capability, allowing us greater historical accuracy in representing units from many nations and periods.   

Also, in land combat for AE, we seemed to have inherited a predilection (from PACWAR via UV and WITP?) for land units to prefer to operate from base to base along the road net. Our new engine for War in Spain gets completely away from that idea and now treats the whole battlefield as part of its scope. This was another feature we desired back during AE development, but didn’t have the means to make such a fundamental change. This screen shot shows the Norte scenario battle lines from the Nationalist side, using a large LCU icon format. 
 

Not at all tied to the roads, and units are not primarily in huge stacks, due to this particular game being in a 5nm/hex scale. New Engine is coded to allow map scales at least between 5nm and 40nm. We felt the 5nm scale for WIS would better represent land combat at the tactical level.  

And last but not least, the “legacy” LCU view (we also have a set of list views for LCUs and a sidebar view - so players have lots of options as to how to view and give orders to their Land Combat Units).  



But since many readers might be familiar with this legacy view from playing UV or WITP or AE, we show it here for comparison. The devil is in the details. You’ll note a reserve (engagement) order, an intercept/ambush order and a strategic move order. A strategic move allows explicit rail movement.   Reserve and Intercept allow some units to more quickly react to enemy moves during turn resolution. The details will be found in the manual. 


Logistics

Another key area we were able to significantly improve was overland logistics. In AE, we evolved into a system that was primarily pull based, but was not hard tied to any actual capability to MOVE supply for the areas in question. This meant we spent most of our time tweaking it rather than redesigning it from the ground up. However, for War in Spain we did. We built a whole new rail system and added Rail, Truck and Foot logistics units on map (LogR, LogT, LogF). The rail system explicitly models rail capacity in all in-scope areas. Now, supply movement capacity is overtly represented and as I say “no more magic carpets” - meaning no more free movement of supply that isn’t based on actual in-game capability.  

Here’s a screen shot of some of the logistics units



And here’s the detailed composition of one of them

You can look at these Log units as “Supply movement capacity”. By locating them along your lines of communication, you increase whatever supply movement capacity you already had. Typically the LogR units are used farther back to enable building up supply to support Corps level operations, whereas the LogT and LogF are used closer to the front to augment division, brigade and regiment logistics delivery means.  

The player can (and should) move his Log units around to enable him to enhance logistics delivery means in a given area.   

And lastly here’s a view of the base supply management screen



You can see the 120 RR units as well as vehicles and squads which can be used to move supply. The player can “request” additional supply over and above what the AI is supplying, by using the “requested” group of buttons.   

So, logistics has been substantially improved by creating an underlying supply movement system (operated primarily by the AI) to represent supply movement capability. The player can essentially prioritize some areas over others by moving his Log units around and by requesting additional supplies at bases which require more, in accordance with the player's planning.

By Joe Wilkerson
Project Leader
War In Spain 1936-1939
Joint Warfare Simulations

WISHLIST THE GAME NOW.