War in the West

[V22 Osprey]

War in the West should come with a main campaign and a side campaign. The 1940 Blitzkrieg would be cover in a smaller 'side' campaign while the main campaign would cover '43-'45. I don't know if I like the idea of North Africa being a separate game. If that is the case I'm not going to be paying monster game price for it.

[gravyhair]

FANTASTIC! Will the war in North Africa include the Ethiopian Theater? Will it include Tunisia and/or the entirety of the Torch landings, etc? Will it include options like an attempted air/amphib asault on Malta? Will it allow for ahistorical options such as a breakthrough to the Nile Delta and/or fighting up into Palestine and Lebanon/Syria? How about a Wafdist uprising and Iraqis crossing into Egypt? (Shooting for the moon here.)

P.S. How will the realities of the naval game apply to North Africa. OCS DAK2 does a pretty good job if you're looking for inspiration ...

[Wikingus]

Oh man awesome news. Those theatres will surely also include a more detailed air model and naval units. Throw in some production options, and... [&o]

[JSBoomer]

I'm looking forward to this! Timeframe?

[vinnie71]

But if its 43 to 45, chances are that North Africa is not included - even if the Mediterranean is included at all...
 
The Italian campaign though is one where many what ifs are possible as well, and its advances were closely intertwined with the campaign in France. Therefore it would be natural to have them both together. Also if the scale remains the same as in WITE, it would be better to have Italy, possibly part of ex Yugoslavia and Austria and Western Germany included.
 
My real dream is a full East - West WWII campaign set on the basis of this game. Obviously I'll have to buy a new top notch computer for the beast...[:'(]

[histgamer]

ORIGINAL: rjl518

I would love to see a w War in the West...however i actually think a War in North Africa is badly needed at this time. I look all over and i hardly see any games depicting Rommel's Afrika Korps...Wavell's Operation Compass...which today is the 70th anniversary of the offensive...the Italian Invasion...

I think a War in North Africa would be awesome...How bout it Gary Grigsby?

Why not an expansion which links a War in the East, War in the Med, and War in the West into one grand game starting in 1940?

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: flanyboy

Why not an expansion which links a War in the East, War in the Med, and War in the West into one grand game starting in 1940?

Your answer is a few posts above:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

War in the West (43-45) and War in North Africa are the next two games we will be working on. Eventually plan to link them all (that is the plan anyway).

[FM WarB]

I don't see how the North African campaign would be alot of fun at this scale. It is 600 miles west from El Alamein to El Agheila as the crow flies, the approximate distance west from Moscow to Brest-Lotovsk. Tunis is 500 miles west and 500 miles north of El Agheila and Casablanca is another 1000 miles west of Tunis. The "playing surface" from El Alamein to El Agheila is narrow, as you can only go so far south into the desert before you die. The battle of El Alamein would be three to four hexes north to south and Tobruk no more than double that.

The forces, before Torch max out at 10-13 divisions in 3-5 corps for each side, with lots of attachments of all arms at corps and army level.

Afrika was a sideshow; send Rommel to Russia!

[vinnie71]

Yes, but if its combined with the rest of the Mediterranean, its a totally different picture. Italy, the Balkans are pretty large, and we don't know how far east will the map spread.

[squatter]

I would imagine the War in Africa game would/should be more like WITP than WITE. The campaign was really the battle for the Mediterranean, and the game should be so too - Crete/Malta/Gibralta/etc it should also include the Italian campaign, not the War in the West game. That is how I imagine they will do it.
 
Combining all four games is all well and good, but seriously, will anyone here live long enough to complete a grand campaign of WITP/WITE/WITW/WINA? It would probably take longer than the real thing. And if the solution is to have seperate players controlling each front, well, that kind of defeats the object of a grand strategy game where you get to control the entire war effort.

[mavraamides]

I think it could be pulled off as follows:

Instead of combining all 3 of them into one mega game (which would have serious scaling issues) it could be 3 different games each with their own scale:

WITE 10 mile hex / division - battalion units
WITW 5 mile hex / battalion - company units
WIA 3 mile hex / battalion - company units

Now, if you own all 3, you could play a linked campaign as follow:
Each grand grand campaign would involve playing 1 turn in each game. You would get a new option that allows you to transfer unmoved / in supply / in CC units to another front where they would show up as reinforcements when you play that front. Units would be re-scaled as necessary so a division transfered from the East would show up as 3 battalion in the West, for ex.

At the end, your final score would be the sum of all 3 campaign scores.

You would of course need a 4th application to manage all of this and probably a major patch to WITE. This grand grand campaign manager may possibly also include a production model.

So maybe a game turn goes like this:

1) Start your grand grand campaign and it brings you up in WITE.
2) When you end your turn, it automatically fires up WITW.
3) When you end your turn, it fires up WIA.
4) When you end your turn, it brings up the campaign manager where you could deal with things like production and possibly look at global OOB's, VP situ or a complete strategic map to get an overall picture.

I think it would work.

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

War in the West (43-45) and War in North Africa are the next two games we will be working on. Eventually plan to link them all (that is the plan anyway).

Joel

Thats great news! After playing and loving WitE, I cant wait to see the other theaters!

I just have one concern: scale.

The 10 mile, 1 week turn and divison/corp scale works on the Ostfront, but it would not make for an interesting West Front game.

I mean look at Normandy. I remember there was a West Front scenario for TOAW III that covered Italy and France, using a large scale (around 10 miles) and division units. It was a total and complete bore. I mean the Normandy operation had a whopping 8 or so units to start with. On the other hand, there was another scenario that was on the battlion level with one day turns and that was fun! Half the fun of WitE is the vast scale and immense number of units. The Battle of the Bulge would have fewer units involved than AGC. Not very fun.

I know the desire is to link the three, but I just dont think that a War in the West game would work very well on a 10 mile, 1 week, Division scale. You would have so few units that it would be a very short, uninteresting game compared to WitE.

Just my 2 bits.

Chad

[vinnie71]

Actually for me scale and time compression are not an issue, if the western and mediterranean theatres were linked. The whole problem for the allies was essentially that both fronts were congested for a long time and there wasn't that much freedom of manoever.

What I would really like to see is an overarching campaign with production (not R&D) for on map powers. Also for the Axis and Allies, they shouldn't be tied down to historical deployments, though to keep it historical, forces could be raised in the historical waves.

Maybe a limited diplomatic interface could be introduced, at least towards neutral countries like Sweden,Switzerland, Spain and Turkey which were 'approached' to provide some resources by the Axis...

[Zort]

I like the way production is set up now. As I see it cities are indicated with what factories they have and when captured if you can get them on line faster you can build more. As for being able to change what is built, that is a game in it self and all powers would need that option. I see if you can get more faster then you are ahead of the game. Of course doing player production I can see the complaints when you can't get those new tanks produced for another year while the factory is being retooled. Italy is a good example, they never had the production capability for plane engines and the producers wouldn't change their production no matter what Mussolini wanted. So there is a lot of production politics that have to be considered (which most players don't want to deal with IMO).

But what is interesting is we are talking about the next game and very few have finished a campaign against another human of WitE yet. What I would like to see is a Poland scenario since the map is there already. Then a Yugo scenario both early and late war.

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

War in the West (43-45) and War in North Africa are the next two games we will be working on. Eventually plan to link them all (that is the plan anyway).

Oh Lord! Is it just me or are others seeing bright lights and experiencing vertigo?

[Dili]

The Mediterranean is aero naval warfare. The War in Pacific engine with some tweaks would be the only chance to pull that off, not this engine.

[Phenix]

Wait a minute, what happened to 39-41 , Poland, France, Yugo, Greece etc.etc. surely it would be more logical to start with that?

[Mehring]

There's a big gap 41-43 if you leave out the East and even before 1941 it's a bit sporadic historically in the west. That's why we need an integrated War in Europe.

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: Phenix
Wait a minute, what happened to 39-41 , Poland, France, Yugo, Greece etc.etc. surely it would be more logical to start with that?

I think a Fall Gelb / Battle of France scenario would still be included in WitW, but just as a short scenario rather than a 'grand campaign' type of deal.

[Dili]

You can get a very good exclusive Mediterranean Game starting in 10 June 1940, the Italian declaration of War against France and England.

The War Starts in Africa - maybe w/ option to include East Africa -
In October Italians attack Greece.
In December 40 first Germans air units arrive in Med.
In Feb/Mar 41 first German Ground Units arrive in Africa.
April 41 attack against Greece and Yugoslavia by Italy, Germany, Hungary; Bulgarian forces later also occupy parts of Greece and Yugoslavia.
June 41 British and Free French Attack against French Vichy Levant(Syria/Lebanon)
Summer 42 arrive first American Air Units in Mediterranean.

With over 3500 axis ships plus and between 1000 to 2600 Luftwaffe and more than 1500 Italian planes the Med is a very dense theater at which should be added the Allies superior in quantity around 1942.

The number of countries(Italy,France,England,USA, Germans, Commonwealth, Greeks, ex.Yugoslav's at least) and the fact that it will be a novelty in game terms will have a good potential market.
Also letting the option for modders to add the possibility of Turkey and a Gibraltar - Operation Felix/Spain enter the War there is a lot of potential market for an exclusive Mediterranean game.