Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.
The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).
It seems like there should be a sort of global morale hit when major cities are lost/abandoned, contrary to the prewar expectations of the combatants. At least this concept should be studied to assess its applicability to this conflict. Russia had used a strategic withdrawal/scorched earth strategy against Napoleon in 1812, yet I haven't gotten the impression that such was contemplated in 1941.
+1 Sillyflower and +1 A game (in re having a game system do it.)
If one were adept at using the editor, one could make the Lvov opening much more difficult, make losing Western Soviet Union resources more costly, and make Axis stronger/Soviets weaker through the early moves (even to 3/42.) Alas, I'm not.
As things stand, there are significant adjustments that can be made through the balance factors and force factors (defense/attack +/-)
But a more elegant approach would be appreciated, if only to mask the mechanics and simplify play.
Adjusting morale through time could be useful, but who can say what effects there are to losing key centers at different times, in different circumstances. All this would be moot.
If one were adept at using the editor, one could make the Lvov opening much more difficult, make losing Western Soviet Union resources more costly, and make Axis stronger/Soviets weaker through the early moves (even to 3/42.) Alas, I'm not.
... .
believe me, the WiTE Lvov fantasy is off the agenda in WiTE2, there is a rather nice modelling of the differential level of combat and command capacity/readiness between the SW and Western Fronts in the opening days.
... and any German player planning to support the Ukraine campaign off the Romanian-Soviet rail net is in for a shock too.
its hard to say where things end up but at the moment both sides have real problems in the opening 20 turns. The Germans curse every Soviet counterstroke for burning off supplies etc needed to push forward. The Soviet player had better get used to defending with 4-6,000 man rifle divisions.
Because surrender is sometimes worse than death. It's no coincidence that Germans were more willing to surrender to the Allies than to the Soviets. Perhaps a self-preservation variable would be a good idea?
ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Sometimes I long for the simplicity of a boardgame that can be played to completion in 3-4 hours, but then, that's not what WitE/WitW is all about.
True happiness would be your games with real cardboard. A true successor to DNO/FiTE etc
web exchange
Post: I am always fearful that when I put this game down on the table and people see the box-art they will think I am some kind of neo-Nazi
Reply: They already know you're a gamer. What other shame can possibly compare?
Because surrender is sometimes worse than death. It's no coincidence that Germans were more willing to surrender to the Allies than to the Soviets. Perhaps a self-preservation variable would be a good idea?
This is important when it comes to fighting in pockets like in stalingrad (where they were holding out very long, but to a lesser extent when it comes to offensive operations, but the Wehrmacht excelled in this area too.
Fighting in pockets isn't really any different to fighting out of pockets. If troops have supplies of ammo, they can fight, if they have food they will be able to fight, if they have hope they will want to fight. The first too are obviously covered anyway (by supply quantity) the latter is harder to simulate. I do not know how you could cause a decline in will to fight over the weeks and maybe months of a typical eastern front pocket without causing as many issues as you solve.
I think the WitW style supply will give pocket resilience or lack of it quite happily. If you are isolated with a few well stocked depots a WitW pocket almost doesn't notice it is one... and I think trrops with food and ammo dont tend to give up in RL.
I know, Singapore but there is always an exception...
Really excited for WitE 2, the first was awesome so can't wait for an new and improved game [:)]
I don't know if this has been talked about previously but one thing that has left me a bit uneasy is the presence in game of the SS-Kavallerie Brigade and the two mot. SS-Brigaden.
I understand you need anti partisan units in the game but those units committed terrible war crimes and participated from the start in the mass murder of jews, partisans, prisoners of war etc. Unlike some other anti partisan units in the game these units were under direct command of the Kommandostab Reichsführer SS trough the RSSHA and the piece of garbage that was Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and were directly responsible for tens of thousands of murders from the start of operation Barbarossa. No other units in the game are so closely tied to the genocidal part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on their own and in cooperation with the Einsatzgruppen. Just a few concrete examples: on August 2nd 1941 SS-Kavallerie Regiment 1 killed about 5000 jewish men, women and children at Chomsk and Motol; on Augst 4th 1941 in Ostrog the SS-Infanterie Regiment 10 (mot) killed up to 3000 jews; a direct order of SS-Führer Gustav Lombard to his SS-Kavallerieregiment 1 dated July 29th 1941 literally says "No male Jew is left alive, no families left in the villages". (examples taken from the article by Martin Cüppers see below)
True these units were later reorganized a to some extant and used on the front lines but I think it would be better not to have these units as separate entities in the game in the early part of the war.
I personally don't think these units deserve a place in such a great game as WitE and I would be interested to hear the opinion of other fans of the game and/or the game developers.
(if this issue has been discussed before my bad didn't see it anywhere)
some interesting reading about what these units were implicated in:
- "The Origins of the Final Solution. The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942" by Christopher R. Browning is a good read about the early German racial policies and how they evolved from persecution and “ethnic cleansing” to the Final Solution of the Holocaust.
- "Wegbereiter der Shoah: Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939-1945" by Martin Cüppers which does a great job at showing the direct link between Himmler, the units linked to his Kommandostab and and the genocide.
- "Auf dem Weg in den Holocaust. Die Brigaden des Kommandostabes Reichshführer-SS im Sommer 1941" p. 286-301 by Martin Cüppers in: "Die Waffen-SS. Neueste Forschungen." published by Jan Erik Schulte, Peter Lieb and Bernd Wegner, an article in which Cüppers directly shows the war crimes committed by the SS Cavalry Brigade and 1. and 2. SS Infantry Brigades in the Summer of 1941 alone.
-There is safety in numbers.
-Well there is also death in numbers. It's called a massacre.
The Eastern front was rife with war crimes committed by both sides. Millions of soldiers and civilians were killed directly and indirectly by both German and Soviet actions from local situations, such as killing prisoners out of hand, to scorched earth retreat by Soviets leading to deaths of their own people. I don't think that the targeted death of specific groups (not limited to Jews by the way) is more tragic than the many others killed during the course of the war. I think that to pretend that removing these 3 units somehow makes the game/war more clean is to ignore all the horrors that the war entailed.
If you are the German player and they offend you, disband them. If you are the Soviet and see them, go kill them.
Yes both sides commited war crimes but the german level of determination, planning and use of an ideology to justify it is uncontested in modern history i think. However, i dont see the reason to remove the units from the game. They were in the world and ignoring them makes the game a bit unrealistic. I would however appreciate a small unit history for every division, this were the right place to mention war crimes.
Units participating in real combat should be present in the game, regardless of their other activities (but it should be mentioned in unit history page, if such functionality exists). Units performing only dirty deeds in the rear can be removed.
I think this is a more important issue than it would seem. Yes, there were lots of atrocities perpetrated by both sides, but this game is not about that. It is a military strategy game. To sanitize it of all reference to atrocities would be to delete the entire game. A lot of the war production and forced labour were atrocities as well... we could not start deleting all the war material that was produced by slave labour, all the fortifications dug by forced labour. The game is just not about that. If you ask me war is an atrocity, pure and simple. I like to play strategy games though- my electronic units hurt no one.
I do not mean to be insensitive in any way. Remember the past, remember the wars, remember the atrocities. Fight to stop them from ever happening again. BUT- Do not pretend they did not exist by removing any uncomfortable references to them. Understanding the whole reality of of the eastern campaign is a good thing in my opinion. Leave the units in the OB.
I agree with Barry - and we should also remember that most of WWII history was written by the victors. With the internet, we now have access to sites like "Justice for Germans" to hear the German view. I have read SS memoirs of soldiers that personally saw no atrocities committed and even made friends with many of the local populace that were later slaughtered by the Bolsheviks after retreating.
It's likely we will never know the full truth about either side, so I'm in favor of just leaving all historical units in the game instead of trying to make judgments about them without knowing the all the facts.
"The Führer believes that this campaign will be over by autumn...I hope the Führer is right." Field-Marshal Walther von Reichenau, 1941
I disagree a bit with you Kuenstler but i dont want to start a discussion here, maybe i will pm you.
However, i agree this is a wargame, not a war crimes game, so i dont want units to be removed because they commited war crimes but were regular fighting units.
These battle delay MP I have heard of, I assume the units who participated in the attack are not hit with that extra cost?
And why if the attacker has won the battle should he have to pay MP to occupy the hex (other than zoc costs) he has just fought a battle in?
I guess what I am getting at here is why can't the attacker advance for free (other than zoc costs) in to a just cleared hex he has won. This aspect has always made me wonder about WITE. As almost every other game I have played has an advance after combat that is virtually free for the attacker.
I agree with Michael, attacker should enter the cleared hex for free. The delay should apply only for units not participating in that particular battle.
Combat Delay only applies when you leave the combat hex. There is no extra charge to occupy the hex after battle. The amount of combat delay is set by the type of attack and the final odds.
