Campaign Series East Front III / timeline & coverage questions

[Jason Petho]

I think Italy and Slovakia will be included, but I don't think with EFIII 1.00

[Hoplite1963]

Thanks for the quick turn around on this one.

Regards
Ian

[athineos]

In the meantime, I'll be playing JTCS...

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: athineos

In the meantime, I'll be playing JTCS...

Always a good option!

In the meantime, too, here's the current version on the new East Front Panzergrau-based color scheme:

[athineos]

[Crossroads]

There's a new post by Jason about the German WW2 Order of Battle research and implementation at our website:

[*] German Order of Battle in East Front III

Any questions or comments, please post there or ask here [:)]

[Hoplite1963]

Hi All
Now that we know the scope and nation content of the East Front III core game I thought it might be interesting to some thoughts up here about what I would like to see in the two main follow on modules both to get in these requests and to stimulate discussion about what is possible and what people would like here.

EFIII core game (what we know we are getting)

Time period January 1939 to December 1941, coverage Polish Campaign, Winter War and the first 6 and a bit months of Operation Barbarossa.
Nations included at launch; Finland, Hungary, Nazi Germany,(with separate subsets for Army, SS Luftwaffe, DAK & GD units) Poland, Romania and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (With subsets for Army Guards & NKVD units)

EFIII 1st Core DLC package

Time period covered, January 1942 to December 1943.

What I would like to see. Time period covered also extended backwards to cover January to December 1938 to cover the war breaking out early over the Czech crises with German and Soviet OOB’s also extended back to cover this. (You would need to do this for the Soviet’s for Rising Sun II for the battles in Manchuria in any case)

Additional nations added; Slovaks, Czech’s, (for hypothetical Munich war) Spanish and Italians (with subsets for army, Black shirt legionary and Italian Social Republic units and formations)

Developments to the games engine

Ground Scale

This is going to be the module that covers Stalingrad and (while I appreciate some people have good reasons for not wanting this) to do this battle justice I would like to see the ability to set an alternative ground scale in the scenario editor. Not trying to turn the game into a squad level simulation, as there are other games to do that, but do think that scenario designers should have the option to set the ground scale to 125 as opposed to 250 meters per hex. If you left the time scale at 6 minutes this would mean doubling line of sight, weapons ranges and movement allowances. (Although you might want to increase the cost of some hex side terrain types and reduce stacking limits)
Quite apart from being able to depict smaller battles in greater detail this would also reduce the unappealing overcrowding effect you can currently get from small encounters. Such a facility would also be useful when you came to redo Rising Sun where some of the scenarios such as those for Iwo Jima suffer rather badly from this problem. It’s interesting here to compare the current Rising Sun scenario “Trouble Along the IIu” which uses the current CS series 250 meters per hex scale and uses a 19 by 22 hex map and the “The Battle of the Tenaru” scenario for the same action in the “P..... B.... Demo” where a 63 by 40 map is employed.

Unit arrivals and departures

Here it would be good to give scenario designers the ability to set departure as well as arrival times for units (to simulate withdrawals and also to have off map artillery units arrive (and depart) from their none on map locations during the course of the game.

EFIII 2nd Core DLC package

Time period covered January 1944 to December 1945 or perhaps December 1947 as the next month appears to be the starting point for the post WW2 games.
Scope of coverage the last two years on the Eastern Front, and WW2 in the northern Balkans from the start of the Partisan warfare phase to the end of the war and its partisan warfare aftermath.

Additional nations added / developing the series minor factions coverage:

Bulgarians, Russians, (for Russian liberation Army and Osttruppen, (using the blue/red/white flag, (you would need this faction for the Imperial Russians in a WW1 game in any case) Yugoslav (using the red star over the blue white and red partisan flag, (I suggest that the original defence of Yugoslavia in 1941 by the Royal Yugoslav Army should be covered in the West Front game) For the Polish nation set from February 1942 the flag/base/counter/unit set changed to cover the Polish Home Army, and two generic factions Pro Axis and Pro Allied.

Here I would like to see the games engine developed further so that in either the order of battle or the scenario editor, a scenario designer could choose from a range of flag/counter/base sets for a generic “Pro” faction to cover the particular nation being fielded in that battle. This feature would be good to extend to other games in the series ie Khmer Rouge & Pathet Lao sets added to the “Pro East” faction set in the Vietnam game and PLO & Hezbullah sets added to the “Pro East” faction set for the Middle East Game. This would also make it easier to keep the number of national faction sets across the whole series to under 100 which I understand is desired for technical reasons.

For the generic “Pro Allied” faction I would like to see flag/base/counter sets and corresponding units and formations for; Polish LWP army fighting with the Soviets on the Eastern Front, Chetniks, and pro allied Albanians & Ukrainians.

For the Pro Axis” faction I would like to see flag/base/counter sets and corresponding units and formations for Chetniks, Croats, Serbian Government of National Salvation, Italian and German Montenegrin puppet troops and pro axis Albanians & Ukrainians.(the insurgency war in Ukrainian carried on to well after any 1945 or 1947 cut off date.

Developments to the games engine.

Two Player campaigns

Here I would like to see campaigns playable by 2 players using play by e-mail or hot seat along the lines of those available for the 2nd of the “P.....B....” full games.

What do people think ?

Regards
Ian

[Jason Petho]

That's some noteworthy feedback, Ian! Thank you!

[Eagle-FZS]

Are you already actively working on East Front III or just sporadically?

[Jason Petho]

We are actively working on East Front III.

Obviously, the focus is on Vietnam at the moment, but work is still being done on East Front III.

[Eagle-FZS]

Cold War and Vietnam is not my case.
My focus is more in World War II therefore the question

Is the posted menu graphic already fixed or just a suggestion?

Dirk

[Jason Petho]

Not sure what you mean?

[Oberst_Klink]

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

Not sure what you mean?

Jason

I think Dirk is referring to this - fb.asp?m=4410410

Klink, Oberst

[Jason Petho]

Yes, I realize that, just not sure what he means by "Is the posted menu graphic already fixed or just a suggestion?"

[Eagle-FZS]

Sorry if my english is not good
I meant the main menu that Crossroads posted

[Jason Petho]

If you're referring to the image in the menu, I suspect it's a placeholder.

[Eagle-FZS]

Ok thanks for your answers Jason
I'm looking forward to the release

Dirk

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

If you're referring to the image in the menu, I suspect it's a placeholder.

Yes, just something from the early era I grabbed to have something there for the alpha build. That's where it started, right.