Matrix Games Forums

After looking through the websites with scenarios to TOAW 3 and earlier, it seems there were quite a few monster scenarios made. Two questions:

- what are the largest scenarios likely to be in at release?
- some of the past scenarios included all the way back to the times of Ancient Rome. This is pretty creative, but will TOAW actually enable things like the Battle of Waterloo and are some of these pre-19th century monsters also likely to be in at release?

The largest scenario in terms of scope that we are testing at the moment covers the entirety of WW2!

There are a few other monsters as well, dealing with the eastern or western fronts of WW2 mostly. Don't want to quote titles at the moment, but these should be familiar from TOAW3 as well, if I remember correctly.

And needless to say there are lots of other scenarios of different sizes. There are those that we have been able to take from TOAW3 and they work perfectly, some others we have done minor adjustments to, and those which are entirely new scenarios.

Wow, one that covers the entire WWII - truly a monster. At what scale?

At 10km per hex you could make a map that covers north of Norway to south of the Sahara and from east of the Urals to west of the Azores. The entire European theater and then some. At 50km you could map the entire planet with 10,000 kilometers left over. The new map sizes, increased number of units and increased number of formations have been in the Wishlist and highlighted as coming for quite some time now. [;)]

war in the pacific is what i was thinking...

Son of WITP ?!!

New Scenario to be released with TOAW IV: Pacific at War:

"This scenario starts on December 7th 1941 and ends on August 13th 1945. All ships from destroyer escorts and larger are represented. The ground units are at the regimental level for the most part, with attachments. It includes the China front, Burma, the Pacific region from San Francisco to the Gulf of Oman as well as all of Australia and New Zealand. It is one week per turn and at 25 KM per hex. To win the scenario the Allies must take either Tokyo or the Shuri Line hex in Okinawa by turn 193. The Japanese win the scenario by holding both on turn 193."

This scenario has been playtested and deemed ready to ship. I love it.

"Ready to ship" - pun intended?
I have been looking for a good Pacific War game, and this scenario alone might be the selling point for TOAW IV. But I was probably getting it anyway [8|]

+1

ORIGINAL: rocketboy
"Ready to ship" - pun intended?
I have been looking for a good Pacific War game, and this scenario alone might be the selling point for TOAW IV. But I was probably getting it anyway [8|]

Thomas Harvey is the scenario designer of Pacific At War and he mopped the floor with me when he and
I were playtesting it. Every once in a while TOAW IV mechanics would burst the bubble of realism but not often. For instance
during the early trials driving your CV through the hex of a CA that had a spotter plane would sometimes "steal" the spotter plane if
there was room on the CV for it. That kind of thing. Mostly this scenario is one of the best ones I've ever played. Think of FITE
for the Pacific.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: rocketboy
"Ready to ship" - pun intended?
I have been looking for a good Pacific War game, and this scenario alone might be the selling point for TOAW IV. But I was probably getting it anyway [8|]

Thomas Harvey is the scenario designer of Pacific At War and he mopped the floor with me when he and
I were playtesting it. Every once in a while TOAW IV mechanics would burst the bubble of realism but not often. For instance
during the early trials driving your CV through the hex of a CA that had a spotter plane would sometimes "steal" the spotter plane if
there was room on the CV for it. That kind of thing. Mostly this scenario is one of the best ones I've ever played. Think of FITE
for the Pacific.

Let's be clear before anyone gets the wrong idea: There are still lots of naval warfare aspects that TOAW still lacks. Foremost is Sea Supply - no transport of supply over deep water. Same for submarines, ship-borne torpedoes, and naval reaction. WitP still has the upper hand on modeling the entire PTO. I think we'll get there one day, but not by the initial release.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

New Scenario to be released with TOAW IV: Pacific at War:

"This scenario starts on December 7th 1941 and ends on August 13th 1945 . . . 193 turns

Larry

Any chance the author(s) of this 193 turn scenario can break it down into several smaller scenarios? Such as a scenario starting at Midway, Guadalcanal, Burma campaign, or MacArthur’s campaign to the Philippines. There are so many possibilities this scenario has to offer. Think many more people would want to participate if they could play only the portion they find most interesting at a less extreme commitment of time.

This is not a new suggestion. As I recall the North Africa and Viet Nam scenarios came in both the full version and battle/campaign specific configurations.

Regards, RhinoBones

There's a phethera of new scenarios to play dealing with WWII in the Pacific. Here's just a few:

Larry

All very nice and good. Thankyou. But the question was, can the author(s) of Pacific War 193 turn scenario break the scenario into specific conflict/campaign/battle scenarios? The scenarios you pictured all seemed to be from other authors.

Regards, RhinoBones

ORIGINAL: rhinobones
Larry

All very nice and good. Thankyou. But the question was, can the author(s) of Pacific War 193 turn scenario break the scenario into specific conflict/campaign/battle scenarios? The scenarios you pictured all seemed to be from other authors.

Regards, RhinoBones

I can see that even though a picture is worth a thousand words more words are needed yet to fully
explain what the picture means. There are *new* scenarios that Thomas Harvey built from the same
map as PAW and they indeed cover Midway and Coral Sea and the Leyte Gulf battle, etc. Also,
Bob Cross has built several little scenarios for Pearl Harbor and Midway and so on. There's lots
to play now.

I posted a question up in General Discussion about TOAW versus MWiF.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

ORIGINAL: Neilster
The general quality of the game system, its global nature (with the associated naval stuff that interests you), your complete control of everything from politics, resource movement, production, strategy and tactics; really recommends it.

I'd be curious to hear what enhancements have been made in TOAW IV to go beyond operational level warfare to the grand strategic level where players can make choices for diplomacy, research, production, etc. Certainly TOAW offers lots of good operational level scenarios, but MWiF offers the global grand strategy game. Again, I'd be curious to hear what TOAW IV may offer along these lines.

What can we expect? Thanks!

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

I posted a question up in General Discussion about TOAW versus MWiF.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

ORIGINAL: Neilster
The general quality of the game system, its global nature (with the associated naval stuff that interests you), your complete control of everything from politics, resource movement, production, strategy and tactics; really recommends it.

I'd be curious to hear what enhancements have been made in TOAW IV to go beyond operational level warfare to the grand strategic level where players can make choices for diplomacy, research, production, etc. Certainly TOAW offers lots of good operational level scenarios, but MWiF offers the global grand strategy game. Again, I'd be curious to hear what TOAW IV may offer along these lines.

What can we expect? Thanks!

Well, it is called The Operational Art of War... Not the Strategic Art of War or the Grand Strategic Art of War. And I for one do not want to see it go beyond the operational level.

And if a designer want to offer a Strategic level choice or even a Grand Strategic choice to the player then this can already be done via the Theater Options.

Best wishes,
Steve

ORIGINAL: shunwick

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

I posted a question up in General Discussion about TOAW versus MWiF.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr



I'd be curious to hear what enhancements have been made in TOAW IV to go beyond operational level warfare to the grand strategic level where players can make choices for diplomacy, research, production, etc. Certainly TOAW offers lots of good operational level scenarios, but MWiF offers the global grand strategy game. Again, I'd be curious to hear what TOAW IV may offer along these lines.

What can we expect? Thanks!

Well, it is called The Operational Art of War... Not the Strategic Art of War or the Grand Strategic Art of War. And I for one do not want to see it go beyond the operational level.

And if a designer want to offer a Strategic level choice or even a Grand Strategic choice to the player then this can already be done via the Theater Options.

Best wishes,
Steve

+1

agree 100% Shunwick

yes I think the Theater Options and the events (probably my favourite features of TOAW since the beginning, to be honest) give a lot of opportunities to create strategic context and some cases even strategic decisions. There is no point in going further with this, as that could hurt realism or flexibility, probably both.