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Black Swan has an interesting mechanic that allows a nation to get two turns in a season. It's called the Blitz phase. If you pay 20 production points (That's about half your turns income in some cases) you can have another attack turn. This allows the armies to take a territory then go on to take the next. In this way the extra map areas balance out for a seasonal turn based game. Without that double move the game would not flow like WWII at all and Russia would not feel the pressure of collapse.

WAW-AWD plays more closely to A&A than Black Swan does. Yes you do get big armies in a few stacks on the Eastern Front. Think of them as Army Group North and Army Group South playing a maneuver game to try and get the best position. So yeah, it plays a lot different from a game that limits the size of stacks in hexes. The size of the regions in A&A and WAW are so big that to arbitrarily limit stack size would be unrealistic. In this game, forces are going to be placed where they are going to make a difference. Small forces in other regions are usually placed there to prevent encirclements and keep the supply lines open.

Oh BTW Black Swan is a hidden block game similar to Colombia block games. I hope you do check it out. Warning the rules are not that well written and people do ask a lot of questions on how to play over on BGG. But it's not a complex game. Just hard to digest at first because of the rules.

If you are after some 'Block Game', I consider Eurofront (from Columbia) much better than Black Swan. It's hex based and not region based though.

What about War Room?

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I got War Room too. How could I not being an old A&A fan. $250 ouch! Have not played with anyone yet, because my face to face game group are a bunch of Euro game snobs lol.

Yes I know about Eurofront too. I don't own it yet but some time I will. I would not compare Eurofront directly with Black Swan. I like Black Swan a lot because it's the best we currently got at this scale IMHO. It fires Europe Engulfed GMT for me and is a more direct comparison to BS. EE has a bad Eastern Front map design and Black Swan does it right. And there are other things in EE that I don't really think add much to the game, so the overhead isn't worth the gameplay it adds. BS is streamlined and just focuses on the challenge of outmaneuvering your opponent kind of like Chess. It has early game scripting that some people don't like. Me, I don't mind because it's either that or we get tables to determine when the Axis minors enter for instance. That is chrome that adds nothing much of value if you ask me. And like I said before, the game is about maneuver so once France has fallen and the Axis minors has joined it's more or less Chess at that point.

Speaking of Columbia Games I recently got Pacific Victory 2nd ed and really like it. I'm in the process of making a new Vassal module for it as I seen that I could do much to improve the current version. This would allow me to enjoy the game online as my local game group does not play wargames as I said above.

For you guys that are fans of board games too you can find me on BGG a lot. Mostly just active on the Black Swan forum right now answering questions and the like. I'm also maintaining and updating the vassal module for it and will in a week or so put out version 3.2 of it. Later in the month of January I may finish the Pacific Victory module. I was also making a nice update of Sekigahara GMT but lost all that work due to hard drive failure. So mad about that. Some time I may get around to doing that one again.

toddtreadway wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:42 am Are there any plans for this great game to get a remake?

So Joel, nothing in the pipe? Commander Europe at War is being remade.

But hey, this is just Europe. I would like the world. Don’t you think a new GG’s World at War A World More Than Divided would sell well?

I would be the only buyer, maybe.

Gary's been working on a couple of new game designs, but nothing along the lines of WAW. Sorry to disappoint, but no plans at this point to revisit the global WWII topic.

A shame, a game that has tech, production and a level of operations is definitely my favorite.
Broader map would have been ace (with more regions).

I consider World at War the most accessible and understandable of all the GG Products.

Joel Billings wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:53 pm Gary's been working on a couple of new game designs, but nothing along the lines of WAW

I figure that goes triple for poor, forlorn WBTS.

Joel Billings wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:53 pm Gary's been working on a couple of new game designs, but nothing along the lines of WAW. Sorry to disappoint, but no plans at this point to revisit the global WWII topic.

Thanks for your answer. Disappointing, yes and no. I can understand a designer is having the desire to do something else.
Personally, I really want to see this game remade. I would add very few things and I am scratching my head to convert my ideas into something playable.

This game, despite its age, is still a reference to me when I want to play WW2. A true masterpiece.

Thanks

Joel Billings wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:53 pm Gary's been working on a couple of new game designs, but nothing along the lines of WAW. Sorry to disappoint, but no plans at this point to revisit the global WWII topic.

Hello Joel,

Can you tell us what he's working on? Or can you link to a discussion?

Many thanks,
CB

Sorry, we're not ready to get into the details.

Understood. Good luck! I've been buying your games since Pacific War and War in Russia.

Cheers,
CB

Reactivating this thread. Do you think Absolute War has enough or too many areas ?

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Joel Billings wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:53 pm Gary's been working on a couple of new game designs, but nothing along the lines of WAW. Sorry to disappoint, but no plans at this point to revisit the global WWII topic.

No need to have a new WaW, this game shines because it's the beer & pretzel game of Gary Grigsby. A new version would probably means a more complex, detailed game, and then it wouldn't be WaW anymore.

What I would like to see is a remastered WaW with mostly QoL improvements, filters/ layers for units, and updated graphics, that would attract a new bunch of players. Axis & Allies is still very popular, including recent and upcoming games like War Room and Song of War. I would guess there is still a market for a PC game like WaW, that have better designed rules than most boardgames, allow online play with a well done PBEM system, and cost much less than War Room.

I'm guessing it could be done by one or few people.