HansBolter wrote: Sat Jul 12, 2025 10:11 pm
Well, now that you seem interested on civil discourse , I'll return the favor.
You guessed correctly that I am an old school gamer who harkens back to the glory days of Avalon Hill.
I started wargaming in 1973 at the age of 16 with Blitzkrieg being my introduction to the hobby. I invested nearly 20 years in Avalon Hill's classic Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. If you happen to have a copy of the final iteration, Advanced Third Reich, you'll find my name in the playtesters list.
Recently, after retiring and moving to the country, I sold my boardgame collection of over 150 games that included every game in the Europa series.
If you are interested in digging into the archives on this site, you can find an AAR I produced of a playtest of a Race to the Meuse scenario in the Command Ops game series. The AAR was the only one I have ever done and was very well received. I had just finished reading a series of books by Michael Reynolds on the SS and was able to provide names of many commanders of the units in the game. It added some flavor to the AAR.
The reason I'm presenting this resume is to refute the claim made here by someone else that I can't possibly be an "authority" on this subject and establish bonifides.
Unfortunately, I have little to no interest in playing games remotely over the internet. I'm very fickle and moody and don't want to be beholding to anyone, nor be responsible for a regular exchange of turns. I dislike the discontinuity. When I sit down to game, I binge for hours, making considerable progress each time. The interminable wait between turns in a competitive game over the internet is something I just can't tolerate. Also, at 68 years of age my short term memory isn't what it used to be. Too long between turns risks completely forgetting everything I had planned to do on the next turn.
And I'll add another response to the guy who scoffed at my claim. I'm a retired architect who spent a lifetime analyzing and finding flaws in building designs. I've spent about a week playing this game and quickly uncovered problems none of you had uncovered yet. How long have all of you been playing this game? It took me just as little time to uncover problems in the WWI game and even less time to uncover multiple design flaws in WItE2. Farce....I don't think so. 52 years of wargaming experience speaks for itself.
Back at Balthazor.....OK...I get the Panzer Ace reference now. HansBolter has been my avatar here for so long I had completely forgotten about it. He had 168 confirmed tank kills. A true Panzer Ace!
I knew we would be good! My first wargame I bought was also Blitzkrieg, with my own money, in 1972 when I was 13...A big board played on that hypothetical continent with the 2 Major Powers and the 5 Minors. Yes Great Blue and Big Red (probably analogs of Germany and the Soviet Union). 5 years ago, I bought 3 pristine copies on E-Bay. Also found the 1985 expanded rules for the Minors and Navies. That led to a company that made replacement counters including sets for the Minors, Navys (there were none in vanilla) and other units. Also some intrepid designer made a huge map with more countries that plugged onto the north edge. Bought that too and play it solo about once a year since.
So you did an AAR for Command Ops and Race to the Meuse? Will check it out.
No problem if you don't want to do an MP. I will have to say that the SC games, compared to lets say WitP OR WitE, are perfect for multiplayer. Whether by design or luck, or a combination of both, I don't know.
As for finding flaws in the SC ecosystem that you don't think any one knows about, well that is maybe partially true. There are so many main campaigns and scenarios, some with slightly different mechanics, that numerous discoveries have been made and posted. Unlike other game companies, Fury here does do frequent changes base on the communities input. This also includes balance issues. There are I'm certain other things not known that wait to be uncovered. Basically when enough input is collected, we get a new version...free of charge. Not many other companies do that, at least for as long as this company that produces these titles. Another thing cool is that they will credit the person who made a discovery and they fixed, in the change-log notes. So perhaps we will see HansBolter there next version of one or more of these games.
Bona-fides for me are I am also retired now from a life of high risk and high adventure. Lots of women and money came and went, at least for quite a long while ha! That's about all I can say about that except to muse that I could not wait to have the time to get back deep into the hobby.
And here we are.
