Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

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).

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hgilmer3
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by hgilmer3 »

ORIGINAL: PyleDriver

Yep I love the C&C rules. If the same corps does an attack, it 100%. If 2 corps from the same army attacks theres 90% commitment. But if two corps from different armies, the attack it goes to 80%. Now if you attack with a hogh pogh of units then it only 70%...Got to love how they brought in C&C...Btw its the same on defence, such as when reserves respond. Reserves that respond also suffer in CV due to how far the came to join the battle...

One other note, the leader there has everything to to do with commitment. So you may only get 100% of only 80 % with the same corps, and so on down the line. Leadership and C&C, its all here..

Ok, one last note. A poorly planned attack (leaders and C&C) can result in fewer men and equipment in the attack and results in losses and no gain.

That's similar to other games of Gary's like in the pacific if you had too many carriers in one battlegroup, the air groups had issues with air coordination.

Also, in WiR, I think (and it is something I didn't figure out until a really long time later) if you have too many in a division, you get a penalty to cohesiveness.

Am I right on that? I'm just babbling now.
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Captain B
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by Captain B »

Actually I think in WIR it was too many divisions in one Corps. Panzer Corps could manage more divisions (9 points worth) and Infantry Corps 5 points worth. Different kinds of divisions counted as different points. Panzers were 3 I think, Mech and Infantry were 1 ea. You really took it in the shorts when it came to readiness recovery if you had more than that.

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hgilmer3
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by hgilmer3 »

ORIGINAL: Captain B

Actually I think in WIR it was too many divisions in one Corps. Panzer Corps could manage more divisions (9 points worth) and Infantry Corps 5 points worth. Different kinds of divisions counted as different points. Panzers were 3 I think, Mech and Infantry were 1 ea. You really took it in the shorts when it came to readiness recovery if you had more than that.


I should have RTFM I suppose. I never could quite figure that one out.
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by Captain B »

don't feel bad...I hate reading manuals too. But WiTE, looks like I will have to at least browse it.
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by hank »

Was there any consideration of providing an option of breaking down divisions into their historical regiments? In other words, instead of breaking a division into 3 or 4 regiments with equipment and men equally divided into each one; break the unit down in the case of a Pz Div, an armored regiment, two infantry regiments, a support regiment, etc etc. ?
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by jaw »

ORIGINAL: hank

Was there any consideration of providing an option of breaking down divisions into their historical regiments? In other words, instead of breaking a division into 3 or 4 regiments with equipment and men equally divided into each one; break the unit down in the case of a Pz Div, an armored regiment, two infantry regiments, a support regiment, etc etc. ?

No, in fact the original design did not have breakdowns at all. When testing the very early versions of the game I discovered that it was difficult for the Germans to effect encirclements and maintain momentum in the early weeks of the War with the limited number of divisions at their disposal. I suggested allowing German divisions to breakdown into three equal units (most that can stack in a single hex) to allow them to spread themselves thinner. Gary liked the idea and the breakdown concept took off from there. The concept was designed to address a game system limitation and was never intended to be an extension of the unit's TOE to another level of detail.
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by janh »

It is probably very sound since one of the big German innovations was the development of operational warfare with "Kampfgruppen" consisting of a task-oriented mix of units, rather than static splitting into their subordinate formations.  Suppose that is quite good.  Going beyond that and maybe allowing players to chose the composition of the fragments would probably be nice too, but may as well be a step back towards enormous micromanagement.
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by Hard Sarge »

ORIGINAL: paullus99

The US & Germany had very similar ideas of how armored units should be utilized (exploitation forces rather than breakthrough/tank-on-tank), at least at the beginning. German generals quickly realized the need for up-gunned tanks and mobile anti-tank units and you saw a fundamental shift in doctrine as the war progressed.

Unfortunately, US doctrine wasn't as flexible (and US tanks - particularly the Sherman) were never up to the task of handling German tanks one-on-one once the PZIVFs were fielded in North Africa.

I'm saving up for a new computer, just so I can be ready once this game is available.


my new one just got here, I7-980 overclocked CPU, 12 gigs of ram, duel Nvida 480 vid cards, win 7, game looks and runs great on it :)

(but just in case, it has also, on my quad core XP desktop, and my duel core Vista laptop)
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Eambar
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by Eambar »

ORIGINAL: janh
Going beyond that and maybe allowing players to chose the composition of the fragments would probably be nice too, but may as well be a step back towards enormous micromanagement.

It could be a toggle on/off, to decide if the player chooses the composition of the regiments on breakdown or if it is the standard TOE divided by 3. I'm not fussed either way, just that more choice doesn't automatically equal micromanagment hell.

I'm so glad to hear that C&C is taken seriously. One of my gripes with alot of wargames has been the lack of or total abstraction of C&C.

Also happy to hear that the game runs well on a laptop. I don't even own a desktop, but I use 3 laptops depending on who I'm working for, so I would be devastated not to be able to play on a laptop.

Cheers,
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by karonagames »

just that more choice doesn't automatically equal micromanagment hell

I'm usually a big fan of micromanagement, but at this scale I'm not sure it will really matter if your kampfgruppe/regiments have a few men more or less. As noted elsewhere you can attach support units to make them specialist assault, pioneer or anti-tank units.
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hank
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by hank »

That's the best answer I've seen Jaw. I asked this many moons ago when the title was first announced. I can live with it the way it is. The only thing that stays in the back of my mind is if you can't split your armor out separate, there will be terrain that it shouldn't go through but will have to since its part of the whole or the subdivided regiments (i.e., dense woods, swamps, rocky terrain, etc. where I'm sure the movement penalties will be severe); where infantry can move through with some effort but can nonetheless. This all is aimed of course at Pz Divs, Armored Divs, etc where there is a high percentage of tanks, TDs, assault guns and the like.
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RE: Will this game really be cutting edge and addictive?

Post by janh »

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak
I'm usually a big fan of micromanagement, but at this scale I'm not sure it will really matter if your kampfgruppe/regiments have a few men more or less. As noted elsewhere you can attach support units to make them specialist assault, pioneer or anti-tank units.

I completely agree. Adding specialist units will do perfectly fine. I think the limited development resources are better spent on AI and the myriad of other details.

Doggie3, right: There is things I would miss more urgently, but of course any feature that could even be turned off optionally would surely only enhance the value of the game.
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