I REALLY need to start doing searchs before I post, lol. I found this soon after I wrote the below which makes everything I said kind of pointless [:(]
ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
We are thinking of doing a War in the West 1943-45 game, using the same scale as WitE. We then hope to link the two games together somehow. Eventually we'd also like to do a North Africa game, and link everything together. Add France 40 and you're getting close to War in Europe.
You can continue to read my post, but the above really says it all [:)]
End EDIT:
First I want to point out that I have NO inside knowledge of 2by3 or Matrix Games. So everything in this post is just my opinion and based on my personal knowledge of past events and observations.
After reading through the manual, several things really struck me.
1) Coding and implementation of airborne drops
I can find no reference to any parachute drops of the scale the game entails that occurred in the real war. I'm sure that someone here will be able to point some out
but we are talking regiment or larger not small scale operations. That does NOT mean they could not have been done, it's just that neither side did them, mainly due to the scale of the front, i.e. an airborne drop would have little to no effect on the overall operations of either side.2) Amphibious invasions are coded and implemented
The only reference to any opposed landing is listed below which occurred in 1944 by the Russians as part of the Tannenburg offensive.
The Mereküla Landing Operation was conducted as the 517-strong 260th Independent Naval Infantry Brigade landed at the coastal borough of Mereküla behind the Sponheimer Group lines. However, the unit was almost completely annihilated.[1][14]
I vaguely recall similar operations around Odessa/Rumania but cannot find any reference to them so maybe I am imagining things [:)] Again this does not meant they could not have occurred, it just means that neither side thought they would be very effective so chose not to do them.
3) The northern part of Finland was left out of the game
I totally agree with this decision. But it is striking that not allowing the players to at least try to have more effect in that area (which would have a much greater effect of the game than the above two abilities imho) and coding in airdrops and invasions is odd until you realize that.....
War in the West is coming [X(]
Both 1 & 2 would be hugely important in that game so what better way to make sure they work properly is to include the coding as part of WitE? Also, if you go back to the 70's when the actual SPI board games of WitE, WitW AND War in Europe were released as a series of games, the logic to do the same in the computer realm is hard to escape. A similar path was followed with SSI games and, more recently, by Schwerpunkt Games (although they have not released a WiE yet).
So, I would expect a War in the West released about the same time next year that would cover 1939 - 1945 without (or very limited) production and nothing East of Poland (and exclude Finland). this would use the same engine and data bases as WitE as well.
The follow-up to this would be an expansion, War in Europe (the full name would of course be Gary Grisby's War in Europe so that there would no legal issues with the existing War in Europe game that's owned and sold by Decision Games, both the original SPI board game and the computer version which is an excellent implementation of the original board game, but is PBEM only and no AI) that would add full production to both sides and include map expansions to cover the middle east fully and add in the northern part of Finland. This I would expect to be released in 2012.
To maximize their profits (and I am all for that btw) a last expansion could be released that could have the games start earlier (1936?) and add in research abilities and more diplomacy similar to Hearts of Iron and Making History games. This is iffier than the others as this may require greater modifications to the data bases and engine than they could handle. But it would be nice to see [:)]
So to recap, I expect to see
a War in the West in late 2011
a War in Europe in late 2012
Anything else after those two would just be listed 'to be determined' [:D]
As this pattern has worked so well for these types of games (WitE, WitW, and WiE), I would be shocked if 2by3 and Matrix did not follow the same path. Just gives everyone something to look forward to for the next several years [:D]
