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A good review on Armchair General.


http://www.armchairgeneral.com/piercing ... review.htm

"Ultimately, although Piercing Fortress Europa is niche game, it is a very good one. Gamers interested in exploring the effects of logistics on modern warfare will enjoy this game, or those equally interested in the Sicilian and Italian operations will find the challenge enjoyable, engaging and educational."

Yes, but I'd like Frank to respond to the reviewer's comment on meeting engagements and see if my counter-point made sense.

First, to Armchair General, thank you!

Jim, agreed. The time scale is such that a unit should only be dong one thing at a time. Attacking, withdrawing, moving etc. So when two opposing units are moving and one is about to enter a hex the other has just occupied I looked at that and decided that that would necessitate new orders. So both units halt. There certainly might have been a small action with platoons firing at each other but nothing at the division level.

I had originally experimented with a time scale of 10-14 days and orders had to be more complex, such as move to this point, attack if met by a weaker force, fall back if met by a stronger force, etc. But I felt the player should be making those decisions as they occurred, not trying to guess ahead of time what might happen and what to do if it did. Going to a shorter time scale and dropping complex orders and allowing a unit to do only one thing at a time works much better.

At this scale, you could say battles brought on by a meeting engagement happen, but its over two turns. A unit moves, contact is made, the player decides whether to withdraw, hold, attack or reinforce. I know it doesn't have quite the same feel, but it seems to work without the need for complex orders. Or at least I hope it does.

So yes, I agreed with your point in the comments.

Nice to know old reviewers still have some insight that even the best rookies can miss.[8D]

ORIGINAL: Bismarck

Nice to know old reviewers still have some insight that even the best rookies can miss.[8D]

Absolutely Agree!