FITE

[philturco]

I'm a committed FITE fan but am finding the new FITE in TOAW IV a bit overwhelming. Many more units with a larger map. Its hard to know where I am on the map and have to keep orienting myself when moving units.Will I learn to love the greater detail with time. What are the experiences of other FITE players

[btd64]

Yes you'll get used to it. The map is large but once you figure out where your start and you'll find that it's easier to get going....GP

[TheeWarLord]

Its a monster game, not for the feint of heart.

[dontra85]

keep just zooming in and out to get a good perspective and it is enjoyable.

[Gandalf]

The one thing missing from the all the Eastern Front scenarios including other non TOAW versions, that I sorely miss is the ability to control the production of the units especially from the Russian side. The original SPI War in Europe had this feature and it was my favorite aspect of the game. Why? Because even with the added complexity, you could customize the Russian Army to the actual needs required depending on the German offensive capabilities which in a variable "game" might be totally different then what set-place game reinforcements provide.

In TOAW IV FITE, I'm wondering if reinforcements might be somehow utilized within the Event structure to give the Russian player a "choice" of reinforcements somewhat simulating choices for different forces production over others?

FITE's unit scale might preclude such an endeavor, but I make the comment here since this is a fantastic attempt at a realistic WWII Eastern Front game scenario.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: Gandalf

The one thing missing from the all the Eastern Front scenarios including other non TOAW versions, that I sorely miss is the ability to control the production of the units especially from the Russian side. The original SPI War in Europe had this feature and it was my favorite aspect of the game. Why? Because even with the added complexity, you could customize the Russian Army to the actual needs required depending on the German offensive capabilities which in a variable "game" might be totally different then what set-place game reinforcements provide.

In TOAW IV FITE, I'm wondering if reinforcements might be somehow utilized within the Event structure to give the Russian player a "choice" of reinforcements somewhat simulating choices for different forces production over others?

FITE's unit scale might preclude such an endeavor, but I make the comment here since this is a fantastic attempt at a realistic WWII Eastern Front game scenario.

With the production in SPI's War in the East things turned into trench warfare after the winter of 1941. Why? Because you could tailor the Soviet production to build a few unit types that the Germans could not deal with in 1942. There was no German 1942 offensive.

Any Soviet production in any East Front campaign game typically devolves into the perfect unit set while all other units are ignored.

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

ORIGINAL: Gandalf

The one thing missing from the all the Eastern Front scenarios including other non TOAW versions, that I sorely miss is the ability to control the production of the units especially from the Russian side. The original SPI War in Europe had this feature and it was my favorite aspect of the game. Why? Because even with the added complexity, you could customize the Russian Army to the actual needs required depending on the German offensive capabilities which in a variable "game" might be totally different then what set-place game reinforcements provide.

In TOAW IV FITE, I'm wondering if reinforcements might be somehow utilized within the Event structure to give the Russian player a "choice" of reinforcements somewhat simulating choices for different forces production over others?

FITE's unit scale might preclude such an endeavor, but I make the comment here since this is a fantastic attempt at a realistic WWII Eastern Front game scenario.

With the production in SPI's War in the East things turned into trench warfare after the winter of 1941. Why? Because you could tailor the Soviet production to build a few unit types that the Germans could not deal with in 1942. There was no German 1942 offensive.

Admittedly, the anti-tank units cutting the armor attack factors in half combined with a converted entrenched infantry unit to double other defenses made line penetration difficult, especially in 1943 and later. It was still quite possible in the game in 1942 to concentrate armor and break thru/encircle a chosen area of the front providing the Germans had advanced far and fast enough in game (as in real life) to cripple the Soviet production. This made it hard in 1942 for the Russian player to complete his "trench" setup along the entire front forcing him to priortize where to make it strongest first. This gave the German player opportunities for picking and choosing "weak" points. This could have been made even better if the Russian side did not "see" the deployment of the armor until the last moment. One of the house rules that I would use would be strategic redeployment of armor units (moving armor units from other parts of the map at the last moment) to simulate the actual hidden redeployment of the German armor.

These newer computerized Eastern Front games have the capability of using Fog-of-War to a much greater extent than paper map games.

Any Soviet production in any East Front campaign game typically devolves into the perfect unit set while all other units are ignored.

Game wise, I don't see this as any worse than players being stuck with reinforcements that historically appeared but were actually chosen in real production according to the exact set of historical circumstances that were occurring in the real war. In games those circumstances can vary from one game play-through to the next.