Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,

I'm now semi-retired, and with more time on my hands, I've returned to an old passion for coding. I've made a Tetris clone that works nicely, a chess engine that beats me until it gets to the endgame, and a more original card game that is too easy right now -- but I'm working on making it tougher! I've got some experience with C#, but for these games I've been using Game Maker Studio 2, an engine dedicated to making 2D games. I was a computer-science major for a year in college before I gave it up for history. My favorite coding thing is AI.

As it happens, I've also got some art skills. I've been selling oil paintings for the past decade, and I also dabble in illustration using Procreate and (more recently) Adobe Fresco. And, of course, Photoshop.

One of my favorite genres is wargames. Currently I'm hooked on Vic's "Shadow Empire," which is a brilliant design. But I've also played WITP/AE, WITE/WITW, MWIF, and half the titles sold here by Matrix. Like many here, I've played board wargames since I was a kid -- my first game was AH's Gettysburg, I had an Advanced Squad Leader obsession for a decade, and right now I have World in Flames on my solo-gaming table.

So I think it would be fun to try my hand at a small, not-too-ambitious, turn-based, 2D hex-and-counter wargame. I know WW2 is done to death, but it's my favorite era. So I'm wondering: is there some under-served WW2 conflict you'd like to see in a 2D game? The Canadians at D-Day, say. Or a lesser-known naval battle in the Pacific. Or Crete, Greece, the Baltics? I'm open to suggestions for any scale or theater. Thanks in advance!

how about Tarawa ?

The Winter War? The Med?

Maybe check on some of the older yet still enjoyable board games and see if there is an electronic version. If not, that could be a start.

ORIGINAL: pkpowers
how about Tarawa ?

I almost put Tarawa in my original post. Just the sort of thing I had in mind. Thanks for the suggestion. I wonder if it would be too ambitious to cover both naval and land aspects.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The Winter War? The Med?

Maybe check on some of the older yet still enjoyable board games and see if there is an electron version. If not, that could be a start.

Also excellent ideas. In my current solo boardgame of WIF, the most fun bit for me has been the British-Italian naval/air war in the Med. And I know almost nothing about the Winter War, which might suggest it's an under-served conflict.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

ORIGINAL: pkpowers
how about Tarawa ?

I almost put Tarawa in my original post. Just the sort of thing I had in mind. Thanks for the suggestion. I wonder if it would be too ambitious to cover both naval and land aspects.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The Winter War? The Med?

Maybe check on some of the older yet still enjoyable board games and see if there is an electronic version. If not, that could be a start.

Also excellent ideas. In my current solo boardgame of WIF, the most fun bit for me has been the British-Italian naval/air war in the Med. And I know almost nothing about the Winter War, which might suggest it's an under-served conflict.

Well, the Finns (Suomis) used reindeer and sleds but did not dress in red. They also invented the term "Molotov cocktail" for the gasoline bomb as an anti-tank weapon. They also had an excellent anti-tank rifle which was a 20mm that weighed about 20 pounds. It was much better than the Boys ATR. You would have it easy in one way, the Finns used captured Soviet tanks and artillery.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria. It was an enormous operation where the Red Army captured an area the size of Western Europe in two weeks but it hardly gets mentioned. It was much studied in the West as a prototype for a Cold War Warsaw Pact invasion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_in ... _Manchuria

RangerJoe, thanks for those further comments. The Winter War sounds like a great subject.

Likewise, Neilster, thanks for your excellent suggestion. I read the entire Wikipedia entry you linked, and I learned (or relearned) a lot from it. I had forgotten, for example, that the timing of the Soviet attack was essentially set at Yalta. Fascinating stuff.

Not quite WW2, more a rehearsal, but there are plenty of neglected battles from the Spanish Civil War.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Hi all,

I'm now semi-retired, and with more time on my hands, I've returned to an old passion for coding. I've made a Tetris clone that works nicely, a chess engine that beats me until it gets to the endgame, and a more original card game that is too easy right now -- but I'm working on making it tougher! I've got some experience with C#, but for these games I've been using Game Maker Studio 2, an engine dedicated to making 2D games. I was a computer-science major for a year in college before I gave it up for history. My favorite coding thing is AI.

As it happens, I've also got some art skills. I've been selling oil paintings for the past decade, and I also dabble in illustration using Procreate and (more recently) Adobe Fresco. And, of course, Photoshop.

One of my favorite genres is wargames. Currently I'm hooked on Vic's "Shadow Empire," which is a brilliant design. But I've also played WITP/AE, WITE/WITW, MWIF, and half the titles sold here by Matrix. Like many here, I've played board wargames since I was a kid -- my first game was AH's Gettysburg, I had an Advanced Squad Leader obsession for a decade, and right now I have World in Flames on my solo-gaming table.

So I think it would be fun to try my hand at a small, not-too-ambitious, turn-based, 2D hex-and-counter wargame. I know WW2 is done to death, but it's my favorite era. So I'm wondering: is there some under-served WW2 conflict you'd like to see in a 2D game? The Canadians at D-Day, say. Or a lesser-known naval battle in the Pacific. Or Crete, Greece, the Baltics? I'm open to suggestions for any scale or theater. Thanks in advance!

warspite1

Not sure what limitations you are under but here are three land, sea, air scenarios that NEED to be properly gamed:

War In The Mediterranean June 1940 - May 1943
Guadalcanal August 1942 - February 1943
Norway April - June 1940

Let me know when you've finished [;)]

The Canadians at Ortona, also know as Little Stalingrad.

In the realm of Hypothetical, what might have happened AFTER Rommel took Suez?
Another, COULD the Axis have taken Malta at all costs?
What might have happened if Midway had been lost?
What might have happened if Stalingrad has not been fought at all?
What might have happened if Leningrad had fallen?

Salerno landings and breakout.

Surround Stalingrad, starve the defenders out.

Invasion of Crete/Malta (Avalon Hill board game) computerized as a start to the Med theatre, then consider a Greek scenario, then North Africa, possible other Eastern Med operations such as the Greek Islands and Cyprus as a springboard to the Near East.

ORIGINAL: rocketman71

Salerno landings and breakout.

Avalon Hill had an Italian Campaign game.

If you want something that hardly anyone else has done before, try the Madagascar Campaign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Madagascar

(don't let the term "battle" fool you; it actually took six months.)

ORIGINAL: Alan Sharif

Not quite WW2, more a rehearsal, but there are plenty of neglected battles from the Spanish Civil War.

Indeed there are. In fact, in decades of wargaming, I've rarely gamed the Spanish Civil War. Good thought.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Not sure what limitations you are under but here are three land, sea, air scenarios that NEED to be properly gamed:

War In The Mediterranean June 1940 - May 1943
Guadalcanal August 1942 - February 1943
Norway April - June 1940

Let me know when you've finished [;)]

lol, I'll give you a shout tomorrow or Monday, then. But seriously, those are all really interesting conflicts. Avalon Hill did a Guadalcanal game, and I guess there have been a couple computer treatments, plus of course AE and WIF. But I feel there's room for more. Norway strikes me as really neglected terrain. The war in the Med has games like WIF/MWIF and War in the West, but I can't think of a game dedicated to the Med itself. Of the three you mentioned, that's the one that grabs me most -- but possibly more complex than I should try for my first wargame.

ORIGINAL: MrsWargamer

The Canadians at Ortona, also know as Little Stalingrad.

In the realm of Hypothetical ...

I mentioned Canadians at Normandy in my original post. I enjoyed a boardgame called "Canadian Crucible"; I didn't know much about Canada's important role on the beaches and thereafter in Normandy. In general, I'd like to know more about Canada's role in WW2, and your suggestion fits the bill perfectly.

I also like your hypothetical ideas. Now that I think about it, what-if scenarios are somewhat common in wargaming, but it's harder to find entire games dedicated to hypotheticals. Great thinking.

ORIGINAL: rocketman71
Salerno landings and breakout.

Another subject I don't know a lot about. WiTW treats it, but that game has a pretty large scale. I like the idea of zooming in on a piece of a conflict, like this. I need to start with something manageable. Good suggestion.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Surround Stalingrad, starve the defenders out.

Invasion of Crete/Malta (Avalon Hill board game) computerized as a start to the Med theatre,

The only Crete game I've played was the "Cauldron," part of Panther Games excellent real-time series of Airborn Assault games. I really enjoyed it. I haven't seen it much since, except as a minor theater in WIF. I really like the idea of doing a game in the Med.

Wow, I'm overwhelmed with all these great ideas! Keep 'em coming. I'm going to do more reading about a bunch of these suggestions.

Guadalcanal, with equally deep treatment of air, sea, land -- yes, +1

Also consider an in-depth air, sea, land treatment of the CBI -- the China-Burma-India theater. Leave out China, maybe.

Maybe a brutal city fight in the model of Thermopylae or the Alamo to begin with? Major-General Frost's valiant but doomed paratrooper battalion at Arnhem.

I did enjoy this title back in the day. [8D]

ORIGINAL: Shellshock

Maybe a brutal city fight in the model of Thermopylae or the Alamo to begin with? Major-General Frost's valiant but doomed paratrooper battalion at Arnhem.

I did enjoy this title back in the day. [8D]

I did like that game.

ORIGINAL: berto

Guadalcanal, with equally deep treatment of air, sea, land -- yes, +1

Also consider an in-depth air, sea, land treatment of the CBI -- the China-Burma-India theater. Leave out China, maybe.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm especially glad for your advice because you have such extensive experience coding wargames. Both Guadalcanal and CBI (probably without much China) sound exciting to me.

I love naval/air stuff, but I'm not sure how I would handle naval assets in a small area like Guadalcanal. Does one just treat them as hard-coded reinforcements that come and go on a fixed schedule? Or maybe give the player some influence over when they arrive?

The CBI is a large enough theater that naval reinforcement isn't as much an issue, since naval assets would be based on-map. But it being a larger theater also would presumably make things more complex. Then again, Advanced Squad Leader is more complex than Axis & Allies, so scale isn't everything.

ORIGINAL: Shellshock

Major-General Frost's valiant but doomed paratrooper battalion at Arnhem.

Yeah, good stuff, and certainly a manageable scale. I never played the game you guys mentioned. No mistaking that distinctive Rodger MacGowan cover art. What a genius that guy is. His art always emphasizes the human beings in the conflict.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

lol, I'll give you a shout tomorrow or Monday, then.

warspite1

Mmmmm I was rather hoping you'd have them finished by this evening... but okay - I'll give you till Monday [;)]