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Gary Grigsby War in The East II

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https://www.matrixgames.com/news/gary-grigsbys-war-in-the-east-2-is-out-now

So anyone Drop the $80 bucks on it and try it out yet?

To me it seems remarkably similar to War in the East/ and War in the West, I am not sure it seems worth it to spend $80 dollars to upgrade to this version. But if I hear otherwise I would be willing to do it, because this is right up there with my favorite type of game to play....... although I did sort of feel War in the East felt a little too much like I was fighting World War 1 a times...
 

Mefi

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Grigsby's games are all much of muchness, no? I think the big step for WitE2 over WitE, at least that I can see, is that the logistics system will no longer be stolen from War in Russia. Got a real War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition kind of vibe to it being a reworking rather than a new game as such. I personally don't mind that if I'm going to be sinking the time in to play but I don't for WitE2 at the moment so will pick it up down the line.
 
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Grigsby's games are all much of muchness, no? I think the big step for WitE2 over WitE, at least that I can see, is that the logistics system will no longer be stolen from War in Russia. Got a real War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition kind of vibe to it being a reworking rather than a new game as such. I personally don't mind that if I'm going to be sinking the time in to play but I don't for WitE2 at the moment so will pick it up down the line.
yes, his approach is not my favorite (trying to simulate every gun, or weapon system from each side and somehow combine it all into a combat system), I much prefer something like World in Flames or the board games in the Operational Combat Series, with games like DAK, Guderians Blitzkrieg etc.. (OCS -not a computer game, and likely never will be), I feel they capture the essence of supply better and thus operational level combat with a more abstract system that feels a lot more satisfying for whatever reasons. Grigsby's games feel like playing a spread sheet.

http://www.ocsdepot.com/

edit: also I think this reworking as you put it, is to set it up to be used for a Total War version of the game perhaps.
 
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Mefi

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yes, his approach is not my favorite (trying to simulate every gun, or weapon system from each side and somehow combine it all into a combat system), I much prefer something like World in Flames or the board games in the Operational Combat Series, with games like DAK, Guderians Blitzkrieg etc.. (OCS -not a computer game, and likely never will be), I feel they capture the essence of supply better and thus operational level combat with a more abstract system that feels a lot more satisfying for whatever reasons. Grigsby's games feel like playing a spread sheet.

http://www.ocsdepot.com/

edit: also I think this reworking as you put it, is to set it up to be used for a Total War version of the game perhaps.

OCS look interesting. I seem to recall having one board game eerily similar but was the WW1 Palestine campaign (cavalry 'blitzkrieg' plus camel on camel gore). Would think John Tiller's Panzer Campaigns would be a rough equivalent for a computer game?

Yeah, Grigsby's games do go for detail even when I'm never convinced the level of detail being simulated is either useful or worthwhile. WitE annoyed me for having infinite supply down the railways and the constant balancing attempts over the years to try and mitigate that. There's always an element of 'don't cheese your opponent' to these sorts of games but WitE took it to 'don't use Soviet paratroopers lest the entire Ostheer starve in two turns because you have ZoC on a railway hex'. So I would be interested to play just to see how that's improved. I sound like I'm knocking the games but I dread to think how many hundreds of hours I've sunk into War in the Pacific, over the two versions. If you do pick up WitE2 definitely interested in how you see the differences. I'll likely not pick mine up for another few weeks (get the birthday voucher from Matrix for 50% off then).
 

Mefi

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Finally now have the time to justify picking it up. Used the voucher for being a long term of Matrix/Slitherine member (something well worth signing up for if it's still available as a bonus for being a member there) so it wasn't quite as mad a price, and waiting on the manual to be delivered now.

From a quick mess around, all of my complaints about WitE have been answered. The way supply works is so much more improved by the depot system. Air combat is much nicer to use than it was. It kind of feels like a lot of learning from WitW and WitP:AE has gone into the game's systems. It's still an absolute monster of a spreadsheet game when you dive into the details but even some quality of life features, like setting recon targets and automating the missions, is a big step forward. There's even a bar to let you know how far into the AI processing you are, tittle ye not. In terms of a direct upgrade from WitE it's looking very worthwhile, perhaps less so with WitW?

So, to remember how to play again...

Screenshot-3.png
 

flyingjohn

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How does this game simulate the complete clusterfuck of German logistics and almighty panzer destroying soviet roads?
Or is it just like daisenryaku? A game where you have every single small detail about weapons but lack any real concept of strategy/tactics?
 

Mefi

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I had to put it down for a few days but for the tutorials which aren't going to be great to get a feel for the AI generally so pass on extent, if any, of any improvements over the original WitE. The original did have severe issues with getting encircled at the operational level when trying to attack.

So far as logistics go, this one tries to simulate how much is going to the frontlines as well as capacity to get it there. So it's a big step forward from the old WiR and WitE system of just automatically sending everything you had down a repaired railway line and it'd arrive with next to no issues so long as the receiving HQ/unit was next to a rail hex too. Will screenshot an overview from the manual, just arrived today, as that's probably going to answer more clearly than I can fumble my way through on minimal experience of system right now.

OO0DQrLA_o.jpg




And the full old school experience here. Just missing a cardboard dial with the copy protection code on it.

95S4Wvua_o.jpg
 
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razvedchiki

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on the back of a T34.
I had to put it down for a few days but for the tutorials which aren't going to be great to get a feel for the AI generally so pass on extent, if any, of any improvements over the original WitE. The original did have severe issues with getting encircled at the operational level when trying to attack.

So far as logistics go, this one tries to simulate how much is going to the frontlines as well as capacity to get it there. So it's a big step forward from the old WiR and WitE system of just automatically sending everything you had down a repaired railway line and it'd arrive with next to no issues so long as the receiving HQ/unit was next to a rail hex too. Will screenshot an overview from the manual, just arrived today, as that's probably going to answer more clearly than I can fumble my way through on minimal experience of system right now.

OO0DQrLA_o.jpg




And the full old school experience here. Just missing a cardboard dial with the copy protection code on it.

95S4Wvua_o.jpg

WHERE did you get the book from?
 

Mefi

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WHERE did you get the book from?

I bought it with the game? Slitherine sell it as physical disk + book + download option. They did the same for WitE, got that book somewhere with the physical disk too, and later on they gave a free Steam key for registered owners when they eventually started selling it on there too.

By the time they've released a few revised beta patches you're better off looking for the updated pdf rules though.
 
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WHERE did you get the book from?

I bought it with the game? Slitherine sell it as physical disk + book + download option. They did the same for WitE, got that book somewhere with the physical disk too, and later on they gave a free Steam key for registered owners when they eventually started selling it on there too.

By the time they've released a few revised beta patches you're better off looking for the updated pdf rules though.
they had the hardback cover books for their World in Flames game too, amazing quality.... two full color hardcover rule books total of about 800 pages, although I think maybe all versions of the game came with the hardcover books w/ World in Flames, or at least when I bought it, not sure now.
 

Comte

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WHERE did you get the book from?

I bought it with the game? Slitherine sell it as physical disk + book + download option. They did the same for WitE, got that book somewhere with the physical disk too, and later on they gave a free Steam key for registered owners when they eventually started selling it on there too.

By the time they've released a few revised beta patches you're better off looking for the updated pdf rules though.
they had the hardback cover books for their World in Flames game too, amazing quality.... two full color hardcover rule books total of about 800 pages, although I think maybe all versions of the game came with the hardcover books w/ World in Flames, or at least when I bought it, not sure now.

Too bad world in flames is still buggy hot garbage
 

warci

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anyone got any good tutorials for easing into WiTE? I can read the full manual as an alternative, but from what I understand this game has the option to let the AI run a bunch of things to start off and gradually you can take on more and more tasks.
 

Mefi

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anyone got any good tutorials for easing into WiTE? I can read the full manual as an alternative, but from what I understand this game has the option to let the AI run a bunch of things to start off and gradually you can take on more and more tasks.

Yeah, you can let the AI handle stuff like air movement and logistics by clicking a button every turn. For tutorials, I've not actuallly seen too many. What I'm doing to get up to speed is using the manual's one page guides as reference and checking across to forums as needed (Matrix forums, War Room in particular has a lot of 'here's how to do it' posts - RedLancer in particular has worked hard to put information and guides up). Just playing smaller scenarios at the moment til it clicks for me again but I know I've advantage of at least knowing a lot of the basics from original.
 

Mitleser

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Would anybody be interested in a Grigsby-Style Wargame for WWI? It would be a very different Gameplay experience, Battles being more about long-term Casualties and gaining important Territory than Encirclement, with Ammunition Supply and Artillery playing a big role. There would also be mobile Warfare in the beginning and the End, the Eastern Front also was never as static as the West. It would be a real two/three-front war, with Germany in the Center being able to quickly shift Troops from East to West and the Allies needing to coordinate their own Offensives. There could be a war-weariness and experience system to incentivize the Allied Countries to start their own Offensives and not just huddle down for four years waiting for the war to end on its own.
 

Nutria

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Strap Yourselves In
I'm surprised that he stopped doing the thing of having 1000 units on the map to try to make you feel dumb so you don't criticize it. That's gotta be an improvement but not enough to get $80 out of me.


Would anybody be interested in a Grigsby-Style Wargame for WWI?

I think WWI is really hard to make a game about because what happened depended on a bunch of stuff that you can't model in a game like: who's better at night patrols, who's got better flash/sound ranging gear, who's got better gas masks this week, who has better horses. There's just no way to make that interesting through gameplay. I'll grant you though that certain parts of the war might work, like the west in 1914, the east, and Palestine.
 

Mitleser

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I think WWI is really hard to make a game about because what happened depended on a bunch of stuff that you can't model in a game like: who's better at night patrols, who's got better flash/sound ranging gear, who's got better gas masks this week, who has better horses. There's just no way to make that interesting through gameplay. I'll grant you though that certain parts of the war might work, like the west in 1914, the east, and Palestine.[/QUOTE]

I would not model it that detailed. Individual Units would have separate Experience in Defense and Offense. Units could gain Experience through Offensives or Defenses and this Experience would spread to neighboring Corps, Armies and Army Groups, modelling improvements in trench digging etc and the varying experience of units in different locations/armies. Experience would not spread between countries, modelling the green british army compared to the french and giving an advantage to the germans. Other factors like Artillery, Aircraft, Tanks could certainly be incorporated.

The main problem seems to me the needed size of the map. The most successful offensives in the west barely took 4-5 km in a month of fighting before 1918, while in the East the Russians could be pushed back a hundred km in the course of a month. To model this would require a hex size of 2-5 km with a map spanning from the French Atlantic Coast to Moscow requiring over six hundred hexes. This would be micromanagement hell.
 

Nutria

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I get what you're saying but I have to respectfully disagree and say that I don't think it would work.

The problem is, what is the player doing in this game? Wargames (at least as they've been made up until now) are all about shifting around units to different hexes. How do you make that interesting in WWI? You'd feel like you were some staff officer in Paris doing paperwork, shuffling a bunch of divisions through Verdun.

As for the map problem, my solution would be to not use hexes. Why do we do this when there's so many other ways that you could have a map in a wargame?
 

Mitleser

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Well I actually really like larping as a staff officer. Not sure about others though. I would find planning Offensives, thinking about how many divisions my rail net can support, how to best inflict enough casualties to break the enemy nations morale while barely preserving my own, which logistics hub I need to take to render the enemy position untenable, where to best start the next years offensive and stockpiling enough ammunition and artillery interesting intellectual exercises.

I agree with the weakness of hexes, but it is a convenient abstraction. I experimented with some hexless real-time implementations but am still stuck how to actually model a logistics network. Mapping all roads and rails in a country the size of france or germany is a nightmare. They also need to be expandable by the player. In real time you would also have supply columns and trains travel over the map which would require modelling their exact transport capacity and maybe delays etc. not to speak of weather, changing terrain, which also needs to be seen by the player. With hexes this is easier, just assign an abstract number representing your chosen feature and represent it graphically on the hex with a texture. Pathfinding would also potentially be a pain in the ass.
 
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WHERE did you get the book from?

I bought it with the game? Slitherine sell it as physical disk + book + download option. They did the same for WitE, got that book somewhere with the physical disk too, and later on they gave a free Steam key for registered owners when they eventually started selling it on there too.

By the time they've released a few revised beta patches you're better off looking for the updated pdf rules though.
they had the hardback cover books for their World in Flames game too, amazing quality.... two full color hardcover rule books total of about 800 pages, although I think maybe all versions of the game came with the hardcover books w/ World in Flames, or at least when I bought it, not sure now.

Too bad world in flames is still buggy hot garbage
yes, I bought day One knowing it would be and would probably always be. I already had the board game basically I looked at the computer version like it was a great in-depth online tutorial to teach me how to play the board game and if it actually ever worked for anything more than that it would be a bonus.

I am surprised the programmer guy is still trying to make a working AI for it honestly-- seems impossible that a single person could make an AI for the game, especially with the amount of detail and options he has put into it...he has literally been working on it for like 15 years I think..lol... the game is unbelievably detailed, more so than WiTE in many ways. WiTE might be more complicated in raw numbers, but as far as actual amount of detailed rules to know, and teaching all these tiny details to a computer to learn and then try and perform as a strategy seems impossible to me...I think the new version of the board game is literally the Guinness book of world records for largest board game ever made.
 

7h30n

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Since the topic kind of took a turn toward WWI, for people interested, check out Strategic Command: World War I, so far the reviews are really positive, though I haven't played it myself yet.
 
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not knowing as much about WW1 and also playing many less video and board games based in the time period likely makes me far less critical since I both don't know what to criticize and also just don't care as much but this game by slitherine was actually pretty fun........ at least until it kind of bogged down a bit about halfway through, but it had a good 'atmosphere' and was generally fun to play..but like I said I am much less critical of WW1 games and its obviously a more casual type game, but nothing wrong with that really..

 

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