JerseyJohn
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Posts posted by JerseyJohn
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Agreed S-M. :cool: 
Fingers crossed, the way we've had them crossed since the early 50s, that it never happens.
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"We're in! DoD Global Thermo Nuclear War by Bill Macon. This guy is great, he knows all kinds of stuff about H-Bombs and cool stuff like that!"
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There are a lot of wartime movies that showed Stalin's regime as though it were a workers paradise. One of them has the U. S. ambassador to Russia in the 1930s telling congress about how the USSR had to secure it's northwest border against Hitler's Finnish lackies. :eek:
-- Naturally there was never any mention of the Gulags, or the purges, unless, as you said, the real situation was bent beyond recognition.
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Great layout, Moon. In the WWII link there's a very good German Navy site with detailed information even on Z-Class ships that were laid down but scraped early in the war.
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Thanks Drakkula, it really is a very good site. :cool:
And thank you, powergmbh for revealing that deviously placed English option.
I was squinting at the screen and, if I didn't know it was there, would have missed it too, Retributar.
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Doubt I'll ever get there, Kuni, but thanks for posting this. Hopefully some of it will be laid out on the Internet.
In the World at War DVD the producer said one of the shows big disappointments was not being able to devote at least one segment each to Yugoslavia and Poland in WWII.
-- I remember a Kurt Vonnegut interview in the mid-70s where he mentioned filming the Battle of the Bulge scenes for Slaughter House Five in Rumania because so many German tanks and assorted equitment was left there at the end of WWII.
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Ah, wish I'd thought of this thread title back in the SC1 days.
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The moderator, Moon, reminices with friends atop the Battlefront HQ Compound. "Der Fuhrer could paint a whole house in the time it took Churchill to paint a few stupid flowers. And Churchill, he couldn't even pronounce Nazi. He would say Nahhhzi, Naaaahzi."Originally posted by Kuniworth:Well the Moderator, Moon, is from Germany. Coincidence I think not.
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Yes, I heard the same thing somewhere. I'll bet Hitler especially enjoyed Jack Oakie's version of Benito Mussolini.Originally posted by Kuniworth:Ahh Chaplin really got it spot on in that movie. Its rumoured that Hitler loved it and had a great laugh watching it too.
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DD is the original verse warrior, a fighter. All the best, Dave, though I'm sure you realize that already -- not only from me, but from all your friends here.
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Sounds like an interesting situation, to say the least.
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Hyazinth von Strachwitz,
Interesting scenario. I've always wondered why Hitler didn't actually redefine the Axis to include the USSR when Stalin wanted to become a member after the fall of France. That was what the Molotov trip to Berlin was all about. Stalin wanted a warm water Norwegian port with a land corridor reaching it from the USSR -- entailing a strip running across Finland and Norway to build a railroad on. Hitler became incensed with this idea, leaving Ribbentrop to small talk with Molotov while he went off and sulked. He'd already decided on Barbarossa and wasn't interested in anything that would alter that plan.
But, if he'd picked up on the opportunity, he could have done exactly as you said in the Eastern Mediteranean. Without an eastern front it would have been possible to bring troops and air units back to France, pressuring Franco into reconsidering and he'd have joined the Axis. The main reason he didn't in the summer of 1940 was because Admiral Canaris had advised him that Germany already committed itself to invading the USSR and couldn't also invade Spain.
So -- Gibraltar and Malta fall, there's no Axis supply problem in North Africa and in addition they're free to send massive aid to Iraq in ousting the British. It isn't consceivable that by the end of 1942 the Axis would have controlled all of the Mediteranean and Middle East in addition to continental Europe.
The USSR, presumably, would have gone through Afghanistan in Northern India and, even with the possibility of the United States entering the war, the UK would have been on the ropes.
As you said, no Allied invasion of continental Europe would have been possible and with Gibraltar and the Suez Canal in Axis hands the only Allied landings likely to succeed would have been Morocco -- and even at that it should have been easily reinforced by the Axis and the landing forces, distant from lines of supply and with little air support, would probably have eventually had to be withdrawn.
The historian Steve Ambrose discussed this situation, of an Axis where German and the USSR cooperated, with Japan in Asia, and in his view it would have ushered in a "New dark age of fascist dominance." I think that's a sound assessment.
-- One of Hitler's reasons, totally erroneous, was that the UK would, sooner or later, turn to a pro-Axis government and become part of his alliance after he'd conquered the USSR.
In late 1940 that view made sense not only to Hitler but to many other people as well. It's understandable that they underestimate the USSR and also failed to see the Nazi's self-defeating policies regarding the tens of millions of newly conquered eastern people. I'm convinced that, had they treated them sensibly the Axis could well have succeeded in the USSR. By succeed I mean conquering all of European Russia and forcing peace on what remained of the USSR. As it was, the German ranks were replenished with approximately 1,000,000 troops raised from the conquered eastern territories.
I guess the way to simulate a sensible occupation policy in a scenario would be to not include Soviet Partisans.
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Hyazinth von Strachwitz,
I think that tank battle around Mogilev was in the game between myself and Kuni.
The Axis, up to that point, was fending the Soviets off in the south while pushing hard in the center and north. A lot of Soviet units were being cut off and destroyed but at the exact time the Soviets should have been forced to defend they suddenly had units to spare and the Germans, especially in the north, had no supplies. I was trying to figure out where my play went wrong when Kuni stopped the game and said the scenario had to be worked on.I agree with what you're saying regarding the existing game engine and the strategy I'm talking about. Certainly the Germans could have done that, easily, in the Autumn of 1941. Leeb's panzers were resupplying with the infantry catching up when ordered all of Army Group North's armored units south at the same time he was ordering Army Group Center's panzers south also to create the Kiev pocket. If he'd allowed North and Center to proceed to their objectives I'm sure he'd have taken Leningrad quickly and Moscow shortly afterwards.
While capturing those objectives wouldn't have led to a Soviet surrender it would beyond any doubt have badly disruped the Soviet transportation network, linked Finland to the rest of the Axis and reduced the northern front to a minor theater. Additionally, the loss of Moscow, in my opinion, would have placed the entire Soviet Southern Front in a very precarious position with a springtime Axis offensive in a good position to move south, east of Kiev and on to the Black Sea, creating a pocket of Soviet infantry in the Ukraine that would have dwarfed the historical Kiev pockets.
But, as you so accurately pointed out, Hitler kept changing plans and as the looted resources, principally oil and motor vehicles taken in France and other western nations, became exhausted his campaigns were ever more directed at taking control of the southern Russian resources. There was nothing wrong with those strategic goals except, as you said, the Axis didn't have the manpower or the resources to attack on that entire north to south line of battle; it couldn't take the south till it secured the north and center.
Agreed entirely on the outright stupidity of Hitler's horrific abuse of the Russian and Slavic populations and, of course, his outright tragic insanity regarding the Jews. The Nazis turned what should have been many millions of people working for them into a hostile population spawning partisans and sabotage. At the very best their occupation policy produced corpses, can't get much productivity out of the dead.
In the field every fieldmarshal, particularly von Manstein and even the avid Nazi Richenau, objected to the anti-Slav/Russian policy and, especially, to the presence of SS death squads operating behind the front lines. As has often been said, with considerable truth, if Hitler had left the campaign to his generals he might have succeeded.
Regarding Soviet surrender, once again I have to agree with you 100%. The only Axis policy that would have worked was to offer the Soviet citizens (Russian and other ethnic groups) something better than the Soviet tyrany that was, as the Nazis knew, already eroding the Soviet system's ability to survive. Instead he gave them an even worse tyrany, one of total hopelessness with the promise of eternal slavery for the lucky few who weren't worked to death, starved to death while the food they'd harvested was siezed and transported west, or executed outright in reprisals.
Two things Hitler said stand out in my mind. The first is his remark in early 1941 about kicking in the Soviet door and the whole rotten house would fall down. I believe he was correct but he didn't understand how to cause its collapse; he didn't understand human beings -- just like his paintings showing fine landscapes and buildings with a scattering of robot-like pedestrians who seem indifferent to each other. Second is something he said to Mannerheim at their meeting in Finland during the war (this was on the hidden tape that some people don't accept as genuine). It was something to the effect that if he'd realized how strong the USSR actually was he would have reconsidered things and, perhaps, not invaded when he did.
And, of course, along the lines of what you said, even before the start of the 41-42 winter, the German forces in the USSR had done the equivalent of defeating France several times over; that this didn't cause the collapse of the Soviet Union would have shocked everyone, Axis as well as UK and USA, but it made perfect sense to the Russian people who were simply offered no choice other than to fight the murdering invader many of them had initially welcomed as liberators.
As always, very much enoyed your extremely insightful post, particularly the way you relate history to the realities of gameplay. :cool:
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I played an AAR game with Kuni using one of the early versions of this scenario. We played our game after revisions were made as a result of the Kuni-JDF2nd AAR game. As in that one, we stopped because it needed further revising; as that version was the Germans had impossible supply problems and the Soviets became too strong too quickly.
I enjoyed the game scale and Kuni's ideas on units, etc, really enjoyed the AAR which was Ludendorf vs Batman
It was the only time we've played but I've always been an admirer of Kuni's scenarios and his AARs (two classics in SC1 vs disorder ).
I didn't know most of the bugs were removed from the scenario. Looking forward to having another shot at it after what appears to be another round of tweaking.
I've always felt Hitler's fatal error was in not sweeping the entire Baltic first, including Leningrad, before turning south on Moscow & Kiev. His main offensives would have been travelling with, instead of against, the onset of winter weather. I'd like to play this idea on an historically reliable Eastern Front scenario. As has already been said, Kuni's done a huge amount of research on this campaign and I trust his view of the situation and also his ability to put it into a game mod. :cool:
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Why does this keep coming down to one or the other?
What Kuni is suggesting, and what a lot of us would also like to see, is a companion game that uses things like hexes and stacking. Hubert gave an interview a couple of years back (with Curry) in which he said he enjoyed DOS games like HighCom and Clash of Steel and the original SC was influenced by them and similar games.
So the suggestion in this thread is that Hubert design a parellel strategic warfare system using hexes (and possibly sea zones as in COS), with tactics using retreat as part of combat etc & etc. This is not unreasonable, especially as most of us thought that would be SC2.
-- And Hubert was perfectly justified to design SC2 in a way that satisfied him; he's its creator, the rest of us are only players.
Kuni, in that he's been one of the biggest fans of SC2 from the start, and was one of the first to make user scenarios for it, also has a right to say he's in favor of an alternate game system.
Please don't tell me, or anyone else, to design it themselves. I'm neither a programmer nor a game designer and at this stage of life am not about to go into either activity. Aside from which that kind of remark is like telling a motorist to build a new highway if he doesn't like trafic jams.
All that's being offered in this thread is suggestions to Hubert. He can take them, or leave them. No big deal.
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Actually, SC3 out of SC2 isn't what Kuni was talking about.
It was, or at least as I see it, a suggestion for Hubert to move ahead with a hex-based game incorporating the ideas he mentioned and that some of us added in subsequent posts.
There's no reason for SC2 to be junked. I have no idea where that came from. People like it and play it.
Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that a single designer, especially one who works alone, would want to go off now on a different game system when he's got one that is already doing the job.
-- Also, as was already said, a lot of this only an expressing of personal preferences, such as hex maps over tile maps.
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In this specific case I think it would be more accurate to have all negative effects for Germany rather than positive allied effects. Germany would lose the Swiss banking services, which in itself might have been ruinous. Further, it would have lost odd services Switzerland did that are still not widely known, such as supplying manufactured items being destroyed in Germany by Allied bombing missions, and also diverted power to offset damage done to major German river dams.Originally posted by The Great Santini:... If Germany wants to invade Switzerland, fine, but let the consequences be something like an increase in U.S. industrial capacity. And why just five chits for diplomacy? ...
Also, the Swiss appear to have done a great job rigging their mountain passes and tunnels and other assets for detonation in the event of being invaded by either side.
I agree with the basic premise of this thread, and it's been an issue since the original SC days. It was discussed in considerable length at the SC(1) forum.
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Beautiful!
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Another one of these things already? Let's see, last one was, uh, -- Hmmm? Guess I'll find out tonight listening to Guy Lombardo.
Thanks Canuck, and the same to you.
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True. To me the original Gettysburg seems oldest because that was the one I owned as a child.Originally posted by justanotherwargamer1:First game was Tactics II. It used squares. It was fun till you realized "the other guy never runs out of reinforcements, and smashing through the line is nearly impossible if the other guy has any brains at all
Nice training tool, but no real simulation of anything beyond WW1 trench warfare.
The later Blitzkrieg was a bit better. But again, if your opponent wasn't a bowl of jello it became WW1 too often. ...
Blitzkrieg, though as you said had a tendency to deadlock, also had a good adapability factor. I remember SPI (or SSI?) put out a Blitzkrieg Expansion Kit and, even without it, a lot of us made our own variants using the board and basic game concept.
Found something interesting regarding AH history:
< Avalon Hill History 1952 - 1980 >
from The Avalon Hill Company History, 1980
[transcriber’s note: I have attempted to copy the text of this document verbatim, including punctuation and capitalization. Game names are as they were recorded in the company history document. Additional information is available in each entry’s “more information” section. Date shown in parentheses is original publication date, per Avalon Hill]
Any attempt to chronicle the efforts of THE GENERAL (see The General Index) during its first 16 years is intrinsically tied to the output of the Avalon Hill Game Company itself in that the magazine exists solely to analyze its games. Therefore, a brief but comprehensive history of the company is presented here as an interesting, and hopefully useful, aid to the collector of AH games and hobby trivia.
Acquisitions:
3M games, purchased Feb. 1976
Sports Illustrated games, purchased in Dec. 1976
Aladdin Industries games, purchased in March, 1977
Battleline games, purchased in October, 1979
1952
Commercial board wargames originated in 1952 with the publication of TACTICS by Charles S. Roberts. Avalon Hill did not exist then, but this event constituted the sowing of the initial seed. Roberts sold the game on a mail order basis from his home address at 305 Gun Road in Baltimore for the next six years. Primitive by almost anyone's current standards, it was nonetheless the birth of the hobby we know today. Published by the "Avalon Game Company"--a nom de plume Roberts used for his non-incorporated cottage industry, Tactics was, of course, the forerunner of Tactics II which most hobby followers mistakenly credit as the first commercial wargame. "Avalon" was decided upon simply because Roberts lived in a section of Baltimore referred to by that name. Later, in 1958 when Roberts incorporated the name was lengthened for aesthetic purposes to "Avalon Hill"--the "hill" owing its inspiration to the fact that 305 Gun Road was not only located in Avalon, but was also atop a hill.
Tactics (1952) Discontinued in 1958
1958
Although officially incorporated as the Avalon Hill Company, and now being run as a fulltime enterprise, Roberts continued to operate out of his home. Nevertheless, three games were published and the foundation of a "line" of games had been established.
Tactics II (1958) Revised 1961, Discontinued 1972, Revised 1973
Gettysburg (1958) Discontinued 1961, Revised 1961, Revised 1964, Discontinued 1976, Revised 1977
Dispatcher (1958) Discontinued 1968
1959
Having survived its initial baptism by fire in the business community the company moved out of Roberts' home and into a commercial site at 7 South Gay St. in Baltimore. It now started to attract attention and began to branch out, and although still in its embryonic stages was able to publish its first game by an outside designer as two lawyers, who also happened to be the corporate attorneys, designed--what else--a lawyer game.
Verdict (1959) Discontinued 1960, Revised 1961
U-Boat (1959) Discontinued 1972
1960
The company moved again in 1960; this time to 209 E. Fayette St. in Baltimore. More importantly, it also got new blood into the creative end of things when a fellow by the name of Thomas N. Shaw was hired away from a local advertising agency to join the company in August. Shaw, a high school acquaintance of Roberts, was just starting what has become the longest standing term of employment with a wargame company--the only such company then in existence. Coincidence or not, the company's new game production increased the following year from one game to seven.
Management (1960) Discontinued 1971, Revised 1973
1961
The company moved again, this time to an industrial park at 6720 White Stone Rd. in Baltimore. It also flexed its corporate muscle by doubling the size of the line with seven new releases, including some which would lay the foundation for the "classics" which exist to this day. The hexagon was here to stay. Never again would square grids be given more than passing attention in future land battle game designs.
Chancellorsville (1961) Discontinued 1963, Revised 1974
D-Day (1961) Revised 1965 & 1977
Nieuchess (1961) Discontinued 1963
Verdict II (1961) Discontinued 1971
Lemans (1961) Revised 1965, Discontinued 1971
Civil War (1961) Discontinued 1963
Air Empire (1961) Discontinued 1963
1962
When Tom Shaw came aboard the previous year he had already ventured into the realm of game publishing. Back in 1959 he had designed and marketed two sports games which he sold in mailing tubes on a private label basis. A deal was soon struck, the games were boxed, and Avalon Hill had an instant sports line which remains in modified form to this day.
Baseball Strategy (1962) Revised 1973, 1977, 1980
Football Strategy (1962) Revised 1965, 1972, 1980
Waterloo (1962) Revised 1978
Bismarck (1962) Discontinued 1972, Revised 1980
JZ (1962) Discontinued 1962
1963
1963 was notable primarily for Avalon Hill’s futile venture into children’s games. A “line” of four boxed games for pre-schoolers was designed by Tom Shaw and priced between 98 cents and $2.98. With such great titles as IMAGINATION, WHAT TIME IS IT, DOLL HOUSE, and TRUCKS, TRAINS, BOATS, & PLANES how could they miss? It may have had something to do with the fact that pre-schoolers couldn’t read the instructions. IMAGINATION was actually revised in 1969 and repriced at $3.98 but bombed again proving that all the revision in the world can’t save a bad idea.
Stalingrad (1963) Revised 1974
Word Power (1963) Discontinued 1964, Revised 1967
1964
In 1964, Roberts finally gave up the struggle of trying to make a go of a pioneering adult strategy game company and was about to throw in the towel. Plans were made to declare bankruptcy on Friday, Dec. 13, 1963, but the company was saved at the eleventh hour by its creditors: J.E. Smith Co. and Monarch Office Services. Monarch had handled all of Robert’s printing previously, and Smith had done the boxes and assembly. The company was reorganized and cut expenses to the bone. J.E. Sparling was the new president and the corporate offices were once again moved; this time to 210 W. 28th St. in Baltimore. It is this address which graces the cover of the very first issue of THE GENERAL. Only Shaw remained from the original personnel. Despite such major problems the company immediately settled down into the two-game-a-year format that was to characterize it for the next eight years. Despite the reorganization, 1964 saw the introduction of a couple pretty fair titles still with us today.
Afrika Korps (1964) Revised 1965, Revised 1978
Midway (1964)
1965
Before 1964 was over, Monarch Office Services had moved to their current address of 4517 Harford Rd., and Avalon Hill’s corporate offices went with them. In the past 16 years 4517 Harford Rd. has become as recognizable an address to wargamers as 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. is to observers of the American political scene. General McAuliffe joined Rear Admiral Wade McClusky (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wade_McClusky,_Jr. link] to form the much ballyhooed (at the time) AH Advisory Staff.
Battle of the Bulge (1965) Discontinued 1981
Blitzkrieg (1965) Revised 1975
Squander (1965) Discontinued 1972
1966
By now, Tom Shaw’s role of “developer” in the design of new games—heretofore that of a glorified art director executing the actual artwork for the new games—was lessened even more as the commercial artists at Monarch assumed those duties. The developer concept was still in the embryo stages and bore faint resemblance to the far more detailed workload assumed by a modern day developer. In 1966, AH unveiled its first genuine sales hit, but it wasn’t a wargame.
Shakespeare (1966)
Guadalcanal (1966) Discontinued 1972
1967
Another figure entered the scene in 1967. James Dunnigan designed his first commercial boardgame. He was to use the experience as a springboard to launch a company of his own which would eventually give AH its first serious competitor for the still very limited wargame audience.
Jutland (1967) Discontinued 1971, Revised 1974
1968
The company took another chance in 1968, gambling on the marketability of two religious games: YEAR OF THE LORD and JOURNEYS OF ST. PAUL by Rev. Eugene Dougherty. If anything, the experiment was an even more dismal failure than the children’s games of 1963 had been. After three years, the remaining stock was virtually given away to local clergymen on the condition that they come to haul them away in lots of 500 or more. On the credit side, the company’s sole wargame offering set sales records for a new title up to that date.
1914 (1968) Discontinued 1973
1969
1969 marked the third consecutive year in which AH introduced only one new wargame. The small, but hungry, wargame audience was thirsting for more and AH’s limited publishing schedule was tempting others to try their hand.
Anzio (1969) Discontinued 1971, Revised 1974, Revised 1978, Revised 1980
Choice (1969) Discontinued 1972
C&O/B&O (1969) Discontinued 1972
Tuf (1969)
Tufabet (1969)
1970
There were two wargame offerings in 1970 and what a contrast they were! PANZERBLITZ took the little hobby of wargaming by storm and was an instant hit of heretofore unheard of proportions. More importantly, it had staying power. Still going strong more than ten years later as the 12th best selling wargame in the 1980 line, PANZERBLITZ is the only wargame to have sold more than 200,000 copies (depending, of course, on one’s definition of wargame). KRIEGSPIEL, on the other hand, was a dismal failure from the wargamer’s viewpoint. It was a constant target of derisive critics, but nevertheless sold well on the charisma of the title alone.
Panzerblitz (1970) Revised 1971
Kriegspiel (1970) Discontinued 1979
Stock Market (1970)
1971
This was the year of AH’s rebirth—not so much because of the games it put out—but because of the inner restructure of the company itself. Heretofore, the company had been under the combined management of two prior creditors with differing notions of how the company should operate. On Nov. 30th, Monarch Services acquired complete ownership of AH and the company commenced what was to slowly become a much more aggressive pursuit of the wargame industry under new President A. Eric Dott. Monarch continued to print the games and Dott founded his own box company for packaging and assembly. AH was on the road to controlling its own destiny for the first time with all production facilities under control of one central management. Old warhorse Tom Shaw was made Executive Vice President and became the principal charter of the company’s day to day affairs.
Luftwaffe (1971) Revised 1972
Origins of World War II (1971)
1972
By this time AH management realized it could no longer depend on outside sources to design its games and started to rebuild the R&D staff which it had gone without since Roberts’ exit. Don Greenwood was hired in May to take over The GENERAL and Randall Reed came aboard a few months later to become the first full time designer in the history of the company. Heretofore, personnel such as Shaw, Schutz, etc. were either part-time, or had to divide their time among everything from marketing to mail order shipping. It was the start of the long road back to in-house design self-sufficiency.
France 1940 (1972) Discontinued 1978
Outdoor Survival (1972)
1973
1973 saw the first AH in-house wargame design of any repute since the original days of the Roberts’ classics. There would be many more.
Richthofen’s War (1973)
Business Strategy (1973)
1974
If AH was reborn as a company in 1971 in terms of its corporate structure, it was truly reborn in the eyes of the public in 1974 when its dynamic duo of Greenwood & Reed combined to put out eight wargames. While three of these (ANZIO, CHANCELLORVILLE, & JUTLAND) were remakes of older titles the average wargamer sat up and took notice nonetheless. While this relative flood of new wargame titles was well received, the company was also taking a flyer on an offbeat project of their own. Top management decided to leave the realm of games and produce a couple of do-it-yourself kits entitled BLACK MAGIC & WITCHCRAFT. Bold experiments are often doomed to dismal failure. These certainly were, but The GENERAL did expand to 36 pages and wargamers were regaining their faith in good ol’ AH.
1776 (1974)
Third Reich (1974) Revised 1975, Revised 1980
Basketball Strategy (1974)
Alexander the Great (1974) Revised 1975, Revised 1976
Panzer Leader (1974) Revised 1975
1975
This was the year that the hobby started to become an industry. Heretofore, little game companies came and went, but had little contact with each other. Certain companies were openly critical of their competitors in print. But the birth of ORIGINS, a national gaming convention initiated by Avalon Hill, brought the various companies under one roof where personal contacts could be made for the first time. It would ultimately lead to the acceptance of the wargaming hobby as an industry unto itself. 1975 was also the year that Mick Uhl joined the now steadily growing design staff.
Caesar’s Legions (1975) Revised 1976
Wooden Ships & Iron Men (1975)
Tobruk (1975) Revised 1975
Beat Inflation Strategy (1975) Discontinued 1976
1976
From a batting average viewpoint 1976 was the year AH went 6 for 6. If there was any doubt that Avalon Hill was producing “state of the art” games, it disappeared after the second ORIGINS convention in Baltimore. Richard Hamblen joined the design staff that summer.
Kingmaker (1976) Revised 1980
Diplomacy (1976)
War at Sea (1976) Revised 1977, Revised 1980
Caesar (1976) Revised 1977
The Russian Campaign (1976) Revised 1977, Revised 1978
Starship Troopers (1976)
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I remember the early 60s bringing out a lot of Civil War games because of the centenial. Some were good and most were pretty awful. One of the better ones on this entry level, using squares, was1863, put out by Parker Brothers. AH had American Civil War which was played on a great hex map with a lot of details but the game itself was only some plastic pegs and a very simple system. In all of these games a Union player with any idea of what he was doing should always have won.
In the mid-60s I remember Avalon Hill's D-Day and Stalingrad (which was actually Barbarossa 1941-43) being the most fun to play many times over. An interesting feature was the two sides had armies that were basically different from each other, leading to an unbalanced situation with good tactical possibilities.
One thing most board games had that I think was an important element was units, either attacker or defender having to retreat as a result of combat. It's missing in both SC and SC2 and, as was mentioned earlier, this would be a good feature to bring back.
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justanotherwargamer1
Glad I dropped by and read your post. I agree with pretty much all of it.
If you remember back to the early Avalon Hill days, I think their first boxed game was Gettysburg and, thought the later versions had hexes and uniform counters, the first one had a vertical x horizontal grid on an otherwise fine looking map of the town and surrounding area, rectangular markers of various sizes for infantry divisions, cavalry brigades and artillery btns with small square OP counters. And no instructions! I know because I bought it back in 1959 or so, thought the instructions were missing and, as a 10 year old, tried figuring out my own rules. It wasn't till forty-five years later that I read an article by one of their designers saying they sold that thing without playtesting and something about how they never did write up the rules.
I'll try and find that article -- posted it at the old SC board a few years ago.
Anyway, what Avalon Hill did with that game was unprofessional and wrong, but I loved that game in any case -- it was fun trying to figure out how to face those rectangles for march and battle and what range to give the artillery. The fact that I never quite got it right didn't detract from the fun of trying. It was a miniatures game with cardboard pieces.
-- Their next Gettysburg game, the one with hexes, didn't quite work either; the movement was too slow and, again, the instructions were a mess.
I'm not so sure there won't be another SC with hexes and stacking. I know I'd like to see it and so would a lot of others for exactly the same reasons you've mentioned.
The original AH Gettysburg board:
[ December 30, 2007, 08:58 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]
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Originally posted by SeaMonkey:
First of all, great job JJ in taming the "Lucky Animal" that Kuni was, and my congratulation Kuni for becoming a productive member of the SC community...just don't go off your medication.
...
-- Actually, Kuni's been the good influence on myself and several others. He assures us that those Lucky Animal guys were admirers of his and he tried to keep them in line and, darn-it, I believe him! :confused: Great assessment of the SC situation. I haven't got WaW yet and won't be able to catch up with these new developments for some time yet so I can't offer an opinion on these new systems. I've played a little SC2, a little with Kuni in his early Barbarossa campaign, and some solitaire. From what I've seen it's a good game and I like the things Hubert has done with it, but I'll always prefer hexes to tiles. Also, I agree with Kuni 100% on things like units being able to retreat after losing or even withdraw with marginal losses without fighting at all, rather than stand and die; it makes a huge difference in the overall strategy.
But it also seems to me that a lot of this is just personal preference and pretty much all of us came up with hex games. As I haven't kept up with the new system I'd defer to the good players who have; one of whom initiated this thread. :cool:
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We've had threads with similar ideas at Buntaland for a while now, mainly with a view to combining the best features from the DOS games Clash of Steel and High Command with Strategic Command and SC2.
To be honest, as much as I'd personally love to see such a creation (presumably Fury Software would need to work out an agreement with the CoS & HC designers), it seems like a longshot to me that Hubert would want to invest so much time and effort in a project like this. But if he does I'm sure a lot of people will welcome the result.
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I'm not familiar with the game system but I think there would be an easy way of dealing with this:
Germany alots MPPs for the a long invasion of the USSR and it's army is prepared to deal with severe weather -- the more MPPs alloted in advance the less effect Russian Winter would have on the invading army.
-- Historically, I remember reading that the German Quartermasters wanted to know, sometime in late September 1941, when they'd be given winter supplies, uniforms and other equipment to send forward. The high command told them those items wouldn't be needed and they were not to ask about them.
Agreed S-M. :cool: 
SC2 AI Article
in Strategic Command 2 Blitzkrieg and Weapons and Warfare
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To be fair, SM, there are no eye witness accounts of his death.