WWIIE game by Schwerpunkt released

[Franciscus]

Hi

I can't resist to bring to your attention this rough gem.

Schwerpunkt games (really a Ma and Pa business, run by Ron Dockal in his spare time and his wife) has released their Magnum Opus, World war II Europe.

Admittedly, it is still rough in the edges, and at first glance a bit weird:
- "Only" 51 scenarios at release time, although another 51 coming (one has already been released).
- An idiosyncratic and somewhat clunky interface, but that grows on you.
- A grognard game, although with a beautiful (IMHO) map.
- Boardgame-like unit counters (miles and years away from the lovely Ageod unit counters, of course ) although with very well thought info presented at a glance.
- Incredible ambition: painstakingly researched scenarios ranging from relatively small scale ones like the invasion of Crete or Sicily to huge ones (a full 1939-1945, west and east campaign is promised), with everything in between from D-day to Stalingrad, the Battle of Britain, all of the North Africa main campaigns, even hypothetical scenarios like Sealion or Malta Invasion.
- At first glance, a monster game: ground, naval and air (tactical) units all under your command, several phases in each turn some Wego (naval and air) the others IgoYougo (ground movement and combat), supply, weather, terrain, etc, etc. Then you realise you can play several turns in a row with apparent ease, specially in the smaller scenarios, with great fun. And then you realise you have just scratched the surface; reserves, reinforcements, HQ units, different types of movement, etc, etc...
- A so far competent AI, IMHO
- Some bugs and inconsistencies, but no CTD so far.
- Great support, with 2 small patches already released

And finally, a very satisfying and old-school way of Ron dealing with the players: The game is sent to you via a dropbox link, as all the patches. Ron is present on the forums, and very responsive, (just like our beloved Phils :thumbsup

Although not cheap (50$, specially with the falling Euro...) I am very pleased to be able still to support this "garage-company". And it is giving me much fun (Africa Korps, yay !)

Check the wargamer forums if you're interested:
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/threads.asp?f=163

[ERISS]

Review:
http://grogheads.com/?p=6978

'Official' site:
http://schwerpunkt.wargamer.com/index.html

[Baris]

I have been following this. Price seems a bit steep but looking forward to get it sometime in summer- scenarios may need fine tuning maybe- WEGO and different turn phases looks interesting.

[Pocus]

Do you have links to screenshots, the official site has none for this game.

[Bohémond]

You can take a look here ;

http://wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=589560


Regards

[Franciscus]

And a review at grogheads:

http://grogheads.com/?p=7117

A very good view of what this game is.

Regards

[deguerra]

Looks really interesting.

Is there some info on how the supply system works?

-deguerra

[Pocus]

No clue either on the AI, that is the biggest coding challenge in this kind of super complex game: there is no recipe to success and whatever the number of hours you put into, you are not assured of doing well enough, contrary to work on the rules implementation and the interface.

[Franciscus]

Looks really interesting.

Is there some info on how the supply system works?

-deguerra

Hi

Supply is handled in a rather straightforward way. In the designer's words, "the game is about strategy and tactics, not railroad building and maintenance". And in a much more simple way than in WitW, for example

Basically, you can have permanent supply sources (defined at scenario setup) and temporary (one turn) supply sources, created by a naval or air supply operation (eg, to bring supply to airborne troops dropped behind enemy lines). Supply is then "carried" along railroads and roads (except if an enemy unit's ZOC controls part of the line) to ground units; each railroad hex is a "supply source". The distance supplies can "travel" from a supply source to a ground unit depends on weather and terrain (maximum being 9 hexes in perfect conditions)
Air and Naval units are abstacted to be always in supply.

Supply is not unlimited, though, but this again is abstracted in a nice way, INHO: each side has a limited number of operations that can be carried out each turn. For example, the italians in the opening scenario of the North Africa campaign can only carry out 2 attacks per turn, even if fully "supplied" (IMHO this abstracts not only supply but other logistics and leadership aspects).

It works rather intuitively and forces the player to take some historical actions: for example, in the North African scenarios axis troops do not have any permanent supply source in Africa, so must do at least one naval supply mission each turn to keep the troops under supply. Of course, the supply ships can be attacked by the enemy's ships and/or planes, so one mission may not be enough...

Regards

[Franciscus]

No clue either on the AI, that is the biggest coding challenge in this kind of super complex game: there is no recipe to success and whatever the number of hours you put into, you are not assured of doing well enough, contrary to work on the rules implementation and the interface.

I have been playing through one of the North African scenarios and have so far mixed feelings about the AI. Air operations seem to be reasonably carried out; ground units ops also reasonable, although the AI as attacker (as usually) seems to miss good oportunities and not optimize her attacks. I suppose it will perform best as defender, but have yet to try.
Naval AI seems more problematic (like "non-existant" :blink , at least in my experience so far.

Nevertheless, the designer is actively working in improving the game (he released it in 2014 with only half the scenarios at the request of his die-hard fans; it is currently probably best considered a late beta game, although very enjoyable already.

On the plus side, the AI turn resolution, at least on scenarios, is extremely fast ("blink of an eye" fast), and the game is rock-solid stable: no crashes whatsoever until now...

Regards

(Note: this game, although being a "grognard-level" one - example: by default there are no music (8 tracks are available if you want) and there are zero sound effects; the designer thinks sound effects are for arcade and action games, not for operational wargames - is nowhere near as complex as Gary Grigsby's monster games, and the core rules are rather simple. The big hurdle is really the interface, that is like no other I have ever seen. That being said, and with only a few hours of gameplay, I have almost no problems with it now, but YMMV)

[Franciscus]

Just a heads-up

WWIIE version 1.04 has been released and now the naval AI has finnally her "teeth"

Enjoying very much the North Africa scenarios.

Regards