Playing it differently from 4000BC

[martin mcmartin]

diplomacy is the worlds greatest boardgame ever made, probably the best game ever made I.M.O. never have had a better experience with a game. the players themselves are responsible for all the moves on the board, not cpu's or anything, just you, your pencil and paper for the orders, and the huge board with the wooden pieces. check it out, it's the chess of strategy board games.. can be played via e-mail, anyone in for a game? it will only last for the next year or so.... Marathon speed is the middle name of the game.

[Lancer]

Not 'Diplomacy' that I played in the '70s? Little wooden ships and armies? Was than an Avalon Hill game?

[martin mcmartin]

yes!! that's the one, aaahh, Avalon Hill... the gamecompany that always managed to make games too difficult and timeconsuming. sometimes hundreds of tiny cardboard pieces that already got lost while reading the manual..... the good old times...

[Lancer]

They made the E A S Y games! You should see the S&T games, some of them were absolute monsters.

Which one made Third Reich? BRPs, Turn flip flops...those actually came fairly close to modeling blitzkrieg. Something no game ever did very well that I know of. The monster games did ok for localized breakthroughs, but the intel was always too great for the other side. One would have to make fake moves behind the lines to throw off the other guys.

It was a great time.

[Lancer]

Did you know that War In Europe (War in the East, War in the West combo) is being produced again? Costs like $300! Been upgraded, yadda yadda. Love to find a dozen guys here in the Phils to play...here where I have time. I have the old original version complete with playtesters notes. A gift from a friend.

[martin mcmartin]

nice, very nice that version with the playtesters notes. third reich? never heard of, but sounds like Eastfront, this one is also 'new' out and could well be the same game you mention, with a different title though. either we always got the uberexpensive US versions, or a fake lookalike cheap "platinum" version brought out 10 years after the original... in those days the Avalon Hill games were OUR monster games since we were having big trouble understanding the pt. 5 arial 75 page english manuals. we were 14 at that time, dutch and not human yet. we never got all the gamemechanics sorted out (age of reconnaissance.. lord...).

and that's the good thing about Dip, no fake moves, just fake words, sometimes..., because these real players remember the stabs the next game! would be nice too if the computerplayers in civ would "remember" your playstyle.....or something like an option to check.

but please, don't get me all emotional now!

[Lancer]

Nah, you don't know what I'm talking about. How does 9 full sized map boards combined to make a playing surface the size of a ping pong table sound? All of europe from Spain to the Urals, up to Scandanavia and down to North Africa. 3000 unit counters iirc...

I'll find you a link, hang on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Europe_(game)

You used to be able to download a demo of WiE here.

http://www.decisiongames.com/

There is a computer WiE but there are no comp opponents, humans or bust.

Computer WiE demo can be found here.

http://www.decisiongames.com/wwii/europe/europe.htm

It's HUGE!

[martin mcmartin]

and, by the way, I have reloaded lots of times the same map from 4000 BC. regenerate map 50 times to get the next nice map takes too long. and restarting always ends up in a totally different game. I reload my socks off every game anyway, but that does not matter, because I s**ck. no, that is not the right word. I am very good at Civ, but not in the mood to do what is right to win, but mostly what feels right to play a nice game. I do not want to win an (early) culture-victory. all the work for nothing...

[Lancer]

I have fun but play my way. Not much of a bean counter.

[martin mcmartin]

yes, you are right, this is a different league, I think we would have gone totally nuts (from pleasure that is!) about games like this. longest session we done is a three month period playing Axes and Allies every evening. just to end up in a draw. we didn't know back then that it almost always ends in a draw.... last one I got was civilisation board game, rereleased and for once in very nice version, 1 by 1,5 mtrs board. real cards and pieces..hmm, yummy. but, still nothing compared to ping pong tables..... back to work, unfortunately. thanks for the link.

[Lancer]

I think ADG's World in Flames (WiF) is the largest board game ever made by man though. That thing, I don't even know how big its gotten.

http://www.a-d-g.com.au/

Goodnight!

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Lancer
They made the E A S Y games! You should see the S&T games, some of them were absolute monsters.

Those were the days, indeed!
I played War in the East (the whole campaign game) with a friend once. We didn't last beyond the summer of '42, unfortunately (when the Soviets smashed the German air force).

Also played a bit of War in North Africa, the heuristic game of company/battalion scale where you had to keep tabs of all your strengths/trucks/tanks/fuel on sheets of paper (where I was literally overwhelmed by the paperwork ... found myself marking changes to wrong units, etc.). Really should have had a staff to assist us, not just playing one-on-one.

[Theben]

Che and I used to play Third Reich all the time. One time he was the Germans and I was the Italians. Another person was the Brits/French and one more Russia. The Russkies invaded Turkey and I intervened and the Italians smashed the Russian army in the Caucus mountains. Unfortunately the Germans had difficulty invading the French, and they were threatening my borders, so I had to pull my armies back to Italy. He managed to finish off the French a couple of turns later, but missed the opportunity to hit the Russkies early 'cuz he had pulled a sizeable force away from the German border to deal with me and the Turks.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Lancer
Nah, you don't know what I'm talking about. How does 9 full sized map boards combined to make a playing surface the size of a ping pong table sound? All of europe from Spain to the Urals, up to Scandanavia and down to North Africa. 3000 unit counters iirc...

Sounds like a game called III World War. Che and I played that too. Went from France to the Ukraine, southern Scandanavia to the Med, and a separate map for the Mid East.

[Lancer]

Jaybe, I'd really like a comp War in Europe with the staff work handled and the 'did I move that unit?' fuzz factor gone.

Theben, did you check the Decision Games link? It's definately WWII.