WW2 Scenarios

[Willhelm II]

Post WW2 scenarios that you think were the best you've ever played, as well as any golden oldies that are worth mentioning.

[jim panse]

Hmmm, that's a rather easy one ... (that is not a particular ranking)

- 2194 Days of War by Captain Nemo & Alex the Magnificient

- Dictator ToT by Curt Sibling

- Herbsnebel v2.0 by Darth Vader

- Market Garden by Tecumseh

- Second Front by Captain Nemo & Alex the Magnificient

- the Norwegian Campaign by Eivind

- Anstieg of the 3rd Reich

- Panzer Battles on the River Chir by Exile

- Desert War by Eivind (yet in BETA testing)

(also, mind that this is a very incomplete list)

[AGRICOLA]

I hope that you don't mind a couple of dissenting opinions on Nemo's Second Front.

Both Lafayette and I played it. I gave up after 20 turns; he lasted 35. We shared the opinion that the scen is so tightly controlled by events that it becomes an utter bore for players.

The following quotes are from

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105479&highlight=scenarios+from+the+community

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
. . . . . Captain Nemo's SECOND FRONT . . . . . is so heavily event driven that the author actually warns that " The Allied High Command will not accept a high degree of deviation from the Operational plan they have laid out and you might soon find yourself fighting alone in Normandy...". . . . . I could not see a way around this, so I quit in utter frustration after 20 turns (D-day + 9). I was in a straitjacket because the scenario wanted me to play like Mongomery when my instincts were to play like Patton .!!!!

On D+9:
Allied forces had St Lo surrounded but events did not want it taken earlier than D+37.
Cherbourg and Cherbourg AFB were surrounded but not to be taken before D+18 and D+26, respectively.
The Allies had taken Vire, ~100 km south of St Lo, as well as Barenton, thereby cutting off enemy forces in Brittany and western Normandy. The Allied forces were spreading out but were not supposed to attack nearby Mortain until D+58.
A task force was within 2 days of capturing a Seine crossing at Quillebeau.
The huge backlog of Allied units in Britain had been more or less cleared

At this point I quit. Obviously the scenario and I were having a serious personality clash.

On the one hand, I believed Nemo's warning about not getting out of synch with events and figured that I was going to need all the unit and other help I could get from events. Already, the German Panthers and Tigers around Caen were being held at bay mainly by the Air Force, not by the ground forces which simply could not handle the German tanks.

On the other hand, the idea of having to follow history's timetable and play "stupid" had little appeal. I had no wish to leave significant forces behind to contain and eventually capture more and more surrounded cities when the forces were needed for further advances. Also, the longer it took to capture the cities, the more difficult it would be because reinforcements would keep on arriving. It was Catch 22 and it just didn't make sense so I went on to another scenario.

This is not meant in any way to reflect on the concept and technical quality of SECOND FRONT. Both are superb. The historical accuracy is as good as can be modelled in CIV II, the map is incredibly detailed and the units excellently rendered. The failing was mine in not having the patience to play it at the historically correct pace.

Originally posted by Lafayette
I have been more patient than AGRICOLA, but I completely agree with him: this scenario is beautiful, with a very detailed map and well designed units, but...the author has been so eager to make it follow History that the events file is much more powerful than the few degrees of freedom left to the player.

I felt like a schoolboy waiting for the teacher to allow this and that (somewhat alike when playing Spartacus a few weeks ago) and it became really boring after a while.

I was compelled to play 'Hotseat', which makes for a very difficult game since you don't see enemy moves and lose your units without knowing where the blow came from.

I tried a supposedly clever strategical move, namely taking the Luftwaffe's AFB of Carpiquet very early, but the AFB disappeared and became a village

I finally stopped after having taken Caen (that I wished to take, because I lived there when I was a schoolboy) on turn 35.

To make it short, I think that playing D-day is great, but after that one needs to be either very patient or able to find strategical moves that are strong enough to beat the powerful events file.

I view Second Front as a definitely successful attempt to create a unique WW II scen. However, its events reward success only if it occurs within the historical timetable. That turns out to be a sure recipe for boring play.

[techumseh]

It's always a dillema for designers of historical scenarios to balance the actual historical events with the possibility that players might change history. The more sequential events files you use, the more you are a prisoner of history, because you have to have the correct file loaded at the time you hit a specific trigger.

You might say that those that do not use ToT events to represent history are doomed to repeat it.

[curtsibling]

Any of Harlan's scenarios are worth checking out...!

[Boco]

Harlan Thompson's, too.

Thanks for the post, Agricola. It gives us historical buffs some valuable players' perspectives. Those sound like pretty restrictive events.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Boco
Harlan Thompson's, too.

Heh!

Erm...Him too!

Cut me some slack, it was early-morning brain fuzz in effect!

[Boco]

Sounds like Irn Bru Buzz to me.

Techumseh, did you ever reach him?

[techumseh]

No. He's lost in the jungles of Borneo.

[kobayashi]

Also, There was the

third reich by Michael Jeszenka

Cruel Sea by case

A world at war by BKA

Up the Deadly Boot by John Petroski is often mentioned though I have never tried it

[fairline]

Not a fan of Up the Deadly Boot; it plays fast and loose with the history of the Italian campaign and laughably makes US troops much stronger than Commonwealth toops. Third Reich and Cruel Sea are classy though.

No-one's mentioned Red Front yet BTW

[curtsibling]

Yep, old John P had a mildly rose-tinted view of the US army in WW2...

But he was a genius at design, nonetheless!

[Stefan Härtel]

My personal favourite is Appeasement And Agression. It could be a great multiplayer game if we had a number of dedicated players and perhaps played it in sessions (not PBEM, that was really going nowhere). So far, I have really enjoyed it as a hotseat game, however. It really does represent the view on the war that I personally have- non-militaristic, but instead the geopolitical one. I'm personally just much more interested in why it happened instead of what calibre it happened with. But hey, that's my personal POV.

[Eivind IV]

If I'm not mistaken that was only released in beta. I was in the first PBEM but we had to quit it very early due to many bugs and flaws that made it unplayable. A shame Case never completed it, as it had a lot of potential.

[Stefan Härtel]

Well, to honestly admit it, it's been a while since I've played it. Maybe it's just the conception that impressed me so much that I have such good memories of it.