Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich - anyone own this?

Started by Michael Dorosh, November 14, 2017, 04:54:56 PM

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Michael Dorosh

Thinking seriously of getting this, but not finding a whole lot of discussion outside the official forums. Anyone want to recommend (or not) this one? I have a sense of what it does, looks like a massive data cruncher with every pilot, plane, strategic and tactical target in the ETO. Which is to my liking. Anything I should watch out for? I see concerns about the UI, but that's kind of a personal thing.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Runs very poorly even on a modern PC.  Lots of lag.  GUI is horrid and it's hard to make out what's happening on the map as you have hundreds of airplane sprites overlapping one another as well as the ground targets (which look like yellow, red, or brown blobs).    Avoid it.  I wish I had.

jomni

I have this.  Played a long long time ago.  It's a lot for work planning all those raids. The good part is that it's interesting and detailed... but hard to play.  Not for the lighthearted as with all GG games.

Michael Dorosh

Quote from: jomni on November 14, 2017, 06:58:14 PM
I have this.  Played a long long time ago.  It's a lot for work planning all those raids. The good part is that it's interesting and detailed... but hard to play.  Not for the lighthearted as with all GG games.

Thanks to both of you for the replies. Sounds like what I'm after, to be honest.

DoctorQuest

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ArizonaTank

This may help:

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich-pc-game-review.htm

I like the game.  If you like Grigsby data fests...then it may be good for you.

GG's War in the West actually covers the air war as well, and the interface is much more modern, and it would be playable in your lifetime.  So may be an alternative.  Of course you don't get Battle of Britain with that option.
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
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FarAway Sooner

I actually loved Gary Grigsby's A World at War: A World Divided.  I got the sense that it was, in many ways, the simplest and most streamlined of his games--and it was DENSE! 

Are there other similar titles to that that he has done?

spelk


demjansk1942


nelmsm

It is definitely shows some age but they are working on another update. Runs fine on my Windows 10 machine. If your really Interested in a very detailed game on the air war in WWII Europe you won't find anything to compare.

BanzaiCat

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on November 14, 2017, 10:14:23 PM
I actually loved Gary Grigsby's A World at War: A World Divided.  I got the sense that it was, in many ways, the simplest and most streamlined of his games--and it was DENSE! 

That's still seen as a very Axis & Allies-like title. I wrote the manual for it and its predecessor and pimped it at several conventions in the Matrix booth. I'd usually start with that when people came by and asked questions about it because there's few that haven't heard of A&A (I think we used the term "A&A on steroids" or something cliched, lol).

But yes, it's definitely deeper than a straight-up A&A game.

Having played GG War in the West too, I'm appreciative of all levels of complexity, but am not sure ED to BotR is in my personal wheelhouse.

stolypin

I bought this game on sale a couple of years ago but found it performed poorly on my new computer and the interface was very outdated.  So I didn't spend much time with it.  They recently released a new patch but I haven't tried it.  I'm too absorbed with Grigsby's other titles (WITE & WITW) at the moment. 

But if they did a version II of this game, I'd be a first-day buyer. 

FarAway Sooner

Quote from: BanzaiCat on November 15, 2017, 07:29:10 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on November 14, 2017, 10:14:23 PM
I actually loved Gary Grigsby's A World at War: A World Divided.  I got the sense that it was, in many ways, the simplest and most streamlined of his games--and it was DENSE! 

That's still seen as a very Axis & Allies-like title. I wrote the manual for it and its predecessor and pimped it at several conventions in the Matrix booth. I'd usually start with that when people came by and asked questions about it because there's few that haven't heard of A&A (I think we used the term "A&A on steroids" or something cliched, lol).

But yes, it's definitely deeper than a straight-up A&A game.

Having played GG War in the West too, I'm appreciative of all levels of complexity, but am not sure ED to BotR is in my personal wheelhouse.

That was a good manual, Cat!  Complicated as hell, but you did a decent job of making stuff findable.  The alternative was putting the same stuff about three different places to make sure people could find out what happened to the Factory Production Multiplier when a country became Unfrozen on a turn where it hadn't gone yet.

Seriously, I think the comparison to A&A is cosmetic, but the game itself is crazy deep.  I'd characterize it more as "Third Reich and Axis & Allies had a baby who was just as smart as Third Reich".  I could list all the ways AWaW:AWD is more complicated than A&A, but since you wrote the rule book, you probably already know those things.   ;D

It just drives me nuts to see a game knocked by grogs as "simple" when it's anything but.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Quote from: stolypin on November 15, 2017, 10:25:04 AM
I bought this game on sale a couple of years ago but found it performed poorly on my new computer and the interface was very outdated.  So I didn't spend much time with it.  They recently released a new patch but I haven't tried it.  I'm too absorbed with Grigsby's other titles (WITE & WITW) at the moment. 

But if they did a version II of this game, I'd be a first-day buyer.

I tried the patch.  It doesn't really help with performance or the horrible interface of map presentation. 

The gameplay itself is actually rather simplistic.  There is a tonne of data to drill down and look at if that's your thing but it's really just chrome and doesn't affect gameplay at all.

Pete Dero

New patch ?!

https://www.matrixgames.com/news/gary-grigsbys-eagle-day-to-bombing-the-reich-new-update

Published on September 22, 2020

It's time to suit up and switch on those magnetos, the latest patch for Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich is out now! Building on the tireless efforts of the previous patches, version 1.06.05 fixes even more minor bugs and adds several new features including:

    A new "Find Air Units" tab is added to the reaction phase to allow you to easily find the location of each of your air groups during the heat of the action showing the current fatigue, morale, fuel, and damage of each individual pilot and planes. Or, momentarily stop the action and simply select one of your air groups on the map to get its current status - including mission type and even if the pilot is wounded!
    The weather system has been reworked to introduce next day forecasting and variable wind direction. Now you can "stand down" and refit your air groups during a bad weather turn, knowing that tomorrow promises to be less cloudy or foggy in your sector. You can now also get the current weather report for all of Europe during the planning phase from a single glance at the strategic map.
    All of this and much, much more awaits you with this latest patch for the most realistic and in-depth game of the Battle of Britain and the Strategic Bombing Campaign against Germany ever produced.