Moscow '42 Released

[gabeeg]

Nice AAR, thanks for the link.

[ComradeP]

Although I'm interested in the Soviet winter offensive, I am reluctant to jump in and buy this game because of the scale.

I don't mean that in a negative way, I am wondering what the design decision was behind making the hexes 1 km and each turn just 2 hours. For comparison: that would mean that, in terms of turns, a game of PzC:Moscow '42 is over twice as long as a complete WitE game and covers most of a WitP:AE game with 2 days/turn setting. Yet the full campaign covers around 3 months worth of fighting.

I don't mind large numbers of units, but whenever I look at a game like this I wonder: what is the benefit of splitting up battalions into companies? Would the game be worse with a battalion scale and 2-3 turns per day, instead of company scale and 12 turns per day (or 8-10)?

My main problem with smaller scales is that it tends to make encirclements and deep penetrations, in a historical manner, difficult to impossible, because the defender has plenty of time to pull forces back. Attacks become slow and methodical even though you want them to be quick, blitzkrieg affairs. Note that I have no direct experience with the PzC series, I'm just commenting on my experience with other games with a small time per turn/unit size scale. In all cases, smaller scale games were less fluid than larger scale ones.

The average AI also benefits from fewer turns, as it makes it easier for it to plan. Has the full campaign been tested against the AI?

You could argue that the game is designed for PBEM, but in that case there's still those 576 turns and as we all know, a wide variety of things can happen that can cause your opponent to stop playing or lose interest. Imagine being at turn 300 or so, and then your opponent decides to quit.

If the (offensive/Soviet) AI is at least somewhat competent and can keep the campaign interesting for 576 turns, I'll buy it.

[MengJiao]

Although I'm interested in the Soviet winter offensive, I am reluctant to jump in and buy this game because of the scale.

I don't mean that in a negative way, I am wondering what the design decision was behind making the hexes 1 km and each turn just 2 hours. For comparison: that would mean that, in terms of turns, a game of PzC:Moscow '42 is over twice as long as a complete WitE game and covers most of a WitP:AE game with 2 days/turn setting. Yet the full campaign covers around 3 months worth of fighting.

I don't mind large numbers of units, but whenever I look at a game like this I wonder: what is the benefit of splitting up battalions into companies? Would the game be worse with a battalion scale and 2-3 turns per day, instead of company scale and 12 turns per day?

Actually, while you are right about the problems of playing the whole campaign, the scale seems perfect for dealing with such things as the first offensive of the First Shock Army.  You can work out other ways of representing SMG, ATR, ski and sapper companies, but the diffuse nature of this primitive Soviet offensive is well-represented by the system.

If I were designing an East Front game from the ground up, I would take something like a computerized version of the Grand tactical system (500 meters a hex, companies, two hour turns, lots of explicit command and communication simulation) and use it to simulate Soviet army-level command (or German Corps-level command) including problems with higher and lower commands.  The player would give orders by various means: directly if say he was at a division CP, by radio, in an planning meeting days earlier etc.  He would also receive orders that might be bad ideas and have to figure out how to avoid or delay carrying them out.  He might also have many kinds of incompetence and obstruction to deal with.  He would also not have a single master game map, but instead, whatever intelligence and maps he can work with in the context of being on the spot.  He might have to go verify the positions of his formations and neighboring formations himself, for example.  He might not have a high opinion of his staff's assessment of situations as shown on the situation map at his army HQ.
He might order a trusted officer to undertake some specific reconaissance etc.
But that's just me.  At the moment I'm perfectly happy with the First Shock Army as is.

[Al]

If the (offensive/Soviet) AI is at least somewhat competent and can keep the campaign interesting for 576 turns, I'll buy it.

I've played the PzC series quite a bit and the AI is "somewhat competent" but not for a 576 turn scenario.  I know there are some scenarios within Moscow42 (and others in the series) that are specifically designed for play against AI and the scenario notes will tell you so.  These tend to be the 30 turn or less, medium to small map size scenarios.

Also, I agree it would hard to find a human opponent that would hang in through all 576 turns.  I've played 180 turn games and it's a chore sometimes to keep both sides going.

No real comment about the scale - it is what it is - but I've found it is hard to achieve big sweeping breakthoughs at this scale.  I think maybe brigade/division scale games would be more siuted to that - but that's just my own opinion.

[Compass Rose]

I would suggest that if you do play a scenario with a lot of turns, you make sure you are playing against a reliable opponent, not someone who you are playing for the 1st time.  Another option would be to play the large scenario as team games.  It will provide you with alot of extra enjoyment due to all of the extra communication and joint planning that is involved with your team mates.