When they talk about marathon games, this is what they had in mind…
In Part 29 Benvenuto left the field of battle over the Duchy of Apulia and province of Bari to his minions, in order to manage affairs of state at home. Once there he set about a plot to marry his son to Flandina, the beautiful heir of Apulia, imprisoned in the di Parma dungeons. It turned out that her brother, the Duke of Apulia refused to consent to the marriage. He was removed from power, di Parma style, now Flandina resides over the Apulia duchy and awaits our proposal. In this part, I honestly have no idea how to explain it
Turns out Flandina thinks she’s too posh for the di Parmas too – it’s a no from her
Having chosen the dress, the flowers, the horses and the fancy honeymoon Benvenuto broke off the previously arranged marriage to the di Luccas having seen Flandina’s perfect CV. Now he goes back cap in hand to get a wife for his son. Continue reading →
So what’s inside Columbia’s big ol’ Eurofront II box, anyway?
Cyrano, 3 December 2014
As much as I’ve defended the rituals of electronic gaming elsewhere on this site, I know in my soul that I will always love the monster board game. I shall always love, for I am now too old to change, the pages of rules, piles of pieces, and the maps, the lovely, lovely maps over which I can pore like Berthier, imagining myself to have responsibility for the fates of armies of men.
Columbia Games’ Grant Dagleish took advantage of this when we talked at Origins about the company’s Eurofront II. He lured me with talk of battles lasting days, if not weeks, and of near-sighted men waging the whole of World War II from beyond the Urals to the mountains Pyrenee. I wound up angry-buying the Ogre Designer’s Edition at Origins, but, by the time GenCon rolled around — and Grant made the company’s usual generous convention discount offer, it was all too late. I offer, then, this unboxing to the splendid excess of this monster.
The first thing to note is that Eurofront II is actually a bridge between the updated West Front II and East Front II, adding much to both and allowing the whole of the war to be played out simultaneously. Here they stand together:
John and Ed, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about your recent work. Both East Prussia ‘14, and Panzer Battles: Kursk, the Southern Flank are recent releases and show some interesting developments in John Tiller Software games
Ed, I know that you’ve put many years of research into the First World War Campaigns. What attracted you to the period in the first place, and do you have any favourite campaigns you’d like to explore?
Ed Williams: I have always been interested in World War One for as long as I can remember. I am not sure what initially attracted me to the subject, perhaps it was the movie Lawrence of Arabia, but I recall my desire to read and watch movies and documentaries about the war all the way back in grade school. About ten years ago I was attending college and I took a history class taught by an excellent professor (Dr. Robert Bruce) and the class covered the war, but not all the boring economic and political stuff, it was purely about the battles and the conflict itself.
I suppose it was that class that piqued my interest, but it did so at a perfect moment since I had just finished the HPS Korea ’85 game some years before and I was basically twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do.
So, I had the experience to develop a new title, the free time to do it, and a renewed spark of interest in the subject matter. I took the interest and came up with an idea of a World War One game using the Panzer Campaigns engine at its core, but of course it would need to be modified. I set about creating a list of modifications that were necessary and I presented them to John, and he was receptive to the idea, made the appropriate adjustments, and so I intentionally charged forward before I had time to think about how difficult of a task it would be.
As for my personal favourite campaigns, I am interested in all campaigns of the war but my personal favourites would have to be anything in Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Galicia campaign, and the 1918 battles.
The first bombardment at Tannenburg by I ArmeeKorps field artillery starts auspiciously with the disruption of a Russian unit – an assault will soon follow. New features like radio intercepts now add to the game experience in East Prussia 1914
I have a minor problem I didn’t notice until now: my fleet range is atrocious. That cuts down on the options I have for targets. The only viable ones are the Gulrath Territory, Grand Iskabar Authority, and the Yirphunea Supremacy. The former two would stretch my fleets’ fuel limits. The Yirphunea are closer, but I would be going up against their home world defenses.
For now I’m going to run covert operations against all three focusing on the Yirphunea. If I can catch them while their fighting someone else I might be able to catch their homeworld without significant troops or ships to support it.
