Gaming Update
Feb. 28th, 2007 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ltmurnauI'm working on four game projects right now. In alphabetical order:
Balkan Gambit
“The Allied invasions of the Balkans that weren’t”. One of the great what-ifs of World War 2 in the Mediterranean theatre, at least to Hitler and the German High Command, was the possibility of an Allied invasion of Greece and/or Yugoslavia. In history, the Allies did nothing of the kind until Operation MANNA, the liberation of Greece in late 1944 after the German garrison had already withdrawn into Yugoslavia. But the Allies knew the Germans perceived such invasions as a credible threat and created several strategic deception plans, leading the Germans to move or keep critical troop formations in northern Italy and the Balkans when they would have been much more useful somewhere else.
The game comes with four scenarios:
- Operation BOARDMAN: In summer 1943, the British 8th Army is sent to liberate Greece and Crete. This was a deception to cover Operations HUSKY and AVALANCHE, the historical invasions of Sicily and Salerno.
- Operation ZEPPELIN: In summer 1944, the notional British 12th Army attacks Greece and Albania while the US 7th Army attacks in Dalmatia, in concert with Soviet amphibious operations against the coast of Rumania and Bulgaria. This plan was part of Operation BODYGUARD, the overall deception plan to disguise Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL (the invasions of northern and southern France).
- Operation GELIGNITE: Actual plans were drawn up to send the British 8th Army across the Adriatic in late 1944 or early 1945 to cut off the final retreat of German Army Group F and forestall any further Soviet advances towards northern Italy. The plan was shelved due to shortages of troops and landing craft.
- Operation SLIVA (PLUM): Between 1948 and 1955, the possibility of a Soviet invasion to bring Yugoslavia back into the Soviet orbit remained the largest factor in Yugoslavia's perception of external threat. This hypothetical scenario frames such an invasion as an intervention in support of pro-Soviet Yugoslavs, in the name of “fraternal assistance”.
The idea of doing this game has stuck with me for a long time, and I worked hard on order of battle research - orbatwise, designing a game on something that never happened is just as hard as the other way! The game system used is one that I introduced in a Bulge game I designed a few years ago called Autumn Mist, available from Fiery Dragon Productions (the tin box lads). This situation is a little different in that the unit scale (mostly divisions) is about the same, but the time and space scales are larger (20 miles/hex, and about 1 week/turn), the terrain is very different from the Ardennes, and there is a very varied set of combatants: several flavours of Allies (Americans, British, Bulgarians, Canadians, Greeks, Poles, Soviets and Yugoslavs) including two flavours of partisans, and varied Axis types (Bulgarians again, Germans of course, Croat-Serb-Slovene collaborators, Italians, miscellaneous SS nasties).
Because of the weird and chaotic nature of the campaign, I had to put in some new rules but hopefully they won't be too bulky. On the other hand, I have had to sluff off a few minor weirdnesses as I felt they were military irrelevant, no matter how picturesque they might have been (e.g. the Chetniks get a rather abstract treatment). Everything seems to be working in playtesting though.
This game will get the "P500" treatment from a publishing company called Lock n'Load. This means that the game will be advertised on the company website and people will "pledge" their support, in the form of credit card information, until they have about 500 pre-orders - this being the round figure the company has to sell before they are sure to recoup printing and production costs. I freely admit this is an obscure topic and frankly unlikely to get that many orders - if it doesn't, the design reverts to me and I can do something else with it. I might even just give it away, I've spent so much time on it.
Battle for Baghdad
Very much an embryonic idea right now, this is to be a very chaotic design on the current strife in that unhappy city. I am not sure how to approach its mechanics.
Battle for China
A proposal to run this in Strategy & Tactics magazine got a favourable enough response that I got a contract! The game's been in print since 1999, and been published three times already (originally by Microgame Design Group, then by the Japanese edition of Command magazine, and then by Fiery Dragon Productions) for several thousand copies distributed - but the circulation of S&T is up around 6-7,000.
My only concern is that the game has been handed over to a developer whose name I do not know and who may decide to muck around with what I think is a pretty solid design.
Konarmiya
A prequel to Freikorps, my alt-hist game on the Soviet Red Army lurching for Berlin over the corpse of Poland in the fall of 1920. It covers the Russo-Polish war from July to the end of September 1920. It uses the same system and map scale, and the maps match so you can play one big struggle for North East Central Europe. Because of the distances involved, the map is 22x17" and runs from Warsaw to Kiev. Features the Polish Legion, Polish National Army, Konarmiya of course, volunteer Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Ukranians, Pilsudski, Trotsky, and the usual mayhem and chaos. Somewhat fewer counters (192) than in Freikorps, enough for play of the game with no problems though. The game is in playtesting, seems to work fine, and will in all likelihood be published by Fiery Dragon Publications of Toronto.
I have loads of other ideas, but no time to work on them. So it goes.
Balkan Gambit
“The Allied invasions of the Balkans that weren’t”. One of the great what-ifs of World War 2 in the Mediterranean theatre, at least to Hitler and the German High Command, was the possibility of an Allied invasion of Greece and/or Yugoslavia. In history, the Allies did nothing of the kind until Operation MANNA, the liberation of Greece in late 1944 after the German garrison had already withdrawn into Yugoslavia. But the Allies knew the Germans perceived such invasions as a credible threat and created several strategic deception plans, leading the Germans to move or keep critical troop formations in northern Italy and the Balkans when they would have been much more useful somewhere else.
The game comes with four scenarios:
- Operation BOARDMAN: In summer 1943, the British 8th Army is sent to liberate Greece and Crete. This was a deception to cover Operations HUSKY and AVALANCHE, the historical invasions of Sicily and Salerno.
- Operation ZEPPELIN: In summer 1944, the notional British 12th Army attacks Greece and Albania while the US 7th Army attacks in Dalmatia, in concert with Soviet amphibious operations against the coast of Rumania and Bulgaria. This plan was part of Operation BODYGUARD, the overall deception plan to disguise Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL (the invasions of northern and southern France).
- Operation GELIGNITE: Actual plans were drawn up to send the British 8th Army across the Adriatic in late 1944 or early 1945 to cut off the final retreat of German Army Group F and forestall any further Soviet advances towards northern Italy. The plan was shelved due to shortages of troops and landing craft.
- Operation SLIVA (PLUM): Between 1948 and 1955, the possibility of a Soviet invasion to bring Yugoslavia back into the Soviet orbit remained the largest factor in Yugoslavia's perception of external threat. This hypothetical scenario frames such an invasion as an intervention in support of pro-Soviet Yugoslavs, in the name of “fraternal assistance”.
The idea of doing this game has stuck with me for a long time, and I worked hard on order of battle research - orbatwise, designing a game on something that never happened is just as hard as the other way! The game system used is one that I introduced in a Bulge game I designed a few years ago called Autumn Mist, available from Fiery Dragon Productions (the tin box lads). This situation is a little different in that the unit scale (mostly divisions) is about the same, but the time and space scales are larger (20 miles/hex, and about 1 week/turn), the terrain is very different from the Ardennes, and there is a very varied set of combatants: several flavours of Allies (Americans, British, Bulgarians, Canadians, Greeks, Poles, Soviets and Yugoslavs) including two flavours of partisans, and varied Axis types (Bulgarians again, Germans of course, Croat-Serb-Slovene collaborators, Italians, miscellaneous SS nasties).
Because of the weird and chaotic nature of the campaign, I had to put in some new rules but hopefully they won't be too bulky. On the other hand, I have had to sluff off a few minor weirdnesses as I felt they were military irrelevant, no matter how picturesque they might have been (e.g. the Chetniks get a rather abstract treatment). Everything seems to be working in playtesting though.
This game will get the "P500" treatment from a publishing company called Lock n'Load. This means that the game will be advertised on the company website and people will "pledge" their support, in the form of credit card information, until they have about 500 pre-orders - this being the round figure the company has to sell before they are sure to recoup printing and production costs. I freely admit this is an obscure topic and frankly unlikely to get that many orders - if it doesn't, the design reverts to me and I can do something else with it. I might even just give it away, I've spent so much time on it.
Battle for Baghdad
Very much an embryonic idea right now, this is to be a very chaotic design on the current strife in that unhappy city. I am not sure how to approach its mechanics.
Battle for China
A proposal to run this in Strategy & Tactics magazine got a favourable enough response that I got a contract! The game's been in print since 1999, and been published three times already (originally by Microgame Design Group, then by the Japanese edition of Command magazine, and then by Fiery Dragon Productions) for several thousand copies distributed - but the circulation of S&T is up around 6-7,000.
My only concern is that the game has been handed over to a developer whose name I do not know and who may decide to muck around with what I think is a pretty solid design.
Konarmiya
A prequel to Freikorps, my alt-hist game on the Soviet Red Army lurching for Berlin over the corpse of Poland in the fall of 1920. It covers the Russo-Polish war from July to the end of September 1920. It uses the same system and map scale, and the maps match so you can play one big struggle for North East Central Europe. Because of the distances involved, the map is 22x17" and runs from Warsaw to Kiev. Features the Polish Legion, Polish National Army, Konarmiya of course, volunteer Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Ukranians, Pilsudski, Trotsky, and the usual mayhem and chaos. Somewhat fewer counters (192) than in Freikorps, enough for play of the game with no problems though. The game is in playtesting, seems to work fine, and will in all likelihood be published by Fiery Dragon Publications of Toronto.
I have loads of other ideas, but no time to work on them. So it goes.
