Is There a Tactician in You?
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Is There a Tactician in You? Wargames on the Ground
Tim Feinstra (GRASS)
Ready for more? Good, because now we get to a real bonanza of strategy simulations for the Atari. Unlike the limited supply of naval games, there is a vast collection of titles that deal with man-to-man combat at any level and in many different periods of history, and some that deal with confrontations that might have been or might still be.
First, let's look at the early days of computer wargames. It seemed only natural that the computer would be used for this purpose because of its ability to incorporate many aspects of the large board games without all the record keeping involved. Some of the board games require many people to play, and one campaign can last for months. In these games, it takes a lot to keep track of all the units, their current condition and status, and to keep the orders to each unit straight.
The early computer versions were simple enough, usually with a dot grid used for a map, letters or numbers to indicate your forces, and a limited number of orders and tactics which could be used. While antiquated by the games of today, it is still interesting to return to these early efforts from time to time to try your hand again. Some of the titles that come to mind are MIDWAY and NORTH ATLANTIC CONVOY RAIDERS from Avalon Hill. Avalon Hill is big in the board game world and it is not surprising they were among the first to turn to the computer to make playing these simulations more enjoyable. PANZER JAGD, another Avalon Hill game, uses graphics for a map, and includes options for different levels of play. If you find any of these early releases in a bargain bin, pick them up. They are worth the few dollars they might cost today.
Today, graphics and realism have been improved greatly. In the Beginner's category comes the only entry from Atari Corp. that I know of with 1941 THE EASTERN FRONT. This is a joystick game, placing you in command of the German forces invading Russia. You issue move orders to divisions of infantry and armor, striving to capture Moscow and other major cities for points. Combat occurs during the movement phase when your units move into contact with Russian units.
Units are rated for muster strength, a rating indicating quantity, and combat strength, representing quality. If the combat rating falls too far below the muster rating, the unit becomes more of a liability, as it will need to be protected and rested until it recovers. Destroyed units will sometimes pass some of its muster points to friendly units next to it, but the receiving unit will lose combat strength, due to the morale of the incoming points and their affect on the new unit.
When units get isolated, their combat rating is cut to indicate the loss of supply, and will usually require a major effort to rescue them before they are eliminated. Then comes fall and the mud that bogs your units down. If you are not in position to defend yourself, this could be disastrous. Next, winter brings snow and frozen rivers which let your units move fairly freely again.
At the higher levels of play, you can alter the mode of your divisions from standard to movement, assault or static (good for defense). On cartridge, and available in many discount catalog listings for $10.00 to $15.00, this is a good game to get your feet wet. It was also an APX release back around 1980, when Atari still cared for its users (I have not seen it that way in a long time.) This is a solitaire only game, with turns marking a week in the war, and can be played in one or two nights. It does have a save game function, useful when playing the long 'expert' level, which might last a week or so.
Another APX release, modeled after 1941 is SARATOGA. I think this one might still be available from the Antic catalog. It covers much of the Revolutionary war, and plays much the same as Eastern Front.
Moving to SSI, we come to a series of games which include probably the most popular wargame to date, WARGAME CONSTRUCTION SET. The pattern from SSI has been to use a good game system for more than one game, I guess because it requires less programming than to do each new game from scratch. This series includes FIELD OF FIRE, NAM and PANZER GRENADIER. These play with a joystick, and each turn is divided into a series of move and fire phases.
Wargame Construction Set is a two-disk set that includes a game editor to allow you to alter one of the supplied scenarios or to create your own. There are a lot of factors to be set here, but that is not difficult. You may have up to 31 units for each side, and each unit has 12 attributes which cover firepower, range, defense, weapon type, assault factor, unit type, movement allowance, armor, anti-armor, transportation and, lastly, if unit may dig in. There are a lot of different icons (symbols to represent different type units) that resemble tanks, trucks, copters and men, as well as some that are just symbols. The instructions do a pretty good job of explaining what each factor does and how to set them for maximum realism.
Before you create your units, you design a map for them to fight on. There are roads, hills, trees, buildings, mines, rivers and bridges. How these parts appear on the map depends on the 'scale' you choose. In Tactical mode, each map hex is between 20 and 100 meters across. Tactical/Operational ranges from 100 to 500 meters. Operational goes from 500 meters to one or two kilometers and Strategic mode ranges from one or two kilometers to 10 miles or more per hex. Using a joystick, you pick terrain icons then place them on the map anywhere you wish. In the smaller scales, line of sight is important -- you cannot fire at what you cannot see.
With a little thought, any conflict you can think of can be created here, and to prove the point, the author has included not only the usual WWII stuff, but also a futuristic battle for an asteroid mine, a rescue mission by delta force, an early battle in WWIII, First Bull Run from the Civil War, and a 12th century castle siege.
Field of Fire covers several battles fought by Easy Company of the 1st Infantry Division. Your company might include a number of rifle teams, machine gun and mortar crews, bazooka teams, forward observers, anti-tank guns and even a couple tanks. You may play one of the eight scenarios, or play a campaign game that spans all eight. This is a good game to see how small arms tactics work. Your troops will have to advance on a position, and the computer will do its best to stop you. The enemy units are hidden until they fire or move, so you cannot tell which is the best route to the objective until you scout ahead and find them. The scenarios include a night patrol, the D-day landings, clearing a city building by building, crossing a river bridgehead, blocking a German advance, patrolling along a road in the mountains of Sicily and defending a town during the Battle of the Buldge.
Nam, of course, puts you in the middle of 6 major battles during the Vietnam conflict. You might command U.S., South Vietnamese, South Korean or U.S. Special Forces squads. Again, the enemy is hidden until contact, and can disappear quickly if you don't catch them properly. Objectives here include a supply convoy under V.C. attack, search and destroy, clearing an underground cave network, using Air Cav. for a clearing action, an armored battle and the attempted re-taking of Hue by the U.S. in 1968. Many of you probably remember this war -- here is your chance to find out what it was really like.
Panzer Grenadier goes back to WWII and introduces the concept of armored infantry as developed by the German army because its armor usually left the infantry behind during major advances along the Russian front. The German answer to this problem was the Panzer Grenadiers -- highly trained, mobile infantry units that could keep pace with the armored Panzer units and help clear cities and woods where armor was at a disadvantage. This game will demand sound combined arms techniques, using your armor and armored infantry together to achieve victory. The units here are company-sized, and include their own transportation where appropriate. You get elements of a Panzer regiment, some artillery and, of course, your Panzer Grenadier regiment. Scenarios include the assault on a Russian bridgehead to stop a Russian advance, holding Kirovograd against a Russian counterattack, a probe deep into Russian territory and, as the war progresses, more defensive situations.
All of these games play very similarly. Wargame Construction Set can create two-player scenarios, but the rest are solitaire games, played with a joystick. Each turn starts with an 'observation' phase, where units that require rest or are under assault can be rested. This is followed by several 'movement and fire orders' phases for both the player and the computer. This varies a little for each game, but you generally get two movement and two fire phases per turn.
Another series, this one from Microprose, is a little more involved but still plays with a joystick. CRUSADE IN EUROPE, DECISION IN THE DESERT, and CONFLICT IN VIETNAM are operational level with units of division and regiment size. All three have a number of scenarios with several variants, more than can be listed in this text.
Crusade in Europe covers the war in Europe from D-day (6-Jun-1944) to the end of 1944, with scenarios covering the major battles and objectives, such as the river Rhine, the Battle of the Buldge, and Operation Market-Garden, as well as as the entire battle for France. The variants offer "what if" situations to the historical setup for those who feel things could have been different.
Conflict in Vietnam offers scenarios from the French defeats in 1954 to the American withdrawal in 1972, also with many variants for each of the historical situations. The units here are usually regiments or battalions, and include armor, air cavalry and armored calvary.
I have not played Decision in the Desert, so I won't guess at it, but I assume it includes the same type of scenarios and variants of the other two games. These games play in real time, meaning that they do not have turns and do not stop for you to issue orders to your units. Orders are issued while the action is underway, much the same as in real life, though the games do 'pause' a bit if you give orders quickly to a lot of units. The action can be paused to scan the map if you wish, which is useful in some of the large maps that cover more than one screen. Play is only stopped during orders for a two-player game so one player may issue orders while the other player leaves the room.
Orders, given with the joystick, set the units to four possible states -- attack, move, defend and reserve. Objectives for attack and move are set by moving the cursor to the desired area and pressing the fire button. While line of sight is not a factor here, supply is, and units without supply lines quickly use up their supply and will only defend their position. Reserves come into the game from the friendly side of the map and must be moved to the area you want them. You may play either side in these games, and you may also play with limited intelligence (enemy units will only be seen when in contact with your forces). Depending on the scenario, these games may take many hours to complete, so there is a save game function.
These are good, involved simulations, yet they are easy to learn and play. While Conflict in Vietnam is not a game I play often, (I never did like that war), I really enjoy Crusade in Europe and look forward to the day I get Decision in the Desert.
I almost forgot a forth game here -- NATO COMMANDER, fought in Europe during WWIII. Forces can be division or regiment size, whichever you choose and includes units from many of the NATO countries involved in the defense of Europe from the Warsaw Pact forces to the east. A nice touch here are chemical and nuclear weapons, but you can use nukes only with the approval of the President. He usually doesn't see things as bad as you do, so he says no a lot. Chemical weapons have side effects too, but I will leave that for you to find out. The Air forces are the ace-in-the-hole for the badly outnumbered NATO forces and must be used to their fullest potential to stop the invading "Red forces."
Avalon Hill has a good pair of games in GUDERIAN and GULF STRIKE. Guderian is the German drive to capture the city of Smolensk in 1941 played in 12 turns, each representing two days. The units are divisions divided into three regiments, and the stacking limit allows only three units to occupy each hex. With the joystick, move the units, or an entire stack, to the desired location. If they come into contact with the enemy, you will be prompted to assign a target hex for combat. One thing I do not like about this game is the inability to use mass attacks, as each enemy unit may only be attacked once each turn. There is a railroad feature, and as the Germans you must cut rail lines to stop Russian units from using them to get to the hot spots quickly. Other features are leaders for the Russians, random Russian units to simulate the untried state of the Russian army at the start of the war and the usual need to keep your units in a well-supplied state.
Gulf Strike, though still a simple game to play, includes land, air and naval forces during a Soviet attack into the Persian Gulf area. This game is a little out of date, for in it Iran is a U.S. ally, and we all know what they did a few years ago. Still, this game is a pleasure to play, because of the scope of forces involved. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Soviet border are on a map that covers several screens. As well as forces from the above mentioned countries, British, French and U.S. forces ply for control of the gulf area and its oil production. Land forces are state-of-the-art armor and armored infantry, while the air units include groups of most every type of aircraft that would have been in use there just a few years ago.
I like the naval forces, since the U.S. has 2 aircraft carriers in the area as well as a battleship and some submarines. The Brits and French have subs and minesweepers. The Russian naval forces include some cruisers, a helocarrier and subs. Game play is similar to Guderian, using a joystick to issue orders and each turn is two days. Like NATO Commander, it is the Air Force which must balance the power on land, as the Soviets have an advantage of position and numbers, but their naval forces will be left wanting against the big U.S. carriers (my favorite part). For a close look at how a modern war might develop, this is the game to play, and with such large force to command, two or three players could divide up one side and each control a certain aspect (land or air) or just certain countries' forces. This could show how different countries must work together against a common foe. The instructions are very good and give a lot of information about the forces and equipment used in the game.
Two more real time games from SSI are COMBAT LEADER and BATTALION COMMANDER. These use both joystick and keyboard -- the joystick to move the cursor and the keyboard for orders. Combat Leader puts infantry squads and tank platoons at your command simulating tactical combat from WWII through the 1980's and has the weapon ratings for England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Soviet Union and the United States during WWII and China, England, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, the Soviet Union and the U.S. in more modern times.
Battalion Commander gives you an entire battalion of modern fighting units of company and platoon size. Weapons for the Soviet Union, China and the U.S. are included. You may command at the company level or command a single company at platoon level, with the computer handling the rest for you. This is a good game to get the feel for the chain of command involved in a battalion.
Both games allow the creation of your own scenarios, but are only solitaire. They play quickly and can be completed in one to four hours depending on the size and type of the battle. You may choose between meeting engagements involving forces of about equal size or to attack or defend an objective. They are very good games considering their age -- already four or five years old -- and make very good introductions to some of the more advanced games we'll get to later.
I'm running out of room before I run out of games, so I'll just mention a few more. LEGIONNAIRE, from Avalon Hill, is a realtime game of the Roman Legions against the barbarian hordes in the days of Caesar. Played with a joystick, it can be completed in an hour or two. PARIS IN DANGER, also from Avalon Hill is a two-player-only game of Napoleon's campaign in France in 1814. Played on a map of France, units are corps of 10,000 to 20,000 men which can be broken down to divisions for combat, thus this one plays both strategic and a high level tactical.
Well now that I have rekindled my interest in some of these games, I think I'll take my leave of you and go into battle. Until next month, good hunting, and we'll see you after the battle.
