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From: Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: OT Non SF Recommendations..
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:05:08 -0700
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On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:01:30 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

>On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 09:47:09 -0700, Paul S Person
><psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>
>>When I played the SPI game /U.S.N./, which starts with the attacks
>>that included Pearl Harbor, I chose to destroy the /port/ rather than
>>the ships. In the game, this required me to shift the fleet to
>>American Samoa to preserve the link to Australia. This was a major
>>pain. Whether that would have happened in real life I have no idea.
>
>Hmmm that's one of the games I purchased but never played (the
>counters are still unpunched). On the other hand I spent VAST amounts
>of my time playing War in the East / War in Europe though focussed on
>totally a-historical battles that would never actually have been
>considered since WiE doesn't ever cause the destruction of units even
>after they stay out of supply for months on end...

I played a lot of solitaire Computer War in Europe.=20

In the DOS version, I discovered that the programmer had never
contemplated the Soviet Union declaring limited war and going through
Bulgaria into Greece: the Soviet units couldn't see, never mind
attack, the Greek units. Presumably, they were involved in cultural
exchanges involving bouzoukee/balalaika music and ouso/vodka and so
fighting was out of the question. This got fixed in the final version.

I also used a DOS version design flaw (each turn started with the last
random number from the prior turn, which meant that the order of die
roll results was /fixed/ and so manipulatable) to find a pattern of
actions that allowed my Axis forces to take Moscow by replaying the
same turn over and over and over. It took some time, but I eventually
cleared the entire Middle East and North Africa through Libya. Then
the Axis and the Allies ended up in a continent-wide (Casablanca to
Tunis) front. I ended the game at that point. Oh, and that was with a
60 6-5 garrison left in Russia, per an erratum.

With the Windows version (which, BTW, restarts the random number
sequence each time a turn is run so it is not repeatable), I found
that Minor Allied units (Belgium) could embark on Royal Navy vessels
-- but could only disembark in their own country and were subject to
Axis Air-Sea interdiction, which /eliminated the Royal Navy units/,
reducing it from a "permanent" 15 (IIRC) to 13. I also found that the
CW could put as many units as they wanted anywhere in France (that is,
ignore the BEF rules) provided that those units came from North Africa
to southern France. The BEF rules, IOW, were only applied to CW units
coming from Britain across the Channel. Whether either of /these/ got
fixed I have no idea.

Note that the SPI version of /U.S.N./ was a magazine game; it ends in
1943 because otherwise it would have required another counter sheet.
It stopped, IOW, just as US Naval Production was /really/ taking off.
DG redid it as a boxed game and, IIRC, extended it to the end of the
war (boxed games allowing more counters than magazine games), but I
have no idea if what I said above applies to the DG version.
--=20
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"