The Video Game Revue

TOAW3

Now I'm no grognard, but I have been known to enjoy various strategy wargammes--particularly Korsun Pocket of the "Decisive Battles of World War II" series. I've been meaning to buy a copy of Battles in Normandy, but it's relatively expensive for a wargame, so I've never really gotten around to it. Anyway, another wargame that I've always wanted was "The Operational Art of War," which is a classic of the genre. I was mentioning this to my buddy Matt the other day, and he was saying that his TOAW2 disc stopped working. This got me to searching.

Apparently, The Operational Art of War III (TOAW3) was released last month and completely slipped by my radar. Once I discovered it, Matt and I agreed to buy copies and start some PBEM matches. Of course, I've never played TOAW before, and Matt hasn't played for years. We're rusty, to say the least.

TOAW3 is an excellent wargamming title. There are tons and tons of scenerioes covering a wide variety of modern (and semi-modern) theatres, and the gameplay is fairly simple: move units, set their casualty tolerance levels, and "dig in" or stay mobile. The game system itself is quite complex, however this is the sort of game that doesn't force you to deal with the little details, but in order to master it you need to be aware of the little details so you will know how to employ your units effectively.

I'm still learning to play, so it's difficult to go into specifics, but it's clear to me that there are some very subtle, complex considerations present in TOAW versus Korsun Pocket. For instance, when you're planning attacks in KP, you always know what the final combat odds are before you resolve the attack. In TOAW, there are recon considerations, and just because you have units adjacent to the enemy doesn't mean that you know what their strengths are--let alone what the final combat odds are like. Replacements for damaged units in TOAW are handled automatically and are fairly detailed, whereas KP uses a simple step-based system so that you decide not only exactly where your reinforcements are going, but you know how effective they were and so forth. The power level of units in TOAW is in constant flux--depending not only on their position, but how much they've moved recently and so forth. The power level of units in KP is pretty easy to keep track of. This isn't to say that KP is a simple game; it took me several weeks to learn and has quite a bit of detail. But TOAW appears to have a lot more to pay attention to than KP does.

One unfortunate side effect of this is that playing TOAW makes me yearn for KP (and other titles in the same series) because the game system is immediately familiar to me. I find that picking up any new strategy wargame of any reasonable complexity can be a daunting task, and whereas I've already paid enough dues with KP to be able to just sit down and play (not very well, perhaps, but well enough for my own purposes), TOAW can be frustrating because there's still so much happening on screen that is foreign to me. I'll give have to give myself time and make an effort to play TOAW regularly until I get the hang of it. Matt's PBEM games will certainly give me enough motivation to do so.

So for the time being, I'm in wargammer bliss.

posted by Parappa @ 4:55 PM