From: Terry Rooker Subject: Re: Sniper, Berlin '85, Cityfight -Reply On Tue, 20 Feb 1996, Alan Poulter wrote: > Unfortunately there are no reviews of Sniper!, Cityfight or Berlin'85 > on Web-Grognards :-( I uploaded some Q&A for Sniper! recently but that > is it. Any budding reviewers out there? > Here is a review of Cityfight. I offer it to the list first so others might comment. Cityfight dates from the SPI period of increasingly complex simulations. It covers modern combat in the urban environment. Originally published in 1979 it was never well received, for a couple of reasons. First, it was from the period of increasingly complex simulations... It comes with a 64 page rule and scenario book of which nearly 42 pages are rules! Second, it is a double blind game. Beyond the difficulties of finding ftf opponents, double blind games have always met with some resistance. In addition, that format makes solitaire play impossible. Finally, the game can be tedious. Some of the scenarios have a length of 90 game turns! Due to the concentration of forces that comes from the nature of urban operations, the counter density can cause problems also. So why would anyone want to bother? The answer is that basiaclly there is no other game that covers the material nearly as well. There are no other games that cover the wide range of topics, from the 1956 Hunagarian revolt, to Cyprus in the 60's, to the Sino-Vietnamese War of the 70's. Of course there are several US-USSR scenarios from never-fought WWIII. The other part of the answer is that Cityfight is a monster only in size of the rulebook. None of the rules are individually complex. And only the spotting rules were unique. The remaining rules were adapted from the earlier Firefight. So it is possible to have a manageable game in a reasonable time. Due to the nature of urban operations there is always lots of tension in the game. The spotting rules are very innovative. The problem with most double blind games is how to conduct searches without giving away too much information. Cityfight solves this problem by searching megahexes while units occupy individual hexes. So even if you infer the location of the unit attempting to spot, you still only in it down to one of 7 hexes. Each of the megahexes on the map is rated for its difficulty in spotting. So a dense megahex with lots of buildings and trees is more difficult to sight into than the town square. In addition, part of the map is marked off as the old part of town, which being denser further restricts sighting. To further add to the possible lack of information involved with spotting, the line of sight in Cityfight is asymmetrical. A unit may not have a line of sight to an enemy unit that has a line of sight to it. To accomplish this, the LOS is determined from any part of a woods or building terrain feature in the firing hex to the center of the target hex. Which brings up another interesting variation in Cityfight. Unlike almost all wargames, combat is resolved against a target hex. There do not have to be, and often are not, any sighted enemy units in a hex to attack it. The result obtained against that hex is then applied to the units that may actually occupy that hex. This allows the players to use suppressive fire before they run across the street. It also allows you to blast away at the corner rooftop where you just _know_ an enemy sniper is hiding; while your opponent tries to stifle his laughing since he knows nothing is there. Combat is resolved using a differential-based CRT using 2 six-sided dice, either hard or soft CRT depending upon the type of weapon. Only the firing strength of the firing unit is used to determine the result. Terrain in the target hex has an interesting effect; it may prevent rolls above and/or below certain numbers. The more effective the terrain is in providing cover, the more protection it provides. Of course terrain in this case is woods, vehicles in the hex, and the type of construction predominant for the buildings in the hex. There is one last piece of the puzzle, and that is the effect of leaders. It is a trueism that small unit leadership is even more important in the stress of urban combat. Cityfight uses an action point system for command and control. Each turn, the player assigns a command (move, fire, or search) to each counter. That command determines what that unit can do this turn, it is not required to do it. Every time a unit performs an action then an action point is expended. Each leader in the TOE is included, so you usually have a company commander, and a platoon leader and sergeant for each platoon. Each leader has an effectiveness rating (also used by subordinates to recover from suppresion). That actual counter used is drawn randomly at the beginning of the game. At the beginning of each term, 1-2 dice are rolled against that rating. If the result is greater than the rating, that leader's platoon will lose some of its action points for the turn. If a leader is killed then a substitute leader is used. This leads to some interesting situations. Normally, one of the platoon leaders is "promoted" to replace the company commander, while the sergeant is "promoted" to replace the PL. This promotion is performed by flipping the counter over. In some cases, the substitute's rating is better than the original, but not often. So as the ratings fall due to losses there is a gradual degradation of efficiency. Losses have another effect on efficiency. Each side in a scenario has a preservation level. As the unit takes loses its preservation points accumulate. When the preservation level is exceeded, the unit becomes demoralized. Basically, individual instincts start to dominate the good of the group. These are the core of the basic rules, and hopefully a general style of play becomes apparent. Small groups of men start to work their way towards their objective (the game distinguishes between bold and cautious movement commands). The use of commands forces the players to think ahead at least for the current turn. Some of the men will move cautiously to better locations, while others scan for signs of the enemy. Suddenly there is enemy fire from a building off to the right. The platoon leader is out of action. When the sergeant finally gets things organized he knows the enemy squad will not be anywhere near that building. Time to move on to the objective. The following is a short list of elements included in different parts of the rules, some from the basic, intermediate, and advanced rules. You can establish fire lanes with MGs, and of course there is close assault of hexes with grenades and such. There are rules for vehicle but you quickly realize that this is infantry country. There is nothing more frustrating than watching an RPG being leveled at your tank, and your main gun can't elevate suffciently. There are explosive weapons; anti-tank wepons, grenade launchers, and even demolition charges. There are rules for flame throwers and other incediary devices. Of course if you have flames you have to have rules for fires and burning buildings. There are rules for knocking holes in walls, either a loophole to shoot through, or blowing a new door to run through. In the extreme there are rules for driving vehicles into buildings! Want to fight in the streets of Leningrad in the dead of winter? There are rules for snow, and winter foilage; since it would be dark all the time there are also rules for night visibility, and even the multiple effect of foul weather at night! If you want to murk things up even more, there are rules for smoke. As an infantry company commander you will never be able to get enough smoke. Unlike other land warfare situations, urban combat is a three-dimensional affair. You have to worry about multi-floor buildings, and even the roofs. One of the best places to find the enemy is underground in the cellar. Then there are embankments and bridges that may be higher than you. If a pesky building is blocking your line of sight there are rules for destroying a building. Artillery and engineers become very useful in the urban environment. I have mentioned several of the results of their activities already. Artillery can fire smoke, help knock down buildings, or even help isolate an enemy position. Engineers can blow things up, build prepared positions, block streets, lay mines. and even set booby traps. There are ammunition depletion rules, and even rules for ammunition stores. Another unusual rule involves civil strife. There are a couple of very atypcial scenarios involving a riot by punk rockers, and the Baader-Meinhof gamg trying to escape after a bank robbery. Finally, there are snipers. I've saved them for last because they are very effective in Cityfight. Even though it has been 17 years since the game first came out, I am still undecided if snipers are too powerful. Cityfight does distinguish between snipers and marksmen (individuals from line units assigned sniper-like duties) which are called ad hoc snipers. Snipers are represented by one man (two man for the USMC, British and Chinese) counters. They are attached to a superior unit, and require action point expenditures. Snipers have reasonable fire strengths for attacking on the soft CRT; the two man US and British teams are outright deadly! The SVD Dragunov must have been in its disinformatzia stirde when the game was designed as its one man counter is stronger than the the two man professional sniper teams. I guess I think snipers are too strong because the players have too much control over them. With a little restraint you can get realistic results from them. If they are unrestrained they can ruin a game. We once had a sniper team immobilize a MR company. Some poor platoon sergeant was the company commander as all the officers were dead. Yes, I am sure there are other glitches in the rules and other places where a rules-lawyer could drive a bulldozer through. Still the game basically works. As with any complex undertaking, if you try to exploit the system you can. If you try to play in the spirit of the rules, then you can learn a lot, and have a lot of fun. You don't need to play with all the rules. We selectively added what we wanted to deal with. We had tank battles inside factories. We had squads wiped out by unexpected MG nests. We learned the importance of isolating a building under assault as it is much easier to gun them down running out of the building. We learned that assulating down is much easier than trying to throw a grenade through a hole in the ceiling. I admit that it is a game that begs to be played as a refereed, multi-player game. I think it has aged well, and there is nothing that comes close to being as comprehensive. Considering it was never tremendously popular, you can pick up copies fairly cheap. If you are interested in urban combat Cityfight is still (literally) the only game in town. It is worth the effort to work through the rules. From: "Douglas E. Jorenby" Subject: Re: CityFight Review Terry, That's a great review of a complex (and often frustrating) game. Very well done! The only wrinkle I might add would be to mention at the outset that CF can be played at Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced levels. Not that even the Basic Game is simple, but you don't have to wade through the whole rulebook.... Regards, Doug