From: kmaroney@crossover.com (Kevin J. Maroney) Subject: Re: AH Hitler's war Drazen Kramaric wrote: >During discussion about the death of wargaming, somebody mentioned >something about game called "Hitler's War" as a next step from A&A >towards "real wargames". That was me. Keith Gross's _Hitler's War_ was originally published by Metagaming as part of its "Metagame" line, a short-lived series of games sized between their Microgames and their full-sized games (Stellar Conquest, The Ythri, Godsfire). It has since been reprinted by Avalon Hill, and is sometimes known as "One-Third Reich". Basically, _HW_ is a recreation of the entire European and North African front of World War II on a very high level. Units are nominally armies and fronts; the map scale is several hundred miles to a hex. (I don't remember the exact scale; from the 1939 Greater German border to Moscow is only four hexes.) There are three turns per year. Both movement and combat are very abstracted. Troops are organized into armies, and a player has a maximum of twelve armies. Armies have unlimited strategic movement in friendly territory before combat begins. During the combat phase, units attack enemy hexes (occupied or not) to destroy their ability to resist, and then attempt to advance into the enemy hex; their success in advancing is based on the mechanized strength of the advancing army and the total (mech + infantry) strength of the defending hex. Production is straightforward, and is based on controlling industrial centers on the map. The intermediate and advanced games add a lot of elegant chrome for amphibious forces, tactical and strategic air, morale, technological research, and atomic weapons. The Advanced Campaign Game takes about four hours to play to completion among experienced players, according to the rules; the Barbarossa scenario takes about an hour. -- Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | kmaroney@crossover.com Games are my entire waking life.