Subject: West Front Review (longish) From: tdavie@escape.ca (Thomas Davie) Disclaimer: I do not work for Talonsoft, never have and doubt if I ever will System Requirements: Pentium 133, 4x CDRom, 16 Mb ram, 16 bit colour. Reviewed on Pentium 60/16 Mb ram, 2x CDRom. Must be run on a Win 95/98 machine which has DirectX 6 installed. 100 Mb virtual ram reccomended. Introduction: West Front is what I call a 'grand tactical' game of World War 2 ground combat occuring in Europe, the Mediterranean area and North Africa. It is a sequential, interactive turn based system. Units possess 100 action points which they may freely expend to move/fire or defensive fire in the opponent's phase. Constiuent unit elements are platoons, with organizations ranging from company > Corps level in size. Turns represent 6 minutes of time; hexes are 250 metres in size. Losses to a unit are taken one strength point at a time and represent a single vehicle, infantry squad or gun. Play modes included are solo, hotseat 1 on 1, and tcp/ip multiplayer (up to 8 per side). There are individual scenarios, random campaigns and linked campaign games. Reasonably, you could compare West Front to Panzer Leader (just as you could compare East Front to Panzerblitz). I believe that each game should stand on it's own unless it is explicitly an expansion pack; however, in this instance West Front is a sister game to it's predecessor East Front. Comparisions are therefore inavoidable; indeed, this review will largely focus on how the game has overcome the sortcomings of the earlier offering thus becoming an excellent game in it's own rights. Weight given to any individual section reflects my personal familiarity and gaming tendencies. If I've ignored something' oh well :) Send me email at tdavie@escape.ca to complain about it. 1. Campaign game: In the first game of the series, East Front this was the cause of much frustration for me. Typically the placement of the units at the start of a battle was atrocious, the briefing prior to a battle bore no relation to the map that you subsequently saw, there were OOB errors which caused the game to crash and the interminable length of the campaigns was frustrating. Seveal patches later, and as of version 1.07 the OOB errors are gone. With the release of West Front, the other issues have been addressed. Campaigns now come in two flavours; DCG (Dynamic Campaign Game), and LCG (Linked Campaign Game). The former is the type that was found in East Front, and the latter is a new type which will also find it's way into East Front 2. DCG's are essentially the same as they were in EF, but with the very big addition of allowing the player to set up his units on map prior to the start of the first turn. No more artillery or HQ units found in the front lines. No more wide dispersion of the consituent elements of a company. Using several new features (highlight command radius and show weapon radius) you can easily set up your forces in what YOU believe to be the proper structures and/or formations, for example setting up an interlocking overwatch force if you desire. The 'genericness' of the DCG is overcome though in the LCG, which is a series of linked predesigned scenarios. In either type of campaign, you start with a core force and it progresses through several battles. 2. Interface enhancements: a) One of the problems that I had in EF was not knowing the range of my weapons, and consequently I employed them to less than maximal effect. I always found it a bit of a pain in the ass to have to look up my weapon ranges in the help file. Included in WF is a button on the tool bar, which when toggled will display 2 sets of rings around the selected unit; red for maximum range .vs. hard targets and blue for maximum range .vs. hard targets. Coupled with the range attenuation data in the printed manual, it now becomes very easy to set up effective kill zones and overwatch formations. It would be nice if there was an on screen display of attack factors, but this is a minor quibble. b) I found myself constantly running into artillery attacks that I had plotted, or double attacking hexes that I had intended only to single attack. No more! When you lay down an artillery strike, the target hex is marked with a visible cross hairs. c) There is now a button on the tool bar that toggles reachable hexes on and off. 3. Manual; I've got the manual for both EF and WF in front of me. What a world of difference. EF's manual including appendices is 30 pages long. That of WF is 256 pages in length. The WF manual contains complete unit and weapon data for every unit that appears in the game. The data section alone is 108 pages. Symbol id's and aaproximately 4 pages of bibliography are there as well, along with a 5 page FAQ and index. Surprisingly for me, each of the items on the top menu bar are explained from left to right, and then, within each menu item, from top to bottom. It's as complete a manual as *I've* ever seen in a wargame and that includes the 200 page Panthers in the Shadows manual as well. It would be nice to have this spiral bound though. NOTE: If you have the Empire UK version of this game, you are saddled with a 96 page version lacking all of the unit data charts. Contact Empire UK at www.empire.co.uk after registering and you should be able to get the 256 page version. 4. System enhancements: a) You can now set op fire defaults for individual units, although the most restrictive of the settings between global and individual will take precedence. b) If the optional command/control rules are turned on, there is a -1 penalty to both disruption and morale recovery if the 'sibling' units are out of command radius of the company command post (which is so designated via a small radio icon appearing on the lower left side of the unit info box). The command radius of a unit can be displayed by selecting a command unit and pressing the 'w' key. It's command radius will then be displayed graphically on the map. c) The occurence of airstrikes is no longer a certain thing like it was in EF. First, the airstrike may fail to appear on the turn after you've plotted it, it may be recalled to base, or, depending on the proximity to your side may strike one of your own units. Additionally, if the target unit has disappeared, the aircraft can select a new target within a 5 hex radius. d) This is the biggy for me. Every type of terrain has a concealment modifier. Depending on the size of a unit, the type of terrain that it is located in and the range from any potential sighting unit actually sighting this unit is now based on a formula. In other words, where I used to be able to say 'That hex does not contain any enemy units'; I can't do that any more. Obviously, it is easier to spring ambushes just as it is easier to have one sprung on you. More imporantly, I find that AT guns have an increased survivability. It feels right. e) With version 1.0 of EF, there were no armour facings rules. The defense factor of a tank was the same regardless of which side you fired at it from. So TS added an optional armour facings rule whereby the attack strength was increased approximately 40 and 70% from the side and rear angle respectively (I could be wrong on the exact numbers, but oh well, this is WF which is different :) ). Better, but still people howled that ALL vehicles had the same side/rear modifiers. The solution for WF? All vehicles have individually rated front/side/rear armour ratings IF the optional armour rules are in effect. Here's an example; Defense Front Side Rear Sherman M4A3E2 14 26 14 12 Pz-IVH 7 7 3 3 Considering the time and scale of this game (6/250), some may argue that armour facing does not have a place in the game. This is not without merit, even though I hold to the opposite side of the argument. I like detail, detail and more detail. So it's surprising then that I play without the optional armour rules on, no? No, because the AI currently does not take into account facings, and thus this may give the human player a distinct advantage. By all means though USE the optional facings rules when playing another human. 5. Graphics: a) The game can be played in 5 different modes; 3d closeup/normal/zoom out and 2d normal/zoom out. When played in 3d mode, the view of the map is a 3/4 isometric perspective. On my machine (a 14" monitor) the 3d zoom out mode is rarely used as the units appear to small to be able to readily differentiate amongst them. In 3d normal or closeup mode you can begin to see the graphical beauty of this game. If you are familar with WW2 vehicles you can easily distinguish a Panther from a Pz-IVH. Depending upon the period of time that you are fighting in, you will even get different camoflauge schemes on the vehicles. I use the closeup map when I am about to make an important attack and wish to see as much detail as possible. However, I will usually pick 3d normal over 3d closeup mode. The 2d map modes also possess great utility; I use them to obtain a better overall viewpoint of the battlefield that I find I am unable to get with the 3d modes. They appear much as a standard paper or board wargame map would, with different icons for the various units. There is also a significant speed increase in processing of the computer's turn if you switch to a 2d mode before ending your turn, although you do lose out on some graphicaal niceties. b) Air strikes in EF were functional and that was about it. In WF the airstrike is preceeded by an uneartly howling (in the case of a Stuka divebomber), and it slowly moves toward it's target, gradually dropping in height. After passing it's target and releasing it's payload, it rises and leaves the playing area. You will NOT see the animated attacks if you are playing in 2d mode though. This is one reason to leave the game in 3d mode for the AI's turn. 6. AI: As usual the game plays better when on the defense than on the attack. But, the AI seems smarter than in EF, and I've always thought (bad manual and campaign game notwithstanding) that EF had a pretty good AI. Predictable? Yes, to an extent. But the system never had what I call 'the dog in heat syndrome' where the AI forces would make a beeline straight towards the objective hexes, or suddenly shift all of it's forces if one of it's objectives were taken. In the DCG that I am currently playing (The Big Red One) I attempt to make a 2 pronged attack on widely separated objective hexes, and when one is taken, it does not abandon another untaken objective, leaving it defenseless. It also seems to have a limited situational awareness such that it will run away from overwhelming forces and will garrison areas if it sees some of your units. What does it NOT do? Well, for one it does not make simultaneous concerted attacks on multiple objectives. It does not always move it's companies together as a whole (this has it's advantages in terms of concentrating your firepower and ensuring that your platoons are always in command radius, but has the drawback of drawing an overstacking bonus to incoming fire). The AI appears to keep it's units in command radius. Transport vehicles seem to get of the way after they've dropped off their passengers. I find that the 'truck hunt' phenomena from EF has been reduced, perhaps due to smarter behaviour (or the larger maps that I've faced so far?). 7. Editors: Included are scenario, map and OOB editors. I've not played around with them. You can link scenarios into a campaign game, but as of Dec 23/98 the documentation for this has not been released. 8. Scenarios: There are 56 of them, ranging from 1940 France to 1945 Germany. The locations vary from North Africa to Italy to Northwest Europe. They are individually rated for complexity (number of units involved x turn length ), and suggested side (Axis, Allies or human 2 human). Of course all scenarios can be played in any mode, although the subsequent challenge may be greater or less than if you take the suggested side. They range from 7 to 40 turns in length. 9. Dynamic Campaigns: The fall of France; May 10/40- June 10/40 The Afrika Corps; Apr 1/41- May 13/43 Operation Crusader; Nov 1/41- Dec 28/41 The II corps in Tunisia; Dec 8/42- May 8/43 The Big Red One; Dec 8/42- May 8/45 To Caen and beyond; Jun 7/44- Aug 28/44 The Road to Germany; Jun 7/44- Apr 28/45 10. Linked Campaigns: Market Garden; Sep 10/44 Rommel's Spearhead; Mar 31/41 Kampfgruppe Peiper; Dec 17/44 The Blue & Grey in Normany; Jun 6/44 The Big Red One in Scicily; Jul 10/43 11. Randomly generated battles: You can control the year, month, area that the battle will occur in, weather, size, engagement type, map type and nationalities. 12. Armour factors and combat resolution: With other games that I own (Steel Panthers 1/2/3. Typhoons of Steel, etc armoured piercing .vs. AFV combat is resolved on a penetration based model. For example, at x metres range, a 50L60 gun is capable of penetrating y mm's armour. Given a hit on a target that the weapon is capable of penetrating destruction or incapacitation occurs. So when I first played EF, I was a little bit disappointed to find that the combat model was odds based. You see, I was worried that units would be able to combine their attack factors against a target and be able to acheive results that were unrealistic. I was happy to find that they couldn't. Still I thought, what about range attenuation of weapons? Again, I was happy to find that weapons attenuate with range. Here is an example for the Sherman M4 tank (keeping in mind that 1 hex = 250 metres ). Range in hexes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hard attack 18 17 16 14 12 10 8 6 factor What this translates to is that a weapon is less effective as range increases, which is as it should be. A unit's attack factor at a given range is compared to the defense factor of the target to yield a ratio, which is then resolved on a specific line of a combat result table. Attack factor is modified by the terrain that the target is located in, the presence of smoke in the firing/target hex and the presence of a leader. When a final ratio is calculated, the unit then makes an equivalent number of attacks at this odds to the number of strength points it has (typically 4 or 5). Units that are fatigued or disrupted fire with a strength point multiplier of 0.5. Typical combat results include strength point losses, disruptions and morale checks. Summary: I like the game, and it is definately one that will find long term residence on my hard drive. It's also the first game I've ever purchased that has strained the limits of my system to cracking. I've installed the game using the 'typical' options. It takes up 211 Mb, although I've saved about 2 Mb by deleting an .avi movie, smackplw.exe and ad.exe from my West Front directory. It possesses enough variety that I will not get bored with it. I do NOT advocate playing the game on a P60 such as I am doing unless you are very comfortable modifying your system and are preapred to sit out a 3 minute wait while loading a scenario. If you want, please email me and I'll tell you what I did to get it working. I will not post such details just to have someone scream that their system no longer boots. I purchased the game direct from Talonsoft and received in on December 16th. Since then, I've played the following scenarios; 1) Bootcamp 1,2 and 3 (tutorials) 2) No time for training (an expanded tutorial that includes gliders, paradrops and beach landings) 3) Er Regima Pass (desert) 4) Testing the Axe (desert) 5) Debut of the Honey (desert) twice 6) Seven games into a DCG of 'The Big Red One' It's for you IF: - you like turn based games - you like 'semi tactical' WW2 games - you like detailed manuals - you like gorgeous graphics - you want comprehensive editors It's no for you IF: - you dislike turn based games - you demand a penetration based combat model - you dislike WW2 - you distrust Talonsoft because of East Front (but they have made good on this one). Thomas William Davie tdavie@escape.ca Dec 24/98 3:48 pm CST