the best operational wargame

[nokhor]

i am really itching to play a great operational wargame. something where you control regiments and up, not individuals or squads. where its possible to play different scenarios, but i don't want missions.

i don't want a tactical ' leading my squad on a covert mission to infiltrate the enemy base', and i don't want a grand strategic 'should i spend my more of my resources on curbing civilian dissent or more on industrial research'. i just want 'here's the theatre of war, you can get a, b, c types of troops, the game ends when you flag is flying over the enemy capital. go.' i'm looking for a game with multiple fronts, where you don't quite know whether the casualties piling up on your southeast front is because the enemy is really coming up that axis or whether it is a feint to distract you from the concentration of troop strength along your northeast front your scouting troops keep reporting back about.

i just wanna know what people though the best games of that caliber are, and if there are any promising ones of that ilk on the horizon.

i've played the original panzer general games, europa universalis games, john tiller games and some crappy bugfests that i will just continue to r.i.p.

[Magraev]

some years ago I had a lot of fun with TOAW (The Operational Art of War).

It's set in the 20th century, and one particular campaign depicted the entire eastern front of WW2 - a turn took over an hour - doh.

Not the most stable game unfortunately, but one of the best operational strategy-games out there.

[discovery1]

Hearts of Iron 2 will have some smaller scale clashes, like just the invasion of Italy or the battle of the buldge. Don't have command or individual regiments, although there was talk of a plug in in the works that allows this.

[nokhor]

hey Magraev,

i decided to give TOAW a try. I couldn't find a new copy anywhere online, so i purchased a used 'just like new' one from some guy through amazon. the package arrives and its really flat. and from the reviews i had read it was supposed to have a hefty manual. so i opened the package and it was just the cd, with a little note beside it. note basically says with some smattering of legal-eze that manual is on the cd with this version. i tried just clicking through a scenario, and as i'm sure you realize, failed miserably.

so now, i gotta go to 'help topics' read a little then go back to the game, then go back to 'help topics'. no wonder that blankety blank blank was so willing to offload it on someone else. but i shall persevere, its just gonna take me longer to get past the learning curve than i anticipated.

[Mount Suribachi]

I would have said the Panzer/Allied General series, but you've already played them

[khelvan]

War in the Pacific. Though, I think this game might be a little beyond the scope of what you are looking for.

Still, it is by far the best wargame of its kind I have ever played, bar none. Warning, it will suck you in for days, weeks at a time.

http://www.warinthepacific.net/

http://www.matrixgames.com/

[Sjakihata]

did you ever try a game called Risk

anyways, there is a game out there Axis & Allies (the old version) it's a lot like Risk, except it's 2nd ww and you get lots of different units, infantry, armour, fighters, bombers, destroyers, carriers, subs and transport ships. And some other things as well, as flak cannons.

It's fun, and Im sure you can download it some place.

[econ21]

Nokhor, I feel your pain about trying to learn TOAW without a manual - are you sure there is no pdf on a disk? - but actually the interface is not that complex so you should be able to get by[1]. In some ways it is an old fashioned hex-based board wargame so there are soak-offs, you try to get high odds attacks etc. (Later versions of the game do model hard and soft attack/defence differently, so it is not just simple odds). There are some novel twists - notably you have something akin to "action points" so there is a chance that you can attack more than once per turn. It's also very risky to try to disengage a unit adjacent to an enemy (unless you have something left to occupy the enemy's attention).

There should be a fair amount of stuff on the net that could help you through the game - strategy guides etc. Do a google search, but in its day the wargamer.com was the best place for it. Anything written by Norm Koger, the designer, would be particularly valuable (eg. I recall him recommending setting air units for interdiction rather than combat support or strike). It would help to start with a straightforward scenario. I would recommend the Korean war one as the US/UN - you get hammered initially but then get some nice US reinforcements. The unit density and strategic choices are not so much that you get drowned.

[1]The game is, by contrast, pretty complex to play - rather like Chess, it hurts my brain to play bigger scenarios, eg the full D-Day one.

[Goofball]

did you ever try a game called Risk

anyways, there is a game out there Axis & Allies (the old version) it's a lot like Risk, except it's 2nd ww and you get lots of different units, infantry, armour, fighters, bombers, destroyers, carriers, subs and transport ships. And some other things as well, as flak cannons.

It's fun, and Im sure you can download it some place.

As a side note, I bought the "new" Axis and Allies and it's total crap. Don't waste your money.

[PanzerJaeger]

Thanks Goof, was gonna buy it tommorow.

Id also suggest the new Hearts of Iron 2 game. It is one where you have to do resources and build up infrastructure and defenses, but you can let the computer control that and only focus on fighting the actual war. It is on a divisional level though..