There is no adequate mechanic in close Campaign games to create the urgency of the shorter Scenarios wrt the holding of Objectives (Simon's point in a recent post). I have been playing as if it really matters to hold on to the Objectives, but not to the point of great sacrifice. The Germans passed their high water mark of 17 Objectives in Jan of '43 (a Uranus Marginal Victory if at the end of Feb of '43). They were trying to maintain their 16 through the upcoming Spring Rasputista, feeling pressure on Smolensk and Stalingrad. Holding the latter denies the Soviets a needed Supply City as well. The Axis Standfast! card allows the Germans once per game to receive four IDM's and to refuse any Retreats desired for one Combat Phase, but must be played before the Russian Special Movement Step. This was in hand, but was not played on the Soviet March 2 turn. There are times when multiple Battles can lead to extra losses due to Over-stacking for retreating stacks. The Russians got hot, and thanks to a well-considered sequence and good rolls, two extra Steps were lost. The Russians also breached the river west of Stalingrad, with help from a Paradrop. The Spring Rasputista began on March 2, preventing powerful Panzers from counterattacking nearby, but giving the Axis a reprieve of four to six turns. I will show an AAR and then the appearance after Combat.
top of page
bottom of page
I prefer that the emphasis of player-incentives involve a long-term perspective, along with regular short-term goals. Many short-term objectives are present in ETO, though not involving VP's, and this works well enough--but I like to tinker. Various schemes of awarding VP's along the way could be worked out and housed.
I agree that incentives for holding objectives in the short term would be beneficial in campaign games. This is something which I naturally adopt deeming each Scenario Victory Condition equal with the final victory conditions. Thus if a campaign continues through three Scenario end dates that is decided on a best of three basis. Potentially a combined ETO campaign through to 1945 might have 30 plus scenario end points with possibly each module scenario counting separately. Some system of scoring would also have decisive victories count more than operational victories.
I think this is true to the operational focus of the game system and would help avoid players trying to play for the win in 1945 during 1941 when the reality was trying to live through the next few weeks rather than worry about years.
I am not sure whether such a system needs to be elevated to a rule and it might be difficult to do so until the full picture of ETO is complete. Nevertheless I think players who devote the time to playing long campaigns will want to employ something like this. They may have to address the question of whether all scenarios are equal and weight them. Another possibility - perhaps in Victory at all Costs is - victory conditions for Combined Scenarios covering all fronts.