Welcome to The Few Good Men

Thanks for visiting our club and having a look around, there is a lot to see. Why not consider becoming a member?
Register

War in the East 2 Now Accepting Pre-Orders

Z

Zeke_21

FGM Colour Sergeant
FGM MEMBER
Joined
Feb 13, 2021
Messages
276
Reaction score
142
Age
61
Location
California
Looks like its going to be released in April. Pre-orders get 10% off-its not cheap $71 was the amount I paid. Out of all the Grigsby games I find this one to be the most daunting. I've always like GGs games going back to the 90's when I got a PC-before that I had a Mac so options were limited. I never played the original War in the East, but spent hours on the original War in the West and Pacific War.

When I had a Mac in the 80's I spent countless hours playing North Atlantic 86. Hearing some of the names and pronunciations butchered by the Mac sound card was hilarious.
 
Preordered. Physical copy and all. Its so expensive I feel guilty for all the starving children in Africa.
 
War in the West had a hardcover manual. I ended up purchasing that on release and then picked up the hard copy manuals for Operation Barbarosa, Strategic Command and a second copy of the War in the West hard copy manual.

I just stuck with the physical download this time around.
 
I downloaded and playing the Velikie Luki training scenario. In spite of what the manual says about tutorial videos and links there doesn't seem to be any. Going to be interesting to see how the game plays human against the AI. I suspect it will be lacking-this is pretty much true for all GG monster games. Not a knock as its pretty challenging if not impossible to make an AI that can handle such a monumental task.

Of all the GG monster games the Eastern Front is the most challenging for me. I've been told its a game about pocketing and encircling the enemy.

Going to need to spend hours watching YouTube content if I'm going to get my hands around the new system. For now I'm just moving units, attacking and letting the AI handle the rest.
 
Zeke_21 said:
I downloaded and playing the Velikie Luki training scenario. In spite of what the manual says about tutorial videos and links there doesn't seem to be any. Going to be interesting to see how the game plays human against the AI. I suspect it will be lacking-this is pretty much true for all GG monster games. Not a knock as its pretty challenging if not impossible to make an AI that can handle such a monumental task.

Of all the GG monster games the Eastern Front is the most challenging for me. I've been told its a game about pocketing and encircling the enemy.

Going to need to spend hours watching YouTube content if I'm going to get my hands around the new system. For now I'm just moving units, attacking and letting the AI handle the rest.
Click to expand...
Leapfrog. What I mean by that is as you play move up the units furthest away that can reach and attack with them, especially if you can get 2 or 3 to one. If you blow open a hole then your closer units can exploit further through the breach and you can get some encirclements.. And yes, encirclement battles are the key. Also, from the start get your railroad repair units going and make sure you have some police/security battalions that can react along your supply lines.
 
Thanks-I'll remember that. This game is a beast. The air system looks like the one from War in the West, which is a good thing. Has anyone here played a full campaign PBEM game? Looks very daunting. I've played War the Pacific Coral Sea scenario PBEM a few times and the full campaign game PBEM twice. That was intense. I started a War in the West PBEM campaign game against someone, but after a few turns he vanished, which really sucked.

The Eastern front is to me the most daunting. Also I would imagine playing the Russians PBEM is really a challenge and depressing the first year or 2 and you can lose fast if you don't know what you're doing. On the other hand mis-managing the German side will not end well either.

Either way it seems to me like the margin for error is slim on both sides.

Being that I now have unlimited free time I'll probably get sucked into a PBEM game at some point. Same with War in the West.

For now I'm playing with the training wheels on learning the system
 
Zeke_21 said:
Thanks-I'll remember that. This game is a beast. The air system looks like the one from War in the West, which is a good thing. Has anyone here played a full campaign PBEM game? Looks very daunting. I've played War the Pacific Coral Sea scenario PBEM a few times and the full campaign game PBEM twice. That was intense. I started a War in the West PBEM campaign game against someone, but after a few turns he vanished, which really sucked.

The Eastern front is to me the most daunting. Also I would imagine playing the Russians PBEM is really a challenge and depressing the first year or 2 and you can lose fast if you don't know what you're doing. On the other hand mis-managing the German side will not end well either.

Either way it seems to me like the margin for error is slim on both sides.

Being that I now have unlimited free time I'll probably get sucked into a PBEM game at some point. Same with War in the West.

For now I'm playing with the training wheels on learning the system
Click to expand...
I actually did play as the soviets in the grand campaign pbem a few years ago. I remember I took great care in building new units and making sure they had enough supply and troops coming to them. Leningrad was my proudest defense. My main assault was in the north rather than in the middle as in Bagration.

It wasnt as daunting as I had first imagined.

I forgot how to do it now though and its all rather daunting again..lol
 
When I played War in the Pacific PBEM, on average we'd do 2 turns a day on the weekdays and 3-6 on the weekends. I was working full time then. I can't recall exactly how long it took to get to 1945 but it was months, maybe a year. But just for example, if you played just 1 turn a day, then you're looking at 2-4 years? About the same time to get a college degree...

I don't know if I could manage a 2-6 turn a day schedule for this, but probably.

In War in the Pacific, once you get the routine down you can streamline things. At first I wanted to see all the turn details for air combat , but after a while I usually just hit the esc key and looked at the final results. Surface to surface and anything involving carriers was a different story. I always wanted to see all details and full combat actions with graphics so that was more time consuming. Running supplies and maintaining a supply line and communications line could get time consuming and prepping for invasions was also time consuming.

Being a land centric war may make WItE a different proposition.

One thing is for sure. If you haven't played in a while you have to re-invent the wheel and learn it all again. Its been years since I played War in the Pacific so if I tired again I would be back at square 1.

Gary Grigsby games is a lifestyle. I even had a map of the Pacific hung up on the wall at work so I could ponder my next moves. I would even discuss this with a co-worker, who while not a wargamer found it interesting.

I just finished the Velikie Luki training scenario and got a major Soviet victory. I did all the attacking. The Germans got some powerful panzer divisions, but was passive and didn't bother counterattacking. I captured 3 out of 4 victory hexes. I let the AI do all the managing of air assets. No idea of what the hell was going on with the supply situations. I figured the AI would handle that.

I opened up the next training scenario- Road to Minsk. Took one look and decided it was time to stop and start watching YouTube tutorials, how to's and game play video and figure out what the hell I should be doing...
 
Last edited:
I also got WitE 2 on release day, reading the manual now and dabble a little bit with the Velikie Luki scenario.
Have played a little bit of WitE 1 and WitW in the past, therefore not really overwhelmed, but there really is a lot going.

I would maybe interested to play a smaller scenario (like Road to Leningrad, for example) against a human opponent.
That shouldn't take too long and still be manageable.
 
I played Road to Minsk twice. Lost big time the first time, basically because I didn’t know what I was doing and second time won a German Victory. Given the time constraints is it possible to capture all the VP hexes? Seems like an impossible task.

I’m now going to tackle Operation Typhoon.

I’m letting the AI handle the air ops for now. In WitW I micromanage more especially when it comes to relocation of air units to new airbases. I’ll probably do so in WitE once I get more fimilar. One of the players testers mentioned a lot of work when into the air portion and says if you let the AI handle the air and don’t want to bother it should do a decent job.

Still need to read up on supply as I’m sure it will be to know as well as how to best use the rail units- I’m sure that’s going to be important in campaign game. The is new symbol for wider Soviet rail.

Other things I picked up so far from YouTube- apparently the Soviet player will have even less control over production the WitE 1. They will not be able to immediately pack up industrial plants and move them East. Apparently players were doing so much too quickly than was historically the case so now it’s going to be more historically accurate...what that means in game term idk...maybe the Germans focus more on bombing or capturing key industrial hexes?

Also weather is apparently going to be more random and varied. In first WitE certain areas had predictable weather. Now that’s not going to be the case.

So far enjoying this.I’ll start a campaign against the AI soon. I would wait before trying anything against another human as it’s probably going to get patches and those could break games already in progress.
 
I am currently copying what this guy is doing in his 41 playthrough. Its the fastest way to learn IMO:

 
For a large game covering a big topic in great detail WitE is surprisingly accessible. It's easy to get started and playing as the air can be left to automation and moving and attacking is easy and intuitive. Getting the most out of it is where the challenge is. Going to have to read the manual and watch videos to learn the finer points. I'm playing the Road to Leningrad and its a difficult scenario to win.

I went ahead and started a War in the Pacific AE Grand Campaign against the AI. I have yet to play a Grand Campaign against the AI, only a human. Using the base Campaign, but will start a Ironman Grand Campaign to see the differences.

I've also started a 43-45 Campaign in War in the West against the AI. Never played that, just The Italy Campaign and Sicily as well as Torch scenarios. I found the Italy Campaign against the AI easy as you can do end around's and other stuff the AI doesn't seem to handle too well.

Once I get a handle on WitE I'll start that Grand Campaign and I'll have 3 going at once. Probably finish in 5 years....
 
Im considering this..I own and enjoy WITE..bought WITW but hated it, the Airsystem just ruined the game for me felt to quirky. Really want to get WITE2 but if the Air system is the same as WITW it would be a deal breaker, is it improved? Simplified.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top