The Immense Pleasure Of Huge War Games





How big are these games? Let's start with length. War in the East simulates the epic 1941-45 German-Soviet conflict in weekly turns — some 224 to be exact. But that's wargame-lite compared to War in the Pacific, which covers the nearly four years of the US-Japanese conflict in daily — yes, one-day — turns (nearly 1400 of them).




A few "grognards" (hardcore wargamers) may be drooling over this, but the other 99.9 per cent of gamerdom will have one word in their lips: Why? Why in God's name would anybody subject themselves to this when they could play a quick shooter deathmatch, or a fast-paced RTS strategy game?


Why couldn't the Germans capture Moscow and defeat Russia in 1941? Try this in War in the East, as your panzers clank to a halt on empty fuel tanks because their supply lines are too long and you'll know why great commanders like Rommel or Patton had to walk that exquisitely painful knife-edge of timing between relentlessly advancing before the enemy has a chance to regroup and the need to regroup and resupply their own troops.


You begin to perceive why the US advanced slowly across the Pacific, capturing one island, slowly building up airfield and supply dumps and then using it as a springboard to capture the next island. Suddenly you understand the constraints that admirals like Nimitz and Yamamoto had to work under and why so many ostensibly brilliant plans founder on the hard rocks of logistics. It's that priceless "Aha!" moment that makes wargaming worthwhile.






    Interesting piece. Still not sure I'd subject myself to a week-long strategy simulation, but it's definitely a thought-provoking way to think about it.

    I'm something of a strategy buff but would never touch something with this much depth. Just the intro video scared the shit out of me, but I'm glad games like this exist. Just as I'm glad hardcore flight sims exist for the Vinny Caravellas of the world.

    I prefer grand strategy games, usually the type Paradox put out, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Victoria, Crusader kings, etc. Just finished another game of EU3, nothing like starting as a tiny German state that emerges to conquer and cajole their way to German Unification, from where conquest is a cinch

    I can't help but think that some of the regular Kotaku "reporters" could learn something about writing articles and reviews from reading this.. Nicely written, informative and well researched.

    Really interesting, and I wish I had the time for these kinds of games but the real question with these two wargames is can you change history? It's one thing to simulate a piece of history, it's quite another to be given the tools to virtually re-write it.

    i would like to play out Japan trying to invade Australia using the Army they had in Northern China.

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