What's the NEXT Commander after this one?

[Wodin]

An Ancients game or how about a fantasy game.

[TomBombadil711]

7 Years War in Europe

[nimblebooks]

[quote="TomBombadil711"]7 Years War in Europe[/quote]

Not bad. You could extend the WW2 map to the west a bit to include the battle of Montreal!

I wouldn't necessarily buy a game about the 7 years war alone, but I would buy a game that covers a broader swath of European history with modules.

Roman Empire.

[DarkstarOne]

WW2 worldwide, or American Civil War. Or both! You guys don't need sleep!

[DRC555]

The Cold War period for sure, no need to have a campaign to cover 1945 -1991 that wouldn't work, instead use "what if" scenarios at moments such as the Berlin Blockade, Cuban missile crisis, Czech revolt, if Gorbachev was replaced by hardliner, etc, basically scenario's from different periods where NATO & the Warsaw Pact would get it on!

[nimblebooks]

[quote="DRC"]The Cold War period for sure, no need to have a campaign to cover 1945 -1991 that wouldn't work, instead use "what if" scenarios at moments such as the Berlin Blockade, Cuban missile crisis, Czech revolt, if Gorbachev was replaced by hardliner, etc, basically scenario's from different periods where NATO & the Warsaw Pact would get it on![/quote]

Cold War would be good enough!

Why do you think it would be any more difficult to cover 1945-1991 than 1968? Most of the weapons systems that would be challenging to simulate in a global hex scale game are still the same ... nuclear weapons, airmobile, guided missiles, nuclear subs.

Actually, one thing I didn't think of it that there is a good chance that WW3 would have been over in less than 20 days. That would reduce PBEM to the agressor sending a map with a bunch of holes in it and the defender responding the same way...

[DRC555]

I probably wasn't clear but I mean't a single campaign from 1945 to 1991 would be tedious as nothing would happen until war broke out.

I did mean that different scenarios would be the start of conflict which could be at any point between 1945 and 1991.

[nimblebooks]

So now that GREAT WAR has gone gold, what are we thinking about the NEXT commander now?

[Aryaman]

I think the ACW is a real possibility, also it could be made using a system similar to Panzercorps with linked battles, but I think I would prefer the Commander global strategy approach

[marklv]

I can't tell you that officially, but I can tell you we're psyched to continue the series and the CTGW engine - after over 2 years of hard work - is now very flexible to deal with any new theme with only a reasonable amount of extra work.

Interested to hear what people would like to see next though.

I would like to see a generic 19th century wargaming experience, going from 1820 all the way to 1900, spanning the whole world, not just Europe, so that colonial wars are covered. There is a huge gap in the market for this period.

The game could then cover the American Civil War, the German and Italian wars of independence, the Franco-Prussian war, colonial wars in Africa, India and China, the Spanish-American war, the Boer War, etc.

[nimblebooks]

Seems like a threshold decision is whether to expand the engine to the whole world. I can't see how the naval engine as is could work in the Pacific. Ship movement is already way too slow for the scale.

If you go whole world, you probably need to do WW2 first before you do 1820-1900.

[marklv]

Unless the game scale is radically changed, or maybe an ingame battyle system is added (which would be great)I think preWW1 scenarios are ill suited, you would have artillery with several Kms of range and battlefronts many miles long, maybe the FrancoPrussian war could still be portrayed, but I doubt the ACW can.

I disagree. There is no need to have artillery as a separate unit - it could simply be included in a generic infantry army corps and its strength level determined by an attribute specific to that army corps unit.

[nimblebooks]

[quote="marklv"][quote="Aryaman"]Unless the game scale is radically changed, or maybe an ingame battyle system is added (which would be great)I think preWW1 scenarios are ill suited, you would have artillery with several Kms of range and battlefronts many miles long, maybe the FrancoPrussian war could still be portrayed, but I doubt the ACW can.[/quote]

I disagree. There is no need to have artillery as a separate unit - it could simply be included in a generic infantry army corps and its strength level determined by an attribute specific to that army corps unit.[/quote]

Hearts of Iron uses "brigading" very effectively, so we'd start out with generic infantry corps and be able to buy artillery & other special weapons to attach to the corps to make it more potent.

[marklv]

Seems like a threshold decision is whether to expand the engine to the whole world. I can't see how the naval engine as is could work in the Pacific. Ship movement is already way too slow for the scale.

If you go whole world, you probably need to do WW2 first before you do 1820-1900.

A global WW2 would be a nice idea - not sure if Lordz have the appetite for revisiting this period, though. I guess it could be done relatively painlessly as the fundamentals are already in place. The trouble is that there are already many, many WW2 games out there and a global 19th century game would add more interest for a lot of people.

[marklv]

Hearts of Iron uses "brigading" very effectively, so we'd start out with generic infantry corps and be able to buy artillery & other special weapons to attach to the corps to make it more potent.

Exactly. I wish this approach had been used in the Napoleon game - it would have improved realism and playability. Artillery is rarely used an independent force, it's normally a support force for infantry.

[marklv]

Cold War would be good enough!

Why do you think it would be any more difficult to cover 1945-1991 than 1968? Most of the weapons systems that would be challenging to simulate in a global hex scale game are still the same ... nuclear weapons, airmobile, guided missiles, nuclear subs.

Actually, one thing I didn't think of it that there is a good chance that WW3 would have been over in less than 20 days. That would reduce PBEM to the agressor sending a map with a bunch of holes in it and the defender responding the same way...

Not for me. The reason the cold war stayed chilled is because it would have resulted in mutual assured destruction if it had warmed up. You can't create a playable scenario on this basis. Not recommended.

[nimblebooks]

I think it's easy to create a PLAYABLE scenario, just hard to create a PLAUSIBLE one.

In the SPI game EAST IS RED (S&T 42, I think...) about Russian-CHinese conflict in 1969, the instructions included rules for nuclear mines (block a hex) and for strategic escalation: "set the map on fire."

I think the most careful formulation of this overall issue is that no one knows whether it's possible for nuclear-armed great powers to fight a conventional war without escalating. It might be, but no one has been willing to take the chance to find out.

[marklv]

Modern warfare is 'total' by nature. Vietnam and Korea were 'controlled' wars that avoided developing into full scale world wars, but that is only because the USA didn't want to. It's hard to imagine NATO and the Warsaw Pact having fought a limited war in Europe, with conventional weapons only; if NATO had been pushed out of Germany it's impossible to believe that nuclear weapons would not have been used.

[nimblebooks]

How can you say that modern warfare is "total by nature" when[b] every single instance[/b] of warfare for the last 67 years has been limited?

[marklv]

How can you say that modern warfare is "total by nature" when every single instance of warfare for the last 67 years has been limited?

What's the fun into playing small scenarios like Korea, Vietnam, the middle east wars etc? The fun lies in playing global wars involving the major powers, not these regional conflicts.