Flipping through the pages of our magazine, I sometimes stop on the ads for the board wargames and sigh with jealousy: “look at all those different wargame designs!” I think wistfully to myself.  This is one of the areas in which board wargamers still hold their own over the computer wargamer; the sheer variety of periods and battles that can be covered.  That’s why it’s great to see a (usually small) publisher work to put out a game daring to portray something that isn’t a big-name battle or war.  Back in December we were thrilled to discover Schwerpunkt and their in-progress, ten game War in the East series of games portraying many of the important yet under-gamed battles of the East Front during World War II.  Already out are Leningrad and Kiev (reviewed in Issue #65, April ‘96); now, just a couple of months after Kiev, comes Crimea (two weeks overdue, much to the chagrin of Schwerpunkt president Ron Dockal!).

Crimea covers the struggle between Axis and Soviet forces for control of the Crimean peninsula between three periods:  the initial German occupation, Sept. ‘41 to April ‘42; during operations Bustard Hunt/Sturgeon, May ‘42 to July ‘42; and Soviet retaking of the peninsula (and subsequent destruction of the Axis 17th Army), April ‘44 to May ‘44.  Almost an island, the Crimea is bordered by the Black Sea from the Northwest around to almost due east, by the Sea of Azov along the Northeast, and by the smaller Zivash Sea to the direct North; the major access to the region is through the narrow strip of land in the Northwest, called the Perekop Isthmus, and across an even narrower strip separating the Zivash Sea from the Sea of Azov (remember this area–see below).  Also, during the winter the straits between the Taman Peninsula and the Kerch Peninsula on the eastern edge of Crimea served as an access for attacking Soviet forces. A key feature of the Crimea was the fortress city of Sevastopol, over which both sides had cause to cry during the course of the war.

The game itself plays at a strategic level (although some might call it “grand operational”) and features corps and division-sized units. Surprisingly for a wargame from a small company, the graphics, while not fancy, are clear, sharp, and provide an excellent picture of the battlefield and units.  The interface, while not quite up to modern Windows-based standards, is certainly much better than wargames of just a few years ago (and even some current ones).  My chief complaints are the amount of clicking you have to go through to get anything done; while irritating to those of us getting used to drag ‘n’ drop, not as much of a problem as you’d expect because of low unit counts in the game.

The fighting in the Crimea was primarily done by infantry, with some armor and air involved.  Generally combat results seem “right” to me in the game, although there are some oddities:  I don’t believe an air unit (presumably “on the ground” at its base) would be able to withstand a concerted infantry assault; also, air units positioned in a sea-hex off the coast aren’t allowed to conduct attacks across lake/sea edges.  The AI in the game is sometimes good, and sometimes not.  For example, when playing the third scenario as the Axis, the computer kept piling up units across from my single weak infantry on that narrow strip between the Zivash and Azov, while ignoring the much wider (relatively) and largely undefended Perekop Isthmus.  In fact, in the last four or five turns of the scenario the computer didn’t even attack that weak infantry unit, choosing instead to just shift units around.  On the other hand, I also saw the AI very intelligently shifting units to meet threats to its flanks while still putting the pressure on in the assault to its front.

The new (to the War in the East series) Fog of War option is a welcome addition that still needs a bit of tweaking; while you don’t get perfect intel on enemy units during your turn, you do if you watch while their turn is being played out, something you have to do while playing the computer (you sometimes have to step through game phases).  An optional advanced combat rule adds richness to the combat system without bogging it down, and I absolutely love the amazingly simple history function: click a button to quickly bring up a short turn-by-turn summary of the actual fight to compare how you are doing vis-à-vis the performance of the historical sides.  I also appreciate the victory system, which awards you a letter grade based on your performance compared to the historical results (a C means you did about as well as history).  I know many gamers don’t like a game where they are on the defensive and really can’t ever do a major attack, but Schwerpunkt has had the guts to give you situations where this is the case; despite this fact, you can still “win” by doing better than the actual combatants.

Because of the game’s scale the unit density in all three scenarios is very low; combined with the short turn counts in the scenarios (the longest is 24 weekly turns; the shortest 10) this makes for very fast games.  While this is great if you’re just looking for a quick game, and is absolutely wonderful for play-by-e-mail games, it is also cause for one of my largest complaints against the game:  it just doesn’t last long enough.  There are only three scenarios (at the scale of play and considering the subject of the game, that’s about all that can be portrayed), and you can play through all the variations of them in just a few evenings of intense gaming.  Adding a human opponent might stretch your gaming experience out some, but not by much.  True, the game retails for only $29.95, but consider this: the first two games also had only three scenarios, and getting all three games would give you nine scenarios for almost $90–a decent amount of gameplay for a pretty steep price.  Compared to this, any other complaints I have are quibbles and caused me (with much wringing of hands) to cut a whole star from the rating despite the learning I got from the game and the just plain fun I had with it.

If you’ve played either of the earlier Schwerpunkt games, or read our Kiev review, you’ll be pleased to know that the folks at Schwerpunkt continue to be very responsive to user suggestions and desires; in a letter they outlined nine major improvements to the War in the East system that they made between Kiev and Crimea.  The improvement in the system over the original Leningrad is very impressive, and hopefully their dedication to the system will result in a finely crafted wargame system sometime down the road.  Once they reach what they consider a good, final design they will update all the already released games in the series and provide the updates for a nominal cost.  I actually encourage even casual wargamers to try out at least one of these earlier games in the series; it is only my reservation about gameplay longevity that keeps me from recommending that you snap up each one that comes out.