Polish Strategy in Third Reich in 1939

The Polish army is unlikely to survive beyond one turn, so strategy involves exacting the highest price possible for defeat. There are two possible strategies.

1) Defend Warsaw

Why do anything else? This is the most basic strategy. Put the strongest troops in Warsaw and then surround the one hex adjacent to Warsaw that is not blocked from Warsaw by a river, forcing the Nazis to attack across the river. They'll still win, but you get to roll more dice against them.

Use one or more French attrition impulses to attack panzers with your weakest infantry. If this succeeds in paralyzing a sufficient quantity of German armor, you might live to turn 2.

2) Ship Goods to France

Again, place the best troops in Warsaw but draw a line of weak units to your Baltic port (want Danzig? come and get it!). Put the air unit in Danzig too. Then put the air unit in the Baltic. If the Germans counter by placing a full strength air unit in the Baltic, your little Polish air force and theirs get to fight 3 rounds instead of one. Odds are that they eliminate you in 2 or 3 rounds, but that you eliminate 0 or 1 points of German air. If, for whatever reason, the Germans don't control the Baltic, you ship half your BRPs to France on turn 1 _and_ the British can raid in the Baltic.

Then the Germans take Warsaw.

3) If the Germans ignore Poland

The Poles might be able to take 2 German cities with a French attrition impulse. Then there's a 1/36 chance of Germany surrendering in 1939!

A German player trying an unorthodox strategy might do this. The reason is that if they can get France to fall before Poland, Poland turns neutral as it is a minor ally of France.

Two AARs for John Prados' Third Reich

There's an elementary level AAR (first time player) at boardgamegeek, and a quite sophisticated one in a blog called Just Roll Sixes.

I enjoyed this game when it was given to me in the 80s and I enjoy the re-release more. The bucket of dice combat system is far superior to CRTs, and the impulse system creates a superb level of tension.

My only quibble is that the naval system makes it easier to control sea zones with tactical air than with ships, but that's a minor quibble. I will follow with some notes for solitaire play and strategy in the 1939 scenario.

Hinterland -- Download the Demo; Here's Some Advice

I strongly recommend playing the Hinterland demo if you like RPGs and city building or like the Caesar series or Children of the Nile.

In Hinterland, you are sent to an outpost in a fantasy world wilderness and will use you sword to earn gold and fame by killing the monsters of the countryside, and use that fame and gold to hire people to staff a small town or estate.

But you may need some advice to get started.

First, you choose a character. Beginners may wish to be the generic character (journeyman) or a swordfighter of some sort, from knight to mercenary to fall hero.

Your first order of business is get hire people to produce food. If you run out of food, people leave, so food is important. Farmers, hunters, and herders will generate food for the town.

Your next order of business is to hire people to generate money, and a craftsman or craftswoman to build you items.

While you can choose a variety of people to make money, you need a hostel.

Now you are focusing on improving town quality. Hire people who improve town quality, and find areas outside of town that, once cleared, provide resources for the town. Clear those areas.

Keep an eye on bandit incursions and rush back to defend the town when they happen. Also keep an eye on King Requests, which are random, but that works in this context (royal requests, generally, should be random and capricious).

Hire an acolyte to go adventuring with you. While you can take anyone with you, a farmer, for example, is likely to get killed. The acolyte will stay behind you and heal you while you do the fighting. I assume an archer might also survive battles, but have not tried this yet.

So there you are. A cheap ($20) game with a great demo. The graphics may date from 5 years ago, but the gameplay, for those who like building and simulation games, is excellent.

The demo is free. Try it!

Beware of Windows XP SP3

Many are losing sound after installing Windows XP Service Pack 3.

The problem is that the system thinks your sound device is a PCI device or even (in one case) a modem. Simply uninstall Windows SP3.

I used the hidden folder, c:\windows\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst -- method two.

Took me about three hours to figure out the cause of the problem and then after you uninstall SP3, it takes another hour to reinstall the XP security updates, one of which failed to install.

Tom Wham

Tom Wham's games were entertaining. They injected whimsy into Dragon Magazine. I owned Snit's Revenge and played several other games, but my favorite was Elefant Hunt, in which you tried to obtain animals for a zoo. I have the game pieces but lost the board.

Also excellent was King of the Tabletop -- but it requires at least three serious players.

Snit's revenge, in which one player is the invading snits and the other is the creature's defence system, was finely balanced.

Gothic II

Gothic II was a very good game. Unlike many US games, this German-designed world allows you to play a key role, but only to save your village, not the whole world. The scale of the environment is believable, and you walk it back and forth several times in a way that does not feel forced.

However my internal CD failed recently and I'm using an external drive. All of my other games work but this one no longer does.

Anyone know how to make Gothic II recognize a legit CD in drive G?

Tropico rocks

The original Tropico is well worth playing.

It is set in a cheerful location, the music won some awards, and the game has a great sense of humor.

This is usually not an intense adrenalin-pumping game, but it is a serious sim and there's plenty that can go right and wrong. I have the Mucho Macho edition and enjoy getting to choose my character's abilities.

And Melissa likes it too!