Somehow this can't pass geekmod and won't even show as pending. Too bad. I can't be bothered with resubmitting it over and over and GG has never been too much of reward for undergoing a Trial of Geekmodding, so here it goes. No GG but it was more fun than I expected.
***
There is a certain appeal in reviewing a game that long ago fell off
from people's radar; when you let the bandwagon go and the hype dust-
cloud has been long forgotten, you crawl out of your hermitage only to
show your true and deep appreciation of the game.
Whether it's flattering and appropriate, this question remains
outstanding. But then again, it's not me to judge.
So basically what we have here is an old school hex & counter game,
with some minor twists, mostly making us aware again of that combats
don't really have to be bloody and that armour is tougher than the
bullet, but then again that it won't stand against old-trusty bottle
of gasoline with fuse roughly attached to it. A bottle, this has to be
added, for which Finns would later coin a term "Molotov cocktail"
which is, as I read, an irreverent way of saying "would you kindly
recede".
While somewhat obscure--in particular to Westerners, please bear with
me--Winter War remains an important conflict mostly through that it
was--or rather, should I say, should have been--a foretelling of what
Soviet Union is capable of and that any arrangements are anything but
binding. Harsh times these were and harsh times require harsh
measures, granted, but then again Western actions limited themselves
to sympathy rallies and invasion plans outlined only to be never
embodied.
The scheme was straightforward: shell your personnel (Soviets had
never been good at giving a proper value to human lives), announce
these were the Finns, press claims that could never be accepted,
invade (no rinse and repeat as you can escape with that only once).
This would never work in "Crusader Kings", unless you have a level 18
chancellor, but reality is never that complex as a video game crafted
in studios located not that far away from the places these events took
place.
So here we are, agile and nimble Finn forces on one side and the
Soviet behemoth on the other: four fully equipped armies crossed the
Finnish border; original odds were 2:1 in favour of the aggressor but
that, however, does not account favourable--defender-wise--DRMs for
terrain and weather. 504
And whilst in terms of hard targets Soviets
outnumbered Finns 200-foldly (the former had 6000 tanks, the latter --
32), seems that Russians generals never learnt the sacred rule to
attack only with forces three times as strong as the opponent.
In terms of what has been written above, Battle of Tolvajärvi, merely
a four-day episode in this struggle, is anything but untypical: one
Finnish regiment against two divisions, supported by tanks and
armoured cars, stood their ground to kill 5000 men and lose only a
hundred (I told you, Russians aren't good at respecting human live).
***
Red Winter by <PERSON> depicts course of these four days.
As I said before, that's ye olde hex and counter game. You move, you
fight, you let your opponent do the same. There are twists and while I
would refrain myself from naming them "a system" as they are a bit too
generic for my taste they still feel like a breeze of fresh air in
stifling room full of games maps of which are embellished with labels,
Times New Roman, 48/72pts.
Did I say "twists"? That's too generic. They are not twists, they are
subtleties, carefully carved into the rules without any coercion of
actually using them. You see, there Soviet and Finnish units -- the
former have movement allowance of 5, the latter -- of 6. The
difference is minute but when oiled with other minor variation in
movement costs for defenders and attackers it allows for completely
different play styles where Soviets are Mountain and Finns -- the
Viper though the outcome, while still gruesome, I bet, was completely
different.
It requires a good taste in game design and a clever mind to come with
such a rules that leave it up to the player as how to exploit assets
their are given. As nothing is enforced, you are responsible for
coming up with viable strategies and approaches--and that is a Good
Thing. 100