[Finished] Theater of War III: Western Front 1918

[Ghislain]

Could this game engine be adapted to recreate the Wizard battle game Arena by Cult Games / Chaos by Julian Gollop on the Vic20?

I've considered adapting the game engine for two additional scenarios:

-Quebec 1759 (France VS Great Britain) with musket-type battles involving militia, infantry, Indian warriors, cavalry and officers. I'd have to come up with an incentive for the player to form a line formation (perhaps combat bonus for standing next to a ground unit). Without air units, the game might be interesting.

-Fantasy RPG battles involving orcs, wizards, dragons, elves, etc. It wouldn't be quite like Chaos (since it would only have two players going at it) but I'd need to improve on the 1-8 direction keys, and implement more of a cursor system to allow more variety for moves and attacks.

Making these for the unexpanded VIC-20 has hampered what I could really explore with the game engine. If I add features to the game, I might have to take some things out.

But one thing I'd like to remain is having the combat map take place on a single non-scrolling screen. It just makes everything more convenient (both for the player and myself, the programmer).

[Ghislain]

I made it to level 3 and was sitting on the doorsteps of the enemy just waiting my next turn to move onto level 4 and out of the blue the last enemy bomber nips me! The enemy proceeded to wipe out my entire force in less than 5 turns.
I think this is the best of the bunch because the terrain feature changes the dynamic and actually balances things out a bit.
Great stuff!

I haven't beaten it yet, but I think it is beatable. Of course, if the computer deploys multiple airships and fighter planes at the start, it will mean that your supply rating will suffer early on.

I remember having just two tanks and an infantry in the middle of the screen--the computer was just a few spaces away from capturing my flag, while also having a fresh supply of armies near it's flag. I was able to regroup and finally eke out a win.

I like the exciting and tense moments these games can provide. The AI isn't particularly strong, you're just playing against the VIC-20's random number generator + some guidelines to strive to attack units when possible, and a sense of direction towards the objective.

The game is most fun against another human player who likes wargames. And this is why I like the single screen aspect -- there's no need to scroll back and forth. While it can be fairly limiting to move/deploy the units in the order that the game forces you to do it, the turns are played fairly quickly.

If I were to say what my favorite one is, I'd go with the first so far. That might be clouded by the fact that I felt really satisfied when I finished the first. I just really like the simplicity of it. The second one has the feature where larger units can survive two hits. The third is basically like the first, but with additional units.

They aren't, should never be accurate simulations of warfare. Obviously, "fog of war" is missing (all of the deployments can be seen all at once, without any need for recon). In the third game, airships in WW1 were not used in battles but mostly deployed in night bombing missions by Germany. In the end, airships were not effective for strategic bombing because they did 1/5 of economic damage for the cost of all the airships that were destroyed. But I had to put in airships, because the image of the zeppelins of WW1 is a popular one.