Matthew Lohse
United States
San Francisco
California
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NATO was another of the VG games that I played a lot growing up. As much as I enjoyed it, there were a lot of little things that I wish had been done/added to the game to make it even better. The components were pretty standard VG level stuff, nothing amazing looking but not horrible either. The rules were fairly simple and the air war treated in a very abstracted manner... each side got a certain number of air points to use each turn. There were rules for tactical nuclear warfare, but I never bothered with using them as they seemed like a way to start destroying everything on both sides if you were loosing in the hope that maybe you would be slightly less destroyed in the process. Other rules, like the one concerning Austrian neutrality and Italian intervention seemed like the sort of things that would seldom be used or that could perhaps have used a bit for variability to encourage people to seriously consider them [as the Pact I never entered Austria thus never triggering Italian intervention].
There were only three scenarios, reflecting different readiness levels/degree of surprise for the full up NATO versus WP conflict. I really wish there had also been a smaller scenario or two focused on a limited area for a limited number of turns to practice with before trying the full scale game. Along those lines I wish there had been slightly more options for starting levels... ways to combine say NATO moderately prepared versus Soviets trying for total surprise. Sure, I guess you could use the different reinforcement tables for the two, but having victory conditions for that might have been nice. Not all combination would work... Soviet full deployment versus NATO totally surprised would be very unbalanced but having those options would be nice. Also, given that VG had used a variable reinforcement table in the Fleet series [roll a dice, move so many boxes along the reinforcement track], the inclusion of such a system with NATO would have been nice. As it is, you absolutely know that NATO will get the German reserve units on Turn X and American REFORGER units on turns X, X+1, and X+3 unless the sites were overrun. Having a variable reinforcement system would add a lot of spice to the system... do you change your plans because your opponent seems to be getting reinforcements slower than expected... does getting some reinforcements early let you doing something you hadn't dare hoped to? A different variation would have been different reinforcement rates for the different nations [the US and the Germans respond quickly, the British and the Dutch are clueless, and the Poles have told the Soviets to take a hike] which could have created interesting situations in the various portions of the front. Sure, something like that might have made victory conditions a bit more difficult to design and created the possibility of games getting a bit lopsided, but I think the system still would have benefited. I guess I could design rules like that myself, but I just can't see myself making that effort when there are other games to play.
All of these complaints/wishes on my part shouldn't be taken to mean that the game is horrible. In fact, I really enjoyed playing it and still have my copy of it. It is just that I feel that a little more thought or effort with it during the design process would have moved it from the category of games I fondly remember to that of games that I still play a lot.
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Dave Langdon
United Kingdom
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Not sure many of your suggestions would work within the limited number of game turns. Its just not that complicated a game. The scenario that models the biggest SOV surprise was a real good one and modelled most closely the likely war, the SOV marine and AIR drops were crucial to getting sucess, very enjoyable...but dated now...in fact probs alot of young people dont have any idea of the WW3 gloom that hung over the world in the 70's and early 80's.
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Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz
Germany
Duesseldorf
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I liked this one but the counters are horrible. Chemical warfare / highest level of surprise was the only way the Pact could pull a win and I was always frustrated about the relatively weak Pact forces.
MMP is actually working on new operational WW III game: The Doomsday Project
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Matthew Lohse
United States
San Francisco
California
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I am looking forward to Doomsday whenever it gets made.
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