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The Flare Path Letter PageFinlandia or Appalachian Spring?
Finlandia or Appalachian Spring?
Dear Simon, Your Dad sounds like a chap after my own heart. It’s quite possible we were both in the Kerovian Republic at the same time. We might even have shared the same aviodyne gondola or stood atop the same stinking jagiphant carcass! In answer to your birthday present recommendations question, as it happens I have recent play experience of both of the titles you are considering. Steam tells me I playedWinter War(£15) for ten hours before putting it aside disappointed.
As you probably knowPhilippe Thibaut’slatest uses a modified version of theWars Across The Worldengine to simulate theSoviet invasion of Finlandat the start of WW2. Turns are elaborately phased (see above), IGOUGO, and represent seven days of conflict. The longest of the game’s six bilateral scenarios lasts fourteen weeks/turns and takes, according to devAvalonDigital, roughly four and a half hours to complete. I waltzed through it twice in that time, achievingconvincing victoriesboth times, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.
Wargame fundamentals like morale, terrain, and combined arms tactics are deeply and elegantly embedded. Scripted turn events, a deck of bespoke cards, and a host of custom rules, ensure plenty of period and geographical flavour. What they don’t ensure, unfortunately, is plausible AI behaviours and sufficient challenge.
I found leading the Finns (apparently the trickier proposition) in the full Winter War scenario pretty soporific, to be honest. There’s a bit of fun to be had roaming the narrow Soviet rear with small bands of hard-to-detectSissiski troops, but most of your units are likely to spend the majority of their time waiting for poorly executed Soviet assaults on heavily mined eastern fortifications like theMannerheim Line.
Not only do you get to organise and orchestrateyour own posses, you oversee research, equip and develop heroes, hire gunfighters and buy horses. Entering a random encounter hex for the first time triggers anything from a bandit ambush to a hostage rescue mission, a deer hunt to a texty trading opportunity or stroke of good/bad fortune.
The Feud’s AI makes Winter War’s look comatose. In gunfights lively unscripted opponents use cover, weapons and special abilities adroitly; they heal each other, and know when to retreat or try new avenues of attack.
Each turn characters can spend their two (usually) Action Points in a number of different ways. In addition to standard attacks, reloading, movement and overwatch orders there’s a plethora of entertaining special orders that can, if used well and Lady Luck is in a good mood, transform scraps…After Doc Travis drops a medical bag within reach of bleeding Jim Vance, Cap Hatfield tries to disarm the badman behind the pine tree with a rifle shot, while Devil Hatfield attempts to spook the knife-wielding foe about to coup de grâce KOed Rita Sanchez. Jim heals himself using Doc’s bag then fires a swarm of buckshot that not only hits its target but also activates his ‘Showdown’ pocket watch. I click the glowing timepiece and the nearest foe, initiating a tense cinematic standoff that ends spectacularly when I, on Jim’s behalf, stop an erratically pulsing circle at precisely the moment it touches a central sixshooter icon, prompting a bloody Critical Hit cutscenelet.
One of the tastiest tactical ingredients is the “quirks” that hired guns (saga mode) and allies (story mode) bring to the playgrid. If you’re unlucky, in the heat of battle “easily confused” Luther Perkins will target a friendly rather than a foe, “strong headed” Joe Smith will spend his own APs on a reckless advance, “drunk” Hardy Woodfield will take a swig from his whisky bottle instead of using his pistol, and butter-fingered Donald Campbell will fumble a vital reload. The drab attritional combat systems found in many traditional wargames would benefit from a pinch of The Feud’s battle pepper.
As the tactical side is so well executed, the game’s mediocre but spirited writing, and lack of voiced cutscene dialogue and vocal cues is relatively easy to overlook.
It’s been years since I warmed to an X-COM-like the way I’ve warmed to this one. From what you’ve told me about your father (LikedJagged Alliance, Silent Storm, and101: Airborne Invasion of Europe… partial to a Spaghetti Western and a bit ofMount & Blade) The Feud: Wild West Tactics should suit him down to the ground.
All the best,Tim
