I made this game. Well, half of it anyway. Its a little cheesy probably, but mostly because of the limitations of the game engine. I can say that some unit values have been adjusted for game balance. Zeps, Cav etc. I think the latest version is well balanced.
I spent many hundreds of hours working on this thing, but there are some parts of the map I’m still not happy with though. The Western Front and the Africa Boxes are not as straight forwards as I might like, and some other elements could be improved. Convoys work well, but aesthetically I don’t dig how tripleA draws them in.
When I first made the map with Surtur, the idea behind the game was that it would be exclusively PBEM. That’s why the first round is so ridiculously involved. I wanted a map where players could spend a good amount of time trying to map out their turns, so that the game would seem more dynamic in email. If you look at the turn order and the pricing structure, over all money, the whole thing is geared toward long turns in quick succession for email games. Usually it takes about two weeks to finish PBEM. Some people still go after these endurances matches in the lobby though.
Anyway, I’m glad to here that at least a few people are enjoying it. I really just used it as an excuse to push the Misc Image feature, and to see how far we could push the A&A ruleset. Mostly we were just experimenting with ideas though.
Pact of Steel was originally done in the same way. I just wanted to see if we could open up the code to include more than 5 players, and to test some other ideas. I’m still surprised how many people took to the idea. For me it was always kind of a novelty and inside joke to have Italy in there. What we were really more interested in was messing around with the Pacific hehe. Still I think these custom varients can be fun.
Ultimately I still enjoy the Revised map the most, and I prefer the standard dice rules. It was fun to branch out though and try to make other games based on similar principles. The thing I was the most proud of with the Great War, was the naval game, which is still a lot of fun. I also think it demonstrates the idea that more money and more production encourages players to try more radical builds.
I don’t think it would ever work as a board game though. Too many units and territories to keep track of, even on the computer it tends to get a little overwhelming. :)
Thanks for checking it out though. If you ever want to PBEM just drop me a line jasonwclark@gmail.com
Oh and here is a screenshot in case anyone is still interested