One Month On...

[Compass Rose]

David,

Thank you for keeping us in the "know" as to what is going on and for also being very open and asking for feedback.

I am only in the early stages of learning this new series. I have completed one scenario and currently have two still being played, all by PBEM.

From my early observations, I feel that the Germans are unstoppable. I have come to that early conclusion as two out of my three games I have played as the Russians. Two of the scenarios, #0706_05 Pokrovka - Man vs. Tank and #0705_09 Butovo - The Gatekeepers of Cherkasskoye I played the Russians and I felt like I was equipped with bows and arrows and was firing at an enemy who were all in armor suits. The Germans appeared to be an unstoppable steam-roller. I am well aware that I need to play many more games to have a better opinion of this title however, I just wanted to express my "early" POV.

I know many gamers like to play these type of games in historical situations with historical OOB's however, it would be great if some of these scenarios were offered as a "balanced PBEM version" that were altered to provide a equal chance for either side. Or maybe some "fictional" scenarios could be created just for this purpose with no AI scripting, designed strictly for PBEM.

As for all of the extras that were included with PzB Kursk, they sure added a ton of extra value to this title however, for a guy like me who is a causal gamer, at best, there are items that were included that I honestly could care very little whether or not they were included in the game or in future title releases. These would include all of the heavy detail that went into the planning maps and scenario location maps. Yes, they are nice to have however, they are not a necessity. It was also really neat to see the visible OOB's with all of the units being displayed at once however, I also feel that this is a luxury item that could be omitted in the future, if need be.

As for the graphics, I really liked your idea of offering three different types. I have found that I really enjoy the images on the counters however, I like the images that have the vehicles shown in the top left or right corners when infantry images are displayed. I am also using you VP counters that are plain with no images inside them. The "top-down" view counters are my least favorite.

The designer notes you released are very well done and super informative. I think they would easily rank within the top 5 of all of the John Tiller titles to be released to date, HPS and JTS. I would hate to see those disappear in future releases however, I am also aware that it would be hard to maintain such high quality in detail and information if there are different guys besides yourself who are in charge of designing other titles, that you are not actively involved in.

Looking forward to the next update.

Thanks