extra turns

[flip0009]

I just completed a scenario, Eastern Front 1915 in which my Russians valiant effort to hold Warsaw was dashed into an overwhelming loss because the game added 5 turns to a 20 turn scenario. Why? What did I do to extend the game?

[Freyr Oakenshield]

I just completed a scenario, Eastern Front 1915 in which my Russians valiant effort to hold Warsaw was dashed into an overwhelming loss because the game added 5 turns to a 20 turn scenario. Why? What did I do to extend the game?

Nothing. It's by default. To add an element of surprise, TOAW usually adds a random number of turns at the end. It's a random figure, so it may be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. It's usually a small number between 0 and 5.

This way the ending is more unpredictable--if you manage to take that Hill 233 on your last turn, you are never sure whether you will hold it until the end of the game as TOAW may add 3 extra turns, and your opponent may retake it Tough luck...

[flip0009]

Thanks.

I needed to know that. I was thinking the designer did not like Russians.

It makes good sense in a game play kind of way.

[burroughs]

People rarely understand that - that is why I the stick to the Blitz; here the percentage of those ready to embrace the fact that a three dimensional battlefield has actually a fourth dimension - time which is linear and unlimited physically so the end of a scenario, just like the borders of a scenario map and then - supply points and reinforcements entry points, are a kind of an abstract solution and approximation. A good field commander must be ready to predict the unpredicted and there are lots of variables to take into consideration. Some people like purely fixed settings, without realizing that it is not realistic, just like turning the fog of war off and having everything on a plate. Obviously, the XXXth Corps at Netherlands had a short and limited ammount of time to reach and relieve the Red Devils at Arnhem - some say it was fixed - and they didn't make it, that's true, but the concept of fixed time here comes only from extracting a single aspect of a larger perspective. In reality the victory must be secured firmly , by all means available and still a room for error and miscalculation left and accounted for - otherwise it is something like counting the enemy to behave in the way his oponent wishes him to and then being surprised the enemy refuses to.

[flip0009]

I agree with you. I have had many people get angry and quit a game because it did not go as they planned. Well, duh. This is the fun of the whole thing. The strongest opponents are those who never give you an opening. They have everything planned out for every contingency. I have the most fun in games I have never played. I almost always lose them, and rarely put up a good game but the simple uncertainty makes them fun. If I play a game like three times, I am pretty good, win most of them, but they are not as much fun.

I remembered something, in Eastern Front 15, when we hit 20 turns the game said that it would end at 22. Then at 22 it went to 24 and then it did 25 and then it ended. Is the die roll for extending the game made at the end of each ending? For example, did I get a 5 once in EF 1915 or a 2 then 2 then 1?