Interesting comments. Of course this game was published back in old Command magazine days. Some worthy observations, but I feel you have a bias towards Compass Games in general. 🙂
Just as you'll ruin your favorite movies by looking into the real-world personalities of the actors, best not to look too closely at game designers, too. HAHA! Just play the game and enjoy or not on its own merits and stay off Facebook and Consimworld and BGG and whatever. It'll just ruin your fun.
Thanks for posting your comments. I had been waiting to see what your take was on this game. It seems that the main problem you had was not with the actual gameplay but with the game's rules unclarity, finickiness and counter-intuitive nature as well as the developer's unwillingness to admit to same. A designer's pride in their rules, even though they are unclear, is not surprising. There are tons of examples in the genre (the original version of the GOSS and Triumph of Chaos rules comes to mind). The real blame is with the game developer. It is their job to be a check on the designer. However, Ty Bomba, this game's designer, back in the day, was a first tier designer, like J.K.Rowling is as a writer. No one is going to tell Bomba (or Rowling), hey, you need a rewrite here or highlight the importance of this sentence. It is always a warning light when someone in the aftermarket creates a cheat sheet rule sheet (almost as long as the rules) to explain the rules when the rules themselves should explain the rules. Some of the examples you cite, I can see how it would take several playthroughs in order to recognize the significance of using the "nuance" correctly in the game play to achieve optimal results especially where a nuance is presented in only a couple of sentences within a lengthy rulebook. To expect a player to play through a monster game ten times with all the time commitment that that entails and hunt for Easter eggs in order to get it right is unrealistic. There are too many other games out there to compete with it.
On the issue of close assault into a vacant space, while gimmicky, I imagine it is there to aid in allowing both sides to obtain historical penetration breakthrough and encirclement movements and to achieve river crossings as well as to encourage players to maintain a continuous front of pieces. However, although I am not an east front historian, I suspect that given the vast terrain of the Russian steps that there were few instances of a continuous front and the idea is, well gimmicky.
I am glad that I did not end up as the tester in this play through. Ten hours to play a total of 5 turns combined and playing both sides to boot just to call it quits out of frustration is a bit much. I feared that that would be the case playing a monster on Vassal. Vassal is convenient in setup and take down, and space conservation, but I suspect that too much time is spent in scrolling in a big game unless you have a "monster" monitor. Quicker on an actual board. But hard to find people to play in person anymore.
Have you ever tried East Front II or the combined East Front II and West Front II? I wonder what your take is on that game. Continue your good efforts. Watch your channel regularly.
I didn't even get far enough into PMD rules to discover how deep the morass goes. Just leafing through and reading bits it was apparent there was just too much. Too much mental load, too much complexity and "tacked on" chrome, etc. "Too Much" meaning that the amount of time/mental effort added is way more than the amount of "fun" that is added or more than the "playability" that is sacrificed. Some, players enjoy complexity for complexities sakes. From many of your videos I gather you are not in that camp. And, at least for this game, neither am I.
My main take away from reading rules was an even deeper appreciation of the elegance of the OCS. Not perfect, maybe not even a great game. But it is a great example of a design which seems to have chosen playability over other concerns everytime a tradeoff had to be made (except maybe counters and parts' quality). Assuming one can even consider monster, multimap games whose thesis is that supply drives operations as having playability 🙂
I wonder how Proud Monster Deluxes matches up to the Proud Monster that came out in the Command Magazine bag games. I own the bag game, and it makes me wonder. I'll have to look into the combat resolution table for the bagged game.
Interesting comments. Of course this game was published back in old Command magazine days. Some worthy observations, but I feel you have a bias towards Compass Games in general. 🙂
By the designer, do you mean Ty Bomba?
Just as you'll ruin your favorite movies by looking into the real-world personalities of the actors, best not to look too closely at game designers, too. HAHA! Just play the game and enjoy or not on its own merits and stay off Facebook and Consimworld and BGG and whatever. It'll just ruin your fun.
Thanks for posting your comments. I had been waiting to see what your take was on this game. It seems that the main problem you had was not with the actual gameplay but with the game's rules unclarity, finickiness and counter-intuitive nature as well as the developer's unwillingness to admit to same. A designer's pride in their rules, even though they are unclear, is not surprising. There are tons of examples in the genre (the original version of the GOSS and Triumph of Chaos rules comes to mind). The real blame is with the game developer. It is their job to be a check on the designer. However, Ty Bomba, this game's designer, back in the day, was a first tier designer, like J.K.Rowling is as a writer. No one is going to tell Bomba (or Rowling), hey, you need a rewrite here or highlight the importance of this sentence. It is always a warning light when someone in the aftermarket creates a cheat sheet rule sheet (almost as long as the rules) to explain the rules when the rules themselves should explain the rules. Some of the examples you cite, I can see how it would take several playthroughs in order to recognize the significance of using the "nuance" correctly in the game play to achieve optimal results especially where a nuance is presented in only a couple of sentences within a lengthy rulebook. To expect a player to play through a monster game ten times with all the time commitment that that entails and hunt for Easter eggs in order to get it right is unrealistic. There are too many other games out there to compete with it.
On the issue of close assault into a vacant space, while gimmicky, I imagine it is there to aid in allowing both sides to obtain historical penetration breakthrough and encirclement movements and to achieve river crossings as well as to encourage players to maintain a continuous front of pieces. However, although I am not an east front historian, I suspect that given the vast terrain of the Russian steps that there were few instances of a continuous front and the idea is, well gimmicky.
I am glad that I did not end up as the tester in this play through. Ten hours to play a total of 5 turns combined and playing both sides to boot just to call it quits out of frustration is a bit much. I feared that that would be the case playing a monster on Vassal. Vassal is convenient in setup and take down, and space conservation, but I suspect that too much time is spent in scrolling in a big game unless you have a "monster" monitor. Quicker on an actual board. But hard to find people to play in person anymore.
Have you ever tried East Front II or the combined East Front II and West Front II? I wonder what your take is on that game. Continue your good efforts. Watch your channel regularly.
My wallet thanks you!
Loved this video great content, Have subscribed, all the best, Garry
Thanks – I really enjoyed this video.
That is one big box.
I need to be more patient and play games at least 3 times to begin understanding how things work together. 10 times is a lot.
I didn't even get far enough into PMD rules to discover how deep the morass goes. Just leafing through and reading bits it was apparent there was just too much. Too much mental load, too much complexity and "tacked on" chrome, etc. "Too Much" meaning that the amount of time/mental effort added is way more than the amount of "fun" that is added or more than the "playability" that is sacrificed. Some, players enjoy complexity for complexities sakes. From many of your videos I gather you are not in that camp. And, at least for this game, neither am I.
My main take away from reading rules was an even deeper appreciation of the elegance of the OCS. Not perfect, maybe not even a great game. But it is a great example of a design which seems to have chosen playability over other concerns everytime a tradeoff had to be made (except maybe counters and parts' quality). Assuming one can even consider monster, multimap games whose thesis is that supply drives operations as having playability 🙂
When wargamers wonder why the hobby gets mocked and has a reputation for obfuscation, they can check out this great video as a reminder.
Just subscribed. I hope you get a chance to look at Frank Chadwick's new THUNDER IN THE EAST game. 😀
I wonder how Proud Monster Deluxes matches up to the Proud Monster that came out in the Command Magazine bag games. I own the bag game, and it makes me wonder. I'll have to look into the combat resolution table for the bagged game.
thank you for the review. This game is a bit too deep in the water for me. I would drown.