Did we just become best friends?
I'm pretty certain I spent more time with HOI2 than I did my ex-wife.
Well, that looks interesting. The
Europa I'm referring to is the
Europa that a series of board wargames planned to cover combat over the entire European Theater of World War II at a scale that represents units from divisions down to battalions and game turns that represent two weeks of time. The series was launched in 1973, and is still in production, with over a twenty-two titles published and several more still in production, or planning. Most of these titles qualify as
"monster games", a subgenre of wargames featuring extensive orders of battle, a complex ruleset and an unusually large game-map area with a detailed representation of the terrains they cover.
This was originally designed by
Rich Banner and
Frank Chadwick. They were brilliant, I think Rich was the original designer, and the lead graphics designer. The game was extremely easy to play, and the turns fast, once you get to know the rules, however the scope the entire war in Europe and North Africa, on maps that were made of hexes 16 miles across, made this a monster game.
Drang Nach Osten alone, came with five 21"x27" hex maps with eight sheets numbering 1,792 counters. There were at least twenty-two games published as part of the series including:
Drang Nach Osten (Spread to the East) The German invasion of Russia from 1941-1942. Later republished as
Fire in the EastUnentschieden (The Draw) WWII German invasion of Russia 1943-45. Later Republished as
The East is Red.
Götterdämmerung - (Twilight of the Gods) An expansion to play in Eastern Europe through and beyond 1945...
Marita-Merkur - The German invasion of Greece and the Balkan States in 1940
Their Finest Hour - German planned invasion of Britain (including the air war) 1940
Narvik - German invasion of Norway 1940
Western Desert - North Africa Campaign simulates the campaigns in Egypt and Libya from December 1940 until January 1943, as well as the peripheral operations on
Malta and Cyprus, and in Syria and Lebanon.
Case White - A three Player game, The combined German and Russian invasion of Poland 1939
The Fall of France - May 1940 Campaign in France
The Near East - Three maps cover Asiatic Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Western Iran.
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Battles for Spain and Portugal
Torch - From November 1942 and the subsequent land campaign for control of Africa through May 1943.
The Second Front - depicts the Western Allied campaigns in Italy, France, and Germany from 1943 to 1945.
The Urals - A hypothetical Expansion for DNO/Unentschieden for if the German player just keeps blitzing East into Asia
A Winter War - A Winter War is a detailed simulation of the Soviet invasion of Finland during the winter of 1939-40.
Most of this was published before computer games was even a thing, and I have never actually seen the entire fifteen games all setup simultaneously. With well over ten thousands counters, maybe double that and more than forty 21"x27" map sheets this remains the largest war game ever published. You have to be a sado-masochist to even play this game. Ummm... Just playing the first two, it would take us three days just to setup
Drang Nach Osten, and we'd play at least four hours a day (and more on the weekends) for two weeks, and that was just to play the first game. So yes, I played HOI2, and liked it, ...before the age of computers.
Rich Banner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_BannerFrank Chadwick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_ChadwickFrank Chadwicks' Website
http://www.heliograph.com/Europa, The Board Wargame
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(wargame)Historical Military Services Website (Archived, not active since 2016)
https://web.archive.org/web/20100801035929/http://hmsgrd.com/wordpress/?page_id=10Board Game Geek link to the Europa Series
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/The_Europa_Series#