Danube Front'85

[Sgt Fury]

Though I do not have the game yet, I think a cool house rule (yes, I know, you hate house rules) would be to disallow NATO from using Nukes or Chems on population centers (villiage/town/city) on their side of the border. Seems reasonable that the US will not nuke Bonn, yes? WP could be restricted on their side of the border, but probably not :-)

Fury

[Volcano Man]

Well, I am sure NATO wouldn't do it if it could be avoided but it all depends on the situation. Most of the city would probably be evacuated already and keep in mind that these weapons are not the large city killing nuke weapons. Although they would no doubt devistate several city blocks, I see the decision as the same as if NATO decided to repeatedly bomb a city from the air. Of course you have all that nasty stuff like contamination laying around, but World War III would be a desperate time that would call for desperate measures. With a house rule like this then the WP would just simply shelter most of their units in cities before they decide to unleash the NBC.

[alaric99x]

Good points. Also, Germany is very densely populated, and was only slightly less populated in '85. The whole country is, more or less, urban, suburban, or village in most areas. If I remember correctly, the place has over twice the population density of France; for example. It's not just a question of hitting the cities, nukes dropping anywhere in this country would kill lots of people.

[alaric99x]

OK, I'm back with some numbers I got from Wiki, population per square kilometer:

UK 246
Germany 232
France 110
US 31
Canada 3.2

[alaric99x]

...and the games should have been called "Donau '85," that's pronounced "dough-now" for anybody out there who happens to speak English. I don't know why they ever felt like they had to change the spelling in this case.

[Al]

Good points. Also, Germany is very densely populated, and was only slightly less populated in '85. The whole country is, more or less, urban, suburban, or village in most areas. If I remember correctly, the place has over twice the population density of France; for example. It's not just a question of hitting the cities, nukes dropping anywhere in this country would kill lots of people.

We used to comment that there was a town every kilometer in Germany. Maybe an overstatement but the high population density was obvious. Also, as we were told at the time the West German government was committed to a forward defense of their territory; that is not giving up any ground. Making every town & village in Germany a "VP" would make for an interesting test of this philosophy.

[CptCav]

...Also, as we were told at the time the West German government was committed to a forward defense of their territory; that is not giving up any ground. Making every town & village in Germany a "VP" would make for an interesting test of this philosophy.

I had a rule in my FG'81 campaign scenario that if certain victory point locations near the border were captured before a certain turn (I believe two or three days in to the campaign) that the Soviet player would achieve an automatic Major Victory. This was to simulate the West German doctrine of forward defense.

Regards,
CptCav

[Glenn Saunders]

...and the games should have been called "Donau '85," that's pronounced "dough-now" for anybody out there who happens to speak English. I don't know why they ever felt like they had to change the spelling in this case.

As it turns out, our source map has the river called "Donau" too, and usually the source map is the final spelling we use on placenames. But this tme I elected to called it Danube using the english spelling - We had used the Danube spelling on the river in the Budapest game and this was the spelling I found in Microsoft Map Point Europe. So I figured why risk any because confusion or copyright issues surrounding somebody eleses game with the same or too similar title.

So you see, there is usually a perfectly good reason for everything. And if the title is the worse thing people can find with game then I gotta be happy with that eh! ;)


Glenn

[Glenn Saunders]

....Also, as we were told at the time the West German government was committed to a forward defense of their territory; that is not giving up any ground. Making every town & village in Germany a "VP" would make for an interesting test of this philosophy.

Yes Al - you are dead on with this - I read much teh same thing and yet this is one aspect of the game that we can't simuialte with this engine. Even assigning are forward places as objectives - because this game engine counts the points at the end of the game and not for each turn you hold them like say TFB does.

Glenn

[alaric99x]

As it turns out, our source map has the river called "Donau" too, and usually the source map is the final spelling we use on placenames. But this tme I elected to called it Danube using the english spelling - We had used the Danube spelling on the river in the Budapest game and this was the spelling I found in Microsoft Map Point Europe. So I figured why risk any because confusion or copyright issues surrounding somebody eleses game with the same or too similar title.

So you see, there is usually a perfectly good reason for everything. And if the title is the worse thing people can find with game then I gotta be happy with that eh! ;)


Glenn

I'm not talking about you guys, I blame those guys, way back before the beginning, who made this change in the first place. To me "Donau" sounds better in the original version, and if you asked a German speaking person to pronounce "Danube" it would sound something like "da-new-bay," terrible! Other changes I can understand. For example; good luck to any English speaking person trying to pronounce "München" or "Warszawa" properly.