This is as good a place as any to discuss the No ZOC phenomenon, because Dean Essig’s OCS series, of which Tunisia is the third - and most playable - entry, is one of the leading proponents of the theory, along with much of the XTR inventory, that ZOCs serve no useful purpose in simulation gaming, at least not at the scale represented. Now, Dean’s No ZOC universe is a little less free spirited than, say, that of Proud Monster, as there is some, albeit minimal, effect in moving adjacent to an enemy unit. But there is nothing to stop a unit from moving adjacent to, and then around, hex by hex, an armored or mechanized division with impunity. In games where playability and sheer fun are the sole goals, one can easily (well, with only a subtle toss of the insulto digit) dismiss such seeming anomalies. In a system, such as The Gamers’ OCS, which intends to show us much of the nitty-gritty of operational WWII combat, it is a bit harder to swallow. First, however, a word from our sponsor. Don’t doubt for one minute that Tunisia is going to be a big hit, because, even if the game seems to play in real time, it is fun. It’s also good to look at, even if the Tunisian villages look more like Nebraska ranches. The two maps are The Gamers at their best, with few of the eye-popping excesses of April Harvest (in Ed Sasko’s words, the ACW on LSD) or the quirky iconography of Black Wednesday (where a large portion of the map looks like a Chernobyl slag-heap). The Tunisia map is nice to look at, and easy to read. One does wish that some of the useless desert in the SW corner - no one ever goes down there - would have been used for the Terrain Key, which is not in the charts folder either, or a Dead Pile Box, or something other than wasted space. Such complaints are picayune, however. The counters are great: they look good, the feel good, they read good, and they even pop out of the tree good! The charts & tables folder is jammed-packed with goodies - as is the game system - although it took us a minute to figure out exactly what was meant by “Dump on Ground”. Considering this wasn’t Outdoor Survival, we chose only to chuckle into our iced tea (very civilized, our playtesting sessions are) rather than take the possibilities any further. The two rules books are also evidence of The Gamers’ corporate decision to not attempt, any further, to break the record for most characters on an 8x11 page. Helped greatly by an extensive index and Dean’s gentle but pointed sense of humor, this is a complex game that is fairly easy to assimilate. Having goiter-eyed my way through the Supply rules a few times, I must admit that even that verbal minefield is well handled. The OCS system has been covered by the reviews of the previous two entries - Guderian’s Blitzkrieg and Enemy at the Gates, Suffice to say, it is Igo-Hugo with an interspersed enemy Reaction Phase for units placed in Reserve, more of which, below. We all know that OCS is not for the faint-hearted, even with Tunisia’s relatively low unit count and somewhat free-wheeling moves. Supply takes a bit getting used to, not so much as to how you get it, but what anything costs. We also never did find out how you extend railheads - gotta be somewhere in there - so we just assumed a bunch of stuff that seemed relatively applicable. As almost all wheeled and tracked units require fuel to move (Supply Points), and it costs SP’s to attack, it is the most organized player, the one uses his transportation assets (land, sea and air) most efficiently, who gets to see his army roll. This is a game that greatly rewards planning ahead, and I don’t just mean three phases ahead. Equally arcane is the air system, which covers about six pages of gaming’s version of legal small print, most of which goes to piling as many bombers as you can find into that one target hex, avoiding enemy fighters by staying out of their rather small reaction range, dropping enough metal and explosive to satisfy Ed Wood, rolling a ‘3’, and blowing a big hole in … the sand. Did that a few times too many. I fully understand the value of air power, especially in this sort of theater. Just a bit too much “sound and fury signifying nothing” to make me a full supporter of such a deep level of simulation. Then again, I’m the one who gave the world individual aircraft in Campaign for North Africa, so that chicken has come home to roost, hasn’t it. OCS has one of those fun combat systems that produces lots of results, few of which seem, to me, to reflect reality. Then again, my idea of a heavy weapon is a Whitworth Rifled cannon. I have no quarrels with the system as a system. It’s one of those, odds ratio mechanics with a folder full of modifiers, some of which require a passing grade in the use of unequal fractions. The biggest modifier is one of the most interesting rules: Surprise. Now, units are rated not only for strength and movement, but for “Action”. (Read: morale; The Gamers have a tendency to use terms that don’t mean exactly what they say. Viz., skirmishers, in Austerlitz, when they really meant detachments, and even the word “surprise”, where Randomized Chaos would be better.) The attacker rolls for surprise by comparing his best Action rating to that of his opposition. There is a 56% chance that one side or the other will achieve “Surprise” during an Overrun attack; a 1/3 chance in regular combat. Now, the player who gets Surprise rolls one die, and that DR is used as a column modifier. It is entirely possible, as a rules example states, for a player to make a 1-12 attack and end up in the 3-1 column!! Now, I’m not saying that this can never happen, but what is occurring here is that the way-out results are part of a flat line read out, not a bell curve. You tend to get a lot of unusual combat results, unusual not in that they are weird, but unusual in that one side is, more often than not, rolling over the enemy like an asphalt flattener on a hot road. Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the issue at hand: ZOCs. This being North Africa - granted Tunisia is less desert and more mountainous, but still … - we don't get many “lines”, so there are lots of holes and few units to plug them. This means that virtually every turn sees some unit or other skipping merrily through enemy lines, certainly unhindered by enemy ZOCs - to hit a target way in the rear. At one point, a German tank brigade filled up its gas tank and cavorted some 70 miles behind enemy lines to hit an enemy Supply Dump and railhead that they couldn’t possibly have known was there (in reality). Now that was a tank brigade, not Hans Gudegast and a few Berliners in recce jeeps, that snaked its way merrily past an infantry brigade and a motorized unit. Ignoring the idiocy of such a move (the aggressive type of junk that Fox - Dave, not Erwin - litters are playthroughs with), how can a tank brigade move past a motorized brigade with absolutely no reaction. As Mark Herman points out in his Sinai review, the range of fire of modern weaponry is about 4km, which is pretty much what the scale of this system is. The ability of such a unit to fire, especially a mobile unit, is one of the things a ZOC represents. OCS buffs will now scream “Reaction Phase … Reaction Phase”. Well, yes, there is one. But it comes after enemy movement and combat. Why not during? C’mon, this is not a game where anyone is worried about complexity or another dieroll. Why not allow the more mobile units the ability to exert such a ZOC on a DR against their Action rating?? It would reflect the innate ability of the non-phasing unit, in terms of both fire capability and reaction capability. Perhaps being in Reserve mode would act as a DRM. But I’m sorry, although I think this is a really good game, I simply do not buy the sending of ZOCs to Tactical Siberia. Other than suffering the slings and arrows of that philosophical position, Tunisia is a really fun game to play. The situation is great, especially if you start from the very beginning, where the constant flow of reinforcements gives the game a quasi-Gettysburg atmosphere. And you quickly learn the value of reserves, and the limitations of units with the morale of a frightened ferret. Everybody - and Tunisia works extremely well as a multi-player game, just as it can easily be played solitaire - gets lots to do, and organizational skills are highly valued. But c’mon, Dean. Let Erwin take of his boots and put some ZOCs on. CAPSULE COMMENTS: Graphic Presentation: Top Notch; visually exciting. Playability: Despite complexity level, quite good. But this is one looonnnnggg sucker. Replayability: Pretty good, mostly because the initial situation is quite open-ended. Creativity: High, with a gut-wrenching altitude loss for ZOCs. Historicity: Learn why, learn who, and have fun. Wristage: Not that bad. Comparisons: The best operational level WWII system around, even with its game length and obscurities, and this is the best game in that system. Overall: Buy it, Play it. Enjoy it. Then call 1-217-896-2145, ask for Dean, and yell “ZOCs, you turkey”. You’ll have a good time with all of it. from THE GAMERS 2 22” X 34” Maps; 780 Counters; 1 Series Rules Book; 1 Special Rules Book; 2 Charts & Tables Folders; boxed. The Gamers, 500 W. 4th St., Homer IL 61849. $39 Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 18 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com