[Editor's Note: While Mark's conclusions below do not necessarily mirror GRD's on this subject, they are certainly thought-provoking and timely. Serious consideration of what Grand Europa will entail is on a lot of minds, and there seem to be as many proposals as advisors.

One group is currently working on an Europa "Master Level Rules Set," which will add layers of rules to the existing game system to cover economics, politics, naval systems, and all the rest. The "Project 50 Team" was working towards a similar series of rules modules and national data sheets for use in full-blown Europa campaigns.

Two other groups are creating what is best described as "Fast Europa," with the goal of streamlining the system so that games can be played faster and with less recourse to rules, charts and die rolls (i.e., within my lifetime).

And there are other Europa variations, such as "Bro Rules" and "One-week Europa" which have been around for awhile. And it seems every group that plays the series has their own list of house rules.

One should take note that almost without exception these groups are working independently and without official sanction from GRD. Winston Hamilton and John Astell have yet to totally unveil their vision of Grand Europa, and that is what will matter when all I . s said and done. - RG]

A friend of mine several years ago spent some time in the Soviet Union studying Russian. When he returned to the United States, he brought me several English language books on the Second World War. These books were written from the Soviet perspective, of course, and well before glasnost. My favorite was one entitled World War II: The Myths and the Realities.

The "myths," of course, were certain Western beliefs about the war, while the "realities" suggested strongly that the martial prowess of the Soviet Union was the sole reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany. It presented a series of unwavering beliefs which, though possessing an impeccable internal logic, bore little resemblance to reality. The tendency of Soviet historians at this time to quote Western sources whenever possible to back up their claims and lend an air of academic "respectability" to their works merely added to the surreal feeling one got when reading such literature. Though even today the official Soviet line provides in some respects a refreshing challenge to orthodox Western historiography, it usually isn't "good history." The Soviet history of the Second World War, simply put, isn't the history of the Second World War.

Why do I bring this up? The reason is, as astute readers may have already guessed from the title of this editorial, that I have become increasingly convinced that Grand Europa will unfortunately bear just as little resemblance to the Second World War as that old book. I think the problems inherent in designing a strategic-level "mega-game" based on a series of operational-level games are enough to doom any attempt, no matter how much effort is put into the project, nor how earnest are the designers.

As I think I can demonstrate, it just won't work. The end result will be a very big something, but I doubt that it will resemble the Second World War.

The problem that Grand Europa faces is that it is being built backwards. It is a jigsaw puzzle formed by jamming pieces together and then drawing a picture over them, rather than by taking a picture and dividing it into smaller sections. What do I mean by this? I mean that you can't meld together separate operational games and hope to come out with a strategic game. There are many reasons for this, and most stem from the fact that the political and economic aspects of the war affect the operational aspects, as well as vice versa.

Economics

The biggest problem area is, of course, economics. How can a player be allowed to make economic decisions if the game cannot accommodate them? How can an operational level simulation manage to take into account the myriad results of decisions from above, or results from below?

We can assume that Grand Europa will begin no sooner than September, 1939, to save designers the incredible problems of having to simulate the diplomacy and military mobilization of the 1930s. This still leaves room for a host of problems. How much control will German players have over their own wartime economy?

It is pretty easy to see how rules could be written to simulate the historical changes which took place in 1942 and 1944. However, how could the Allied Strategic Air Offensive be simulated? Research has indicated that had the United States more effectively destroyed German ball- bearings supplies, or targeted electricity production, that the German war economy could have been crippled. This would be difficult to simulate.

So will players simply not be allowed to make that decision? It is easy to think of other challenging questions. How does one simulate the dispersal of German industry? The use of slave labor? The amount of revenue Germany might get from trade with a neutral country (say Sweden), as opposed to the revenues it could get from conquering that country?

I think that, with effort, one could devise ways to simulate such events or possibilities. However, I see no way to translate decisions or events on such a high plane down to the operational level where the fighting is actually taking place. Presumably, Grand Europa will use the counters from the individual games. However, the problem is that these counters represent historical decisions made in the actual war based on the occurrences of that war.

If a player decides to scrap the German Z-plan for building warships in order to form more panzer divisions, where will those divisions come from? Will Grand Europa provide "generic" panzer divisions? For that matter, how would the game deal with Hitler's tendency to create new units rather than replacing the men and equipment in existing ones? All the units in the German counter mix reflect that tendency.

So do we just throw them out? How would Grand Europa handle the effects on the Soviet economy of the loss of large territories in the event of a German invasion? How would this translate to aircraft production, formation of units, etc.?

Perhaps one of the thorniest items that Grand Europa must simulate is petroleum and its effects on the game. Individual Europa games have so far clearly failed to deal with the effect that the shortage of petroleum had on the German war effort. In Scorched Earth, a panzer division has the same movement allowance in 1944 as it does in 1941.

Will Second Front be able to simulate the decline in Luftwaffe performance due to a lack of fuel for training (as well as a lack of fuel for actual interception)? What about Allied fuel shortages in France in 1944? It seems that in Grand Europa units should perhaps have variable movement allowances, dependent upon their fuel supply, but this is hardly likely to come to pass.

Other Potential Pitfalls

Moving away from the economic sphere, we can find other potential pitfalls for Grand Europa. The most obvious of these lies within the realm of politics. Europa games to date have tended to shy away from the political sphere. Those games that have tried to cover the complex political occurrences in the war, such as Marita-Merkur, have tended to have problems. These problems will multiply exponentially if politics are simulated on a Europe-wide scale. Will there be endless charts detailing positive and negative shifts on each country (or internal region) in Europe for each possible political move? (For instance, an invasion of Poland edges Belgium closer to France, Hungary closer to Germany, and so on.)

What about the United States, and its entry into the war? Will it always be December 7, 1941? What would the United States do if Great Britain was invaded? What about all the extremely tiny events that might have a political effect, such as Great Britain intercepting a German ship in Norwegian coastal waters? Are these all to be detailed? Or will Grand Europa of necessity be a "refereed" game? Will Hungarians have their chance to depose Horthy? The Italians, Mussolini? The Spanish, Franco? Would Churchill ever have a chance to form the alliance of Balkan states he so eagerly searched for in 1940-41?

The number of possible political events that must somehow be taken into account are truly mindboggling; one could imagine hundreds. Of course, many of these events will have operational consequences of their own, such as aircraft and tanks sold or given to allies. And somehow, the game must deal with these events.

Everything is further complicated by the fact that there are a multitude of supposedly independent countries in Europe. It is unlikely that every country will have its own player(s) - that would be a very large number of players, and some countries wouldn't be very much fun to play, either. However, unless the game is refereed, the only alternative would seem to be that every country have its own "flowchart" of reactions, from which it could not deviate.

Are there still other problems with a Grand Europa? You bet there are. What about the change in unit quality over time? It is unreasonable to expect unit combat values to stay static over such a long period of time. Units increase in combat value as they become more experienced in combat. They also decrease in value if exposed to the attrition of combat for too long a period of time. Should this be simulated in Europa? I'm not sure, but it seems significant. How about air training? The quality of the Luftwaffe declined through the course of the war because of the progressively worse training of its pilots (as did the Japanese air and naval air forces), even though the quality of the planes themselves did not change. Shouldn't this simulation somehow reflect that?

What about the morale of the German people, which started to crack in 1945? How about the morale of the Soviet people, forced to deal with an unexpected German invasion of incredible intensity? What about maskirovka, the incredible ability of the Soviets to completely fool the Germans time and time again from late 1942 on as to the location and objectives of impending Soviet offensives?

What about Ultra, for that matter? It is obvious that the code-breaking abilities of the Allies proved decisive, or nearly so. They helped the Allies win the battle of the Atlantic, aided the British in the Mediterranean, and gave the Allies very accurate information about German positions and intentions (for example, at Mortain). How can the game simulate this? Certainly, if it did not attempt to, then it could not accurately portray the course of the Second World War.

Another item difficult to simulate but nevertheless important is terror bombing. Individual Europa games currently just use victory points to get people to consider terror bombing, but that obviously wouldn't work for a strategic level game. So, how do you measure the effects of terror bombing?

It is obvious that pre-war air theorists such as Trenchard and Douhet completely underestimated the staying power of civilians. On the other hand, a Dresden could hardly fail to have an impact on civilian morale. But how is it quantifiable?

Frankly, I don't know. I don't know the answers to most of the many questions I have so far posed. But that very fact leads me to believe that I am not the only one out there perplexed, or at least dubious.

The obvious overarching question that remains is, should we do Grand Europa?

I think the answer is no.

However, before you start heading to the hardware store to buy letter bombs, let me propose an alternative. A modest solution. Let us not aim for an unattainable Grand Europa, but rather try to put together several "Greater" Europas. Where we might not be able to simulate all of World War II in Europe in a grand-operational manner, we probably could do so with, say, the Mediterranean Theatre. We could devise rules which could link current and future games on the Balkans, North Africa, the Near East, Spain, and Italy to create a simulation of the Mediterranean Theatre. This would remove production and economics from the hands of the players, while leaving them with a great deal of strategic leeway. Do the Allies invade Italy or the Balkans? Do the Germans try to capture Gibraltar? The Med is a large-scale simulation that could obviously be done.

There are others. What about a "Greater Europa" game called The Blitzkrieg? This game could simulate the war in Poland, Scandinavia, France, and England (and maybe elsewhere) in 1939-40.

While a game on this subject would have to simulate a large number of political events or possibilities, it would be of a short enough duration that no economic system would be necessary. It would link several games and their components (plus possibly a few extras), and provide a coherent rules set to structure them.

"Greater Europa" games are eminently feasible. Second Front is effectively already one, encompassing as it does all the efforts of the Western Allies from 1943 on. The Russian games (with parts of Second Front and maybe Turkey) comprise another "Greater Europa" game-the entire Russian Front from beginning to end.

The beauty of the "Greater Europa" game idea is that the games can link the various maps, counters, and orders of battle together to form a variety of "strategic" scenarios. Individually, they wouldn't require an overwhelming amount of rules, but they would still represent more than the sum of their parts. Because they skirt the issues of politics and economics, "Greater Europa" games would allow players to concentrate on the strong points already inherent in Europa games, strategy and operations, yet still allow them more opportunities. Needless to say, they are also much more playable than Grand Europa would be.

This, then, is the direction where I think Europa should be heading. With the type of games we have now, we can simulate parts of the Second World War pretty accurately on a certain scale. With "Greater Europa" games, we could increase the scale with relatively little harm to the accuracy and realism.

However, let us not slip into the realm of "myth" by trying to bite off more than we can chew. We can create a Grand Europa, of that I have no doubt, and it would be a truly monstrous game, with tens of thousands of exciting counters and colorful maps. But could it simulate the "reality" of the Second World War? I find that possibility doubtful. I think that it would be far more profitable--in every sense of the word--to make playable games that increase our enjoyment, and increase as well our understanding of the Second World War. I vote for reality over myth.

A Grand Europa Economic System [E29]