... and the new era has begun!

You will see with the release of FWTBT that GR/D's counter sheet problems are solved. This was our final major hurdle in production, so we are now in new territory and are ready to kick some gaming butt, so to speak.

FWTBT Recap:

This project was not without error. I made an error on the Italian Colonial troops on the film set-up. It is not terrible, but it is there. I also forgot to do some knock-outs for a couple of the upgraded forts.

This was part of a learning curve for me. This is the first time I used a direct-to-film layout. Saves a whole bunch of time, and gives me more control. The grid is part of a software program provided by SVH, our box, map and counter sheet maker. This program allows for a fast and accurate counter sheet lay-out. All colors, reverses (white on a color), splits (top white, bottom black) and any other little details that go into a counter sheet are right on the screen. Way cool, fast and direct to film.

SVH has a new Heidelberg press. All operations on this press run through a series of consoles, which determine the density of ink on any square inch of the counter sheet. The press runs the correct PMS ink number, checks the sheet inch by inch, adjusts the flow and density, then lays it down. At the end of this process it makes a program tape of the counter sheet it is running and stores it in memory. All of this means certain things. There will be NO more of this crap on American counter sheets where sheet 60 is light olive, but sheet 63 has three times the density of ink and looks almost like the SS. NO more slop, with some counters having two or more colors running over on them.

NO more sloppy die-cutting, which means ZERO waste. NO more resending. NO more having to inspect every single counter sheet; which means hundreds of hours saved. Rant, rant, rant! I believe you are getting the picture, yes?

The same is true with the maps and boxes. Care, quality control, and customer service are a first for me in this industry. SVH has a higher price tag on its product, but not when you consider the above. Taken in perspective, the higher price is not higher at all. So you do get what you pay for. Hats off to SVH and Bob Johnson, who was our shepherd on this, and all future projects.

War In The Desert:

Let's talk about this new game from a dollar-value point of view. I suspect that many you don't worry a lot about this; you have already made a large commitment to Europa, and so price is not a major concern. And you know we try to keep our prices as low as possible [witness the fact that SF war bonds went for $85-if you got one of those, you got a real deal].

WitD combines the games Torch and Western Desert and the Near East module, plus a new Turkish module as part of Grand Europa. Two games and two modules. The price tag for this will be $78, with a pre-order special for our fans.

This is only about $15 more than the combined retail price of the original games and module. That is a good deal in my estimation. As I own the means of production for the charts and booklets, I know their cost first hand. For instance, one sheet of paper in this magazine cost about three tenths of a cent 18 months ago. It now costs one and one half cents per sheet. That is a five-fold increase. Most other costs in paper have been rocketing up as well. Newsprint, once considered to be the lowest form of paper, has led the pack in price increases. The price squeeze is on. Oh, well.

Nevertheless, putting several titles in one box saves time and money for everyone, and that is an important goal. It is a truism that most hard-core Europa players buy most Europa products. Keeping the price as low as possible means keeping faith with the core group. It is, after all, a matter of trust, faith and hope.

The Market:

My letters about the shape and direction of the game industry, the changes that we are going through, and so on had some effect outside of our community. One indication was that our "friend" Rich Berg first attacked my theory, then recited it as fact. Other indications are evident and appear in various forms inside our industry. So be it. The major players, the distributors, are working a bit better to solve the problem of getting games to the retail stores, so things have improved. However, our company has made some changes and we will continue to monitor what is going on. Not wait-and-see, as much as watch-and-move.

Reprints:

First to Fight and Second Front are both currently out of print. In the first case we need to redo everything. In the second we have lots of good maps, charts, rules and the like, but tons of crap counter sheets.

Do we have the desire and the money to reprint? Desire, yes! Money, errr, well, maybe. Most important, we have the demand.

I have come up with a plan that just might solve the money problem. It requires the distributors to pre-order Second Front as if it were a new release-an autoship, if you will. This plan seems to have some legs. In my initial talks with our best distributors, I explained the situation. They were positive.

Soooo, we are planning to come out with a second printing of SF, and a version 1.5 of First to Fight. What does this mean to those who have purchased previous copies of these games? Good news! If you want to replace the old counter sheets, we are going sell new sets of counter sheets at our cost. If we could do it for free (winning the Powerball Lotto is the only way for that to happen), we would. So, new counters will be available, and they will be good!

Printing new SF counters is a situation I do not like to be in, at all. It means I will have to throw away thousands upon thousands of old counter sheets. Why? Well, the cost to produce 2,000 sets of counter sheets is just a little more expensive than 1,000 sets. Would you want to have some high quality counter sheets mixed in with the old CRAP Second Front counter sheets? I wouldn't.

Now, don't get me wrong. We reworked SF at the warehouse to minimize the crap that went out in the 2,000 games we shipped. Even so, almost every game had two or more problems with the countersbad cutting, bad printing, wildly uneven colors for the Americans, splotches from hell on most Brits, general crap quality control overall.

In the first printing of SF we used 20 full counter sheets. In the new version we will require about 14. The new sheets contain 280, as opposed to the 240 old style. So we will make all new counter sheets for SF and have enough so you can replace the entire old set, if you desire. Again, counters will be sold at our cost. Cost figures are not final at this time, but I believe this is a done deal.

The second edition of First to Fight will have a better looking box, a corrected OB, and corrected maps. This second edition will be very close to the first edition, you will not notice much difference, but it will have-the slight changes as noted above. I do not want you to think we are trying to get you to buy another copy of the game, but I am not going to reprint without correcting problems. And the most notable problem, the counters, will be completely redone.

When we reissue FTF you will be able to replace the old counters. The new 280 format will allow us to add a few extra units; no details are available on these at this time. We will be sending you some direct mail about all of this, but I am very interested in some feedback now. What do you think about this?

Where Are You?

'You' being the person from Sweden who offered to help with the Swedish OB for the new Narvik. You wrote me a letter, but I cannot find it. Help!

Bound vs. Detachable:

Association members received a separately bound booklet of the FWTBTcounter sheets in this issue. Those who buy this magazine in a store will have to detach the pages and rebind them. We plan to do more of this in the future.

America Online:

We are on GEnie. Fact. We are now on America Online as well. I am going to give you the details about GR/D on AOL right now.

AOL is our latest presence on a major on-line service. If you have AOL, here is what you do: Sign on and go to key word 'GCS' (Game Company Support). Next, go to 'Support Messaging' and list the category; GR/D is in 'Category I.' Once inside you can move around and do whatever. We are just starting out, so there is only a little bit of activity so far. Our catalog is available now, and we will soon post errata sheets for all Europa games, as well as information on everything related to what we do, including the other series: Glory and The Great War.

Now, for those of you who do not have AOL, you can get it free. They give you a bunch of free time and e-mail, and so on. But you have to get to them. That is easy. Call: 1-800-827-6364 They will send you a disk for either IBM or MAC. Follow the easy sign-on and away you go. For those using the Internet, our e-mail address is: EUROPABOSS@AOL.COM Our AOL e-mail address is: EUROPABOSS

You can also leave messages in the company support area. We read our mail twice a day, as those of you who have been talking to us through e-mail can attest.

Our internet address for GEnie: GRD1@GENIE.COM Rick Gayler is taking care of the GEnie side of our little computer world; I will be taking care of the AOL side for the time being.

If you want to send us files on AOL, please use a "text" file if you are sending via IBM. If you send a file using a MAC, we prefer the text programs: MS Word 5.0, MacWrite II, or QuarkXPress 3.1.

Please run your files through a virus program before loading. AOL checks for viruses on all library uploads, but not on file transfers.

ADC Product Line Grows:

There are now several Europa disks available for Aide De Camp, the computer support product. As of this time we have support disks for A Winter War, Second Front and Fire in the East. Coming up soon will be Scorched Earth and Balkan Front. You can now order both the support disks and the master program for Aide De Camp from us at the same time. See the ad on the inside front cover. We will also be sending you some direct mail on all of this.