"The quality goes in before the name goes on."

An outline of the proposed Grand Europa system is being presented here. The design team was asked to fix the start date for Grand Europa and comment on what should be some of the key points in the system in order to incorporate all the various aspects of what Grand Europa represents, An overview of their response was contained in the volunteer form that was in TEN 6. Comments received by the team helped to define that form and here is the basic overlay of what we have to accomplish with Grand Europa:

Book One: Europa: Overview and Introduction (Scheduled for late '89/ early '90)

Book One will be as previously discussed. This book will serve the main purpose of educating those who have not studied the system in an easy format to read and understand. Each title with have a contents listing and vital statistics about the game along with some reviews published in the past. In addition, the game will have a narrative type article written by someone who loves to play the game and knows what the game is about in player's terms. Admittedly this book is not answering questions, giving facts, or presenting new material for the system. In its own way I believe it to be an effort we should take to see who is out there and interested in Europa. The book will also have rebate coupons worth several times the cost of the book. That gives it both an economical and historical value and helps solve what I see as one of the basic areas that needs more work ... entry level players. As the World War Two market declines, our system stands out all the more as the best source of information and historical play on the subject.

Book Two: Ascent of Tyrants (Tentative title, information, and subject material)

This will start Grand Europa off with the Spanish Civil War and show the build up of the antagonists in Europe and North America. It will encompass power politics, national movements, armaments, and diplomacy as it was in 1936. The basic premise would be to allow players to become involved in the history of the time and see what effect they could have on the course of events that occurred, or could have occurred.

Book Three: Eve of War (Tentative title, information, and subject material)

Covers the beginning of conflict in Europe with the German takeover of the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, and the rest of Czechoslovakia up to the invasion of Poland. Here you would face Germany as it uses its threat of military force and political guile to gain one bloodless victory after another and finally breaks the peace in its blitz of Poland - or - be the planners of the most rapid conquest of Europe ever to occur. Covers the period from 1939 to Operation Barbarossa, June 1941.

Book Four: Grand Strategy (Tentative title, information, and subject material)

Essential rules and operational guides that will give the player the ability to tie up the ends of the system. This book would cover the conflict from Barbarossa to 1946. It will give you the strategic information and require you to make the strategic decisions that would ultimately eff ect the outcome of the war.

Well, what do you think? These are the most tentative ideas and a sketch form of what Grand Europa would look like. The suggested publication order would be Book One first, then Book Four, then book Three, and lastly, Book Two. The key thing to remember is that historical hindsight can not be used just to make the right decisions and perform better than the opponents of the era actually did. The idea is to present the information with built in options for everyone. Action causes reaction ... what action you take may be different than what occurred, the reaction would certainly be different as well.

As I have stated throughout this article, this is tentative and will be shaped and formed as we go along, but you got to start somewhere and here is somewhere. I just hope we can get there from here, wherever there from here is...