The Wargamer: Could you tell us a bit more about the Don to the Danube expansion? Whats the content of the add-on pack?

Joel Billings: Don to the Danube contains 10 new scenarios for Gary Grigsby's War in the East. These scenarios cover some of the most famous battles from 1942 to 1945, and a few of the lesser known ones as well. These scenarios are all meant to be played with the latest version of the base game which will be released prior to the release of DttD. There are 6 shorter scenarios that are under 10 turns long, including Kharkov 1942 and Operation Uranus, the Soviet attack that encircled the German 6^th Army at Stalingrad. Instead of focusing on Kursk, there is Operation Kutuzov-Rumyantsev, the Soviet counter attacks just after Kursk. There are 4 longer and larger scenarios that cover entire Army Group sections of the Front and last as long as 37 turns. These are four of the major Soviet offensives during the war, including those that took back the Caucasus and the Ukraine, and forced Rumania and Hungary to capitulate.

In the original War in the East game, unless you're willing to play a full front campaign game, you'd never have a chance to experience the Red Army on the attack or the Axis forces on the defense. DttD give players that chance within more manageable scenarios. In addition to the scenarios, the game comes with an extensive historical and scenario notes manual that we think will enhance the players enjoyment of the scenarios.

WG: Do you think some of the scenarios will help new, less experienced players, approach the game?

JB:Absolutely. WitE can be a very overwhelming game. Players are often driven to jump into the long campaign without any idea of what to do. For some that works fine, but for others it's much too overwhelming. The original game came with some smaller scenarios, especially the Road to scenarios that focused on the different parts of the initial German attack in 1941. However, even most of these can leave people wondering where to start (or where to go after playing the tutorial scenario and the very short Road to Minsk scenario). DttD has several small, interesting battles, and they are spread out from 1942 to 1944. This allows players to learn more of the system while enjoying different parts of the war. Many have said that pushing pieces around in WitE is fairly easy to do, but there are many layers to the games complexity. By starting with several smaller scenarios a player can focus on and practice a particular aspect of the game, like the impact of leaders on battles, or the use of reserve mode to counter enemy attacks. They can then advance to the medium sized, but still short battles like Operation Kutuzov-Rumyantsev.

The early German operations can require a lot of finesse, so it may be better for some players to start out with a later war Soviet operation where the situation may be more forgiving. The longer scenarios give players a chance to see what things are like in the later war period. This can be invaluable for players that want to play a long campaign but don't want to be a total novice when the campaign reaches 1943 and beyond. These scenarios are nowhere near the size of a full campaign, making them much more playable. However, they are large enough to provide a fun game experience and insight on the later operations.

WG: Featuring very complex operations such as the German retreat from Leningrad and the Soviet offensive in Ukraine means a very diverse approach to game play: how do you approach it when designing the scenarios?

JB: I can't speak for the scenario authors, John Duquette and Trey Marshall, but in general they start with getting good sources and information on the dispositions and Order of Battle for the opposing forces. In some cases they can take advantage of work done on other scenarios with the same start dates, but in the majority of the scenarios a lot of work goes into getting that basic information right (or as close as possible). Since the WitE system is flexible, this should be enough to get things in decent shape. Balance and victory conditions come later, although initial victory objectives and production resources available to the players are set up.

The first step in development is some initial testing to catch any obvious problems. We then let the AI play and see how things look. In some cases the AI play shows obvious issues with the scenarios as they have been set up, and in some cases the AI needs some additional work to deal with the complexities of the scenario. As much as possible, the generic AI was improved in such a way as to play better in all small scenarios. For example, in one of the scenarios where the line runs east-west instead of north-south, the AI was found to be very confused. It wanted to have a line that ran to the north edge of the map, even though this was not necessary. This required a general change, which allowed the AI to perform better in the scenario, and any future scenario with a similar situation. Along the way, the AI objectives are refined, and the initial AI script is created. The first turn script happens after someone (either the scenario designer or a tester) has enough experience with the scenario to determine what a good first turn should look like.

While the AI was being improved, testers were playing the scenarios either against the AI or against other testers. There were several early games between people on the development team, including Trey, Erik Rutins, Pavel Zagzin and myself. Many of these games only got a few turns in before changes were deemed necessary or other demands ended the games. But these early test games helped us see how to improve the scenarios. Often this was through changes in production resources available to the players (both in starting pools and ongoing production), and/or changes in the victory conditions. Changes were ongoing for several months. In a few cases, as additional testers played the scenarios, changes were made to counter particularly strong, but unrealistic, opening moves. With any game or game system there are limitations and compromises that one must deal with. Scenario design is an art and its always interesting to see how scenario designers deal with these limitations to provide the desired flow for their scenarios.

WG: It's the first time 2by3 develops and releases an add-on for one of its games. Why did you feel it was important to do it?

JB: There were several reasons. First, we believe WitE is more than just the long campaign game. The game system is versatile and can provide a great experience for players that don't have the time to invest in a campaign (or are looking for a short game between campaigns). The shorter scenarios are a great way to learn the game. The medium and longer scenarios that involve Army Group operations allow the fun of the game system to come through while resolving within a reasonable amount of time (even when playing against a human opponent).

Second, John was just wrapping up the complete game editor manual (which will be released this month), and we wanted a way to showcase the Editor. John was interested in creating several scenarios using what he had learned about the Editor, and Trey had been working on several larger scenarios on and off over the past year. With John and Trey leading the way, we hope it will encourage others in the WitE community to use the editor to create more scenarios in the future.

Third, since Trey had been working on several late war scenarios, we decided it would give us, and WitE players, an opportunity to get a good look at the later war period. By looking at the historical situation in smaller pieces, we could see some of the things that we had missed in the original game, such as the generally smaller size of Soviet Armies, especially their Tank Armies. It also gave us a way to further improve the AI. We used the scenarios to improve the later war AI, as well as the ability of the AI to deal with smaller scenarios in general. We thought this would not only benefit current WitE players, but would also yield benefits in our future games that will utilize the WitE system.

WG: You are about to release the sixth major update to Gary Grigsby's War in the East over a year after its release: how much do you think it is important to update the past products?

JB: With any complex game it is important to release updates, especially early after release. Even in a stable and playable game there are bound to be bugs that are discovered after release. There are also improvements to be made in the data behind the game. We are lucky to have some very knowledgeable gamers playing our games. The people that develop the historical data, Jim Wirth, Trey and several of the testers, are very willing to listen to the community and improve things where possible. In the case of War in the East, this improvement can also benefit future games were working on that will share much of the same data and game system. Another factor is that with this kind of monster game, there is no way that the game can be totally tested and fully developed prior to release. When one realizes that only recently, 14 months after release, we had the first completed head-to-head AAR of a WitE game, it becomes clear that there has to be some continued development after release. We have a history of adding new testers after release from each games public user base, gaining fresh insights into the game. WitE was no exception. Were proud of 2by3 Game's history of supporting our products after release. It's a balancing act, because at some point we have to move our focus to the next project. There are also those in the community that want us to stop development and let the players play without having to think about whether a new patch will change things in their existing games. Were sensitive to that thinking as well. We think Don to the Danube was a useful tool in helping us with some additional WitE development that all WitE players can benefit from immediately. It can also provide WitE players some additional enjoyment as we turn our focus to War in the West. Down the road, we hope that what we learn from, and accomplish in, War in the West will help us build an even better War in the East 2.0 someday.