Totaler Krieg!
The Evolution of a Game

by Alan Emrich
with additional comments by Steve "Kos" Kosakowski and Salvatore "Sal" Vasta

Yes, we knew the way to San Jose. It was there, at Origins '94, that I, Alan Emrich (your humble narrator), happened by the Decision Games booth where, on a side table, I saw it. The unmistakable look of the hand drawn map of Europe and, upon closer inspection, the NATO symbols showing corps and armies of infantry and armor, told me I would like this game. There were plenty of Germans, so it was a WW2 game, clearly of the Third Reich, World in Flames, ETO scale. "What's the gimmick with this new design?," I asked myself, and so interjected that very question, interrupting the game being played at the Decision Games' booth by the intrepid designer doing his first important public showing, Steve "Kos" Kosakowski, and Decision Games' David McElhannon. Steve's fated-to-be-long-suffering wife, Kate, was there, too, looking on in chagrin at the circus atmosphere around her.

Since Christopher Cummins is an old friend, and Kos turned out to be both personable and knowledgeable, I was soon caught up in their description of Krieg! It was just as they summed it up ("Hitler's War for giants, or Europa for munchkins -- take your pick"), pretty much an extended version of The Russian Campaign, perhaps my all time favorite board wargame. The single map game brought the scale down a bit, hence the sprinkling of army counters for the Axis and front-size units for the Russians, but that was so that it could accommodate the rest of Europe. The game consisted of a single scenario, beginning with the Axis invasion of Russia in June, 1941.

That was enough for me. I told Chris that if Decision Games wasn't interested, let me take Kos over to the GPG (now One Small Step) booth where I was sure he'd find a publisher. This comment made a believer out of Kate, too. In her eyes, Kos went from lovable game tinkerer to a potentially world famous game designer. (Not that she could name even one other "world famous" game designer -- but then, how many people can?) If she knew where this would all lead, what would she have counseled her husband on that fateful July day?

By the end of the convention, Chris and Kos had an agreement to publish Krieg! and I volunteered (yes, as in working for free!) to develop the game. I liked the designer and the game, I knew the publisher, and I saw a lot of potential in a collaborative effort. I knew that if I could stay motivated about this project, the end result could be sublime. Thanks to all parties, including Callie Cummins and Beth Queman on graphics, and every single playtester I met, our excitement for this project remained high and our enthusiasm never waned. Looking back over it, that's what really made this game possible -- so many people believing in it, the designer, and myself (especially our wives!).

The First Playtest Copy

A year went by while Steve did some further polishing of his design, and I did not see hide nor hair of Krieg! Not long after Origins '95, a FedEx package arrived. Christmas came early for me, as it was my first playtest copy of Krieg! -- exactly what I'd been hoping for. The rules were fairly short, with novel concepts in stacking and unit organization that remained an integral part of the design from start to finish. The abstract Air Support markers were there, although their effects evolved considerably during development. The one map had cut off most of Scandinavia, Ireland was gone, but the rest looked pretty enticing. There were no cards -- the monthly turns (beginning in June '41, remember) had fixed replacements/reinforcements printed right on it. The Combat Results Table was of the bland, # / # (attacker's losses/defender's losses) variety. "Okay," I thought, "time to dive in and see what kind of animal we've got here...."

After a couple of playings and a thorough study of the rules, the moment came when I could really start to pick the designer's brain. "Kos," I asked him over the phone, "what are you trying to achieve here? What's your design's philosophical goal?" What he wanted was an interesting, decision-packed, strategic level WW2 game. The goal was to keep it as simple as possible, keeping everything playable and, hopefully, moving briskly.

I learned that, as a game designer, Kos likes novel mechanics, but only if they're clean and simple. "Over engineered" is a dirty word to Kos (and myself) so, during the long months of playtesting and development, many an interesting game mechanic fell by the wayside once we judged it worthy of the label, "over engineered." If the concept behind the mechanic was good, it was either simplified or sacrificed on the altar of playability. We tried adding, for example, a Reaction Movement Phase that opponents conducted during your turn. It was cool, it effectively simulated reserve commitment, but it slowed the game. With some tweaking of the Headquarters rules, the sequence of play, and Combat Results Table, we achieved a faster playing game with plenty of great "feel" for the ebb and flow of strategic level combat -- all combining to form something far more interesting, subtle, and elegant (not to mention faster!) than a distinct Reaction Movement Phase.

Some ideas not included in Krieg!, however, were too good to lose completely, so they were set aside for potential optional rules. We vowed to ourselves that we'd get back to them. These interesting, chrome-and-polish-filled ideas were carefully archived and we constantly referenced them during development to see if the game had evolved to the point where they had a place back in the basic design. Some made it in (like a defensive shift for forts, the defenders' option to take step losses in lieu of retreating from city hexes, and no exploitation when advancing after combat across mountain or sea hexsides), others, it turns out, were destined for inclusion in Totaler Krieg!.

Altering the Big Picture

Krieg! was "finished" and "ready for publication" three times. The first time was after a quick spit-and-polish job was done on the initially submitted game design. After that, the game looked okay for what it was, but I kept looking at Krieg! for what it could be -- what I wanted it to be. But how you do you get others interested in such a vision (or "delusion of grandeur," as some would call it)?

Developing a game is, to me, like building a pyramid. The first thing one must define are the base parameters. In other words, what should be included, and what should be excluded. In the case of Krieg!, I played the "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" game with Kos early on to find out what he saw as the game's potential. "Wouldn't it be cool if the game started in 1939?" "Wouldn't it be cool if production and diplomacy weren't fixed?" The answers were "yes" and "yes," but each would require more components in the box and extend the development period. Kos and I soon shared a vision for a larger parameter from which to build up this game anew, but what would Decision Games have to say about our ideas of a larger product?

For those in the wargaming hobby who are up on their inside baseball, Decision Games reputation among designers, developers, editors, and the like has been, well, to put it tactfully, less than sterling. They built their business (and managed to survive when others were closing up) by watching their nickels and being more hard-nosed and businesslike (although I've also heard the terms "stubborn" and "willfully stupid" used as substitute adjectives here) than many of the other companies we buy our games from. In any case, our expectations were low that Decision Games would let us pump up Krieg! into what we imagined it could be. And, boy, were we glad to be so wrong!

Christopher Cummins buoyed our confidence in Decision Games (and this game project in particular) by backing us up, without reservation, every step of the way. He knew that if he gave us what we needed, we'd deliver the goods. Suddenly, we had two maps, 420 counters, 108 cards, plus a longer rules book (32 instead of 24 pages), more player-aid components and, pretty much, all the development time it took "to get it right," which turned out to be almost a year. (To keep all of this in a realistic framework, Kos wasn't paid by the hour and I worked for, literally, copies of the finished game; we all knew that we wouldn't be breaking DG's budget here, and every component we added would just add more to the game's retail price -- which ended up at $44.)

Let me state for the record that, right down the line, Decision Games adopted a "Wilco, can do!" attitude toward this project and only kept encouraging us to "keep at it" and "do it right." We were consulted about and provided our input to every aspect of the graphics work (God bless Beth Queman, who was a pleasure to work with), the game box design (thanks, Callie!), and wrote all of the support materials (like these articles) ourselves -- all elements beyond the game itself that Kos and I consider an important part of "getting it right." Without the full cooperation and encouragement from the team at DG, Krieg! would have been far less than it is. It wasn't just the designer, developer, and playtesters staying committed and delivering the goods with Krieg!; you've got to thank Decision Games for their efforts and commitment, too.

Out With The Old, In With The New

With the base of the pyramid now defined by the assenting words from Christopher Cummins, Kos knocked out draft after draft of the game. First came the enlarged map (the original map is pictured here; you can click on it to see it in a larger size). Next came more counters (mostly neutrals from the 1939-41 war years). Then we went back to playtesting. Unfortunately, I was so repulsed by the victory conditions that I begged Kos to find something more exciting. Not accepting the old "we can plug that in at the last second" excuse, I pulled a Kruschev and pounded my shoe on the table (I can just imagine what Kos thought when he heard that on the other end of the phone...), demanding improved victory conditions. I wanted something with more immediate gratification, something that made player's think in terms of campaigns, something that denoted the Axis High Water Mark to help define their relative player victory in the light of probable defeat -- and I wanted it now!

Typical Kos -- on the next phone call he indicated which hexes contained the victory objective cities ("strategic hexes"), who they belonged to, and how the new victory conditions worked. With a bit of playtesting and polish to refine them, the victory conditions would show the ebb and flow of the Allied Crusade and the Axis Tide, each with important political and economic ramifications (in addition to determining who was winning the game and to what degree!). Obviously, Kos was up to any game design challenge I could throw at him -- a opinion I maintained while repeatedly putting it to the test, much to the betterment of Krieg!

The fixed reinforcement schedule was still there, and I kept urging Kos that it was too restrictive for a truly flexible game, and that some kind of economic model was needed. Not being a fan of counting up production points and spending them to build units, Kos challenged me to find something that he could endorse (low on tedium, high on player interest).

By the next phone call, I pitched several ideas, all of which turned Kos off, but together we came up with the concept of adding cards to handle the production (and, later, the diplomacy). It was an inspiration, and this huge aspect of the game quickly fell into place. The first draft set of playtest cards landed in my mailbox within a week and I could see cool written all over them. Thank goodness Kos managed a Kinko's store; all the playtest components were first rate quality, making them much more compelling to play with. In return, I sent Kos a monster file with a zillion ideas, all properly formatted, for more new cards.

The cards continued to evolve throughout development (the first set was rife with all-too-generic card types), although the changes became ever more subtle once we shook out the really weird cards (i.e., the ones Kos came up with -- hehehe; one, dubbed Musollini's Empire, was a real hoot, but unrealistic beyond belief. Still, Kos loved it, and it took about four months of constant chiding about it before Kos relented and cut it from the deck.) [Alan, of course, provided several loopy ideas, too. I mean, the SS Irish Foreign Legion? Please....]

The tricky aspects for developing the cards were: not to have any "perfect plans" in them; not to allow the best US cards to be played first (thus were the US Commitment Level values created, which worked on a myriad of game design levels); to give the Axis some interesting Total War options that varied a bit from history; and to give the Russians plenty of diverse Limited War options so that it would be a fun position to play, even if the shooting with Germany didn't start in earnest for some time. I think we overcame all of those rather challenging obstacles pretty well (and so, it seems, do the reviewers).

Although Kos moved four times and my wife, Petra, had a baby (whom she and I named Avalon Candice Emrich) during the many months we spent developing Krieg!, we each still managed to average, probably, 15-20 hours per week on it. It was the evolving and ever more intriguing nature of the game itself, combined with the continued support we got from DG, that maintained our enthusiasm in this project (much to our family's chagrin -- my wife even commented that I spent more time talking to Kos than her! "But we're in crunch mode with the game right now, honey!").

New Systems

The naval war was hardly simulated early on. Countries received NTPs (Naval Transport Points) and spent them to shuffle troops around. Several variations on the NTP theme were tried, all of which lacked any pizzazz whatsoever. The Convoy Markers and their different modes (troop and supply) was a true flash of brilliance on Kos' part. It was just the foundation the naval system needed, and building upon it was like a dream.

Another bolt of lightning must have shot through Kos' brain with the delay box. Originally conceived as a major penalty for removing armies once placed on the board, those consequences were toned down a bit, which worked well with the new Turn Record Track (there were simply too many turns to play at twelve per year). By receiving some newly entered units via the delay box, as well as slowing down the reappearance of important units back into the game, a device was created that simulated everything from production and training difficulties to sheer organizational problems. Once the Delay Box concept found light, Krieg! really began to be the game that was finally released. It was a seminal event. The game was, for the second time "finished" and "ready to go" when the Delay Box was born. Once again, with this breakthrough, Krieg! underwent another major series of evolutionary steps.

The lack of a tangible strategic air and naval warfare element made Kos a bit nervous. While he wanted players to feel like they were addressing these elements, nothing seemed to work within the elegant framework of the land game that was evolving. It was at this time that Air Support units began to double as beachheads, control sea zones, and provide convoy support missions. This put considerable spunk into the naval war, but what about strategic bombing?

The historical Western Allied bombing campaign of Germany is factored into the cards already. Basically, the Axis have a limited number of good Total War cards and what's left is all they can muster in light of Allied bombing, represented by the US Commitment Level numbers (which also works against the Axis delay die rolls and in favor of the Western Allies', further representing strategic warfare). If the West wants to step up their bombing efforts a bit, they have an Option Card that allows them to do so. But now let's briefly consider another "strategic air campaign," The Battle of Britain....

It is sometime during the Summer of 1940 and France has fallen. Do you know what happens if the Axis can place an Air Support unit in the North Sea? Bring on the beachheads and crank up Operation Sealion! Thus, without players requiring bomber markers, per se, most of the aerial campaigns concerning the support of land and naval forces, such as The Battle of Britain or the air war over Malta, can be simulated very well within the clean abstraction of the current air system in Krieg!.

It was this need for more strategic warfare variations that got me thinking about the delay die rolls, and the light bulb went on. What if their effect was to increase/decrease player's delay die rolls? Kos and I considered the dramatic effects of adding to, or subtracting from, delay die rolls, and that worked perfectly for simulating variations in strategic warfare and 'the big mo' (momentum). The tempo in which Air Support markers, in particular, return to the game is what determines how much juice a player can muster when and where he needs it. The myriad of things that can modify a player's delay die rolls seems like a lot to remember, but most of the modifiers are symbolized by markers in the nearby Strategic Warfare portion of the map. We found, too, that these die roll modifiers were so vital to each player's war effort that they seldom failed to pay close enough attention to them. Thus, these delay die rolls, modified by strategic warfare considerations (including the US Commitment Level), worked out very cleanly, simply, and well.

Other Points of Development

The Political Events Tables changed and evolved right up to the end. At one point in the game's design, it seemed that by the Christmas of 1940 there were no neutrals left on the map; they were all in the war. Oops! On the other extreme, these tables existed for a while in such a way that neutrals which entered the war were way too predictable (even if not as fast as before). That was no good, too. (France even started as a neutral country for quite some time!) After much playtesting and balancing, the historical feel has worked its way into the tables and, no matter what random events beset our playtesters, they were all easily rationalized from a historical perspective and no one had trouble keeping their disbelief suspended. Hurrah! That's just what we were aiming for, but Kos had to adjust the sites several times before he squarely hit the bull's eye on the Political Tables.

Right up to the end, the Soviet border wars were a nightmare. Setting up the minors, fighting out the war unit by unit, and then putting the pieces back in the box ("war's over; they're neutral again") took too long and neither looked nor felt right. I devised (and Kos revised) the Soviet Border War Table that we have today. It now takes only seconds to resolve a Soviet Border Dispute, and it works like a charm.

Even the Combat Results Table remained a problem right up to the end. Finally, we came up with a CRT that split the retreat result from the attrition, resulting in a "blitzier Krieg!," to quote Kos. It also allowed us to create three tiers of odds, each to achieve a different purpose: high odds for casualties and (if the attacker had armor) breakthroughs; middle odds for jostling the pieces around and conducting low intensity operations with a minimum of attrition on both sides (i.e., the North Africa campaign, or the border war between Italy and Greece); and low odds for soaking off and disengaging friendly units from enemy Zones of Control prior to the Reserve Movement Phase.

Weather effects evolved along with the other aspects of the game. Mud and snow have always occurred on fixed turns (Kos and I both loath that "make-or-break weather die roll" aspect of games like The Russian Campaign), but restricting movement out of EZOCs, the placement/effects of Air Support units, and the reduction of combat results, worked out very smoothly as the land game continued to evolved bit by bit.

What really clicked was tying the attacker's armor shifts to the Blitz Combat Segment. Prior to that, we tried it where the attacker always received the armor shift (too much of a constant benefit for the attacker), then never received it (but the attacker needed this shift at least some of the time). Like Goldilock's porridge, now it's "just right." You always need armor to exploit after combat, but during that Blitz Combat Segment, it's good for an odds shift, too. Perfect for opening up the lines before the Regular Combat Segment!

The combat system as a whole stayed a principle focus throughout the evolution of Krieg! One of the last great philosophical debates we had concerned Headquarters and their "no retreat" effect. When did a Headquarters cease to be a Headquarters? Can a 3-step HQ lose all three of those steps, or does it cease to be an HQ after it loses two steps (and is, therefore, technically replaced by a 1-step infantry unit)? Such subtlety. Such nuance. But, oh, so critical when holding a key hex!

The weirdest bit of the game concerns Truce Markers. Sure the Nazi-Soviet Pact makes sense. Players had no problems accepting its mirror image, Appeasement, either. This way the Germans can either go East or go West to get the war rolling and know that, during the guns-or-butter days of Limited War, they can avoid a two-front struggle. So far, so good.

It's when an Armistice (and its reduced side, Negotiation) appeared that players often stopped and did a reality check. The solitary rule behind these markers (e.g., no entering each other's ZOCs) is as simple as can be, and the placement and removal of these Truce markers is always an easily understood and accomplished, yet nervously watched, decision. The Axis and Soviets, in particular, have cards that allow them to buy some peace with these markers, but never for too long if your opponent would still rather fight.

The Separate Peace victory conditions are just plain wild. One of history's greatest "what ifs" asks what would have happened if either the Soviets or Western Allies had cut a separate peace deal with the Axis, leaving the other Allied faction hanging out to dry. Well, if one Allied faction is doing much better than the other, now it can happen. It's rough on the Germans, I think, but does make for an interesting end game, particularly when there are three players at the table so the Axis and losing Allied player can gang up on the winning Allied faction (oh, does the Middle East get interesting then!).

From Krieg! to Totaler Krieg!

Even as Krieg! was being packed off for the presses back in 1996, Totaler Krieg! began to take shape. As great lovers of "director's cut" films, Kos and I both archived all the material that we could not fit into the Krieg! rules booklet for possible future use. Naturally, right after the counters were printed, we figured out that it would be easy to convert some of the generic Air Support units in Krieg! into some slightly less generic Fleet units. In fact, it was that simple idea, adding fleets to the game, that really spawned what became Totaler Krieg!

While we considered what to do with our unpublished ideas for Krieg!, player feedback began to arrive. While it was generally quite positive, some of the obvious shortcomings were soon placed before us. The rules weren't as well organized as people required (I noted that they were particularly weak in cross-references). We were deluged with demands for a rules index, and there were many rules questions that we had to answer (mostly of a clarifying nature, meaning more examples should have been provided). Besides the rules, the single scenario (the basic campaign game) included in Krieg! was simply not enough. A variety of scenarios was needed to support the game, and Kos quickly developed those -- including tournament scenarios. All of these issues were very deliberately addressed in the Rules and Reference Booklets in Totaler Krieg!.

Shortly before Krieg!'s publication at Origins '96 (circa July 4th), Alan launched the Krieg! web site and Krieg! players the world over have referenced it. Concurrently, the ConSimWorld discussion boards began to rumble about Krieg!, and it has proven to be one of the most message-generating topics there.

When we broached the subject of publishing supplemental material for Krieg! to Decision Games, it was made clear to us that the articles appearing on our web site would do well in MOVES magazine, and a small Expansion Kit could be arranged, but anything more than that was not likely to be published for some time. Kos and Alan kept working on building up and maintaining the web site while concurrently tossing ideas back-and-forth for an Expansion Kit. Even as the articles were published in two different issues MOVES magazine (pictured here, numbers 88 and 93), the ideas for an Expansion Kit kept evolving until "keeping it small" was no longer feasible. With Decision's blessing and a ship date of "six months after Krieg! sells out," a second edition of Krieg! became the new scope of this project. Not a redesign, as such, but an incorporation into a new edition of the many little things that we wanted to get right if given another chance.

After about nine months, though, around the Spring of 1997, Kos abandoned the Totaler Krieg! project and turned it all over to Alan. For about a year, Alan soldiered on as both designer and developer for Totaler Krieg! until, finally, one playtester rose through the ranks with his eagle eye, innovative suggestions, and great ability to serve as a thoughtful sounding board (but most especially for his insane, Emrich-like dedication to this project). That was when Salvatore "Sal" Vasta, one of the world's least lucky die rollers, became a developer on Totaler Krieg! and when Alan was able to shift more toward the design end of the project with Sal focusing on development. Finally, Totaler Krieg! was a duet again with a strong chorus of backup playtesters and Kos, the great sage, available high on a mountaintop in Colorado whenever we need needed his words of wisdom.

Things You'll Never See

Early on, Alan adopted a wide open approach to development and playtesting of Totaler Krieg!. The first thing he did was to share everything with everyone who was interested via the Krieg! web site. There, players who owned a copy of Krieg! could download a playtest kit complete with print-and-play cards, rules, etc. They'd need to tweak their map a bit and play with a few hand-drawn counters, but if they were willing to make that sacrifice, they could play (and playtest) the second edition of Krieg!. It turned out to be a very successful way to get playtest feedback and novel player ideas incorporated into the finished game.

We fiddled with a lot of things during playtesting that never made it into the finished version of Totaler Krieg!. The most controversial idea was Kos' suggestion to have a Wansee Conference Option card in the Axis player's hand that he invariably had to play before his Total War economy would kick into full speed. Although lauded by some, this designer concept of being reminded that the Axis player gets everything the Nazis were about was not generally well received. (You might say the play testers ran it out on a rail....)

The most desired rule that never made it was Leaders. These fine fellows included the likes of Zhukov, Rommel, Kleist, Patton, Monty, etc. and were represented by about nine counters and as many cards (the latter bearing their pictures and listing their abilities). We had brilliant rules for the evolution of the German officer corps (with each pass through the Delay Box, you rolled for a German Leader; if the die roll was less than or equal to the Axis Tide, Hitler fires that Leader and he flips to his "late war" Leader side -- when that new Leader is fired, the counter is removed from the game). Unfortunately, we could never get their abilities to work right. We tried giving them ranges of talents from minimal to miraculous with everything in-between, and the results were always unsatisfactory. Leaders were either pointless or stole the focus of the game away from being a simple panzer pusher. Man, we tried everything, but we could never get it work "just right." Alan, Sal, and all of the playtesters loved the idea of Leaders and really wanted them to function properly. In the end, though, the Leaders never did work out and so, with a heavy heart, Alan finally made the decision to cut them for good.

Map Alterations

Since everything could be considered for changes when making a second edition of a game, Kos and Alan put the map under the harsh light of further scrutiny and made some changes. One of the most important were moving Gibraltar back onto the Continent. Kos commented that the political posture of Spain should be the key to holding Gibraltar, not it’s inherent defensive strength. This also allowed the special Gibraltar stacking rule in Krieg! to disappear, too. And because the Iberian gambit in the original Krieg! game was so attractive (with two Wallied Strategic Hexes out there in Lisbon and Gibraltar), that was toned down by removing Gibraltar’s green hex status and moving that Wallied objective to Teheran (and eliminating the Soviet Strategic Hex there).

Leningrad was another bit of geography that didn’t work quite satisfactorily in Krieg!. Because it was adjacent to three land hexes to the south and east, it was too vulnerable to a massed attack. By extending Lake Ladoga a bit so that Leningrad was no longer connected by land to the hex east of it, the city became a little easier for the Axis to siege and a little harder for them to capture. Viola, "instant history."

Kos and Alan also added a port city in Scotland and several crossing arrows in the Mediterranean. After Kos left the project and Sal moved in, the three mountain hexsides in Norway between Stavanger and Narvik were removed (they made it way too hard for the Axis to march up Norway in the face of even the tiniest Allied opposition) and the rail and road network were overhauled to conform a little better to their historical locations. Near the end of the project, reference locations (towns, river names, etc.) were added just to class the map up a bit.

Expanding the Options

The new Option cards evolved with the Axis first. After all, the story told in Krieg! and Totaler Krieg! is a German-centric one - an epic tale of a Great Power vying for continental domination with one hand tied behind its back. The two most natural cards to emerge were the Kriegsmarine Z-plan and the Ural Bomber cards. After all, these are just alternatives to the already existing Type XXI U-boats and Jet Fighters that utilized our new Support Unit ideas for Fleets and Heavy Bombers.

The "big" card for the Axis was the SS Europa card, the evil opposite of the Festung Europa card. It was designed for the flip side of the possible German mindset when the turning point of the war is reached. That is, instead of adopting a siege mentality and making the Allies come get you (Festung Europa), the Axis player can adopt a gung-ho mindset and go for broke trying to win the game (SS Europa). While SS Europa provides a lot of offensive toys for the Germans to play with, it can be rough on the Axis to have to keep pressing the attack throughout 1943 and into 1944, but attack they must. The end-game of an SS Europa scenario is usually worth the price of admission for all three Factions. Don’t quit whether the Axis succeed in collapsing Britain or the Soviet Union or try and fail to; play it out. It is fascinating to see if the Axis can hold on to at least Axis Tide 1 by the end of the game. It can be very close, because the Axis will generally have enough offensive firepower to keep counterattacking at every opportunity right up through the very last turn!

The other "big opposite" card for the Axis is Lebensraum, the "low key" approach to Barbarossa. Generally, this card was designed around a much more developed "East First" campaign (where the Axis attack the Soviet Union first and leave Appeasement up to cover their backs in the West). Like every other Option card, it has its strengths (more steps, if played during a Summer Season, it keeps Limited War going, and can place a Soviet Objective Marker in Kharkov) and weaknesses (delayed reinforcements and replacements, no activating potential Axis minor allies). It’s most glaring weakness, though, is what card will the Axis use to start Total War and when will they play it? (There’s no easy, pat answer to that one when Barbarossa is no longer in the Axis card hand!)

Also designed around an East First campaign were the Siegfreid Line (Rhine fortification) and Guns & Butter cards. For a Separate Peace Scenario, we adding one last German offensive: Gotterdammerung. Rounding out the new Axis cards are some Random Campaign Game alternates: Limited War Production, Secret Mobilization, and Pre-War Diplomacy.

Order of Battle Changes

Coming up with the extra pieces for Italy with the Mare Nostrum card, France with the Pour la Guerre card, and the Germans with their SS Europa card were all pretty natural extensions of what already existed in the game. If you play one of these high risk cards, they need to be offset by rewarding the player with some cool toys. Even the forces for the Random Campaign Game countries like the Ukraine or Austria-Hungary were more fun than frustrating to come up with. Kos left a pretty clear path to follow for a small country’s Order of Battle (OOB) and he personally revamped the Vichy OOB.

One of the trickiest things in the evolution from Krieg! to Totaler Krieg! was hammering away at the Soviet Order of Battle. Quite simply, the Soviets were too strong too fast in the original Krieg! and we needed to reexamine this along with the Soviet Limited War Option cards. A few simple adjustments were made that put a much better "feel" into the Soviet early war position. Their starting and replacement steps have been reduced, but every step reduced is handed back to the Soviet player after Barbarossa. Soviet Limited War HQ units have been tied to fighting Border Wars, so now engaging Finland and Rumania become more imperative options for the Soviet player. Also, the Stalin Challenges Germany card needed some tweaking and it got it. The probabilities and results on that are now "just right."

Several other tweaks happened to the Soviets forces, too. The Soviets receive worse infantry units at the start of the war, more Guards infantry corps toward the end. One of their Air Support units is now an Interceptor, but a card has been added to give the Soviets an additional Air Support unit if they want to forgo a large dollop of ground unit steps.

Chrome

As much as we tried to make what little chrome there was in Krieg! optional, a bit more was added to the basic rules of Totaler Krieg!. The Fleet and Bomber support units added a few new wrinkles in the rules. Some new Option Cards have added more Table results that must be looked up when the results shake out. We even added a tiny overrun rule.

Where most of the chrome can be found, thankfully, is in the Optional and House rules sections. Whenever anyone had a good idea, we developed it and found a home for it in these "choose to use" rules sections. Tried as we might, we couldn’t make an Optional Leaders rule work, but we did manage to get in some of our favorites including using Luck Markers, "chrome" rules for Fleets and Bombers, using Option Supplement cards, more US Options, and so forth. We were even lucky that, after Beth Queman laid out the rules, there was some open space for us to fill, so we plugged in many of the House Rules we were saving up to put on the Web Site. These include different ways to work the Delay Box mechanism, a nice bit on the Suez Canal, some interesting ideas concerning Lend-Lease, multiple strategic options, and several special unit rules.

Something tells us, though, that players will continue to contribute their ideas for some time to come. Here’s a prediction: the Random Campaign Game will become something of a "cult" aspect of the product and spin off its own support team.

Totaler Krieg!: The Publishing Process

Originally, Totaler Krieg! was conceived as a tiny little expansion kit for Krieg!. Obviously, it grew as every single component was improved. Fortunately for everyone, Christopher Cummins and Decision Games were 100% supportive of our endeavor. He asked the right questions and got Alan Emrich to explain the benefits versus costs of each new facet of the game, and the result is Totaler Krieg!. Like us, Chris believed in this project and we both agreed that it would be a Decision Games "flagship product" if we did it right.

Beth Queman, who did the rules layout and all the player aid sheets, plus the counters, was a very considerate. Actually, she liked the playtest print components I made so much that she tried to work it out with Decision to use my stuff and save her the bother of laying everything out again. (Unfortunately, our software was simply not compatible.) As for the counters, Alan clucked and fussed with Beth over those to the point where he bought the software she was using and she taught him how to tweak and experiment with it so that he could try out the myriad of graphics suggestions he kept making. In the end, Alan and Beth were both happy.

Now, Joe Youst, who did the map, is a fun character. He plays these games, so you’ll see elements of gamer passion brought to the map that only Joe would do. When you look at the Volga river around Stalingrad, for example, you’ll see the islands in the water; and Joe added about a zillion little reference points and river names, etc. to give the map more historical "flavor"… stuff like that. I swear, I must have tortured him with so many corrections and last minute changes where I thought he would hate me, but Joe was delightful to work with even through a complete reprinting of the map at the last minute (due to printer errors). At the end of the day, the Totaler Krieg! map turned out to be as special to Joe as it was to me. I think players will appreciate that as they push their units across it.

Further Developments

Ask any designer, no game is ever "done." After it's published, another good idea comes along and wham!, the designer wants to make a tweak. We're fortunate that Totaler Krieg! has a dedicated web site where you can examine the 2nd edition playtest kit as well as the Pacific Theater counterpart game, Dai Senso.