Last War: West – Cold War in Europe 1945-1989 WPO & NATO

末日彩排:西方 (Last War: West) is a operational level wargame simulating a hypothetical all-out conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact occurring in 1979. Players are to command land, air and naval forces across Europe and attempting to secure the ultimate victory… by whatever means necessary.

The game aims to provide a realistic, yet smooth playing experience of the “cold war turned hot” scenario. While enveloping multiple domains: ground, air, naval, chemical and nuclear warfare… It is designed to be modular and relatively simple when compared to its size: 4 A1 maps portraying all the way from Denmark to Turkey.

The ground warfare consists mainly of maneuver units of Division/Brigade size, but players also need to manage his large arsenal of support units: HQ, artillery, SAMs and SSMs. Beyond combat factors, ground combat are heavily influenced by the amount of firepower one side could muster to support their troops, and players must plan accordingly.

The air warfare systems are streamlined in a way that is simple to play and still have its depth. Both players would form mission packages and send them into mega-hexes, it is common for a side to be able to seize local air superiority at the cost of ceding other secondary airspace. While the air combats are all resolved in the air warfare phase, ground strike mission packages would generate strike factors in its mega-hex, usable by the player at anytime during this turn for close air support or interdiction strikes.

In this game, both sides not are only allowed, but are also expected to use chemical and nuclear weapons, mirroring cold war doctrine’s heavy emphasis on such weaponry. Both sides are allowed to attempt to escalate the warfare so they gain access to more destructive warheads. The use of such weapons, on the other hand, will leave behind radiation zones, which impacts the maneuver of ground units (and are death traps for non-mechanized units), and must be taken into consideration by the players.

Still, if both sides are unwilling to back-off in the escalation, it is almost certain that the war would escalate into the final level: a strategical nuclear exchange. In this case, the game provides a strategical nuclear exchange module, almost a mini game of its own, where both players can try to “win” the nuclear exchange… and see the ultimate outcome of this truly “Last war” of human kind.