I've been playing War in the East a little at a time, and thinking about system/game mastery.
War in the East not only rewards system/game mastery, it demands it. You need to coordinate multi-level headquarters structures in order to maintain supply. You need to place those along rail lines (and convert the gauge of those lines), find appropriate places to put them to convey supplies up to the front line units, and safeguard them against enemy troops. You can't just assume a specific distance - if weather, terrain, or conditions lower the effective range of the HQ, you can be out of supply. And not just a HQ, but that unit's specific HQ (as far as I can tell.)
That assumes they have supplies - cities have supply dumps. Trucks and trains can bring them up - but are subject to attrition (wear and tear, as well as partisans and air attacks). You need to insure that there is fuel, general "supplies," and ammunition.
Mess any of that up, and your razor-sharp spear tip of armor and motorized infantry divisions will run out of fuel, or ammo, and be stuck when they could be rolling forward. Push a little too hard this turn and you can suffer immensely.
To do all of this well takes a close reading of the rules, and lots of practice. Even with that practice, it's easy to mess it up.
It is what people who don't actually know much about GURPS think GURPS is like.
For a massive video game that models the Eastern front down to the man and the individual vehicle, including esoterica such as local labor recruitment, administrative costs of firing commanders and moving units to another HQ, and so on . . . this feels right. I'm fine with this.
But I do get why some people prefer games with rules light enough to not really need to bother. I don't mind - in fact I generally prefer - a medium-weight system for tabletop gaming.
I really don't want to dig into too much minutia. I'd like to be able to if I have to, but mostly, I want some easy but consistent answers and rules with verisimilitude.
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