Advanced European Theater of Operations - East African Theater of Operations (AOI)

East African Theater of Operations (AOI)

In 2004, Eric Harvey conceptualized a full expansion game for Advanced ETO known as Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa) that encompassed the lesser-known East African Theater during World War 2. Mr. Harvey had stated that AOI was initially envisaged as a pet project, and then as a convenient medium to incorporate all of AETO’s errata. From that, the concept eventually expanded to also include the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and even an entire Spanish Civil War expansion for AETO. Both scenarios would thus be incorporated into the overall AETO campaign game, allowing ambitious players to recreate the entirety of the Second World War in the Euro-African hemisphere from 1935 to 1945.

AOI was designed to include an additional 22”x34” expansion map of East Africa and the Middle East (from where the AETO East map edge ends) to include all of Egypt, East Africa, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and even Eastern Iran.) In fact, the map’s expanded geography was apparently designed to entail tangible strategic significance within the context of an AETO campaign game, because it featured, for example, the Iranian oilfields, the Sahara Desert and its encompassment of the Qattara Depression, and the Western Indian Ocean as hexed sea areas (a potential chokepoint for Allied naval units en route to and from the Suez Canal.) AOI was also designed to include 480 additional game pieces, half of which are said to be all new supplemental combat units specifically for AETO (i.e., not specific to the East African Theater of Operations, per se.) The units inherent to the East African Theater include a complete Ethiopian Order-of-Battle, as well as additional Commonwealth and Italian units that historically remained stationed outside of the European Theater (i.e., those units that do not appear on the AETO Orders-of-Battle.) Overall, AOI...when incorporated into an AETO campaign game...is not reported to impact grand strategy significantly (according to public playtest postings.) Moreover, there is no apparent consensus that the inclusion of AOI is a particular advantage to the Allies or the Axis, although some speculations imply that the Axis are slightly advantaged initially, while the Allies are noticeably advantaged later.