Advanced European Theater of Operations - Overview

Overview

Advanced European Theater of Operations was designed by Eric Harvey in the late 1990s, and he based most of its combat mechanics’ (the rules designed to simulate combat operations during game play) on the foregoing European Theater of Operations (from whence Advanced ETO derives its name.) First published in 2002 by Decision Games (who had previously purchased the rights to ETO), AETO was praised for its impressive detail, but likewise criticized for its excessive complexity.

Advanced ETO was an ambitious attempt by designer Eric Harvey to inculcate as much accuracy and detail as possible within a two-map game of the European Theater. Indeed, AETO’s counter manifest is double that of ETO, and it includes an impressively detailed variety of units representing virtually every major and minor nation of Europe during World War 2 (approximately 90% of which are combat-representative units, and only about 10% are informational or play-aid pieces.) The AETO rules are ponderously lengthy as a result (nearly 150 pages as edited), and entail much more complexity and detail than almost every other similar game system (nearly equaling or exceeding the preceding versions of World in Flames, and subsequent World at War, despite the fact that they encompass both the European and Pacific Theaters.)

According to Mr. Harvey's comments at the consmiworld.com forums, the system expanded to such lengths based on several intentions:

• to formulate ratios of game counters and associated rules based upon historically accurate data, and not upon any preexisting limitations inherited from ETO.
• to write the rules with no lexicon or abbreviations whatsoever (using only normal English vernacular to ease understanding and comprehension).
• to write each of the game’s rules with intentionally excessive verbosity (in an attempt to minimize ambiguities and loopholes.)