V for Victory: D-Day Utah Beach

V for Victory: D-Day Utah Beach is a turn-based strategy wargame for the Macintosh and MS-DOS developed by Atomic Games in 1991 and distributed by Three-Sixty Pacific. Its success led to three further games in the V for Victory series, and then the similar World at War series published by Avalon Hill.

The game simulates the D-Day invasion on the area surrounding Utah Beach and the greater Cotentin Peninsula area. The player takes the role of overall commander of the US forces or the German forces opposing them. The game includes six scenarios to play as either side, one of which covers the entire invasion area up to the period just prior to Operation Cobra.

V for Victory: D-Day Utah Beach is a battle simulation war game based upon the Normandy invasion of World War II. The player may participate as either an American or German commander.

There are six scenarios, the first five of which are individual battles. In the first scenario (which is also the tutorial scenario), the player leads the 9th Infantry Division in its attempt to clean out all German resistance behind American lines. In the second scenario, the 101st Airborne must take Carentan within three days. In the third scenario, the player faces an SS Panzergrenadier Division counterattack attempting to recapture Carentan. In the fourth scenario, the player assaults Cherbourg using four divisions, and in the fifth scenario the player attempts to permanently isolate Cherbourg. The sixth scenario is a total campaign game which will require hours of play to finish.

The game also allowed the player to select a number of optional adjustments that influenced the battle. This included the ability to adjust the relative air strength of the two sides, from the default overwhelming advantage that the Allies had historically, to the unlikely event that the Germans might have slight air superiority - the manual stated that the events would not have taken place had the Germans maintained any major superiority in the air. Changing these settings has a dramatic effect on the amount of supplies flowing to the two sides; under the normal settings with complete Allied superiority, the Germans are constantly starved for supplies. The game also allowed the player to select the original airborne plan, which dropped the 82nd Airborne Division much further west; this plan had been changed just before D-Day after the discovery of new German units in the area. Additional German units, historically available but not committed to the battle, could also be brought into play.

Much of the battle follows historical lines, with the US slowly expanding their beachhead in the face of German troops entrenched in the bocage. Eventually their numerical superiority becomes overwhelming and the German forces are unable to cover all the gaps in the front line facing them. The slow movements through the bocages makes breakouts and encirclements difficult. Playing the Germans is significantly easier, consisting of a series of short movements to new defensive lines as the US forces destroy the German units piecemeal.

Games are "scored" by capturing and holding strategic locations on the map. These vary from mission to mission, and the points that are scored in one mission may or may not appear in others. Generally speaking, the game rewarded fast advances toward major strategic locations, like Cherbourg. Points were also awarded for minimizing losses and maximizing enemy casualties, and removed for using limited resources like battleship fire.

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