Old Gamers Never Die: Looking back at MicroProse's 'Crusade in Europe'

The manual cover art for the Commodore 64 version of Crusade in Europe. The Apple II version had identical artwork. (C) 1985 Microprose Software. 

I'm not much of a computer gamer these days, but when I got my first personal computer (an Apple IIe computer with a color monitor) back in 1987, I spent countless hours at my desk playing various games. Some, like Epyx Games' Summer Games and Street Soccer, were sports-themed video games. Others were simulations of military vehicles, planes, Navy warships, and even submarines; some of my favorites in this category included Silent Service, Silent Service II, Strike Fleet, the F-15 Strike Eagle series, M-1 Tank Platoon, and Red Storm Rising.

I also spent a lot of time as a keyboard general, immersing myself in purely strategic map-and-military symbol simulations along the lines of Avalon Hill's Gulf Strike, a "top-down" computer version of the eponymous board wargame about a U.S.-Soviet confrontation in Iran, and SSI's Fighter Command, a strategic level simulation of the Battle of Britain.

My favorite strategy game from my college years, though, was MicroProse Software's Crusade in Europe, a map-and-symbols simulation of the Allied campaign to liberate Northwest Europe during World War II, 

Created by MicroProse's co-founder Sid Meier (Civilization) and Ed Bever, Crusade in Europe allowed players to take command of either the Allied Expeditionary Force or the German Wehrmacht during the first six months of the fighting on the Western Front. As the game manual's cover proclaimed, Crusade in Europe depicted key campaigns in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Germany "from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge." 

Per the game options menu, Crusade in Europe presented the player with five historical scenarios:

1. Battle for Normandy
2. Race to the Rhine
3. Operation "Market-Garden"
4. Battle of the Bulge
5. Crusade: The Battle for France

Additionally, each scenario had several variants. Some variants were based on the historical situations being portrayed, while others, such as Rommel's Strategy or German Quick Reaction (options 2 and 4 in the Battle for Normandy) are "what-if" scenarios based on alternate plans created by Allied or German generals but never carried out in the actual campaigns.

Screenshot of the Battle for Normandy variant selection menu.  

Crusade in Europe was, like Sid Meier's earlier NATO Commander, a map-based war game in which division and brigade-sized units move and do battle against each other in "accelerated real time." It puts players in the role of generals such as Dwight D. Eisenhower (for the Allies) or Gerd von Rundstedt (for the Germans).

 Unlike the 21st Century-era Blitzkrieg series, the game's depiction of World War II doesn't show realistic views of the battlefield with trees, farmhouses, villages, and tiny soldiers, tanks, artillery pieces, trucks, or planes.  Rather, things look a bit more abstract:

D-Day. Here, the British 50th Infantry Division has been ordered to move 12 miles (two hexes) to the south of the British beach code-named GOLD. The U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions are attacking OMAHA Beach (center of the Allied invasion area, but the German 352nd Infantry Division is holding its own...so far. 

The basic unit in the game was the division, which ranged in size - depending on unit type and nationality - from 10,000 men (airborne and static infantry) to 20,000 men (some British and Canadian infantry divisions). Reflecting the realities of 1944-era armies, these divisions came in several variants, depending on their battlefield roles.  However, in some scenarios, such as Operation "Market-Garden" or Battle of the Bulge, both sides will field regimental or brigade-sized units. (One of these, the German Sixth Parachute Regiment, makes an appearance in the Normandy campaign.)

In the Allied armies, there were three types of division:

1. Infantry (the most numerous type). The average U.S. infantry division consisted of 15,000 soldiers and 90-100 tanks. Crusade in Europe doesn't list artillery or other vehicles in the status screens, so you have to imagine that those pieces of military hardware are there; you just don't see them.
2. Armored. Not as numerous as infantry divisions, these tank-heavy units are still key components in the fast-moving mobile warfare waged by the Allied armies in Northwest Europe. They have less manpower than infantry divisions (12,800 men, 200-300 tanks), but once the Allies break out of the Bocage area of Normandy and into the open country, these divisions move fast and hit hard. 
3. Airborne. The least numerous units in Crusade in Europe are the airborne divisions fielded by the British and American armies in Northwest Europe. Essentially elite and highly mobile light infantry outfits with no heavy equipment, they have an average of 10,000 men and no tanks. Airborne units are usually already "on the ground" at the start of scenarios such as Operation "Market-Garden" and  Battle for Normandy, but in Race for the Rhine the three airborne divisions made famous by A Bridge Too Far are based in England and can make a "jump move" on September 17, 1944, the real-life D-Day for Market-Garden. 

The Allies also have a unique air unit called the Tactical Air Wing. In Crusade in Europe, Allied commanders could, depending on which scenario being played, call air strikes on German units from an average of four Tactical Air Wings (the U.S. IX and XIX, and the British 83rd and 84th Air Groups). Each air wing is listed as having complements of 3500 men and 350-400 fighter-bombers. 

Air units are powerful, but they can only fly during the daylight hours and in relatively good weather. The effect of air strikes varies; depending on the targeted enemy unit's mode at the time of the attack, air wings can inflict serious, moderate, or minimal damage to troops and tanks on the ground. 

Moreover, the attacking units can suffer heavy casualties if they attack an enemy unit that is in "deployed," "defense," or "fortified" mode; attacking German units that are in "mobile" mode or have been cut off and out of supplies often minimizes casualties, but early in a campaign this is a rare occurrence.

German units also come in the three basic varieties, but Crusade in Europe depicts other units that reflect the state of the Wehrmacht in 1944. These are:

1. Static Infantry/Luftwaffe Ground Divisions. These were defense-oriented divisions made up either of second-rate troops or German Air Force ground personnel which were made "surplus" by the declining fortunes of Hermann Goering's once-mighty air fleets. 
2. SS Panzer Divisions
3. SS Panzergrenadier Divisions, which were essentially infantry units equipped with half-tracks and/or trucks
4. Volksgrenadier Divisions, which were reconstituted infantry units built upon the remnants of divisions battered in the summer battles in France and Belgium

Both sides have Supply Depots and Headquarters units, which handle the distribution of supplies for the combat units on the field. 

I'm not going to go into a more detailed description of the game here; suffice it to say that players had to master the basic concepts of modern warfare, albeit in a user-friendly and extremely simplified fashion. Basically, though, no matter which side one chose to play as, one had to learn how to use terrain, road networks, river lines, weather, and supply lines in both attack and defense.

The beautiful thing about MicroProse's Crusade in Europe (which derived its title from Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1948 war memoirs) is that while the game's concepts were complex, gameplay was relatively easy. 

The situation on June 8, 1944, D+2. The Allies have captured all of the five invasion beaches. In the U.S. sector, American units (green military symbols) have pushed the Germans (black unit symbols) six miles inland south of OMAHA beach (center) and captured Carentan. On the Cotentin Peninsula, two airborne divisions defend the western flank of the invasion area; the weary 4th Infantry is on UTAH Beach while the newly arrived 90th Infantry attacks the German 709th Static Division. Meanwhile, on the eastern half of the beachhead, British and Canadian units have pushed the 716th Static Division 18 miles inland and reinforcements have arrived. However, there are gaps in the Allied front line, and two panzer divisions block the Anglo-Canadian army's route to Caen...and the open country to the south and east.  

For instance, to issue orders to every unit during a turn, all a player had to do was move the cursor with the keyboard's directional arrow keys, place the cursor on a unit, and hit the SPACE bar to check the unit's status. If, say, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division was at 80% effectiveness and in "deployed" mode, all one had to do was hit a "command" key (say, A for "attack" or M for "move"), move the cursor to a destination (usually an enemy unit or a location such as Cherbourg or Caen), then press the H key for "Here." The game's artificial intelligence would then take into account obstacles in the selected unit's immediate vicinity - terrain features, friendly and enemy units, and roads or rivers, then pick the best path to the unit's objective. If all went well, the selected unit would go from Point A to Point B in a satisfactory manner. If not....well, as William Tecumseh Sherman once said, "war is all hell." 

Endgame: Clearing the Beaches is the first (and shortest) variant of the Battle for Normandy game in Crusade in Europe. Here we are on June 11, 1944, D+5. I actually made better progress than the OVERLORD commander, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, did in the real battle. Here the Allies have pushed 24 miles inland in five days, and the front line is more or less a contiguous line except for a gap to the south of Ste. Mere Eglise. The U.S. 2nd Armored Division is moving to close the gap between the 4th and 29th Infantry Divisions, while the 1st Infantry Division is in reserve behind the 2nd Division (center of map). St. Lo is in American hands, and the British 7th Armoured Division is in contact with the Americans. Caen is defended by three Panzer divisions, including the 12th SS "Hitlerjugend" Division (the unit marked SS), so the British advance on the eastern flank is stalled (just as in real life). Note that the casualties on both sides are roughly equal; the Allies won a marginal victory based on the points value of the invasion beaches and the liberated cities (Carentan, St, Lo, and Bayeux).

I've been a World War II buff since I was six years old, so when I bought this game in 1987 I was thrilled. Not only was Crusade in Europe historically accurate (reinforcements arrive on the scene on the dates they actually arrived during the various campaigns), but MicroProse's programmers made it easy to learn and fun to master. From late 1987 to 1994, I played Crusade in Europe at increasing levels of difficulty as both the Allied and German commander, though I have to admit that I preferred to play as the Allies. Despite its graphics limitations (it was only a 200 Kb game, after all), I only stopped playing because my Apple IIe monitor died on me after seven years of constant use.

I no longer have an Apple IIe computer, and no software company has ever bothered to create a map-based game like it, but happily, Crusade in Europe still exists as a playable game and can be downloaded for free in various websites, including My Abandonware (www.myabandonware.com). I haven't downloaded it, but I play it online from my browser. 

According to the game's scoring system, I earned a promotion to Colonel. The game takes into account several variables, such as casualty ratios, play balance (difficulty level), and victory points.