Can Breakout Normandy be played solitaire?

Apologies if this a noob question that everyone knows, but I only recently discovered Vassal. :smiley:

Anyhoo, I used to have a copy of Avalon HIll’s Breakout Normandy soon after it was released in 1993. While I thought the game looked very intriguing I could never find an opponent, and this was in an era where only a fraction of people were using the internet, so email play wasn’t an option. It collected dust for years before I decided to sell it on ebay some years ago. It got a good price too! I’ve since returned to boardgaming lately and would like to revisit some of of my long lost games.

I remember Breakout Normandy being touted as good for solitaire play (the box cover said “for 1-2 players” and I would like to give it a go, but I don’t know much about Vassal. I don’t want to spend a lot of my valuable free time faffing about with the module only to discover that it can’t be played solitaire.

BTW is Squad Leader playable solitaire via Vassal? This is another game I could never find opponents for. I know it’s not inherently suited to solitaire, but many people play wargames simply by playing each side in turn.

In general you can play games with vassal like the board version.* I don’t
know about Breakout Normandy in particular, but you could play it solitaire
by alternating which side you too. The tool doesn’t provide any AI
opponent, so it would be like playing any board game. The degree of
suitability is mostly related to the amount of hidden information on the
game.

*Except it’s harder for your cat to scatter the process.

On Mar 16, 2018 9:42 AM, “ridcully” cellos1000@mail.com wrote:

Apologies if this a noob question that everyone knows, but I only
recently discovered Vassal. :smiley:
Anyhoo, I used to have a copy of Avalon HIll’s Breakout Normandy soon
after it was released in 1993. While I thought the game looked very
intriguing I could never find an opponent, and this was in an era where
only a fraction of people were using the internet, so email play wasn’t
an option. It collected dust for years before I decided to sell it on
ebay some years ago. It got a good price too! I’ve since returned to
boardgaming lately and would like to revisit some of of my long lost
games.

I remember Breakout Normandy being touted as good for solitaire play
(the box cover said “for 1-2 players” and I would like to give it a go,
but I don’t know much about Vassal. I don’t want to spend a lot of my
valuable free time faffing about with the module only to discover that
it can’t be played solitaire.

BTW is Squad Leader playable solitaire via Vassal? This is another game
I could never find opponents for. I know it’s not inherently suited to
solitaire, but many people play wargames simply by playing each side in
turn.


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Can Breakout Normandy be played solitaire?


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Yes, you can play it solitary. I did several times because of lack of opponents. However, this is fine for learning the rules and training but never comes close to the thrill of real decision making against another player. And of course it’s easier to recognize errors and bad moves when a competent opponent exploits them, while the chance may be unnoticed and therefore not exploited by yourself.
I would play vs you, preferably live. Do you have any experience with impulse-area games, like the predecessor Turning Point: Stalingrad?