Stepping away...

[Zemke]

Thanks AlbertN...too many clicks for not much juice!

[heliodorus04]

Again, I say that 2by3 does not design games for wargamers or for fans of history:
They create games for data miners.

A true data miner doesn't care if a game stress point is realistic, believable, or accurate. All a data miner cares about is whether the stress point is a) repeatable and b) meaningfully exploitable.
You can look at any single weapon system in the game and see clearly that the game is absurdly over-engineered. The players who are considered great are data miners and always have been. The play testers (well, you guys are the play testers; I'm speaking of the ALPHA play testers) were all data miners.

You cannot shove this much data into a Grand Strategy Wargame without expecting the kinds of unrealistic exploits that have been commonplace since WitE(1) and WitW. You can count on 2by3 giving this game a lot of support and patching, but it will be a long time before gameplay isn't overshadowed by unrealistic exploits and/or game-killing bugs.

[Zovs]

It’s not a grand strategic wargame, it’s a grand operational wargame. Once you spend some time understanding how to manually do the air war (8-16 hours), then you truly will under stand how to manipulate it and put it to use.

GG games have always had vast depth, that is why we play anc buy them, not for simplicity.

[carlkay58]

A few comments:

1. The majority of Air Directives are Ground Support and Recon. Ground Support is defining the Air Directive and then you can turn it on or off through the button or hot key. This also helps you concentrate the Ground Support exactly where you want it. Recon Directives are setup once and then you just adjust them to where you want them each turn. In both cases it is very minimal management after the initial setup and even the setup goes fast once you are experienced at it.

2. Air Superiority is NOT what you think it is. The only use for Air Superiority is to enable a chance of intercepting enemy aircraft far from friendly air bases. On the Eastern front neither side really have fighters with the range to take advantage of this mission. I strongly suggest never using it.

3. If you want fighter interceptions of enemy air action you have two choices. To counter enemy Ground Support directives then you assign your fighters to your Ground Support directives and they will do the job very nicely.

4. If you want fighter interceptions of non-Ground Support directives then base them in a well-supplied air base (use Air Supply if the air base needs more supplies). DO NOT ASSIGN THESE FIGHTERS TO ANY OTHER DIRECTIVES. This is the step that everyone seems to forget. If you do this then you will be able to intercept enemy Ground Attacks, Ground Support, Recon, and even Strategic Bombing in the area of the air base (about six to eight hexes). I assign single air groups across the front at different air bases to give good coverage. It works. It has always worked and it still works. You may not get the 50+ fighter interceptions but you will get interceptions that hurt enemy air activity - either Axis or Soviets - and REALLY punish unescorted bombers.

[Chama]

Don't you get two AOG that fly f-4 in august as the Germans as reinforcements? In my game with theater boxes locked they are in west Europe.

[GibsonPete]

carlkay58: "3. If you want fighter interceptions of enemy air action you have two choices. To counter enemy Ground Support directives then you assign your fighters to your Ground Support directives and they will do the job very nicely."

~ Absolutely agree. This is the way to get the job done.

Zemke: "Frankly, the whole Air Model seems too complicated, not very intuitive, and a lot of clicks to get something close to what you want, and even then, you don't know if the computer is going to do what you tell or not, or it seems that way."

~ I agree but we play the cards dealt.

[Thogode]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Again, I say that 2by3 does not design games for wargamers or for fans of history:
They create games for data miners.

Is the WWII data mining community large enough to make such an approach of the developers economically feasible?
I guess the developers have to pay a rent. And the publisher also likes to earn some money.

A true data miner doesn't care if a game stress point is realistic, believable, or accurate. All a data miner cares about is whether the stress point is a) repeatable and b) meaningfully exploitable.
You can look at any single weapon system in the game and see clearly that the game is absurdly over-engineered. The players who are considered great are data miners and always have been. The play testers (well, you guys are the play testers; I'm speaking of the ALPHA play testers) were all data miners.

How do you know that all testers are data miner?
And if the testers are all data miners, why are these errors/exploits are showing up now? Shouldn't these things have shown up during testing already?

You cannot shove this much data into a Grand Strategy Wargame without expecting the kinds of unrealistic exploits that have been commonplace since WitE(1) and WitW. You can count on 2by3 giving this game a lot of support and patching, but it will be a long time before gameplay isn't overshadowed by unrealistic exploits and/or game-killing bugs.

This threat is, looking at WitE2 itself, confusing and gives me little hope for the future development of WitE2.
From your conclusions and the remarks from Zemke I am inclined to think the starting message of the thread is right: The common player should come back to this game in a few years - if you will be able to come back in a few years because only the data miners and their discussions about exploits will remain. But will such a not-so-common audience increase sales and profits?

[malyhin1517]

This game has a narrow fan base and will never be played by millions of players. This game is for puzzle lovers and chess players. There are much fewer such people than fans of the shooting games.

[MarkShot]

Very big learning curve. With people's feedback they will get it where it needs to be.

Yes, this game is intricate or complex if you want simple and period feel play HOI4. It has the music, graphics, and terminology.

Of course, air was just simply a code hack on top if the political state zones to make air and sea zones. Despite having no hexes, planes halt exactly at the coast line; because it corresponds to the political map boundaries. Despite being realtime, planes don't transit, they simply appear in the target hex. Everyone is talking in the news these day about FOB weapons, but Paradox had them first in 1939. Air control of a zone is simply binary. If I have 5001 fighters of The Channel, the OPFOR has 5000, I got control; and I do mean enough planes that more would be lost by collision than by fire.

So, the game you want exists today. You even have database like here, but it is of no real consequence. I thought that is what people are discussing here making the output database reflect plausible outcomes of 39-45.

GG, devs, betas ... keep going, you have a great start!

[Thogode]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Very big learning curve. With people's feedback they will get it where it needs to be.

Yes, this game is intricate or complex if you want simple and period feel play HOI4. It has the music, graphics, and terminology.

...

So, the game you want exists today. You even have database like here, but it is of no real consequence. I thought that is what people are discussing here making the output database reflect plausible outcomes of 39-45.

GG, devs, betas ... keep going, you have a great start!

Sorry MarkShot, but this wasn't my point.
I have played HOI4 and in my opinion, it is a shallow game for a casual player.

The GG games are known to me, I have played WitPAE, WitE1 and WitW. The complexity of the GG approach is known to me, and I spent many hours in WitW to get the strategic bombing campaign of the Allies working.
You are quite active in the WitW forum too, and you certainly noticed Chuske's collection of links for beginners. Such posts helped me a lot.

Here, if you are asking about a certain topic, you mostly get the answer: WitE2 is broken, because ...
Maybe I am wrong or looking at this forum with a bias, but this is my impression about the last weeks here. Or I am simply missing your experience.

(Off topic: Thanks for pointing me to Panther Games.)

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Very big learning curve. With people's feedback they will get it where it needs to be.

Yes, this game is intricate or complex if you want simple and period feel play HOI4. It has the music, graphics, and terminology.

Of course, air was just simply a code hack on top if the political state zones to make air and sea zones. Despite having no hexes, planes halt exactly at the coast line; because it corresponds to the political map boundaries. Despite being realtime, planes don't transit, they simply appear in the target hex. Everyone is talking in the news these day about FOB weapons, but Paradox had them first in 1939. Air control of a zone is simply binary. If I have 5001 fighters of The Channel, the OPFOR has 5000, I got control; and I do mean enough planes that more would be lost by collision than by fire.

So, the game you want exists today. You even have database like here, but it is of no real consequence. I thought that is what people are discussing here making the output database reflect plausible outcomes of 39-45.

GG, devs, betas ... keep going, you have a great start!

You have to an ear that will listen and not throw "bias" into the equation. Then "yes" you could have a great start. But when you have a "bias" thrown in it will never go anywhere.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

A few comments:

1. The majority of Air Directives are Ground Support and Recon. Ground Support is defining the Air Directive and then you can turn it on or off through the button or hot key. This also helps you concentrate the Ground Support exactly where you want it. Recon Directives are setup once and then you just adjust them to where you want them each turn. In both cases it is very minimal management after the initial setup and even the setup goes fast once you are experienced at it.

2. Air Superiority is NOT what you think it is. The only use for Air Superiority is to enable a chance of intercepting enemy aircraft far from friendly air bases. On the Eastern front neither side really have fighters with the range to take advantage of this mission. I strongly suggest never using it.

3. If you want fighter interceptions of enemy air action you have two choices. To counter enemy Ground Support directives then you assign your fighters to your Ground Support directives and they will do the job very nicely.

4. If you want fighter interceptions of non-Ground Support directives then base them in a well-supplied air base (use Air Supply if the air base needs more supplies). DO NOT ASSIGN THESE FIGHTERS TO ANY OTHER DIRECTIVES. This is the step that everyone seems to forget. If you do this then you will be able to intercept enemy Ground Attacks, Ground Support, Recon, and even Strategic Bombing in the area of the air base (about six to eight hexes). I assign single air groups across the front at different air bases to give good coverage. It works. It has always worked and it still works. You may not get the 50+ fighter interceptions but you will get interceptions that hurt enemy air activity - either Axis or Soviets - and REALLY punish unescorted bombers.

Your answer to #2 made me laugh. Every single answer I have seen on AS, except for the one that Jubjub gave AND demonstrated, is pure 100% "rubbish" on AS. I would encourage everyone to look that post up by Jubjub on AS to learn it and live it.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: GibsonPete

carlkay58: "3. If you want fighter interceptions of enemy air action you have two choices. To counter enemy Ground Support directives then you assign your fighters to your Ground Support directives and they will do the job very nicely."

~ Absolutely agree. This is the way to get the job done.

Zemke: "Frankly, the whole Air Model seems too complicated, not very intuitive, and a lot of clicks to get something close to what you want, and even then, you don't know if the computer is going to do what you tell or not, or it seems that way."

~ I agree but we play the cards dealt.

And the card at the moment is a patch in the future(Dec/Jan time frame would be my guess). It is unfortunate but a necessary wait for me to do anything in the game now.

[GibsonPete]

HYLA you are right again. Patience is rewarded.

[Zemke]

ORIGINAL: Thogode

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Again, I say that 2by3 does not design games for wargamers or for fans of history:
They create games for data miners.

Is the WWII data mining community large enough to make such an approach of the developers economically feasible?
I guess the developers have to pay a rent. And the publisher also likes to earn some money.

A true data miner doesn't care if a game stress point is realistic, believable, or accurate. All a data miner cares about is whether the stress point is a) repeatable and b) meaningfully exploitable.
You can look at any single weapon system in the game and see clearly that the game is absurdly over-engineered. The players who are considered great are data miners and always have been. The play testers (well, you guys are the play testers; I'm speaking of the ALPHA play testers) were all data miners.

How do you know that all testers are data miner?
And if the testers are all data miners, why are these errors/exploits are showing up now? Shouldn't these things have shown up during testing already?

You cannot shove this much data into a Grand Strategy Wargame without expecting the kinds of unrealistic exploits that have been commonplace since WitE(1) and WitW. You can count on 2by3 giving this game a lot of support and patching, but it will be a long time before gameplay isn't overshadowed by unrealistic exploits and/or game-killing bugs.

This threat is, looking at WitE2 itself, confusing and gives me little hope for the future development of WitE2.
From your conclusions and the remarks from Zemke I am inclined to think the starting message of the thread is right: The common player should come back to this game in a few years - if you will be able to come back in a few years because only the data miners and their discussions about exploits will remain. But will such a not-so-common audience increase sales and profits?

Don't get down about what you read here, because what you read here is from players who are REALLY into the whole East Front War, and who are generally discussing certain points in the game because they want/demand a certain experience that usually is motivated by history or the ability to change history. So when they perceive a shortfall that we think is fixable, or certain things that do not make sense, you get what you see.

This game is the BEST Eastern Front wargame in existence as it is, so if you are wanting something like that, then this is your game. But it has certain things that certain players wish/want to be fixed or changed. To me, the Air could be better and easier to use, but it is not a reason to not buy the game.

[Zemke]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Again, I say that 2by3 does not design games for wargamers or for fans of history:
They create games for data miners.

A true data miner doesn't care if a game stress point is realistic, believable, or accurate. All a data miner cares about is whether the stress point is a) repeatable and b) meaningfully exploitable.
You can look at any single weapon system in the game and see clearly that the game is absurdly over-engineered. The players who are considered great are data miners and always have been. The play testers (well, you guys are the play testers; I'm speaking of the ALPHA play testers) were all data miners.

You cannot shove this much data into a Grand Strategy Wargame without expecting the kinds of unrealistic exploits that have been commonplace since WitE(1) and WitW. You can count on 2by3 giving this game a lot of support and patching, but it will be a long time before gameplay isn't overshadowed by unrealistic exploits and/or game-killing bugs.

I hear what you are saying. They did put a LOT of work into the data because that is the design philosophy behind Gary Grigsby's games. They are applying a math value to each system or sub-system in the hope to get realistic results. If you have been playing any of Gary Grigsby's games over the years I am sure you know this already. Very similar to the former Soviet Union's philosophy of using mathematical formulations to come up with correlation of forces models. But again I do sometimes I feel like I am playing a giant Spreadsheet Data rock, paper, scissors game.

[MarkShot]

I DON'T think this game is over modeled.

It could well be argued that it under modeled.

Why? Because much of the behavior modeling is based on randomness and complex rule sets. (First, this is either mainly done due to its BG history; or you can get a great number of moving parts without overloading the hardware it is running under.)

An entirely different was to build a game of this type is using physics equation and agents.

When done well, either approach should give you results that correspond to historical outcomes.

The physics approach given the scale of this game would probably grind play to halt. But one of the advantage of agents, and physics is you can get emergent behavior which will never happen with rules and dice. Physics is reductionist, but can lead to unanticipated outcomes since not all interaction where explicitly coded for.

---

As a retired software engineer, I am happy with either approach as long as the game is immersive, believable, logical vis a vis real world practice, and had a good UI and docs. I consider this game to be a master piece of the rule set approach of design. Something like MIUS and CMx2 have generally increased processing power to be physics based. (Besides rule based tending to lack emergent behaviors, they also tend to be more subject to boundary conditions. Of course, if the designer is not careful, boundary conditions are often the basis of the start of an exploit chain.)

[Zemke]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

I DON'T think this game is over modeled.

It could well be argued that it under modeled.

Why? Because much of the behavior modeling is based on randomness and complex rule sets. (First, this is either mainly done due to its BG history; or you can get a great number of moving parts without overloading the hardware it is running under.)

An entirely different was to build a game of this type is using physics equation and agents.

When done well, either approach should give you results that correspond to historical outcomes.

The physics approach given the scale of this game would probably grind play to halt. But one of the advantage of agents, and physics is you can get emergent behavior which will never happen with rules and dice. Physics is reductionist, but can lead to unanticipated outcomes since not all interaction where explicitly coded for.

---

As a retired software engineer, I am happy with either approach as long as the game is immersive, believable, logical vis a vis real world practice, and had a good UI and docs. I consider this game to be a master piece of the rule set approach of design. Something like MIUS and CMx2 have generally increased processing power to be physics based. (Besides rule based tending to lack emergent behaviors, they also tend to be more subject to boundary conditions. Of course, if the designer is not careful, boundary conditions are often the basis of the start of an exploit chain.)

Anyone want to explain all this to a dumb Grunt?

I think he said he likes the game...?

[Speedysteve]

Hi All. There seems to be a lot of emotion and over focus on particular minuscule details that make no difference to the macro simulation and flow of the game?

I get we're all here (I assume but you know what they say about assumption[;)]) for playing a detailed, and hopefully historical, WW2 game AND sure there's things that could be improved/tweaked for better BUT should we not focus on the positives of the game, enjoy it, mention with logic and evidence if we think things could be changed BUT not just leave or threaten to stop playing if it isn't? A by-product (IMO) of the ream of negative posts and comments is it may negatively affect attracting new players to the game when there's so much good to enjoy here. That long term affects the potential for things to change/be improved and for new games to be made.

Anyway. Just my 2p[8D]

[Gunnulf]

I'd say that 2p is worth at least 10p