Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Gary Grigsby’s World at War is back with a whole new set of features. World at War: A World Divided still gives complete control over the production, research and military strategy for your side, but in this new updated version you’ll also be able to bring spies into the mix as well as neutral country diplomacy, variable political events and much more. Perhaps the largest item is the ability to play a special Soviet vs. Allies scenario that occurs after the end of World War II.

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MarkShot
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Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by MarkShot »

Dear All,

I got around 1-2 years ago WITW/WITE-2. I am having a really good time with them. I also have EDBTR and WITP-AE, but I find the former too bugged and latter too much of a learning curve.

The premise of the game intrigues me as I was horribly disappointed with HOI4. It was obviously the result of mediocre programmers/designers directly reporting to the suits. GG seems to be a competent designer and software engineer.

So, given I like WITW/WITE-2 will I like this game despite its age? Has it aged well with the remaster?

Lastly, I see some mention of the USA not invading Europe. Has this issue been resolved?

Thank you for your time and thoughts!
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Rosseau
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by Rosseau »

The remastered version interested me, so I re-installed the original GG:WaW game (that I had purchased and played quite a bit on-release) from my Matrix MyPage gallery and updated it.

Purely, imho, but "remastered" or not, it is what it is...meaning the game in my short tour of the latest version hasn't changed much since my original experience. And my original experience - at the time - was a great one, but so many other wargames have surpassed it.

Can in no way compare to WitW/WitE on any level. A middle-ground would be the excellent Strategic Command series of WW2 games here on Matrix: much greater detail, and wonderful editor, but you probably have them already.

If not, the SC series would be my first choice in bridging the gap between WaW remastered and WitW. And it happens to be a huge gap, imho. ;)
MarkShot
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by MarkShot »

Rosseau,

Thank you.

I have not even looked at Strategic Command. Would I find meticulous modeling and a superb UI a la WITW and WITE-2 or something more akin to HOI4 fantasy sandbox where a single design for ground combat was cut and pasted for air and sea to achieve maximum ROI (return on investment)?

Have any YT reviews you would recommend? Around June I get my anniversary discount which is sizeable given my join date.

Thanks again.
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Joel Billings
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by Joel Billings »

At some level it's like comparing the boardgames Axis & Allies and War in the East (the original SPI boardgame that fit on a ping pong table). They're both wargames and they both cover WWII, but they are very different games. Just as WitE2 adds a lot of detail and complexity that isn't in the board game WitE2, A World Divided adds a lot of complexity to Axis & Allies, AWD is for someone interested in exploring all facets of WWII in a very historical way (not HOI Brazil taking over the world), but at a very strategic level. It also adds in the ability to play with up to 5 different players. It's a strategic level game, not an operational one, and through production, R&D (weapons development over time), and some of the political interactions that impacted minor and major country participation in the war, it gives you all the elements to historically simulate WWII. And it does it in a way that won't take 6 months to play out the war (as WitE2 does), as there are less turns and each turn is quicker. Really depends on what you're interested in.
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MarkShot
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by MarkShot »

Thank you, Joel.

I spent last night looking at various Strategic Command titles: WWI, WAW, WE ... Mainly YouTube reviews, they left me feeling kind of glass half empty. I was surprised to find out they were originally published by BFC as I have been buying there since CMBO, and we started RDOA (Panther Games) with BFC/BTS before moving to Matrix.

I Iike GG's designs I have WITP-AE which is incredibly detailed, but a learning curve too far for me. I also have EDBTR which is well designed and like GGs other work, each is its own animal. It would do well with a graphic retreatment. At the moment, it is mainly getting low level bug fixes from Richard Simonvitch who I have known 15 years through Panther work.)

So, I will look deeper into the GG World Divided. Old doesn't bother me ... quality is quality despite age. Like I recently loaded up Frank Hunter The Guns of August, and it looks quite interesting, but only 1/3 the hex resolution of a WITW. I think I got that one free from David Heath.

---

Joel, I don't know if ever told you, but I find WITW/WITE-2 very retro ... not in terms of games, but systems design. In 1970's, we built batch processing systems which were very stepwise procedural. Rather than having agents interacting with a relational database. Data sets were processed, merged, split in successive steps similar to your little monitor in the lower left. Personally, I think this is genius, since I think an agent based system with a central relational database would choke on the level of transactional activity.

Thanks for taking the time to answer!
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generalfdog
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by generalfdog »

check out war plan and war plan pacific they are very good strategic level ww2 games
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ncc1701e
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by ncc1701e »

generalfdog wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2024 5:06 am check out war plan and war plan pacific they are very good strategic level ww2 games
Agree but WAWAWD has something unique. The globe and the whole world war. In Warplan Pacific for example, never the Royal Navy is obliged to leave the Indian Ocean to protect Egypt.
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Re: Your opinion on the remaster relative to WITW/WITE-2?

Post by CoffinKnight »

I would kill for this to be put on steam. Has that not been ever talked about? Get a bigger audience introduced to something that is approachable for sure.
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