GW Counterfactual Take 3.

[rkr1958]

Turn 36. Jul/Aug1945. End of Turn.

BP Plots.
(1) War is destructive.
(2) Germany's economy during the 6-years of war was the 2nd highest producer (1240 BPs cumulative gross) behind the US (1894).
(3) However; the value of it's armed forces (90 BPs cumulative net) dropped significantly below their value (327 BPs) at the start.
(4) It's definitely been a "War in Flames" for Germany since turn 28 (Mar/Apr 1944) as shown in the per turn net BPs being below 0 for all but 1 turn since.
(5) And being around -300 for each of the last two turns!

Gross.
Per Turn.

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Cumulative.

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Net.
Per Turn.

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Cumulative.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 36. Jul/Aug 1945. End of Turn.

Final Scoring.
(1) There you have it, the final score.
(2) Germany manages to finish 2nd ahead of the Soviet Union due to hitting a 30% end of turn roll.
(3) It's amazing to me how historical the end game played out when you focused on objective cities and victory points (i.e., # objective cities - bid).
(4) While Germany was no doubt beaten and the Soviet Union was no doubt healed, the result gaming based on victory points produced an historical feel to the end game.
(5) It made no sense for Germany to fight on but that's what they did historically and that's what happen in this game.
(6) In fact, in this counterfactual they came out ahead of the Soviet Union; though devastated but still "standing" I guess.
(7) Just look at their final scores.
(8) In addition to going through and summarizing the 8573 combat logs, their will be an Epilogue.
(9) Honestly it was a bit unsatisfactory to finish so close to the complete conquest of Germany and the expulsion of the IJA from China.
(10) As I write this I've already played the Epilogue (i.e., turn 37).
(11) The reason for playing vs finish documenting this end of turn was that I experienced delays and dropouts with this site for most of the day so I decided to proceed with the game play.
(12) Now the Epilogue turn both in play and documentation will be less detailed and different from the other 36 turns played.
(13) Very few screen caps but a full set of combat logs collected and will be provided.
(14) By the way these additional combat logs aren't included in the counts provided earlier.
(15) The final tally at this point is 8635 (which is an oxymoron; i.e., final at this point).
(16) I hope in my Epilogue to bring my counterfactual to a "believable" historical end.
(17) One difference from history is that there won't be an insistence by the allies for an unconditional Japanese surrender.
(18) Though the historical did accept a condition of keeping the emperor.
(19) From a counterfactual I will try to justify this based on "no sneak attack on Pearl Harbor" and "no Bataan death match".
(20) The US keep control of the Philippines the entire game and Japan's attacks against the US & CW occurred in the Far East and western Pacific as was believe would happen historically.
(21) Anyway, there's still more to come but this counterfactual game and AAR has certainly (nearly) run it's course.
(22) Started back in March 2023, it's been running for 17 months and has been a source of enjoyment and purpose for me.
(23) Thanks for following, please feel free to comment and it's not over yet (Prologue & Summary).

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[Angeldust2]

Turn 36. Jul/Aug 1945. End of Turn.

(23) Thanks for following, please feel free to comment and it's not over yet (Prologue & Summary).

99-VT-Final.png

Very, very impressive Ronnie, well done! Congratulations for finishing your pet project. It was (is) truly inspiring, what you achieved with MWIF so far. By now, you know probably better than anybody else, how the program works and how it can be manipulated to do, what you as a player wants to achieve. And for sure your technical excellence in playing is by now on a level, that you will crush even the most competitive players in a WIFCon setting, when using MWIF.

I stopped to follow in detail each post when you changed your reporting style in mid game, but I think, the end game was already quite obvious in the first half of 1942. The AXIS underperformed on almost all fronts, the ALLIES enjoyed already in 1943 almost uncontested dominance in all theaters. I think, your game has showed convincingly how lopsided MWIF can be, if AXIS are only slightly weakened, intentionally or unintentionally. But to be honest, your choice of optional rules and even more so house rules in combination with unambitious AXIS game play and a love for meticulous planning for the ALLIES side created a game flow, which could have lead to AXIS defeat probably already in 1944, if really wanted. The landings in different parts of Europe with several shifts of main effort despite on outer lines of communication emphasizes this assessment.

I like the effort you put in in logging all events and rolls. This would have been an invaluable data treasure for Harry Rowland 20-30 years ago ...

I wonder, why you choose random colors for your BP graphics? At least for me, it would have been far more intuitive, if you would have chosen the colors for countries resembling their counter colors, not?

I wonder, if you could show us a kind of flow chart, how you ran a full turn, using different versions of MWIF for what reasons and when to edit what functions?

Thanks for all your efforts, your passion and love for detail. This AAR is the mother of all MWIF games ever played.

[Angeldust2]

Ah, forgot to mention, I note you choose a very interesting approach regarding determining victory. Did you tweak victory conditions during the game? Anyway, it seemed to work exceptionally well, allowing Germany to still come second, even if totally defeated, which is just historical. How did you determine the bids for each country?

[rkr1958]

Ah, forgot to mention, I note you choose a very interesting approach regarding determining victory. Did you tweak victory conditions during the game? Anyway, it seemed to work exceptionally well, allowing Germany to still come second, even if totally defeated, which is just historical. How did you determine the bids for each country?

Thanks for following. Let me take these two questions first in reverse order.

How did you determine the bids for each country?
(1) There are 2 csv data files that come with the MWIF installation (ObjAv.csv & ObjHis.csv)
(2) These data files contain ,as a function of turn, the average and historical number of objective cities held by each major power.
(3) Average, as I understand it, are averages generated of a number of WIF game plays.
(4) How and what games I don't know, but I suspect it's something that Harry complied over decades of play from many players.
(5) Historical is the historical number of objective cities held by each major power.
(6) I imported both data sets into EXCEL (plots of both shown below).
(7) At the end of each turn, I provided a table showing the number of objective cities held and the difference between number held and the average of the average & historical.
(8) Since final scoring and victory was determined this turn, turn 36, Jul/Aug 1945, the bids for each major power or Democratic Allied (USA, CW, Free France & Nationalist Chinese) was simply (average + historical)/2 for turn 36 in those two data file.

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Did you tweak victory conditions during the game?
(9) The link and screen cap below is from a thread I followed over at Board Greeks, World in Flames section.
(10) I was swayed by Bruce's argument about the importance of playing with objectives even if you're playing for fun.
(11) Specifically, that objective cites have been thought through, given a lot of consideration by Harry and his testers over 3 decades of play and 1000's of game (probably).
(12) Well that's the flavor that I got from reading the entire thread linked to below.
(13) As I got into end game I started struggling with focus, not my focus on play, but focus on what strategies the various major powers should now pursue.
(14) Then it struck me, why on earth reinvent the wheel?
(15) Why not leverage the 1000's of games and objective cities given to us?
(16) And that's what I did.
(17) Finally, the reason for lumping the USA, CW, France and Nationalist Chinese together (Democratic Allied) was that the process of liberation would return an objective city captured by one to its original controller.
(18) Two stark examples, (a) the US and CW liberated Shanghai, but when that was returned it was put into the Nationalist Chinese column and (b) liberation of Singapore by the US, returned to CW and put into their column.


What do you consider a "win" for Allies or Axis in a non-bid game

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[rkr1958]

Very, very impressive Ronnie, well done! Congratulations for finishing your pet project. It was (is) truly inspiring, what you achieved with MWIF so far. By now, you know probably better than anybody else, how the program works and how it can be manipulated to do, what you as a player wants to achieve. And for sure your technical excellence in playing is by now on a level, that you will crush even the most competitive players in a WIFCon setting, when using MWIF.

Thanks. I'm an enthusiastic player. But my skill level is well below the competitive player.

The AXIS underperformed on almost all fronts, the ALLIES enjoyed already in 1943 almost uncontested dominance in all theaters. I think, your game has showed convincingly how lopsided MWIF can be, if AXIS are only slightly weakened, intentionally or unintentionally. But to be honest, your choice of optional rules and even more so house rules in combination with unambitious AXIS game play and a love for meticulous planning for the ALLIES side created a game flow, which could have lead to AXIS defeat probably already in 1944, if really wanted. The landings in different parts of Europe with several shifts of main effort despite on outer lines of communication emphasizes this assessment.

I have to admit that I am pro allied. Honestly, pro western allied. But to give my pro allied side a competitive and real game, I tried to focus on solid axis play with sound strategic objectives. I guess I missed that mark. I really hosed Japan with too much focus on China. As Japan, I did get the Victory disease and through I could finish China off with just a little more effort. The result was that Japan's convoy lines and overseas oil were under protected. And once Japan lost all her oil, yikes. I realized what a mistake it was not to have built their 2 Synths earlier. I wanted to make oil an issue for the axis but NOT THAT much of an issue.

With Germany, they also were infected by the Victory disease, but on the Eastern Front. After the capture of Moscow and Gorki, Germany in the north and center should have stopped there, built up their defenses and focused, as they did, in the Caucuses and Azerbaijan. The mistake was pushing to North & Center to Siberia. It amazes me that I though that I had the Soviets on the ropes too, which they probably were, and that they were able to come back as they did. This was due to the long supply lines and lack of reinforcements for the German army in Siberia. 3 rails per land impulse given the demands of other fronts just isn't enough to replace losses and take care of an every widening (literally in width) front. Look at the DAK panzer corps stuck in the swamp southeast of Kirov. It was isolated there for over a year (maybe year and half) before finally being eliminate at which time I think the Soviet lines had moved to or even past the liberation of Moscow. When I moved the DAK in the swamp I thought Germany was going to easily capture Kirov and those Siberian cities. The Soviets held during those desperate times through some high risk/high gain counterattacks. The fighting in Siberia had, for me, a "Stalingrad" historical vibe.

I've heard it said may time by WIF players and I believe it's so true and that is the allies can recover from some serious errors or misplays but the axis can't.

I like the effort you put in in logging all events and rolls. This would have been an invaluable data treasure for Harry Rowland 20-30 years ago ...

Thanks. I have thoughts on improvements I want to make to my workbook to more rigorously capture details that I put in my log (commentary) column. For example, [clear, fine, unopposed] or other metrics with land, sea and air combat.

I wonder, why you choose random colors for your BP graphics? At least for me, it would have been far more intuitive, if you would have chosen the colors for countries resembling their counter colors, not?

I just went with EXCEL defaults. Yeah, I probably should have take the time to get the RBG values for the various MPs and use those colors.

I wonder, if you could show us a kind of flow chart, how you ran a full turn, using different versions of MWIF for what reasons and when to edit what functions?

Ok. Sure. For the most part I stayed with the latest public beta version. It was only the last 4, 5 or 6 turns that I had to keep bouncing back between that latest and 3.2.0. I'd switch to 3.2.0 at the start of rail and then switch back to the latest public beta at the start of air rebase. Two reason for that. There was apparently a regression supply bug after 3.2.0 where cooperating MP HQs weren't properly serving as secondary supply sources for cooperating MP units and then the lag when moving units became unbearable. Some moves would take like a minute or two; especially when picking up an HQ, in the latest would take a few seconds at most in 3.2.0.

Thanks for all your efforts, your passion and love for detail. This AAR is the mother of all MWIF games ever played.

Thanks!

[Angeldust2]

[/quote]
Thanks. I'm an enthusiastic player. But my skill level is well below the competitive player.
[/quote]

This might have been true eight years ago, but not any longer. We can see in your AAR over the years, how you became ever more proficient. You spent so much more time on the game than anybody else, that you command now so much more technical knowledge, that you will likely be more successful than the most cut-throat competitive player with plenty of WIF con experience.

[rkr1958]

Thanks. I'm an enthusiastic player. But my skill level is well below the competitive player.
[/quote]

This might have been true eight years ago, but not any longer. We can see in your AAR over the years, how you became ever more proficient. You spent so much more time on the game than anybody else, that you command now so much more technical knowledge, that you will likely be more successful than the most cut-throat competitive player with plenty of WIF con experience.
[/quote]
Thanks for the compliment.

[rkr1958]

Epilogue. Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

(1) The war in Europe is practically over except die hard Nazi hold outs in the mountains of Italy and more significantly, for high ranking Nazi officials who somehow managed to escape through allied line to maintain the "Third Reich" from German controlled Turkey.
(2) A mistrust, some might say a fracture, is starting to develop between the Anglo-Americans and Soviet Union.
(3) While hoped for by Hitler, this fracture was too little, too late to save his Third Reich and himself personal (literally) from the flames of destruction.
(4) Adolf did get his, "World in Flames" but isn't around to see the aftermath.
(5) Now turning to the Pacific and Asia, while Japan is both economically and militarily contained they are far from defeated.
(6) Allied planners estimate that an invasion and conquest of the Home Islands is likely to cost more than a million allied combat causalities and tens of million of Japanese military and civilian causalities/deaths.
(7) There is a plan put for by General Curtis LeMay to bomb Japan into submission, including use of the newly developed, but not yet tested, Atomic bomber.
(8) However; while this campaign would certainly limited allied causalities, it would inflict unimageable hardship, starvation and loss on the Japanese people (primarily the most vulnerable of the civilian population).
(9) An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni at the direction of the Emperor covertly begins peace negations with the Anglo-Americans.
(10) With the approval of the Emperor he is flown to a US airbase in New Mexico and in a remote part of the desert is witness to a test of a horrible new weapon.
(11) He's is a witness to the "Trinity Test".
(12) After the test he is impressed upon that unless Japan is willing to immediately stop all military operations against the allied powers that this bomb and million of tons of conventional bombs will began falling on Japanese cities until they are no cities left.
(13) The Anglo-Americans also impress on Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni that even if Japan agrees to stop all military operations for the moment, that combat operation will continue against Japanese forces (only) in China until Japan is willing to accept a conditional surrender.
(14) Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni states that he has full authority granted by the emperor to agree to a temporary ceasefire, but not negotiate a surrender.
(16) The Prince issues a declaration in the emperor's name for Japanese forces to immediately stop offensive operations.
(17) All Japanese forces outside of China issue their acknowledgment and comply with the "reqeust" from the Emperor.
(18) So, as August 1945 turns into September 1945, general combat has ended though officially the war continues between the allies forces and the remaining two axis powers (Germany & Japan).
(19) However; this war is limited to (a) Conquest of Turkey and finally Germany, (b) rooting Nazi die harda out of Italy (and Europe all together) and (c) low risk Anglo-American combat operations & support against IJA forces in China.
(20) The Anglo-American enter into secret negotiation with the Empire of Japan for Japan's conditional surrender.

[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Start of Turn.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Allied #1.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Axis #2 & Allied #3.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Axis #5 & Allied #7.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Axis #8 & Allied #9.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

End of Turn.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945.

Germany's Surrender?
(1) All German land forces surrender (17 BPs).
(2) No air forces, except 10 PIL (20 BPs) that remain in the reserve pool for Germany after surrender.
(3) All German naval forces remain in place but are transferred to Japan (26 BPs).
(4) Norway still "Germany" controlled though Germany no longer exists.
(5) So, I'm call this an unconditional surrender by Germany of all their armed forces to the allied powers.
(6) Including the surrender of occupied Norway.
(7) So Germany's total loss for the turn was 29 BPs (KIA) + 17 BPs (army surrendered) + 20 BPs (air force pilots surrender) + 26 BPs (naval surrendered) = 92 BPs lost.
(8) When I plug that into my spreadsheet a get a Net BPs of -2 for Germany, which is the remaining value of Germany armed forces, which should be 0 since no armed forces are left.
(9) After 37 turns of tracking I'm impressed that the Net BPs error (-2 vs 0) is so small.
(10) My hypothesis for the error is that it's due to how broken down divisions were counted.
(11) For example a inf corps (3 BPs) broken into a inf and mot div.
(12) Each when loss would could 2 BPs a piece vs the 3 BPs for the corps.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945. Post German Unconditional Surrender.

Central Europe.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945. Post German Unconditional Surrender.

Turkey.

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Middle East.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945. Post German Unconditional Surrender.

Korea. Manchuria.

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[rkr1958]

Turn 37. Sep/Oct 1945. Post German Unconditional Surrender.

China.
(1) After initially denying the Nationalist the use of Ankang for supply, Mao grants the request at the start of this turn.
(2) He's also exceedingly cooperate with and deferential to the Nationalist and Ango-Americans.
(3) If Mao is anything he's patience.
(4) In reality he's bidding his time and using whomever he can to expel Japan from China.
(5) After that he has plans to unite China under the banner of the CCP even if that means civil war.
(6) He's a realist and recognizes that that may 4 to 5 years from now after the Anglo-Americans have left and tire of propping up the Nationalist in China.
(7) Afterall, Mao is a patience man.
(8) He's been fight Japan for 8 years now, 2 years before this global second world war 2 started.
(9) For a few more years to wait!

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