Hi Guys!
What are the most significant changes if you compare it to the original one?
Skuderian
Changes?
WIR is a great game I would love see improved. The main scenario, June1941, is very unbalanced to the Germans. They can strip all their planes from the other fronts with impunity allowing them to "nuke" with air attacks alone 4 to 5 Russian hexes a turn. They should be forced to play the insanity of fighting in Africa to help the Italians. Also air garrison requirements should be made on the West and German home country fronts.
The Germans can also strip Africa of the armor and rail it to Rumania on turn one opening up that front and the coastal rail line to Stalingrad early with 2 new panzer corps in Rumania! If one wants to hold Africa the German only need to send a few inf. divs. to repalce the armor. This should not be allowed. The Germans should be forced to keep the armor and planes to some degree in Africa.
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Ed Cogburn
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Originally posted by evaldzz:
The game needs some type of breakdown and wear and tear rule on tank units. One can drive all over Russia with no breakdowns.
The game has the "readiness" mechanism to handle that. Not all of your armor makes it to the battle, it depends on unit readiness.
However, *if* armor was given a "durability" characteristic then losing armor before a fight because of weak reliability would make a big difference because both Shermans and T34s were much more reliable then German tanks. We would then see Tigers outnumbered by 10 to 1 against T34s which would make things historically accurate.
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Ed Cogburn
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Originally posted by evaldzz:
The Germans can also strip Africa of the armor and rail it to Rumania on turn one opening up that front and the coastal rail line to Stalingrad early with 2 new panzer corps in Rumania! If one wants to hold Africa the German only need to send a few inf. divs. to repalce the armor. This should not be allowed. The Germans should be forced to keep the armor and planes to some degree in Africa.
Well, Gary made it possible to move units in and out of the North Africa HQ, or alter the makeup of units in it, so I would guess he meant for it to be possible to make such drastic changes if the player is willing to risk it in a campaign game. In particular, it is *very* tempting to remove German armor before the surrender in North Africa, preserving those precious tanks. All I would suggest is increasing the penalty for the North Africa HQ with little or no German armor.
I really wish the combat resolution mechanism for the North Africa and Western Front HQs was a little more dynamic and a little more sophisticated with continuous losses faced by some of the units (on a weekly basis) and a see-saw effect possible, at least for the case in North Africa, early on.
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Don Shafer
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Actually the Germans wanted to drive through the Caucusus to the Suez.
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Don Shafer Commander of Army Group Shafer
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Don Shafer Commander of Army Group Shafer
This message posted by permission of and in accordance with the regulations as mandated by our self-appointed High Lord and Master Ed Cogburn.
All hail the Dictator of War in Russia etiquette and morality!
His is a superior intellect and with hi
All hail the Dictator of War in Russia etiquette and morality!
His is a superior intellect and with hi
Hi guys,
I am part of the group testing the game for Matrix. We have been getting a lot done with it, especially fixing bugs (and undocumented features that we thought were bugs
). Besides the bug fixes, there are going to be a number of changes to the actual game play. Some of this will probably change before the end, but here are some of the highlights:
1. Air to ground attacks are going to be weaker, as they were too strong before to be historically correct. This is still being tweaked, so it is hard to say what the final effect will be.
2. Strategic bombing will also be weaker for the Axis and Soviets, and for the USAAF through early 1944. The damage will still typically be done, but be lighter than before and thus be repaired more quickly. The Germans could knock out a significant part of the Soviet on-map industry in just a few turns, which was not likely no matter how hard they tried.
3. Ops point costs for special supply are being increased to make it more realistic and historical, and eliminate gamey play.
4. Many tank and plane ratings are being adjusted.
5. Certain locations (Sevastopol for example) are being given permanent fortification levels in addition to the normal city levels that exist in the game already.
6. Shattering of the West and Italian Axis fronts has undergone major changes, but not to the point of suffering losses on each turn as Ed suggested. This is an idea I have had also, but it has not come up in our group. It may show up in a future update if it can be done fairly easily. There were certain shatter events that would happen no matter what the strength of the front was. These have been removed, and the shatter formulas have been changed.
7. Blizzard effects, which vary from release to release, are being changed further - the last official release (1.10) was extemely tough on the Axis forces (much tougher than the manual stated). The Finns are also being dropped from the Axis blizzard penalties.
There have also been a number of changes to message boxes, including fixing incorrect messages, providing more information, etc.
Unfortunately, some things will not be possible in the DOS based WIR we are working on. It is probably not possible to enlarge the map to include the other areas, for example. Because WIR is a DOS program, a memory expander is necessary to go past the basic 640k memory limit of DOS. I don't believe that this is being considered at this point.
By the way, I have seen at least one question about the program running under WIN98. I have tried in under both 95 and 98, and neither have caused me any problems. I don't believe any of the other playtesters have had problems either, so for anyone with concerns, I don't think the operating system itself should be a problem for the great majority of people. Specific hardware could be different, but nobody has had any issues yet.
I hope this helps everyone.
Rick
[This message has been edited by RickyB (edited July 26, 2000).]
I am part of the group testing the game for Matrix. We have been getting a lot done with it, especially fixing bugs (and undocumented features that we thought were bugs
). Besides the bug fixes, there are going to be a number of changes to the actual game play. Some of this will probably change before the end, but here are some of the highlights:1. Air to ground attacks are going to be weaker, as they were too strong before to be historically correct. This is still being tweaked, so it is hard to say what the final effect will be.
2. Strategic bombing will also be weaker for the Axis and Soviets, and for the USAAF through early 1944. The damage will still typically be done, but be lighter than before and thus be repaired more quickly. The Germans could knock out a significant part of the Soviet on-map industry in just a few turns, which was not likely no matter how hard they tried.
3. Ops point costs for special supply are being increased to make it more realistic and historical, and eliminate gamey play.
4. Many tank and plane ratings are being adjusted.
5. Certain locations (Sevastopol for example) are being given permanent fortification levels in addition to the normal city levels that exist in the game already.
6. Shattering of the West and Italian Axis fronts has undergone major changes, but not to the point of suffering losses on each turn as Ed suggested. This is an idea I have had also, but it has not come up in our group. It may show up in a future update if it can be done fairly easily. There were certain shatter events that would happen no matter what the strength of the front was. These have been removed, and the shatter formulas have been changed.
7. Blizzard effects, which vary from release to release, are being changed further - the last official release (1.10) was extemely tough on the Axis forces (much tougher than the manual stated). The Finns are also being dropped from the Axis blizzard penalties.
There have also been a number of changes to message boxes, including fixing incorrect messages, providing more information, etc.
Unfortunately, some things will not be possible in the DOS based WIR we are working on. It is probably not possible to enlarge the map to include the other areas, for example. Because WIR is a DOS program, a memory expander is necessary to go past the basic 640k memory limit of DOS. I don't believe that this is being considered at this point.
By the way, I have seen at least one question about the program running under WIN98. I have tried in under both 95 and 98, and neither have caused me any problems. I don't believe any of the other playtesters have had problems either, so for anyone with concerns, I don't think the operating system itself should be a problem for the great majority of people. Specific hardware could be different, but nobody has had any issues yet.
I hope this helps everyone.
Rick
[This message has been edited by RickyB (edited July 26, 2000).]
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi
Semper Fi
I acquired a copy of WiR from an unofficial source, and the patches up to ver 1.13. My question is this: will your patch or reworking be applicable to ALL versions of the previously released game, or is this going to be a complete new game for people who have never owned WiR? I'm a little confused as to what you guys are going to offer in the next few weeks. Please clarify this for us. Thanks!
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"Klotzen, nicht Kleckern (roughly translated, 'Use the fist, not the fingers')"--Heinz Guderian
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"Klotzen, nicht Kleckern (roughly translated, 'Use the fist, not the fingers')"--Heinz Guderian
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Ed Cogburn
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Originally posted by RickyB:
1. Air to ground attacks are going to be weaker, as they were too strong before to be historically correct. This is still being tweaked, so it is hard to say what the final effect will be.
2. Strategic bombing will also be weaker for the Axis and Soviets, and for the USAAF through early 1944. The damage will still typically be done, but be lighter than before and thus be repaired more quickly. The Germans could knock out a significant part of the Soviet on-map industry in just a few turns, which was not likely no matter how hard they tried.
Currently, you can either use a air unit for one strategic mission or leave it to be used for ground support for every battle fought by the Army its assigned to (unless you cheat). This has never made much sense to me, if air units can fly multiple missions during ground support why only one strategic mission? If that single strategic mission is flown, wouldn't the air units have some readiness left over that might be helpful in the ground support phase? Why not have the air units just loose readiness for strategic attacks just like ground support and let the human then decide how much of an air unit's readiness he wants to expend on strategic missions and/or ground support.
4. Many tank and plane ratings are being adjusted.
Any chance of a "durability/reliability" characteristic for tanks?
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David Heath
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- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2000 5:00 pm
Hi Ed,
I don't believe this would be feasible to add at this point, as it would require changing all of the databases to add the rating and then inputting them. There is a high likelihood that another revision may be made to make significant changes to the game play, as opposed to this version, which is primarily tweaking aspects of the current game, along with the bug fixes. This might be one to consider then - I am just a playtester so I don't know. We can bring it up for discussion at least.
As to air units, I will bring this up to the group. I don't know if resetting an air unit to ground support for the combat phase is a cheat or a bug. The tutorial states that air units can conduct one player controlled attack before combat and then the computer will control its use during the combat phase. However, since the air unit will only operate in the combat phase if set to ground support, escort or CAP, bombers can't be used in both phases unless they can be changed after carrying out the player controlled mission. Since the keystroke to change the mission is the same whether the (M)ission button appears or not, I think the missing (M)ission button is a bug rather than a cheat. It just needs to be documented, IMHO.
Regarding the use of air units for multiple player directed attacks, I believe this was to limit their overwhelming effect on ground units. A feature allowing multiple player directed attacks is beyond the scope of the current update due to the work required, but again could be considered for a possible follow up release. A feature like this will take quite a bit of programming and testing to make sure the feature is reasonable, works for the game, and does not unbalance it.
Thanks for the ideas, Ed.
Rick
Any chance of a "durability/reliability" characteristic for tanks?
I don't believe this would be feasible to add at this point, as it would require changing all of the databases to add the rating and then inputting them. There is a high likelihood that another revision may be made to make significant changes to the game play, as opposed to this version, which is primarily tweaking aspects of the current game, along with the bug fixes. This might be one to consider then - I am just a playtester so I don't know. We can bring it up for discussion at least.
As to air units, I will bring this up to the group. I don't know if resetting an air unit to ground support for the combat phase is a cheat or a bug. The tutorial states that air units can conduct one player controlled attack before combat and then the computer will control its use during the combat phase. However, since the air unit will only operate in the combat phase if set to ground support, escort or CAP, bombers can't be used in both phases unless they can be changed after carrying out the player controlled mission. Since the keystroke to change the mission is the same whether the (M)ission button appears or not, I think the missing (M)ission button is a bug rather than a cheat. It just needs to be documented, IMHO.
Regarding the use of air units for multiple player directed attacks, I believe this was to limit their overwhelming effect on ground units. A feature allowing multiple player directed attacks is beyond the scope of the current update due to the work required, but again could be considered for a possible follow up release. A feature like this will take quite a bit of programming and testing to make sure the feature is reasonable, works for the game, and does not unbalance it.
Thanks for the ideas, Ed.
Rick
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi
Semper Fi
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Ed Cogburn
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- Location: Greeneville, Tennessee - GO VOLS!
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Hi Rick,
Are you serious? A "new" version like the new "War in the Pacific" game being developed? Can I start drooling now, or is it still an unofficial idea that might get dropped?
I never agreed with the idea that an air unit can fly 3-5 times during ground support with its big impact on the game, versus just one strategic mission with likely unimpressive results. So, yes, I used the "cheat", and reset air units back to ground support. But I've always wondered if my rationale was a good one...
Please note that I wasn't asking for air units to have an even bigger impact, rather that strategic missions and ground support be combined and handled in a more consistent, integrated manner. If the air unit's ability to inflict damage, whether via strategic missions or ground support, is unrealistic, then by all means reduce the impact. I want a realistic game just as much as anyone else.
There is a high likelihood that another revision may be made to make significant changes to the game play, as opposed to this version, which is primarily tweaking aspects of the current game, along with the bug fixes.
Are you serious? A "new" version like the new "War in the Pacific" game being developed? Can I start drooling now, or is it still an unofficial idea that might get dropped?
As to air units, I will bring this up to the group. I don't know if resetting an air unit to ground support for the combat phase is a cheat or a bug.
I never agreed with the idea that an air unit can fly 3-5 times during ground support with its big impact on the game, versus just one strategic mission with likely unimpressive results. So, yes, I used the "cheat", and reset air units back to ground support. But I've always wondered if my rationale was a good one...
Please note that I wasn't asking for air units to have an even bigger impact, rather that strategic missions and ground support be combined and handled in a more consistent, integrated manner. If the air unit's ability to inflict damage, whether via strategic missions or ground support, is unrealistic, then by all means reduce the impact. I want a realistic game just as much as anyone else.
Hi Ed,
Matrix also announced a brand new Eastern Front game to be developed by Gary Grigsby at the same time they announced the new War in the Pacific, also by Gary (go ahead and drool, I think
) . They did have it shown on their list of upcoming games for quite a while, but took it off when they revised their web page a week or two ago. I am guessing this happened because it won't be started until after War in the Pacific, but this is just my personal guess. It would be a brand new Windows native game, I believe.
One of the rotating banner ads on this site is showing a November release date for War in the Pacific - I don't know how firm that is, but that would be the starting point for the new east front game, I think.
This should all be a lot of fun.
Rick
What I was talking about was still regarding the DOS WIR of old, but with more major changes to it that will take much longer to implement. This has just been in the talking stage, with a lot of major changes put on hold for that. We have talked about adding numerous new tanks and planes, revamping the industrial setup, manpower, etc. However, because these kinds of changes will change the game so seriously, playtesting out the game will take a long time, so it is being done as a separate project, assuming it goes forward.A "new" version like the new "War in the Pacific" game being developed? Can I start drooling now, or is it still an unofficial idea that might get dropped?
Matrix also announced a brand new Eastern Front game to be developed by Gary Grigsby at the same time they announced the new War in the Pacific, also by Gary (go ahead and drool, I think
) . They did have it shown on their list of upcoming games for quite a while, but took it off when they revised their web page a week or two ago. I am guessing this happened because it won't be started until after War in the Pacific, but this is just my personal guess. It would be a brand new Windows native game, I believe.One of the rotating banner ads on this site is showing a November release date for War in the Pacific - I don't know how firm that is, but that would be the starting point for the new east front game, I think.
This should all be a lot of fun.
Rick
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi
Semper Fi
Way to go guys - I'm looking forward to this fall - all these great games coming out - Ahhh, so many great games... so little time...
Keep up the excellent work fellas...you are warming my heart with your dedication to get these games out to us wargamers
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A King Tiger can give you a definite edge...
Keep up the excellent work fellas...you are warming my heart with your dedication to get these games out to us wargamers
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A King Tiger can give you a definite edge...
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Yogi Yohan
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Would it be possible to add an option for the Axis to launch offensives on the western and italian fronts? (Just by clicking a button)
If sucessfull, the allies would be pushed back a step and/or be weakened, while the axis would suffer heavier casualties (especially if the offensive was unsucessful).
Of course, in some case this button should not be available, for example invasion of Britain after 1941 or re-invasion of Africa or Sicily after the axis have been pushed out of there.
/Yogi Yohan
If sucessfull, the allies would be pushed back a step and/or be weakened, while the axis would suffer heavier casualties (especially if the offensive was unsucessful).
Of course, in some case this button should not be available, for example invasion of Britain after 1941 or re-invasion of Africa or Sicily after the axis have been pushed out of there.
/Yogi Yohan
Hello !
I am the programmer who is making the WIR patch.
You are right about the North African problem. Fortunately, the Italian front routines have been altered, so that if you take the risk of stripping this front, you will be likely to lose Africa.
The old version of the game did not allow the allies to do anything in Africa in 1941, even if the Axis stripped it of their forces.
Regards,
Arnaud Bouis
[This message has been edited by Arnaud (edited July 30, 2000).]
I am the programmer who is making the WIR patch.
You are right about the North African problem. Fortunately, the Italian front routines have been altered, so that if you take the risk of stripping this front, you will be likely to lose Africa.
The old version of the game did not allow the allies to do anything in Africa in 1941, even if the Axis stripped it of their forces.
Regards,
Arnaud Bouis
[This message has been edited by Arnaud (edited July 30, 2000).]
OK Guys I have two beefs with the old WIR I hope get touched up.
1) My usual opponent has a nasty habit of replacing all the armour units in WF and Africa with little tiny Pz II and stripping anything and everything else to the East. Will this be addressed. There should be a penalty with regards to the quality of armour left within Africa and the Western Front areas.
2) Whats with this air transport stuff???
My opponent would move several corps of armour through my lines and beyond simply by using airtransport almost to Moscow. Often he would reply "I dont need no lousey russia roads....I have air transport". Is this gamey to have 8 Corps completely resupplied for weeks on end with airtransport.
Just my two cents thanks
1) My usual opponent has a nasty habit of replacing all the armour units in WF and Africa with little tiny
Pz II and stripping anything and everything else to the East. Will this be addressed. There should be a penalty with regards to the quality of armour left within Africa and the Western Front areas.2) Whats with this air transport stuff???
My opponent would move several corps of armour through my lines and beyond simply by using airtransport almost to Moscow. Often he would reply "I dont need no lousey russia roads....I have air transport". Is this gamey to have 8 Corps completely resupplied for weeks on end with airtransport.
Just my two cents thanks
Queen's Cowboy's Always get their man......