What I Want for Christmas ...

[SGT Rice]

After several dozen (extremely enjoyable) games against quality opponents and a lot of up close study of W@W, I'm a big
fan of the game system. It's my opinion that some straight forward changes in game mechanics would yield major
improvements in realism with minor additional complexity (which is a tribute to the core design), so I'd like to offer
these observations/suggestions for the forum's (and the developers') consideration.

Several prominent ahistorical features of current game play include:

A1) Super units: the strategy of focusing on a single type of ground unit as the recipient of a huge share of your tech
expenditures. The most extreme (and common) example of course is the WA teching up their infantry, building NO
ARMOR over the entire course of the war. Obviously this didn't happen and was never a realistic option, for a lot of very
good reasons.

A2) The ability of air units acting alone to destroy Army-sized ground formations; the German aerial eradication of the
Caucasus defenders (paving the way for an unopposed paradrop) being a common example. I bet the Market Garden
planners wished they had this option! Just didn't happen.

A3) The ability of heavy anti-aircraft units to reliably deny large sectors of airspace to enemy aircraft for any purpose.
Players can easily make huge field armies and industrial zones impregnable to air attack, solely with AA. Just didn't
happen. Players also can make country-sized blocks of airspace impassible to aircraft for any purpose with AA op-fire:
I know the Germans tried creating flak belts to block WA bombing routes, but it absolutely failed to protect Germany
from air attacks coming over the Low Countries. In W@W its fool-proof! A single AA unit can eliminate everything that
tries to fly over its territory. Even battleships with teched-up AA can interdict aircraft movement. Just didn't happen.

A4) The absence of fighter aircraft from the ground attack role, especially when confronted by heavy AA. Fighters WERE
used for this purpose, in a big way, and heavy AA units were physically incapable of countering the threat. We can't say
that W@W AA units include light AA; light AA was definitely a separate, highly mobile weapon class that was integrated
into armor/infantry/artillery formations, unlike the heavy guns employed in fixed defense of important stationary targets
like factories, bridges, etc.

A5) The absence of research to improve the ground attack abilities of fighter aircraft, and the corresponding absence of
research to improve the light AA capabilities of their targets. These research options are available to players, but
they're rarely pursued because they're cost ineffective. But these things did happen, again in a big way and for very
good reasons.

A6) The ability of strategic bombing to obliterate (rather than simply disrupt) entire industries. Factories were highly
durable targets. Wholesale destruction only occurred in the later stages of the war, with overwhelming Allied numeric
superiority and highly teched-up heavy bombers. In most cases infrastructure disruptions from aerial attack were
repaired within weeks if manpower/resources were available.

A7) The inability to select stationary target types for your aircraft. The railroads in Rumania shouldn't be less vulnerable
than the ones in Eastern Poland just because they're surrounded by factories and resources. If American 8th AF
mission planners told their squadrons to hit railroads, their pilots didn't wind up hitting burned out factories by mistake
for three solid months!


I could go into more details, but I hope that outlines a core set of problems in the air-ground combat arena. Because of
these imbalances, we've resorted to a variety of gamey strategies to exploit the game system, along with some far
fetched fudge factors (the dreaded 4Fs!) to try and rebalance the game. Examples include:


B1) (4F) Ad hoc adjustments to research costs or house rule limits on research options to inhibit "super unit"
strategies.

B2) (4F) Ad hoc changes in movement point costs or terrain types to make it harder for aircraft to reach/destroy
vulnerable ground formations, such as the 2MP border between Caucasus/Black Sea (doesn't necessarily stop the aerial
eradication; you just need 3MP bombers). (4F) Made heavy AA units FAR too powerful.

B3) (gamey strategy) Building huge concentrations of heavy AA units and correspondingly writing off air attack as an
offensive option against field armies and infrastructure thus defended.

B4) (gamey strategy) Completely writing off fighters as ground attack platforms (anybody remember the Typhoon and
the P47?).

B5) (4F) Ad hoc world standard for fighter ground attack and ground unit air attack ratings, arbitrarily making it cost
ineffective to research fast, low-flying aircraft armed with cannons and rockets for ground attack (Corsair? Avenger?
FW190?) AND the rapid-traverse automatic weapons (Wirbelwind? Quad 50s?) to defend against them.

B6) (gamey strategy) Engaging in the wholesale destruction of industries from the air by air forces, including early war
air forces equipped solely with fighters/medium bombers.

B7) (4F) The randomization of infrastructure targeting to make it less vulnerable.


The little 4F joke aside, I don't intend these observations as a slam on anyone involved in designing/implementing these
fixes; I understand they were expedient methods to improve our enjoyment of the game. Nor am I criticizing players for
taking what the game system gives them; I use the gamey strategies myself. W@W has made huge strides in elegant
game design, and the ahistorical patterns I mention weren't necessarily obvious until the gaming community started to
work out the optimum strategies to exploit the game system.

I think all of these issues could be dealt with through some straight forward changes to W@W's game mechanics. Here
are changes I would propose:

C1) A combined arms bonus - Divide ground units into three classes; mobile (armor), foot (infantry, militia, airborne)
and fire support units (artillery, heavy AA). Allow players to pair any of these combinations (mobile/foot, mobile/fire
support, foot/fire support or mobile/foot/fire support) of units in the same way you attach paras to a bomber or a CV to
an air group. Paired units would then receive +1 to their ground attack and evasion ratings (+2 with the triple threat
mobile/foot/fire support combination).

Now your 9/9 infantry will come off poorly when faced with a balanced tank/infantry/artillery force.

C2) Aircraft can't damage/kill ground units. Period. When air units attack, a 'hit' result should reduce the ground unit's
evasion and combat ratings by one. A second hit (or a hit that doubles the ground unit's evasion rating) could reduce
the evasion rating by two (the maximum reduction). Note that aircraft wouldn't affect the ground units simply by
attacking them ... they would need to score a 'hit' result. Reduce heavy/light bomber units ground attack/world standard
ratings; increase for fighters/CV airgroups.

This would make effective air support an extremely powerful force multiplier, without allowing the fictitious destruction
of army-sized ground formations by air forces.

C3) Allow aircraft to continue their mission when hit by AA; they finish the bomb run with -1 to their attack rating,
before they head to the production spiral. Eliminate the ability for AA units to op-fire.

Now AA can't make your industries impregnable, nor can it block all aerial movement.

C4 & C5) Create two new unit ratings. First, a strategic bombing rating (used when attacking infrastructure) for which
heavy bombers would be the weapon of choice and fighters would be basically useless. Second, a light AA rating. The
current (heavy) AA unit would have little/no capability here; their heavy AA ratings would be applied against strategic
bombing missions (which are only executed by heavy/light bombers); while fighters/CV airgroups could only be
targeted (from the ground) with light AA. Ships would be classified as light AA. World standards for light AA should be
raised drastically; encouraging lots of research to keep the swarms of single-engine aircraft at a distance. Strategic
and ground attack factors of aircraft should be inversely related to the range of the mission; i.e., bombers would drop
from 100% to 50% of their attack rating as the mission range increases from 50% to 100% of their speed rating. For
fighters this loss should from 100% to 0% of their attack rating (the P51s that flew to Berlin weren't carrying rockets!).

Now multi-engine bombers would be used as they were historically; against infrastructure targets, single-engine
aircraft would be aimed at the ground forces, and there would be major benefits in locating your air forces as close as
possible to the target.

C6) Make level 2 damage of infrastructure MUCH harder, perhaps by increasing the evasion rating for level 1 damaged
infrastructure. Allow players to earmark supplies for "auto-repair" of infrastructure (again by "attaching" the supplies to
infrastructure with a right-click) so the supplies are automatically expended to repair the infrastructure if its damaged,
so there is no production loss. Make railroads vulnerable to level one damage from strategic bombing AND ground
attack from fighters (lots of choo-choos went boom this way!).

Now the strategic bombing campaigns would follow the historical pattern ... creating an annoying, but tolerable resource
drain until the sheer weight of explosives/incendiaries (i.e., high tech levels on your HBs strategic bombing rating) starts
to obliterate things (and fighters would blow up choo-choos!).

C7) Allow aircraft to preselect infrastructure target classes; assigning each attacking air unit to either factories,
resources, or railroads (without allowing them to choose between undamaged/damaged/destroyed targets within each
class).

Now you can think about strategic bombing the same way USAAF planners did: where should I concentrate missions to
achieve strategic a desired strategic effect?


Hope I've taken aim at a few sacred cows here ... got to keep the forum lively!

SGT Rice

[Forwarn45]

You have some good comments. Some of the things you mention, such as the way AA works, are things I haven't thought of before. But you are quite right. I did want to just briefly mention that I think the super unit strategy has been mostly addressed with the current patch. The much slower research into techs more than 2 over the WS is a great change IMO. You are quite right that it is still possible to concentrate on infantry and completely ignore armor. But the strategy isn't quite as effective as it once was.

[Harrybanana]

My comments:

A1) Research and the The Superunits: The way I have rationalized this to myself is that each unit in WaW represents at least a corp and while the Germans had panzer corps and the Russians had tank armies, the WA never had either. Thus each WA infantry unit could be considered to include tanks. Also tanks were actually much more effective against infantry in the early years of the War (even though they had much less firepower and armour) then they were in the final years of the war. In other words infantry anti-tank capabilities more than kept up with the new tank advances. If there is a problem it is not limited to the WA building super infantry but other super units as well.

I do agree with your combined arm bonus or something like it, though I think it should only be implemented in clear terrain regions. Tanks were of limited effect in rough terrain areas.

Having said this I agree that the research side of WaW needs revamping. I much prefer WaW to HOI2, but the HOI2 research model is superior. It has never made a lot of sense to me that you expend industrial points to produce research points. The 2 should somehow be separated. Money and skilled scientists/researchers were the primary requirements of research, while resources and factories were the primary requirements of production. For example the monetary cost of developing the atomic bomb was incredible, but I doubt the Americans were forced to build any fewer planes or tanks as a result, or at least the effect would have been minimal. I also don't understand why the cost of research is less if you have fewer units. It would be preferable if the research cost stayed the same, but then once you gain the research level you had to pay (perhaps in supply) to upgrade each unit indidvidually. It would also be good if the time it takes to produce a unit increases as it is developed.

A2) I agree that the effect of air attack should be to reduce a ground units effectiveness, but not destroy it.

A3) I agree with you that bombers should be able to attack even if damaged by AA but at the usual -1 to attack rating. With repect to OP-Fire I would like to see a system implemented where a player can move a stack of units at a time but the OP-firing unit can only fire at 1 unit, or perhaps use a system similar to beach invasions against artillery where the OP-firing unit gets an effectiveness reduction for each unit it fires at. This would apply to all OP-fires not just AA.

A4 and A5) The problem I see here is that fighters are so much cheaper to build then bombers. If fighters can be turned into TAC bombers then why build TAC bombers? Yes P47s and typhoons were use in ground attack roles, particularly aginst vehicles and infantry on the move. But they were not very effective at disrupting dug in infantry; that required the bigger bombers with the bigger bombs. I just don't know how this can be scaled into WaW.

A6) and A7) I agree with you about the problem, have to think more on your solution.


I could add several other things of my own to your wish list. But for the sake of brevity I will only add what to me is the biggest problem with WaW and that is the ability of naval units to travel vast distances, without risk of interception, and engage enemy units far from their bases. I would suggest that surface fleet units be allowed to perform either a combat mission or a base change mission in 1 turn, but not both. If changing base a fleet can travel an unlimited distance to a friendly port wher it must end it's turn (each turn is 3 months after all) but would be subject to OP-fire and interception. If performing a combat mission the fleet would have its usual movement allowance, but must end it's turn in a sea zone adjacent to a friendly land area it owned at the beginning of it's movement. In other words a fleet would not be allowed to move into a sea area if from that sea area it would not have sufficent movement points to move back to a sea area adjacent to a friendly area and a player would not be allowed to end his turn until he has so moved all fleets.

[a511]

Without playing the game for a month or so (concentrated on Civ IV instead [:'(]), im back to WAW!! Here's my comments.

A1) compare with the 9-9 WA infantry i encountered in 43 or around under the stock game research system, the current patch represents a huge improvement. as mentioned by forwarn, super unit is still possible, but it will show up a lot later now. so im fine with the current research system in containing the super unit issue.

A2) agree that air raid cannot destory "infantry and armor" units but to reduce units EV. but i prefer to remain the ability to destory art and flak units (consider that the ppl are still there but the air raid just damage the art and/ or flak so that the unit is not functional for the turn), otherwise sealion will be impossible.

A3) agree with rice and harry's comments

A7) agree, thats what i have requested b4.

i also agree with harry's comments on fleet movements.

in addition, no more "mega-long range amphibious attack" and bring back the "island-hopping" pacific war is what i really want.
i think the ideas that decrease the transport capacity of transport, if not adjacent with friendly port facilities, in the thread "Pacific War and amphibious invasions" is along the line that, while not completely solved the problems, at least it raise the importance of ports and make it worth to take the ports in the pacific islands.

a511

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

A6) The ability of strategic bombing to obliterate (rather than simply disrupt) entire industries. Factories were highly
durable targets. Wholesale destruction only occurred in the later stages of the war, with overwhelming Allied numeric
superiority and highly teched-up heavy bombers. In most cases infrastructure disruptions from aerial attack were
repaired within weeks if manpower/resources were available.

B4) (gamey strategy) Completely writing off fighters as ground attack platforms (anybody remember the Typhoon and
the P47?).

C6) Make level 2 damage of infrastructure MUCH harder, perhaps by increasing the evasion rating for level 1 damaged
infrastructure. Allow players to earmark supplies for "auto-repair" of infrastructure (again by "attaching" the supplies to
infrastructure with a right-click) so the supplies are automatically expended to repair the infrastructure if its damaged,
so there is no production loss. Make railroads vulnerable to level one damage from strategic bombing AND ground
attack from fighters (lots of choo-choos went boom this way!).

SGT Rice

A6. I wouldn't consider a factory becoming damaged to level 2 as obliterated. If what your saying was true, then it would disappear from the map just like a killed unit. But they don't. Remember that it takes 6 production to build one. So in effect you can only harm 1/3 of it by depleting it by 2 production points. So it's more of a disruption as you say than a destruction.

B4. Any plane that was a good tank buster, so to speak, is in my opinion just folded into the tac air unit. Why make pure fighters more capable in this regard, when if you want more tank busters just buy tac air instead of fighter air. That's a simple concept for a simple game. I say keep it that way.

C6. I agree with you here. Currently hitting any infrastructure after its been hit once is entirely to easy. The drop from a 12 defense to a 6 is to much, and makes it possible for fighter air to easily get a hit. So a combo of bomber and escorting fighter could in effect do a one two punch. What I have done in Franco's Alliance to make it harder to get the second hit is I adjusted the stock 2EV/6DUR to 4EV/3DUR. This still gives us the initial 12 defense but after a hit the defense will only drop by 3 rather than 6 to a 9 defense. Buy setting it at 9 its now much harder for escorting fighter air to score a hit on damaged infrastructure. It could be changed to 6EV/2DUR if you would like it to only drop to a defense of 10 after taking a hit. Or even 12EV/1DUR if you'd like it to only fall by 1 point. I settled on 9 because that boost from 6 seemed to be enough to make only dedicated bombers effective against infrastructure. Sure the occasional lucky fighter may still get a hit but that's keeping with the spirit of the game. Overall if you think 12 defense is to little to begin with, it could be increased to say 14 by using 7EV/2DUR for example. Anyway, I think you see the picture.

[SGT Rice]

HB,

Thanks for the comments. Some responses for you:

A1) Research and the The Superunits: The way I have rationalized this to myself is that each unit in WaW represents at least a corp and while the Germans had panzer corps and the Russians had tank armies, the WA never had either. Thus each WA infantry unit could be considered to include tanks

I guess you're saying that the individual W@W units we see on our computer screen correspond to the historical corps/armies of the combatants; so a force of 20 9/9 WA infantry (corps) attacking Germany in 1945 actually includes all the armored formations they had historically. I gotta disagree. If that force included armor then the armor had to be built, taking twice as long and costing twice as much as the infantry elements of the force. I think our W@W forces correspond to the proportions of each major weapon system (infantry/artillery/armor) fielded in each theatre, so that force of 20 WA infantry includes no tanks at all.

The WA didn't create armored corps/armies, but they still had more armored divisions (and a lot more tanks) than the Germans on the Western front, they just didn't designate tank formations above the division level. The US produced over 50,000 Shermans; more than the production runs of all the German types combined. And the WA certainly improved their armor. In 1940 the typical British medium tank was a 16-ton A10 with a 40mm main gun; in 1945 the US fielded the 42-ton Pershing with 90mm main armament. IMHO the only way this translates into W@W is that the WA built a lot of armor units, they researched them heavily, and the game mechanics should make it imperative for them to do so; teching up infantry and/or artillery formations wasn't a viable road to victory.

Also tanks were actually much more effective against infantry in the early years of the War (even though they had much less firepower and armour) then they were in the final years of the war. In other words infantry anti-tank capabilities more than kept up with the new tank advances.

I completely agree that tanks were much more effective against infantry early in the war ... infantry was sometimes so defenseless against armor during 1939-41 that some infantry formations simply dissolved in panic at the rumor of approaching enemy tanks. By 1944 many effective defensive weapon systems were available to the infantry, but why? Because the tank was the dominant weapon system on the battlefield and the combatants had to devise protection against it.

Without armor you're basically back in WWI in terms of your offensive options. I can't think of any technological or doctrinal improvements in WWII that made infantry into a vastly superior offensive force; lighter automatic weapons helped a tiny bit, but the basic method for getting the infantry on the offensive was to put them in vehicles so they could keep up with the tanks ... sure, you could DEFEND against armored attack with better artillery, AT guns, hand-held rockets, etc., but how would you successfully ATTACK armored formations when you had no armor at all? For that matter, how would you successfully attack any well-manned defensive position if you didn't have tanks?

The tank was the key to offensive warfare in WWII and that didn't change over the course of the war ... if a 1945 era US infantry division (minus the usual attached tank battalion) tried a frontal assault on a 1939 German infantry division they would be stopped cold. But in W@W the 8/8 or 9/9 WA infantry would annihilate the 6/6 landsers every time with no casualties.

Just trying to make the argument against super infantry leads me to think that a combined arms bonus isn't enough ... there was a hard upper limit on the offensive potential of infantry/artillery formations that really didn't start to change until things like night vision and precision-guided munitions came along. So in W@W game situations where you have basically equal infantry/artillery forces the attacker should never be able to defeat the defenders via teched-up evasion and ground attack ratings. There weren't any WWII technologies that allowed this to happen; its almost science fiction. The WA aren't the only ones who get away with it; Japan can easily overrun China with this approach (I'm guilty on multiple counts). The only way for WWII infantry to dominant their counterparts without other arms was if they were far more experienced; i.e., by gaining evasion & ground combat ratings through combat.

To represent these limitations we could lower the World Standard on infantry evasion and ground attack, making it prohibitively expensive to invent bulletproof infantry with lasers. We could also introduce a tougher combat modifier; attacking infantry suffers -1 to its evasion. But that still leaves the question of how to start protecting infantry from tanks as the war progresses. That could be represented by breaking out a separate armor attack rating from the general ground attack rating. That armor attack rating (and the corresponding armor defense rating) should always be the focus of heavy investments by Germany, the USSR and the WA. They had to engage in this arms race; field armies with scarce/grossly inferior armor were dogmeat (Libya 1940, Manchuria 1945, Kuwait 1990) unless they had huge advantages in terms of numbers, air support, etc.

Having said this I agree that the research side of WaW needs revamping. I much prefer WaW to HOI2, but the HOI2 research model is superior. It has never made a lot of sense to me that you expend industrial points to produce research points. The 2 should somehow be separated. Money and skilled scientists/researchers were the primary requirements of research, while resources and factories were the primary requirements of production. For example the monetary cost of developing the atomic bomb was incredible, but I doubt the Americans were forced to build any fewer planes or tanks as a result, or at least the effect would have been minimal. I also don't understand why the cost of research is less if you have fewer units. It would be preferable if the research cost stayed the same, but then once you gain the research level you had to pay (perhaps in supply) to upgrade each unit indidvidually.

Totally agree with you concerning the need to separate research from production. Of course this would imply that several generations of each weapon system can be on the map at the same time, requiring a substantial upgrade of the UI to allow the players to distinguish between them. HEY MATRIX; I think players would LOVE this; imagine your panzers gradually morphing from PzIs into Pz IIs > Pz IIIs > Pz IVs > Tiger Is > Panthers > Tiger IIs, etc.; we could have hundreds of different unit icons with everyone's favorite tank, aircraft and ship types to feast our eyes on.

It would also be good if the time it takes to produce a unit increases as it is developed.

Excellent point. If the German player wants to develop and build Tigers and Panthers it should come at steep cost not only in R&D but in terms of how slowly they come off the production line. If the WA is cranking out every Sherman they can then the Germans can be swamped by the tide of inferior armor.

A related note is how best to represent the historical research initiatives; a fundamental point is that some inidividual research expenditures should extend across multiple unit types; i.e., light AA research for ground units would apply equally to infantry/armor/artillery units ... it was basically the same set of weapons spread across all ground units. Same for naval AA, torpedoes, etc.

A4 and A5) The problem I see here is that fighters are so much cheaper to build then bombers. If fighters can be turned into TAC bombers then why build TAC bombers? Yes P47s and typhoons were use in ground attack roles, particularly aginst vehicles and infantry on the move. But they were not very effective at disrupting dug in infantry; that required the bigger bombers with the bigger bombs. I just don't know how this can be scaled into WaW.

A4&5) Excellent point about bombers being the best aerial platform for attacking dug-in units. How to represent at the strategic level? Perhaps you represent "digging-in" by allowing units that don't move to start accumulating defensive benefits; these benefits could be greater against particular types of attack (such as air strikes by fighters).

to me is the biggest problem with WaW and that is the ability of naval units to travel vast distances, without risk of interception, and engage enemy units far from their bases. I would suggest that surface fleet units be allowed to perform either a combat mission or a base change mission in 1 turn, but not both. If changing base a fleet can travel an unlimited distance to a friendly port wher it must end it's turn (each turn is 3 months after all) but would be subject to OP-fire and interception. If performing a combat mission the fleet would have its usual movement allowance, but must end it's turn in a sea zone adjacent to a friendly land area it owned at the beginning of it's movement. In other words a fleet would not be allowed to move into a sea area if from that sea area it would not have sufficent movement points to move back to a sea area adjacent to a friendly area and a player would not be allowed to end his turn until he has so moved all fleets.

A8?) Totally agree that naval movement should be represented more like aerial movement; units should "patrol" then return to base (or adjacent to base) at the end of the turn. Another nuance could be "reaction moves"; during your player turn you could flag your naval and air units if you want them to react to adjacent enemy movements; the reaction move would place your non-phasing units in the adjacent area and provoke combat with the moving units.

Thanks again for the comments HB; good stuff. None of it may ever happen, but its fun to kick around the ideas.

[SGT Rice]

Lebatron,

Thanks very much for the commentary.

Agreed that my choice of the word "obliterated" is misleading. "Complete loss of 3 months production" is more descriptive of level two damage in W@W. But I still maintain that such levels of damage were the exception not the rule ... if supplies are available then repairs should take effect immediately. RR repairs actually work that way already ... if supplies are available then you only lose 25% of your rail capacity in the following turn.

I also understand how you can rationalize that good ground attack aircraft are simply rolled into the bomber units, however, the production cost differences argue against it. I think of fighter units as primarily single-engine aircraft with
1-2 man crews, light bomber units as twin-engine with 3-6 man crews, and heavy bomber units as four-engine with 7+ man crews ... that explains the production cost differences.

Under this rationale single engine aircraft should all cost about the same whether they're pure fighters or ground attack aircraft. The exception of course are CV air groups, where pilot training requirements are far greater.

Of course you could accomodate both our points of view by creating more aircraft types, i.e, single & twin engined fighters, single/twin/four engine bombers, etc., all with they're own separate unit attributes and production costs. Might as well throw in separate air transport units while you're at it ...

Also agree with the approach of changing the EV/DUR mix on infrastructure; but I'm asking for a little more ... I'd like to see level2 damage be harder than level1. Also think that RRs are different ... very vulnerable to fighters.

[SGT Rice]

a511,

What do you think of separating amphibious capability from merchant shipping ... i.e., having a separate class of units called amphibs that would be required for any opposed landing? This would deprive the WA (and the Japanese and the Germans for that matter) of the ability to launch Normandy-sized operations until they had made major expenditures to design/build dedicated amphibious assault craft.

[JanSorensen]

The main concern to me is keeping the simple elegance of the system yet improving it. Its always easy to add things and complexity - the problem is adding things while keeping the game from bugging down in details.

I do agree though that its a shame that WaW is so much about focussing in one area. As Russia for example I never, ever build any aricraft. Its just not worth the effort. In some games I even do not build any Russian armor. Likewise I never build heavy bombers with the WA - heck in some games I dont build any bombers at all. So, its not just WA armor which is rare.

I wish I had an idea how to keep the "WaW-feeling" while letting builds spread out more on different kinds of units.

A simple partial solution might be to make it require 2.5:1 rather than 2:1 to take a (non-rough) area if the attack does not have more armor than the defender has armor+art. I doubt its enough to make armor interesting - but its a start atleast.

[Forwarn45]

Personally, I like armor and often build it because it helps threaten multiple areas. But I think it is a bit too easy to ignore.

(1) Adding a very small blitz/mobile defense bonus for one side when the other lacks armor might help. A very modest change would be to subtract one from all ground unit rolls by the side that doesn't have armor in a particular combat against the side that does.

(2) Another, more fundamental change, would be to make sure armor targets infantry first in a combat if there are no opposing tanks -- and that the enemy infantry has to target the armor second in priority after infantry - thereby protecting other units. This may go farther to making armor better. I like that armor sometimes goes for artillery or AA, but it is very aggravating when it goes for militia when there are better units to hit. It is often a waste of a very high roll!

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

I guess you're saying that the individual W@W units we see on our computer screen correspond to the historical corps/armies of the combatants; so a force of 20 9/9 WA infantry (corps) attacking Germany in 1945 actually includes all the armored formations they had historically. I gotta disagree. If that force included armor then the armor had to be built, taking twice as long and costing twice as much as the infantry elements of the force. I think our W@W forces correspond to the proportions of each major weapon system (infantry/artillery/armor) fielded in each theatre, so that force of 20 WA infantry includes no tanks at all.

The WA didn't create armored corps/armies, but they still had more armored divisions (and a lot more tanks) than the Germans on the Western front, they just didn't designate tank formations above the division level. The US produced over 50,000 Shermans; more than the production runs of all the German types combined. And the WA certainly improved their armor. In 1940 the typical British medium tank was a 16-ton A10 with a 40mm main gun; in 1945 the US fielded the 42-ton Pershing with 90mm main armament. IMHO the only way this translates into W@W is that the WA built a lot of armor units, they researched them heavily, and the game mechanics should make it imperative for them to do so; teching up infantry and/or artillery formations wasn't a viable road to victory.

Hey, I said I was rationalizing it to myself. I used to build WA armor but just found it was easier and more effective to just tech up my infantry. It is not too often I tech my infantry up to 9/9s though, only if the Axis have gone after Russia (leaving the WA alone) do I have enough extra tech points to do this. I agree with you that there should be more incentives to build tanks as the WA or Aircraft as the Russians. I further strongly agree with your suggestion to give each ground unit both a "soft" attack and "hard" attack and "soft" and "hard" evasions. Of course, this is again similar to HOI2. This way the WA would have to build tanks to be able to damage the Axis tanks.

So in W@W game situations where you have basically equal infantry/artillery forces the attacker should never be able to defeat the defenders via teched-up evasion and ground attack ratings. There weren't any WWII technologies that allowed this to happen; its almost science fiction. The WA aren't the only ones who get away with it; Japan can easily overrun China with this approach (I'm guilty on multiple counts). The only way for WWII infantry to dominant their counterparts without other arms was if they were far more experienced; i.e., by gaining evasion & ground combat ratings through combat.

I think this is a bit of an overstatement Sgt. Rice. There are many examples in WWII where all infantry forces (or almost all) prevailed over all infantry forces. The Allies seldom, if ever, outnumbered the Axis in Italy yet pushed them back with primarily infantry forces. True they had more artillery and aircraft, but the primary reason is that the Allied Infantry division by 1943 had more firepower and generally better equipment then it's German counterpart in the regular German army. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the tank was extremely important and the game would be better if it's importance was reflected in the game. On the other hand, I would like to see tanks being less effective in attacking rough terrain areas and fortifications (like Gibraltar).

A related note is how best to represent the historical research initiatives; a fundamental point is that some inidividual research expenditures should extend across multiple unit types; i.e., light AA research for ground units would apply equally to infantry/armor/artillery units ... it was basically the same set of weapons spread across all ground units. Same for naval AA, torpedoes, etc.

Again, I agree.

[SGT Rice]

HB,

Hey, I said I was rationalizing it to myself.

Sorry if that came across as a flame; just trying to think about what the historical data actually tells us (I'm a total geek when it comes to comparing my wargames to my history books).

I used to build WA armor but just found it was easier and more effective to just tech up my infantry

I do the same with the WA; ignore armor and give top priority to taking my infantry up to 9/9, even with the new spending limits you can have 9/9s in the field in 1944.

I think this is a bit of an overstatement Sgt. Rice. There are many examples in WWII where all infantry forces (or almost all) prevailed over all infantry forces. The Allies seldom, if ever, outnumbered the Axis in Italy yet pushed them back with primarily infantry forces. True they had more artillery and aircraft, but the primary reason is that the Allied Infantry division by 1943 had more firepower and generally better equipment then it's German counterpart in the regular German army. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the tank was extremely important and the game would be better if it's importance was reflected in the game. On the other hand, I would like to see tanks being less effective in attacking rough terrain areas and fortifications (like Gibraltar).

Excellent point: the Italian campaign is probably an acid test for some of my comments. Think I'll try to do a little research into the overall balance of forces. Agree with you that armor came off poorly in rough terrain; although at W@W scale, many regions called rough terrain have lots of tank country and vice versa. But some of the offensive benefits I'm lobbying for definitely wouldn't apply in rough terrain.

Thanks for the push back

[a511]

hi SGT

What do you think of separating amphibious capability from merchant shipping ... i.e., having a separate class of units called amphibs that would be required for any opposed landing? This would deprive the WA (and the Japanese and the Germans for that matter) of the ability to launch Normandy-sized operations until they had made major expenditures to design/build dedicated amphibious assault craft.

i prefer to keep it simple. i think the amphibious warefare in the EU threatre works fine, it just the lack of isalnd hopping in the pacific threatre that needs to be improved. imo, the idea of transport + amph capability penalties for transports not adjacent to friendly ports could help.

a511

[SeaMonkey]

I agree with a lot of the things said here, especially the need to provide a more balanced aspect of purchasing units, use of combined arms, and transport characteristics.

I'm not as knowledgeable of the game mechanics as most of the posters in this thread, but I'm sitting here reading and a few inconsequential things come to mind.

Armor or as like I like to think of it, "Mechanized Forces" definitely needs some stimulus to purchase. There is a combined arms attribute that needs exploration also, but I'm just thinking aloud and trying to relate the game use to the reality of its role. I can visualize "Mech" as fast moving, elevated firepower, sort of a mobile artillery arm, so why not give it some of the attributes.

Allow for Mech to fire twice(research range to 2?) like artillery does with some restrictions. As mentioned above, Mech should have a priority fire mission of frontline ground units(militia, inf, mech) first. Only when these are fully decimated(damaged or destroyed), should Mech get a shot at the second line ground units, like artillery and tripleA, that occupy the attacked area. This would represent a simulated penetration of the enemy's front line.

Now on defense, if any surviving mech remains from the initial round of attack computations, then they would get the second shot. This would provide a greater incentive(not that it is needed) for raising the EV of the unit and also simulate a use of mech forces as a mobile reserve in the area that is attacked(ie.greater numbers of deployment by the defender).

Transports are somewhat of a problem when used as amphibious vessels also. Can it fulfill both roles? I think it can and the designers have provided it with two different values, so we need to work within the parameters we have. I do believe that amphib. invasions are too easy to pull off(in the context of WW2 realities), but I also see the need to allow for attacking troops to take hostile areas without actually using true amphibious vehicles.

First I believe the initial amphib. value for tranports for all the belligerents should be at 1, perhaps two for the Japanese, with the WS set to 5.

Now when an invasion is conducted against an ungarrisoned area the amphibious value is not used. Only in the case of an opposed assault is the amphib. value of any significance. I realize that some of the initial unit deployments may have to be changed, but in the end the amphibious value for transports will actually represent that specialized use that needs to be researched.

This thread is definitely on the right track and could eventually lead to a more in depth game experience without complicating the mechanics. A goal, I believe, we all wish to attain.

[SGT Rice]

(1) Adding a very small blitz/mobile defense bonus for one side when the other lacks armor might help. A very modest change would be to subtract one from all ground unit rolls by the side that doesn't have armor in a particular combat against the side that does.

(2) Another, more fundamental change, would be to make sure armor targets infantry first in a combat if there are no opposing tanks -- and that the enemy infantry has to target the armor second in priority after infantry - thereby protecting other units. This may go farther to making armor better. I like that armor sometimes goes for artillery or AA, but it is very aggravating when it goes for militia when there are better units to hit. It is often a waste of a very high roll!

Some good ideas. That militia thing drives me batty too. I've heard the design rationale behind randomizing which units get fired on ... each ground combat is a little three month campaign, your opponent is maneuvering and won't necessarily let you engage the units you want, etc., but the advantages of mobility are completely lost; the only edge accruing to mechanized forces in combat are their ground combat and evasion ratings (if you've teched them high enough).

As Guderian said "a tank's engine is as much of a weapon as it's gun" (or something like that); mechanized units (with fuel) could almost always choose when/where to engage non-mechanized forces. How about this game mechanic: during ground combat create a separate blitz phase immediately preceding the artillery phase: if either side has greater than a 2:1 ratio of armored units over the enemy then their excess armored units engage enemy artillery during the blitz phase. Any artillery thus faced by armored units are not part of the artillery round, rather they're assumed to have been caught unprotected by the fast-moving tanks; they have to fight the tanks during the blitz phase and lose their two-shot capability.

The much slower research into techs more than 2 over the WS is a great change IMO.

I agree that it has put an upper limit on some of the game breaking tech strategies; but it still seems kinda ad hoc to me. At least we should go back and reevaluate some of the WS's to make sure there's enough ceiling to allow some of the technological races that took place. I'm especially thinking about armor; how many distinct generations (each of which dominated the preceding one on the battlefield) of tanks did the RU, GE, and WA go through during the course of the war?
Of course this would probably require separate armor combat ratings as HB and I were discussing above.