Crusade against Bolshevism

[davewolf]

Hi

A few days ago I added a battle reports page on my site ( http://www.davescorner.de/games/wir/bat ... le_en.html ). If you have save games looking very interesting (turning points, unconventional strategies, 'How to dos' and 'How to not dos') screenshots of them can be posted there.

As an example I took the monumental struggle between Loveman and me.

"At the beginning of the war our troops advanced faster than anyone could have dreamed of. They destroyed many Soviet armies.
The Fuhrer decided not to capture Moscow and Leningrad before the winter so that we didn't have to feed millions of pow's AND the Russian people.
To shorten our supply lines our glorious armies withdrew temporarily and arranged winter quarters. The weak Soviet troops tried to hinder our movements but they were defeated and suffered heavy losses from which they will never again recover.
Currently our soldiers familiarize themselves with their new weapons, the Pz IV and the He 177, the bomber the Luftwaffe always wanted.
It is beyond doubt that this year will face the end of the bolshevistic plague."

quoted from the
"Völkischer Beobachter", 04.26.1942

Dave

[screamer]

heheh any of you think th HE177 doesnt belong in game, most of the ones that where build wherent used, germany once again wanted to much [dive bomber, heavy bomber in one]


nut nevermind this is off topic

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by screamer
heheh any of you think th HE177 doesnt belong in game, most of the ones that where build wherent used, germany once again wanted to much [dive bomber, heavy bomber in one]

Yep, my understanding is they couldn't have mass produced that plane if they had wanted too.due to lack of materials.

[czerpak]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn



Yep, my understanding is they couldn't have mass produced that plane if they had wanted too.due to lack of materials.

Not only that - the ones that were finally built had to many technical problems, so it was hard to make them fly.
But in a game I love it anyway
Maciej

[moonfog]

Originally posted by czerpak

Not only that - the ones that were finally built had to many technical problems, so it was hard to make them fly.
But in a game I love it anyway
Maciej

Because WiR doesn't simulate technical problems, the He-177 is a very fine bomber and I love it too. However, I think the He-177's bombload is still overrated compared to f.ex. the B-17.

Ray

[screamer]

yup, its a very nice nomber in the game thats tru, but i still think its ahistorical to put it in and i would like to see it replaced[with what, arent many other german bombers, maybe naaa nevermind]

[loveman]

the mighty stalin has vowed to break the whermacht back in 1942 and will be in berlin in the summer of 1943.

the red army has plenty reserves to finnish of the pitiful german army.:rolleyes:

[Lokioftheaesir]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn


Yep, my understanding is they couldn't have mass produced that plane if they had wanted too.due to lack of materials.

Ed

And this is where my attidude towards realism follows your own. I may clump industry over certain types of air/armour but do not do so with types that had historical problems. At most i will have only two factories on he177 to support 1 or 2 units, the rest on proven designs , he111 & ju88.
The same with the elephant. It was realistically to expensive to produce in the numbers required and a tad too sophisticatted for the job it was meant for. JgPz 4 is the best ballance and cost for that job.

Loki

[RickyB]

And the new production model should help with these unrealistic production levels, although it is not perfect. Switch everything to the He177 and you will end up with many fewer bombers. The same with the more expensive tanks. Now at least there is a choice between quantity and "quality", whereas before it was strictly a quality choice as you would get nearly the same quantity of anything you chose to build.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir


Ed

And this is where my attidude towards realism follows your own.

.....

Agreed. Even further though, I don't like the He-177 presences in the game at all because it was not an aircraft produced in large numbers.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by RickyB
And the new production model should help with these unrealistic production levels, although it is not perfect.

Its going to need some more tinkering I think. I ran a comp vs comp game, and at the end there was not a significant difference between He177 asd Ju88 production He177 production was 10, and 11, and Ju88 production was 11, 12, and 15.

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn
Its going to need some more tinkering I think. I ran a comp vs comp game, and at the end there was not a significant difference between He177 asd Ju88 production He177 production was 10, and 11, and Ju88 production was 11, 12, and 15.

But it is much better. If you watched during the game, the He177 factories should have topped out at 8 and then randomly but very slowly grown another level. The Ju88s would have gone to 10, as they are cost 7. Your end of game output is in relation to the cost of the 2 planes. However, before the He177 would have grown to 15, or nearly double the level in current game. The only way to improve it in the current system would be to allow higher costs than 9, or lower the Ju88 and other bomber costs and remove some factories I guess.

[davewolf]

Originally posted by screamer
yup, its a very nice nomber in the game thats tru, but i still think its ahistorical to put it in and i would like to see it replaced[with what, arent many other german bombers, maybe naaa nevermind]

The forum is a bit quite these days...

Anyway, in order to remain historical there is no chance to find a german WWII bomber that could replace Ju-88/He-111/Do-17. There were only either slightly modificated ones like the Ju-188/Do-217 or late or problematic projects that were never build in large numbers (Ju-288/Ar-234/He-177).

Nevertheless my Luftwaffe will get thousands of He-177 and these will surely bomb Stalin back to Stone Age.

Dave

[moonfog]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn

Agreed. Even further though, I don't like the He-177 presences in the game at all because it was not an aircraft produced in large numbers.

Ed,

concerning production numbers of the He-177 I found the following data on warbirdsresourcegroup.org:

"Production:
8 Prototypes
35 He 177A-0 (Mainly Arado built)
130 He 177A-1 (Arado built)
170 He 177A-3 (Heinkel Built)
826 He 177A-5"


I agree that a bit more than 1000 He-177 built is certainly not indicating a mass production of this plane. But I think that this quantity should be enough to keep the He-177 in the game.

It's a fact that the He-177 suffered some severe technical flaws, sure. The problem IMO is that WiR doesn't take the liability of a tank or plane into account. Adding a new equipment attribute like "technical liability" (which could influence the number of pieces showing up in combat) to WiR is not possible, I fear. So the problem that in reality the He-177 was very unliable and therefore not built/used en masse but in WiR it is a super bomber cannot be solved this way.

However, I think Yogi found a simple but effective way to prevent the soviets being crushed by masses of german super bombers in 1942 (Yogi redid all plane attributes in his alternative obwir). He set the availability date of the He-177 to octobre 1943 instead of march 1942 in the original obwir. This change saves the soviet player from unrealistic griffon-attacks at least until end 1943.

In 1943/44 and with the new production calculation in WiR 3.2, probably a german player can't afford anymore to build an expensive bomber with many of his factories when he needs a lot of planes to replace his losses(?).

IMO, Yogis change solves a big part of the in-game-problem with the He-177 and such a change wouldn't be even (too) ahistorical. So why not add a later availability date in Matrix WiR 3.3?

Regards
Ray

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by moonfog

It's a fact that the He-177 suffered some severe technical flaws, sure. The problem IMO is that WiR doesn't take the liability of a tank or plane into account. Adding a new equipment attribute like "technical liability" (which could influence the number of pieces showing up in combat) to WiR is not possible, I fear. So the problem that in reality the He-177 was very unliable and therefore not built/used en masse but in WiR it is a super bomber cannot be solved this way.

We had thought of a "reliability" characteristic, but adding such a thing would be an awful lot of work.

However, I think Yogi found a simple but effective way to prevent the soviets being crushed by masses of german super bombers in 1942 (Yogi redid all plane attributes in his alternative obwir). He set the availability date of the He-177 to octobre 1943 instead of march 1942 in the original obwir.

Was this change for historical reasons or simply to make the He177 less important? If the He177 really did show up in 1942, I don't believe we should change that. This goes back to my concern over how we go about solving problems with the game. Damaging realism or historical accuracy to fix a problem is the wrong way to go about solving a problem I believe. We've inproved things a good deal in 3.2, I think further tweaks in the future can reign in the He177 problem, without altering realism or accuracy.

[moonfog]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn


Was this change for historical reasons or simply to make the He177 less important? If the He177 really did show up in 1942, I don't believe we should change that. This goes back to my concern over how we go about solving problems with the game. Damaging realism or historical accuracy to fix a problem is the wrong way to go about solving a problem I believe. We've inproved things a good deal in 3.2, I think further tweaks in the future can reign in the He177 problem, without altering realism or accuracy.

I agree with you that there shouldn't be any ahistorical game changes just to balance the game. Otherwise we could end up with a well-balanced sci-fi game and nobody wants that, I think.

I don't know what the intention behind Yogis change exactly was. From a historical point of view, octobre 1943 is probably a bit too late. But the He-177 A-5 (the most built version with 826 planes and though probably less flawed than the prior versions) seems to have been delivered into service in February 1943.

Taking the production quantity argument into account, on which I agree with you, then one could probably argue that the He-177 represented in WiR should be the version A-5 because the prior Griffons where produced only in small numbers. Because of that, a change to at least early 1943 would IMO not damaging realism for balances sake.

Last but not least, v3.2 has really improved very much. A BRAVO to Arnaud, you and the other members of the development team for that good work.

Ray

[czerpak]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn


If the He177 really did show up in 1942, I don't believe we should change that. This goes back to my concern over how we go about solving problems with the game. Damaging realism or historical accuracy to fix a problem is the wrong way to go about solving a problem I believe.

You see Ed, as I said in other thread we do agree on many things
BTW My generall opinion about historical realism - it is ONLY a game, so sometimes we have to give up realism to keep game playable, right ?

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by moonfog

I don't know what the intention behind Yogis change exactly was. From a historical point of view, octobre 1943 is probably a bit too late. But the He-177 A-5 (the most built version with 826 planes and though probably less flawed than the prior versions) seems to have been delivered into service in February 1943.

This is what I found out after looking around some:

http://www.simviation.com/fsdcbainhe177.htm
http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/2833/ ... he177.html
http://yarchive.net/mil/bomber_duel.htm ... he177.html
http://www.kotfsc.com/aircraft/he-177.htm

I think you and the others are right. In WIR the He177 shouldn't show up until Feb '43 to represent the more numerous A5 version. About 3/4 of the He177s produced were the A5 variant. Even this doesn't get us really close to reality, because a large number of those A5 models on the eastern front were fitted with 50mm and 75mm guns and used as tank busters, not level bombers.

The He177 is a good example of WIR's limitation in aircraft characteristics, since in WIR this is a great bomber whereas in reality it was a horrible failure, and was hated by its crews. Many of its crews called it a "flying coffin". If we had a valid historical alternative, I would actually vote to remove the He177 in place of another aircraft. So are there any bomber type planes in the Luftwaffe, where more than a thousand of them were produced somewhere between '41 to early '44, that aren't represented in WIR?



One thing I found while looking for info is the following story. Its one of those "would you believe this" stories, and I figure many of you may like to hear this. Have you ever heard of air-to-air combat between bombers?

http://yarchive.net/mil/bomber_duel.html

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by czerpak

You see Ed, as I said in other thread we do agree on many things
BTW My generall opinion about historical realism - it is ONLY a game, so sometimes we have to give up realism to keep game playable, right ?

This statement could be the start of a long discussion.

Its an interesting proposition, I suppose it would depend on how much realism is lost in a given example. There is a point at which I would no longer be interested in a game if it sacrifices a substantial amount of accuracy in favor of a balanced contest. It depends on what you get out of the game, what makes it so compelling to you. For me, it is at least the appearance of a historical simulation that is important, not whether the game is balanced or not. To me, balance can always be achieved through the formulation of a set of victory conditions that can make the game interesting to play even if its clear one side can not "win" in the conventional sense. Either way, its an interesting question, what do the rest of you think?

[davewolf]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn
So are there any bomber type planes in the Luftwaffe, where more than a thousand of them were produced somewhere between '41 to early '44, that aren't represented in WIR?

No.

One thing I found while looking for info is the following story. Its one of those "would you believe this" stories, and I figure many of you may like to hear this. Have you ever heard of air-to-air combat between bombers?

http://yarchive.net/mil/bomber_duel.html

From now on I'll wait for a bomber-only dogfight air-sim!