realistic PP transfers

[gwgardner]

In our current games, EuropaEnFlammen and Reprise, cpdeyoung, Chocolino, and I are trying something a little different, which we hope will make for a more sensible game: We have limited PP transfers between belligerent countries to 10% of each turn's/country's budget. Lend-lease is the sole exception, allowing the US to engage in the event-driven lend-lease transfers, plus 10% of each turn's PPs.

Note that PP transfers between non-belligerents, etc., have been restricted by house rules in the past, and we're still using those house rules.

We are trying to do away with the totally unrealistic huge PP transfers/swings, such as that I employed in the Sturm und Drang game, in which at one point I had the UK sending all of its PPs to Russia, then later in the war I had Russia sending PPs to both the UK and the US! Silly, huh?

In a related note, I am really enjoying another personal house rule, whereby I budgetize all my countries' spending. If for instance, I am currently budgeting 30% of USSRs PPs to infantry production, it really throws some tension and angst into my play, when I can't get to that 20% that is sitting in the armored forces budget. As in my current game, I am generally spending all of my currently budgeted infantry quota every turn, but that darned pool of PPs budgeted to armor is building and building - into the hundreds, but I can't use it - logically those are already spent producing tanks.

[Michael the Pole]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

In our current games, EuropaEnFlammen and Reprise, cpdeyoung, Chocolino, and I are trying something a little different, which we hope will make for a more sensible game: We have limited PP transfers between belligerent countries to 10% of each turn's/country's budget. Lend-lease is the sole exception, allowing the US to engage in the event-driven lend-lease transfers, plus 10% of each turn's PPs.

Note that PP transfers between non-belligerents, etc., have been restricted by house rules in the past, and we're still using those house rules.

We are trying to do away with the totally unrealistic huge PP transfers/swings, such as that I employed in the Sturm und Drang game, in which at one point I had the UK sending all of its PPs to Russia, then later in the war I had Russia sending PPs to both the UK and the US! Silly, huh?

I really like that idea, Gary. It is a totaly asinine idea to imagine that you could send an amount of resources equivelant to even 10% of a country's gross national product, much less 40% or 80% or, God help us, 100%, to another country, much less another continent. I think that 10% is a very reasonable compromise, and I'd like to see it formalized as a game rule in ToW.

In a related note, I am really enjoying another personal house rule, whereby I budgetize all my countries' spending. If for instance, I am currently budgeting 30% of USSRs PPs to infantry production, it really throws some tension and angst into my play, when I can't get to that 20% that is sitting in the armored forces budget. As in my current game, I am generally spending all of my currently budgeted infantry quota every turn, but that darned pool of PPs budgeted to armor is building and building - into the hundreds, but I can't use it - logically those are already spent producing tanks.

This is an elegant approach to a problem that we have all talked about since the games initial release. Most of us have had experience with the wonderfull production spiral introduced in War in the East and carried on in any number of other games, including a number published by Matrix such as Gary G's War Between the States. This at least puts some recreation of production lag and the unforgiving nature of war production into the game. The concept as expressed by some players of keeping a reserve pool of pp in hand to deal with emergencies by instant unit production, although an excellent way to manipulate the system, is a historical anathema![:-]

I sure wish that we could find a way so that when you bought an armored unit, the pp would disappear from the game, and the unit would only appear in the deployment box 5 months later. Even better would be a system where the unit would be available say three months after you bought it at 33% strength, and the next turn, if you had not deployed it, it would be available at 75% strength, until it was finally at full strength at 5 months (or whatever time was appropriate.) Perhaps you could even get a (significantly) reduced refund if you chose to deploy the unit early.

After all, guys... it's a COMPUTER GAME. Why play on a computer if you cant get it to do the little bookkeeping tasks that make the situation interesting? (Other than preventing the cat or your wife from eating the counters.) Oh, well, in a perfect world. Doomtrader and the rest of the developers have been incredibly tolerant of a lot of my off the wall ideas, and the even better fixes offered by members of this board and the Beta Testing Team.

But aircraft carriers that appear fully armed from the forehead of Zeus when you drop the magic pp into the water... oh, it drives me mad![X(]

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Michael the Pole


After all, guys... it's a COMPUTER GAME. Why play on a computer if you cant get it to do the little bookkeeping tasks that make the situation interesting? (Other than preventing the cat or your wife from eating the counters.) Oh, well, in a perfect world. Doomtrader and the rest of the developers have been incredibly tolerant of a lot of my off the wall ideas, and the even better fixes offered by members of this board and the Beta Testing Team.

But aircraft carriers that appear fully armed from the forehead of Zeus when you drop the magic pp into the water... oh, it drives me mad![X(]

Absolutely, a production track for the new game would be great. In lieu of that, get out Excel, set up a little spreadsheet, and be faithful to it when producing units. This technique could spell my doom in the current game with Chuck, Europe in Flames. I have to watch as that massive German mobile army advances willy-nilly, while I am currently only capable of producing two infantry divisions a turn due to budgetary constraints. Where are those Siberian reinforcements!?