wif computer game

[Orm]

As previously mentioned looking at the Case White AAR thread is good help. tm.asp?m=2171918

Help for ideas on how to set up Poland you find at: tm.asp?m=1905694

See post 4 from peskpesk, who work on the "setup AI", for links to the threads about setting up minors. tm.asp?m=1555915

Now. A few basic ideas on how to conquer Poland. This might not always be the best way but a small guide to get one started.

Setup:
Set up 13 or more army or corps sized units on the Polish border and the majority of the air force.

East Prussia: Set up 1 HQ and 1 armored corps (mechanized or armor) and a couple of other corps here. If a garrison unit is used against Poland I suggest it is set up here so it can move next to Warsaw in 1 move. The total factors in East Prussia should total at least 21 land combat factors in order to be able to make at least one 7-1 blitz attack in clear weather (excluding HQ). Place at least one of your 5 strength fighters here within 2 hexes from Warsaw. Place 2 stuka here within 3 hexes of Warsaw and Lodz (or 1 if you do not drawn 2 stuka).

The 3 German hexes between Poznan and Katowize: Set up 1 HQ here and 1 armored corps. Set up so you have two corps on every hex in this area.

North of Poznan: 2 infantry corps.

In the Slovakian mountains: One 4 move INF corps. Make sure you place it in supply.

When you set up the additional units plan for having at least 30 land combat factors within reach of Poznan and another 30 of Krakow. If you can get 40 within reach of both it is even better (you can include HQ for this).

During first German impulse:
If Poland sets up 2 units in Lodz and/or Warzaw you ground strike them with a Stuka.Preferable 1 stuka against each city.
Move so you can make as many (normally 2 or 3) high odds attacks on Polish units outside Lodz and Warzaw. On units in cities you should have 10 to 1 in odds. On other units you want an armored unit to make the attack blitz and the odds 7 to 1. You may include HQ on these automatic attacks but should be wary in using HQ attacks against any hexes that can recive defensive support.

During 2nd German impulse:
If the weather is clear and you can get at least 3 full stacks next to Lodz you attack Lodz. If all units in Lodz are organized you ground strike Lodz. In bad weather you attack the remaining Polish units outside Warsaw/Lodz area. Polish units in the "Soviet zone" should be ignored and just screened of by infantry ZOC so they can't reach anything important.

Additional German impulses: Attack Lodz if you have not yet captured Lodz. Otherwise attack Warzaw. Attack with as many units as possible. Use low strength infantry corps to ZOC left over Polish units if need be. Attacks on Lodz and Warsaw should strive to be 4-1 or more. If defenders are organized use remaining bombers to ground strike them.

Feel no urgency to make low odds attacks in to bad weather. Remember that with Lodz and the 2 polish resources in German hands you suffer no loss in production should Poland survive first turn.

Edit: On the French border you set up 1 garrison corps on each of the forest hexes next to the maginot line. The 3 cities you leave empy to place 6 reserve corps. One 4 movement unit is often placed on the border to Denmark to be able to reach Copenhagen in one move so Germany has the option of closing the Baltic should the Allies move their navy into the Baltic. Common play is to close the Baltic for the Western Allies as soon as possible.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

ORIGINAL: bo

Dear friends[;)] a question can a good able experienced player playing Germany defeat Poland with also a good able experienced player historical, meaning defeating Poland in the sept. oct. turn on your board game or does it take luck of the dice roll and has any player ever done it.

Bo

Poland is usually conquered in the S/O turn. On occasion the German player will deliberately only hit Poland lightly in order to do other things first such as take out Yugoslavia and/or hit Denmark and The Netherlands and Belgium in S/O with a lot of force. The weather can make this a risky operation.

Lars

Yugoslavia, so early, with so few and "lower" quality units and without aligning at least Hungary?

Isn't it too risky? Isn't it possible for the allies to send reinforcements and hold part of Yugoslavia along with the possible surviving units in that rugged land?

On the other side, it's true that you only need to take Belgrade and Zagreb...

[fallgelb]

Vs. a full scale german attak on poland (not often seen from experienced players) in SO39 nowadays I prefer to put all units arround the cities (no units in the cities or only the div to secure a retreat hex or a supply base vs. ZOCs). German may AirStrike 4 units and attack some other but usual you get a third impuls with Poland (with chance of storm), because even if you can't get back all units germany should not be able to attack both cities in it's second impulse. Of course an able german player can slaughter the dispersed polish units, but the stacked (and flipped) units in Lodz and warsaw are also no real match.
Problem is a necessary british combined impuls or a different alignement (France). The threat of a Overrun should be not a problem.

[bo]

Appreciate your answers gentlemen, when does Poland surrender?I have captured Warsaw and so far no surrender. When do units become undisrupted? for eg: 2 corps were disrupted on a 1 die roll in the may june turn and are still disrupted in the july aug turn, how long will they remain disrupted? I am referring to the wif compuyer game playing solo which I downloaded this week which the computer does not allow you to make mistakes or misreading any rule of WIF. If you dont have the game I think it might be fun to have. Buy it [just a guess] while you are waiting for the completion of MWIF, as far as bugs etc. I have no knowledge of this as I do not know what to look for. I feel with the little I know about WIF that it plays pretty well, there may be people here that dont like it and I would like to hear from them and why they dont like it. [ I am not an Aussie and have no monetary gains whether you buy it or not [;)]

Bo

[lomyrin]

The surrender is implemented at the end of the turn as long as you have fulfilled the requirements for conquest. You must control the Capital and all factory hexes, Lodz and Warzaw in Poland.
The disrupted units return to being organized and ready to use again in the end of turn sequences. If you use the oil option all mechanized, air, and ship units need to have oil available to perform the undisrupting actions. One of the end of turn steps takes you through the selection of units you want to undisrupt and expends oil points as you do this.
The game has a few bugs and the latest rules changes are not there. This changes a few of the things this game allows you to do. None are hindering the general playability of learning process.
The options available can change the game from a fairly simple to a much more complex game. Some will affect the relative Allies/Axis sice balance to the favor of one side.
I liked the game and did play it for a very long time.

Lars

[bo]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The surrender is implemented at the end of the turn as long as you have fulfilled the requirements for conquest. You must control the Capital and all factory hexes, Lodz and Warzaw in Poland.
The disrupted units return to being organized and ready to use again in the end of turn sequences. If you use the oil option all mechanized, air, and ship units need to have oil available to perform the undisrupting actions. One of the end of turn steps takes you through the selection of units you want to undisrupt and expends oil points as you do this.
The game has a few bugs and the latest rules changes are not there. This changes a few of the things this game allows you to do. None are hindering the general playability of learning process.
The options available can change the game from a fairly simple to a much more complex game. Some will affect the relative Allies/Axis sice balance to the favor of one side.
I liked the game and did play it for a very long time.

Lars

Thank you Lars, why did you stop playing it other then going to someones or your house and playing the board game? You said they return to being undisrupted at the end of a turn, is that automatic or do I have to do this oil thing?

Bo

[lomyrin]

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The surrender is implemented at the end of the turn as long as you have fulfilled the requirements for conquest. You must control the Capital and all factory hexes, Lodz and Warzaw in Poland.
The disrupted units return to being organized and ready to use again in the end of turn sequences. If you use the oil option all mechanized, air, and ship units need to have oil available to perform the undisrupting actions. One of the end of turn steps takes you through the selection of units you want to undisrupt and expends oil points as you do this.
The game has a few bugs and the latest rules changes are not there. This changes a few of the things this game allows you to do. None are hindering the general playability of learning process.
The options available can change the game from a fairly simple to a much more complex game. Some will affect the relative Allies/Axis sice balance to the favor of one side.
I liked the game and did play it for a very long time.

Lars

Thank you Lars, why did you stop playing it other then going to someones or your house and playing the board game? You said they return to being undisrupted at the end of a turn, is that automatic or do I have to do this oil thing?

Bo

The oil requirements are only in effect if you have turned on the 'use oil' option. I believe most players do use this option, (most players do use all but a few of the options). at least as far as i am aware.

I played the boardgame from 86 through 2006 but since then only the computer game. The computer game by email from 2000 through 2008 and now I am only beta testing. The CWiF game by email requires the opponent to perform reasonable reaction actions on your behalf during his impulse, otherwies it would be too clumsy to use.

Lars

[bo]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The surrender is implemented at the end of the turn as long as you have fulfilled the requirements for conquest. You must control the Capital and all factory hexes, Lodz and Warzaw in Poland.
The disrupted units return to being organized and ready to use again in the end of turn sequences. If you use the oil option all mechanized, air, and ship units need to have oil available to perform the undisrupting actions. One of the end of turn steps takes you through the selection of units you want to undisrupt and expends oil points as you do this.
The game has a few bugs and the latest rules changes are not there. This changes a few of the things this game allows you to do. None are hindering the general playability of learning process.
The options available can change the game from a fairly simple to a much more complex game. Some will affect the relative Allies/Axis sice balance to the favor of one side.
I liked the game and did play it for a very long time.

Lars

Thank you Lars, why did you stop playing it other then going to someones or your house and playing the board game? You said they return to being undisrupted at the end of a turn, is that automatic or do I have to do this oil thing?

Bo

The oil requirements are only in effect if you have turned on the 'use oil' option. I believe most players do use this option, (most players do use all but a few of the options). at least as far as i am aware.

I played the boardgame from 86 through 2006 but since then only the computer game. The computer game by email from 2000 through 2008 and now I am only beta testing. The CWiF game by email requires the opponent to perform reasonable reaction actions on your behalf during his impulse, otherwies it would be too clumsy to use.

Lars

Beta testing for MWIF?

BO

[MajorDude]

I played cwif when it came out, and it was ok. I picked it up again recently, but since I am running Vista, it has some problems. Its specs say:

Operating Systems supported
The program runs under Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows NT 4.0

Sometimes XP games will run under Vista as long as you run them as administrator, but this game seems to inevitably suffer a fatal crash at some point under Vista. If anybody knows how to fix that, please let me know. If not, then be aware it probably will not run well under Vista and/or W7. [:(]

Aside from that, it is a nice way to learn the game if you don't have the board version or can't play the board version for some reason. Another cool aspect of WIF on computer is that it makes the global part of the game more easily accessible imo, and if you look at some of Steve's posts here, he is making the global part of the game an even more fun and accessible part of the game in MWIF.

Enjoy fighting in Poland and France for now. Just wait till you start contemplating Sealion or Barbarossa. That's where the 'big' fun begins. Russia really is a very big country and the Channel might as well be as wide as the whole Atlantic sometimes. [X(]

[CrusssDaddy]

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

You can activate fog of war from the options menu prior to setup, but if you're playing solitaire and you have a decent memory, it's not going to make much difference.

CrussDaddy do you have WIF computer game fro AGD?

Bo

Yes, I got the game back in 2002 or 2003 when it was free. While you are getting used to the game, you should use the debug options to play around. Hold down right click on a unit and you can flip it or unflip it, place it wherever you like, or remove it entirely. Also, at the top of the screen is the 'debug' button. You can use that to move around units, select 'allow unrestricted war declarations/alignments' to set sides for neutrals, and 'pick dice rolls' allows you to... pick the results for all of the rolls.

In the eight years I've had the game, I have not been able to completely decipher the convoy system - works fine for nations that don't overly use it, but the CW can be a pain. Makes lend lease very difficult - I house rule that by just burning a couple US production points and placing a USSR FTR on the production spiral. I also turn off CAP, since it's more trouble than it's worth. You can do some cool stuff with the debugger - I've run German/Italian invasions of the US from Greenland, Africa, and the Central Atlantic, had the huge USSR/German tank battles in the heart of Africa, and played Risk-like games where I pit the US vs. Germany and have each of them 'draft' neutrals, with the other majors inactive. The only thing you can't do is have an Ally attack an Ally, or an Axis attack an Axis.

CWiF won't win any converts, but if you like WiF and don't mind mucking around to figure out the engine, it's well worth your time.

[CrusssDaddy]

ORIGINAL: MajorDude

I played cwif when it came out, and it was ok. I picked it up again recently, but since I am running Vista, it has some problems. Its specs say:

Operating Systems supported
The program runs under Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows NT 4.0

Sometimes XP games will run under Vista as long as you run them as administrator, but this game seems to inevitably suffer a fatal crash at some point under Vista. If anybody knows how to fix that, please let me know. If not, then be aware it probably will not run well under Vista and/or W7. [:(]

Aside from that, it is a nice way to learn the game if you don't have the board version or can't play the board version for some reason. Another cool aspect of WIF on computer is that it makes the global part of the game more easily accessible imo, and if you look at some of Steve's posts here, he is making the global part of the game an even more fun and accessible part of the game in MWIF.

Enjoy fighting in Poland and France for now. Just wait till you start contemplating Sealion or Barbarossa. That's where the 'big' fun begins. Russia really is a very big country and the Channel might as well be as wide as the whole Atlantic sometimes. [X(]

I also have Vista, but haven't had any problems related to the OS. The game sometimes crashes, but it's the same bugs that crashed it when I ran it on 98 and XP. As always, frequent saves are a good idea... and I always save right before Vichy just in case bad rolls result in a complete surrender.

[Anendrue]

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

ORIGINAL: MajorDude

I played cwif when it came out, and it was ok. I picked it up again recently, but since I am running Vista, it has some problems. Its specs say:

Operating Systems supported
The program runs under Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows NT 4.0

Sometimes XP games will run under Vista as long as you run them as administrator, but this game seems to inevitably suffer a fatal crash at some point under Vista. If anybody knows how to fix that, please let me know. If not, then be aware it probably will not run well under Vista and/or W7. [:(]

Aside from that, it is a nice way to learn the game if you don't have the board version or can't play the board version for some reason. Another cool aspect of WIF on computer is that it makes the global part of the game more easily accessible imo, and if you look at some of Steve's posts here, he is making the global part of the game an even more fun and accessible part of the game in MWIF.

Enjoy fighting in Poland and France for now. Just wait till you start contemplating Sealion or Barbarossa. That's where the 'big' fun begins. Russia really is a very big country and the Channel might as well be as wide as the whole Atlantic sometimes. [X(]

I also have Vista, but haven't had any problems related to the OS. The game sometimes crashes, but it's the same bugs that crashed it when I ran it on 98 and XP. As always, frequent saves are a good idea... and I always save right before Vichy just in case bad rolls result in a complete surrender.

Why do you need to save before the Vichy roll? Is there some bug I am unaware of when a complete surrender happens?

[MajorDude]

CWIF, for some reason, would sometimes bug out with the Vichy roll.

He may be concerned with a bad roll though, not sure.

Yes, the convoy system was sometimes buggy.

I will check, but I am not sure that the current version of cwif allows for debugging mode as the previous version did.

It was fun for doing some 'what-ifs' as he said, but you still had to be careful cause too much fooling around with it would make it crash. One of my favorites was packing lots of convoys everywhere in solo what-if games so I never wasted any resources. Another crazy one was aligning every country on the map with somebody, like Chile with Germany and Peru with Japan, for example. Fighting in South America was interesting... [8D]

[CrusssDaddy]

Not worried about a crash... worried that there would be no Free France. Gotta give De Gaulle his day!

If there's no debug mode for the current version, that takes away a lot of the fun. Why take it out?

[Anendrue]

I know it would bug out sometimes with the surrender roll. I just never had a complete surrender so I was wondering if the game would just up and die or something just as catastrophic.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: MajorDude

Sometimes XP games will run under Vista as long as you run them as administrator, but this game seems to inevitably suffer a fatal crash at some point under Vista. If anybody knows how to fix that, please let me know. If not, then be aware it probably will not run well under Vista and/or W7. [:(]

You can set programs to run in "XP emulation" mode. Have you tried that?

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: bo

You said they return to being undisrupted at the end of a turn, is that automatic or do I have to do this oil thing?

Bo

That would be the only thing that explains having a unit stay flipped over a turn-end. Do you recall turning on the oil option? (I can't remember if it is a default.) Do you recall if the units in question are oil-dependent? (armor, mech, motorized, any plane, any ship)

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

ORIGINAL: bo

You said they return to being undisrupted at the end of a turn, is that automatic or do I have to do this oil thing?

Bo

That would be the only thing that explains having a unit stay flipped over a turn-end. Do you recall turning on the oil option? (I can't remember if it is a default.) Do you recall if the units in question are oil-dependent? (armor, mech, motorized, any plane, any ship)

Playing with the optional rule "isolated reorganization limits" makes isolated units stay disorganized during the end of turn as well.

[Orm]

For someone completely new to WIF I truly reccomend them to begin without any optional rules at all to become familiar with the normal rules.

The optional rules can change so many aspects of the game. When you begin to feel comfortable to most concepts of the game you can begin to add a couple of optionals at the time to learn how they change the game.

[bo]

Thanks guys I am doing better because of getting good odds on attacks but that die roll of 1 is brutal, enough of those and Germany could not beat Denmark.[:D] Night planes? did not know there was a day night feature in this game?

Bo