A difficult choice

[madgamer2]

I had no idea my innocent post on the weather thing would create such a lively discussion. One that I hope the developers will listen to at lest in part.I think that for me as much as i love much of this game there is just enough of things that are missing from other games Bu Gary.
I don't like the attempted hardcore approach that prevails in this game, perhaps much more than his other games, but it lacks what ifs, and not much the player can adjust for himself. It sounds like even if you took your troops back to Poland before the blizzard the loss of something like over a million men after 12 turns of Blizzard(like 3 months(?) of real. time just does not seem real.
The amount of information you know both about your side and the other side is not real. There is no way that that much information should be available. The games lacks that kind of free swinging go for broke attitude because ..get ready here comes that Blizzard. You know there was just as much chance that winter would not have happened when it did or be as bad as it was.
The game tries to be Historical and if players play the way the original battle went the result should be close to the same. If that is what you want then there are many other things brought out that should be hard coded than just that darn blizzard and a few(ANY?) other things/
I see the hard core doing the same to this game as with WitP and bringing out an even more difficult an micromanaged
game which we call go out and pay another 80-90 bucks for. I am not against games for the hard core but it is just as easy to put in some player controls for some of us who do not have the time to spend on games as difficult as this on server with another person.
it would have been possible to put in player controlled things to create a fun fast flowing but maybe (God forbid0 a game that does not reflect what happened at all. What is the sad thing for me is i scraped and scrimped for months to get the money to buy this game but I just can't do its just like not buying the AE game. Like AE a friend of mine will loan me his WitE after about a month or two and I can try it out.
You all can laugh and call me a wimp but I waited so long for this game and find myself almost in tears that It just does not feel right for me. I will wait to see it and how it develops and if I am lucky a chance to play it for a couple of weeks this summer when my friend is gone on vacation.

I do congratulate Gary Grigsby on a fine effort it just does not seem the one for me. So a refund is in progress as I type this as there was a total screw up on the download order(partly my fault) the game gets here around the 21-25
of this month it will be hard to return but I will... for now. Except for a new version of this game I do not see anyone else attempting a game of this scale. Its kind of like I buy this one or none at all.

Madgamer2

[Gandalf]

Agree the game needs some "what if's" to greatly increase replayability. I'm keeping mine however, since eventually it will be enhanced just like WITP.

[jomni]

The Historical Purists will just whine and create house rules to prevent what-ifs.

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: jomni

The Historical Purists will just whine and create house rules to prevent what-ifs.

I fail to see why optional "what-ifs" would have any impact on Grigsby's development as long as the default main game is already historical. This is done by most software developers to increase the appeal to player/gamers other than the small handful of purist/grognards.

[madgamer2]

ORIGINAL: Gandalf

Agree the game needs some "what if's" to greatly increase replayability. I'm keeping mine however, since eventually it will be enhanced just like WITP.

i do not doubt what you say I fear it. I have my doubts about how "historical" it is but I think it will end up like the WitP/AE thing with a new more expensive version. I just feel that its not quite together and that certain "Historical" actions are being forced on the players. It is not like any of his other games in many ways. I will wait and watch...well that is what I say but when the UPS man gets here and the game is in my hands.....I honestly do not know what to do. Even though I have grave misgivings about some of the design features its really the only thing going for east front games. That is why I bought WitP and can't even keep up with the dumb AI. I am terrible as the Russians in any East front game but will I really send it back....stay tuned

Madgamer2

[jay102]

For genuine hardcore historical simulation game, it dosen't bother to add a multiplayer function. There is no sense to play a human opponent when every phase of game is strictly designed to be "historical".

[KenchiSulla]

Is it so bad you want to return it? Your loss friend.....

[EisenHammer]

So what do you want us to do?
Talk you out of returning it?

So your going to return a game that you like, to prove a point.
If your going to do that then how can you say that you like the game?

I myself, think that this is the best operational wargame that I've ever played.
Its better than TOAW III and SSG K-DotD. And both of those games are some the best operational wargames you'll ever find anywhere. If you give up on WitE now, then I think you should just give up on wargaming period.

[Muzrub]

I can understand what your saying Madgamer.

The game, should be a game period and the pushing of this term 'historical simulation' is to myself very, very annoying- its almost a dogma around here.
Of course once the first move is made, the term 'historical simulation' goes straight out of the window and the player is left with a very rigid process.

[raizer]

not even having a 2-3 week weather variance option, is a fail in my view. I mean the weather every one plays with runs on the schedule of an atomic clock. It allows both sides to plan x because of w. And the weather, rightfully so, is such a force multiplier and to have this force multiplier run to such exactness is a mistake. The other option, of random weather, is just to much of an extreme in the other direction.
A middle ground, a 2-3 week weather variant based on historical weather would be ideal and provide just enough unknown to prevent either side from taking advantage of clockwork force multipliers-throw it off a week or two or maybe not Small what ifs would provide much tension in pbem games

[XAAL.]

+1
I might add : right away stop playing games on PC because it seems that your problem comes from elsewhere....lol
Usually people return games when they are too buggy, or are crap. I think WITE doesnt deserve this....
Myself I really want to see more control on production but this feature is missing, I hardly see myself returning the game because of it [8|]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

If you give up on WitE now, then I think you should just give up on wargaming period.

[Toby42]

ORIGINAL: XAAL.

+1
I might add : right away stop playing games on PC because it seems that your problem comes from elsewhere....lol
Usually people return games when they are too buggy, or are crap. I think WITE doesnt deserve this....
Myself I really want to see more control on production but this feature is missing, I hardly see myself returning the game because of it [8|]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

If you give up on WitE now, then I think you should just give up on wargaming period.

Now as for me, production doesn't interest me in the least. I want to replay the battle(s) in as close to historical mode as possible. My objective is to do better than the historical result....

[MrLongleg]

This game is a hardcore simulation of the German Russian war and I think it does a pretty good job of simulating it. Of course there are many points that need some adjustment - like the super hard blizzard rules etc.

But if you want to play what-ifs you have to look at other games like Advanced Tactics or even HOI 3. There you have full control of production, unit composition etc..

[gradenko2k]

The Historical Purists will just whine and create house rules to prevent what-ifs.

I actually don't get the point of trying to get the engine/mechanics to allow the historical scenario to be created, when we all know that the historical Soviet player played his side extremely badly.

I suppose one compromise would be to create more GC scenarios as snapshots of the war other than the ones we already have. K

ind of like how WITP had a December 8 start, we could maybe work on getting like a post-Kiev-pocket start, so we don't have to keep chasing the re-creation of the first turn pockets. Or how about a 1942 start earlier than just before Fall Blau?

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Muzrub

I can understand what your saying Madgamer.

The game, should be a game period and the pushing of this term 'historical simulation' is to myself very, very annoying- its almost a dogma around here.
Of course once the first move is made, the term 'historical simulation' goes straight out of the window and the player is left with a very rigid process.

+1

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: madgamer2

I had no idea my innocent post on the weather thing would create such a lively discussion. One that I hope the developers will listen to at lest in part.I think that for me as much as i love much of this game there is just enough of things that are missing from other games Bu Gary.
I don't like the attempted hardcore approach that prevails in this game, perhaps much more than his other games, but it lacks what ifs, and not much the player can adjust for himself. It sounds like even if you took your troops back to Poland before the blizzard the loss of something like over a million men after 12 turns of Blizzard(like 3 months(?) of real. time just does not seem real.

You could try playing the Soviets.

[karonagames]

Or the 1943 campaign - it is a hell of a lot of fun.

[molchomor]

+1 for optional production control for added "what-if" replayability. This game has added a lot of micromanagement on stuff like railroad conversion, fortification, garrisoning, army restructuring and hierarchy, supply etc., and why not, can be fun to play around with now and then.

Let me just say that I believe more people (aka customers) are fascinated by and wanting to micromanage WW2 hardware than that stuff ! Heck, even the big dictators had their nose deep into production decisions (at least the moustache guy) so why can't we?

[Jakerson]

I play these games as it is fact is that Germans had no winter clothes or proper number of snow blowing engines to keep roads open in snow storm and most of the German troops had no skills, training or experience to fight in the winter conditions. Result was that at least 10% of their whole men power died because of this just in the first winter. Germans had no same skill level than Soviet to fight in the winter conditions and this is what really needs to be simulated some way.

If you break the historical accuracy by giving Germans same level of skill for winter combat then you have to give Soviet something too. Like better Soviet generals (maybe they never purged most of generals just before the war) and maybe Soviet had better trained army and better starting experience and moral.

Maybe Soviet deployed majority of their air force out of reach of Luftwaffe surprise attack witch allowed German to destroy majority of Soviet air planes at turn one.

[Aurelian]

There was a long thread about why there is no production.

This is my own take.

German production, like Allied production in WitP, would make no sense, as both have fronts that are not in the game to deal with.

Russian production? Playing Second Front et al, I built only KV-85s, SU-85s. IL-4s, and Yaks.

I think the game is very replayable.