determined outcome

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Screw that, I am just going to end all my games now and declare myself the winner.

/snicker [:D]

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Screw that, I am just going to end all my games now and declare myself the winner.

/snicker [:D]

[:D]

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Wild

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Germany should not be able to win the grand campaign game early unless they literally clear the map of Soviet units, and that should be all but impossible. The way I look at things is the real victory contest begins in 1944 and beyond, the early part of the game is just a setup phase for this final contest. If Germany manages to keep the Russians out of Western Europe all together by game end, it should be a decisive win. Any other result should be weighed against historical progress to settle on what level of victory or defeat Germany achieves.

Ending the game in 1941 or 1942 makes no sense to me. It feels like the German players on the forums arguing for a change simply don't want to game out the second half of the war and want to end the game prematurely before that part of the war even begins. How on earth will you manage to keep Soviet payers interested in the game if you take away the second half of the war by adding in some kind of sudden death rule? Heck I'd even envision German players pointing to their lack of achieving a sudden death as an automatic Soviet victory and resigning their games the way Japanese players tend to resign in WitP if they fail to get their needed 3-1 victory points early in that game.

If the victory goals in game are focused on the end game achievements from the very start of the game, then everyone is looking ahead to that future outcome and planning accordingly. If you bring the mark down to a 1941 or 1942 potential win, then that's where everyone will be looking and they'll do things that hurt their 1944+ prospects in efforts to win early. And when those early wins don't materialize and they've damaged their army beyond repair in the effort to reach it...

If you want to win as the axis in 1941/42, then create some 1 year long campaign scenarios that can give reasoned victory conditions based against historical progress at those times.

Jim

Finally, common sense.

I couldn't agree with you more Jim.

Well if you want to get real there is no reason to even play the game. If the Soviets don't get you the U.S. and U.K. will. So why even bother to play the game as the Axis. You cannot win the war. [:'(]

All I'm thinking is that there is a written in stone concept that no matter what the Axis player does he is doomed to repeat the blunders of the historical campaign. There is NO option. I don't care one way or the other which side wins or loses. But a Soviet player profits from hindsight. An Axis player does not. He is doomed to repeat history at the end of 1941 no matter what he does. Doomed I tell you, DOOMED. [:D] (You can't even make your own scenario without the dreaded blizzard)

Personally I'd like to see the Axis given the option of preparing for an eighteen month campaign instead of a six month campaign. If they limit their advance the first year let them prepare for winter. Or not. Let them decide before turn one and let the Soviet player guess whether or not the Axis will go full throttle in 1941 or hold back and limit the first year advance to a line, say Lake Ladoga/Vyazma/Bryansk/Zaporozhye and prepare for winter. No Typhoon.

Also, who cares about an automatic victory? I suppose if you somehow manage to drive the Soviet to the Urals you could consider that but nothing short of that should be considered.

[squatter]

"If the victory goals in game are focused on the end game achievements from the very start of the game, then everyone is looking ahead to that future outcome and planning accordingly."
 
But this is the 'gameyest' strategy of all, the one which most makes use of hindsight to determine the player's actions. The game needs to encourage this mindset by making victory a plausible outcome if the Axis player is very successful. To essentially guarantee a four year campaing where victory is measured by comparing the final front line against the historical one sucks the life out of what should be a knife-edge battle of wits all the way through.
 
All we need here are some simple optional game victory rules.

Tick this box if you want to guarantee the game goes the whole four years, no matter how well either player performs.
 
Or tick this box if you want to allow early victory for the Germans if they take Moscow and Leningrad (or whatever).
 
Simples.

[Wild]

I have no problem with optional rules for people who wish to explore what if's.

I just don't wish to play a game that has been fictionalized by trying to make the sides evenly balanced when in real life they weren't.

[squatter]

"I just don't wish to play a game that has been fictionalized by trying to make the sides evenly balanced when in real life they weren't."
 
I agree.
 
I'm suggesting that the conditions for victory (optionally at least) make the possibility of outright victory in 41/42 more achievable for Axis than they currently do. Ie fall of Moscow/Leningrad/Donbas, not that the means to achieve that victory are changed.  

[Wild]

I am not sure as i have never looked at it, but isn't what you suggest possible to do with the editor?

[Aussiematto]

If they limit their advance the first year let them prepare for winter. Or not. Let them decide before turn one and let the Soviet player guess whether or not the Axis will go full throttle in 1941 or hold back and limit the first year advance to a line, say Lake Ladoga/Vyazma/Bryansk/Zaporozhye and prepare for winter. No Typhoon.

Well, that's possible. People think the Germans have to attack for as long as possible; sometimes, digging in around September 1941 in some sectors would be very valuable.

I don't disagree with you -- I just think that the game provides a lot of options; whether or not they actually mean that 1942 is a successful 2nd year for the Axis I don't know. Ask me in a few weeks when I've mounted a campaign vs a Russian who defended well, but didn't really hurt me in blizzard.

[Skanvak]

ORIGINAL: Wild

I have no problem with optional rules for people who wish to explore what if's.

I just don't wish to play a game that has been fictionalized by trying to make the sides evenly balanced when in real life they weren't.

I fully agree.

I will add, that there is a barbarossa scenario. for the one who only want to play the attack part and believe taht achieving Barbarossa will lead to a crumble of USSR. For the other we can play the whole game. Remember that the Axis goals in 1944 was to hold until either the western allierd offer peace or reach Berlin. So in a way if you keep the Soviet at bay you acheive an historical significant victory (there will be no east and west Germany, may be less democratic republic in Europe, which is significative).

Any way the game was announce as such as I remind.

[morganbj]

It sure seems that some of you believe that Germany was destined to lose the war on June 23, 1941. Twenty-four hours into the campaign and it was over. Finis. Done. Carve up the Fatherland, start the trials.

Well, I don't. The odds may have been pretty long once the attack began because campaign against the Soviet Union may have been Herr Hitler's largest blunder, but I don't recall all of the Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin patting themselves on the back at their luck, and having conversations about dividing up the spoils. To the contrary, it seems like their general reaction was "oh crap!" They sure seemed to think that they could lose the war. And you know, they may have been right.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

It sure seems that some of you believe that Germany was destined to lose the war on June 23, 1941. Twenty-four hours into the campaign and it was over. Finis. Done. Carve up the Fatherland, start the trials.

Well, I don't. The odds may have been pretty long once the attack began because campaign against the Soviet Union may have been Herr Hitler's largest blunder, but I don't recall all of the Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin patting themselves on the back at their luck, and having conversations about dividing up the spoils. To the contrary, it seems like their general reaction was "oh crap!" They sure seemed to think that they could lose the war. And you know, they may have been right.

Many Soviets commented that they had won the war once the U.S. entered the fray. Was no stretch considering the U.S. industry coupled with the Soviet industry equaled no match for any other alliance on the planet. It was only a matter of time. The U.S. knew that. The Soviets knew that.

Only chance Axis had was knocking USSR out of the picture. But the game does not allow this because it focuses on a 1941 historical Axis drive into the USSR. This is the history of East Front campaign games.

The Axis is doomed to suffer the winter of 41/42 because that's what happened historically. They advanced to exhaustion and then the winter offensives which the game faithfully mirrors. There is no way to avoid this even though there were ways to avoid this because this is how history was written.

The Soviet side is not bound to it's 1941 mistakes. No player is bound to failed counter stroke after failed counter stroke or failed offensive after failed offensive. Perhaps the Soviet player should have to make X number of attacks consisting of X number of units by type at X date to keep it historical just as the Axis must advance and then suffer uprepared for the Blizzards. But why? Why does the Axis side have to be unprepared for winter? Because that's what happened historically. But why is one side irrevocably bound by history while the other is not? This is the question. The answer repeated over and over is because this is what happened historically. [:D][:D][:D]

[abulbulian]

The Soviet side is not bound to it's 1941 mistakes. No player is bound to failed counter stroke after failed counter stroke or failed offensive after failed offensive. Perhaps the Soviet player should have to make X number of attacks consisting of X number of units by type at X date to keep it historical just as the Axis must advance and then suffer uprepared for the Blizzards. But why? Why does the Axis side have to be unprepared for winter? Because that's what happened historically. But why is one side irrevocably bound by history while the other is not? This is the question. The answer repeated over and over is because this is what happened historically

Originally I had very serious issues with the historical vs realistic aspect of WitE in certain critical aspects. I've come to understand, yet still not exactly thrilled, that the game as written for the 41 campaign does bind the Axis player to suffer greatly in the first winter as happened historically. While the soviet player is able to freely maneuver units to attempt to avoid large pockets of troops that did occur due to Stalin's attempt to hold key areas early in the war. It would be nice to see some more constraints on the soviets in 41 to make the game more historical. A large part to the success of operation Blau in summer 42 was due to the utter disaster of the Soviet Kharkov offensive that preempted Blau. The result of which was the lose of over quarter million men and thousands of tanks, vehicles, and arty. No smart Soviet player in WitE would attempt anything this silly in spr/sum 42. I know people will vary in their opinion whether this is unhistorical or just allowing a player determine their own strategy and play the game.

Even better I think have a variant, thus not pissing off the people that like things as is, to allow for a German preparedness for the first winter by some process (has been discussions about winterizing units) would be a nice to have. The victory conditions would possibly have to be adjust. This would allow for a high possibility for the Axis player to hold out longer and maybe even conquer the Soviets... which stills seems to be sheer fantasy.

Just my 2 cents...

[Jim D Burns]

The problem is victory conditions are not fluid in game, so they never change. The idea that the fall of Leningrad/Moscow/Stalingrad was/should be an automatic German victory might be debatable in 1941, but the same case would be hard to argue in 1942 and forget about it in 1943. The Soviet war machine was humming along nicely by then and the loss of those cities would have meant nothing in the grand scheme of things after late 1942 as far as winning the war was concerned.

So what you have is a very limited timeframe window where a case for victory based on the loss of certain major cities in Russia might be plausible very early in the war. This would make for a great 1 year long grand campaign scenario. But in a full war scenario it makes absolutely no sense to include any of these cities in any victory calculations because the war will finish in German territory in 99.9% of the games played, so victory conditions need to be focused in German territory.

Trying to force a 1 year auto-victory rule into the grand campaign will serve no purpose at all except too put off Soviet players from wanting to play it since it’s no fun watching your opponent resign after their failed rush style strategy fails to pay off. A much easier solution would be to create a June 41-June 42 full campaign scenario.

Jim

[molchomor]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Many Soviets commented that they had won the war once the U.S. entered the fray. Was no stretch considering the U.S. industry coupled with the Soviet industry equaled no match for any other alliance on the planet. It was only a matter of time. The U.S. knew that. The Soviets knew that.

Only chance Axis had was knocking USSR out of the picture. But the game does not allow this because it focuses on a 1941 historical Axis drive into the USSR. This is the history of East Front campaign games.

The Axis is doomed to suffer the winter of 41/42 because that's what happened historically. They advanced to exhaustion and then the winter offensives which the game faithfully mirrors. There is no way to avoid this even though there were ways to avoid this because this is how history was written.

The Soviet side is not bound to it's 1941 mistakes. No player is bound to failed counter stroke after failed counter stroke or failed offensive after failed offensive. Perhaps the Soviet player should have to make X number of attacks consisting of X number of units by type at X date to keep it historical just as the Axis must advance and then suffer uprepared for the Blizzards. But why? Why does the Axis side have to be unprepared for winter? Because that's what happened historically. But why is one side irrevocably bound by history while the other is not? This is the question. The answer repeated over and over is because this is what happened historically. [:D][:D][:D]

...and when there is actually historical evidence that supports strengthening of axis to balance things out in the 42/43 scenarios (axis tankbuster planes did score some tank kills after all, there were lots of auxiliary troops on the axis side not in the game etc.) not much has happened even months after the release. And hey just to be sure the Soviet AI is allowed to freely teleport stuff anywhere, should the axis get the upper hand. After all, axis lost the war historically and this fact justifies anything and everything as this is not a game but a historical simulation. Sorry how this sounds, but as someone said earlier, right now the late campaigns on axis side are not very motivating.

[Panama]

Another thing I forgot to mention. The Soviet has to move 50% industry to reach historical production. So even here the Soviet has opportunity to throw history out the window and produce in excess of what was done historically.

[bodmerm]

Nice discussion guys. A lot of interesting points and to me the most important being to me that Soviets avoid pockets while Axis is doomed in blizzard. Whatever you do, 1 million men are disabled from the start. And, as was discussed, you cannot launch Fall Blau because Soviets are not forced to do historical mistakes.

And please, give Axis some rewards when taking big centers of production! I dont feel motivated to gain abstract victory points when taking Kharkov. I want to see a message: Kharkov taken, Generalmajor whatever got promoted and 245 tanks captured! Thats motivation and not to stop Soviets at the Oder instead in Berlin (which would then happen a few weeks later). Ad more flavor and give Germans the chance to do better!

I am in 1943 June and inflicted losses of 9.5 millions (2.7 own losses). Now i am facing 7.5 million men, 22k tanks, 90k arty. And corps attack with 100k men and breakdown is unavoidable.

Keep posting ideas how to add more flavor to the GAME (and dont talk about reality, it is indeed a game)

[PyleDriver]

My dad always told me the biggest word in the world was "if", so thats where were at. Keep your comments flowing, "if" we can get there lets see...

[mikemcmann]

Not sure what the issue is really here. There is no guaranteed loss of men in blizzard. You can actually have zero theoretical losses due to winter if all divisions are in cities and/or west/south of the zone.

Since "conquering" Russia is effectively not possible given reasonable soviet play, trying to conquer it is a waste. Just wreck a reasonable amount of industry, kill as many troops as possible, then retreat to safety. By the time the soviets reach your lines, winter is over. Then proceed to just kill russians. Most fight in 42 at easily achievable odds will kill 2 or more to one. As long as the soviets total is less than 2.5 times your army, you are fine.

This line will put you about Riga to Kiev to Odessa depending. Holding that geography results in a German victory in 45. Just hold there in massive forts while doing spoiling attacks with armor. Piece of cake...... Won't ever be decisive, but a wins a win....

Just saying.....blizzard whini-ness is tiresome.....

McMann

[Mynok]

Well, let's see how the first blizzard goes when the next patch is out. That will be telling.

And I don't buy at all the complaints that there's no Op Blau because I've seen several in AARs.

That being said, there are some issues with the later campaigns and Soviet strength increase beyond intended levels. My AAR which I took over from BigAnorak is a case in point. I'm outnumbered almost 4-1 well before the Soviets ever achieved such dominance. The good news is that 2x3 is working on this hard. I have full confidence in them from long years of experience.

Like WITP before, it will be a work in progress, but it WILL progress. Rest assured. And keep the feedback coming because all of us want the best from this great game. How much fun I've had so far!

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: mikemcmann

Not sure what the issue is really here. There is no guaranteed loss of men in blizzard. You can actually have zero theoretical losses due to winter if all divisions are in cities and/or west/south of the zone.

[:D] And leave the rest to the Soviet hordes. There's a good strategy. War over in spring 1942.

ORIGINAL: mikemcmann

Since "conquering" Russia is effectively not possible given reasonable soviet play, trying to conquer it is a waste. Just wreck a reasonable amount of industry, kill as many troops as possible, then retreat to safety. By the time the soviets reach your lines, winter is over. Then proceed to just kill russians. Most fight in 42 at easily achievable odds will kill 2 or more to one. As long as the soviets total is less than 2.5 times your army, you are fine.

How would you know? You stick the Axis with historical rules and allow the Soviets to do whatever the game allows.

Instead of 'retreating to safety' as an OPTION why not simply allow the Axis to stop and prepare for winter? Your option is gamey. Do you really think that would have been an option allowed by OKH? Advance so far and then pull everyone back a hundred kilometers? Here you are doing the same thing others suggest, allowing the Axis to do something ahistorical, yet only in a silly way. Someone else suggests a different OPTION and you roll your eyes, let out a big sigh and stomp your feet. [:D]

It's an OPTION.

ORIGINAL: mikemcmann

This line will put you about Riga to Kiev to Odessa depending. Holding that geography results in a German victory in 45. Just hold there in massive forts while doing spoiling attacks with armor. Piece of cake...... Won't ever be decisive, but a wins a win....

Allowing the Axis the OPTION to prepare for winter will put them about Leningrad/Vyazma/Bryansk/Zap. Holding that geography results in a possible German victory in 45. Maybe sooner if the Soviet isn't careful. Or it could give the Soviets more production. Who knows?

ORIGINAL: mikemcmann

Just saying.....blizzard whini-ness is tiresome.....

Just saying.....allowing the Soviets to be the only one's who throw history out the window is tiresome.....

What is the problem with giving people an OPTION? You don't have to play it. You don't have to look at it. You don't even have to think about it. You can pretend it just doesn't exist if that makes your world more to your liking. It's an OPTION. If people think that the Axis should be able to do ahistorical things just as the Soviet side is allowed then give them that OPTION. It might make for a more fun 'game' for both sides.

Sheesh. I need a beer. [8|]