Sudden Death Optional Rule Proposal

[Michael T]

This is quite obviously going to be a hopeless exercise. I have better things to do with my time.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

The major problem with the game now is even if hq build up is removed the russians just have no need to fight.

They evac and run and play cat and mouse.

Most of the AAR's are full of

German only gets 3 million kia by Dec,
Russian has saved 90% of amrmament pts, because we know hvy means nothing.
Russian army is 5 million strong by Blizzard with extra armament pts.
Russian army is 7+ million strong by June

Steam roller starts by late 42 or ealry 43.

The only way German wins is if Russian player doent have game figured out yet.

The German vs and equal Russian might take Moscow but so what? Its means little to nothing he still have 7 million men by summer.

The game is way out of wack, the more you play the more you see it.

Thats why there so very few games that get into 43.

Pelton, now that you have figured the German side of things a little better, you might want to switch to playing the Russians for a while. Even if it is not your favorite, it doesn't hurt to know the enemy, plus you could finally prove that as a Russian you don't need to run. That would add a lot of credibility to your arguments. However, I doubt you can, and that's not because of your abilities and knowledge of the tricks the game engine allows.

You should also mention that the German Army presently enters spring 42 in most AARs with around 4 Mio men, a good 1 Mio more than the calibration point. I believe the historical high-water mark was Kursk with about that number. Given that, Soviet numbers also reflect that the German players are a lot more conservative, and plan ahead for a blizzard defense, instead of running their units dry against the Russian defenses at Moscow. More realistic numbers might only come about, (a) if the German player attacks more recklessly, and (b) the Russians get the toys at hand that allow to stand and perhaps to counterattack occasionally. So why do you want to force a Russian player into mistakes, and decide as attacker on where and when the defender should defend, if you yourself deviate strongly from historical decisions/doctrines/mistakes? Just recall raiding as an artifact of the ZOC rules (perhaps ZOC should only affect the actual vicinity of units?), and the static IgoUgo phasing.

The way I see it presently, the fact that the Soviet Army is vastly toothless in 41, and apparently now also a little weaker during blizzard 41/42, makes it a no-brainer decision not to employ it forward except as speed-bumps to enable factory evacuation. (Which, as established in the other thread, was gotten about right by the designers -- none of the sources contradicted what types where primarily evac'd historically, so why not give arms and vehicles priority as well (assuming the categorizing in game isn't different than IRL -- arms here may include heavy facilities for armament production); but I agree that supply and logistics ain't tight enough for both sides, but we haven't seen the Soviet or German supply situation in 43/44 from a GC yet). With fighting forward, all that a Soviet player can do is to loose more -- any counterattacks are extremely costly, as should well be so, but they do not gain anything except to set up more units for pocketing, which hardly costs the Axis time. If the German Army in 43 or 44 would face the same disparity in combat value, we would soon see a similar phenomenon, namely that the Germans would just fall back and avoid battle unless they reach a contracted position that offers hope, or prohibits any further retreat. We have seen this with earlier patches in the 41 blizzard, where German players slowly retreated as the rules prevent them to hold off Soviet attacks. It is the same thing. However, presently the German Army is at least sufficiently powerful in 43 and 44 to blunt Soviet spearheads and force on a cautious, careful Soviet strategy.

Presently the Axis achieves German standards with relative ease as there is not much strain on logistics, even in the south (question: did the Germans historically beef up logistics in the south at the cost of AGC and AGN, or how did that happen??). Leningrad is a standard as much as the Lvov has become, Rostov is well possible; Kharkov, Kursk, have become typical. As you are now figuring yourself, Moscow by turn 12-13 seems to doable as well, without any need to cut back on the other objectives. But does this feel right, do you think the Germans could have optimized their forces that way that this could have been a possible outcome? Not sure, rather not. Presently looks like the Germans back in time were total idiots at their business. If this trend continues and Moscow also becomes a standard, the future will see Soviets fighting until all critical industry is removed, and then pull back to the Urals until they are able to contest the Germans on more even terms.

I believe the Soviet base moral should be a little higher to start with in 41/42 (even though that side least interests me either, much as you Pelton). Not much, though. It seems to be fairly easy to hurt the Soviets, too little can go wrong, and why play out 41 if you already know where it ends? We could as well start after blizzard, when things are hopefully more even and interesting? The designers have obviously tried to enforce the swinging of initiative between Soviets and Germans at certain times a little by things like the 1:1 rule and the shift of national morale instead of naturally let it evolve from the true battlefield conditions. You probably could picture two virtual curves that represent the combat power of both sides. They shift dramatically on small timescales at certain points like towards the Soviet side during Dec. 41, and slowly goes back to German favor by spring 42. Besides such short-term variations, the German curve will have a slight long term skew that is probably designed to mimic the slow decline until 45, and the Soviet curve goes thru a minimum in summer 42, and thereafter steadily increases until 45. Perhaps the speed of changes (gradient) of the initial drop and later recovery of the Soviet combat power (national morale/experience) is too pronounced? If the national morale drop and difference to the Germans would be a bit less, and correspondingly also the later gains tuned down, the Soviets might be capable of putting up some occasional fight in 41 and 42, pull off a little better blizzard offensive, but still only gradually catch up with the German Army by 43 instead of experiencing rather sudden, artificial jumps? Then the artificial 1:1 rule would be totally obsolete, even in 41?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
This is quite obviously going to be a hopeless exercise. I have better things to do with my time.

[&:]

EDIT: You asked about thoughts and some of us gave them. At least you could discuss the answers we gave with us. Speaking for myself alone, I'm pretty reasonable (or so I think).

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
This is quite obviously going to be a hopeless exercise. I have better things to do with my time.

Well that should have been pretty obvious from the beginning. Personally I'm not against some kind of sudden death rules so thought that my views would be welcome according to your rules:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I really only want replies on this thread by those want to get this thing up and running. If you don't like the idea that’s fine. You won't have to worry about it because it will be an OPTIONAL rule. I don't want this thread hijacked by people who just don't like the idea at all. Save your fingers, you only use these conditions if you want to.

If you want sudden death rules simply based on some line of cities, as you propose, I don't see why any programming is necessary, all you have to do is agree on a house rule with your opponent?

[Flaviusx]

I'm quite unreasonable. But then again, so is the swampland Micheal T is selling here.

[karonagames]

I think that the issues regarding the current victory conditions are due to the cracks created by WITE trying to be a simulation and a game, and falling between the two stools.

The Axis Victory conditions have always been based on the "simulationist" view i.e. what OKH would have considered a decisive victory.

In the Barabarossa Scenario, you can take Leningrad and Moscow and still "lose", because the victory conditions are based on where OKH thought they should be in 6 months.

It is understandable that people play games to win, and simulations to gain an experience of what the real thing may feel like and/or develop the skills needed to do the real thing, indeed, I believe people can fly real helicopters after having only practised on a PC simulator - not sure about jumbo jets!

Unfortunately, in WITE the only way to "beat" history is to do things that were not and could not have been done historically.

I suppose the developers have to decide which lobby they want to side with; the "gamers" or the "simulation players" (apparently simulationer/ist are not a real words).

I repeat what I have said from day 1 - the winner is whoever has the most fun.

[karonagames]

@janh - excellent post. Couldn't have put it better myself.

[Tarhunnas]

I wrote a couple of posts on this some months ago, but I can't find them now.

I am all for some kind of optional sudden death conditions.

I would favor a points per turn system. That way players would be encouraged to do historical things like fighting to hold Kiev as long as possible or doing reckless advances to capture things before winter. You need not give VPs for every city, you could just have a few locations like Kiev, Smolensk, Pskov, Odessa, Sevastopol, Rostov, Kursk, Voronezh, Tula, Moscow, Kalinin, Leningrad and a few more, or something like that. Give one point per turn, maybe two for Moscow. I believe the tally should be made in say March or April 1942, to encompass both the German advance and the Soviet winter offensive, and then every autumn and spring.

All that would be needed to implement this is to modify the 41-45 GC by adding a few victory point locations and then checking the score at certain dates.

Edit: Ah... and the small matter of calibrating the score that means it is over...

[Mehring]

I just can't see what sudden death adds to the game. If you don't want to continue a game quit. It seems to me like sudden death is an attempt to have the game validate poor or ahistorical play, or a substitute for a game that can simulate.

If you want something triggered by events, I think it would be good if Axis reserves in the west/Scandinavia could be released to the east if the Russians advance a certain amount before the historical Husky/Overlord dates. Also, if, and as I suspect, they don't impact already, Russian resources like the manganese at Nikopol should be critical to German industry, greatly reducing capacity when it's lost and stocks are exhausted. The latter will force the Germans to defend their gains.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I really only want replies on this thread by those want to get this thing up and running. If you don't like the idea that’s fine. You won't have to worry about it because it will be an OPTIONAL rule. I don't want this thread hijacked by people who just don't like the idea at all. Save your fingers, you only use these conditions if you want to.

ORIGINAL: Mehring

I just can't see what sudden death adds to the game. If you don't want to continue a game quit. It seems to me like sudden death is an attempt to have the game validate poor or ahistorical play, or a substitute for a game that can simulate.

How hard can it be...?

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

I just can't see what sudden death adds to the game. If you don't want to continue a game quit. It seems to me like sudden death is an attempt to have the game validate poor or ahistorical play, or a substitute for a game that can simulate.

I can't say what other people think it brings to the game, but for me it has little to do with "knowing when to quit". Over and over again in these forums, people have stated that it is very ahistorical for either the Soviets or the Germans to "run away". A "sudden death" rule done properly would force the currently retreating side to stand and fight at least once in a while.

But you can take some of the ideas above and instead of applying them to a "sudden Death" concept, use them to create an incentive for the currently retreating side to retreat a little more slowly.

So just to hijack the thread a bit, what about taking James idea of accumulating VPs on a per turn bases and apply it to maintaining National Morale. Just for a strawman, if the cum VP count falls below a monthly threshold National Morale drops five points.

[Mehring]

The trouble with sudden deathing the Russians is that they lost a ton of stuff historically, but kept fighting. How about sudden death if they lose < XXX million men in 1941? It doesn't make sense. On the other hand with the current unit values, if the Russians stand and fight as historically, they will lose the game for certain, the game is already compensating for the Russian doing the sane thing, retreating only slow enough to cover their industry evacuating.

If the occupied territories occupied their rightful place in the German war economy, they could be made to retreat slowly, fighting to maintain control of the vital raw materials without which they were not able to even pretend to compete with the vast economies ranged against them.

Sudden death is an admission that the game system cannot simulate the complexities of war economy and military strategy. I haven't given up on it yet and, personally, if I ever do, it'll be off to find another game, not accept fudges like sudden death.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

This is quite obviously going to be a hopeless exercise. I have better things to do with my time.

FWIW I'm sure many of us recall the classic AH boardgame, "The Russian Campaign". In it there were alternate victory conditions, one I recall was a sudden death type where at the end of any German turn if 3 of his strategic objectives were held, he wins. He secretly writes them down at the beginning of the game from a predetermined list.

I think the German intentions were to cause immediate collapse of the Soviet regime, by destroying their army and capturing their political center. The auomatic victory should reflect both aspects.

I think your idea could be tested with "house rules" as things are, could it not ?

[Mehring]

I think the German intentions were to cause immediate collapse of the Soviet regime, by destroying their army and capturing their political center. The auomatic victory should reflect both aspects.

That may have been the German intention, but it takes two to win a war and I don't think the Russians were playing ball.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

I think that the issues regarding the current victory conditions are due to the cracks created by WITE trying to be a simulation and a game, and falling between the two stools.

The Axis Victory conditions have always been based on the "simulationist" view i.e. what OKH would have considered a decisive victory.

In the Barabarossa Scenario, you can take Leningrad and Moscow and still "lose", because the victory conditions are based on where OKH thought they should be in 6 months.

It is understandable that people play games to win, and simulations to gain an experience of what the real thing may feel like and/or develop the skills needed to do the real thing, indeed, I believe people can fly real helicopters after having only practised on a PC simulator - not sure about jumbo jets!

Unfortunately, in WITE the only way to "beat" history is to do things that were not and could not have been done historically.

I suppose the developers have to decide which lobby they want to side with; the "gamers" or the "simulation players" (apparently simulationer/ist are not a real words).

I repeat what I have said from day 1 - the winner is whoever has the most fun.

I think both players can and should be winners. That should be a goal and having an element of suprise to the VC's might make things more interesting. I agree with your analogy re:gamers vs. simulation-'ists'. Unfortunately for me there isn't nearly enough game here to make things interesting.

[KenchiSulla]

Seriously, good luck with finding a line in the sand where the axis win the war.. I can't imagine where that line would lie..All an autovictory in 1941 would proof is that the axis player is excellent at the 1941 summer campaign stuff which is only a small (important but small) part of the game...

You would be better off checking your progress in terms of landshift and casualties in time.. Perhaps someone in the community can draw up a map and check on real OOB on different points in times.....

EDIT: To clarify, I play the japanese in a WitP AE PBEM in scenario 1 (historical setup).. I know I will lose the war but I keep playing because I can and am doing better then the Japanese did historical... If you roll axis, don't expect to win the war...

[Aurelian]

Why even bother coding such a thing into the game when both sides can make their own AV conditions?

[entwood]

What could be coded, optional or not, is a chance that Soviet units cannot completely bolt East in the 1st few turns of the campaign, they would be shot by NKVD or turned around.  A simple chance on a 1-6 or 2-12 die roll for a frozen, cannot move stay-and-fight unit, a few units lose control and move randomly a hex or two or attack any adjacent enemy, I would suggest that is pretty historical.   The chances diminish after a few turns as command and control is re-established.    the soviet air force gets wacked being unprepared turn1 why not also the ground forces? 

[Mehring]

Do Russian ground forces not get whacked on T1 or any place in summer 1941, particularly west of the Dnepr?

I wonder whether russian CVs aren't badly under estimated in summer 1941 and then over compensated for in the blizzard rules. As anyone who knows my thinking will guess, I think attention to logistics are the lever to create a more historical flavour.

[wadortch]

This is great discussion and hang in there Michael T.

From my perspective point of this is to create, without a huge amount of coding, a GAME mechanic which will create the incentive for the Germans to go for broke and the Soviets to stand and fight as, I think most would agree, they were directed (for whatever sound or unsound but politically real reasons) to do.

It may very well be that a great simulation of history and allowing the Soviets all the options they presently have with regard to production, etc. creates what some would suggest is the inevitable--a Soviet victory or Germany becomes the target of the first atomic weapons.

And perhaps this is premature since the 1.05 games are still being played out and the outcome of the interesting AAR where the Axis are returning home for the winter remains to be seen but several things do seem to be clear.

1) Axis are not going for broke--the AAR's depicting WW1 like trenches being built by the Axis behind "skirmish lines" of front line troops is way off historical and of course an appropriate GAME tactic.

2) Russian Strategy of running away just behind the trains hauling out the factories equally non-historical and an appropriate game tactic.

I have seen several posts that suggest this is already in the rules but the 290 points auto for the German seems an unattainable outcome against any competent human Soviet Player.

Other posts have suggested that why is this even important since anyone can agree to house rules.

From my own perspective (flawed as that may be) there is value in formalizing something like this in the official rules. Players generally I think are investing time in play (and an awesome amount of energy in AAR reports) to be measured or compared against the rules of the realm not the house. For that reason, continued discussion and incorporation of the optional variant Michael T proposed is worthy.

I suggest again that the calculation he proposed be measured in late February or early March to give the Soviets the benefit of a winter offensive (that stands hugely to curb too far a reach by the Axis). But if the Soviets run so far away that they cannot seriously contest the auto victory spots, they lose. If the Germans send to many troops to Germany or to construction in the rear, they lose. It is not a one way proposition, both sides have their time with the initiative to win it all early and if not. slug it out to end some 150 odd plus turns down the road.