Polish campaign?

[Cheesehead]

After GE conquered Poland I got a message about the campaign causing great wear and tear on the Wehrmacht and then I noticed that many German land units decreased in strength. Is this a normal occurance after Poland is conquered or did I do something wrong? Is this just a game balance mechanic?

Thanks

John

[doomtrader]

Indeed, this is fine.
We wanted to simulate the war resources depleted by the campaign.

[JLPOWELL]

It is an 'event' which as far as I know ALWAYS is triggered by the fall of Poland. It is there for game balance the German army is perhaps a bit 'overpowered' (OK TOTALLY overpowered) on turn 1. and without logistical limits they would blast into France in the October November time frame. This event was put in place to limit this somewhat. I am not a big fan of the 'events' system particularly as it is completely undocumented and all kinds of stuff literally 'falls from the sky' on players. This one however seems to have a pretty valid function.

BTW the event really doesn't stop a determined player. It is quite easy to knock out BeNeLux in the GC. And as Poland falls in 3-4 turns (usually 3 even in PBEM from my experience) Germany can quickly turn its attention elsewhere.

Definitely beware the events they drive game play. One important set is the 'April Fools' set. This group of events has a dramatic effect; the soviet army is virtually nullified by a set of events which reduce units to @ 1% effectiveness. This means that pretty much all units can be hit 1 on 1 at 7:1 + odds. BUT only after April 1st 1941. If you don't know about this one and go 'outside the box' historically it will likely cost you the game (certainly in PBEM if you opponent 'knows')

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead

After GE conquered Poland I got a message about the campaign causing great wear and tear on the Wehrmacht and then I noticed that many German land units decreased in strength. Is this a normal occurance after Poland is conquered or did I do something wrong? Is this just a game balance mechanic?

Thanks

John

[JLPOWELL]

On the other hand after Germany expends itself in an all out attack on France events do the exact opposite. Instant prizes are awarded (two Pz Divisions and a bunch of Cash) hmm. One of the events is not simulating the wear down effects of a fierce campaign... Actually both are simply designed to 'force' historical outcomes there is no consistently applied underlying 'simulation' reasoning applied here.

Sorry Doom but you really are not going to win me over on the events system... [:D]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Indeed, this is fine.
We wanted to simulate the war resources depleted by the campaign.

[Cheesehead]

So what you are saying is that you are punished for trying to do ahistorical strategy?

Are there events that punish the Germans for attacking Spain or Turkey?

Thanks

John

[JLPOWELL]

Just to pile on...(sorry its my nature...) Please remember this is all in good fun[:D]. And what is more fun than a healthy debate...[8D]

Where is the 'event' for exhaustion after Germany penetrated deep into the USSR and the weather changed and they were 'stuck' overextended with completely worn out units. A much more dramatic decrease in effectiveness occurred at that 'point in history'. There is no end to it. You can keep tying events to points in history until the game just unravels. The longer the game runs the more players deviate from the historical 'program' and the 'events' become completely disconnected from any logical rationale.

[JLPOWELL]

On of my main gripes is the 'events' are undocumented so be prepared for anything. Re Turkey no event that I know of. Germany cannot attack Spain (rules prevent based on govt type) which is another issue...

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead

So what you are saying is that you are punished for trying to do ahistorical strategy?

Are there events that punish the Germans for attacking Spain or Turkey?

Thanks

John

[gwgardner]

There is/was a 'General Winter' event, reducing German effectiveness the first winter on the Eastern Front.

[doomtrader]

JLPOWELL, most of the events are connected not with the timeline, but with the current situation.
I'm not going to convince you that events are all good of the game. If you don't like them, just turn them off.

[JLPOWELL]

Gary, that's good to know, but do we know? ... Maybe without playing a game and tripping (events don't 'always trigger') it or searching thou thousands of lines of xml no way to know. Do you have any specifics?

Keyword search for 'Winter' did not find any relevant entries in any of the game files. (lots of winter war references however.

My main objections to events are:

First
They are undocumented IMO unforgivable. Were they not specked during design? Best practice would be document during design and programming (detailed comments in the xml would do the trick and could be summarized in a readme file). I do understand that are some language issues with Wasteland which make this difficult.

Second
They 'fire' randomly in PBEM without player intervention again for things that have huge impact this could be fixed but not by modding.

Third
The events drive the game the impact is HUGE the events have massive effect overshadowing in many cases player actions. This could at least be mitigated by a bit of documentation.

Doom refers to 'turning them off' or turning some off. Great idea. A tool to set an ON/OFF flag for events would be great. Expecting 'end users' to wade though a ton of xml and successfully edit it is not an practical solution.

As I am lobbying for change my remarks will be pointed, please realize I want to effect positive change.
Regards to documenting the events this will be time consuming to implement, but likely would save more effort than it costs down the road particularly if the events eventually migrate to an upcoming Time of ???? game on the same topic. It would also streamline the patch upgrade process. Doom does not likely have the management authority for that type of decision but a pretty good case could be made that this would save $$ rather than cost it in the long run. I have had involvement with very large, large, medium as well as small scale programming projects (I would classify ToF as perhaps medium by comparison) and as complexity increases the value of adequate documentation increases. ToF has likely passed that tipping point by a fair amount. Any project that spans years and evolves over time requires adequate documentation.

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

There is/was a 'General Winter' event, reducing German effectiveness the first winter on the Eastern Front.

[doomtrader]

First
They are undocumented IMO unforgivable. Were they not specked during design? Best practice would be document during design and programming (detailed comments in the xml would do the trick and could be summarized in a readme file). I do understand that are some language issues with Wasteland which make this difficult.

How would you like it to be documented?
There is full list of events
There is a full explanation of what the triggers and checks are doing in the events
99% of triggers and checks are commented in the xml file
You can check the description of events in the language data base.
What else do you want to have?

Second
They 'fire' randomly in PBEM without player intervention again for things that have huge impact this could be fixed but not by modding.

That was a strictly design decision, to save you sending the file back and forth couple of times during one turn.

Third
The events drive the game the impact is HUGE the events have massive effect overshadowing in many cases player actions. This could at least be mitigated by a bit of documentation.

Could you share some examples? Most of the events have at least two option, so you can choose your path. WOuld you like to know ten turns earlier that there will be 'famine
event'?

Doom refers to 'turning them off' or turning some off. Great idea. A tool to set an ON/OFF flag for events would be great. Expecting 'end users' to wade though a ton of xml and successfully edit it is not an practical solution.

As I am lobbying for change my remarks will be pointed, please realize I want to effect positive change.
Regards to documenting the events this will be time consuming to implement, but likely would save more effort than it costs down the road particularly if the events eventually migrate to an upcoming Time of ???? game on the same topic. It would also streamline the patch upgrade process. Doom does not likely have the management authority for that type of decision but a pretty good case could be made that this would save $$ rather than cost it in the long run. I have had involvement with very large, large, medium as well as small scale programming projects (I would classify ToF as perhaps medium by comparison) and as complexity increases the value of adequate documentation increases. ToF has likely passed that tipping point by a fair amount. Any project that spans years and evolves over time requires adequate documentation.

This is pretty well documented. I understood that for somebody who was not involved into the development and did not manage whole stuff, some time is needed. If you are hiring a new employee into a medium project, how much time he needs to feel comfortable with the documentation? Day, week, month?

[Razz1]

Actually there is a winter penalty for 41 42 and 43

It only makes senses as that is what happened in WW2.

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

There is/was a 'General Winter' event, reducing German effectiveness the first winter on the Eastern Front.

[doomtrader]

Actually there is a winter penalty for 41 42 and 43

It is?