Any news from 1.07.14.?

[Callistrid]

There are any news from the new patch?

[morvael]

No news, unfortunately. The patch is 80% ready, but for now I have no time to finish it. I started a new job, but I'm still under obligations to do some things (mostly on weekends) in the old. It may be hard to find any time until second half of February. Even then, I will have less time to work on the code than I had in 2013, so it will be slow going. I intend to finish the patch, but can't promise any dates at this time.

So far I have new production, replacement and upgrades done, enchanced editor to program attributes helping with new production/replacement system done, but I don't have swaps and the whole things is untested in the long run. Plus dozen of other fixes, as usual.

[Peltonx]

That stinks because game really sucks right now.

Russia is so over powered its stupid.

The nerfs to logistics( do noting to SHC of course) make it more then easy to rail out everything and retreat for 7 turns-then counter attacking exploiting 1v1=2v1 15 to 20 times per turn with a win ratio of 98%+. This means that lines become static by July 1941.

The mild winter is then not mild.

I would and am telling people not to waste there time playing.

Game is complete joke really in it current state.

Worse then it has ever been = disaster.

[Michael T]

Yep, were in a bad place right now.

[rmonical]

Reduce Soviet morale to .95.

[Callistrid]

ORIGINAL: rmonical

Reduce Soviet morale to .95.

or lower.

But that will not resolve anything.

[Tarhunnas]

You never were one for half measures Pelton! [:D]

[Tarhunnas]

A VP system that discourages Soviet runaways!

[Callistrid]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

A VP system that discourages Soviet runaways!

On the first 7 turn the soviet can't loose enough VP. A good soviet player could held Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov. And even if he loose one of those object cities, the game is not lost.

[Michael T]

Well the Soviet Fanboy's should be happy at least. Only problem they face now is finding a willing whipping boy....

[morvael]

What if I told you that despite rules as printed German national morale is never lower than 70? I feel compelled to fix it according to the rules, but it will cause German army to collapse even faster. It seems a lot of Axis performance was due to bugs. I would happily fix some bugs nerfing Soviet side, but there are less of them... Thus mild winter and (I hope) ability to turn off 1->2 rule as changes helping to balance those fixes, optionally.

[Callistrid]

ORIGINAL: morvael

What if I told you that despite rules as printed German national morale is never lower than 70? I feel compelled to fix it according to the rules, but it will cause German army to collapse even faster. It seems a lot of Axis performance was due to bugs. I would happily fix some bugs nerfing Soviet side, but there are less of them... Thus mild winter and (I hope) ability to turn off 1->2 rule as changes helping to balance those fixes, optionally.

The german collapse depends on the soviet player. If he's enough strong, the best german players can't do anything to stop them. In 41 we can see who won.

[Michael T]

It seems a lot of Axis performance was due to bugs

This is the great problem. WITE was tweaked to a balanced position with all those bugs. Now you have/are removing those bugs and the balance is totally screwed. Ofcourse the bugs should be removed. Even national morale bug. BUT something must be done to redress the balance. Otherwise this game is dead.

IIRC the original Soviet morale was 40, maybe it should go back there. Maybe a lot of the original tweaks need to be wound back.

Basically the entire balancing process needs to start again. Who has the energy and time to do that?

[hfarrish]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

It seems a lot of Axis performance was due to bugs

This is the great problem. WITE was tweaked to a balanced position with all those bugs. Now you have/are removing those bugs and the balance is totally screwed. Ofcourse the bugs should be removed. Even national morale bug. BUT something must be done to redress the balance. Otherwise this game is dead.

IIRC the original Soviet morale was 40, maybe it should go back there. Maybe a lot of the original tweaks need to be wound back.

Basically the entire balancing process needs to start again. Who has the energy and time to do that?

Is there any reason we can't have a harsher SD rule set as an option? I have been purposefully playing a fight forward approach (i.e. not retreating except in the face of obvious encirclements) and it does lead to a better game. I'm not the world's greatest Soviet player but forcing the Red to take losses when they are weak and the Germans are strong could improve a lot of these outcomes...and its not a change that would require wholesale revamps to the game that won't happen.

[Toidi]

Well, my opinion is that this game should get abandoned soon and an upgrade to WitE 2.0 or War in Europe offered. Just a little cheaper for the current WitE owners. In my view current WitE is not possible to fix without putting huge amount of time & effort.

The problems are:

1. Combat engine
2. Leadership effects
3 Logistics
4 Not allowing Germans to produce things as they like

1-3 leads to very tough (almost impossible) balancing and plenty of snow-balling effects in the game. Issues no 4 leads to the game which is very rigid for Axis, as Soviet can build forces which counters the prescribed Axis forces, whereas Axis cannot do anything at all about that.

Ad.1 Combat engine needs a full change. In the interests of balancing, I would suggest using something much simpler. If not, the modelling of combat must be made in a much more realistic way. Current mix of simplicity in fighting simulation, simplicity in tactics and simple morale mechanics, combined with high complexity in equipment simulation is not working.
Ad.2 Effects of leadership should be changed - the mechanics may stay the same only if the combat engine is drastically simplified. Otherwise, they need to affect how the fighting itself goes (tactics), casualties etc. That is tough to balance, so I suggest simplifications in the combat engine instead.
Ad.3 Improving logistics is probably easier and that will be likely fixed in WitE 2. I have seen some very good developments in that area, not perfect, but good improvement.
Ad.4 Getting production right is another problem - but I think that this step must be done. Also, the time of TOE changes should be up to the player (one should not be able to adopt '44 TOE in '42, but one should be able to stick with '42 TOE in '44 if one wants).

[stardark]

Just a quick clarification question: do these problems apply to only Human vs. Human games, or generally to Human vs. Human AND Human vs. AI? I bought this game in December, and I want to buy the two expansions soon. However, I did not have much time to play, and the problems mentioned in this forum constantly keep me from playing.

[Tarhunnas]

Stardark, do not take everything at complete face value. While there is probably some truth to the above, there is a substantial tendency to overstatements and general doomsaying among some member of this forum.

This is a great game, and in human vs AI the balance issue is (as in any game) that a human player that has gotten the ropes of the game will comfortably beat the AI.

[Tarhunnas]

A partial solution, if indeed the Soviets are now too strong, might be to introduce a "mild mud" option. The mud rules always felt a bit overdone IMHO, another fudge rule to make things come out as they should.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

It seems a lot of Axis performance was due to bugs

....

Basically the entire balancing process needs to start again. Who has the energy and time to do that?

I realise its great fun to cry 'we're all doomed' and so on, but there are solutions and ways to get back to balance - which I suspect we all want (except of course one person's balanced game is anothers complete fantasy).

Equally I realise in the context of PBEM that if you change settings and it doesn't work you are stuck, but its a case of being pragmatic. The next patch will probably be it, and will at least have removed a lot of bugs and routines that cause problems (mid/late game production routines etc).

We can all write erudite essays on how the combat/logistic/whatever system needs to be changed and it ain't gonna make any difference. WiTE2 is some distance off (& I guess depends on the funds raised by WiTW).

But, you can shift the settings, if you feel that 100%-100% is wrong, experiment. Set differential transport levels, that will go a long way to making factory evac more of a burden on the Soviet side and stop easy shifting of entire fronts from late 1941 onwards. That sounds like one simple balance - you have to fight forward and you lose a lot of strategic flexibility.

Use differential morale, if the game has indeed been balanced around an overestimate of German capacity, then set most Soviet values at 95%.

I'm sure that over time, some idea of a reasonable set of adjustments that give a good competitive game will emerge.

Equally play with people who aren't into win at all costs. No-one forced me to an active defense in my current game but its something I wanted to try in the light of the sort of alterations above. It may fail, but in terms of numbers it is looking like the (mild) blizzard will be between 2 armies of roughly equal size (ie the historical position).

So, either use the balancing tools in the game (and accept this will produce a few spectacular disasters), give up till WiTE2 or carry on whinging? I'm pretty sure I know where my preferences lie.

[RedLancer]

I don't think that anyone is content with where things stand right now. 
 
However (and noting that I am being deliberately contraversial) much of this situation can be attributed to the approach from some Players to flaws in the game.  There have been times when WitE has been balanced but some people have chosen to seek every exploit in a desire to win.  In a game of this complexity it is almost impossible to find every loophole.  The response to this behaviour has seldom been to ostracise those individuals.  Instead the forum demagogues have lobbied hard for yet another change from 'the Devs' which just starts the cycle once again.  So whilst I am unhappy with the current position we all have a responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in as we are in a bed of our own making.
 
My final observation is that I am still convinced that a number of issues could have been easily addressed had the forum been more 'mod' friendly: a scenario starting on T2 and therefore circumventing the T1 rules and the Lvov Pocket being a good example.