The core problem with WitE+

[Michael T]

A SD or VP system should not only include 41-42 regarding a German victory/blowout or Russian runaway. It should also include 43-45 to pressure the Russians if they are taking their time moving west, as well as discourage a German runaway. The German player should be rewarded for solid defensive play in later war years

The SD scenario does all this.

[morvael]

But this is not a 5-minute game of Worms. I wouldn't put a year of my free time to a risk of sudden termination by missing the SD threshold by 1 point... It depends whether you enjoy just playing or winning

[Michael T]

The SD rules are for blowouts and runaways. If you play well and then you have nothing to fear. If you are getting thrashed or do nothing but run you will get punished. But hey don't forget its an alt scenario. So its up to the players themselves. I will always use it. Because I hate playing runners and I get bored with games that no longer offer a challenge. So SD works for me. I accept that other people don't like them. So its good we have a choice. FWIW I do like winning but more than that I enjoy a challenging, tense, close and rewarding game.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

I think we need something to put pressure on both sides! Especially we want to discourage Soviet runaways in 1941.

We? Never won a game with this "runaway". In my experience, trading space for time doesn't work.

What I'm seeing is that Axis players want to, to paraphrase, be home before the snow falls.

For my money, the pressure should be on the Axis. Forcing big cheese decisions on the Soviet, something the design team was against from the start, on top of the arcade style logistics, is not kosher. Not unless you want to force the Hitler decisions of the same time period on the Axis. (They were against that too.)

Any Axis player want to "force" the Sov player to play the way they (Axis) want in exchange for not taking Leningrad and Moscow? (As Hitler didn't want to take them, but rather starve them.)

I doubt it.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: morvael

But this is not a 5-minute game of Worms. I wouldn't put a year of my free time to a risk of sudden termination by missing the SD threshold by 1 point... It depends whether you enjoy just playing or winning

Yeah, no point in buy $70 for a 200+ turn game to end it in less than 15.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Schmart

A SD or VP system should not only include 41-42 regarding a German victory/blowout or Russian runaway. It should also include 43-45 to pressure the Russians if they are taking their time moving west, as well as discourage a German runaway. The German player should be rewarded for solid defensive play in later war years.

Also, I'm convinced that the use of Admin Pts for unit creation by the Russians is not the way to go. It puts AP pressure/crunch on the Russians that wasn't historically there. Currently, the Russian player needs to play carefully after Nov 41 because they don't get any auto rebuilds and losing too many units creates an AP downhill runaway. Historically, the Russians just built more and more replacement units. It was a meatgrinder on a gigantic scale, but they kept on rebuilding Rifle Divisions, seemingly endlessly from the German point of view. I think a Russian player that knows they will have a virtual endless supply of units (not replacements, just unit shells), would play more aggressively and a more forward defense like they did historically. Right now, losing units for the Russian player is a major punishment, resulting IMO in less reckless Russian game play.

IIRC it's been said that the replacement rate in game doesn't equal the actual rate. So this fighting forward stuff is suicide. They had a pool of 14 million reservist by the invasion. By the end of June they called up 5,300,000. They could lose 100 divisions in battle and keep going. Like Halder, said "The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen.”

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Schmart

A SD or VP system should not only include 41-42 regarding a German victory/blowout or Russian runaway. It should also include 43-45 to pressure the Russians if they are taking their time moving west, as well as discourage a German runaway. The German player should be rewarded for solid defensive play in later war years.

Also, I'm convinced that the use of Admin Pts for unit creation by the Russians is not the way to go. It puts AP pressure/crunch on the Russians that wasn't historically there. Currently, the Russian player needs to play carefully after Nov 41 because they don't get any auto rebuilds and losing too many units creates an AP downhill runaway. Historically, the Russians just built more and more replacement units. It was a meatgrinder on a gigantic scale, but they kept on rebuilding Rifle Divisions, seemingly endlessly from the German point of view. I think a Russian player that knows they will have a virtual endless supply of units (not replacements, just unit shells), would play more aggressively and a more forward defense like they did historically. Right now, losing units for the Russian player is a major punishment, resulting IMO in less reckless Russian game play.

IIRC it's been said that the replacement rate in game doesn't equal the actual rate. So this fighting forward stuff is suicide. They had a pool of 14 million reservist by the invasion. By the end of June they called up 5,300,000. They could lose 100 divisions in battle and keep going. Like Halder, said "The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen.”

+10

These Fanbois want a Russian fight "forward" without historic reinforcement OOB and under the gun of a SD rule so they can easily just collapse the entire front and win before winter 41...

OH, YEAH... sounds perfectly reasonable to me... especially since the German morale reduction after 1942 IS STILL BUGGED AND DOESN'T FALL BELOW 70... so why bother playing past 42 ? Right, Fanbois ??

I have a simpler solution... Why doesn't Morvael just add an option switch that gives automatic victory to the German side on turn two and the Fanbois can just dispense with having to play the game for "so many turns" to decide a victor.

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

"Why?... Because in that very example, that Russian Division would be isolated and exterminated on the next move... So no intelligent Russian player would ever expose that division in that way. You can't afford it in 41-42, if you want to have an army in 43. "


Gamer:

While I appreciate your spirit, best to have deeper understanding of the game's mechanics. Isolation and extermination takes at least 2 moves, can't be done in one move. Just saying....[:)]

And I am glad that you admit they would rapidly be eradicated and that the example given is therefore ludicrous.

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: GamesaurusRex

The stench of German Fanbois bias is strong on this thread.]

That kind of accusation will not bring the debate forward. We all want a better game, I Think no one here wants certain victory for one side or the other.

I have played both sides extensively, but nowadays I mostly play the Soviets. I am definitely in favour of some kind of SD or VP system that discourages Soviet runaways.

It is impossible to fight a forward Russian defence without troops... and anyone familiar with this game's Russian reinforcement rates and morale levels during the 1941 turns, and the isolation rules knows, with certainty, that a "forward" Russian defense will soon deplete the Russian Army to the point of effective elimination. Anyone asserting otherwise is simply being disingenuous.

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: Wheat

ORIGINAL: GamesaurusRex
The stench of German Fanbois bias is strong on this thread.[8|]

Now now, we are on patch 11, and are having a good game. And YOU have 3 and 3/4 years to get to Berlin.

I apologize to the forum for my opponent, who is old and grumpy and missing his dacha in Moscow.

But the combat system that allows these ridiculous results IS a problem.

Well Wheat... I wouldn't exactly call it good... If we had not used our "Lvov" HR movement limit in the south from the git go, the Russian front would have totally collapsed in 1941. Even doing that, you succeeded in taking Leningrad, and Stalingrad by July 1942 (six months ahead of historic), and Moskow shortly after that. Only by refusing battle where possible could I maintain 8.5 million men by the end of summer of 42 and soon still lost nearly a million because I had to hold the Volga River line or just surrender. The defence line only began to hold after I had expended enough AP points to convert much of the line to Corps level units. This has, however, done nothing to improve the Russian attack values and now I am finding that, contrary to all the ficticious claims about massive Russian advantage due to game bias , it is impossible to get a "retreat" against German units dug in "2" level fortified positions, despite using six Corps level units in the attack after air bombardment. (The forum postings about Russians achieving 94% percent victories on 1:1 or 2:1 attacks are just pure fabrication.) The rules say that the German morale is supposed begin declining in 1943... but according to Morvael, that is apparently not functioning and the German national morale levels remain at 70 throughout the game as of the latest patch. I need not explain the consequences of the effect of the Germans maintaining their 1941 morale advantage on the combat resolution results throughout the entire game. That does not bode well for my Russian attempt to ever get as far as Berlin.

I don't honestly believe that many of you have actually played the game beyond 1942. Rather, the German Fanbois have quit if they haven't won by 1942 and the Russians have been defeated by 1942 or won only because the German player didn't know how to play the German side.

I am sorry, but I remain entirely unconvinced that this game has ANY Russian favor bias AT ALL... In fact, using the standard game settings, it is so heavily biased in favor of the German side as it stands now, that I can't see how the Germans could possibly lose. I won't quit playing the game, but if I ever feel like winning it against a human opponent, I will choose the German side to play. (And as soon as Wheat explains to me exactly the methods he uses to run the German side, I will gladly let him play the Russian side so he can "show me how it is done" with all those great Russian advantages.)

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: GamesaurusRex

This has, however, done nothing to improve the Russian attack values and now I am finding that, contrary to all the ficticious claims about massive Russian advantage due to game bias , it is impossible to get a "retreat" against German units dug in "2" level fortified positions, despite using six Corps level units in the attack after air bombardment. (The forum postings about Russians achieving 94% percent victories on 1:1 or 2:1 attacks are just pure fabrication.) The rules say that the German morale is supposed begin declining in 1943... but according to Morvael, that is apparently not functioning and the German national morale levels remain at 70 throughout the game as of the latest patch. I need not explain the consequences of the effect of the Germans maintaining their 1941 morale advantage on the combat resolution results throughout the entire game. That does not bode well for my Russian attempt to ever get as far as Berlin.

I don't honestly believe that many of you have actually played the game beyond 1942. Rather, the German Fanbois have quit if they haven't won by 1942 and the Russians have been defeated by 1942 or won only because the German player didn't know how to play the German side.

I am sorry, but I remain entirely unconvinced that this game has ANY Russian favor bias AT ALL... In fact, using the standard game settings, it is so heavily biased in favor of the German side as it stands now, that I can't see how the Germans could possibly lose. I won't quit playing the game, but if I ever feel like winning it against a human opponent, I will choose the German side to play. (And as soon as Wheat explains to me exactly the methods he uses to run the German side, I will gladly let him play the Russian side so he can "show me how it is done" with all those great Russian advantages.)

We've been over this so many times its scarcely worth answering. But here's some response:

a) first keep it polite, please. Its all too easy on this forum to label someone 'fanboy' when you don't agree with them as if that stops all debate. It doesn't ... it tends to give those so insulted a feeling of being in the right all along;
b) You can win your fights in 1941, you just need to take care to set them up and pick your spots. You are in your first PBEM Campaign and will inevitably come across things you'd wished you'd known before. Take it as part of the learning process. I'm in the same boat and stunned at the collapse of my armaments points in late 41. The AI tends to rout you out of pockets so while you take a morale hit, you don't have the same stunning hit on armaments for filling out the returning shells. So thats one I'll have to chalk down to experience and watch out for in a future PBEM;
c) Ok there is one small thing that favours the Germans post-1942. Here I have sympathy with Pelton et al, as the various swapping and upgrade bugs have been wrecking the late game for the Germans. Certainly more than offsetting the morale bug.

[1jasonoz]

I'd happily give the Russians their historical reinforcements in the game if it meant that the Soviets would stop simply running away and letting General mud and General Winter fight and stop the Germans. I'd also stop the initial Lvov pocket as well as that is not historical either. Give the Soviets their historical reinforcements, get rid of the Lvov pocket and let the Soviets fight forward against the Germans!

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: 1jasonoz

I'd happily give the Russians their historical reinforcements in the game if it meant that the Soviets would stop simply running away and letting General mud and General Winter fight and stop the Germans. I'd also stop the initial Lvov pocket as well as that is not historical either. Give the Soviets their historical reinforcements, get rid of the Lvov pocket and let the Soviets fight forward against the Germans!

It isn't that the Lvov is unhistorical, but logistically impossible.

These so called runaways are the result of the designers refusing to force historical mistakes on players. (Unless you actually like listening to Hitler and not taking what he forbid, or attacking where he wants you to, per history.)

These "runaways" allow taking all that territory for free. It adds hexes between the Soviets and Berlin. Which the Soviets need in order to win.

In short, it's this Axis desire to set records in how short a game they can have instead of going the distance.

People need to get out of this "I want to win before the first snow" mindset. That is the core problem with WiTE

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

I think we need something to put pressure on both sides! Especially we want to discourage Soviet runaways in 1941.

Tarhunnas, I am really surprised you say that. I -and I guess others- remember very well your last AAR as a Soviet vs Michael...

No runaway, stubborn defence (as in the real thing). IIRC on the very first page of the AAR I had warned you that you would inevitably run out of *shells / counters*... game over.

And this is exactly what happened. You were forced to give up, no matter your honesty, no matter how historically you fought.

Funnily enough, [Soviets] fighting historically and... the Germans got a ahistorical crushing victory [:D]

I don't know how the state of the game is as now, but still...

[timmyab]

^Most of the Axis fuel exploits have been nerfed since that game. I can vouch that he still likes to fight forward and it still costs him, but it's a much better game for both players and more historical. It's only a matter of finding a balance. Nobody expects the Soviets to be forced to fight forward without compensation.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

^Most of the Axis fuel exploits have been nerfed since that game. I can vouch that he still likes to fight forward and it still costs him, but it's a much better game for both players and more historical. It's only a matter of finding a balance. Nobody expects the Soviets to be forced to fight forward without compensation.

Fighting forward should cost him (or anyone else) like 3 million prisoners before the end of 1941? NO problem at all (that's what happened in 1941)... as long as you still have the historical counters to contain the Germans.

And as long as logistical laws are applied to the Germans during the Barbarossa massacre thing [8D]

[Tarhunnas]

I never advocated a mechanism to make the Soviets fight forward in isolation! I want a more realistic game, and precisely because Soviet forward resistance means Soviet doom I have advocated a package of changes together, to make the campaign more realistic:

* Removing the Lvov pocket!
* The Germans still easily outpace the real advance in 1941, so it needs still more logistic brakes on the German advance. Preferably a more realistic supply system in general.
* Limiting Soviet player freedom of action to withdraw in 1941.
* Soviet staying power is too great. There should be a chance for the German player to win by taking Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov or similar in 1941.
* And a VP system that made similar checks at regular points in time to give more suspense and encourage the Germans not to give up ground.

I am all for increasing Soviet replacements as the above is likely to generate more Soviet losses.

[TulliusDetritus]

This is a wild guess (or maybe not, who knows) but maybe the designers kept out of the game the historical Red Army counters/shells to avoid this problem: imagine the Soviets don't fight forward (a suicidal fight, as they did) = they would end up with a massive army. And this would clearly unbalance the game.

As I see it, if the on game Soviets had what they historically had, there should necessarily be a harsh sudden death rule (and NOT optional). To avoid this early death, the Soviet player should be forced to fight (only option to merely survive) and thus suffer tremendous losses.

The other side of the coin? There must be a reward ie Germans are more or less contained, along historical lines [;)]

Needless to say, all things being equal ie players equally competent or incompetent [:D]

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: GamesaurusRex

This has, however, done nothing to improve the Russian attack values and now I am finding that, contrary to all the ficticious claims about massive Russian advantage due to game bias , it is impossible to get a "retreat" against German units dug in "2" level fortified positions, despite using six Corps level units in the attack after air bombardment. (The forum postings about Russians achieving 94% percent victories on 1:1 or 2:1 attacks are just pure fabrication.) The rules say that the German morale is supposed begin declining in 1943... but according to Morvael, that is apparently not functioning and the German national morale levels remain at 70 throughout the game as of the latest patch. I need not explain the consequences of the effect of the Germans maintaining their 1941 morale advantage on the combat resolution results throughout the entire game. That does not bode well for my Russian attempt to ever get as far as Berlin.

I don't honestly believe that many of you have actually played the game beyond 1942. Rather, the German Fanbois have quit if they haven't won by 1942 and the Russians have been defeated by 1942 or won only because the German player didn't know how to play the German side.

I am sorry, but I remain entirely unconvinced that this game has ANY Russian favor bias AT ALL... In fact, using the standard game settings, it is so heavily biased in favor of the German side as it stands now, that I can't see how the Germans could possibly lose. I won't quit playing the game, but if I ever feel like winning it against a human opponent, I will choose the German side to play. (And as soon as Wheat explains to me exactly the methods he uses to run the German side, I will gladly let him play the Russian side so he can "show me how it is done" with all those great Russian advantages.)

We've been over this so many times its scarcely worth answering. But here's some response:

a) first keep it polite, please. Its all too easy on this forum to label someone 'fanboy' when you don't agree with them as if that stops all debate. It doesn't ... it tends to give those so insulted a feeling of being in the right all along;
b) You can win your fights in 1941, you just need to take care to set them up and pick your spots. You are in your first PBEM Campaign and will inevitably come across things you'd wished you'd known before. Take it as part of the learning process. I'm in the same boat and stunned at the collapse of my armaments points in late 41. The AI tends to rout you out of pockets so while you take a morale hit, you don't have the same stunning hit on armaments for filling out the returning shells. So thats one I'll have to chalk down to experience and watch out for in a future PBEM;
c) Ok there is one small thing that favours the Germans post-1942. Here I have sympathy with Pelton et al, as the various swapping and upgrade bugs have been wrecking the late game for the Germans. Certainly more than offsetting the morale bug.

Yes loki... We have been over this so many times and you still haven't absorbed it.

a) If calling a Fanbois (one who is biased), a "Fanbois" offends you... you need to grow thicker skin.

b) You can do it, but it is suicidal. You might get away with it, if the German player is completely oblivious to the mechanics of the game, but any moderately proficient German player is going to destroy the entire Russian army as a consequence. Perhaps, if the missing 3 million or so men were put back into the reinforcement OOB, the Russian might be able to afford a forward defence and might be able to engage in combat for the sake of attrition, if the replacements were high enough.

c) So you are trying to tell me that morale isn't a controlling factor of combat resolution ? Utter nonsense. The whole game mechanics are built upon a scheduled NM level differential that effectively dictates the general outcome of battles each year (according to the rules, declining by 5 points each year after 42 for the Germans). Morvael says it isn't working... the German side is stuck at 70 beyond 1942.

[Schmart]

With virtually endless Russian unit shells, to prevent a huge army if they run away, what about punishing them through logistics and industry? Historically, Stalin gave the Scorched-Earth order to remove or destroy everything possible. If the Russians run away, they can't have a very effective scorched-earth strategy. They would lose food, supplies, factories, population etc. That should be the trade-off: Stand and fight and you get lots of replacements. Run away and you get fewer replacements/industry, or maybe even give the Axis more, as the captured supplies, farms, industries, population, etc would be less destroyed and more useable. A simple current coding fix might be to reduce Russian Rail capacity. If players can run away and still save most of their industry, then that's wrong and a-historical.