New Game Mode: Scorched Earth

[markb50k]

Sep/Oct 1939

Axis 4th Impulse:

- Finally, Rumania auto-aligns with Germany as full Axis ally

"Pass" through rest of impulse
- after passing, the End of TUrn roll will happen. At this point you can allow the turn to end if you wish.
- do all end of turn processing.
- take the time to get a good look at things, especially your convoys. Make sure the programs isnt auto-sending convoys home.
- Do builds if you wish, since your gearing limits are unlimited for the first turn, but realize that most likely you're not at maximum efficiency for production, like look at Germany's production this first turn. Woah 35 factories, nice.
- if you don't want to do builds just dont build anything and don't save any. they'll just be thrown out and you start over next turn on production.

[markb50k]

For comparison, Here's US production in Sept/Oct 1939 lol. All the more reason to perhaps hold off on all the DOW on USA until the game is fully ready to start.

ALSO waiting to 1940 will give the Axis a little more bump in production.

This will be maximum carnage, I think. Will the Axis juggernaut be able to do enough while the US is building?

[AxelNL]

interesting experiment. Centuur is the beta tester who ventured out in this land before - so his advice is important. As this has seen only limited beta testing you should embrace yourself for possible impact. Having a very fast multi-core CPU will help in the supply calculation times as you add more and more units on the map.

[markb50k]

pic of Germany prior to hostilities..

Ur_Vile_Wedge may be right about the balance of this, but I think I will try this out and see how it goes after my current AAR.

The production multiple of the US is the biggest game changer here, so house rules could be implemented to limit US production if you choose.

Will this war be a completely different beast then WWII, yup. Is that ALL bad? I don't think so.

Ideas for further balance are welcome. Perhaps align Switzerland to Germany as well? I'm all ears, but I definitely think that you have to wait to at least 1940 to start the war to give the Axis an extra .25 - .5 bump in production.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

It's not just the US production multiple. Even if we clamp down U.S. production to be more or less in line with an "average" game with a clunky U.S. gearing up, the Allies will still outproduce the Axis significantly.


A while back, I had a game where the Germans faltered in France, but the USE was low, so bad that by 1941 they still hadn't done option 22. It didn't matter; they got resources to western allies and it was enough. England, France, and the Soviets can clean up if you give them a chance to dig in and build up.


What saves the Axis isn't just that they start with more bodies on the board, it's that they have the position of being able to pick a target, hit it with overwhelming force, and move on to the next one, whereas the Allies are often politically and militarily struggling to keep up.

If you make a game where from day one, everyone is at war with everyone else, it's going to be much harder, I would think, to do that overwhelming attack at one point, and then move onto the next.

And if the Axis can't do that, they're going to lose, even if the U.S. isn't pumping out 50 BP's worth of hardware every turn from turn 3 or so.

[WarHunter]

You could allow Poland or France to "take" 1 hex of Germany to give the them a .25 boost in production.
A "Coup" in Afghanistan, Switzerland and Mexico to side with the axis might help balance a tiny bit.

I like the overall concept. Would be fun to see how the program handles it all.
The axis are in for a world of hurt.

[markb50k]

I truly appreciate the feedback from the folks that have played WiF far longer than I have, so thank you to all. It seems funny that I was fearing that this was going to be too heavily favoring the Axis, and the truth is that it may actually make the Axis weaker.

So, some ideas I have been thinking.

1. Easy one, a "coup" in Switzerland would give Germany two more factories.

2. Mexico, I think wouldnt make much difference, given that the US would just destroy it immediately.

3. Netherlands. This is an interesting one. If it were to align to the Axis, that would be a double boon for them, no? Put only Belgium in front of France, and give immediate ability to give oil to Japan. So, I think that is a no-brainer as well.

4. France becoming too hard to crack, hmmm.. I'm just not sure on that. France would start the war with Spain, Italy, Germany, and possibly Switzerland (if i went that way) on its doorsteps. How long would France really last?

5. How about, since the war wouldnt start until later, that the Axis would be able to build an offensive or two prior to attack. That would mitigate a little of the loss of surprise, which is Wedge's 2nd big issue with this scenario. What do people think of that?

6. Could someone explain the balance that would be added by Afghanistan? I must be missing something.. is it a way of getting into Russia and India from behind?

Anyway, I do plan on trying this thing out, but I dont want to waste my time either if it is an impossibility to give the US a run for the money.

[Centuur]

I told Steve once, that some player would go beyond normal bounderies, so we've prepared for this to happen. Apart from long calculation times, the program should behave nicely. I hope you have patience available if you don't have a fast CPU...

Try loading this game, and see for yourself what happens if you move a unit... This will prepare you a little bit...

[WarHunter]

6. Could someone explain the balance that would be added by Afghanistan? I must be missing something.. is it a way of getting into Russia and India from behind?

I see it as extra units for the Allies, because there is little incentive for the axis to go take it over. Giving it to the Axis puts a thorn where the allies have to keep something back to watch it. Not that it can do much. Just an annoyance factor more than anything.

Same with Mexico in the axis side. Sure the US can just crush it. But they have to take the time and units to do it.

[markb50k]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

I told Steve once, that some player would go beyond normal bounderies, so we've prepared for this to happen. Apart from long calculation times, the program should behave nicely. I hope you have patience available if you don't have a fast CPU...

Try loading this game, and see for yourself what happens if you move a unit... This will prepare you a little bit...

OK, i'll take a look when i get home. I guess if it ends up being a silly endeavour, some countries with no troops could be removed from the initial setup. BTW, my computer isnt fast lol, so I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

I have my current game holding my attention for now tho.

[markb50k]

Reading up on things, and there are plausible scenarios where age-old antagonism and Yankee mistrust could see Mexico and Brazil both aligned to the Axis, especially if the bulk of Central Europe had done the same. Heck, this is a "what if" scenario. If the US had to devote resources to securing their own hemisphere that would surely slow things down quite a bit.

Just me thinking out loud..

[paulderynck]

I think there are many ways to achieve balance as long as enough minor countries ahistorically join the axis. You could also jimmy production by under-producing, although that might take a lot of time to configure.

[markb50k]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

I told Steve once, that some player would go beyond normal bounderies, so we've prepared for this to happen. Apart from long calculation times, the program should behave nicely. I hope you have patience available if you don't have a fast CPU...

Try loading this game, and see for yourself what happens if you move a unit... This will prepare you a little bit...

Honestly, I'm running this off of a laptop and an older one (2 years old) to boot, and I saw that the initial load took about 30 seconds to unfreeze after it showed the map for the first time. Any time I moved a HQ about 26-28 seconds wait, but no delay when moving units.

I see the situation in this game, and you pretty much had every country but the Allied major powers aligned with the Axis and they were all fully built. In addition you have about 400 oil markers down.

Your case was an extreme one and if that is the worst performance I'd get on this, that's acceptable.

Thanks for sharing that! I feel a bit better about this now.