WitE 2

[uw06670]

Joel or others with direct WitE 2.0 knowledge.

What would you predict is the time to manage the ground portion of the game compared to WitE 1? Since you've had ground portion at a Beta state should be knowable. A little longer a little shorter? Twice as long, half as long? I enjoy some of the micro managing, but it all costs time.

And then the effect of air changes, sounds like that part will take less time as I understand the WitW mechanics are inherently that way. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I love WitE but I am just not willing to devote the time to do more than I have done. But still its many, many hours and great bang for the buck!

tanks,

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: uw06670

Joel or others with direct WitE 2.0 knowledge.

What would you predict is the time to manage the ground portion of the game compared to WitE 1? Since you've had ground portion at a Beta state should be knowable. A little longer a little shorter? Twice as long, half as long? I enjoy some of the micro managing, but it all costs time.

And then the effect of air changes, sounds like that part will take less time as I understand the WitW mechanics are inherently that way. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I love WitE but I am just not willing to devote the time to do more than I have done. But still its many, many hours and great bang for the buck!

tanks,

Its much the same, once you are used to the new routines. In the end, your army is made up of Combat Units and Support Units and moving/allocating those is the core of the ground combat phase.

Air war is getting a huge rework to reduce the WiTW burden. You tended not to notice this too much in WiTW as you rarely moved your airforce between bases once you had it set up. Even after landing in France, the relatively long ranged allied planes could be left where they were for a number of terms. Both for reasons of size and that most are short ranged, you do find yourself redeploying both the Axis and Soviet air forces a lot more.

As to some of the points above re T1. There is a small degree of randomnisation, both as to the strength of the at-start Soviet forces and the likelihood of a reserve activation spoiling an attack. But I'd really doubt there will ever be an officially randomised start. But its worth noting the game is much more moddable and it may be possible to tweak the set up so that its not fixed.

[jwolf]

Thanks, Loki, that's good news about T1. It sounds like there is some variability in strength or activity, but not in position. Not my dream situation, but anything at all would be helpful. I really didn't like the absurdly scripted Axis power moves on T1 in WITE1, with a detailed accounting of every single MP spent by every unit. Ultimately I just want to throw a wrench into that kind of planning and I really don't care how it is done.

[loki100]

yeah me too, the approach of those it is best not to name was tedious in the extreme.

If you cut it too fine, you are going to lose a few battles now. Given how rules like Preparation Pts then roll forward that will hurt an axis player going onto T2 etc. So you tend to play T1 with a bit of redundancy in how you plan your attacks. In turn you then have the frustration (in a good way) of sometimes easier wins than you expected if a given Soviet formation is weaker this time around.

[malyhin1517]

Please tell me, is it planned to localize the game to other languages and especially support Cyrillic? The fact is that I made localization into Russian for WITE, but Cyrillic still does not appear in the names of units and in the descriptions of scenarios! I would like to make your game more accessible to the Russian-speaking audience!

[malyhin1517]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I expect that there will be a beta test phase before release. Right now we are working on the interface facelift and that should be done in the next few months (the final artist has just started his work). We're also working on changes to the air game. The ground game has been effectively at beta for several months, but we need to get the air game to that point along with the interface changes to say we're at gameplay beta. The air changes are going to require some rework of the AI, including providing some automated help for players. Until that happens it will be tough for some players to pick up the game. We may add a few more testers between now and the beta phase, but I expect we'll be adding many new testes when we hit the beta phase.

Once we start getting some of our final interface art into the game, we'll try to provide some screenshots.

Can I ask for alpha testers WITE II? For a long time seriously interested in this game and in General military history! Have your thoughts and suggestions for the Soviet troops in the game! And an officer himself!

[rob89]

In WitE2 will there be an artillery bombardment option?
As everyone knows, during WW2, especially from the Soviet side, artillery barrages were a fundamental component of the initial phase of offensive operations ...
I have always found it strange that such an option was missing in WitE

regards

[wkuh]

Agree... artillery bombardments, both sides, should be possible.

[Fetterkrolle]

Artillery bombardments happen in every battle in WitE 1. If you turn the combat speed down, you can see them.

[rob89]

ORIGINAL: Fetterkrolle

Artillery bombardments happen in every battle in WitE 1. If you turn the combat speed down, you can see them.

Obviously, I know! but only as a support for offensive and defensive combat operations.

It is not possible, as far as I know, a pure artillery bombardment/barrage (even stand-off, when the range of guns allows it). I think it's a deficiency in the game mechanics ...

regards

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: rob89

ORIGINAL: Fetterkrolle

Artillery bombardments happen in every battle in WitE 1. If you turn the combat speed down, you can see them.

Obviously, I know! but only as a support for offensive and defensive combat operations.

It is not possible, as far as I know, a pure artillery bombardment/barrage (even stand-off, when the range of guns allows it). I think it's a deficiency in the game mechanics ...

regards

I know the answer will be that is abstracted into the general attrition during the logistics so is accounted for. Of course then you might argue enemy attrition should go up or down according to how many guns you have rather than being invariant with it.

[Bitburger]

Once you have artillery divisions, you can bombard with them alone in second line, and then include then in a follow up attack too.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: rob89

In WitE2 will there be an artillery bombardment option?
As everyone knows, during WW2, especially from the Soviet side, artillery barrages were a fundamental component of the initial phase of offensive operations ...
I have always found it strange that such an option was missing in WitE

regards

WitE2 has a built in artillery bombardment phase prior to the old combat system in every deliberate attack (the old system had artillery generally firing at long range before the other weapons fired, but not as much as the new system). There is additional emphasis on artillery due to this. There is also a combat prep system that impacts how much ammo you tend to build up in the units, and ammo is very important for how much you get out of your artillery. For those reasons I think artillery can be more important than it's been in WitE or WitW. You can use the few on-map artillery units to do a separate combat, but I don't think that's necessary or best given the automatic systems that let them get their initial bombardment in before the rest of combat.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: malyhin1517

Please tell me, is it planned to localize the game to other languages and especially support Cyrillic? The fact is that I made localization into Russian for WITE, but Cyrillic still does not appear in the names of units and in the descriptions of scenarios! I would like to make your game more accessible to the Russian-speaking audience!

Thanks for your interest. WitW was not localized. It's a massive effort and unfortunately I don't expect WitE2 to be localized at release. There is a chance we might be able to get it localized after release. There are some coding issues as well as the issues of getting the translations done. As for Cyrillic, I will have to ask our Russian speaking programmer how difficult he thinks it might be to get it into WitE2. Right now our full attention is just getting the English speaking version done in 2020. We appreciate that it would be good to provide a localized product if possible as it would open up the game to a larger audience, but our resources are limited.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: malyhin1517

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I expect that there will be a beta test phase before release. Right now we are working on the interface facelift and that should be done in the next few months (the final artist has just started his work). We're also working on changes to the air game. The ground game has been effectively at beta for several months, but we need to get the air game to that point along with the interface changes to say we're at gameplay beta. The air changes are going to require some rework of the AI, including providing some automated help for players. Until that happens it will be tough for some players to pick up the game. We may add a few more testers between now and the beta phase, but I expect we'll be adding many new testes when we hit the beta phase.

Once we start getting some of our final interface art into the game, we'll try to provide some screenshots.

Can I ask for alpha testers WITE II? For a long time seriously interested in this game and in General military history! Have your thoughts and suggestions for the Soviet troops in the game! And an officer himself!

We have been using some alpha testers, but most have played both WitE and WitW. We are finally working now on the interface redo and the parts of the air game that have been in flux are beginning to come together. There will be a late alpha testing and/or beta testing phase coming up once we have these elements further along. I hope we'll get there within a few months. Stay tuned as we'll probably be asking for testers in this forum. If you've played both WitE and WitW and want to become an alpha tester (and don't mind coming into the middle of a construction zone with all the confusion that entails), you can always email 2by3 Games at 2by3@2by3games.com and let us know. Once we're ready for beta testing there will likely be a call for sign ups here so stay tuned.

[Nekronion]

Will the Western Front theater boxes always try to follow the historical path or can ahistorical stuff happen? Say if the Axis player puts lots of units into France but neglects the Balkans, will the allies land in Greece instead?

[uw06670]

There is a chance we might be able to get it localized after release

I've heard/seen some commercial products use crowd sourcing for the translations. This would seem fairly low impact (but more than zero) for Western languages.

[Zemke]

I thank you guys so much on the work to make WitE even better than ever. Cannot wait for the game to come out.

[Georgy Zhukov]

i have some important points i would like to clarify.
the immersion and precision historical in my opinion in such a game is as important as a good AI.
i would like to know, regarding the issue of type of weapons, specifically vehicles and airplanes if there will be more variety than in the previous wite 1, there are missing versions of models of cars, armored vehicles and especially of airplanes that were important in this war.
is the messersmith 109E-7 and yet there are no models like the messersmith 109f or the k,i think that the secondary models of the same letter should be ignored and that they were all variants, so it happens with many types of aircraft variants on both sides and With the vehicles, the same thing is missing, many tank models are missing, such as Panzer III, IV among others, and important types of vehicles are also missing on both sides.
another important and immersive point is if there will be all the historical emblems of all the units of all the sides or missing emblems as it happens in the witw, I would like to know about that point too.
another point is the photographs that describe the type of armament, if these will look better or be illustrations where you can see the type of weapon well detailed and not in a photo with poor quality where no detail of the armament can be seen, especially If they are variants of tanks that can vary in the type of turret and that can not be hurried well in a photograph as in wite 1, look better for illustrations, as in the model boxes that show the detailed weaponry.
and the last point is more of gameplay and historical realism, if the map includes yugolavia, if the resistance that was organized as an army and that supposed Germany had to leave divisions in that area to maintain the occupation, was reflected.
i hope you clarify these points, thank you.

[joelmar]

@Georgy Zhukov

"is the messersmith 109E-7 and yet there are no models like the messersmith 109f"

Not sure I get you here, there are M109F in this game, as well as a few variants of BF109G. There are also pz III and pz IV's. And most of the main armaments used on the eastern front during the war are represented and have different specs, making their upgrade worthwhile.

One thing is certain, having every single variant of armaments and aircrafts models that was available at one point or another of the war might be a little too much on an already lenghty equipment list!

But maybe you didn't express your idea accurately in this matter?