Continue the fight

[Gilber]

Good players have a fairly accurate idea of their chances of success, which means that when victory seems unlikely they quickly give up. The game could be extended by giving value to intermediate results.
We could imagine a ratio ranging from 0 to 100% (the axis wins if it reaches 50% or more) which would integrate important parameters such as the main cities but also the MPPs, the size of the armies, the national morale, etc.
The points awarded in the tournament between 49% and 51% would be about the same and would give motivation to continue the fight until the end without focusing on a binary result (victory or defeat).
Defeat is sometimes badly experienced, I even think that some players turn away from the game after a defeat they may have found frustrating. Defeat would be much less bitter if the result was more nuanced and the game would become more popular.

Please give your opinion.

[mdsmall]

You raise a good question which I would rephrase as follows: how to create more incentives for competitive players to keep playing once it is clear that the Axis has reached the limit with their offensives without defeating either the Soviets or the British. When the Axis reach that point, they have to shift quickly from an offensive to a defensive posture to protect what they have captured for as long as possible. Historically, that shift happened over the winter of 1942, after Stalingrad and El Alamein. However, the Germans defended themselves with great tenacity for another two and half years and launched a few major counter-offensives (e.g. at Kursk and in the Ardennes). My impression is that in this game, it is relatively uncommon for games to go well into 1943 and beyond because either the Axis have won by that point, or they are on a rapid downhill slide and the Axis player concedes.

Changing the victory conditions might help, so there is a sliding time scale measured at different points in time, by which the Allies have to do as well or better than history in conquering the Axis. But for an Axis player who has enjoyed being constantly on the attack from 1939 through 1942, it has hard to shift to being constantly on the defence from 1943 onward and find yourself losing units and ground every turn.

I have thought for a while that the game system is too heavily weighted in favour of the attack versus the defence. Much of this is hard-wired into the mechanics of a turn-based game, where one side moves all its units and then the other side moves all its units, allowing the moving player to concentrate multiple attacks on one enemy unit. That can't be changed. But maybe there are ways in which the game system could be adjusted to make the Axis on defence in the later stages of the war (1943 onward) more competitive and thus more fun to play.

I have two suggestions. Both involve giving added benefits to certain higher tech levels, which the Germans are most likely to benefit from as the Major that has the longest time to achieve higher tech levels. Either the Germans could be uniquely given access to these higher tech levels (as the Soviets can with Infantry Weapons 3); or they could be open to all Majors. Game testing would be needed to figure out what would work best.

The first is to create higher levels of Armored Warfare tech which allows units at Levels 2 or higher to have an increased chance of retreats with a lower morale and strength point loss. This would enable more German Tanks, Anti-Tank and Mech Infantry units to retreat without being destroyed and thus conduct a fighting retreat.

The second is to revise Production Tech (which I find I rarely use) so that each increment of production tech lowers by 10% the cost of buying back units destroyed in combat at supply levels of 5 or better. Thus if the default setting at 0 Production Tech is that to buy back a destroyed units costs 60% of its purchase cost, then at 2 Production Tech, it would cost only 40% of its purchase cost. It might be possible to speed up a bit the delay in deployment of rebuilt units too at higher tech levels.

I would allow only 1 chit to be invested in either of these technologies, so that reaching level 3 or higher would only happen later in the war. It might also be possible to reduce the chance of a breakthrough in both these technologies.

The net effect would be to increase the Germans capacity later in the war to survive on the defense and to conduct fighting retreats, even risking a few large counter-offensives in the knowledge that there is a reduced risk of permanently losing their precious tanks on the battlefield - at least until late in the war when the Allies have conquered or destroyed much of the Axis MPP base.

It would be good to see more full campaigns run right through D-Day and and beyond into the battle for Germany in 1945. Both these changes to tech might have that effect.I would be interested to hear if other players share the perception that there is a problem with "continuing the fight".

[Tanaka]

Very good points brought up and I like the ideas. I have never won an MP game because as soon as you start winning people just quit but I always stick it out. Why? To learn. My last WAW game I was doing well as I captured France and Spain and was moving along in China and Africa and as soon as that happened the player quit on me in 1941. So I still have not officially won an MP game. Quite frustrating and will never play any player again that does that to me.

The fun is in the learning process! This is what the players that rage quit and give up so easily lose out on. Learning and getting better. So kudos to those for sticking it out and learning for the next time! It will make you a much better opponent! I know it has for me!

I also enjoy being the underdog and slowing my opponent down as much as possible. There is fun in losing and playing a game historically too!

[El_Condoro]

I also agree with the concept raised and agree completely with Tanaka's reasons for continuing the game - to learn. However, there is also a need to accommodate those players who find no fun in facing a 100% loss with only the 'when' to be decided. I think there would be concerns about balancing if the game engine or parts of it were to be changed but I think there is room in the current game to have increments of success, especially regarding the points awarded in the tournament. IMO the 'when' of the victory should be very important, so a player who quits in 1941 loses more points than one who quits in 1943, for example. They can quit whenever they like (with at least a turn notice to their opponent, I would hope, and not just a rage-quit) but there are more consequences for doing so.

[Fafnir]

Some kind of a scoring system would be really nice especially for the tournament. An "offer for peace" may be presented for both players once a certain score is reached (like it is now the case when russia falls). So the players may decide if they want to continue or not.
From my experience no side wants to continue once the game is fully decided. So giving beauty points or points for a fast victory may be relevant for the tournament but for casual games still victory or defeat may be the only category that matters.

[BPINisBACK]

Thanks for raise this issue!
I have been playing this game since the first version. So... i have lost (and sometimes win) many, many times.
To loose is not a happy feeling but it is necessary in a game and in the real life.
As some other said: playing until the last men gives you the chance to learn how to defend, how to CA and to maximize your economy, for example. All of this won't change the situation (you will loose anyway) but it is a valuable learning for a new game. Even being a suscesful German commander on 1941 you could need to defend at any point, and you must know "the best way".
So, i usually play until the end. I enjoy delaying "the end" as much as possible. I like destoy as much units as i can with local CA... Maybe i am masochistic, but i enjoy that. Of course if i am German and i am losing the game on 1941 is quite different than if you are on 1944 and you still have a large ground until Berlin.
But, as some of you said i think there must be a "way" to acknowledge the guy who plays until the End. That's very interesing specially for the tournament game.
Maybe the date of defeat, maybe the number of enemy units killed... Well, there must be a way to do that!
Greetings,

[Markiss]

This is a great philosophical discussion, I think it would be an improvement to have a more sophisticated scoring system that awarded continued play once the war has turned.

Deciding that this is desirable is one thing, making it happen will be quite another. The current system only records wins and losses, it's charm lies in that it takes into consideration the quality of the opponent. It's formulas are quite long and complex, and would have to become much more so in order to take into consideration additional factors such as if a certain combination of cities had been taken or held, or how long the match had lasted. It would also complicate the data entry quite a bit to record all of the additional factors.

The best way to go about this would be to get the Matrix staff to help us create a system that automatically recorded everything when a match ended. The system would harvest the relevant data directly from the server, and update the rankings in real time. A system like this would attract more people to the game, and once built, be fairly easy to apply to other games in Matrix's portfolio. Only the exact data harvested would have to change from game to game. Players could choose to have their scores publicly displayed or just keep them for their own private consumption. Matrix is already running its own tournament in WaW, so they have already started down this road. They may already working on something like this, for all we know.

I think trying to put a system in place without that level of cooperation from Matrix would be very difficult. I don't know if there is anyone among us that has the required system knowledge, programming skill, and spare time to put something like that together.

[The Land]

It would be possible to create a 'scored victory' as a mod, though it would be a fair bit of work. Essentially you'd create a dummy neutral major country and then set up a bunch of events to add or subtract National Morale from that country based on who holds what.

I am tempted to give this a go, actually.

[Scottydawg]

I believe what is really needed here is a handicapping system (golf anyone?). If we had a genuine means by which to earn handicaps, as quantifiable data based on previous wins, number of played games, and of course--the type and number of units destroyed--the qualitative data is truly endless...

A true handicapping system is probably beyond the capability of the current game engine...or is it? We need to be able to quantify AND qualify most aspects of the game; this must be independent of external scrutiny as an integral part of play to be most effective and rewarding. There should be some randomness (eg. luck) as well to encapsulate data outlyers, etc.

It is only with a genuine handicapping system where the expert player will be able to face off with an average one, where the quantitative data can be measured against qualitative data to determine a score (a score which may not favor the expert player).

This would bring the game to a whole new level; an excellent idea!

[Gilber]

thank you all for your contribution

I find the idea of offering peace as Fafnir speaks very interesting. I even think it could be extended.
So we could have a Score that is evaluated at the end of each round and evolves. In most cases the Scora based on the Axis hegemonic level could start at around 20% and then rise as the Axis conquests progress to an average level of 60-80% depending on the game. Then it could go down from 43 to a final level that should be around 50% for balanced games where victory is undecided.
At this stage one could even lay the basis for a fairly simple formula to calculate the score; Score = MPP collected X National Moral / 1800.
With at any time the possibility for players to propose a peace offer on a final Score. Example: an axis player who has been particularly successful in his conquests and has a score of 85% in 43 offers the allied player peace on the basis of a score of 65% the allied player who thinks he cannot bring the axis player's score below 65% anyway accepts and the game ends with a 65% axis victory agreed between the two players.

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks for the discussion everyone and the challenge here really is how to score the game when players don't wish to continue until the end. For example we can have a great scoring system in place but what happens when players still wish to sue for peace and how to score it at that point.

For example, do you potentially deny points to your opponent by suing for peace early, e.g. if you use a rising point system as the game plays on, then suing for peace early denies your opponent the true value of a fuller game. Potentially, you could see you are up against a tough opponent and decide to game the scoring system by just quitting very early.

In my mind there can just be potentially too many possible exploits to get the scoring system just right when players can sue for peace and not have to play until the end.

The current Strategic Command World at War tournament has adopted the tournament server standard which is to say that resignations are not an option, this is just how the tournament server works and I suspect it works this way as early resignations have been a problem to properly score in the past with other games that have used the server.

The tournament uses the following scoring system:

DECISIVE VICTORY = 100 points
MAJOR VICTORY = 80 points
MINOR VICTORY = 70 points
TACTICAL VICTORY = 60 points

Each victory is based on the associated victory conditions, as can be reviewed by the in game victory conditions page, and using a mirrored game system helps, where if you win one game and lose in another game, how you win and how you lose will affect your final points for the round, e.g. win better in one game lose better in the other game than your opponent did in the game he lost and your combined points will be better than your opponent for the round and so on.

For games that don't completely finish, the victory condition scoring system is assessing each turn looking to see what the current position each side is in, e.g. are they in a Major Victory position, or perhaps a Minor Victory position. If you are losing, holding your opponent to one of the lowest victory positions is ideal to minimize your point losses for the round.

However the victory condition scoring system doesn't kick in right away, it needs to reach a particular time threshold in game before it does. Until this threshold is reached we take this into account by scoring the game in a way that rewards the player that has returned the most turns. They could be losing, but if they are the most active they will receive the most points for the game, the bye value of 75 points. Not knowing when the victory condition scoring system kicks in prevents exploits as well as prevents players from just sitting on their position because they are winning.

But if you think you've played far enough and you suspect the victory condition scoring system has kicked in, and decide to sit on your winning position at that point, the server will penalize you for not returning your turns and lower your final score as well. So in this case sitting on a winning position is potentially penalized as well, and this gives your opponent the chance to counter that position until the game is over or the round ends.

Hubert