Good game but...

[Zebtucker12]

I had no ports or even leningrad. Well soviets got stuck there did they not?

Having no ports makes supplying a front harder, for sure.

But where and when exactly were the Soviets stuck around Riga, I assume it was in 1944? In autumn, it took them two months during the Baltic offensive to liberate Estonian SSR and the remainder of Lithauian SSR, incuding Riga, while cutting off the German forces in the Courland Pocket.

In July, during the Siauliai operation, the direct push towards Riga got stalled and the 1st Baltic Front had supply problems, but this was because the could not secure the Polotsk-Daugavpils-Siauliai rail around Daugavpils (the city was taken on the 27th of July 1944, at the tail end of the operation). Receiving supply from Polotsk or, I guess, Vilnius (taken on the 13th of July) while fighting near the Baltic coast is not very good. Also the Germans sent significant reinforcements to the area, while 1st Baltic had 4th Shock Army taken from it. In return they got the 39th Army, which could not be put in combat immediately, and the 11th Guards and 51th Armies, which arrived mid-July.

So the history does not provide us a direct parallel there, unfortunately. Maybe USSR actually could supply the front using this railway, maybe not.

Sorry i wrote a bit unclear.


I reached that area in Spring 1943 the only supply i was getting was the single rail trough stary russia or whatever Leningrad was held by germans.

The stuck there comment was about carphatians

[Mehring]

Maths is idealised only when the object from which it is abstracted is idealised Likewise, you idealise the ability of Soviet guards units to replenish losses. I've seldom seen Soviet's replenish all manpower losses, even when on a priority 4 depot with a leader in 1941. By the time the Soviets have stacks of guard corps, even if the commitment of their elements to a hasty attack is capped, manpower will probably be a serious issue.

If it's possible to gain more than 45 CPP, that would mean fractions are not discarded but are instead rounded up, which may be the case. But basically, the corps only needs to enter a converted hex, cross a river, have an enemy unit advance adjacent to it or any number of real game events and your calculations will not apply. Any changes need testing in real game conditions by all the sleazy system juicers, at which point I'm sure all the possible loopholes will be experimented with.

[ElizabethWizard]

Mehring

you are not the only one who is or was playing as both sides
and there are many people who understand game mechanics and pvp balance very well

and most of them agree that Soviets are just too OP

it is not like Axis player can not ever win, he can
but it is definitely not 50% chance to win

if there are skillful players from both sides then Soviets will win in 7-8 games out of a 10, imho

I grow tired of pointing this out but...

This is a historical wargame. In the actual war, the Soviet Union threw away three front-sized formations before new years 1942 and still had the war in hand by new years 1943.

Re-adjust your expectations: the Axis should not "win the war" 50 times out of a hundred, they should "win the war" maybe 10 times out of a hundred, if that.

If you really want some kind of even game with your opponents, there's like an entire list of difficulty settings. Try playing with those. Have a problem with Soviet supply? There's a whole-ass logistics slider right there for you to use! Axis allies useless? 45*1.1=49.5. play around and explore!

That being said I do like the "overwhelming victory" idea someone floated... If I send 3 divisions into your brigade (to avoid activations) I do think it should be the CPP loss equivalent of you throwing your brigade into my 3 divisions.


Also, Re: Soviet logistics...

My understanding is that the perception that the SU had terrible access to supplies is based on a combination western Capitalist propaganda about Communism being terrible at industry and the fact that really STAVKA sucked major eggs until like 1942. The Soviets, to my understanding, had plenty of supplies and capacity for getting those supplies to places (and even demonstrated some brilliant logistical heroics, see the lake lagoda supply line during the Siege of Leningrad)...

But also they had a really hard time getting a grasp on where, physically, in the expanse of the Soviet Union, those supplies needed to go to get in the hands of soldiers. And from my understanding this was largely about the Soviet commanders really not having a great grasp on where their soldiers actually were at any given time, what with the serious communication and organizational problems combined with the (aforementioned) fact that they spent the first six months of the war getting their teeth well and truly kicked in.

Admin problems cause supply problems, is what I'm saying. Maybe the problem is Soviet admin efficiency needs to be nerfed more in the first year, with supplies getting to the requisite warehouses but not always getting from there to the units.

[Stamb]

Mehring

you are not the only one who is or was playing as both sides
and there are many people who understand game mechanics and pvp balance very well

and most of them agree that Soviets are just too OP

it is not like Axis player can not ever win, he can
but it is definitely not 50% chance to win

if there are skillful players from both sides then Soviets will win in 7-8 games out of a 10, imho

I grow tired of pointing this out but...

This is a historical wargame. In the actual war, the Soviet Union threw away three front-sized formations before new years 1942 and still had the war in hand by new years 1943.

Re-adjust your expectations: the Axis should not "win the war" 50 times out of a hundred, they should "win the war" maybe 10 times out of a hundred, if that.

If you really want some kind of even game with your opponents, there's like an entire list of difficulty settings. Try playing with those. Have a problem with Soviet supply? There's a whole-ass logistics slider right there for you to use! Axis allies useless? 45*1.1=49.5. play around and explore!

That being said I do like the "overwhelming victory" idea someone floated... If I send 3 divisions into your brigade (to avoid activations) I do think it should be the CPP loss equivalent of you throwing your brigade into my 3 divisions.

did i write that Axis should have an ability to win the war ? no
Axis player should have an ability to win the game against an opponent with a similar skill


Soviets lost 4-6 mil men in `41
in average game (i am talking about pvp games as vs AI you will win with any balance as any side) they lose ~2.5 in `41
so maybe lets give Soviets additional 3 mil manpower in `41 so there will be no pvp games at all?

seems you are missing that this is a game, even if it is historical based wargame
and game requires some balance to encourage players to play as a Soviets and as an Axis

otherwise its better to go and watch historical movies about ww2 than play the game that you can not win

[ElizabethWizard]

I'm suspecting that there's some language barrier issue here: you don't seem to be a native English speaker and I write like a novelist raised by a lawyer. I'll try to make my point more clear because you're way out in left field.

did i wrote that Axis should have an ability to win the war ? no
Axis player should have an ability to win the game against an opponent with a similar skill

This game is primarily a PvE wargame. That's how the vast majority of players play it. That's the vast majority of the testing done. This renders your claim here false.

You also include an inherent assumption in your claim which is that pvp games should only be played on the "default settings.". To see why this is such fallacious reasoning, I'll point out that competitive Brood War, for example, has never used the "Normal" speed for it's gameplay.

Soviets lost 4-6 mil men in `41
in average game (i am talking about pvp games as vs AI you will win with any balance as any side) they lose ~2.5 in `41
so maybe lets give Soviets additional 3 mil manpower in `41 so there will be no pvp games at all?

If you restrict yourself to pvp games, you eliminate the vast majority of games played.

You really need to understand this fundamental concept, Stamb. Your conceptualization of how this game is played is self-centered to the point of not even being accurate. Pvp games are an extreme minority of games played. It would be malfeasance for the WitE2 team to balance with a primary eye to pvp.

They have told you this often.

You continue to ignore it.

seems you are missing that this is a game, even if it is historical based wargame
and game requires some balance to encourage players to play as a Soviets and as an Axis

This is also just... Either so simplified as to mean nothing or outright false. Some people enjoy the challenge of playing as an underdog. Some people enjoy feeling superpowered. Balance is in and of itself not a requirement for an enjoyable game.

otherwise its better to go and watch historical movies about ww2 than play the game that you can not win

Again, you are simply wrong, as in your statement is incorrect. It is impossible to "win" the games of Tetris, MineCraft, The Sims, and Dwarf Foretess to name a few. Being able to "win," let alone being able win with any/all settings, is not a necessary feature of games.


The next issue I have with your entire paradigm about this is that you can absolutely make balance adjustments in your own pvp games! And without modding! I think it was Joel who suggested a "bidding" system wherein the player willing to face the strongest Axis (in terms of modifying the difficulty settings that are built into the game) gets to play the Soviets. So why don't you try dong that?

You know, instead of demanding that the coders shift the game away from historical accuracy because it turns out the Axis, which lost the war after the USSR threw away 3 fronts in the first 6 months, can't actually win the war (or, the way points are assigned, "win the game" or whatever) if the Soviet player doesn't blunder half their 1941 army.



One additional point to consider, especially regarding balance, is that you have never played a game to completion. You have *only* played PvP games to the point where someone gives up. Maybe have a little bit of humility and admit that at least some of those resigns are premature, and that what's costing you the ability to "win" games as the Axis is that you give up on games that would be winnable because you are wrong about whether or not they are winnable?

You know, like maybe defend using the 88 FLAK you claim is so overpowered it has to be nerfed? Like maybe if you used that to slow the Soviet advance you might get a "game win" even as you lose the war?

[AlbertN]

I'm suspecting that there's some language barrier issue here: you don't seem to be a native English speaker and I write like a novelist raised by a lawyer. I'll try to make my point more clear because you're way out in left field.

did i wrote that Axis should have an ability to win the war ? no
Axis player should have an ability to win the game against an opponent with a similar skill

This game is primarily a PvE wargame. That's how the vast majority of players play it. That's the vast majority of the testing done. This renders your claim here false.

You also include an inherent assumption in your claim which is that pvp games should only be played on the "default settings.". To see why this is such fallacious reasoning, I'll point out that competitive Brood War, for example, has never used the "Normal" speed for it's gameplay.

Soviets lost 4-6 mil men in `41
in average game (i am talking about pvp games as vs AI you will win with any balance as any side) they lose ~2.5 in `41
so maybe lets give Soviets additional 3 mil manpower in `41 so there will be no pvp games at all?

If you restrict yourself to pvp games, you eliminate the vast majority of games played.

You really need to understand this fundamental concept, Stamb. Your conceptualization of how this game is played is self-centered to the point of not even being accurate. Pvp games are an extreme minority of games played. It would be malfeasance for the WitE2 team to balance with a primary eye to pvp.

They have told you this often.

You continue to ignore it.

seems you are missing that this is a game, even if it is historical based wargame
and game requires some balance to encourage players to play as a Soviets and as an Axis

This is also just... Either so simplified as to mean nothing or outright false. Some people enjoy the challenge of playing as an underdog. Some people enjoy feeling superpowered. Balance is in and of itself not a requirement for an enjoyable game.

otherwise its better to go and watch historical movies about ww2 than play the game that you can not win

Again, you are simply wrong, as in your statement is incorrect. It is impossible to "win" the games of Tetris, MineCraft, The Sims, and Dwarf Foretess to name a few. Being able to "win," let alone being able win with any/all settings, is not a necessary feature of games.


The next issue I have with your entire paradigm about this is that you can absolutely make balance adjustments in your own pvp games! And without modding! I think it was Joel who suggested a "bidding" system wherein the player willing to face the strongest Axis (in terms of modifying the difficulty settings that are built into the game) gets to play the Soviets. So why don't you try dong that?

You know, instead of demanding that the coders shift the game away from historical accuracy because it turns out the Axis, which lost the war after the USSR threw away 3 fronts in the first 6 months, can't actually win the war (or, the way points are assigned, "win the game" or whatever) if the Soviet player doesn't blunder half their 1941 army.



One additional point to consider, especially regarding balance, is that you have never played a game to completion. You have *only* played PvP games to the point where someone gives up. Maybe have a little bit of humility and admit that at least some of those resigns are premature, and that what's costing you the ability to "win" games as the Axis is that you give up on games that would be winnable because you are wrong about whether or not they are winnable?

You know, like maybe defend using the 88 FLAK you claim is so overpowered it has to be nerfed? Like maybe if you used that to slow the Soviet advance you might get a "game win" even as you lose the war?

Just quoting - to begin with.
I've stopped reading halfway through it.

You mentioned Brood War (I assume the Xpack of Starcraft). Games were all played at 'Fastest' speed, because otherwise the game was too slow.
That alters only and exclusively the speed of gameplay, not the gameplay.

Yes, the PvP'ers in general assume that ANY game is balanced about their standard settings.
ANY game is. In Brood War (Which I played competitively at national tournaments, when it was a thing, even if I never won a trip to Korea) there was no 'You gain +X resources' or 'You produce Y seconds faster'.
PvP game are about -1- setting, which is the default setting.
That goes about for anything from Chess (Who plays with 2 moves for 1 of the other player, or with a missing peon, or so?) to anything at higher level.
If I go run the 100 meters - which is a sport but a 'game' too - I do not expect to be given 80 meters to run just because my rival is more trained than I (This is an example as of now!)

But that is precisely what you suggest. That one runs the 100 meters and the other the 80 meters.

PvP players have all the rights to expect a game to be fine tuned and balanced to be played as it is without any side feeling that they just got screwed over because they picked this or that side.

When the wider and ampler majority of the players that I, Stamb, and others know, barely get games going in 1942 -and- the wider majority, no wait, almost the total amount of games end with a Soviet '41 Victory by Axis player resignation - there is a problem.

Last but not least, a game that is balanced in PvP, it is automatically better for PvE (PvAI if you favor). Since that anyhow does not make the AI smarter, the AI will still need its 'magic' and 'oomph'.

At personal level I felt your post extremely dissing, and patronizing.
But it is not the first time you post something along these lines, like when you brought in the 'Let's give the X Wings and the M1 Abrams to the Axis' type of answer.
It merely suggest the type of leverage you sport, with your ...

write like a novelist raised by a lawyer.

[Beethoven1]

It is sort of a misnomer to talk about “balance” for a single player game where a player is playing against the AI. The more proper word to describe that is probably “difficulty.” The main task of game designers for single player is to make sure that the AI is reasonably good so it can provide some degree of difficulty. Ultimately, if the player is good then they will beat the AI. If not, then they won’t. That is not really is a matter of the player rather than whether the game is “balanced.”

You can have another kind of “balance” in pure single player, but it is a different kind of “balance.” The balance is not whether the player wins or whether the AI wins, but whether the choices that the player faces are balanced. Is one choice a no brainer? If so then it is not balanced, and that is a bad thing for the game, because games are partly about giving players interesting choices and letting the player explore the results of the choices. If the options are not balanced, there is not much to choose.

There is also another sort of “balance” for games with multiple AIs that play against each other. For example, in civilization there are often 7 or so civilizations playing against each other. usually one is a human and all the rest are AI. Much of the play is AI vs AI, so the question arises of whether one AI civ is better than the others and always wins.

If so, the game isn’t balanced. WITE2 is different from this in single player because there is only one player and one AI. So it seems that single player balance is more a matter of difficulty and also of whether choices that players face are balanced, as opposed to the multiplayer sense or the civilization sense.

So I think things are clearer if you distinguish what exactly you mean by “balance”, and if you don’t really mean “difficulty” instead, with regards to single player vs multiplayer.

[malyhin1517]

In general, in this game, the Axis, in order to win, must simply not lose until May 1945. An absolute Axis victory with the capture of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad is practically unattainable with a good game for the USSR. Many players forget this and misunderstand the probability of an Axis victory. I believe that the Axis has enough chances to win, at least 50%!

[Stamb]

ElizabethWizard

when you will have more experience in pvp games then we can talk, otherwise it makes no sense

as it makes no sense that few 88 flak guns kill more tank/infantry/planes in the same time than all other guns combined, but it is fine for you and you do not see issue with that

P. S
and i also like very much how you are following loki's narratives that i demand changes
last time you told that i want fixes immediately, i asked where - no response
if i will ask you to show where i am demanding changes - will you show it?

or you see no difference between demands and feedback?
can we make a deal that you will not write statements about me which are just fake?

[DesertedFox]

In general, in this game, the Axis, in order to win, must simply not lose until May 1945. An absolute Axis victory with the capture of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad is practically unattainable with a good game for the USSR. Many players forget this and misunderstand the probability of an Axis victory. I believe that the Axis has enough chances to win, at least 50%!

Absolutely agree.

I see "players" talking about low Russian casualties in 41 but neglect to mention the same ratio or better lower casualties for the Axis historically.

Loki put this in his current game as +1 million troops extra for the Axis going into 43 and 1.2 million for the Russians due to lower casualties in 41 and there is no "Stalingrad" debacle.

The Russians have to overcome the fact that any decent Axis player isn't going to loose approximately 22 divisions as the Axis did historically at Stalingrad.

I have yet to see a game where Leningrad and or Moscow were captured or were going to be captured and the Russians went on to win.

Loki has displayed that you can get close enough to Leningrad in 41, isolate it in 42 and take it. Whilst his game is ongoing, he is in the box seat to win it.

The best game IMHO is one that ends in mid 45 where both sides come close to victory.

The only imbalance in the game I see is that yes, the Axis player must be competent whereas the Russian player can get away with some minor errors and learn by them as the game progresses.

[Beethoven1]

Absolutely agree.

I see "players" talking about low Russian casualties in 41 but neglect to mention the same ratio or better lower casualties for the Axis historically.

Loki put this in his current game as +1 million troops extra for the Axis going into 43 and 1.2 million for the Russians due to lower casualties in 41 and there is no "Stalingrad" debacle.

The Russians have to overcome the fact that any decent Axis player isn't going to loose approximately 22 divisions as the Axis did historically at Stalingrad.

I have yet to see a game where Leningrad and or Moscow were captured or were going to be captured and the Russians went on to win.

Loki has displayed that you can get close enough to Leningrad in 41, isolate it in 42 and take it. Whilst his game is ongoing, he is in the box seat to win it.

The best game IMHO is one that ends in mid 45 where both sides come close to victory.

The only imbalance in the game I see is that yes, the Axis player must be competent whereas the Russian player can get away with some minor errors and learn by them as the game progresses.

As far as I know you are right that Axis losses in '41 are lower than historical, and not just Soviet losses.

As far as Loki's game and Leningrad goes, I don't think you can conclude anything like that at all.

First of all, at one point I think Loki mentioned that the Soviet player has never played WITE2 (although he has played WITE1, the games are different enough to take some getting used to). Meanwhile, Loki is one of the most experienced players around. So it is a bit of a mismatch in that respect, and it would be somewhat surprising if Loki did not do fairly well for that reason.

Secondly, Loki's AAR only starts on turn 6. But Leningrad is the one part of the front where the first few turns tend to be decisive, and where speed of advance is all important.

On turn 6, Loki was already quite close to Leningrad, and from what one can see in the screenshot, it appears that there is very little Soviet defense. While it is impossible to say for sure, it looks like the Soviett player probably pretty much just started defending around Luga at the earliest and didn't defend other than with very light forces around Pskov or so:



You can see that the Soviet player has a straight line from Novgorod, apparently not even defending the swamp in front of Novgorod (apparently). This is a common noob mistake, not even defending the best defensive line with the best terrain for Leningrad.

Compare and contrast to for example my game against jubjub. I would consider jubjub to be one of the best players around that I am aware of. My game with him up until this point was mostly even played on the artillery patch, which made things much easier for Axis. Even so, by turn 12, he had still not even taken Luga or Novgorod, had barely advanced past Pskov, and Soviets still also held Narva:



So I think the most you can conclude from Loki's game is that Axis can take Leningrad if the Soviet player is new and not familiar with what it takes to defend Leningrad, and possibly if the Soviet player does not understand that you can't let Leningrad get cut off like it did historically, due to naval interdiction being unrealistically powerful and isolation being a binary state.

With equally skilled players, Soviets can defend Leningrad from what I can see - by defending in front of it and stopping it from getting cut off. The only way that *might* not be the case is if Germany does a major over-commitment like sending 3 panzer groups or something excessive like that. But even then I think Soviets could probably defend Leningrad if they respond accordingly.

[Jango32]

On the subject of in-game losses I am fairly sure that the game does not track wounded soldiers that weren't wounded enough to be sent to the transit pools and show up as unfit.

23.10.3. Damaged and Disrupted Elements
If an element is damaged then it might be subsequently
either fully recover or be lost. Damaged manpower is
best seen as men with significant wounds that require a
degree of hospitalisation but most will return to their unit.

So about half the German IRL losses don't show up in the game's casualties. If Axis losses were differentiated across each nation, then it would be easy to see how total in-game losses line up with total IRL losses. The 4 vs 4 Darojax game for example (turn 33, first week of February) lines up pretty well with historical killed and unfit German losses, but the Axis minors could be obfuscating it to a degree.

[DesertedFox]

To win, the Russians have to get to Berlin in a timely manner.

There will be no Stalingrad debacle against a competent Axis player. So the Russians have to deal with these extra 1

million Axis troops and proceed to Belin against a historical "clock".

Axis players feel if they don't capture Leningrad and or Moscow they will lose. This is such a myopic and short-sighted

assessment, to say the least. Apparently holding VL objectives longer than historical dates and winning in 45 is somehow a

loss. They MUST capture ahistorical cities in 41 and force the Russian player to resign.

The best Axis players, tyronec, k62, HLYA, Rosencrantus, and M60 (edited - my bad, neglected to add Loki to this list)

my knowledge has never whined about "Russian bias". K62 even said he felt the game favored the Axis.

To put this into context, do not quote the win-loss ratio being so far in favor of the Russians. It's been conceded at the game release it was favoring the Russians, but in the more recent patches, the win-loss has been about 50/50 or there about with "competent" Axis players.

Joel has stated that "threading the needle " for balance given a competent Axis player is tricky.

[ShaggyHiK]

In my opinion, there is a strong bias in the game.

The Germans are too strong in '41, but in the winter of '41-42 they become too weak, and in '42 the balance is too much tied to logistics and the players' understanding of it, making up for losses. At the same time, for the Soviet player, for obvious reasons, this is not such a serious issue. All the same, the railway is usually intact and the warehouses are not so far away.

On the example of the first aviation move, the balance imbalance is especially noticeable. It just so happened that it is believed that the Germans defeated Soviet aviation at the airfields on June 22, although in fact the raids continued on the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th, and with enviable regularity led to serious successes. There were also the necessary ammunition and tactics and trained personnel with technical personnel, but there is only June 22 in the game and then the German aviation finishes everything.

That is, there is an excess of strength in the early stages, and then there is a sharp drawdown of "strength" literally on the next moves, and in the case of aviation, on the next day.

The Soviets are too weak in 41, although historically they were not so weak in direct combat, I'm not talking about tactical mistakes, but directly in combat, the Soviet troops showed stamina which they did not show, for example, the French were in much better conditions.

Also, the Germans were not so weak in the winter of 41-42, and for example, it was rather strange for me to see the results of FortTel in the next branch about the loss of a huge number of tanks in March 42.

[Beethoven1]

To put this into context, do not quote the win-loss ratio being so far in favor of the Russians. It's been conceded at the game release it was favoring the Russians, but in the more recent patches, the win-loss has been about 50/50 or there about with "competent" Axis players.

That doesn't seem the case to me. I wonder which games, specifically, you believe qualify as having both a competent Axis and Soviet player, which would give this 50% ratio (?).

It is hard to judge, unfortunately, the point about the later game at this point, because so many players resign early. There are a lot of Axis 1941 resignations, as you point out, but also if Germany even does something more or less historical like get near to Moscow or get a big pocket, in a lot of games Soviet players have resigned in 1941 right after that as well, unfortunately - even if they are not actually knocked out and may well be able to survive.

[Beethoven1]

In my opinion, there is a strong bias in the game.

The Germans are too strong in '41, but in the winter of '41-42 they become too weak, and in '42 the balance is too much tied to logistics and the players' understanding of it, making up for losses. At the same time, for the Soviet player, for obvious reasons, this is not such a serious issue. All the same, the railway is usually intact and the warehouses are not so far away.

On the example of the first aviation move, the balance imbalance is especially noticeable. It just so happened that it is believed that the Germans defeated Soviet aviation at the airfields on June 22, although in fact the raids continued on the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th, and with enviable regularity led to serious successes. There were also the necessary ammunition and tactics and trained personnel with technical personnel, but there is only June 22 in the game and then the German aviation finishes everything.

That is, there is an excess of strength in the early stages, and then there is a sharp drawdown of "strength" literally on the next moves, and in the case of aviation, on the next day.

The Soviets are too weak in 41, although historically they were not so weak in direct combat, I'm not talking about tactical mistakes, but directly in combat, the Soviet troops showed stamina which they did not show, for example, the French were in much better conditions.

Also, the Germans were not so weak in the winter of 41-42, and for example, it was rather strange for me to see the results of FortTel in the next branch about the loss of a huge number of tanks in March 42.

As I mentioned earlier, in the 4 player game, you are not using assault fronts with Soviets (so far). If you try using assault fronts, I think you would find that Soviets are stronger and more capable than you think. I also noticed that large numbers of troops are kept in the reserve. It is not really necessary to do that in order to get replacements. If you put them on the map, they will gain CPP. There are occasional cases where you may need to use the reserve (for units with 30 morale etc), but if you use it too much, you simply weaken the Red Army on the map by drawing away reinforcements from your on-map units and delay the time until it becomes combat effective, because you do not gain CPP in the reserve.

As regards the German Panzer losses in winter, that was due to a bug that is being fixed now. Panzers were incorrectly becoming damaged when moved to the front by rail during winter. So that will not be an issue in the future once the bug is fixed.

[ncc1701e]

It is hard to judge, unfortunately, the point about the later game at this point, because so many players resign early. There are a lot of Axis 1941 resignations, as you point out, but also if Germany even does something more or less historical like get near to Moscow or get a big pocket, in a lot of games Soviet players have resigned in 1941 right after that as well, unfortunately - even if they are not actually knocked out and may well be able to survive.

This is indeed the main problem. How the developers are supposed to address game balance problems if all players are resigning in 1941? I am just starting a mirror PBEM game to learn the hard way but my view is indeed that Axis must survive longer than historically to win. And, until a sudden death or whatever, I have no desire to resign these games.

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

Perhaps those Axis players resigning in 1941 are hoping to achieve the, historically unlikely, result of a German conquest of the Soviet Union. They may not find it satisfying to win (in terms of the game) "merely" by doing significantly better than Germany did in the actual war. To each their own.

[ncc1701e]

Perhaps but now that 6th army is not automatically removed, Axis can do a good defensive fight.

But, on the other hand, why Soviet players are resigning when Axis is at the gates of Moscow?

[Mehring]

Perhaps those Axis players resigning in 1941 are hoping to achieve the, historically unlikely, result of a German conquest of the Soviet Union. They may not find it satisfying to win (in terms of the game) "merely" by doing significantly better than Germany did in the actual war. To each their own.

In WitE1 it was a complete fail not to at least capture Leningrad in 41. Moscow as well was quite possible. Unlike in WitE1, if you keep attacking up to the blizzard, you tend to get taken apart over winter. It's a different game in many ways and takes some adjustment in expectations for old timers.