The Abstraction of Amphibious Landings

[Nazcatraz]

a potential War in Europe/War in the Pacific II is where I draw the line. if you tell me Gary Grigsby would make a whole world map with the details of his recent games then I would tell you you're delusional.

I do crave for more hardcore details. Things like micro-ing landing crafts like what this thread is about. And maybe let players control supplies on land in details. For example, letting players control supplies trains/trucks/horsebacks, deciding how much supply to load on and where exactly they would go. Just bring it on guys (the devs), I'm ready for whatever you're cooking

[RangerJoe]

a potential War in Europe/War in the Pacific II is where I draw the line. if you tell me Gary Grigsby would make a whole world map with the details of his recent games then I would tell you you're delusional.

I do crave for more hardcore details. Things like micro-ing landing crafts like what this thread is about. And maybe let players control supplies on land in details. For example, letting players control supplies trains/trucks/horsebacks, deciding how much supply to load on and where exactly they would go. Just bring it on guys (the devs), I'm ready for whatever you're cooking

Doing something like that is complex and it would be better as a smaller game scale.

Why don't you start making the game that you want?

[Nazcatraz]

a potential War in Europe/War in the Pacific II is where I draw the line. if you tell me Gary Grigsby would make a whole world map with the details of his recent games then I would tell you you're delusional.

I do crave for more hardcore details. Things like micro-ing landing crafts like what this thread is about. And maybe let players control supplies on land in details. For example, letting players control supplies trains/trucks/horsebacks, deciding how much supply to load on and where exactly they would go. Just bring it on guys (the devs), I'm ready for whatever you're cooking

Doing something like that is complex and it would be better as a smaller game scale.

Why don't you start making the game that you want?

That is just a thought. No one here is gonna make any game.

[Platoonist]

Just bring it on guys (the devs), I'm ready for whatever you're cooking

Speaking of cooking in details the rather flippant 'Italian Pasta Rule' from the SPI game The Campaign in North Africa comes to mind. Victory hinges on those Pasta Points men! Ciao.

Pasta-Rule.jpg (72.4 KiB) Viewed 1556 times

[Zovs]

Even when us WitP-AE enthusiasts would like to see some sort of "World War All-Fronts Special", I doubt anyone could play that...

Anyone else tried these:

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/The_Europa_Series

We managed few turns in buddy's garage before his cat came in and nuked it...

Yes, my two favorite board war game systems are ASL and the Europa system. I have pretty much all of both systems. There is new ways to play Europa now without the worry of five cats playing with panzers

[Alpha77]

Highly interesting thread, I got a discount code recently from Matrix (thanks) and thought about buying one of the WITE or WITW games. I was "tired" Of the east front quite a while cause I played in the past much games like Second Front (Amiga) or War In Russia which one could say are forerunners of WITE series.

However I read the forums and there were still reports of WITE2 having severall problems (like tanks not updating/ distributed to units) and even supply not working correct etc. Plus this is also a VERY goo dpoint with the graphic display (I did not even think of this! ).
Also really no time for another monster game, I bought somelighter games instead (Strat Command 2 x older Ageod games, I really love Ageods system/graphics, the best game so far is Civil War2 from them).

BUt I wonder if I want east front again, maybe WITE1is a better choice (not so many problems and perhaps alos a bit less time consuming then 2, opinions?

Here something ON TOPIC:
A prob w/ landings is that xAP unload much too fast also SPACE at the location is not counted in how long it takes to unload. I mean how many ships can the landing zone take at one time? If someone comes w/ 50 big ships and can unload them all in short order is only possible cause space/terrain/beach size etc is not taken into account. This is why one can make unrealistic "Blitz" landings even without specialized ships but using the X ones. Just load only a fraction on each ship and one can unload unrealistic fast (when in reality the ships could not unload all at once at the target but needed to shuffle/wait whne no space is available)

[Alpha77]

People wanting monster games usually never played wargame monster games.

WitP-AE is as hard-core as it. Want some more?

I am all for complex and sometimes hardcore games, but it would be good to "cut some slag" from this game here. Eg. some very small units or all the tiniest ships and ESP cut the xAK+(L) and possible tanker numbers down. Reason for this explained by me and others often enough.

To make this the "best" (war,strategy) game it only needs some fixes, UI+AI(!) overhaul and the named (small) "Verschlankung" (thinning?)..streamlining a bit. BUT what was done, some totally unncessary bases were added LOL. And now the AI problem is even worse and AI stuff piles up at these new bases, AI not moving it to the combat zone I could understand to add A FEW onmap bases to help the AI or supply. But new OFF MAP bases? For what? The only reason I could think of is that they plan to link the european scen w/ the pacific one somehow

For this reason AE is not the top so far, perhaps I would give number1 to SP-WAW (this is tactical ofc) or Med2/Shogun2 TW or Ageod CW2/R.O.P

I also did not understand why they wanted to make new game in the SP style (which was cancelled) when there also only some smaller stuff needed to be done to it. But perhaps still better then make bad "remaster" or dircuts of games which make them NOT better, eg. Broken Sword series (Baphomets Fluch), or Blade Runner (have only heard it is bad, I only played the orig) or RTW1 "remaster" (maybe now better w/ patches?). All not needed really as the orig games ALL were great already..

[RangerJoe]

People wanting monster games usually never played wargame monster games.

WitP-AE is as hard-core as it. Want some more?

I am all for complex and sometimes hardcore games, but it would be good to "cut some slag" from this game here. Eg. some very small units or all the tiniest ships and ESP cut the xAK+(L) and possible tanker numbers down. Reason for this explained by me and others often enough.

To make this the "best" (war,strategy) game it only needs some fixes, UI+AI(!) overhaul and the named (small) "Verschlankung" (thinning?)..streamlining a bit. BUT what was done, some totally unncessary bases were added LOL. And now the AI problem is even worse and AI stuff piles up at these new bases, AI not moving it to the combat zone I could understand to add A FEW onmap bases to help the AI or supply. But new OFF MAP bases? For what? The only reason I could think of is that they plan to link the european scen w/ the pacific one somehow

For this reason AE is not the top so far, perhaps I would give number1 to SP-WAW (this is tactical ofc) or Med2/Shogun2 TW or Ageod CW2/R.O.P

I also did not understand why they wanted to make new game in the SP style (which was cancelled) when there also only some smaller stuff needed to be done to it. But perhaps still better then make bad "remaster" or dircuts of games which make them NOT better, eg. Broken Sword series (Baphomets Fluch), or Blade Runner (have only heard it is bad, I only played the orig) or RTW1 "remaster" (maybe now better w/ patches?). All not needed really as the orig games ALL were great already..

The AI is run by scripts, there is no real AI in the game. You can write your own scripts if you want to do so and there is a thread on that somewhere.

You can also go into the editor and remove ships if you want to do so for your own scenario. But the ships were there, but for things like the Japanese having to ship food to Japan which you don't have to do in the game. Also, the actual Japanese use of their merchant type shipping was inefficient with ships loaded leaving Japan but returning empty while other ones would leave Japan empty while returning with resources. Most players will have their ships loaded in both directions if possible. The smaller ships are useful for supplying the smaller bases with the smaller port sizes. The smaller tankers are useful for collecting oil from the smaller ports and bring the oil to larger ports as well as hauling fuel to the smaller ports.

You can also "damage" industry in CONUS as well, the repairs representing the changes from the civilian production to the war production. Even if that just meant that the cans were now painted with the contents listed instead of having paper labels, not to mention the possible different sizes of the cans. I mean, how many families actually bought 5 gallon cans of mixed fruit?

The new "off map" bases are no longer there from what I understand.

The new on map bases are there to help the AI, especially with the offensive moves.

[Sardaukar]

Yea, the new (last beta) off-map bases were total waste, adding just more complications and adding nothing to game.

DaBabes scenarios (that I like to play) has lot of ships that I haven't found much (if any) use, e.g. YO (Yard Oiler) ships. Maybe as emergency tanker support in remote base, but both their range and capacity are so small that even that is not really viable.

[Alpha77]

Yea, the new (last beta) off-map bases were total waste, adding just more complications and adding nothing to game.

DaBabes scenarios (that I like to play) has lot of ships that I haven't found much (if any) use, e.g. YO (Yard Oiler) ships. Maybe as emergency tanker support in remote base, but both their range and capacity are so small that even that is not really viable.

Main issue w/ AK types is there are waaay to many, as I pointed out lotsa times in the past... Allies do not even need to care much about these ships. And even the IJN can rebuild them if sunk, when there were too many in the 1st place. But maybe most are ok w/ having so much stuff that they do not need to care / safeguard their supplies and merchant shipping. But ofc not realistic.

But this posting from me is useless, as Ranger pointed out one can delete ships themselves. Which I did in my AI game ofc. And some other tweaks but I would like to see this game improved generally as it deserves it. So and now I just wait what the patch brings perhaps 3-4 of my main issues are resolved... The last beta at least had the nav support issue I found corrected.

Here a saying: "In WW2 shipping space and specialized supply was sparce and valuable even in 1944 for the Allies: Only when Allies were deep inside France already the situation got better" = not the case AT ALL in game

In late 44 and 45 I would not have much probs w/ the amount of ships and supplies for the Allies

[RangerJoe]

Some mods have reduced cargo capacity for the ships, except for the AEs and maybe AKEs because they need the larger capacity to carry certain types of ammo.

[Nazcatraz]

Highly interesting thread, I got a discount code recently from Matrix (thanks) and thought about buying one of the WITE or WITW games. I was "tired" Of the east front quite a while cause I played in the past much games like Second Front (Amiga) or War In Russia which one could say are forerunners of WITE series.

However I read the forums and there were still reports of WITE2 having severall problems (like tanks not updating/ distributed to units) and even supply not working correct etc. Plus this is also a VERY goo dpoint with the graphic display (I did not even think of this! ).
Also really no time for another monster game, I bought somelighter games instead (Strat Command 2 x older Ageod games, I really love Ageods system/graphics, the best game so far is Civil War2 from them).

BUt I wonder if I want east front again, maybe WITE1is a better choice (not so many problems and perhaps alos a bit less time consuming then 2, opinions?

I really don't think WITE1 hold a candle to WITE2. The vast majority of improvements WITE2 blows everything in WITE1 out of the water. It rightfully replaces WITE1 and there is absolutely no reason to play WITE1 except for that one pretty map mod. But even then, it's just simply not worth it.

Yea, the new (last beta) off-map bases were total waste, adding just more complications and adding nothing to game.

DaBabes scenarios (that I like to play) has lot of ships that I haven't found much (if any) use, e.g. YO (Yard Oiler) ships. Maybe as emergency tanker support in remote base, but both their range and capacity are so small that even that is not really viable.

Main issue w/ AK types is there are waaay to many, as I pointed out lotsa times in the past... Allies do not even need to care much about these ships. And even the IJN can rebuild them if sunk, when there were too many in the 1st place. But maybe most are ok w/ having so much stuff that they do not need to care / safeguard their supplies and merchant shipping. But ofc not realistic.

But this posting from me is useless, as Ranger pointed out one can delete ships themselves. Which I did in my AI game ofc. And some other tweaks but I would like to see this game improved generally as it deserves it. So and now I just wait what the patch brings perhaps 3-4 of my main issues are resolved... The last beta at least had the nav support issue I found corrected.

Here a saying: "In WW2 shipping space and specialized supply was sparce and valuable even in 1944 for the Allies: Only when Allies were deep inside France already the situation got better" = not the case AT ALL in game

In late 44 and 45 I would not have much probs w/ the amount of ships and supplies for the Allies

My game is about to reach June 1942 and I do find a lot of use for the AK ships playing Allies. Since they are able to transport both supplies and fuel (in fuel drums), they are crucial for transporting fuel from the US to Australia since there are only so many TK and AO ships available. And from Africa/Middle East to India, even though this is not as important as the other route.

IMO, AI in this game is good. Not the best, not the worst, but at a very acceptable level. Let's be honest, AI is a problem in most strategy games even today. I believe the devs had done their best for WITP AE AI. It still gives players the enjoyment when playing against AI, while still being dumb and out of pocket sometimes. Of course one would argue that the best way to play is PBEM, but that would require a lot of time coordination between 2 people and mental commitment, something not everyone could afford for just for a single PC game.

Just bring it on guys (the devs), I'm ready for whatever you're cooking

Speaking of cooking in details the rather flippant 'Italian Pasta Rule' from the SPI game The Campaign in North Africa comes to mind. Victory hinges on those Pasta Points men! Ciao.


Pasta-Rule.jpg

When I was playing WITE2 I had an idea, what if there are HQ units for cook and food. I'm always interested in cooking in war, and how food have to be transported etc. Would be funny if we have food as a separated form of supply in the game.

[BBfanboy]

Cooking is a Base Force function. If you start specializing supply it gets endless - food, water, beer, medicals supplies, building materials, tents, parts, fuel and oils for vehicles and aircraft, tires, soap and toilet paper, refrigerators, generators, cigarettes, etc., etc.

[RangerJoe]

There are cooks and supply clerks already in the units, they are the support squads.

[bradfordkay]

There are cooks and supply clerks already in the units, they are the support squads.

This is such a simple concept, I wonder how so many miss it.

[Nazcatraz]

[LargeSlowTarget]

The problem is less "way too many merchant ships" in the game but that the abstractions make it "way too easy to use them".

I would want to see every ships that did serve in the PTO in the game. But I suspect that many merchant ships did not stay in the PTO for the duration of the war, but made the odd trip to ETO - so there should be more withdrawals / returns of ships. This is even true for some warships - USS Nevada for example, of D-Day fame but who does not leave the PTO in WitP.

Many merchant ships were also used for hauling resources from all over the world to the US and the UK, something the Allied player in WitP does not need to worry about.

The nerfing of the sys and engine damage accumulated simply by moving from A to B has been an error IMO, ships spend considerable more time in port for repairs and upkpeep than it is the case in the game.

Most importantly, it is way too easy to load / unload swarms of ships at a single location. The number of ships that can be in a port hex at the same time is unlimited in the game - not so IRL. The ships cannot dock all at once at the port in the game, but they can still unload all at the same time "over the beach" or "into lighters". Yes, it is much slower than in "docked" mode - but still way too easy and fast! There wasn't an unlimited supply of beach frontage, lighters, stevedores, cargo handling equipment and storage space available to allow simultaneous loading/unloading of scores of ordinary merchant ships.
My pet peeve is the use of "Amphib TFs" as ersatz-cargo TFs at small ports. For starters, the "combat loading" has been defined at a very generous 80% of normal cargo capacity - it should more realistically be around 50%. And all ship classes can be "combat loaded" for amphib ops, even xAK and xAP types which had no inherent amphib capabilities.
Early in the war, many ports in the PTO had problems handling cargo even for ships that could dock due to a lack of handling equipment and manpower. The ports had to be improved, enlarged and equipped for handling the amount of cargo required for military ops.
In the game, many port sizes are too generous on the map and the inherent limits of ports are way too generous as well. A level 1 port can dock a ships of max 6000 "tonnage", which means that already all but the largest 20% or so of AK classes can dock at the smallest port - really? Example, a size 5 port like Wellington / NZ can dock 60k "tonnage" in the game which translates into 9 Liberty ships - quite large xAKs at the time. But from what I have read, Wellington had docking space for "5 medium-sized ships" - which means that in the game, the capacity of that port is roughly twice of what it should be. Same point could be made about Noumea which initially had docking space for three medium-sized ships IIRC. When the first PT boats arrived at Noumea as a deck load on a oiler, it was found that no cranes were available to lift them off the deck. Creating the infrastructures, even assembling the lighters and pontoons etc. needed took time. In the game, you amphib-drop a base force in port in a day or two and voilà, its naval support will almost instantly provide a cargo handling boost. All things involving construction happen too fast in the game, so it is no wonder logistics and operational tempo are on steroids in the game. Heck, history books and memoirs are full of stories about port congestion, killing time waiting for (un)loading, lack of handling equipment, manpower and storage space, large-scale pilfering and spoilage (which btw didn't only start when a set storage capacity had been reached), delays due to accidents and breakdowns and so on. Cargo handling conditions in the game may seem bad for some, but it was far worse IRL. This aspect of the game should be nerfed IMO - not the number of ships available.

[BBfanboy]

All good points - but the idea was to make a playable game, not to mimic reality as closely as possible. Too much frustration and checking on unloading TFs would make many players quit the game or never buy it. It ain't broke as a game, so let's not fix it for reality's sake!

[Nazcatraz]

The problem is less "way too many merchant ships" in the game but that the abstractions make it "way too easy to use them".

I would want to see every ships that did serve in the PTO in the game. But I suspect that many merchant ships did not stay in the PTO for the duration of the war, but made the odd trip to ETO - so there should be more withdrawals / returns of ships. This is even true for some warships - USS Nevada for example, of D-Day fame but who does not leave the PTO in WitP.

Many merchant ships were also used for hauling resources from all over the world to the US and the UK, something the Allied player in WitP does not need to worry about.

The nerfing of the sys and engine damage accumulated simply by moving from A to B has been an error IMO, ships spend considerable more time in port for repairs and upkpeep than it is the case in the game.

Most importantly, it is way too easy to load / unload swarms of ships at a single location. The number of ships that can be in a port hex at the same time is unlimited in the game - not so IRL. The ships cannot dock all at once at the port in the game, but they can still unload all at the same time "over the beach" or "into lighters". Yes, it is much slower than in "docked" mode - but still way too easy and fast! There wasn't an unlimited supply of beach frontage, lighters, stevedores, cargo handling equipment and storage space available to allow simultaneous loading/unloading of scores of ordinary merchant ships.
My pet peeve is the use of "Amphib TFs" as ersatz-cargo TFs at small ports. For starters, the "combat loading" has been defined at a very generous 80% of normal cargo capacity - it should more realistically be around 50%. And all ship classes can be "combat loaded" for amphib ops, even xAK and xAP types which had no inherent amphib capabilities.
Early in the war, many ports in the PTO had problems handling cargo even for ships that could dock due to a lack of handling equipment and manpower. The ports had to be improved, enlarged and equipped for handling the amount of cargo required for military ops.
In the game, many port sizes are too generous on the map and the inherent limits of ports are way too generous as well. A level 1 port can dock a ships of max 6000 "tonnage", which means that already all but the largest 20% or so of AK classes can dock at the smallest port - really? Example, a size 5 port like Wellington / NZ can dock 60k "tonnage" in the game which translates into 9 Liberty ships - quite large xAKs at the time. But from what I have read, Wellington had docking space for "5 medium-sized ships" - which means that in the game, the capacity of that port is roughly twice of what it should be. Same point could be made about Noumea which initially had docking space for three medium-sized ships IIRC. When the first PT boats arrived at Noumea as a deck load on a oiler, it was found that no cranes were available to lift them off the deck. Creating the infrastructures, even assembling the lighters and pontoons etc. needed took time. In the game, you amphib-drop a base force in port in a day or two and voilà, its naval support will almost instantly provide a cargo handling boost. All things involving construction happen too fast in the game, so it is no wonder logistics and operational tempo are on steroids in the game. Heck, history books and memoirs are full of stories about port congestion, killing time waiting for (un)loading, lack of handling equipment, manpower and storage space, large-scale pilfering and spoilage (which btw didn't only start when a set storage capacity had been reached), delays due to accidents and breakdowns and so on. Cargo handling conditions in the game may seem bad for some, but it was far worse IRL. This aspect of the game should be nerfed IMO - not the number of ships available.

While I agree that xAP and xAK ships should not be used for amphibious assaults, the rest of your ideas sound like nitpicks to me.

I understand that the original point of my thread might sound like nitpicking too, but I don’t want to be that guy who complains about details in a Gary Grigsby title—especially WITP AE, of all games. This is as realistic as it gets; no one would have the time or resources to create a more detailed game than this. At the end of the day, this is a video game, and videogames are meant to be fun. Things can and should be abstracted where necessary.

I just wanted landing crafts and the LVT-4 represented better in the game because they were so damn iconic in the Pacific theater. They're in all the movies involving amphibious landings. I also want better control over the flow of supplies on land; something like the 0->4 depot priorities & national depot system in WITE2 would definitely make supply on land better. And better command chain management (for example, the hightlighted lines connecting units like WITE2). Again, a sequel could just use the system from WITE2 combined with the Political Points system of WITP for buying units and it would be wonderful. Another important feature would be the ability to right-click on hexes for a quick-access submenu like in WITE2. What I would look forward to in a potential sequel are these gameplay and UI improvements, which would enhance the overall flow of gameplay. WITE2 has so many QOL improvements that I wish could be applied to WITP.

[BBfanboy]

Nazcatraz, one of the restrictions on game size back in 2009 was that most people had limited disk and memory chip space available and Windows itself could not address large amounts of storage. All that is no longer a restriction so the changes you were suggesting might be possible now. I would add to that adoption of the TF waypoint routing system to the movement of LCUs so that you could route them around a hex without having to do it one hex at a time.