Historic house rules

[GET TRANSPT]

CORRECTION in my last paragraph of my previous post: Having less than 35 PP's in the secondray HQ, not 5 (typo), is too weak.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by GET TRANSPT:

But units with "one HQ" have throughout time often stolen supplies (a real life "rules" no-no) from other units/HQs to support themselves. George Patton's 3rd Army and the Red Ball express are very illustrative: Patton's 3rd was able to obtain/steal/commander/cajole "PPs" while not using "mules" (and therefore keeping 3rd army command integrity) but eventually SHAEF intervened and refused to grant him more "PP's", fuel mostly.

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The existance of the Red Ball Express indicates that the Allies couldn't use the railnet, or at least its full capacity, meaning that insufficient supply was making it to the front lines as the entire Western Armed Forces in France were racing east. So, the Allies had very poor supply chains at this time, meaning no HQ on the line was getting enough supplies (PPs) to support all units. The supplies the 3rd Army was taking/stealing was not "special supply", it was, in WiR terms, like a unit near a railhead with an SL of only 3-4 borrowing/stealing more supply from another nearby railhead to keep that unit closer to the "normal" SL of 6. There is no example of this situation in WIR, except possibly at the very end of the game after the Soviets have conquered Eastern Europe and the Balkans, starving the Germans of supply. This would, in WiR terms, lead to insufficient PPs being created that would leave all HQs without sufficient PPs to operate, but here the "normal" SL of 6 remains, and the result of reduced supply comes in the form of a readiness penalty instead. The game does not handle that situation well, because it was never intended to simulate such an effect.

Does the supply model have problems, yes, but none of these problems are so bad as to require cheating.

This is what I'd like to be simulated to maintain Ed's "common sense" unity of comand dictum without using mules. But until that is simulated in game programming, mule HQ's in WIR use unorthodox but entirely necessary means to similate a very historically justifiable process, materiel transfers between units.

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All of those "problems" you refer to, are not bugs in the game, but challenges the game creates for you to deal with. Even after the imbalance problem is fixed, the situation will remain exactly the same. YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GET THAT MUCH SUPPLY. Corpss are not supposed to be returned to %99 readiness every turn by using Special Supply. Again, you continue to assume the game is "broken", that expanded supply fixes the "problem", that you are right in this conclusion, that the game and everyone else is wrong, and this justifies using a game loophole. I don't agree.

[ November 15, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]</p>

[GET TRANSPT]

Ed, you support my positions neatly. Your posting ad naseaum about "cheating" and "intent" however, while putatively clairvoyant, speeds the stranding of your solitary argument. WIR is a game, a problem solving exercise that I tackle differentially for hopefully infinte enjoyment.

Your one facet, one solution, one opinion stands alone and finite.


Thank you for it.

[Muzrub]

WIR is a game, a problem solving exercise that I tackle differentially for hopefully infinte enjoyment.

But you are steping out sides the lines of play by taking advantage of a situation that should not happen.

While others play within the rules of good conduct and do not seek to bend the game to our wishes.
Knowing there is a problem should assist you in avoiding the problem not expanding on it.

[Harry]

As for playing against the german AI, I won this game in October 43. Without HQ mules. There is no AI in this game. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

What I don't understand how those HQ mules work.
If I change the HQ dependecy of a unit, I cannot redirect it in this turn again. Doing special supply to 2-3 units, leaves units with high readiness but without operation points or only few of them. If fighting, they will do so very poor. I don't do this because I want units that can fight, so how does it work then ???

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by GET TRANSPT:
Ed, you support my positions neatly. Your posting ad naseaum about "cheating" and "intent" however, while putatively clairvoyant, speeds the stranding of your solitary argument. WIR is a game, a problem solving exercise that I tackle differentially for hopefully infinte enjoyment.

Your one facet, one solution, one opinion stands alone and finite.


Thank you for it.

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Your welcome. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

I have no trouble being alone and finite, as long as I know I'm on the right side of realism and historical accuracy.

[varjager]

No problems Ed, you have my vote on this issue.
So you dont stand alone.I think that to play the game and enjoy it you should not alter the use of HQ.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Harry:
There is no AI in this game. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

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Essentially, you're absolutely right. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

What I don't understand how those HQ mules work.
....
so how does it work then ???

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Suppose you have 2 HQs with 3 corps each close together. Suppose you have another HQ with no air or ground forces attached nearby also. That's the mule. Each corps begins the turn attached to its normal HQ. For each corps, change its HQ to the mule, give the corps special supply, then switch it back to its normal HQ. Repeat and rinse, until the mule has expended all of its OPs. This should be done first, at the start of the turn, before doing anything else. The end result is corps with higher readiness, but with parent HQs that still have plenty of OPs.

[PMCN]

In response to the question about why I asked how many HQs people who thought Mules were required used it was because I was currious if my theory was correct and judging by the 1 answer (hardly statistical I know) it was.
Using 3 HQ to cover the entire front is ridiculus and explains why you "need" to use mules. I have an alternative suggestion to this sort of cheating or creative rule bending or whatever you want to call it. Use your other HQs <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Realy, that is what they are for, and you do have lots of them. Generally speaking I have each Front HQ assigned to cover a certain amount of frontage (generally limited to about 5-8 hex rows) and thus have 5-8 front line Armies plus some rear area cities and reserves assigned to each Front HQ. This means that even with a replacement level of 60 I have no trouble with PPs after the first few weeks. Then you will not need to use HQ mules. And you might even find that it is more interesting to play like this.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by varjager:
No problems Ed, you have my vote on this issue.

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Thank you for saying that. In the last argument I was in, about infantry in panzer corps, I really *was* alone on that one. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[Harry]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

Suppose you have 2 HQs with 3 corps each close together. Suppose you have another HQ with no air or ground forces attached nearby also. That's the mule. Each corps begins the turn attached to its normal HQ. For each corps, change its HQ to the mule, give the corps special supply, then switch it back to its normal HQ...

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And the backswitching in the same turn is not possible in the current version of WIR!

[Muzrub]

Thank you for saying that. In the last argument I was in, about infantry in panzer corps, I really *was* alone on that one.


Ed I was the one that complained about the Panzer Korps issue- so you were not alone there, nor here.

[Lokioftheaesir]

Originally posted by Muzrub:
Thank you for saying that. In the last argument I was in, about infantry in panzer corps, I really *was* alone on that one.


Ed I was the one that complained about the Panzer Korps issue- so you were not alone there, nor here.

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Reply to the above post and previus ones on the mule tactic
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My 2 cents

Ed. Regarding inf divs in Pz corps. Have never allowed it of myself. Stupid concept.

I have, up to this point. used mules till they are at 15 to 25 op's only.(one mule per active frontal HQ) In fact have rarely depleted a HQ to below 15 OP's.
I think i could repeat most advances in games past without using mules but the load would be taken up by the luftwaffe in part and i work them pretty hard already(i'm speaking axis here obviously but the same applies to soviets in '43 '44)
As i tend to overplan attacks the result of not using mules would be that many attacks worked as planned rather than nearly all attacks worked as planned.
Thus, using mules is mighty helpfull. It could tip the ballance is some situations i suppose but i've yet to be in a game where that applied.

Nick

[GET TRANSPT]

Originally posted by Muzrub:

But you are steping out sides the lines of play by taking advantage of a situation that should not happen.

While others play within the rules of good conduct and do not seek to bend the game to our wishes.
Knowing there is a problem should assist you in avoiding the problem not expanding on it.

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Thanks again for your defense of your position.

"stepping out of line" is precisely what i support. I enjoy unpredictable, differntial, unrestricted things that " should not happen". A game has that simulates real life unpredicatblity is highly enjoyable to me.

I choose to not "avoid problems". I relish problm solving, and play games to find problems and discover solutions, while pushing, pulling, tearing, pasting the envelopes of "rules". Hopefully, consonant with all my other life activites.

Your opinion is of great value to yourself, and I thank you for it.

[GET TRANSPT]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:


Your welcome. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

I have no trouble being alone and finite, as long as I know I'm on the right side of realism and historical accuracy.

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Thanks Ed. I'm innacurate, heretical, wrong, uncertain, diffuse, and ahistorical, and I enjoy that.

You're welcome as well.

Imagine another rule so I can break, bend, shape, twist, parboil or mince it, and we've got a game!

I'm what "they" call an "out of the box thinker". Heck, I don't even know where the box is, nor what to think or thinking is. Maybe.

It's like science and art, the physical and the spiritual. And confusing, very confusing. That's why I play games.

I don't create WIR rules fundamentalism, but fundamentalism is valuable as a part of the process. Without a stage, there can be no play; without paper, there can be no poetry, without PP's, there can be no...uh??

deconstructively,

Sergio

[GET TRANSPT]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:



Suppose you have 2 HQs with 3 corps each close together. Suppose you have another HQ with no air or ground forces attached nearby also. That's the mule. Each corps begins the turn attached to its normal HQ. For each corps, change its HQ to the mule, give the corps special supply, then switch it back to its normal HQ. Repeat and rinse, until the mule has expended all of its OPs. This should be done first, at the start of the turn, before doing anything else. The end result is corps with higher readiness, but with parent HQs that still have plenty of OPs.

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I have a few modest proposals:

a) Have a little PP chip embedded in you computer thats gives one a jolt of electricity each time one switches a HQ (we could call it the PPaliban Virtue and Vice Police, PPVVP)

b)Play the game once and discard it,and wait till the next war in Russia to be simulated. We could call this "McPP."

c)Since history already occurred in 1941-45, why bother repeating? The first one was much more vivid, and they had nice music, too (even though most of it was in black and white, alas). It would be hell on my budget, too. I can't afford paying the millions of extras to recreate WWII (those unions are expensive!) and i stll cannot find a good actor to play Zhukov!(Jason Alexander? Cuba Gooding, Jr.?)

d)...oh, and one could also have PP's be centrally allocated, allow the players (that's us!)to determine how much each HQ could have by paying an opportunity cost: if a player wants more PP's sent to his HQ that turn, he would have to pay a penalty for requistioning PP from the central source over and above the start of turn allocation.

This is an inverse analogy to filing for taxes: one can pay taxes by April 15th, but if you want to keep your money (PP)longer, you have to request a form from the IRS (STAVKA/OKH) and pay a cash penalty for the additional time (PP). However, in that time, you may buy yourself additional food, DVD's, plane tickets to Bermuda, etc. (additional plots, airstrikes, march moves to Brest-Litovsk, etc).

e) OR, you can use offshore accounts to stash additional monies in the Truks and Caicos islands as passed by Congress recently to circumvent the IRS Tax Code (Trans Caucasus mule HQ's to circumvent the WIR coded at start HQ PP allocation)


I've proposed 4 solutions. let's see some more.

sergio

[GET TRANSPT]

Uh, I've proposed 5 solutions, not 4.

Maybe I should check the Book of Armaments and Saint Attila. http://www.intriguing.com/mp/

[Muzrub]

Imagine another rule so I can break, bend, shape, twist, parboil or mince it, and we've got a game!

GET TRANSPT- fair enough so your a cheat.

Have it your way.
Play the game anyway you wish and cheat as much as you want- bend the rules, twist the facts and ignore the logic, you seem to be good at that.

But I suppose everyone has to be good at something.

Yes I value my opinion otherwise I would not express it- You on the other hand seem to enjoy just typing away without a care in the world- filling the forum with empty posts that in the end bring us all to the same conclusion- YOU CHEAT AND YOU LIKE IT- and you like others to know
too.

But thats not all folks. Your a joker too, what a combination GET TRANSPT is a joker, cheater and a story teller.

Well done.

I cant wait for your next post- it's bound to be winner.

[ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Muzrub ]</p>

[Lokioftheaesir]

Originally posted by GET TRANSPT:


.....

I'm what "they" call an "out of the box thinker". Heck, I don't even know where the box is, nor what to think or thinking is. Maybe.
........
Sergio

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Get transpt

I can answer that.
In view of the amount of words you use in relation to how much you actually say...
Well, your standing on it. (the box)

Nick

PS. LA must be a quantum grey zone.

[GET TRANSPT]

Originally posted by Muzrub:


GET TRANSPT- fair enough so your a cheat.

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Fair to YOU. Do you mean "you're" or "your"?


Have it your way.
[/QUOTE]

I hope certainly hope so! I only have my way! Do you possess the minds of others as well?


Play the game anyway you wish and cheat as much as you want- bend the rules, twist the facts and ignore the logic, you seem to be good at that.
[/QUOTE]

Whose facts and whose logic? What YOU wish? YOU know the answer, of course.


But I suppose everyone has to be good at something.
[/QUOTE]

AH! You're (you are) SUPPOSING now! So much for reading my mind! Come on, don't give up!


Yes I value my opinion otherwise I would not express it- You on the other hand seem to enjoy just typing away without a care in the world- filling the forum with empty posts that in the end bring us all to the same conclusion- YOU CHEAT AND YOU LIKE IT- and you like others to know
too.
[/QUOTE]

Good your(your) "psychic powers" work again! I see you're (you are) also an expert in filling forums and what constituets emptiness. Do you teach forum filling and fulsome posting, perhaps? I care. I do.


But thats not all folks. Your a joker too, what a combination GET TRANSPT is a joker, cheater and a story teller.
[/QUOTE]

Speaking to an audience of "folks" are you? And YOU ARE (you're) a drama critic and comedy expert as well? Wow.


Well done.

I cant wait for your next post- it's bound to be winner.
[/QUOTE]

It's a 0-0 tie. But you'll always be a winner to me. Maybe. Like Monty Python said, "You're (you are) no fun anymore".


Perhaps.