Every Nation Has Some Value

[KG Erwin]

For even the "minors", there's a unit or two which deserves respect. Taking the lowly Bulgarians as an example, in the Depot Mod they have a Mountain squad with an LMG and rifle grenades. Let's get real , here -- Bulgaria isn't a "player", but they won't embarrass themselves if forced into battle.

As I've mentioned frequently, the Yugoslav partisans are some mean MFs -- they made the Germans tie up several divisions in anti-partisan ops throughout the war.

The point is, each nation's armed forces did (or could) exert some influence on the outcome of WWII. Their relative importance is weighed accordingly, as part of the base exp/morale factors and other considerations.

[Mau Fox]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin
The point is, each nation's armed forces did (or could) exert some influence on the outcome of WWII. Their relative importance is weighed accordingly, as part of the base exp/morale factors and other considerations.

Hi Gunny, [:)]
please let me disagree with you on this one.
The outcome of WWII has been influenced by so many factors that are not represented in this game.
I would agree if this game was based on a strategic/managerial level.

I always wondered how morale ratings and values have been set per Nation. According to what has been made this choice?

In the above post you mentioned Yugo Partisan but not Greeks, Frenchs, Soviets, Italians neither the two Germans Partisan formations -- the White Rose and the Werevolves.
Fighting a partisan counter-guerrilla is always a waste of resources
Let's play for example a Partisan fight against Nazi's forces of occupation in Italy. Do I have to set up a coup de main with men rated 18/21?
Or the nasty Philippine guerrilla against the Japanese in the Pacific.
According to game stats I would have "first and second league" Partisans.
This is ahistorical, in my opinion.
The only thing that makes difference should be weaponry, not morale or experience.

Well, as an Italian gamer I would say that Italian troops/leaders experience and morale is simply ... ahistorical.
I simply cannot accept, from a historical point of view, that, for example, in June 1941, an Italian tank platoon has its better unit with an experience value of 34 and a morale value of 29. This is simply ... ahistorical.

Not to mention using the Italians in 1944.
As we all know, 8th September 1943 has been a key turning point in WWII, not only for Italy but for Allies as well.
After that date Italy was split in two. With two Armies and two Governments.
Each Army fought for their own ideal, principles, lives and survival. No more mass conscription, hence Armies formed by men that fought 4 years of war on every theatre.

I guess, as an example, that it would have been a better day for the Allies soldiers, at Anzio, if they had met troops rated 25/34.

SPWaW is a Tactical Level Wargame. The outcome of the battle should be a matter of national weaponry and skillness of the gamers.

Just my thoughts guys, but I'd like to hear someone else on this.
And when I say someone else I am also referring to fellow gamers that live on this side of the pond. [;)]

Ciao! [:)]

Mau Fox.

[KG Erwin]

Where you been , man ? The game is undergoing some changes. Get with the program and read about the new options. [:'(]

[TheDesertRat]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

Where you been , man ? The game is undergoing some changes. Get with the program and read about the new options. [:'(]

Firstly and lest face it this type of approach is what I would consider not useful.

As mentioned in some other thread that interestingly enough NO one has bothered to make comment on, with words to the effect how about for 2006 NO BITCHING

To be honest Gunny this type of comment of yours fits into that concept.

Now before you jump up and down and have fit lest take some issues with things FACTUALLY!

Mike as we all know has made many posts here in this forum re the various values for the OOBs and how that should be constructed. This has covered such issues as Fire Control, unit size etc. These as we now can discover are available to us as gamers to correct the various OOBs used.

This is a great arrangement as NOW all OOBS have some level of consistency.

Further Mike has spent some time as you and also Ably well know on working out a good standard costing system.
Ok so there are some teething problems from what I can read. Nothing is perfect and life is a bitch.
BUT there is some basis of standardisation AT LAST!

So what has been done is in my opinion GREAT.
For all that work Mike needs a huge applause from all gamers.

Now we come to the real touchy points that many have raised that is the various experience/moral etc levels of nations.

Here I think you will find Mau Fox has some real comments and to tell him to “Get with the program” is a useful as a hole in the head.

Ok so what is actually going on???

Now from your scattered posts both here and at the SPWAW Depot there was mention of possibly an editor to adjust nation’s Leadership, experience etc. I think from memory that was meant to be built inside the Mech.exe file.

Ok so this has not happened, and it’s not your fault.

Actually as we all know quite well it will only occur when Mike has the time to do it. I also really doubt anyone here is in disagreement about that time issue. Every one does realise that this work is being done in Mike’s spare time and again we are highly grateful for that work on his part.


So in general it might just be a good case of NOT pre-empting Mikes’s work till he has the available time to do that. It is not fair on Mike nor on us the other gamers.



The next matter that Mau Fox does raise is in essence the perceptions of the game itself.

What are the players really expecting from the game?
Are they actually expecting some form of tactical game or something relating to a combat simulator?

This is actually the whole basis of what we want from SPWAW. Let’s face it we are only at best talking of at best 3 hours of combat here.
Also it is a bit hard to really build maps that reflect the terrain with 3 basic heights and the other map limitations. face it you can not make maps in SPWAW where the ground height goes from 10 m to 150 m in a distance under 1 Km, it does not work. Also there are the so called plateau issues with terrain and various other side effects.

So really how much does the various national leaders/moral experience/etc actually come into this?

Realise we are not talking of games such as Uncommon Valour, War in the Pacific: The Struggle Against Japan 1941-1945, TacOps4, Armoured Task Force, and several along these lines.

These are simulators at operational, strategic or combat, (brigade level) games.

So Gunny perhaps Mau Fox is with it, he is just pointing out things that have been lost to the true game.

At that point I have finished here!

[KG Erwin]

Yes, I know that Mau Fox IS with it -- after all, the Italian OOB in the Depot Mod is his work. I was simply "pulling his chain" a bit. [;)]

[soldier]

Agree with Mau and have posted many times on this. Many factors outside of WAWs tactical scope reflect the outstanding achievements of early war Germany and the dissapointments that the Italians faced. Making all Italians poor soldiers and all Germans super with experience levels is an innacurate way of simulating the above factors. Italian tanks that can only shoot once per turn and always miss is a substitute.
The Germans did not won early victories because their average soldier was smarter than his allied opponent (as the exp/morale ratings seem to indicate). The player himself can choose how to deploy, what to buy, what tactics to use and where and how to execute them but is still unlikly to win when his force is twice as bad as an enemy who won in history. Its a game not a history book and no I'm not saying every nation should be equal. Hopefully a fix will one day be implemented, until then I'll play H2H which is more fair toward the little guy. The difference between Poland and Germanys EXP in 39 is 5 in H2H but 20 in 8.4. Morale and leadership are higher for the Germans though.

Sorry to bring it all up again but Gunnys comments like "lowly" and "not a player" with some token remark about how these guys can now influence battles offends me especially when in conjunction with the constant pro US and Marine propaganda.

[Swamprat]

Bulgaria isn't a "player", but they won't embarrass themselves if forced into battle.

They will if they are forced to fight in 8.4. [:'(]



[:D]

[VikingNo2]

I feel the adjusment made in the 8.4 version put the countries way to low, it effects the game drasticly if you play with the values. Can't really play them at there current state IMO

[omegaall]

soldier sorry but I just had to emphasise this a bit..

ORIGINAL: soldier
......
Sorry to bring it all up again but Gunnys comments like "lowly" and "not a player" with some token remark about how these guys can now influence battles offends me especially when in conjunction with the constant pro US and Marine propaganda.

I agree with this and unfortunately it seems to become the underlyig drive of how some OOBs are being altered by others with this biased US-centric approach.
As an example areoplanes have almost been removed from the ANZAC 'Depot Multi Mod'. Why?

Of note the RAAF flew combat mission in THEIR OWN PLANES in NA, Pacific and also for UK during the war. They were not UK/US etc Sqns BUT Aust ones with Aust Sqn numbers.

So why remove them from the OOBs?

The Most signifient battle in the Pacific, Milne Bay, there were NO US planes they were all Australian ones, Australian manned and from Australian Sqns. This was the real turning point in the Pacific war.

Sorry I forgot who actually won the war!

Actually the real winners were Germany and Japan as their economies went skyward afterwards and the so called winners did not do as well…Interesting fact.

[264rifle]

IMHO it is not only a question of pride of some players home nations but a question of game playability.

We put up with historical inaccuracies like way too fast artillery responce ( Russia and some minors probably had a real responce time of 3-10 turns) and some ant-tank guns having effective ranges double what they had in real life. We do this because the game might be too difficult and thus no fun to play.

Then the Morale/experience of some countries is lowered to a point where they are almost impossible to play. IF they abandon entrechments and retreat at the first or second burst of small arms fire or small caliber mortar fire they are going to be impossable to play with. Or if they only get ONE or TWO shots per turn.

Saying that players can use a new editor feature to suit themselves doesn't quite solve the problem. Wild Bill has said that He makes his scenerios and campaigns around a "standard" OOB. IMHO most other Scenerio and campaign designers are doing the same thing. Trying to design a scenerio that will work with different OBBs would be almost impossible. Trying to design Scenerios that would work with the users changeing Morale and experience by 10-30 points on their own would also be quite a challenge.

Right now many designers tell players that they should only play from one side to make a scenerio work right or they give other instructions to help players get a fun experience from their work. They could do this with these minor countries but IMHO telling players to increase Morale and Expereince by 10-30 points for each and every scenerio they design would be an indication that something is wrong with the base numbers.

Part of the Attraction of SPWAW is the diversity of Nations and units a player can use/explore. Rendering a group of nations unplayable by too low Morale/Exp ratings undermines that diversity. There are few enough scenerios for some of the minor countries now and throwing a roadblock like this in the way is not going to help things.

[Goblin]

Most designers set the morale and experience of the troops in the scenarios they make. I do, I imagine others do too. When a scenario is played, it uses whatever the designer put in, not the default. Thus designers can 'fix' these low ratings to make a scenario more realistic.

I agree that the ratings are too low. They do not reflect how most of these nations troops fought in RL. But the ability to adjust these numbers independantly will help most players in generated long campaigns set them at what they like or feel is correct. Mike has stated that he is working on the ability to do just that.


Goblin

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: omegaall

soldier sorry but I just had to emphasise this a bit..

ORIGINAL: soldier
......
Sorry to bring it all up again but Gunnys comments like "lowly" and "not a player" with some token remark about how these guys can now influence battles offends me especially when in conjunction with the constant pro US and Marine propaganda.

I agree with this and unfortunately it seems to become the underlyig drive of how some OOBs are being altered by others with this biased US-centric approach.
As an example areoplanes have almost been removed from the ANZAC 'Depot Multi Mod'. Why?

Of note the RAAF flew combat mission in THEIR OWN PLANES in NA, Pacific and also for UK during the war. They were not UK/US etc Sqns BUT Aust ones with Aust Sqn numbers.

So why remove them from the OOBs?

The Most signifient battle in the Pacific, Milne Bay, there were NO US planes they were all Australian ones, Australian manned and from Australian Sqns. This was the real turning point in the Pacific war.

Sorry I forgot who actually won the war!

Actually the real winners were Germany and Japan as their economies went skyward afterwards and the so called winners did not do as well…Interesting fact.

I for one do not alter the OOBS with any one particular nation in mind.
That is why I have had people with knowledge of certain nations work on them.
Maj Destruction the UK, Mau Fox, the Italian, Warhorse, Bulgaria, Gunny, The USMC, thedesertrat, Anzac.
plus the many others who have had input.
there is no bias in my OOB work.

[Puukkoo]

No scenario has Italians or Romanians with exp/morale ratings that low as the default values are. All ratings for all nations are either too low or too high for certain special occasions. The long campaign does not represent actual warfare as some people may tend to think. It is completely just for fun thing and personally I have grown tired of it.

[Riun T]

One thing I see being missed in all this dribble about OOB's is that in my case anyway is that in only fighting AI battles, and not having the time or interest in altering any of these OOB's . IS that the AI still makes it challenging and fun, I've heard some of u in earlier posts quoteing the manual whenever convienent for other reasons but always seem to forget that it mentions that the AI gets a special purchase list of units deemed to be above regular calibre for only its disposal as well as the completely flexible settings of the prefrences. SO go in there to sway the tide and don't bother pissing with the trivialities of which rifle or which grenade launcher was used and understand that in the fever of battle YES even the bazzoka was used by some young stupid punk terrified private on infantry.[:D] and thats the way I make this GAME!! work for me. RT

[Dusan]

ORIGINAL: Mau Fox
Not to mention using the Italians in 1944.
After that date Italy was split in two. With two Armies and two Governments.
Each Army fought for their own ideal, principles, lives and survival. No more mass conscription, hence Armies formed by men that fought 4 years of war on every theatre.

You mean 4 years of experiences with running out of many battles. Well, I agree that makes you an Italian veteran. [:D]

[264rifle]

Goblin. Thank you for the correction. I had forgotten that.
In Short campaigns however, (Like Italians at war) while your core force gains experience and aux units specifed by designer have what values he assigned them, Do support units you purchase come in at the default setting, the ajustable setting (without messing up any other settings) or does the game look at your core force and base the Morale/ exp values of the support units on an average of your core units values?

[Goblin]

I believe they use the default setting, which is unfortunate. Unless Historic Ratings are turned off and the settings manually adjusted, they will come in at the current ratings for the year.


Goblin

[Puukkoo]

It could be a good idea for the designers to explain, why they have given a particular exp/mor value to certain country. Of course certain minors' spokespersons would say "We should have the maximum" and no further discussion needed there.

[sabrejack]

ORIGINAL: Alby

there is no bias in my OOB work.

What if there was an Alamo scenario?

[;)]

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: sabrejack

ORIGINAL: Alby

there is no bias in my OOB work.

What if there was an Alamo scenario?

[;)]

[:D]