World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.
Zero losses for Germany is a rare event. I've seen it happen (close to it) but possible.
Be happy you don't see it as a problem. I've recently quit playing WIF due to the fact that Barb is relatively impossible without super gamey maneuvers. I seem to lack opponents who agree with me.
I conquered France, Yugo, Poland all early, with some moderate losses; mostly unpreventable due to luck.
I found out that every unit on the map was not enough to break the pact. The chit draws were very average for both sides. No ships were built, only air and land units.
Unless you are very lucky with chits, Germany must always go sealion or med strategy. A game that prevents the historical option on average is broken. IMO Barb is broken.
All the talk about Russia being trapped on the border is relatively moot. By declaring war on Japan and building smartly, there is nearly nothing except incredible pact chit luck that will allow a 41 Barb, even historically in Jul/Aug 41.
In this game, Russia *decides* if there will be a 41 Barb and when. It's a very rare game where Russia prefers a 41' barb. [8|]
It's ridiculous to be forced into Med or Sealion which are both *not* historical. Some people seem to be happy with the stuff. I say let them play with each other and argue who has to play the axis... [:D]
Bluffing isn't a viable strategy if you know you cannot do barb. What you build gives away your strategy.
I haven't quit a WIF game over the rules before, but this one has made me do it pretty much permanantly. The garrison rules were meant to prevent early attack on Russia in '41' , not to prevent '41 barb.
IMO game is broken. I find it distasteful to have to argue over this 'stuff' issue on every game, regarless of what strategy I choose. Game is pretty much ruined for me.
Cheers
Most men can survive adversity, the true test of a man's character is power. -Abraham Lincoln
Zero losses for Germany is a rare event. I've seen it happen (close to it) but possible.
Be happy you don't see it as a problem. I've recently quit playing WIF due to the fact that Barb is relatively impossible without super gamey maneuvers. I seem to lack opponents who agree with me.
I conquered France, Yugo, Poland all early, with some moderate losses; mostly unpreventable due to luck.
I found out that every unit on the map was not enough to break the pact. The chit draws were very average for both sides. No ships were built, only air and land units.
Unless you are very lucky with chits, Germany must always go sealion or med strategy. A game that prevents the historical option on average is broken. IMO Barb is broken.
All the talk about Russia being trapped on the border is relatively moot. By declaring war on Japan and building smartly, there is nearly nothing except incredible pact chit luck that will allow a 41 Barb, even historically in Jul/Aug 41.
In this game, Russia *decides* if there will be a 41 Barb and when. It's a very rare game where Russia prefers a 41' barb. [8|]
It's ridiculous to be forced into Med or Sealion which are both *not* historical. Some people seem to be happy with the stuff. I say let them play with each other and argue who has to play the axis... [:D]
Bluffing isn't a viable strategy if you know you cannot do barb. What you build gives away your strategy.
I haven't quit a WIF game over the rules before, but this one has made me do it pretty much permanantly. The garrison rules were meant to prevent early attack on Russia in '41' , not to prevent '41 barb.
IMO game is broken. I find it distasteful to have to argue over this 'stuff' issue on every game, regarless of what strategy I choose. Game is pretty much ruined for me.
Cheers
In your opinion, does the US entry chit draws (a lot versus very few) have a noticable effect on the ability of the USSR to prevent Barbarossa in 1941?
Intuitively, I do now see how the number of chits the US pulls influences the pact chits. For the pact chits, all that matter is the difference beween the German chits and USSR chits. They both pick from the same pool.... so how many chits are in the pull should not matter.
Overall the way the chits are drawn with the limited pool in the boardgame do not greatly affect the prevention of Barb in '41. The number of chits is reduced in the board game, but the net effect is close to neutral. With unlimited chits, the distribution will likely be more even.
The way the rules are written, the 2 chits germany gets, vs 1 for Russia, offset for almost every intent and purpose in '41 due to garrison rules. On average the chits will offset, and the actual unit garrison is more relevant. Only with freaky luck will Germany be able to break the pact in 41, and that is with getting great chits, and USSR getting really lousy ones. The 'stuffability' of the border is more dependant on the units built, rather than chits pulled, because in the situation of a stuff, there will be far more unit garrison than chit totals.
Even with good chit luck for Germany, the border is very stuffable, because the calculation has no interest in the type of unit. Those 2-2 Miltia are as effective as a 9-4 Infantry.
Generally, a good build strategy will keep Russia close to a 1:1 ratio of units garrisoning, particularly with the pacific reserves and Mil. When the ratio is so close, not even every German unit on the map can break the stuff before '42.
Several ideas have been floated as 'fixes'.
1) Take no losses in France & Build only garrison efficient units for Germany (Mil, Garr, Mech, Inf, Arm), but not planes because they are extremely garrison inefficient.
2) Have Italy declare war on Hungary so they can DOW russia from Hungary. Very very gamey way to get Barb started.
3) Have Italy give all its resources to Germany.
None of these fixes are palatable to me. They all force very unhistoric activities, just to fix 'the stuff' problem. I haven't even gotten to force pool limitations which effectively prevent Germany from ever getting a 2:1 ratio of units on the border.
This issue has been analysed to death in wifdiscussion, with allied players favoring the rule, and axis players insisting on a house-rule or other agreement. Some people just want to play the game and dont care about the stuff.
On the other hand, I've only had a handful of games where I was ready to attack Russia with 80% of my army starting in May/Jun. The last one was prevented, thus the calculation of every unit on the map would be insufficient to break the pact came up. Allied player saw nothing convincing worth changing the rule, besides, he's winning the game because of it. When you are winning retarded rules somehow seem fair to a good chunk of people.
Many, many fixes have been proposed, but it seems that without agreement at the beginning of the game, there are going to be many rocky games in '41.
I'm not saying I don't like Sealion or Med, but being forced into them... that's another thing. I've been around since 4th edition, I've airlifted HQ's in mud, played on the 1d6 table, etc...
Theres nothing quite like being prevented from doing the largest most interesting battle of the war because the rules say so (even if you built for it from the beginning of the game). This is why I claim the rule is broken.
Most men can survive adversity, the true test of a man's character is power. -Abraham Lincoln
By US entry chits, I assume the ones pulled by Germany and Russia (since you are using an infinite pool).
IF Germany tries to break the garrison, the chits pulled by Germany, and even more so, Russia, is much more important than losses taken in France, Poland, etc.
The marginal cost of 1 garrison point for Germany is 4 build points. This means that the difference between Russia pulling a 0 or a 6 in J/F 41, is equal to a different amount of losses equal to 2*4*6 = 48 build points for Germany. (The 2 because the attacker needs 2:1). This is about twice the typical german losses prior to Barbarossa.
Before M/J 41, Russia pulls 10 chits and Germany pulls 20. The contribution of the chit difference, can be expressed as the following function:
Chit Difference = CD = Sum(german_chits) - 2*Sum(russian chits)
Note that the value of the russian chits are doubled to account for the attacker needing 2:1 to break the pact.
Assuming infinte pools (which is true for MWIF), and somewhat equal stdv of each chit pull (which is close enough) we get the following expression for the standard deviation:
STDV(CD) = SQRT(20*s^2 + 10*(2s)^2) = SQRT(60s^2) which is almost equal to 7.7*s, where s is the stdv of a single chit.
Given that s=1.3, the standard deviation of the chits difference is 7.7*1.3 = 10.1 , or approx 10, or up to a 80bp loss difference, which completely dwarfs the standard deviation of german losses in France.
Still, if Russia waits until S/O, after pulling chits, to decide to actually stuff the border or not, they can reduce this standard deviation to:
STDV(CD_SO41) = SQRT(20*s^2 + 3*(2s)^2) SQRT(32s^2) = 5.6*s = 7.3.
At this time, German losses in France, german builds etc will all largely be known, making it reasonably easy for Russia to estimate Germany's potential garrison in 1941.
Assuming that Russia has an advantage over Germany in all known variables at this point of about 7 points, this would give them roughly an 80% probability of holding the pact. If the advantage is 15 points, the probability is about 95%.
And Russia always have the opportunity to DOW Italy, if they should pull very poorly after S/O. (The Japan option was taken away) This way they gain 4-5 reserves, which when reorganized and put at the border, are worth 8 or 10 CD points. On top of this, they can build mil, which is easily worth another 10 or so points, for a total of up to 20.
So even if the advantage is zero, Russia can get almost a 100% chance to stuff by DOW-ing Italy, which means that taking that 80% risk is not as dangerous as it sounds, if you are willing to sacrifice those 4 US entry chits if you pull poorly.
And if Russia, after seeing their S/O40 chit, decides that they have too poor chits, they can simply fall back during the next 3 turns, which if properly executed means that they will most likely be able to reach a reasonable line it time. They can even start building non-pact-optimizing units at this time, such as anti-tank units and HQ's, and still have them out before Barbarossa starts.
Russia can (and should) keep several chits face down in early 1940, to put pressure on Germany's ability to hold the pact when they are fighting in France. They can choose to have either high or low chits face down. If they are worried about the pact, they could keep their high chits face up, but if they want to break the garrison themselves, or if they they have so high chits that they feel secure, they can show th e low chits only, and hide the high ones.
All-in-all, this gives Russia all the power to control the development of the game, and to decide which games come down to a stuffing contest and what do not. Germany on the other hand, really need to decide in 1939 or early 40 if he wants to do a MED strategy, sealion or eastern strategy, unless he wants to be at a severe disadvantage from the beginning.
So, basically, Zarachus is quite right in his analysis. When playing against players understanding the above, and that are willing to stuff, the only sane thing to do as Germany, is to go west.
I think that this may be a very real threat to the success of MWiF, since other player may react as Zarachus, and simply stop playing the game after being stuffed a couple of times. (I would react simmilarily to him, though luckily, I've usually been playing with players that agree to house rule that Germany can break the pact in 1941, regardless of garrison.)
While many WiF veterans may be used to this mechanic (the ones that could not stand it, have probably left the wif community already), I think many potential new players will react very negatively when encountering this kind of behaviour.
Indeed, this is somthing I've been saying for years.
Overall the way the chits are drawn with the limited pool in the boardgame do not greatly affect the prevention of Barb in '41. The number of chits is reduced in the board game, but the net effect is close to neutral. With unlimited chits, the distribution will likely be more even.
The way the rules are written, the 2 chits germany gets, vs 1 for Russia, offset for almost every intent and purpose in '41 due to garrison rules. On average the chits will offset, and the actual unit garrison is more relevant. Only with freaky luck will Germany be able to break the pact in 41, and that is with getting great chits, and USSR getting really lousy ones. The 'stuffability' of the border is more dependant on the units built, rather than chits pulled, because in the situation of a stuff, there will be far more unit garrison than chit totals.
Even with good chit luck for Germany, the border is very stuffable, because the calculation has no interest in the type of unit. Those 2-2 Miltia are as effective as a 9-4 Infantry.
Generally, a good build strategy will keep Russia close to a 1:1 ratio of units garrisoning, particularly with the pacific reserves and Mil. When the ratio is so close, not even every German unit on the map can break the stuff before '42.
Several ideas have been floated as 'fixes'.
1) Take no losses in France & Build only garrison efficient units for Germany (Mil, Garr, Mech, Inf, Arm), but not planes because they are extremely garrison inefficient.
2) Have Italy declare war on Hungary so they can DOW russia from Hungary. Very very gamey way to get Barb started.
3) Have Italy give all its resources to Germany.
None of these fixes are palatable to me. They all force very unhistoric activities, just to fix 'the stuff' problem. I haven't even gotten to force pool limitations which effectively prevent Germany from ever getting a 2:1 ratio of units on the border.
This issue has been analysed to death in wifdiscussion, with allied players favoring the rule, and axis players insisting on a house-rule or other agreement. Some people just want to play the game and dont care about the stuff.
On the other hand, I've only had a handful of games where I was ready to attack Russia with 80% of my army starting in May/Jun. The last one was prevented, thus the calculation of every unit on the map would be insufficient to break the pact came up. Allied player saw nothing convincing worth changing the rule, besides, he's winning the game because of it. When you are winning retarded rules somehow seem fair to a good chunk of people.
Many, many fixes have been proposed, but it seems that without agreement at the beginning of the game, there are going to be many rocky games in '41.
I'm not saying I don't like Sealion or Med, but being forced into them... that's another thing. I've been around since 4th edition, I've airlifted HQ's in mud, played on the 1d6 table, etc...
Theres nothing quite like being prevented from doing the largest most interesting battle of the war because the rules say so (even if you built for it from the beginning of the game). This is why I claim the rule is broken.
While I agree with the ADG design decision to enable the USSR to discourage an early Barbarossa, letting the USSR achieve absolute prevention regardless of actions taken by Germany seems incorrect to me (many others have made this point).
--- I am willing to entertain ideas for fixing this in MWIF. This will go against WIF FE RAW, so it would have to be (yet another) optional rule.
---
I would prefer the simplest solution possible, not some convoluted process that would be prone to loopholes.
---
Possible solutions:
1 - Change the chit draws so Germany gets 5 every two turns instead of 2 every turn. This could easily be done.
2 - Change the distribution from which Germany draws chits. This could easily be done and provides finer grain control than #1. Someone would have to determine the alternative distribution. If playing over the board, this could easily be implemented by making each of Germany's chits worth 1.2 (or some such) times its face value.
3 - Change the ratio for DOW from 2.0 to 1.8 (or something). This is really trivial to code. But someone would have to decide on the new ratio. As a variation on this, the ratio could change more often than annually, say every turn, every 2 turns, or every 3 turns. This way there would be less of a dramatic change on the anniversary of the Neutrality Pact.
4 - Set a maximum garrison value for the USSR, as a function of the turn. Germany would then know that if it can place a strong enough force on the border at such-and-such a turn, it would be able to declare war on the USSR, regardless of what the USSR does. For example, if the USSR has 50 garrisson points, then Germany needs 100. But if the maximum for the USSR is 45 for that turn, then Germany only needs 90. Note that this could be used with or without drawing chits. However, the USSR chits are used for other purposes, so drawing chits probably has to stay. This is another easy solution to implement. Someone would have to decide what the maxima should be.
5 - Instead of a binary Can/Can't DOW, make the DOW probabilistic, like the US DOW is. There could be a 'penalty' for failure, perhaps decreasing the future probability of a successful DOW. The probability of success would be a distribution that is a function of the garrison ratio. The higher the garrision ratio, the better the chance of success.
================
So, gentle reader, what do you think?
Overall the way the chits are drawn with the limited pool in the boardgame do not greatly affect the prevention of Barb in '41. The number of chits is reduced in the board game, but the net effect is close to neutral. With unlimited chits, the distribution will likely be more even.
The way the rules are written, the 2 chits germany gets, vs 1 for Russia, offset for almost every intent and purpose in '41 due to garrison rules. On average the chits will offset, and the actual unit garrison is more relevant. Only with freaky luck will Germany be able to break the pact in 41, and that is with getting great chits, and USSR getting really lousy ones. The 'stuffability' of the border is more dependant on the units built, rather than chits pulled, because in the situation of a stuff, there will be far more unit garrison than chit totals.
Even with good chit luck for Germany, the border is very stuffable, because the calculation has no interest in the type of unit. Those 2-2 Miltia are as effective as a 9-4 Infantry.
Generally, a good build strategy will keep Russia close to a 1:1 ratio of units garrisoning, particularly with the pacific reserves and Mil. When the ratio is so close, not even every German unit on the map can break the stuff before '42.
Several ideas have been floated as 'fixes'.
1) Take no losses in France & Build only garrison efficient units for Germany (Mil, Garr, Mech, Inf, Arm), but not planes because they are extremely garrison inefficient.
2) Have Italy declare war on Hungary so they can DOW russia from Hungary. Very very gamey way to get Barb started.
3) Have Italy give all its resources to Germany.
None of these fixes are palatable to me. They all force very unhistoric activities, just to fix 'the stuff' problem. I haven't even gotten to force pool limitations which effectively prevent Germany from ever getting a 2:1 ratio of units on the border.
This issue has been analysed to death in wifdiscussion, with allied players favoring the rule, and axis players insisting on a house-rule or other agreement. Some people just want to play the game and dont care about the stuff.
On the other hand, I've only had a handful of games where I was ready to attack Russia with 80% of my army starting in May/Jun. The last one was prevented, thus the calculation of every unit on the map would be insufficient to break the pact came up. Allied player saw nothing convincing worth changing the rule, besides, he's winning the game because of it. When you are winning retarded rules somehow seem fair to a good chunk of people.
Many, many fixes have been proposed, but it seems that without agreement at the beginning of the game, there are going to be many rocky games in '41.
I'm not saying I don't like Sealion or Med, but being forced into them... that's another thing. I've been around since 4th edition, I've airlifted HQ's in mud, played on the 1d6 table, etc...
Theres nothing quite like being prevented from doing the largest most interesting battle of the war because the rules say so (even if you built for it from the beginning of the game). This is why I claim the rule is broken.
I agree completely, except I still like playing - either side. IMO the best fix is to get rid of the stuff and find ways to make Russia more viable in a 41 Barb. Because all the 41 Barbs I've seen have been Russian blow-outs. OTOH even if the stuff succeeds, a game with a 42 Barb can be exciting and fun to play for both sides and can be won by either side.
There was a thread on the Yahoo list that discussed ways to give Russia a better fighting chance in a 41 Barb. I know with the current rules Russia is likely gonzo in a 41 Barb, so as the Allies, I DoW Japan, build the Militia, and stuff unashamedly.
Is your disappointment with the state of the game that you can't steamroll the Russians and win with the Axis every time? Or is it that as Germany, you can't DoW Russia when you want? These are two different kettles of fish.
I've only had two ideas that would allow for *historical* Barbarossa, and they both seem rather fair to me... But cause gnashing of teeth among other people.
1) Allow Germany to DOW Russia: By changing the garrison ratio in J/A 41, instead of J/F 42. This will allow 1 turn of gauranteed good weather, and prevents the early attack in M/J or earlier. Many histories point to Yugoslavia and Greece being what delayed the initial start of Barb, which is why it may be too arbitrary.
or:
2) If the Axis controls the following capitals: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Belgrade, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Athens, and Bucharest; immediately reduce the garrison ratio to 1:1. This is a rather large concession, but follows historical logic.
Many other ideas out there though.
Most men can survive adversity, the true test of a man's character is power. -Abraham Lincoln
The goal of encouraging the Russians to defend at the border, is an almost impossible balancing act, and will not lead to anything good. Most solution will either make it so easy for Germany to break the pact, that Russia will never try to do it, or make it so hard that its almost automatic.
As for your suggestions:
1) Aside from the aesthetics issues of this, giving Germany additional chits risks helping in making it too easy for Germany to stuff the border later on. A fix for this, would be to require the extra chits to be used offensively only.
2) Same issues as 1)
3) Setting the ration to 3:2 could be a good solution, imo. To the allies' advantage, it would increase the number of units needed by germany to hold the garrison vs Russia in 1940. It would also make it easier for Russia to DOW later on. (all good, imo, though some sea lion fans may disagree).
4) This would remove issues like Russia DOW'ing Italy, building MIL, etc, though. But, I think this solution would either let Germany DOW almost every time, or be so hard that they would rarely try.
5) This is a possible solution. I have a bit of trouble seeing the motivaton for such a rule, since Germany didn't really have anything like Congress to stop the DOW. Besides, the final decision to do Barbarossa was done in 1940, not many months ahead of the actual operation. If stopped, it should happen then.
One suggestion, could be to give Germany an extra chit per turn after the conquest or vichification of France, until Germany is at war with the USA. After that, Germany draws no more chits.
This would represent the added confidence enjoyed by the Germans after getting their revenge on the French, while drastically boosting Russian confidence vs Germany after the US joins, since that would make victory virtually certain for the allies.
1) Allow Germany to DOW Russia: By changing the garrison ratio in J/A 41, instead of J/F 42. This will allow 1 turn of gauranteed good weather, and prevents the early attack in M/J or earlier. Many histories point to Yugoslavia and Greece being what delayed the initial start of Barb, which is why it may be too arbitrary.
or:
2) If the Axis controls the following capitals: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Belgrade, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Athens, and Bucharest; immediately reduce the garrison ratio to 1:1. This is a rather large concession, but follows historical logic.
Good ideas, Zorachus. I would propose to slightly alter them, though, as following:
1) Make this the general way to handle pact, ie have the ratio change every 6 turns instead of at the start of the year, but have it start at double value for defending garrison units, not at impossible to declare war. Assume that the M-R pact was made in J/A.
2) I would remove Brussels, Amsterdam, Belgrade, and Bucharest from the list, since these were mostly taken to reach the other ones, and don't really represent any achievements in themselves. Having Paris, Warzaw and Athens on the list should be enough.
This way, the axis could be tempted to take Greece from the sea/Albiania, which could, at least on occasion lead to the historical development of Axis slowdown in Greece, followed by the CW sending in 4 corps, and aligning Yugoslavia, followed by Germany marching through the balkans to secure Greece, possibly even sometimes delaying them a bit with regards to Barbarossa.
By doing this, the axis would have the opportunity to align all of the balkans. If they wanted to play safe, they could of course just DOW Yugoslavia instead.
ORIGINAL: paulderynck
Is your disappointment with the state of the game that you can't steamroll the Russians and win with the Axis every time? Or is it that as Germany, you can't DoW Russia when you want? These are two different kettles of fish.
Steamrolling Russia is something I have yet to see with the 2d10. My opinion is that the steamroll refer to happens more often with players of largely different skill; but that's a guess.
Answer: no
Am I dissapointed I can't DOW Russia when I want?
Answer: no, I'm not looking to DOW *whenever* I want.
However, when Germany has moved every spare unit to the Russian Front, and the rules say DOW is impossible primarily because your opponent has garbage units on the other side, I rebel. Germany can arbitrarily decalare on any country in the game except Russia... Why? I think there is some good logic to having a garrison to prevent gamey tactics (like just declaring war on russia to avoid suprize), but it doesn't justify a complete prevention of a '41 DOW.
The Soviet disposition did not prevent Germany declaring war historically, why should it in Wif? Because Russia gets blown out? I keep hearing 'russia gets blown out' as a defense of the idea that Germany shouldn't be allowed to attack Russia in '41. This is the worst reason I've ever heard.
In many years I've only seen the soviets conquered once, in '45. The weather was particularly abnormal. I've seen the russians mauled several times, pushed to the pacific several times, and also holding out until enough pressure is put on Germany/Italy to come back. We haven't even seen how the new map is going to affect war in the Urals etc...
*deep breath*
In the beginning, there were three stragies:
1) Sealion
2) Aligning or Fighting through Spain to Take Gibralter
3) Barb
As of the current ruleset only option #1 & #2 are really available when playing against a 'stuffer' like yourself. Making barb impossible ruins the game for me, others will have their own reaction.
Most men can survive adversity, the true test of a man's character is power. -Abraham Lincoln
A simple option could be to allow Germany to spend an Offensive chit to allow a DoW on Russia from M/J41 or perhaps J/A41 or later regardless of the garrison ratio.
Of course Germany could then just build an extra Offensive chit to use for this purpose but that would mean 15 BP of units less on the front so there is a real cost.
Lars
Please whatever you do it has to be an OPTIONAL RULE.
This is a fundamental untried change to a standard rule.
I thought we were waiting for WIFE.
Not some online version!
If this is soooooo bad why haven't ADG changed it?
Is it just possible that it is a case of the squeaky wheels getting the grease?
As you can tell I have concerns about this approach.
Before we change the game lets get it finished.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant but I will say what I said before.
If the game is brocken (and I din't think it is) why do so many people love it so much?
Regards John
Please whatever you do it has to be an OPTIONAL RULE.
This is a fundamental untried change to a standard rule.
I thought we were waiting for WIFE.
Not some online version!
If this is soooooo bad why haven't ADG changed it?
Is it just possible that it is a case of the squeaky wheels getting the grease?
As you can tell I have concerns about this approach.
Before we change the game lets get it finished.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant but I will say what I said before.
If the game is brocken (and I din't think it is) why do so many people love it so much?
Regards John
John,
I was quite clear that this would be an optional rule and it had to be easy to implement (5 minutes or less). My reasons for that parallel the concerns you stated.
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Maybe the way to get around the uncertainty of untried solutions is make any change data driven. That is, a CSV (comma separated value) file would 'hold' the data related to the change. Then players could tweak that file as they desire.
A slightly more difficult to code change would be to have a form appear when this optional rule is chosen. The player would enter the 'numbers' he wants to use. I need to do the latter for the "Extended end of game" optional rule, which is why I haven't coded that yet. Once I have it done for extendeding the game, I'd just clone the form for the "Neutrality Pact restrictions" optional rule.
Thanks for the reply Steve.
Just had to put my 2 cents worth in.
Yes an optional (if it is really need is fine by me).
Keep up the good work.
Regards John
There are a lot of ideas out there on how to change the pact rules. Yet after all these years, none of them have been published by ADG.
The simplest one is this: an agreement before the game starts to not do this as the Russians. It can even be done before bidding if you are going that route. I for one, enjoy playing the Russians and am not afraid of a 1941 Barbarossa. In fact I find a 41 Barb to be a more enjoyable game as it is one featuring more mobile action and less solid lines for both sides. You really have to have faith in your western Allies to feel this way however. I am also one that feels the game overall favors the Allies slightly, and that Russia can survive a strong Barbarossa if all of the Allies are skilled players. Many would disagree with those points, particularly the second one.
I would suggest only this for MWiF: giving the players some control in this area. For the AI, a 'no-stuff' agreement should be something a player could pick. I can about guarantee that if the AI were to stuff the border against a brand new WiF player who has managed to subdue France on time on his first try and get everything ready in Poland and then that player were to learn how those pact braking rules he skimmed over really worked, that player would be pretty unhappy with his new wargame, kind of like how I felt playing Eastern Front:1941 on my Atari computer 20 years ago when I learned the computer player benefitted from perpetually increasing unit strengths, while mine stayed the same. I know Steve does not want to give the players ways to tie the AI's hands, and I agree with that, but as you can see from Zorach's first post today, this is a very important point among long-time players of the game. In an all-human-players game, I don't think anything would need to be done by the program, the players can work it out amongst themselves just as in table-top WiF.
Aside from that, I wouldn't suggest attempting to change this rule in the first computer edition of the game.
Zorach, it's too bad you don't have a player group that can make this issue work for you. Perhaps you could try playing the Russians a few times and agree not to stuff, to get some games in that way. If you are an "Axis Player" you really should try playing the Allies more anyway. It will improve your Axis play in the process.
Wouldn't an easier/better tweek be to apply a %modifier to the garrison chits? That's an easy thing for the computer to do.
All you really have to do is get a hold of Harry and ask him: "Presuming the Russians and Germans are both maximizing their garrison values, and presuming average German casualties and time frame for the fall of France and the Balkens, what percentage chance should the Germans have of breaking the pact in M/J '41, and in J/A '41?
"Part of the $10 million I spent on gambling, part on booze and part on women. The rest I spent foolishly." - George Raft
