Matrix Games Forums

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:56 am**

Probably not the best place for this story but since this thread seems to have derailed onto the VP-Express line...

We were playing a game of Empire in Arms and I was Austria. Noting that I was about to lose Vienna to the French on an economic turn, and not wanting to lose the negative VP's (and economics) I put a couple corps with only 1 factor of infantry in them to block. Since the game doesn't allow 'overruns' and all combats at 5-1 or more must be trivial (no vps awarded), I was risking very little.

My opponent, when he figured out what I did, was furious. But the rules were on my side.

Next game, as luck would have it, I was the French, and he was the Prussians. He gleefully stated he was going to block me from Berlin by scattering 1 point corps in my way.

So I set up a few small armies of 3inf/1cav and fought them. At 4-1 it was a real combat that he could not win (too small to inflict casualties) and I got vp's for winning them. More then the fall of Berlin would have given me.

The point is a real competitive person does not complain about the vp system. He finds ways to make the vp system work for him. Life isn't fair...the trick is to make it unfair in your favour.

And I am not sure why people make a big deal about the -1000 vp rule. It is easy to avoid, anybody who wants to can take 10 hexes in Northern Europe. Hell..there are 3 islands that the Germans cant even hold that are included in this. So that makes 7 hexes on Mainland. You have 8 amphibs. Tell me again how you cant take 10 hexes.

Conversely...what stops the Allied player from sitting on England and the good defensive terrain of Italy and just bombing the Reich for victory? The fact that he has to invade sometime or suffer the number of points he probably would have got bombing.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:14 am**

sry for slightly OT

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

(1.) How many attempts (read: full releases) had WitP AE before? At least two: UV, WitP, now Witp AE...

For the record, AE was not designed by GG and 2x3. It was done by Henderson Field, on essentially a volunteer basis. It built on WITP, but it is massively more than WITP was.

it was NOT the first attempt, that's my point. WitE/W _should_ have been more polished, that's true, no doubt.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/apple2/wa ... Id,603113/
Remember that?

Taking all of China is very difficult...
noooo, surviving Pelton in 1941/42 is difficult. LOL
Let's disagree here (in this minor point). Or, better: It's very hard to win for Japan, but not impossible...

AE's job is much harder than WitW's. ... It has a production system and economy. It starts at the start, so the player controls the full war. Nobody would play it if it started in mid-1043 with Midway baked into the IJN OOB. I think that's WitW's biggest error.

agree, good point. OP Torch would have been a much better starting point, but - oh well, Moose, what would happen if the Axis retreat the Africa Corps back to Sicily, hmm?
200'ooo elite troopers for the defense of Italy. Holy crap! What means Monte Cassino in Sicily, but without the German Paras, which would stay in the Reich as strategic reserve - and ready for Normandy...
Yes, you got it - no easy Husky. And endless problems in balancing.

You got my point: It's all about balance. Did it really matter if Japan strike at PH or Manilla first? If they sink zero or eight old ships? Or twenty subs? No, not really in the long run.
Japan will run out of fuel + supply, the US could even loose nearly all their starting oob including the CVs in a reverse Midway and still winning.

You could Japan allow to field fighters like Georges months earlier and in absurd higher quantities - it won't change anything in the long run: Japan is a paper tiger in comparison to Germany. And don't forget Stalin: Bomb the Sturmgeschutz factories too early and the Eifeltower get a fancy red star...

... But the only political date in the game really is the A-bomb arrival, and even that is variable by a couple of months. The rest is a blank sheet of paper.
good point!

So let us think how to transfer this in WiTW!

While we could certeinly agree that it is not neccesary to track the personal sickness of every pilot in the European theatre, maybe some flair is lost with being to abtractive. The player should hate the subs and rockets instead of the victory points.

This is desperate race against losses, against a fanatic dictator and against an iron curtain.
It's a race against time.

The aim should not be victory points, but to liberate as much of Europe as possible - including Berlin, Vienna and/or Belgrad.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:33 am**

I'll try and explain some of *my* angst just my personal opinion as to why I ignore the VP thing and just play away knowing when I have won lost or drawn. In the first instance war is subject to the political some Prussian military thinker claimed, well the elephant in the room for me is Adolf Hitler before I start thinking about political constraints on Allied Commanders I just can't take them that seriously and then have the servants of collective decision making, infallible logistics and enormous leadership ratings flock round my beachhead and I'm powerless to stop it. The reality was the Allies used all their creative imagination to make mugs out of Potsdams finest.

Harris by his own admission could not find a factory in 43 let alone bomb it. I'm not really sure the morning after Cologne, Rostock,Lubeck, Essen or Hamburg he was censured for missing a U Boat yard. Incidently Himmler was made interior minister after Hamburg so it did have a political effect though not a modelled one. The political debate on strategic bombing in 43 was purely doctrinal, Precision Bombing (sic) v Area Bombing. Area bombing ain't modelled. So my angst is Im forced to a non historical campaign against abstract forces like U-Boats and a perfectly understandable campaign though thoroughly abstract one against V Weapons. When V weapons fail and are destroyed by my Bombers does faith in final victory end and the Axis sue for peace? After all if it was not Hitler then they would be rational, right? I just can't get round that Elephant, sorry.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:13 pm**

ORIGINAL: Helpless
Wait.. he was already involved and designed VP system.. hmm. [8|]

Obviously I know that since I own 7 or 8 of those games. Its not what I meant. I was talking about someone working more with the game to player interaction and vice versa which the entire post was about.

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

I´m not sure I´m following you. The link you posted is the thread where Joel said "we are not going to change it"? As I interpreted Joel in that thread there were no plans to change anything besides the actual numbers. Balancing and nothing else. Nowhere in that thread does anyone including Joel say anything about possible revamp of the system. In fact Joel specifically said it won´t happen and also said that there will be no alternative VP campaign.

I interpreted Helpless comment that there might be possible to change the VP system via the editor in the future. It was to that my comment was directed...

I´m not really sure where the rest came from? I wasn´t aware I hadn´t been providing constructive criticism (as I always try and add my own suggestions) and I sure as heck wasn´t aware I was making "threats". Do I believe you lost sales because of the VP system? Absolutely. Is that a threat saying so?

Its actually a day or so since I posted that and not 3 weeks...but here you go.

- Remove the penalty all together
- Base it number of hexes controlled.
- Based on total hexes controlled on mainland Europe (including Italy)
- Sliding scale increasing until 10 hexes met.
- Increase the number of hexes needed per week. Start with 2.
- Lower the penalty so its no longer a game over affair
- Base it on locations like Paris/Rome instead of just number of hexes. Obviously the dates will have to change.

There you have a few... all of them I think are better then just slamming -1000 VPs in the face of someone who might have spent a couple of months with a game. I´ve already explained in detail why I believe such a penalty is a incredible bad one.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:38 pm**

agree, good point. OP Torch would have been a much better starting point, but - oh well, Moose, what would happen if the Axis retreat the Africa Corps back to Sicily, hmm?
200'ooo elite troopers for the defense of Italy. Holy crap! What means Monte Cassino in Sicily, but without the German Paras, which would stay in the Reich as strategic reserve - and ready for Normandy...
Yes, you got it - no easy Husky. And endless problems in balancing.

If the Germans leave 200k troops on Sicily they're going to get really hungry...

Any VP considerations are going to be subjective and unquestionable viewed with different levels of acceptance. I like hearing people spell out their preferences and suggestions.
I'd also like to see some games played out so we can measure these things with more than conjecture.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:48 pm**

I was talking about someone working more with the game to player interaction and vice versa which the entire post was about.

That "someone" was Joel, another game designer "amateur" since 1979.

I wasn´t aware I hadn´t been providing constructive criticism (as I always try and add my own suggestions) and I sure as heck wasn´t aware I was making "threats".

You are not creating any threats nor there is a way to calculate lost sales if there was any. I think in opposite such discussions generate sales. Nothing hurts more than careless players. The only reason I post here is because there are still some good constructive proposals and ideas out there, although covered by the layer of personal drama and emotions, which is always possible to filter out.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 1:50 pm**

ORIGINAL: Helpless
although covered by the layer of personal drama and emotions, which is always possible to filter out.

Now, that is funny! [:)]

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 4:15 pm**

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[font="Verdana"]Turn 16 and 17.[/font]
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Very little happening. BC bomber pools which I thought was fine suddenly crashed when a bunch of Lanc Squadrons arrive empty. I think it was 6 squadrons arriving without a single plane. [X(] Halifaxes are gone although I have some Libs I can upgrade too.

Got some very nice US 72 BGs arriving though to compensate. I´ll probably do the same thing as I did in my game with Pelton. Send BC down to the Med to save planes and and make 2-3 "8ths" using BC, 8th and Fighter Command. At least during winter.

Fighter pools are still critical but looking a little better with the next P47 and P51s coming online. The pools they worked up with was enough to refill empty squadrons and a little extra left.

We cleared Sardinia. I´m going to try a mainland Italy landing soon. My initial plan was simply to not do it and eat the 400 VP penalty. But it would make it a boring winter and with my planes having little to do in Europe I can use the landings to try and lure the LW out. I´ll just go in quickly and see if he moves his planes in and pull back out when his Panzers show up.

No screens as I simply forgot. [:)]

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 4:59 pm**

We cleared Sardinia.

Was there a German fight for Sardinia, or did he just leave the Italian garrisons to get swept away?

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2015 2:08 am**

ORIGINAL: Seminole

We cleared Sardinia.

Was there a German fight for Sardinia, or did he just leave the Italian garrisons to get swept away?

He had at least one FJ Rgt on the island. But in truth he didn´t really need to fight much. With the LW closing the beach for 4 weeks I was stalled anyway.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2015 6:38 am**

______________________________________________________________________________

[font="Verdana"]Turn 18.[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Got a turn done last night. Not much to report. Weather prevented me from flying last turn. British V Corps land with 2 IDs on Corsica. I expect heavy resistance.

Sorry for the lack of up proper updates. Lack of motivation and things to report.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2015 10:29 am**

Setting up this way would just replace one headache with another.

Trey

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

No EF box. Allies can only invade the Med until 1/44.

Just started working on the dreadful 1st turn....While I appreciate historical accuracy sometimes I wish devs would just set things up so they make sense rather then reflect history.

Just spent about 2 hours with the air force and I´m about 30% done...[>:]

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2015 10:37 am**

ORIGINAL: el hefe
Setting up this way would just replace one headache with another.
Trey

You are probably right. I guess it comes with doing the 1st turn that you always wish it had been set up the way you want it from the beginning. [:)]

At least it doesn´t take a couple of days like the 1st AE turn...

Posted: **Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:24 am**

Game has reached 1/44. I´ll get around to doing an update...eventually. [:)]

Posted: **Fri May 08, 2015 1:46 pm**

Game ended on mutual agreement. Neither of us had any motivation and after a 4 day break due to RL stuff I just couldn´t bring myself to do another turn. Luckily Meklore wasn´t very eager to continue either.

End score +255. Allies landed around Brest in late may and holds some 20 hexes + 2/3rds of Italy. Was going to write a long post about my thoughts on WitW but I can´t even motivate myself to do that. I made my thoughts pretty clear in other posts.

I´ll check out WitE 2.0 when its released but I won´t buy on release and I most certainly will never EVER again pay almost 100 Euro. Not unless its WitP 2. For that I would pay almost anything! [;)]

Big thank you to Meklore. You are a blast and a perfect opponent! [&o]

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Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

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RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)

RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax)