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The obscure rules are not so obscure...they're actually very simple and as i already said the real difficulty lies in the choices you must take in the background to make your strategy work. The die rolls are hidden normally, meaning you see the combat taking place and the hits/misses and losses but if you want you can investigate on every single die roll in a detailed view of how each unit performed.

Luckily, the system in all its complexity is very intuitive, which means, making a long story short, that you can intuitively know already what's gonna happen in combat. As always enemy is a factor. When you invade your opponent, a reaction phase spawns and your opponent will convey more troops to action.

Following the example of why the choices are difficult, a good player will have assembled good-led forces and so, most of these newjoiners will be able to affect the upcoming battle.

Terrain and weather do affect combat, do not forget that units also acquire both combat attrition and experience. You see just 6 unit types (land units) but these land units have different factors + 1 critical factor...the fact they have been spotted or not (unspotted units have critical advantages when joining battle with strong modifiers on their die rolls). Add to this the leadership effects and you see that with just 6 units, the game is already "complex".

As of the politics, there's a higher-level political side with choices to take when invading border states. All the game is about politics because you win-lose according to political points. USA must choose when to invade border states and according to WHEN, it pays a different cost in PP.

The losses in Political points, coming from commerce raiding (CSA) territory loss, invading a border states, combat victories/defeats, might not allow USA to have Lincoln re-elected or emancipation to be proclaimed. It is something you do not see at the beginning of the war but that proclaim the victor in the end. You can see Pyle's and Joel's AAR: Pyle is now compelled to move ahead faster and a defeat under these circumstances could prove fatal because the gap is very thin.

And the gap is not casual.

Terrain and weather do affect combat

Winter effects were mentioned. Does this vary by region? IOW, are they more severe in Indiana than, say, Florida?

ORIGINAL: grarap

Hey all. I would make a joke about wargame fans and virginity, but I'd probably just be indicting myself, as a self-confessed nerd. I caught sight of the WbtS promo video on a gaming site, was mightily intrigued and found my way here. By my single post count, you've probably guessed that I'm not a war gaming buff, although I played risk and chess as a child and enjoy the odd game of Civilisation IV. Problem is that I was never very good at any of the three (my best Civ IV leader ranking is 'Dan Quayle' - utterly abysmal [:(]), and so I'm slightly concerned that this game is going to go straight over my head. Can any one of you wargaming veterans or developers reassure me that WbtS is going to be simple to pick up (although not necessarily master) and fun to play for fans of other turn-based strategy games? To those testers ([&o]): is the game merely cold, hard logic and maneuvering, or is there real excitement in watching battles unfold and commanding your little troops march around the world map? I really can't wait for the release!

Regards, Raph

IMO it would make things a lot easier to learn complex wargames (or any game for that matter) if the developers would incorparate the game manual as part of the game, accessable via a hotkey. Having trouble? hit "M" read the manual, continue on. In this way the manual could be easily updated when the game is patched.

I hate and despise PDF manuals and the newer printed manuals have to be read under a microscope and a 150W bulb.

Since WBTS runs as a windowed application, you can have the PDF manual open, zoomed to whatever view is good for you and switch from game to manual without any problems whatsoever. Also, I think the four in-game tutorials and 18 video tutorials will help a bit. [8D]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Since WBTS runs as a windowed application, you can have the PDF manual open, zoomed to whatever view is good for you and switch from game to manual without any problems whatsoever. Also, I think the four in-game tutorials and 18 video tutorials will help a bit. [8D]

Christ Jesus, I hope so. [:D]

ORIGINAL: Old Eagle101


I hate and despise PDF manuals and the newer printed manuals have to be read under a microscope and a 150W bulb.

LOL, I agree always print the PDF manuals in A4 format pages.

As to the game learning curve it's not easy but anyone cand learn it if others did, Apollo11 one of the beta testers put it this way:

#1
Read the manual (yes - RTFM)

#2
Watch all videos

#3
Play tutorials

#4
Play scenarios


We all know that most of players usually "dive head first" to #4 without following the #1, #2 and #3 above but this will be rather hard with GGWbtS...

To which I added

I would dare saying that even after reading the manual, watching all videos, and playing tutorials, this three point process should be repeated before having any chance to beat the AI
This game has so many little details that it's going to be hard to grasp at first hand.

As an alpha/beta tester I had a hard time grasping the game procedures at the begining, but what you people are going to get has nothing to do with the alpha versions back in february/march 2007 the game is now a gem and is open to many possibilities, Jon Pyle did a surprising one to me him playing the CSA and me the Union, won't spill the beans on this one though [;)]

Resuming you will probably need to go over the Manual, and videos several times, if you guys have played AWD or WAW you may skip the tutorials, but not the manual and videos, Joel has done a wonderful work with them.