MWIF Expansions

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: composer99

Incidentally, I volunteer to do the newbie advice write-up for 3.4.10 Production.

Please do so. Thank you. And anyone else who wants to chip in a few words of 'wisdom?'
===
Just remember that we don't want these to be neither too short nor too long, but Goldilocks perfection in between. We want new players to read these and gain some 'important' insight into how to play the game, without being overwhelmed by a ton of advice. I guess rules of thumb might be very useful.

There has to be some heft to make reading the section worthwhile, and there will probably have to be some things specific to major powers/theaters of operation. Best is advice that applies to all major powers, and I suggest leading with that/those paragraph(s). Then follow with specifics for major powers/theaters of operation, if needed. In some cases there might be a need for specifics for scenarios, though I expect that if we can do a good job on providing advice for Global War/Barbarossa/Guadalcanal that will be sufficient.

I lack time to do that from scratch right now, but if someone posts his writings, I can add my insight to it.

[YohanTM2]

Completly agree which is why I vote for DoD I. It was fun, easy to reset the game if there was a major error and once the war started did not eat way too much extra time.

ORIGINAL: composer99

When my group has played DoD, we've found it to be fun, but we found the game was almost invariably broken by 1940-41, which means we don't get the real fun late-war stuff going on.

[brian brian]

ORIGINAL: GordianKnot

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I think it was Fred Zimmerman who pointed out awhile back that it will be a joy to play the game on a touch screen...this is close to being a reality:

HP Releases touch-screen laptop


Think about how nice it will be to move the 'counters' around on a screen without a mouse....

The tough thing about a touch screen is it has no way to represent mouse movement without the button being down.

On a touch screen, the mouse is always 'clicked'. I just got done working on a touch screen ap and this caused us much grief! Its very difficult to develop an interface for that.

Such interfaces are coming along nicely and I don't think this will be a problem (based on how slick the touch interface on my iPhone is). 'Clicking' can be accomplished by other gestures fairly simply such as simply keeping your finger on an object to move and dragging it somewhere. I look forward to purchasing a full sized touch screen tablet PC sometime in 2010 perhaps, since I just bought a high-end laptop in early '08.



What I'd like to see in MWiF expansions is drawing one Harry Rowland into the design process. World in Flames is a fantastic design triumph of playability. But a lot of the playability comes at the expense of realism trade-offs that are less necessary on a computer. Attritional losses, the area movement system, and the whole I-Go-You-Go approach are just a few things that could be dialed in with greater detail with a computer handling the bookkeeping. Instead of a never-ending set of expansions to catch MWiF up to a paper-and-cardboard based game that can't harness the power of computers and always has to make trade-offs to avoid player 'bookkeeping', I'd like to see the MWiF franchise truly develop the game into ever greater degrees of realism yet without sacrificing playability. If MWiF doesn't do this, someone else will.

Perhaps an ultimate dream would be to 'sublet' some of the battles, especially the naval battles. When the MWiF 3.0 strategic engine has determined a tactical battle will occur, it could set up a scenario for a head-to-head naval combat game...sending that off via the net for resolution; such battles could be sublet into ever smaller slices by handing off the activity of a single dive-bomber to a single player flying the plane in a first-person-flight-shooter type game that draws in all of the other pilots in an air battle. If I understand things correctly, this is already happening with first-person-shooter type games being played by multiple players simultaneously. The MWiF players could handle the tactical batles, or, much like real strategic commanders, they could nervously await to see what their subordinate admirals accomplish. The long-term strategic war systems of the Subs<>Merchant Shipping and Bombing<>Industrial Production could be handled by 'subcontractor' games as well. The players playing MWiF would make the resource decisions on how many planes/subs to build and how often they fly/sail (basic decisions in WiF) and these could then be the input parameters for the other game; as that sub-game progressed the results could be passed up to the top-level strategic game. I don't think such a system could work on land due to the huge variability of battle locales, but perhaps even here again ever more powerful computer systems could handle the necessary map creation. Teams could develop to play games like this, with promotions for successful tactical commanders. Companies like Matrix have a lot of opportunity to link their products together a bit more.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I think it was Fred Zimmerman who pointed out awhile back that it will be a joy to play the game on a touch screen...this is close to being a reality:

HP Releases touch-screen laptop


Think about how nice it will be to move the 'counters' around on a screen without a mouse....

Microsoft says his next operating system (coming end 2009) will also support such a feature.

[Anendrue]

excerpt from the full quote

I'd like to see the MWiF franchise truly develop the game into ever greater degrees of realism yet without sacrificing playability. If MWiF doesn't do this, someone else will.

The new Hearts of Iron 3 (HOI3) seems to be doing exactly that. Although HOI and HOI2 both left a lot to be desired in many aspects, who knows about HOI3. However, it will have approximately 10,000 land areas alone compared to MWIF with 10,000+ total hexes. So the maps should be similiar in scope and size. Granted the two games are very different in gaming style and approach. Personally I prefer the traditional "I go You go" approach of MWIF. Due out 3rd Quarter of 2009 the HOI3 forums are here. Between these two games my battle lust for WWII strategic games might be satisfied for a couple of years.

[micheljq]

What I dislike with HOI, it is not turn based. Though I respect what they do. [:'(]

Because of that, personally I do not see HOI as fitting in the same PC game category as MWiF, even if the two are about WW2. Not judging if it is better or worse.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: brian brian



Perhaps an ultimate dream would be to 'sublet' some of the battles, especially the naval battles. When the MWiF 3.0 strategic engine has determined a tactical battle will occur, it could set up a scenario for a head-to-head naval combat game...sending that off via the net for resolution; such battles could be sublet into ever smaller slices by handing off the activity of a single dive-bomber to a single player flying the plane in a first-person-flight-shooter type game that draws in all of the other pilots in an air battle. If I understand things correctly, this is already happening with first-person-shooter type games being played by multiple players simultaneously. The MWiF players could handle the tactical batles, or, much like real strategic commanders, they could nervously await to see what their subordinate admirals accomplish. The long-term strategic war systems of the Subs<>Merchant Shipping and Bombing<>Industrial Production could be handled by 'subcontractor' games as well. The players playing MWiF would make the resource decisions on how many planes/subs to build and how often they fly/sail (basic decisions in WiF) and these could then be the input parameters for the other game; as that sub-game progressed the results could be passed up to the top-level strategic game. I don't think such a system could work on land due to the huge variability of battle locales, but perhaps even here again ever more powerful computer systems could handle the necessary map creation. Teams could develop to play games like this, with promotions for successful tactical commanders. Companies like Matrix have a lot of opportunity to link their products together a bit more.

This is a great dream and wouldn't it be fun to try to organize.

Kind of like EVE for WWII!

It reminds me of a short story about an independently wealthy guy who bougt a 1:1 scale WWII game.

At the very least, there is no limit to the possibilities.


<Sarcasm>
Steve, it sounds like you have job security for the next century or so. [;)]
</Sarcasm>

[brian brian]

I just don't see the point in continuing to develop wargames on a computer with the playability trade-offs inherent in paper gaming. Real military commanders never had the luxury of I-Go-You-Go and I look forward to playing operational/strategic games with simultaneous orders resolution. I'm not in to live-action first person shooters though. The only game I would want to play in 'real-time' would be at about the battalion or perhaps company level. (The Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers" is a great prototype for the decisons one should be making in a tactical game). I used to play a lot of Squad Leader (actually just lots and lots of Cross of Iron), but burned out on the overly-generous command control given to the players. But above that level I think it would be nice for each side to tell their units what to do for the next hour/4 hours/12 hours/day/week/2-weeks and then let the computer work out what happens in that time period. So if your invasion force sails for Truk while the Combined Fleet decides to cut the supply routes to Australia once and for all, there is no battle. In WiF the IJN and the USN each sit there until the other commits since each player has near God-like Intell on what the enemy is doing.

[brian brian]

Oh and I think linking a strategic WWII game to become a scenario generator for a tactical WWII naval game is a no-brainer that should be fairly simple to coordinate across two game systems. Instead of the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst rolling search dice from the 2 box in the North Atlantic against the Ramillies and the Sheffield in the 0 Box with 10 Convoy Points, tell the other game to start with the two German ships sailing past the Faeroes and the various Royal Navy forces in their places and see what happens. You have to wait a couple days to see if they make it back to Brest or Bergen in one piece.

But I have no clue what kinds of tactical naval games are out there. I've always wanted to play a computerized version of AH's "Flat Top" but have never taken the time to look into the market to see what title could accomplish this.

[panzers]

I would love to see someone come out with a pc version of ETO/PTO. That is another grand scale WW2 strategy game that is best known for their naval rules.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

Oh and I think linking a strategic WWII game to become a scenario generator for a tactical WWII naval game is a no-brainer that should be fairly simple to coordinate across two game systems. Instead of the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst rolling search dice from the 2 box in the North Atlantic against the Ramillies and the Sheffield in the 0 Box with 10 Convoy Points, tell the other game to start with the two German ships sailing past the Faeroes and the various Royal Navy forces in their places and see what happens. You have to wait a couple days to see if they make it back to Brest or Bergen in one piece.

But I have no clue what kinds of tactical naval games are out there. I've always wanted to play a computerized version of AH's "Flat Top" but have never taken the time to look into the market to see what title could accomplish this.

There is the game "Seakrieg" where you were simulating naval battles on the floor with a rule. More like a paper & pen game. I think it may still be available.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I just don't see the point in continuing to develop wargames on a computer with the playability trade-offs inherent in paper gaming. Real military commanders never had the luxury of I-Go-You-Go and I look forward to playing operational/strategic games with simultaneous orders resolution. I'm not in to live-action first person shooters though. The only game I would want to play in 'real-time' would be at about the battalion or perhaps company level. (The Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers" is a great prototype for the decisons one should be making in a tactical game). I used to play a lot of Squad Leader (actually just lots and lots of Cross of Iron), but burned out on the overly-generous command control given to the players. But above that level I think it would be nice for each side to tell their units what to do for the next hour/4 hours/12 hours/day/week/2-weeks and then let the computer work out what happens in that time period. So if your invasion force sails for Truk while the Combined Fleet decides to cut the supply routes to Australia once and for all, there is no battle. In WiF the IJN and the USN each sit there until the other commits since each player has near God-like Intell on what the enemy is doing.

You should try Matrix's Uncommon Valor, which simulates naval battles of WW2 in the Pacific, i think the Coral Sea campaign. I think there is a fog of war so you don't have the godling intel on what the enemy do. My friend has the game and he enjoys it. There is already many titles wargames that have the simultaneous orders resolution and the fog of war. In fact, and since many years, most of the wargames titles for PC have those. The turn based PC titles wargames are very few.

[Anendrue]

Seakrieg was great for WWI battles on a 10x16 foot table or floor with 1:2400 models. WWII carrier air ops made the area needed much larger or you had to change the scale.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: abj9562

Seakrieg was great for WWI battles on a 10x16 foot table or floor with 1:2400 models. WWII carrier air ops made the area needed much larger or you had to change the scale.

This sounds quite interesting. IMO wif needs a better way to represent some specific types of operations. The naval combat charts seem to be excellent, but what I would change is exactly where units could and could not participate in combat. Naval moves should be on a hex level, so that LBA can correctly be used. I know wif abstracts things, but the naval box abstraction is the least effective in specific instances. The naval box makes sense for searches, but not moving through areas. The ability of a range 4 nav interdicting any traffic within a sea area the size of texas is quite insane, particularly when missions would never have been launched or come within range of said nav unit's port.

Naval moves with aircraft also allow the player to completely avoid 'realistic' rebases. There are many 'impossible' rebases that can be done if you simply move an aircraft to a seabox.

Additionally, Movement through the english channel as a result of ships RTB'ing to Brest is wildly unrealistic. A very similar mechanic applys to the Baltic via Frederikshavn.

Ships that were in construction during the war were struck in shipyards. Unlike land units and air units, a naval asset under construction should be placed in the port it's being constructed in - and be a potential target for Port Attack.

Damaged ships should similarly return to base and stay in that port until repaired.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: abj9562

Seakrieg was great for WWI battles on a 10x16 foot table or floor with 1:2400 models. WWII carrier air ops made the area needed much larger or you had to change the scale.

This sounds quite interesting. IMO wif needs a better way to represent some specific types of operations. The naval combat charts seem to be excellent, but what I would change is exactly where units could and could not participate in combat. Naval moves should be on a hex level, so that LBA can correctly be used. I know wif abstracts things, but the naval box abstraction is the least effective in specific instances. The naval box makes sense for searches, but not moving through areas. The ability of a range 4 nav interdicting any traffic within a sea area the size of texas is quite insane, particularly when missions would never have been launched or come within range of said nav unit's port.

Naval moves with aircraft also allow the player to completely avoid 'realistic' rebases. There are many 'impossible' rebases that can be done if you simply move an aircraft to a seabox.

Additionally, Movement through the english channel as a result of ships RTB'ing to Brest is wildly unrealistic. A very similar mechanic applys to the Baltic via Frederikshavn.

Ships that were in construction during the war were struck in shipyards. Unlike land units and air units, a naval asset under construction should be placed in the port it's being constructed in - and be a potential target for Port Attack.

Damaged ships should similarly return to base and stay in that port until repaired.

Doing away with the Construction pool and Repair pool would be rather easy to code (though I am not volunteering to do that for MWIF product 1).

1 - There already is a status indicator for damaged naval units and adding another for those in construction would be trivial. So they can easily be depicted.

2 - Likewise, placing the units on the map could be done during the return to base phase for damaged units and during the reinforcement phase for half-built units. So they can easily be placed on the map.

3 - Moving half constructed naval units would be prohibited. Damaged units could be moved by only from port to port, with maybe a reduced range. So movement wouldn't be hard to code.

4 - Both damaged and half-constructed shouldn't count towards stacking, or perhaps could only be placed in a major port?

5 - Then that last piece is that they would be vulnerable to port attacks and being overrun.

None of this is very hard to do.

[Anendrue]

While using miniature rules to fight tactical battles in a grand strategy game is a lot of&nbsp;fun. I do not think it would be feasible in MWIF or many other&nbsp;large scale&nbsp;games. Computer versions would work but then again you lose the fun of miniatures and tactical battles IMHO. WitP comes to mind as a computer version that does this. However it&nbsp;feels like micro management at best.&nbsp;I have done miniature battles for the ACW&nbsp;with A House Divided&nbsp;and various ACW rule sets (different sets depending on the size of the battle). For WWII it might make sense in a limited theater of operations. i.e. Italy,&nbsp;North Africa, etc... I think it would be too unwieldy to refight the eastern front or the Chinese theater. Naval operations could be redone with Seakrieg but WWII would slow to a crawl and a game could easily take years. After all Seakrieg battles could take several&nbsp;hours to complete depending on the complexity of the scenario.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Ships that were in construction during the war were struck in shipyards. Unlike land units and air units, a naval asset under construction should be placed in the port it's being constructed in - and be a potential target for Port Attack.

Damaged ships should similarly return to base and stay in that port until repaired.

Likewise for bottomed ships being repaired. All ships being repaired should stay in port and be targets for potential port attacks or overrun by land units. Could be added in MWiF2.

[composer99]

I believe this mechanism is somewhat accounted for by Factories in Flames, which I imagine will either be a component of future versions of MWiF or part of an MWiF 'expansion pack'.

[brian brian]

Factories in Flames does begin to keep ships in defined locations, in particular the ones under construction. I've only read the rule-set and haven't played it yet, but iirc it backs off a little bit on keeping damaged ships on the map at all times and still uses some teleportation-like moves to Repair Pools.


Using WiF to generate scenarios for other games would be quite time-consuming, yes. But keep in mind that a full 39-45 email/net game is already going to take a good long time to start with....I'd say at least a year on average. So that's why I dreamed up the idea of linking it to a smaller-scale game. Each time a sea area is activated in WiF seems like a new naval scenario.


I think the system I would like to see re-designed the most is the sea-zone system. It really is a triumph of playability, very elegant modeling of time, space, and the fortunes of war, when the player's have to handle all administration using paper and cardboard. But the interaction with land-based air is indeed fairly insane at times from a realism point of view, though it has been getting better. (Remember when Truk was contained within a single sea-zone and the Americans could land on say South Georgia and pretty much blockade the place from over 1,000 miles away with land-based air?) Still any of the most-used sea-zones tend to offer up regular reality problems when land-based air is involved. Moving to a hex-based system along with simultaneous movement would greatly improve it all. I would love to play a game like that which also includes WiF's marvelous production system. I won't consider playing strategic WWII games with rigid historical reinforcement schedules after playing WiF for so long.

[composer99]

I believe there have been a few passes at a hex-based naval system in WiF; you might browse the archives of the WiF discussion list at Yahoo! Groups; possibly some folks have it up on websites.
&nbsp;
While a lot of people have pointed out that the seabox mechanic can generate feast-or-famine results in sub vs. convoy battles, I think that one would want to retain WiF's sea area system for strategic naval movement (convoys, moving ships/loaded transports from port to friendly port) and adopt a hex-based system for tactical movement (blockading ports, amphibious assaults, port strikes and the like). Imagine literally having to move convoy points from port to port to ensure resources get in!