3 years and nothing changed

SPWaW is a tactical squad-level World War II game on single platoon or up to an entire battalion through Europe and the Pacific (1939 to 1945).

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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

It not cool to lose all your Tigers to a squadron of Hawker Typhoons. Ten strike elements with rocket ammunition makes war much easier for Monty.
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Swamprat
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Swamprat »

It's not cool to lose all your Shermans to a squadron of Tigers.

And it's not as if the Typhoons are free.

And who said anything about ten?

The implication of course is that it takes no great skill to paralyse your opponent with artillery or destroy his tanks with airpower. But it takes no great skill to pick off allied tanks with impunity with a Tiger or something similar.

PBEM restrictions are meant to make a game fairer, but some people's idea of what's fair does sometimes only involve what their opponent may have and not what they might purchase themselves.
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

If I play Western allies, I never go anywhere without at least ten strike elements and that about a squadron, I think. I meant that sentence "It's not cool..." to be taken as irony.
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Swamprat
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Swamprat »

And the ten strike elements, please tell me that's irony too. I mean, TEN??![X(]


[;)]
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

I think its useful on long campaign. If it's a defensive mission and you're just too tired to move all the pieces, so why don't let the RAF lads handle the situation?

The air power was even more effective in one Japan vs. China battle. Jap groundforces hardly even encountered the enemy...
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duskdeep
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by duskdeep »

I haven't been browsing this forum for a while so I kind of lost track of all the posts.
Late as it is, I would like to add some information, from what I personally know.
So...Romania/Romanians
In Romanian we write our country's name "România".It is pronounced something like [ro`mânia], where the â is very hard to explain how to pronounce as I think that English doesn't have explicit sounds that match â in any way.Maybe it sounds like when you say "Mmmmm...",the last finishing sound.
As for our alphabet, we use the Latin one of course, although during a large period of our history, mainly the Medieval Era, the Cyrilic alphabet was used, mostly in Church writings as those were a major part of written Romanian.
As for our descendancy, we are a mixture of Dacians (who lived in ancient times on Romania's current territory), Romans, who then conqured Dacia and made it a provence, bringing alot of elements of language, culture, etc and finally Slavs, who came last.The language, as it is today, is mostly influenced by Latin , with a fair share of Slav words, and also some minor influences like Turkish, from which we also adopted a small part of our vocabulary.
As for român/rumân, both words were used by our people during our history.What is insteresting is that others didn't call us român/rumân but vlahi.So you can't really say that foregneirs have made a stable habbit of calling us Rumanians.To conclude this somehow, in our modern history we have decided upon calling ourselves Romanians, with 'o', just like the French concluded in naming themselves français instead of françois and the Germans deutsch instead of leutsch (hope I'm not mistaken...)
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

The Turks did not have great influence anyhow on Romania and therefore the country preserved many Roman Imperial customs and features? I'm I wrong?

'Vlahi' probably refers to Valachia? I know that many medieval westerners may well have been jealous of the name of Rome in your name and that's why they have tried to distort your country's name into something else.

I have thought that the word 'Deutsch' comes from 'Teutones'. It may well come from 'Leute' (people, folk), but I also know that pre-historic Italian language Oscan has 'touto' for 'people', which probably is from the same root.
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duskdeep
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by duskdeep »

Although Moldavia,Valachia and Transylvania (the states that later formed our country after uniting) never became a Turkish "pasalâc" (I don;t really know the English equivalent, it was when the turks moved their whole administration into a territory), Valachia (the southern region of modern Romania) and Moldavia (the Eastern part) had to pay tribute for a long time to the Ottoman Empire.Also, from the beginning of the 18th century until 1821, these states had rulers brought by the turks from Fanar, Constantinopole. These more or less direct contacts with the turks led to some influence.Actually, all the Balcan states in Europe suffer more of corruption than their western neighbours, corruption which is thought to be caused by contact with the oriental culture and way of living.In our language we have e.g. the word "ciubuc" pronounced [ts`ubuc] (ts stands for that diftong in which tou have a t and a long s after it) which is of Turkish origin and means a small bribe.

As for the word "vlahi", it seems that it was first used by the germanic people ("wälschi") in order to name the peoples that were of Latin origin.The Slavs seem to have truncated this into the word "vlah".As history progressed "vlah" gradually became the name given to all those that spoke Romanian.As a side note, Romanian wasn't limited only to the territory north of the Danube, where modern Romania is situated today, but also it was spread to the south of the Danube river.From "vlahi" came also the name of the southern region "Valachia".Anyway you put it, nobody seems to have contested our latin origin (except maybe Hungarians[:)] ).

And lastly, speaking of origin, we are more proud of our Dacian ancestors than our Roman ones.

Hope I didn't say anything wrong and hope I didn't start to bore anyone, but I'm always happy to speak about my country when someone is interested.
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

That wasn't boring! On the contrary I think I got exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you very much![&o]

It was also interesting to know that you are more proud of Dacian ancestors than Roman ones.
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cadmus
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by cadmus »

Duskdeep ... Far, far from boring. Both enlightening and enjoyable. Thank you. Postings such as yours are another reason why this forum is so enjoyable.
duskdeep
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by duskdeep »

That you both for your positive feedback
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SiG
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by SiG »

Hello everybody. I am a new member of this forum and have only recently started playing SPWAW. While I think it is an excellent game and one of the best ww2 games I know, I still think there is room for improvement.
I too am a Romanian an I want to join my voice to those that ask for a better representation of the minor axis powers and especially of Romania. I do not mean to say that the game is poorly done. On the contrary, I am impressed with the good job the game developpers have done with their depiction of the Romanian army during ww2 and I am confident that they can iron out the small errors that still exist, thus staying true to the standards of quality that they have set thenmselves. Hoping that one of them will read this post, here are my comments about the morale/experience values in version 8.4:

First, the pattern in which these values change does not match even the most well known facts about Romanian history during ww2.
morale: the morale of troops and leaders starts at 35, then rises slightly after the entry into war and then drops continuously, reaching 25 at the end of the war (1945).
Correctly, the morale should be average to low in 1939 (Romanians did not want a new war), then drop even lower as a result of loosing territories without a fight in 1940, then increase significantly at the start of hostilities (It is important not to underestimate the enthusiasm of the Romanians in 1941, which was comparable to that at the start of ww1, people were actually kneeling in the streets thanking God that the war had started!)-I think that at this point the morale values for Romania should be close to those for Japan-then drop when the peasants (and not only them) found out that the war must be continued into Russia, then decrease steadily until 1944. At this point, the game assigns the value 30 for morale, wich drops by 5 points into 1945. I think this is a grave error. The morale should actualy increase in 1945. Consider this: at this point, the Romanians had joined the winning side and recovered the terittory lost to Hungary in 1940, and captured the enemy capital. I guess you all agree that this should translate into an increase in morale.

I have to stop now but I will be back with more comments
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Alby
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Alby »

ORIGINAL: duskdeep

Although Moldavia,Valachia and Transylvania (the states that later formed our country after uniting) never became a Turkish "pasalâc" (I don;t really know the English equivalent, it was when the turks moved their whole administration into a territory), Valachia (the southern region of modern Romania) and Moldavia (the Eastern part) had to pay tribute for a long time to the Ottoman Empire.Also, from the beginning of the 18th century until 1821, these states had rulers brought by the turks from Fanar, Constantinopole. These more or less direct contacts with the turks led to some influence.Actually, all the Balcan states in Europe suffer more of corruption than their western neighbours, corruption which is thought to be caused by contact with the oriental culture and way of living.In our language we have e.g. the word "ciubuc" pronounced [ts`ubuc] (ts stands for that diftong in which tou have a t and a long s after it) which is of Turkish origin and means a small bribe.

As for the word "vlahi", it seems that it was first used by the germanic people ("wälschi") in order to name the peoples that were of Latin origin.The Slavs seem to have truncated this into the word "vlah".As history progressed "vlah" gradually became the name given to all those that spoke Romanian.As a side note, Romanian wasn't limited only to the territory north of the Danube, where modern Romania is situated today, but also it was spread to the south of the Danube river.From "vlahi" came also the name of the southern region "Valachia".Anyway you put it, nobody seems to have contested our latin origin (except maybe Hungarians[:)] ).

And lastly, speaking of origin, we are more proud of our Dacian ancestors than our Roman ones.

Hope I didn't say anything wrong and hope I didn't start to bore anyone, but I'm always happy to speak about my country when someone is interested.

and what of Vlad the impaler?
[:D]
heheh watched a special on him last night

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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.
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SiG
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by SiG »

Hello again! I got interrupted while writing my first post. I have some more sugestions regarding the issue.
I have allready discussed morale, now about experience:
Acording to the 8.4 version, in 4 years of continuous and hard fightion on the eastern front, the Romanians not only did not aquire any combat experience, but ended up even dumber than at the start, by 10 points! (comparatively, the US army gained 15 experience points over the same time period). It is true that there would be some setbacks - 1943, after Stalingrad, and again (in the case of the officers) in 1945 (communist purges), but the overall trend should be one of increasing experience, or at least it should stay at the same level.
Second, another problem is the relative difference between various countries. Romania constantly has the lowest values of morale and experience. Do you think this is the country that recieved the gratest number of Knights Crosses among Germany's allies, and was described by some German generals (like Manstein) as the most important ally of Germany? I agree with the fact that the morale of the Romanians was quite low in 1943-44, and throughout the war it probably was probably a bit lower that the morale of the Hungarians and Bulgarians, because these countries had gained terittory while Romania lost. (but it was newer as alow as to make the Romanians run away without a fight!) However, the situation was certainly different in the last year of the war. In 1945, Romanian morale should be higher than that of the other minor axis countries. The Finns and Bulgarians not only lost terittories, but were forced to fight in a war against Germany in which they had no interest and nothing to win. The Hungarians were in an even worse situation: they were forced to fight to the end for Hitler, and they had just seen their country overrun and their capital conquered. The situation was dramatically different for the Romanians. They too had lost some terittory to the Russians, but during the western campaign, they fought to recover Northern Transsylvania and to avenge themselves for the Vienna Diktat. They allso wanted to "teach the Germans a lesson" and prove they were more than just cheap cannon fodder. The Romanian comittment to the war is ilustrated by the size of the contingent fighting against Germany, which was the forth largest, right after those of the "big three". Definately the morale of the Romanians in the last year of the war should be close to the level of 1941/42 and significantly higher than that of Bulgaria, Finnland and especially Hungary.
Regarding experience: romanian troops are not only depicted as beeing unrealistically inexperienced in absolute terms, they are actually worse than the Bulgarians! Where did the Bulgarians get the 5-10 extra experience points? Bulgaria fought for a couple of days in 1941, Romania fought for 4 years on the Ostfront.
I hope the game developpers take these facts into consideration if they decide to modif the morale/experience values again.
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by SiG »

I have allso made a list of possible objections to improving the stats of Romanian troops, and my conterarguments to them.

"Your comments are disrespectful to the people who worked on this game."
I did not write my comments because I think the game developpers are "stupid Americans" / "historically illiterate" or whatnot, but because I know they are true professionnals comitted to creating quality wargames, and I know they will try to get even the smallest detail right. So, if my comments are correct, they will act accordingly. Allso, if I believed they were bad designers, why would I bother writing all these comments?

"This is a free game and so who cares about errors"
So what if it's a free game? Do I have to believe that some people spent days/weks/months, even years working on this game (that does not bring them any profit), but they don't care about the end result? Exactly the fact that this is a free game tells me that the developpers are very passionate about this project! If they would not care about it and were not comitted to improving it, we wouldn't have an 8.4 version today.

"If you don't like it, rewrite the game yourself"
I can't. I am still learning how to play the game! Writing a mod, or even creating new scenarios, is still a distand dream for me. This is wy I wish to leave this matter to those who really know what they are doing.

"The minor axis are weak to provide a challenge for the one playing them"
What about novice gamers like me? Do I have to train for half a year before I can play a battle with Romanian troops? The truth is that these nations are unplayable for most people, so wha's the point in having them in the game at all.

"These nations were defeated in the war and the game needs to simulate this"
The way I see this, minor powers are weak because they were outnumbered and/or outgunned. This has nothing to do with the performance of the individual soldier! Even if the Romanians would be beefed up to the level of the USMC or the German SS, the game would still simulate their defeat at Stalingrad, if they would lack adequate equippment and had to fight agains owerwhelming enemy forces, but on the other hand, this version of the geme can't replicate any of their victories.

"This is only the base value, elite troops get bonuses, etc."
A bonus for elites is not enough. Even regular Romanian troops sometimes performed very well in battle. For example, after changing sides in 1944, the Romanian 1'st army, which was guarding the border with Hungary, was engaged in stopping a German-Hungarian offensive in Transylvania. This army had been kept in the reserve, it had not seen any combat before and allso lacked elite units (for obvious reasons). It is true that sometimes these soldiers ran away or surrendered to German tanks, but on most ocasions they held their ground and the enemy offensive was defeated! This could not happen in SPWAW because a single german tank would rout all the Romanian soldiers!
Allso, if the designers decide to implement a system with different values for different cathegories of troops, I hope that this will be used for other countries too. For example, the German Volkssturm should have significantly lower values that regular troops. In the current version, regular Romanian (but allso Hungarian, Bulgarian, ...) soldiers, peasants perhaps, but with regular traning and wheapons, are still wastly inferior to Volkssturm soldiers, "old men and boys" with barely ani training and incomplete equippment. I dont think this is realistic.

Again, I hope my humble comments are not recieved as rude criticism. As I said, I generally have a good opinnion about his game and play it a lot, this is exactly why such small details are so bothersome!
Have a nice day everyone.
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KG Erwin
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by KG Erwin »

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.

Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding) [;)]

Actually, I look at photos, and this country is a fascinating mix of the pastoral, the modern, and the stuff of legends. Image
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

SiG! Welcome to the Boards. You have started with in medias res attitude, I like that and those are fine arguments, but people are sensitive here. You don't need to yell at them. It is true that no one likes to see his country as Russian cannon fodder and I don't like to see any country as that.

The default values given to units represent the average. Not the whole army. If you created a historical scenario the values should be adjusted to meet the requirements. There have been not too many scenarios/campaigns concerning Romania anyway.

Sources for the Romanian history have not been paid enough heed of western scholarly interest, until present, to end up as detailed and updated information into a wargame such as SPWAW. The values have been based on secondnary sources, such as Russian history, which explains the low ratings. That's not utterly designers cause and hardly their purest will either. If gamers' interest towards Romania increases, there will be corrections and additions as well accordingly.
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Puukkoo
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Puukkoo »

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.

Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding) [;)]

I'll let some of these heatened up Romanians to answer that!
Don't be shocked, I AM funny.
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RE: 3 years and nothing changed

Post by Goblin »

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo
ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.

Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding) [;)]

I'll let some of these heatened up Romanians to answer that!

Don't poke 'em! You'll stir them all up!![X(]


Goblin
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