Basic info on War in the West 43-45

[821Bobo]

Why? It is really ridiculous when you have few hundreds tanks sitting in pool but due to the historical TOE you can not utilize it. Player should be at least able to chose whatever TOE he want to use in units.

[morvael]

I'd be happy if there would be an option to change an element slot to a different element type of the same class paying like for manual upgrade of aircraft. That would be enough to "help" the pool.

[GBS]

Starting to look like a 2013 appearance for WitW is going to be a stretch.

[Peltonx]

Yes more then likely looking at X-mas 2014 now.

Its got more detail in the ground engine then wite + the massively expanded air war + naval / invasions war part that's new.

All that needs to be tested for bugs and exploits ect ect.

Its in Alpha and not beta, beta generally takes at least 12 months.

I want a more complete product then wite at release, so I would be more then happy to wait until Nov 2014 or May 2015 for that matter.

[Caranorn]

Just saw that this game might be around the corner and had to read up a bit on its design...

At first glance I must say I'm not shocked about the choice of a 10 mile hex. The fighting in Normandy was indeed in a very narrow position and the allies were bottled up for quite a while. Truly mobile warfare only started after breakout. Of course the 10 miles per hex could mean one of more of the allied beacheads being smashed in in the early turns (of a june 44 scenario) where a smaller scale (5 or maybe 8 miles per hex) could give the allies a buffer. Hopefully though this risk will be nulified by the fact that the germans could not bring significant reinforcements (21st Panzer was local, 12th SS Panzer arrived during this phase as did elements of Lehr) to bear on the bridgeheads during the vulnerable phase. Of course that would mean that in a Normandy focused scenario forces in Pas de Calais (mostly infantry, but iirc at least 2nd Panzer there) would have to be fixed as historical. How to handle a free June 44 scenario (where allies can pick among a number of landing sites (Normandy, Pas de Calais, Flanders, Bretagne etc., also Normandy variant with a landing on the west of Cotentin incl. the Channel Islands) would be another question, in most cases at least the Pas de Calais forces should be locked for a while...

I think the 10 mile scale should also work for Italy, the fighting on the beaches and through the defensive lines was largely static, even movements such as the French at Garigliano were extremely slow due to terrain, logistics and German defenses. Here too there will be the possibility to see a German counterattack smash a beachhead in an early invasion phase. But again it should be unlikely for the Germans to concentrate sufficient offensive material to achieve this (assuming most german infantry formations will be appropriately weak on the offensive due to the TOE of 1943/44)...

No problem either for the Bulge, this was a very narrow offensive and should 99% of the time die because the Germans cannot exploit the innitial penetration of the US front and the US can quickly bring reinforcements to bear on the saliant...

Where I'm more sceptic about scale are the 1940 game as well as the 41-43 ones. That for different reasons:

In 1940 high mobility has to be possible even against significant opposition and through rough terrain. Possibly the static character of most of the French, Dutch and Belgian infantry (not the British, the French Colonials and/or the mobile forces (DLC, DLM, DCR, DIM, possibly also the regular DI that had moved into belgium as they were in general better equipped, had better personnel etc.) and therefore their inability to project a ZoC into adjacent hexes will do the trick even at the 10 mile hexscale...

For the war in North Africa (and I would hope East Africa could be included, of course also Syria and Irak, probably Persia too) it's not map scale that will pose a problem but rather unit scale. This war has to be conducted on the basis of German regiments and British brigades (probably divisions for the Italians) as divisions played minor roles in that conflict (particularly for the British who'd hand over new brigades to experienced HQ's thereby breaking up existing division structures). Then again, iirc divisions can be broken up in WiE (haven't played for over a year), so the game engine should be able to handle separate regiments/brigades with division HQ's transformed into another container for support units etc. One difficulty I could forsee with this game is how to handle the logistic problems faced by both sides. In the original Italian invasion of the Western Desert only a portion of the Italian Army could be brought to bear, that only at the cost of making other Italian units static (WiE can handle that iirc) and even then logistics played a role in the rapid collapse of that offensive and the success of the British counterattack. For the British, massive forces had to be held back in Egypt, Palestine and on other posts because they had been stripped of some of their equipment (at least in the early campaigns no British unit on the front ever had it's full complement of transport, that despite receiving transportation companies from other units and commands) and even had they had sufficient organic transport their movement to the front would have put additional strain on the supply network. That is, were the British player inclined to move more forces into the fighting he would rapidly face the same problem the Italians had at the start of the campaign and see their front collapse. Despite all this, I think this campaign (I'm talking North Africa 41 to 43 including Torch, East Africa and Syria/Iraq/Persia, Greece 41 very abstracted) would make the most enjoyable game of the series as it's mobile warfare, involves a lot of logistics, air and naval assets play a major role, local politics, forces from so many different countries (Italy, Britain, India, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, France, Australia, New Zealand, Iraq, Greece, Poland, Palestine, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, South Africa, Germany, US and i'm sure I've forgotten a few) etc.

Note: I'm pretty sure you've completed most OOB and TOE research for the 43-45 game. But if you need researchers for the other games let me know as I have good orders of battles at hand for some of these topics (complete for 40, just would have to dig through my files, a start for 41-43) and would have no trouble whatsoever researching more on the others (cannot start work on another game project for the comming half year I expect, but these projects are not urgent either). Though there is the remote possibility that a conflict of interest might arise...

[Khanti]

My humble suggestion for a game engine:
1. please allow all sides (allies and axis) to have full control over their respective industrial potential
2. I was dissapointed that in WitE only soviet side could muster new divisions
3. I hope to be able to steer war production in a game of such a scale (grand strategy), I mean to make moves like: stop Tiger production, increase Pz IV production and the like
4. it will be good to limit players by resources (manpower, steeel, whatever) not by designers' numbers (exact numbers of reinforcements like in TOAW series)

Greets.

[Captain Cruft]

Scale

I think the way to look at this project (in toto) is as a WitP-AE type of game transported to the European theatre at 10 miles per hex. From my point of view this is just an awesome prospect.

So keep at it please, I look forward to it greatly [:)]

[Khanti]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: mevstedt

This may be a bit out of place here but since the discussion in this topic is for the upcoming title War in the West and there is no similar topic for the rest of the titles linked to WitE I'm posting this here.

For the large scale game (or for any later games) is there any plans on revisiting the production/factory system?

I'm missing the option to change factory production of both planes and AFVs as well as the option to manually upgrade/change AFVs on units in the way it could be done in the previous games of the series (ie, Second Front/War in Russia where you could manually change what type of AFV a unit would employ). I feel this option added extra spice to the game as well as some replayvalue where it gave me the option to experiment with cases such as 'What if the germans decided to only build panzer IVs?' or 'What if the russians only built one type of fighterbomber?' etc.

That wasn't implemented for a variety of reasons. One of which how open to abuse it was.

There is nothing like abuse if you have limited resources (steel, oil, manpower, etc).
It's up to player, if he wants to use 100 resources to build 10 Tiger tanks or 20 Pz IV or 30 fighter planes.
If the resources are your limits you can not abuse the system.

You want to build only the best equipment? Good, but it's expensive and you will end up with just a few against hordes of enemies.

I just can't understand arbitrary decisions to remove all economy aspects from the game, as it was economy that won ww2 (US production to be specific).

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

There are some changes with production, but we are not increasing player control in the WitW 43-45 game. We're starting to get more final artwork into the game so hopefully over the next few months we'll be able to start showing some screens.

I don't see any reason to not allow Axis player creating new units (battalions, regiment, divisions and so on). Without increasing player control on this aspects, there is only tactical simulation game played on higher level. Very strange experience indeed.

Not to be able to ask Industry Ministry for increasing tanks production and decreasing Stug production? In this level game?

[SigUp]

Honestly, there is no reason for the German to create more units than historical. Historically the Wehrmacht possessed too many divisions for its limited personell. If anything it needs fewer divisions and this can be achieved by simply disbanding weak units.

[swkuh]

But there is good reason to play the "production game" if the game system could model the trade offs. Believe prior Grigsby attempts allowed too much of that and that led to WitE restrictions. Perhaps it is too difficult, though. Do you model technical development, manufacturing capabilities, the air war over the Reich, etc.? But really small changes might be appreciated (by some players,) e.g., Pz III vs. Pz IV, Tiger I, II, Panther I, II, etc. all at the least margins of variation.

But, both sides should have similar capabilities.

[Numdydar]

If by similar capabilities you mean that they all are capable of doing researce, then I agree. If you mean that everyone should be able to research the same types of technology with the same efficiencies, then i will need to disagree.

The one thing that evey game so for that has research in it over the WWII period is that the different countries involved had their own strengths and weakness in various areas. So for some countries it should be harder to research certain technologies than others. As they would need to build up the expertise in that area before they could research as well as someone that had been doing it longer as an example.

But give the difficulty of programing something like this AND writting an AI that could handle it, it makes a lot more sense to fudge things the way HoI III does in order to make the game function better.

[carlkay58]

If you look closer at what Joel posted, there are no plans to increase economic control in WitW - which covers mid 43 to 45. This does not mean that it will not be addressed in later games in this series.

There are enough other problems and features that need work to make the games play properly without a special work around or two. Joel has already detailed that the air and logistics portions of the game are being totally redone. Add to that the tweaks and changes in ground combat and the addition of simplified naval rules. This totals up to a large section of the base code being totally different from WitE. There just are not enough resources to go around to do everything.

[Flaviusx]

I'm not sure it would be wise to give the allies free production in any case. These were more in the realm of political than strategic decisions, particularly in the United States. The 90 division army was kind of baked in the cake, and it would have been difficult for Marshall at a late date to try to go back to Congress and change this, nor would the other services have welcomed diminished priority over manpower and funding to allow for this.

I'm less familiar with the British situation, but my sense is that they were similarly locked in and not able even to raise the large army they had in WWI. (Not sure why this is the case, but there it is. Perhaps Bomber Command?)

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm less familiar with the British situation, but my sense is that they were similarly locked in and not able even to raise the large army they had in WWI. (Not sure why this is the case, but there it is. Perhaps Bomber Command?)

I'd suggest domestic need - Britain was much more isolated in 40-44 than it had been in WW1. Potential conscripts were diverted to industry and mining (the Bevan boys were soldiers who were ordered to work in the coal mines), so proportionately less manpower for the armed forces.

Add to that, a desire to avoid committing territorial units to action. In WW1 it was common for battalions to be based on a small town or a sector of a city, divisions at a county level. On a bad day, the entire male population could be slaughtered. In WW2, there was a deliberate mixing of formations to avoid this - but at a cost of less efficiency.

Final element was particularly the Australian and NZ Govts did not trust British officers at a senior level with their men - too much experience in WW1 of the British state looking at the ANZAC divisions as shock troops in battle and as thieves to be hung when out of the line. Again this added a lot of friction to the British OOB with less men available for combat than the notional manpower might suggest.

Beyond that, the limitations of supply to Continental Europe (both in 1940 and after 1943) all meant there was little sense sending the second rate divisions out of the UK.

[Mehring]

To my way of thinking, giving players, including Russian, freedom in production is a very difficult issue to get right, more so when resources are so generalised as they are in this game. Some here have voiced frustration at their inability to build tanks when their air pools are overflowing or vice versa. Is this frustration fed and given credence by even more generalised games, such as original SPI WiE?

You cannot make Shermans and Tigers out of aluminium and few airframes include steel in their construction. To retool a factory to produce a different type of what it already produces takes a long time, but to convert it and its highly skilled and specialised workforce to produce something quite different, takes years. The infrastructure that made possible the production of mid-late war was built, in most cases, in the 1930's and took years to bear fruit. Speer, for example, was in no way responsible for Germany's 'production miracle', his predecessors had done the spade work years before.

I hope that by the time of GGs WiE a production system worthy of simulating the economic and political complexities of the belligerents can be devised. To do so, though, it will necessarily be the quintessence of constraint and delayed gratification. I never again want to play a game in which 30 production points is 5 infantry divisions, or 3 U-boat points, or nearly three panzer divisions. Simulation demands much greater attention to peculiarities of any given product.

[rmonical]

You cannot make Shermans and Tigers out of aluminium and few airframes include steel in their construction.

Ah, but those big engines!

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Hanti

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: mevstedt

This may be a bit out of place here but since the discussion in this topic is for the upcoming title War in the West and there is no similar topic for the rest of the titles linked to WitE I'm posting this here.

For the large scale game (or for any later games) is there any plans on revisiting the production/factory system?

I'm missing the option to change factory production of both planes and AFVs as well as the option to manually upgrade/change AFVs on units in the way it could be done in the previous games of the series (ie, Second Front/War in Russia where you could manually change what type of AFV a unit would employ). I feel this option added extra spice to the game as well as some replayvalue where it gave me the option to experiment with cases such as 'What if the germans decided to only build panzer IVs?' or 'What if the russians only built one type of fighterbomber?' etc.

That wasn't implemented for a variety of reasons. One of which how open to abuse it was.

There is nothing like abuse if you have limited resources (steel, oil, manpower, etc).

It is what it is. Why don't you ask Gary just why he didn't do for WiTE what he did for WiR. There is also a long thread here about free production. Read it.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm not sure it would be wise to give the allies free production in any case. These were more in the realm of political than strategic decisions, particularly in the United States.

In Germany it was similar. Heer, Luftwaffe and Marine fought bitterly over the allocation of ressources, particularly manpower, steel and rare metals, especially in the early years. But even later on the infighting was pretty rough. So numerous times the allocation reflected more the political priorities than the true need of a branch, not to mention of the times the different branches tried to hoard ressources in order to fuel later expansion. Once again this was very rough before 1942 and often the motto was 'who shouts the loudest and demands the most will get the most', no matter whether the companies supplying the branches really needed that much.

[swkuh]

Like WitE as is, but also like WiR as was. Its the way its played, after all.

Thread is convincing in re better off not allowing production trade-offs than allowing. But that's because of limitations of knowledge & coding issues, not value of the capability. Maybe at the margin production trade-offs wouldn't be useful (because of locked in national historical systems) but its fun.

[PaxMondo]

While adding in production adaptability is challenging, it is a key "fun" element for many players. Like shipping a game without AI, no matter how poor the AI is, the lack of an economic aspect will influence sales.

WIR and its predecessors were some of my favorite games. I still play WIR (a personal mod of Possum) in spite of all of its limitations. I have not purchased WitE because of the lack of production adaptability. I cannot play/create my What-If scenarios. I am hopeful that WitW will incorporate more of these aspects. I am not complaining here, only sharing an observation. I am quite happy with WitP AE. If Matrix/2by3 want me to evolve to another of their games (and they should), I am simply stating what is needed to get me to do so.