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RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:01 pm
by jaw
ORIGINAL: dlazov66
Follow up Questions
4. Are Soviet Guards Divisions/Corps/Armies available and if so how do they effect the game (thinking late war here)
5. Are German Korps Abtuilungs available and if so how can they be created?
6. Besides German SS divisions will their also be the SS Corps HQ assets available?
7. Have the play testers made to 1943 and beyond yet? I am more interested in the middle to late war when the Soviets have a better chance and crushing and killing German units.
8. How is the Command and Control (C3) aspect handled? For example during the early part of the war (41-42) Hitler stayed out of the OKH business for the most part (until the no retreat orders came about) and Stalin's meddling in 1941-42 cost him units and Generals. As the war in the east progress the axis shifted to the Germans being completely controlled by Hitler continuing interference and confusing orders and the Germans strict obedience to follow orders (sans individualism like Mainstein, Gudieran and Hoffman, until their dismissal or death) while at the other end as the war progress Stalin would listen and let his General Staff conduct the war and operational planning. So the long and the short should be in the early part of the war the Germans should run rough shod over the Russians but as the Russians gain more experience (by about 1943) they begin to not only hold their own, but ultimately defeat the Nazi invaders.
One of the most fustrating aspects of war games (both board and PC) displayed on the eastern front is this lack of command and control and doctrinal shift of the Germans beginning mastering of doctrine and operations overtaken and then superseded by the Soviets doctrine and ultimatly the Soviet victory over Germany.
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4. Guards units get at 15 point bonus in national morale which allows them to attain to a higher experience level resulting in greater combat effectiveness.
5. If not in the game at start, they come as reinforcements. Unlike the Russian player, the Axis player never creates any new units.
6. Yes but any support unit can be attached to any headquarters so non-SS units can support SS units and vise versa.
7. Later war scenarios are still under development but some testers have played the 1941 campaign game into at least 1943 and very early on in development I ran a computer vs. computer game into 1945 to reveal any problems with the later war TOEs. I also played the Russian side against the computer in an early version of the 1943 campaign game to see how well the Red Army played. It seemed okay but that was quite a while ago and many changes and improvements have been made to the game system since then. Maybe one of the regular playtesters can chime in with some more recent experience.
8. There are no "Hitler orders" rules in the game. Most players would object to such rules and I find that you make enough mistakes yourself that you don't need any addtional ones programmed into the game.
I think you'll find the game does a very good job of modeling the strengths and weaknesses of each army and, if we get it right, explains why those doctrinal changes came about better than any history book could.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:03 pm
by jaw
Plans are for the game to include an editor that would allow you to modify units but terrain would not be modifable. Unless you're God I don't know how you could justify wanting to change the terrain. This is after all an historical game.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:14 pm
by Rhetor
It's great that this game is getting close to the release. Allow me to ask some questions:
- would players be able to continue the game after having reached the victory conditions for the scenario?
- are Polish units included in Soviet OOB?
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:06 pm
by Gresbeck
ORIGINAL: jaw
3. The basic game mechanics are that everything ground units do is based on movement points. It takes movement points to attack as well as to move but individual units can attack more than once provided they have sufficient movement points to do so. The turn structure is IGOUGO but as the non-moving player you can have units set to reserve which can possibly allow them to add their strength to units under attack. There is NO plotting of moves (i.e. orders).
And how is combat handeled when a hex gets attacked by different units which have spent different movement points? Suppose a unit is already in position to attack and another unit has moved during the turn; does the moving unit enter the battle later? Or does the unit that didn't move "wait" till the second arrives (so that both expend the same amount of MP)?
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:27 pm
by freeboy
can someone talk about FOW and if intellegence gathering, photo recon, contact reports etc play int othis? I saw in a post alot of enemy info being reported.. thanks
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:26 pm
by Silvanski
ORIGINAL: jaw
Plans are for the game to include an editor that would allow you to modify units but terrain would not be modifable. Unless you're God I don't know how you could justify wanting to change the terrain. This is after all an historical game.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear... I was enquiring about modding the look of the graphics... are they bmp, png?
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:02 pm
by jaw
ORIGINAL: Rhetor
It's great that this game is getting close to the release. Allow me to ask some questions:
- would players be able to continue the game after having reached the victory conditions for the scenario?
- are Polish units included in Soviet OOB?
The scenarios have a fixed length so the victory conditions would be assessed at the end of the scenario. Of course, you could stop playing the scenario at any time you think one side has obviously won.
The scenarios in which there are Polish units that fight on the Russian side are just Russian units with Polish designations (i.e. there is no Polish nationality in the game).
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:22 pm
by jaw
ORIGINAL: Gresbeck
ORIGINAL: jaw
3. The basic game mechanics are that everything ground units do is based on movement points. It takes movement points to attack as well as to move but individual units can attack more than once provided they have sufficient movement points to do so. The turn structure is IGOUGO but as the non-moving player you can have units set to reserve which can possibly allow them to add their strength to units under attack. There is NO plotting of moves (i.e. orders).
And how is combat handeled when a hex gets attacked by different units which have spent different movement points? Suppose a unit is already in position to attack and another unit has moved during the turn; does the moving unit enter the battle later? Or does the unit that didn't move "wait" till the second arrives (so that both expend the same amount of MP)?
Units expend movement points to attack individually so the relative number of available movement points between units doesn't matter. There are two types of attack: hasty attack and normal attack. Units must be stacked in the same hex to combine in a hasty attack; all units adjacent to the hex being attacked may combine in a normal attack provide each attacking unit has sufficient movement points. It requires more movement points to conduct a normal attack than a hasty attack so units not stacked together may have to conduct multiple hasty attacks sequentially if they lack sufficient movement points for a normal attack. My experience has been that one large attack (hasty or normal) is preferrable to multiple attacks. Normal attacks are considerably more effective than hasty attacks all other things being equal.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:29 pm
by Rhetor
ORIGINAL: jaw
The scenarios in which there are Polish units that fight on the Russian side are just Russian units with Polish designations (i.e. there is no Polish nationality in the game).
Thank you.
I hope that you have taken into account the fact that all ten Polish infantry (not rifle!) divisions formed under Soviet patronage were organized according to TO&E of a Soviet guards rifle division.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:35 pm
by jaw
ORIGINAL: freeboy
can someone talk about FOW and if intellegence gathering, photo recon, contact reports etc play int othis? I saw in a post alot of enemy info being reported.. thanks
Quality of information varies by the detection level which can be increased by moving adjacent to a unit, conducting air recon, and (if Russian) partisans.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:37 pm
by jaw
Sorry, but one of the programming types will have to answer you on that. I'm strictly a data base guy.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:45 pm
by Helpless
Maybe I didn't make myself clear... I was enquiring about modding the look of the graphics... are they bmp, png?
Yes, you can edit in game art - these are mostly bmp and tga files.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:30 pm
by Helpless
quote:
ORIGINAL: jaw
The scenarios in which there are Polish units that fight on the Russian side are just Russian units with Polish designations (i.e. there is no Polish nationality in the game).
Thank you.
I hope that you have taken into account the fact that all ten Polish infantry (not rifle!) divisions formed under Soviet patronage were organized according to TO&E of a Soviet guards rifle division.
Actually there is a Polish nationality as such in the game. But it is used only for accounting the population/manpower. But as Jim said no combat units of Polish nationalities currently supported by engine. Who knows what could happen later on ... [:)]
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:33 am
by Rhetor
ORIGINAL: Helpless
Actually there is a Polish nationality as such in the game. But it is used only for accounting the population/manpower. But as Jim said no combat units of Polish nationalities currently supported by engine. Who knows what could happen later on ... [:)]
I can well live with Polish units being differentiated only by their name. There weren't so many of them, when compared to the size of the Soviet army. In 1945 there were two Polish army commands, ten infantry divisions, an independent tank brigade, heavy tank regiment, a few artillery brigades, and a tank corps.
How would that manpower calculation work? Does it mean that the Germans actually draw replacements from the occupied territories as if it was their own?
And one more question - Guard status. In War in Russia Soviet divisions, brigades etc. were being given a "Guard" status when their experience exceeded a given level. It wasn't so with army commands though. How would that work in War in the East?
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:38 pm
by Hard Sarge
for what it is worth, I have taken the Russians into 43 twice from a 41 start
Guard Mech Units are the bomb
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 2:22 pm
by Zovs
Hard sgt,
Sounds good my fav time is latish 43 and 44 when the Russians get to hammer back.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:55 pm
by jaw
ORIGINAL: Rhetor
ORIGINAL: Helpless
Actually there is a Polish nationality as such in the game. But it is used only for accounting the population/manpower. But as Jim said no combat units of Polish nationalities currently supported by engine. Who knows what could happen later on ... [:)]
I can well live with Polish units being differentiated only by their name. There weren't so many of them, when compared to the size of the Soviet army. In 1945 there were two Polish army commands, ten infantry divisions, an independent tank brigade, heavy tank regiment, a few artillery brigades, and a tank corps.
How would that manpower calculation work? Does it mean that the Germans actually draw replacements from the occupied territories as if it was their own?
And one more question - Guard status. In War in Russia Soviet divisions, brigades etc. were being given a "Guard" status when their experience exceeded a given level. It wasn't so with army commands though. How would that work in War in the East?
No, the German can only get production not manpower from occupied territories.
Combat and support units attain Guards status based on a combination of factors (experience, morale, battlefield performance) but I'm a bit vague here as nothing is in the rules and what I know comes from random conversations with Gary. HQs are neither combat nor support units so I don't think they can earn guards status; again nothing is in the rules about it.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:07 pm
by Helpless
HQs can earn Guards status
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:28 am
by KarlXII
I´ve only seen questions about the game features so far.
I am more interested to know how much effort is going into the A.I ?
I have no intention of playing this game by hotseat, pbem or whatever so for me the A.I. must ge good.
In what ways will the A.I be better than for say Western Front or Eastern Front ?
The huge amount of CPU power today should make the A.I able to do a lot more advanced calculations.
Please don´t neglect the A.I. and think most will play it against another human.
Commander - Europe at War was for example very unsuccessful in having a good A.I. It was done by another company, but anyway.
RE: War in the East Q&A
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:42 am
by PyleDriver
Well I'm the main jockey of this game for AI testing. For a year and a half I've sent hundreds of saves to the boys upstairs. The Soviet AI is becoming good. In comparison to WIR, theres no comparison. WIR's AI was very poor. Garys agian spending this week just on the AI...So yes theres alot of focus on the AI in this game...