Spanking of the Sheep! - Allied Surrender on T53

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Pelton
There is always an exception to every rule even with all things being equal.
Russia in Berlin is not always the case for sure in WitE.

In my view the VP penalty in response to lack of activity by the WA in Europe is in some small part a reaction to how you 'turtled up' against MichaelT, retreating in the fall of '41 back to the original Reich frontier so you could avoid blizzard penalties. There was a call then for 'sudden death' VP rules so that people would try to fight something more akin to WW2 than just exploit game mechanics.

Possibly true, that.

If so, this was unnecessary. MichaelT demonstrated that turtling up doesn't help the Axis cause. Rather the opposite.

[Seminole]

If so, this was unnecessary. MichaelT demonstrated that turtling up doesn't help the Axis cause. Rather the opposite.

IIRC MichaelT resigned in frustration because of a bug (teleporting HQs, or SUs or something like that). Pelton expressed confidence to the end in his gambit.

[LiquidSky]

Sadly, those two islands would have made the difference. Oh well...

Games are meant to be fun....to divert one's life from its usual drudgery.

At work, I like to be able to think and plan since I have a manual job. And then executing those plans is fun. If the game was no longer 'fun', and I don't mean losing.... I find trying to come back from a losing scenario to be fun [;)]

Winning easily is [>:] and I wouldn't find fun. Which is why I wouldn't complain if somebody who was losing decided they weren't having fun either.

All in all, I did enjoy reading the AAR, and learnt quite a bit about different strategies...and I want to thank you for making the effort to post them up for us to read.

I look at the -1000 vp as a milestone. It's a mini goal you have to reach. Failure to reach it shows an indication that you may, or may not reach the final goal, and gives a chance for a stagnant game to end early. It's not perfect, and to be honest...if I was a german player and thought that some sort of extrodinary circumstance prevented you from reaching it, I would probably wave it. (Say a long string of bad weather...or a misunderstanding of rules...or a miss-click on a stack of units in a port when in transport mode [I've done it]...that sort of thing)

In the end, decide if you actually like playing the game...if so..make your next one a game where you ignore the vp's. Just play. Do crazy fun things..like invade Greece (can you invade Greece? Hmm..) Play a bombing only campaign....taking terrain only to gain new airbases. Have fun.

If you didn't like playing the game, then no amount of changing of vp's will probably satisfy you.

[JeffroK]

Bad Luck Joc, I think that you were learning how the system worked while playing an experienced opponent.

To those who believe the game should continue, can you explain how Joc can recover.

Those 1000 pts will take a lot of bombing to claw back.

The VP system is broken, apart from a few who have managed to work out the system Allied players are constantly in the negative. Tome it seems you either get behind the ball and stay there or get in front and stay there, very few stay in the middle or have a major turnaround.

The devs have introduced a penalty rather than providing an incentive.
The Allies should get points for achieving objectives, hand out points for every dot city rather than a dozen major cities map-wide. Make it a Production task for the Germans to build UBoats to be placed in an "Atlantic Convoy" box (maybe at the cost of more fighters or Armour) Allies then commit Airpower and Convoy escorts PLUS have an incentive to attack UBoat Pens and shipyards.
Give the Germans a new toy, V1 & V2 to plan attacks on Population centres (affect morale) Ports (affect Shipping) which in turn creates a reaction of increasing ADGB forces, 2TAF attacks against launchers and Heavy Bombers against VW Factories.
Negative points for losses should go, replaced by an Allied manpower pool so that drawing too many replacements to replenish after bad offensives starts to hurt. You could also fiddle with their morale/experience to replicate shortened training periods. Special pools for NZ, Canadian, Brazilian et al to make them even more fragile.

Germany also gets a breather, get rid of Garrison VP's and make them really garrison the Occupied countries, more garrison cities required but fewer CP per city (make them fragment, an SS Pz Div in Dreux will have minimal effect 100 miles away, but an SS Kampfgruppe 25 miles away might.) Again, penalty isnt points but damage to the railnet, and if too much is given away, the ability for the Allies to land "SAS/Jedburgh" teams to aid the Maquis.

I would kill the EF Box, we are playing the Western Front.

Overall, make the system REWARD good play, not penalize players to force them down the track that the Devs decide should be followed.

Another area for review, is the numbers used to assign Experience & Morale levels. Axis forces already get the advantage of defending in Mountains & Bocage, behind Rivers and in Cities & Ports and in Mud, Rain and Snow. They then get a good/great morale/experience value because they defended so well in this terrain. In this time period, German forces would not have recaptured more than 1 hex except at The Bulge, but in game they have plenty of power to clear Allied Bridgeheads off the map. IRL, even the botched Anzio landings held off the German counterattacks.

Hopefully, what has been provided can make a solid base for making a truly fantastic game, some parts cant change but some areas like VP should be easy and knowing the involvement of some of the programming team hope that as time passes, some of the "impossible" areas can be worked on.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Pelton
There is always an exception to every rule even with all things being equal.
Russia in Berlin is not always the case for sure in WitE.

In my view the VP penalty in response to lack of activity by the WA in Europe is in some small part a reaction to how you 'turtled up' against MichaelT, retreating in the fall of '41 back to the original Reich frontier so you could avoid blizzard penalties. There was a call then for 'sudden death' VP rules so that people would try to fight something more akin to WW2 than just exploit game mechanics.

The game at the time was completely broken and I had posted in what areas and was ignored completely ignored.

1. a manpower crunch caused by a bug.
2. an armament crunch caused by 100's of swapping bugs.
3. an ammo bug which made taking any hex with hardly any Russian troops
4. broken intercept system
5. national morale completey broken.

ect ect

So the ONLY WAY I could prove I was right and everyone else wrong was by making an example of how broken sht was in an completely insane game play.

I was by the end of that game proven to be right and everyone else including 2by3 to be wrong with the help of morveal and his 2 friends and to their credit they have fixed all the issues and WitE is now played based on player skills and not bugs and exploits.

The VP system is in place because that is what the player based wanted not because of a game I shovel down 2by3's throat.

To 2by3's credit WitW was released basicly 99% finished with out boat loads of bugs and exploits.

Get your history straight bro.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Pelton
There is always an exception to every rule even with all things being equal.
Russia in Berlin is not always the case for sure in WitE.

In my view the VP penalty in response to lack of activity by the WA in Europe is in some small part a reaction to how you 'turtled up' against MichaelT, retreating in the fall of '41 back to the original Reich frontier so you could avoid blizzard penalties. There was a call then for 'sudden death' VP rules so that people would try to fight something more akin to WW2 than just exploit game mechanics.

Possibly true, that.

If so, this was unnecessary. MichaelT demonstrated that turtling up doesn't help the Axis cause. Rather the opposite.

Not true also at the time the German OOB collapsed because of swapping bugs aka 1 million men in manpower pools and 200,000+ armament pts in the AP pool.
The only reason MT took any hexes was because of the ammo bug.

turtling was and never has been proven to work or not work.

Game play before 1.08 based on player skills is questionable as there were so many bugs that it caused the german army to collapse GET YOUR FACTS right or have you forgotten

With an open mind read this: The wolf and the Bear.

tm.asp?m=2792361

I predicted that GHC would lose the game and you did not, I was right.
The only way Tarhunnas (GHC) hung on was because of a massive dump of armament points into GHC pools by 2by3 and then he hardly won.

It was not long after that I got baned for 2 weeks for speaking the true and being dumped on over and over for being a moron.

That is why I played the way I played vs MT who better to prove my points of the bugs and exploits then the best player to ever play WitE?

I stated why to MT I played the way I did and in the thread.

Some time you have to house train a dog by rubbing his nose in his own sht bro and that what I had to do to prove that the game was broken.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

If so, this was unnecessary. MichaelT demonstrated that turtling up doesn't help the Axis cause. Rather the opposite.

IIRC MichaelT resigned in frustration because of a bug (teleporting HQs, or SUs or something like that). Pelton expressed confidence to the end in his gambit.

Again not true,

I RESIGNED and told MT why I played the game the way I did.

MT was at the time the best player to play WitE and still is if he wanted to play.

That game was the best thing that happened to WitE as it caused 2by3 to finally admit to themselves all the errors that needed to be fixed.

Pelton vs MT = morveal and 1.08

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Bad Luck Joc, I think that you were learning how the system worked while playing an experienced opponent.

To those who believe the game should continue, can you explain how Joc can recover.

Those 1000 pts will take a lot of bombing to claw back.

The VP system is broken, apart from a few who have managed to work out the system Allied players are constantly in the negative. Tome it seems you either get behind the ball and stay there or get in front and stay there, very few stay in the middle or have a major turnaround.

The devs have introduced a penalty rather than providing an incentive.
The Allies should get points for achieving objectives, hand out points for every dot city rather than a dozen major cities map-wide. Make it a Production task for the Germans to build UBoats to be placed in an "Atlantic Convoy" box (maybe at the cost of more fighters or Armour) Allies then commit Airpower and Convoy escorts PLUS have an incentive to attack UBoat Pens and shipyards.
Give the Germans a new toy, V1 & V2 to plan attacks on Population centres (affect morale) Ports (affect Shipping) which in turn creates a reaction of increasing ADGB forces, 2TAF attacks against launchers and Heavy Bombers against VW Factories.
Negative points for losses should go, replaced by an Allied manpower pool so that drawing too many replacements to replenish after bad offensives starts to hurt. You could also fiddle with their morale/experience to replicate shortened training periods. Special pools for NZ, Canadian, Brazilian et al to make them even more fragile.

Germany also gets a breather, get rid of Garrison VP's and make them really garrison the Occupied countries, more garrison cities required but fewer CP per city (make them fragment, an SS Pz Div in Dreux will have minimal effect 100 miles away, but an SS Kampfgruppe 25 miles away might.) Again, penalty isnt points but damage to the railnet, and if too much is given away, the ability for the Allies to land "SAS/Jedburgh" teams to aid the Maquis.

I would kill the EF Box, we are playing the Western Front.

Overall, make the system REWARD good play, not penalize players to force them down the track that the Devs decide should be followed.

Another area for review, is the numbers used to assign Experience & Morale levels. Axis forces already get the advantage of defending in Mountains & Bocage, behind Rivers and in Cities & Ports and in Mud, Rain and Snow. They then get a good/great morale/experience value because they defended so well in this terrain. In this time period, German forces would not have recaptured more than 1 hex except at The Bulge, but in game they have plenty of power to clear Allied Bridgeheads off the map. IRL, even the botched Anzio landings held off the German counterattacks.

Hopefully, what has been provided can make a solid base for making a truly fantastic game, some parts cant change but some areas like VP should be easy and knowing the involvement of some of the programming team hope that as time passes, some of the "impossible" areas can be worked on.

As Liquadsky has proven the only thing wrong with WA's is that players simply don't fully understand what they are not doing.

I have and am playing more the 12+ games and the mistakes by WA players is kind of amazing high.

I see almost all players being able to master some areas but not all.

The VP system might need a tweak but over all it feels right and I am sorry but WA players right now simply are playing crappy over all.

Whining about losing because of a lack of skills or understanding the rules proves nothing able the VP system

Liqudsky proved that WA can win by mid 44 if things are done right.

[JocMeister]

After reading some replies here I think I have to clarify a few things.

I´m a very competitive player. My online MP experience started with BF 1942 over 15 years ago and carried over to BF:Vietnam and BF2. In fact I was even semi-professional at one time. I was getting paid but not enough for me to quit my day job. I played in the Swedish National team in both BF42 and BF2 and won the Nations Cup three times (Europe Championship). I don´t play games "for fun". I play them for the competition. The reason I surrendered this game is because Pelton won. I have no interest to disregard the VP system and play on to "see what happens". I don´t care what happens. I´ve already lost the game. I have nothing but respect for my opponent who plays exactly like I do. To defeat the opponent using the tools available. So hats of to Pelton. He played perfectly and I messed things up so he won. No problem in that. It is as it should be.

I will say this though regarding the VP system as some people seem to have misunderstood me. I don´t a grudge with a VP system. In fact in a asymmetrical game like this its a requirement. A must have in any MP game. But I do have a grudge with this VP system. In all my years of gaming I have never came across such as poorly designed system. I´ve already explained earlier in several places why its a horrible, horrible system and I´m not going to repeat myself here. Some of you may not agree with me and that is fine. You are entitled to your opinion as am I to mine. Quite possible the disagreement lies in different perceptions on how the game should be played. But I bet you any professional game designer would agree with me.

I also want to clarify something regarding the 1000 VP penalty. I don´t have a problem or issue with the penalty per see. But rather with the reasons its there. If the game was properly designed there wouldn´t have been a reason for it in the first place. Do you understand the difference? The fundamental design of the game is faulty. And instead of fixing the real issue they came up with the penalty. Its lazy and a poor design. Same goes for the ground losses penalty. Its just there to stop the WAs from steamrolling the Germans in 43. So we make up a penalty instead of actually fixing the problem with proper and solid mechanics. Its lazy and it will come back to bite them. And its an insult considering the very hefty price they set for the game.

That being said its also a rather clumsy and inflexible penalty which pretty clearly shows the designers lack of experience/inability to come up with a proper VP system. A much better system would have been to start out with a smaller penalty given each turn. Say -20VPs and then increased it exponentially as time pass by. This to avoid situations where a single happening will decide the outcome of the entire game.

In essence a good solid VP system sits in the background. It gives you some flexibility, it awards success and it punishes mistakes. It can be manipulated to a degree by both players. Its a reflection of what happens/have happened in a game. The system should be closely tied to the game being played. In WitW the system instead exists outside the game and for the most part has absolutely nothing to do with the game. This causes a feeling of disconnect from the actual game. It also creates a feeling of "fighting the system" rather then the opponent. Especially true for the WA player in WitW.

Can anyone here mention a single game with a similar VP system as WitW? No? Why is that you think...

Is it playable? Yes. Do some people enjoy it? Yes. Do I enjoy it? No. Is it possible I will enjoy it in the future? Yes. But right now the only thing feasible for the WAs is to land in Northern Europe ASAP and bludgeon their way to Berlin as fast as possible as LiquidSky did or was about to do. That is a complete failure both for the game design and the VP system. Does anyone here believe that makes for a good, interesting and fun game? To remove 70% of the map and shorten the game by a year?

No, the devs failed on this one. Given the price tag this game should have been so much more then it is. Look at the forum activity and tell me I´m wrong. 3 months after the game is released the forum is already pretty much dead and people can´t find opponents to play.

That is not a successful game.

[Flaviusx]

I got the Tarhunnas game wrong, but MichaelT was grinding you to powder in that game, Pelton. Pretty much everybody looking at that game thought so except you. I won't bother linking the thread. I can't believe you are still contesting this.

The turtle failed. Too clever by half.

Joc, I my recommendation is trying the game again with somebody other than Pelton who is perhaps less interested in finding ways to break the game. You've had a frustrating experience here playing against a tester who has chosen to optimize the game to the nth degree and gave you absolutely no handicaps; this will almost inevitably result in absurdities in a design this complex. It becomes a race to the bottom to see who can do the most ridiculous thing. And I'm going to call out Pelton here for taking advantage of rookies.

I don't agree with you that this design is fundamentally broken, although it can surely be improved.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Joc, I my recommendation is trying the game again with somebody other than Pelton who is perhaps less interested in finding ways to break the game. You've had a frustrating experience here playing against a tester who has chosen to optimize the game to the nth degree and gave you absolutely no handicaps; this will almost inevitably result in absurdities in a design this complex. It becomes a race to the bottom to see who can do the most ridiculous thing. And I'm going to call out Pelton here for taking advantage of rookies.

Perhaps you are right and I should give it another go. I think I need some time away first though. We will see....

No blame on Pelton. I knew exactly what I was getting into. It was a good lesson and I learned a lot.

[marion61]

I'm not the best player, but on the other hand I'm playing Pelton, and I don't consider myself a rookie.

I do believe that most of people's frustrations are from not fully understanding the WA's. I also agree Joc, that knowing what you know now, things would be very different. WA's are very complex, and you have to plan, and you have to over plan sometimes, but it's a huge learning curve. The only thing the axis really have to do is stop what your doing to win, they don't really have to take risk like invading. I've played this game since May of last year and I'm still learning things.

There are things that require some tweaking, but from reading aar's most of the frustration I see is from not setting up enough naval, or setting it too wide an area, and invading far from your air cover.

This may not make you feel better Joc, but I've honestly learned more by losing than by winning a game. I play to win, but when I lose, the lesson stays with me. Anyone that wants to play a learning game, my challenge box is open atm. I'm no expert, but I'm willing to help anyone who wants to learn.

[Seminole]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

ORIGINAL: Seminole

If so, this was unnecessary. MichaelT demonstrated that turtling up doesn't help the Axis cause. Rather the opposite.

IIRC MichaelT resigned in frustration because of a bug (teleporting HQs, or SUs or something like that). Pelton expressed confidence to the end in his gambit.

Again not true,
I RESIGNED and told MT why I played the game the way I did.

Ummm, the thread is still available on the internet.
You can look at it here.

"I have 70 odd sapper II and 272 sapper III. I would say 80% were in Corp prior to the bug. I have managed to get half the sapper III back in to Corp this turn. None of the Sapper II. I doubt I will ever be able to afford to re commit the II unless Pavel can help. I lost 2 battles I reckon I would have won with full sapper support. One shown above and another not. Plus probably 2 more battles I did not attempt due to the problem. Hopefully by March I will have recovered. But the 200 plus AP spent on reassigning Sappers won't be spent on new units. Unless Pavel can help me out." -Michael T

Michael T describes the bug here.

Later in the AAR thread:

"The bug is hurting but none the less the Reds are still going ok. Down around 300 AP now thru re-assignments. So lots of Corps not around due to that.
To summarise this is what the AI has done on recent turns:
Around 15 of my Army HQ's were moved to the rear.
Almost all SU assigned to Corp were sent back to the parent HQ's, this has occurred on 2 separate occasions.
2 HQ's disbanded.
Almost 100 Air Units sent to reserve.
Anyway the Red arrows show the main Soviet thrusts during February. Some weirdness around Riga. What is going on there?
I so want this bug nailed. I have Pelton by the balls damn it!"

With respect to you resigning, that's not how I remember it, and not what Michael T posted:

"Sadly it appears this game is over. The bug/corruption issue cannot be resolved. Unless Pavel comes up with an 11th hour solution. But that is unlikely and it would be selfish of me to continue to take up their time about an issue that is only occurring in this game. The problem to date has not been replicated. Yet it is clearly visible in the saves Joel has collected. He will be posting his thoughts on the matter in the next day or so after Pavel has a final look.
Considering the state of the game I had hoped Pelton might have just conceded but he refuses to do that. The best I could get out of him was 25% chance of a draw and 75% chance of Soviet victory. For me I have no doubt how it would have ended. Nothing has changed my view of the situation.
However, as much as I wanted to finish this game, it remains the worst gaming experience I have ever had in almost 35 years of wargaming. Pelton's attitude during the course of the game has had me vexed to say the least. I will leave it at that.
There will be no return game.
This mini rant is in no way a poor reflection on WITE or 2by3. Joel has been very supportive and keen to resolve the issue. I still enjoy the game immensely and will continue to play it. I have played around 20 games of WITE to date and have never had any issue like this before.
I have nothing more to say on the matter."

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Pelton

ORIGINAL: Seminole

IIRC MichaelT resigned in frustration because of a bug (teleporting HQs, or SUs or something like that). Pelton expressed confidence to the end in his gambit.

Again not true,
I RESIGNED and told MT why I played the game the way I did.

Ummm, the thread is still available on the internet.
You can look at it here.

"I have 70 odd sapper II and 272 sapper III. I would say 80% were in Corp prior to the bug. I have managed to get half the sapper III back in to Corp this turn. None of the Sapper II. I doubt I will ever be able to afford to re commit the II unless Pavel can help. I lost 2 battles I reckon I would have won with full sapper support. One shown above and another not. Plus probably 2 more battles I did not attempt due to the problem. Hopefully by March I will have recovered. But the 200 plus AP spent on reassigning Sappers won't be spent on new units. Unless Pavel can help me out." -Michael T

Michael T describes the bug here.

Later in the AAR thread:

"The bug is hurting but none the less the Reds are still going ok. Down around 300 AP now thru re-assignments. So lots of Corps not around due to that.
To summarise this is what the AI has done on recent turns:
Around 15 of my Army HQ's were moved to the rear.
Almost all SU assigned to Corp were sent back to the parent HQ's, this has occurred on 2 separate occasions.
2 HQ's disbanded.
Almost 100 Air Units sent to reserve.
Anyway the Red arrows show the main Soviet thrusts during February. Some weirdness around Riga. What is going on there?
I so want this bug nailed. I have Pelton by the balls damn it!"

With respect to you resigning, that's not how I remember it, and not what Michael T posted:

"Sadly it appears this game is over. The bug/corruption issue cannot be resolved. Unless Pavel comes up with an 11th hour solution. But that is unlikely and it would be selfish of me to continue to take up their time about an issue that is only occurring in this game. The problem to date has not been replicated. Yet it is clearly visible in the saves Joel has collected. He will be posting his thoughts on the matter in the next day or so after Pavel has a final look.
Considering the state of the game I had hoped Pelton might have just conceded but he refuses to do that. The best I could get out of him was 25% chance of a draw and 75% chance of Soviet victory. For me I have no doubt how it would have ended. Nothing has changed my view of the situation.
However, as much as I wanted to finish this game, it remains the worst gaming experience I have ever had in almost 35 years of wargaming. Pelton's attitude during the course of the game has had me vexed to say the least. I will leave it at that.
There will be no return game.
This mini rant is in no way a poor reflection on WITE or 2by3. Joel has been very supportive and keen to resolve the issue. I still enjoy the game immensely and will continue to play it. I have played around 20 games of WITE to date and have never had any issue like this before.
I have nothing more to say on the matter."

Believe it or not I agreed to resign the game in an email to MT as he was clearly winning and its one of my 4 loses.

The manpower and armament bug had alrdy screwed the GHC OOB.

I resigned not MT not everything is a drama queen event on the internet.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: meklore61


This may not make you feel better Joc, but I've honestly learned more by losing than by winning a game.

I learned more also in my 4 loses then all my 25 wins in WitE.

[Seminole]

Believe it or not I agreed to resign the game in an email to MT as he was clearly winning and its one of my 4 loses.

I believe what I read in the thread as it happened over your selective revision.
My recollection was correct.
That months later when MT was willing to resume the game and you refused doesn't change that.

I resigned not MT not everything is a drama queen event on the internet.

LOL
You're quite honestly the biggest 'drama queen' I've seen in any wargaming forum - ever.
Which is truly a shame because you're a very astute player, and I intend to take nothing away from that, but as I pointed out to you on the WitE years ago your histrionics are a detriment to the points you try to make.

[JocMeister]

I guess you all will be very thrilled (not really..[;)]) to know I´ve decided to give WitW another go. AAR will be up in the coming days.

[Flaviusx]

I am pleased. You will do better this time around, am sure of it.

[marion61]

DAMN! Who talked you into that???[;)] He must be pretty awesome!!![8D] (yes, that's humor)

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

DAMN! Who talked you into that???[;)] He must be pretty awesome!!![8D] (yes, that's humor)

Or pretty mad...[:D]