Gary Grigsby’s World at War is back with a whole new set of features. World at War: A World Divided still gives complete control over the production, research and military strategy for your side, but in this new updated version you’ll also be able to bring spies into the mix as well as neutral country diplomacy, variable political events and much more. Perhaps the largest item is the ability to play a special Soviet vs. Allies scenario that occurs after the end of World War II.
I appreciate the effort you are making to consider tweaks to the game, but I just don't think this is an area that needs much change other than increasing Japanese security a bit.
I think that the more areas the enemy is ahead, the more opportunity for advancement by stealing secrets and/or reverse-engineering captured equipment from the battlefield. I don't know if I like the idea of "focused" spying. Although I might be persuaded it was a good idea to consider some type of change if the game was still in development, it just seems that the spy system has worked fairly well through a lot of play! The way the game plays, spying can be a long-term investment with somewhat mixed rewards as you can miss some turns due to the security roll, and then returns diminish as you begin to catch up to the enemy.
Other than modifying Japanese security, the only type of suggested change I think I could get behind (which wouldn't affect balance, just the dynamics of investig in spies) - would be some type of limit on the per-turn investment in spies, security, sigint, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel on the spy tweaking also.
It pretty much works now I just feel Japan is to easy of a target for the wealthy WA.
In my most current setup of Uncommon Valor I'm using the following values.
Germany- 12 security (was 10).
10 sigInt (was 6).
Japan- 15 security (was 8).
5 sigInt (was 4).
The rest unchanged.
The stronger Axis security is intended to do three things. One, help prevent tech theft. Two, help preserve sigInt and spy levels. Third, to more aggressively knock down Allied levels. The sigInt increases help sustain some level a little longer. In the original scenarios it was common to see Japan's sigInt level brought to zero before 1942.
Overall, I see nothing wrong with boosting both Axis in this way, since bonuses here do not necessarily mean a higher chance of AV or a victory shift. It just gives the allies one extra area of the game to have a slightly harder battle to overcome. In an even game, the Allies always have lots of supply mid to late game, and when that is spent on the sigInt and spy screen the Axis numbers really take a dive. To be fair, that trend is historical, but I feel the Allied effort to achieve that in this game has been to easy. Hence my reasons to increase more than just the Jap security to 15.
I feel that Axis players would now be more inclined to consider investing more here, especially Japan. At 8 security it was to low to consider a serious bump up due to cost. That production was best used elsewhere IMO. But at 15 sec, bumping to say 20 where an impact would be felt looks like a possible choice now. If the Axis both shoot for 20 security early they could really bring the Allied levels down to were they could not catch up until late 42. Of coarse the Axis would have little tech sharing using this strat. That's minor anyway. To argue that increasing the Axis security hurts them in this way is missing the big picture. It helps the Axis in the mid to late game which is needed since balance there is a bit tilted to the Allies.
Since some ideas have been thrown out there so I'll add a few.
For those that don't like the idea of being able to steal tech that's only a point or two ahead, how about making it a requirement that the tech your about to steal has at least a GREEN beaker. In this way, when the UI normally shows that a tech is close to immenent breakthrough it will also be an indicator that its tech can be stolen too. Of coarse some percentages would have to be increased since you can't steal from red and yellow beakers of the same tech level. This was an idea I discussed with Joel Billings during dev but he was happy with 1 point being enough of a lead. I'm not sure if there is an easy way for Brian to bind the green beaker requirment to spying. It wouldn't be a big deal if he couldn't because making any changes like this would just require more playtesting to find the sweet spot.
It been said a few times that spys win over security rather easily for their cost. The simplest thing to try would be to bump their cost from 3 to 5. That's all that may be needed. The KISS principle.
Jesse LeBreton, AKA Lebatron
Development team- GG's WAW A World Divided
What I was sort of hoping for is some way to make spying worthwhile for a few things without making it too beneficial for many things. Like a way for Germany to benefit some more from spying, when they spend much of the game ahead in many techs, without that also making the Allies benefit more from spying. It has sort of an all or nothing feel to it right now. I'd also like to see more of a requirement that sustained spying require sustained expense, which isn't really the case right now.
But other than starting value tweaks, I can't see much happening here.
In my most current setup of Uncommon Valor I'm using the following values.
Germany- 12 security (was 10).
10 sigInt (was 6).
Japan- 15 security (was 8).
5 sigInt (was 4).
The rest unchanged.
The stronger Axis security is intended to do three things. One, help prevent tech theft. Two, help preserve sigInt and spy levels. Third, to more aggressively knock down Allied levels. The sigInt increases help sustain some level a little longer. In the original scenarios it was common to see Japan's sigInt level brought to zero before 1942.
Overall, I see nothing wrong with boosting both Axis in this way, since bonuses here do not necessarily mean a higher chance of AV or a victory shift. It just gives the allies one extra area of the game to have a slightly harder battle to overcome. In an even game, the Allies always have lots of supply mid to late game, and when that is spent on the sigInt and spy screen the Axis numbers really take a dive. To be fair, that trend is historical, but I feel the Allied effort to achieve that in this game has been to easy. Hence my reasons to increase more than just the Jap security to 15.
I feel that Axis players would now be more inclined to consider investing more here, especially Japan. At 8 security it was to low to consider a serious bump up due to cost. That production was best used elsewhere IMO. But at 15 sec, bumping to say 20 where an impact would be felt looks like a possible choice now. If the Axis both shoot for 20 security early they could really bring the Allied levels down to were they could not catch up until late 42. Of coarse the Axis would have little tech sharing using this strat. That's minor anyway. To argue that increasing the Axis security hurts them in this way is missing the big picture. It helps the Axis in the mid to late game which is needed since balance there is a bit tilted to the Allies.
It been said a few times that spys win over security rather easily for their cost. The simplest thing to try would be to bump their cost from 3 to 5. That's all that may be needed. The KISS principle.
Those starting axis levels look good to me and I would have to agree with Lebatrons reasoning.
ORIGINAL: Lebatron
In my most current setup of Uncommon Valor I'm using the following values.
Germany- 12 security (was 10).
10 sigInt (was 6).
Japan- 15 security (was 8).
5 sigInt (was 4).
The rest unchanged.
Those starting axis levels look good to me and I would have to agree with Lebatrons reasoning.
My only question here: was German signals intelligence ever as good as the Allied, even 1939? I ask from sheer ignorance.
Otherwise, it seems mostly reasonable, given the police state of Germany and culture of Japan and comparing to the starting level of Russia (security 15). I'm still inclined to leave Japan a little lower.
My new values are based on gut feeling. I know that the numbers I choose will lead to a greater effort on the Allies part to win the information war. Anything less would see the Axis giving in early or never investing at all. Why have this new feature in AWD if it isn't balanced? The way it's set up now gives the Allies another advantage long before they really need it. My philosophy in choosing the numbers I did was based on cost vs return for any Axis investment in this area of the game. The starting values got to be high enough to temp him to do so, yet not to high that it becomes a no-brainer to try and shut the Allies out of the info war. I believe my current values are well shy of that possible scenario so why scale them back? With additional playtesting I might even bump Axis values futher.
Jesse LeBreton, AKA Lebatron
Development team- GG's WAW A World Divided
One could make the point that the surprise attack through the ardennes mountains vs. France in 1940, the rather surprise attack against the SU in 1941, to mention two main events of the early war, could be seen as evidence of a good level of German security, or the lack of good Allied espionage, which ever way you prefer. Until the enigma code was broken sometime during 1941 or 1942 IIRC there was not much useful intel the Allies were able to gather as far I can see. Definetly Japan's secrets were even closer protected which is which Japan's security should be higher than Germany's.
I totally agree about your reasoning for Germany, the Allies were more or less a punching ball until 1941 and surprised often enough. I also agree that Japan's starting security should be higher although the Japanese code was broken relatively early in their war against the US if I recall correctly (1941/42).
I think the Germans are more than capable of competing in the spy game until the mid or even late war, depending on how things go. Boosting Germany is unnecessary, IMO.
