Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Denniss

Does the AI react properly if the garrison level jump upwards or is it confused as well?
If an Axis player sends allied units back to their ships at which time does the garrison level jump upwards? If it's immediately after clearing them from Axis Europe or in the Allied Logphase or in the Axis Logphase with VP allocation to allied player then I'd count it as (major) Bug, if it's in the Axis Log phase without having VP effects for any player it's somewhat problematic but not a bug.
At least the Axis player should get a popup/warning about raised garrison levels.

1 turn bro-which is silly.

Germany only has about 10 units that can do anything, all 15+ CV - so when allies land you have to move them to the invasion area.

Then if they leave there is no way you can get CV lvls back to "normal"

System needs a delay

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

The initial post re the sudden drop in garrison requirements is a reasonable concern. We're considering options here.

As for the rest of the debate re victory points I would like to remind everyone of the many comments in WitE about how our victory system was too simple and didn't account for anything but the situation at the end of the war. We tried hard to come up with a system that would score players on how they were doing during the game, encouraging certain actions. Also, there were outside circumstances that forced choices on the player that he wouldn't make had he free reign and/or 20/20 hindsight. Some of the posts seem to just be a reaction to having negative points. Changing some items from negatives if you don't do them to positives if you do just changes the math but doesn't really alter the final results. Also, we put points on casualties for a reason. It's not simply a matter of allowing the Allies to clean out their manpower pools. We think there should be a penalty associated with taking higher losses. The last thing I want to do now is to throw out the scoring system, build a new one, and then have to balance it. It's not going to happen. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but a do over is not in the cards.

+1 good stuff

I would consider dropping a game against any player that intentionally cheezed the garrison VPs just to harvest points, and I will never do it. Why would you want to win a game based on an exploit?

HMSWarspite, the negative VP thing is really about human psychology. Substantively speaking, you could achieve the exact same results here without changing a thing merely by recalibrating everything based on a zero baseline. Too late to do this, but something to keep in mind for future games.

If you can get past the psychology of it, then there's no issue, but it's a real thing. I have to agree this isn't the best design choice.

Some of the criticisms of the VP system seem offbase to me, however, especially the idea that the Allies could ignore casualties (and empty their manpower pools!) or take a pass on a landing in 1943 and whatnot.

ORIGINAL: HMSWarspite

For losses, anyone who thinks that casualties were acceptable (and hence don't warrant a loss of points) needs to remember the huge trauma of WW1... The Allies need to defeat Germany without too many casualties. Whilst resource limits might be enough for the UK, limiting US resources is just not realistic. Using all the possible forces to defeat Germany would be a walkover, and limiting them ahistorically ruins a good historical game.

I think this particular aspect of the game is contrived. UK casualties were relatively light by WWI standards. Montgomery's cautious approach was driven less by political requirements and more by a realisation trained infantry replacements were getting fewer in number.

As for the Americans, American doctrine stipulated you landed where the enemy were, grabbed hold of them, and kicked them to death whatever the cost. The bocage, Metz, the Hurtgen etc, they took them on wherever they found them. the number of American divisions was finite, it should be possible to model the effects of excessive casualties without imposing artificial penalties.

Game designs should (IM very HO) model the effects of decisions. So, excessive British casualties shouldn't cause VP penalties, just force you to fight with hollow formations, or force you to disband a couple of divisions (as Montgomery did) to provide replacements.

Regards,
ID

So, negative VPs upset human sensibilities? So any game where both sides can get vp, and the win is determined by who has more, with the degree of victory a function of the ratio or margin are a) stressful or b) perfectly normal. I repeaty claim that anyone who can learn the mechanics has no problem with the maths and appearance of the vp system.

As to the rest, if Victory should only depends on what happens in the game, you end up with a 'last man standing' game. If the last 1cv WA unit attacks the last 0.1cv German in Berlin and advances after combat to win, do we think that is WW2 in the west? Or some nasty abstract game with over complicated rules. I don't play wargames for the pure game (there are many many really good abstract games for that). I play to wrestle with some of the issues that real life comanders struggled with in RL.

Without VP for extras like VW or Ub, I bet the best (game) use of heavies is to bomb rail yards near the front. If that is the case I would rather swap them all for mediums.

For the reasons in my post enough, I have no issue with the style of VP we have. The balance may need looking at. It may be as simple as a lag of the garrison cv rents, and a tweak in the city values. Please don't disrupt the rest.

Oh, go on, if you must, add 1000 to the starting points and win scale. Don't want to have to wrestle with minus numbers whilst optimising air directives, load outs, locations, supply, SU, amphibs.... Need I go on?

ORIGINAL: Pelton


...
Germany only has about 10 units that can do anything, all 15+ CV - so when allies land you have to move them to the invasion area.

Then if they leave there is no way you can get CV lvls back to "normal"

System needs a delay

Pelton

the problem here is you have been min-maxing your response to invasions (as you do very well), this response exposes that approach from a similar perspective. The reality is the Germans didn't dare strip say France of mobile reserves to deal with Italy as they didn't know the allies lacked the capacity (or will) to try a second invasion. So you've been dealing with one threat and ignoring the latent second threat. This rather gamey Allied strategy is a response in kind. Its unfortunate that you are back to screaming 'Middle Earth' in response to be being out-gamed.

As to the VPs.

I don't care about the negative concept. I can see the objection but it doesn't worry me. I'd like to see the T1 hit on allied VPs removed (as someone says those losses are from when someone else was in command), not least its scarcely needed for end of game balance (judging by completed games so far).

I actually like the VP system as a reflection of external issues. I presume the U-Boat focus is a way to build in the diversion of effort (for both sides) of the Battle of the Atlantic? V1/2 reflects the importance the allies gave to ending that threat.

I'm not that worried about the game tending to an allied loss (regardless of who holds Berlin) if losses go too high or progress is too slow. Given the economic ruin of the war for the UK and France, you could make a case that by 1943 this war had long abandoned the traditional logic of fighting for defined goals and had indeed become about winning at any cost and worry about the consequences later.

What might be nice is a second set of victory conditions. WiTE is, as noted above, too driven in its victory conditions by player performance not context. Something along these lines in WiTW as a separate metric for 'success' might be quite useful, though of course player(s) can always come up with their own informal measures for this (as many do in WiTE).

Joel & Red,

It's certainly a fair call to say the VP system is working as designed....and I totally get the idea of not wanting to scrap a major system in a design that is already released. That's also a fair call. If the goal was to reflect the frustrations of the Allied Commanders in WWII in Europe, I think you laudably succeeded. If the application was being designed as a simulation that was a teaching tool for a history class exploring those dynamics, I'd say you were right on target. For a game that people play for entertainment, I'm not sure how well that mesh's as a design goal if carried out too strictly.

I say this constructively and with all due respect. I'd venture that the number of people who play games to be frustrated and "work hard" is exceedingly small, even among wargamers. I certainly know that if I am doing something which is frustrating and I have to "work hard" at... it's only going to be because I am drawing a salary for it. I play games for entertainment only.

That certainly doesn't mean that I only enjoy games which are simplistic, "casual", unchallenging". I like games which are challenging, complex, intricate and difficult to master but those are very different adjectives then "work" or "frustration". Right now the VP system in WitW feels a bit more like "do this arbitrary thing and follow this specific script or you lose". I don't really feel like playing a game where I need to follow the exact same strategy that historical commanders did to win.... that's no fun (for me) and would pretty much kill replay value. I'd rather play a game where you can try to pursue different strategies to win, but it has consequences or trade-offs in other areas which may or may not be worth it, and you may or may not be able to compensate for in other ways.

For a concrete example, it'd be cool to play a game where you focused the bombing campaign on the Axis aircraft and/or AFV production facilities to see if that would be more effective in ending the War. From a VP perspective doing that in favor of the VP designated targets likely becomes an auto-lose, even if it got you to Berlin before the Soviets. Heck, going beyond that scope it'd be fun to be able to try Churchill's plan of landing in the Balkans. Maybe it wouldn't work out...but it wouldn't work out because the Germans could hold-off your advance, not because you lost a ton of VP's for not doing what the script said you were supposed to do.

Right now, the only way I really have fun playing WitW is by pretty much ignoring what the VP system says.... which is fine, but it does seem a bit of a waste to me to have a game where the players enjoy playing by tending to ignore the VP system. YMMV.

grumpy mel does make one good point in that post. it would be interesting to have a different (dare I say random?) set of strategic bombing objectives given the WA (and unknown to the axis side) at the start of each game, possibly changed every 6 months or so?

perhaps HI and manpower always give VPs, but the oil & fuel could be randomly changed with other targets

for example - at the game start, WA is told that bombing aircraft factories and resources is the strategic objective that gives positive bombing VPs rather than fuel and oil. the axis player would not initially know this, and would have to learn it by paying attention to what targets are being hit.

then on January 1, two new strategic targets are chosen at random - perhaps this time oil and AFVs. it doesn't have to be totally random, perhaps a weighted table of some sort. and the VPs gained may have to be weighted based on target potential. I am sure its a bit complex, but at least an option to think about

dunno if that possible to implement, but it would make for a some interesting change and replayability.

ORIGINAL: whoofe

grumpy mel does make one good point in that post. it would be interesting to have a different (dare I say random?) set of strategic bombing objectives given the WA (and unknown to the axis side) at the start of each game, possibly changed every 6 months or so?

perhaps HI and manpower always give VPs, but the oil & fuel could be randomly changed with other targets

for example - at the game start, WA is told that bombing aircraft factories and resources is the strategic objective that gives positive bombing VPs rather than fuel and oil. the axis player would not initially know this, and would have to learn it by paying attention to what targets are being hit.

then on January 1, two new strategic targets are chosen at random - perhaps this time oil and AFVs. it doesn't have to be totally random, perhaps a weighted table of some sort. and the VPs gained may have to be weighted based on target potential. I am sure its a bit complex, but at least an option to think about

dunno if that possible to implement, but it would make for a some interesting change and replayability.

Whoofe, while that would be a twist that would help reduce predictability.... I'm not sure that would be better in actualy giving the player AGENCY over their decisions and setting their priorties ..... which is really more what I'm talking about.

For example....

Does the player concentrate on fuel and rail to strangle the Axis mobility?

Does the player hammer Axis aircraft production so they get air superiority sooner and more decisively, and allow them to effectively hammer other industries as well as more freely stage landings and deliver close air support?

Do they put less emphasis into strategic targets and more into direct combat support, or interdiction... even if some of those bombers aren't ideally suited for it?

Do they hammer the Axis armament and AFV industries to starve the important Axis combat units of weaponry?

Do they go all in for manpower? To make the Axis unable to replace their combat losses of troops?

Do they go for U-boats and V-weapons to try to reduce the Axis abillity to threaten shipping and the flow of men and materials to their own combat forces as well as the "National Morale" (which probably effects how well their combat forces actually fight)

These all seem like potential viable strategies for trying to "win the war" from the air side of things. Ideally, (in my perfect game) the player would have the agency to choose which one or one's they wanted to try to pursue. The VP system... if the player actually pays attention to it, really cuts into the players agency to make that decision and see how it works....and rather forces them to follow it's own script.

There is an easy solution though...and I think it's one that I am likely to take.... just ignore that system entirely and play the way you would want if it didn't exist. Just seems a bit of a shame to me, but I guess that's ok.

P.S. Warspite.... I think perhaps what we are bumping into here is that people play wargames, even as narrow an audience as would play WitW, for different reasons and look for and want different things out of them. The Designers can't satisfy all...and their own design goals trump all.... it doesn't mean people are not going to express their own ideas, feelings and preferences about it in the games forum though. Heck, it doesn't even mean that the designers should try and accommodate those players in that particular game.... but maybe it's informative if they ever try to release a different game in future for a slightly different target audience... gives them an idea of the different sorts of audiences that are out there which might have some interest in their releases.

P.P.S. I think what Pelton described is clearly just a detail of how 1 particular mechanic can be "gamed".... a few of the rest of us are just spouting off about different preferences of VP system styles.

Guys, the bombing VP are not arbitrary or reflecting some perception of the Allied policy. The Atlantic campaign was in the balance until 1943, and was still hard fought after that. The Germans came within an ace of turning things around with the MkXXI, which would have been a hard nut to crack if in service earlier and in greater numbers. The V weapons were potentially a huge disruptor. There is plenty of evidence that civilian morale would not have cracked based on Ge and UK experience, but this is when there is clear fighting back. A sustained effective V1 (and especially) V2 campaign for several months might have cracked morale because of the helpless feeling. More likely the government (like us) would not know if it would, and would do what it could to mitigate the risk. Anyone for loss of rail, manpower and shipping capacity as a function of V1 sites because of evacuations and factory moves? No, me either because the effort relative to VP loss doesn't give me any more enjoyment and the data to model it reasonably isn't there.

If both these things were explicitly modeled in the game, VP effects would not be necessary. They were not and hence some form of recognition of the constraints the WA were under is necessary. The application of VP for other bombing could be removed if the game modeled all effects. The military ones are (you are free to try and bomb the LW a/c factories and reduce them that way) but things like resources and HI are not only used for combat equipment. They are used to (for instance) repair factories, railways and provide rolling stock and civilian supplies. If these things are accurately linked to number of HI sites and hence steel production (for example) the game doesn't need VP. But currently it does and I would rather have the 1942 NA campaign than the extra economic fidelity and remove the VP.

As for rule 18.2, I am having a change of mind. The German has several huge advantages over his real life counterpart:
a) no Hitler, but I am going to skip that one as this is a whole different discussion
b) exact and absolute knowledge of what is needed to control the resistance threat in each country
c) exact and absolute knowledge of the WA OOB (no FUSAG threat for example)
d) exact knowledge of the amphibious lift and strike capability - no Fortitude (well, you could do a pseudo one under FOW by only invading with 4 or less amphibs, hiding the rest and keeping some Divs and HQs back, but I dont think such an invasion is credible in game)
e) the garrison requirement in a zone drops to zero the instant a WA unit sets foot in the region.

So, I think the issue isn't that the WA can game the system by pulling out - after all, that requires the Axis to cooperate (by allowing CV to drop). The issue is that setting foot in Brittany means the German knows with absolute certainty there will be no overt resistance activity until Paris is captured or there are 10 WA hexes in each of 2 regions of France (rule 18.3.3). So 1 allied unit can cause all partisan activity to stop for tens or hundreds of miles!

Thus I revise my opinion... if the GE gets stung by the WA 'trick' it is brought on by his own actions... don't denude the area of CV. Now, this leads us to the question whether having to guard against this unreasonably handicaps the German... I haven't played Axis enough yet to know (not at all vs humans). But it should be a challenge for the German, and the sure knowledge of the Allied invasion capacity is a huge bonus.

I may have missed something (given my lack of Axis playing), but I think (whilst slightly unusual) the current system isn't a game breaker. I would suggest that the best solution is that the garrison requirement doesn't drop to zero given 1 hex ownership (which strikes me as a quick simple game mechanic to avoid losing VP when Germany only holds a small part of a region). Instead reduce it by the proportion of hexes in the region under allied control, and account cities explicitly. Thus if half the hexes in a region are Axis and not cut off, the CV requirement halves. Similarly if Amiens is Axis and not isolated, it's garrison requirement stands. I guess you could refine this by also removing the garrison if hexes are in ZoC (regardless of Axis unit presence - partisans find actual front lines a little exciting and crowded!). There is thus no advantage in the WA suckering the GE (even if there is one now, which I remain to be convinced)

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel


Right now, the only way I really have fun playing WitW is by pretty much ignoring what the VP system says.... which is fine, but it does seem a bit of a waste to me to have a game where the players enjoy playing by tending to ignore the VP system. YMMV.

What exactly is the big issue with the VP system constraining the WA. What does it encourage you to do?
- Bomb U Boat FAc in 1943... not a big deal, I just use BC to hit MAN, HI and UB in the relevant cities - no biggy. Danzig is a pain but its not the end of the world. Very realistic.
- Bomb VW and VWL in 1944. Bit more of a nuisance - Nordhausen doesn't have much to draw me there, but just flatten it and get on with it. The VWL are 'dud' missions, but put 8AF on it for a week or 2 and keep the damage topped up with mediums. Not exactly a game breaker. Also realistic

Both of the above are accurate reflections of high level help to the Combined Staff, and thus no less realistic than 8AF being based in Norfolk rather than Kent - I know you can move 8AF (but it wont all fit and you need the bases for 2TAF/9AF so not really an option...)

Invade Italy or France/NE before 1 Feb 44. Well, if you don't I think the game is lost, so kind of academic - I dont think this rule is required anyway. In RL Stalin would be spitting tacks and so not unrealistic

Capture cities early... You mean the public and politicians want evidence of activity, or you are going to get sacked? Ok, ditch the city date divisor and just set VP targets vs time to avoid sudden death. What, you don't like that either? Well, nor do I. Your masters want to see progress, and I don't like sudden death options.

Really not sure what is wrong with the VP system (tuning excepted). What do people want?

A few things to keep in mind:

* The Allies can and will conduct more amphibious invasions than were done historically. There were six major invasions in Europe (North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy and South France). A WA player can easily exceed that through outflanking maneuvers in Italy, for example.

* WITW exacts no penalty for a failed amphib. I and others have seen Allied assault bridgeheads totally wiped out. That never happened in real life (not counting Dieppe, which was more of a raid). If it had, Allied heads would have rolled from Ike on down. WITW assesses VP losses for troops and ships destroyed, but not for the simple fact that an invasion force was destroyed.

* The above means that the Allies will be more aggressive than historically, but that may be necessary because an experienced German can make a good guess at when and where the Allies will land, how long it will take the amphs to recycle for the next landing, and they will probably have the EF box to draw on.

How this should play out in VPs, or in the question of historically realistic gameplay, I don't know. It looks to me like the VPs are unduly harsh on the Allies, but on the other hand, the Allies will be far more aggressive.

HMSWarspite,

You have completely misunderstood what me and many others don´t like with the VP system. In all honesty I simply cannot explain it any clearer then I have in this thread. Post #23, #25 and #29 I also suggest you read Grumpy Mels post #48 again.

It's about incentives. It's that simple. It feels like a grind. Being punished for doing what you're supposed to do does not make sense. I know the math might work out to be the same, but it doesn't engage the player correctly at all.

It's essentialy like a manager telling his employee "you better do your job because someone will easily replace you", rather than saying "do a good job and one day you will be in my position". The message might be the same, but one is incredibly demotivating.

The MK XXI UBoat lets just look at that turkey a bit closer. With the best will in the world, no bombing everything going great the Kriegmarine believed they could get it in series production for March 1945 in the meantime they would have to take resources away from the Iron Coffins. Donitz of course could not agree to that so he brought in Speer. Speer read somewhere the Americans were pre fabricating Liberty ships and thought Submarines liberty ships what's the difference, piece of cake! To supervise the programe he brought in a guy who was a big shot in tank production, sacking the head of German naval building who actually knew about buliding ships and submarines. This amateur hour performance alienated every single shipbuilder. Speer's "tank expert" promised a MK XXI every 175 days and launched the first prototype before Hitlers birthday in April 1944, nobody could blow their own trumpet like Speer. Of course the Pre fab sub was that badly put together, it leaked like a sieve and had to be put in drydock after launching. 80 mk XXI's were delivered before the end of 1944 and not one was fit for action. It was an expensive fiasco worse than the He 177, unskilled labour was totally incapable of making them and to save embarrasment the Tank guru accused the shipyards of sabotage in assembling them despite the sections arriving with 3 cm deviations. So despite being ahead of its time unless it was going to be built conventionally and entering service in 46 the MK XXI wernt going impact anything. So to cut a long story short bombing of uboat yards had little to do with the failure of the XXI, not being able to pause the uboat campaign and Speer's quest for power did.

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: Pelton


...
Germany only has about 10 units that can do anything, all 15+ CV - so when allies land you have to move them to the invasion area.

Then if they leave there is no way you can get CV lvls back to "normal"

System needs a delay

Pelton

the problem here is you have been min-maxing your response to invasions (as you do very well), this response exposes that approach from a similar perspective. The reality is the Germans didn't dare strip say France of mobile reserves to deal with Italy as they didn't know the allies lacked the capacity (or will) to try a second invasion. So you've been dealing with one threat and ignoring the latent second threat. This rather gamey Allied strategy is a response in kind. Its unfortunate that you are back to screaming 'Middle Earth' in response to be being out-gamed.

Pretty much sums it all up. Same thing would happen if he did his latest WiTE rant "The Germans could send everything east because it was a one front war..."

Have they not closed that Panzer divisions sitting on flat cars on railways exploit yet?

Warspite, to put it bluntly. The VP system as it stands (if you actually pay attention to it rather then ignore it) essentially scripts the players strategy (or significant portions of it) for them.... removing agency and freedom of action from the player. Rather then saying "Do X and it will have Y consequences which you may or may not be able to compensate for and still defeat the enemy" .... it says "Do X or you auto-lose from a VP standpoint, regardless of whether you manage to capture every single hex on the board, destroy every Axis CV, beat the Soviets to Berlin, etc". It discourages the player from taking different path's, trying different strategies and approaches, setting different objectives then were done historically.

In essence, it weakens the "What If" options. To see how things might have worked differently had different approaches been taken and different objectives set. Note that you can still do some of those by ignoring the VP system... which is fine. Players don't always have to go with what numbers the game tells them or the results of who it thinks was the winner.... alot of games have House Rules, etc. Even here though, there is a bit missing.... because if you really do ignore victory points there is no effect for V-Weapons and U-boats, rather then some effect which the player may or may not be able to overcome with strategy.

Now the VP system is really not as big a deal for me as it sounds....because the player can effectively decide to excsize it from the game entirely and it doesn't mechanically effect how the game plays. That's alot less of a big deal (for me anyway) then say game scale, A.I. capability, fortification strength and build speed, etc. It's largely solvable by simple agreement by the players to House rules which ignore it (or just ignoring it when playing solo). So I'm not placing a big priority on it, personally either...... however since it was a topic under discussion, I thought it appropriate to venture my opinion on it.... given it's a game discussion board, after-all.

perhaps if you got positive VPs for hitting any strategic targets. maybe not all at the same value, but if every strat target was worth at least some VPs.

that way, if you believe hitting a certain set of strat targets would also help you get to berlin faster, then by all means bomb them. of course it would require a complete rebalancing of the system, so again I dunno how feasible it would be to implement.