Why should I buy WITE2?

[Zovs]

You don't need a spreadsheet to run WitE2 (thank the stars, I hate spreadsheets). In fact you can start out by letting the AI run certain parts of the game, primarily the Air War, Supply Depot Management and Support Distribution.

The game has two main phases for each side which concludes one turn. Here is a board war game concept for the turn sequence, note that the Axis generally go first but not in all scenarios:

1 Player Turn representing 1 week of action consists of:

Axis Air Planning Phase
Axis Ground Phase
Soviet Air Planning Phase
Soviet Ground Phase

During the Air Planning Phase you can set your Air Directives and adjust how the air war is conducted for each mission type (ground attack, ground support, bomb city, recon, air superiority and naval) which includes details like altitude, escorts and for ground attack which types of targets and their priority to set them to (ignore, low, normal, medium and high). For each Air Directive Mission you can assign one or more to each Air Group (for example for AGN that would be Luftflotte 1) each Air Group can have up to 10 Air Missions assigned to it. This is a very basic run down and there are many more details but as your just starting out you can just simply ignore all those details because the scenario designers have implemented a basic and effective set of Air Doctrines for each mission for the start of each scenario. In effect you review what has been set and just simply press the end turn to execute the Air Phase with all the default Air Directives. These work reasonable well and are safe in that generally the you will see between 1800 to 2800 Soviet aircraft destroyed with the loss of 75-175 of your own losses (IIRC). Much later on you can read up on how to adjust things and setup your own Air Directives and Missions but you can ignore all that and trust that the automated Air Assist is working correctly. This is a nice way to ease into the ground war and learn the air war as you go along, for example during testing since I was not used to WitW air war I had to learn things in chunks, slowly incorporating things like how to target ground attacks or adjust the ground support to follow various HQs.

For the land warfare system and phase it's much easier in general.

Essentially each ground combat unit has two methods of attack available to it, hasty attack and deliberate attack. A hasty attack consumes less movement, combat prep and fatigue points but at the risk of not being able to dislodge (retreat, route or shatter) a enemy unit. Deliberate attacks consume more of your combat prep, movement and fatigue but generally have a high chance of success. To use a hasty attack you just right click on a unit with your active unit and it automatically attacks. When you do this (right hover over a hex a dialog pops up showing you the estimated combat value of both sides, depending on fog of war, the hex and road type, climate, ground and air conditions, fort level and control and the name and combat value, again depending on fog of war of the enemy hex. To perform a deliberate attack you simply hold the shift key down and it displays the same info on hover and it is the only type of attack where you can select multiple hexes to attack with.

For land movement you just simply select a unit and point the mouse to where you want to move it to and it shows you the movement point costs for each hex on that path and to move to that hex you just right click. Built is is admin and normal land movement, zoc, terrain, weather and the like.

Supply is key in this version of the game, but you can spend 5 admin points and let the AI manage your depots until you get the hang of how to setup them up and use the supply network. Essentially each Depot moves freight from the national supply source to your front line units and in that process trains (freight) and trucks move that supply (ammo, fuel and I suppose food) for your units to consume.

In general each combat maneuver unit is a division, with both brigades, regiments and corps (Soviet) being available, each HQ can be a Corps, Army, Army Group or Front or Higher HQ. Each combat unit should be within 5 hexes of its Corps or 15 if attached to an Army to receive support units from that HQ or you can directly attach support units to divisions and brigades, for example engineer battalions, or anti air or tank companies or battalions. You can lock each HQ in its support units so you can manage it your self or you can unlock them and set a value (say 3 for example) and the AI will attempt to fill those HQs with the number set (3 in this example) for each type of support units, engineers, AAA, artillery, etc.

So in a nutshell, you can automate the Air War, automate Supply Depot Management and automate Support unit distribution to learn the basics of the game. And later on learn these systems at your fancy and have both fun and an enriching experience.

Its all really fun and learning to master the tactical nuances and operational strategies takes a life time. You can get good results against the AI as a learning tool, but playing against others is really a challenge.

Hands down WitE2 is the best of the best, the USMC or Royal Marines or Commando's and Para's all rolled into one of all Eastern Front wargames.

I can provide screenshots if you would like.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I am a gentleman of a certain age. I want to play a wargame. I don't want a headache after five minutes of intense squinting.

Thank-you.

Best operational game about the Great Patriotic War, simple. I can only speak for myself: I bought it -along with the first iteration WitE- because I am interested in the conflict, but I did not buy WitW [;)] To each their own.

[altipueri]

Don't do it Warspite.
It's WITP-AE with tanks.

My copy is installed and unplayed; and when the 520 page manual arrives off that boat stuck the Suez Canal I will look through it and marvel at the work loki has put into it.
I will then place it next to the 330 page WITP-AE manual; I will take a deep breath and say in a deep voice that I have the two greatest wargames ever produced; and never played either of them, but will do soon, really; and then remember I have had a tiring week, and it is Friday afternoon of a bank holiday weekend - and I just want to blow stuff up for an hour.

So I'll do a quick random game of Combat Mission 1.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[gamer78]

ORIGINAL: loki100

I still so hope one day that Philippe gets to redo PoN with the new game engine. I think I'd just disappear into a 19C steam punk universe and never emerge [;)]

Definetely I also hope one day. Period was fascinating it would create great interest in colonial times. Classic music was at its best while playing and listening. There was a song called 'monarchists song' couldn't figure out in youtube, the composer.

[Bamilus]

ORIGINAL: altipueri

Don't do it Warspite.
It's WITP-AE with tanks.

My copy is installed and unplayed; and when the 520 page manual arrives off that boat stuck the Suez Canal I will look through it and marvel at the work loki has put into it.
I will then place it next to the 330 page WITP-AE manual; I will take a deep breath and say in a deep voice that I have the two greatest wargames ever produced; and never played either of them, but will do soon, really; and then remember I have had a tiring week, and it is Friday afternoon of a bank holiday weekend - and I just want to blow stuff up for an hour.

So I'll do a quick random game of Combat Mission 1.

It's definitely not. WITP-AE is in a whole other stratosphere. I'm not saying WITE2 isn't complex, but it's a much much faster game, you can automate a lot more things, and doing things doesn't take 15 clicks like it does in WITP-AE (mostly).

I bought WITP-AE day 1 and despite trying to learn and play it several times I never could. WITE2 I was able to jump in day 1 (versus WITE where I wasn't able to).

I'm also not retired, and have a really busy job/life and I think the pace of the game is perfect.

[gamer78]

In my first JTS France'14 monster pbem game main scenario and GG War in The East campaign as Axis my opponent was giving me direction and asking me If I got bored. [:)]

I think it is best -from the start- try with a friend or trusted game opponent. These games aren't worth playing alone solo or against AI.

[Bamilus]

I definitely disagree, I only play games solo (board and PC) and find WITE2 AI to be more than adequate (especially as Soviet on 110 or 120+ morale). Most people are struggling with normal AI on their first few games and I did too.

[gamer78]

I made a mistake in wording. I agree, I was just going to edit, I mean by only the motivation learning the game. Worth or not strong wording sorry.

[TulliusDetritus]

IIRC, someone from matrix had these numbers: 90% of the players only play vs AI. I plan to do both vs AI and PBEM, just like in WitE, but not in Witp AE (only AI). Daily turns are a hellish committment to me. Simply not interested [X(] But PBEM was a lot of fun in WitE, should be the same with this 2.0 version.

[Zovs]

PBEM is a lot of fun, your trying to pit your wits against the other in a titanic and enormous battle played out in the digital world of WITE2.

The AI is good fun (but frustrating at 111, infuriating at 121 and madding at 151) and a good learning tool. The only thing I dislike about it is at 111 and higher it cheats in ways that a human can't, but its not as smart as a human, and even the smartest humans make mistakes.

I have 2 PBEM CG 41 going on and 1 MP Typhoon and 2 CG 41 against the AI (111 and 100).

[RangerJoe]

Buy it to see if the game engine would work for you in regards to a Mediterranean War game. [;)]

[Bamilus]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

IIRC, someone from matrix had these numbers: 90% of the players only play vs AI. I plan to do both vs AI and PBEM, just like in WitE, but not in Witp AE (only AI). Daily turns are a hellish committment to me. Simply not interested [X(] But PBEM was a lot of fun in WitE, should be the same with this 2.0 version.

Yes and these numbers are consistent across the board. I think people would be surprised to find out how many people play board wargames solo, as well (GMT P500 new Solo CDG pack hit 500+ orders instantly and it almost at 2K now, I think, which is a huge number for a pre order).

The most vocal players are always the PBEM ones, but from a sales perspective it's wise for them to focus on AI, as well, if not more.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
Buy it to see if the game engine would work for you in regards to a Mediterranean War game. [;)]

It won't. He needs daily turns minimum for accurate naval operations, which are abstracted in WitE2. IIRC he wanted even more details than in WITPAE (lol!!!) = tactical naval battles or something like that.

[gamer78]

So what's the number friends? AI guys or the pbem friends. Cheers...

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: altipueri

Don't do it Warspite.
It's WITP-AE with tanks.

My copy is installed and unplayed; and when the 520 page manual arrives off that boat stuck the Suez Canal I will look through it and marvel at the work loki has put into it.
I will then place it next to the 330 page WITP-AE manual; I will take a deep breath and say in a deep voice that I have the two greatest wargames ever produced; and never played either of them, but will do soon, really;

An unplayed good game is always a bit sad.

For this reason I would suggest you Matrix World in Flames instead: it is sad no matter what...

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Orm

The only reasons that I can think of is that you want to give your support (have done that for some smaller titles but not necessary here). Because you want more games you will never play (at £60 - no I definitely don't want that!). Because you want more Eastern Front games (nope). Because you want more games with all the details included (yes - so long as it has the right mix of fun and playable). Because you want more games with limited naval warfare (not really too much of an issue with the Eastern Front).

[;)]

warspite1

Thanks for the replies. I never could get into WITP-AE. Clearly a great game (given its dedicated following). It should have been perfect due to its naval theme. But I just could not get past the number of things I had to do, buttons I had to press and clicks I needed to make, just to put some aircraft on a carrier.

So next question.

Does this game require the player (or recommend a player) to use a spreadsheet?

If you are an accountant you might like it. [;)]

For the most part it's very well done. There are only two things that put me off. Combat as movement in a ugoigo game is total BS. One week turns denies response time for the Soviet player. If it were North Africa one week turns would be fine. But it's not.

But then variety is the spice of life. Some like Haggis. So don't. [:D]

[Zovs]

I disagree with that, both sides can put unit in reserve mode and during the players turn if the HQ leader passes a check they can be committed to the defense thus allowing response. So not BS.

[Lobster]

Committed to the defense locally. Each side still has a week to do things without the other side having an opportunity to do anything about it. While that's true of every igougo game it's amplified by combat as movement. Like I said, it has much that's good that gets ruined by a couple of things. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

So since you are a fanboi and this is 'the greatest game ever' I don't expect you to agree with any negative comments about the game. I understand that.

Cheers [;)]

[budd]

Best reason of all, we need a warspite1 going in cold, don't know sh*t AAR[:D]. Come on, storm Leningrad it'll be fun.