Game Suggestions:

[jaw]

I have also played FIRE IN THE EAST and I recall the Soviet player could shut down the whole Finnish front with a handful of reinforcement divisions. Given the size of the Red Army I seriously doubt the omission of the northern portions of the Finnish front as any measurable impact on the game. Going all the way to the artic coast would have added an enormous area of useless space to model an insignificant section of the front.

To use your analogy, we omitted the chair Mona Lisa was sitting on not her eyes.

[Schmart]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

The map we've produced while working on War in the West includes all of Finland, so when WitE 2.0 is done in the future, it should be fully covered.

The Karelian front wasn't a major issue for me, but nice to hear that it will eventually be added. A nice little bit of chrome [:)]

[captain18]

2020?


Alas I am likely to off this mortal coil by that date[:(]

[captain18]

Going all the way to the arctic coast would have added an enormous area of useless space to model an insignificant section of the front.

Well, the fact remains that both belligerents "did" commit signifciant resources to the Karelian, Murmansk and arctic campaigns. Be that Dietl mountain command, Russian arctic units, Kreigmarine operations, etc.
It was a major factor in Axis support for Finnish particpation (they certainly didn't help out went the Soviets first invaded Finland).
I have personally travelled the lone rail line to Murmansk and you can easily see what a tenuous supply conduit it was.
In short it was all about Lend Lease.
Now if you remove those vital fronts, you might as well chop off Finland and have Lend Lease as an uninteruptable supply of abstract equipment points.
In short you would just have another east front game picking anhd choosing what it wants to include, not a "definitive" east Front game.

Now even if you removed Mona Lisa's chair has it occurred that having nothing to support her she would fall over backwards and the resulting portrait would probably have been censored (or at least appeared in a different gallery than the Louvre).

Finland/ Karelia & Murmansk are obviously critical to any serious east front game. The issue is how to successfully include them.
This appears to have been done by the production team, so all is well in the world.

Europas expansions btw went all the way to the Urals! Now there I grant you, you "may" have a case of non critical maps, but Murmansk? might as well leave off the Ploesti Oil fields and why even bother to have speficic equipment producing factories on the map.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

The WitE v2.0 will contain everything... rest assured... for current WitE we chose not to include the extreme north because of huge space and relatively scarcity of historical action there (i.e. large space - not so many action - relatively small number of units used)...


Leo "Apollo11"

[jaw]

Most of the lend lease to the Soviets came either through Iran or the Pacific. The loss of Murmansk would have been an inconvenience to the Soviets but hardly a game changer.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been nice to have everything in the game but at what point do you draw the line? Given that the design of this game started in 2005 when computers had slower processors and less RAM, compromises had to be made and elimination of the far north saved resources better used elsewhere.

Without Murmansk, WitE is not perfect but the omission does not make the game flawed.

[carlkay58]

The big advantage of Murmansk was that it was a major year around port and close to the front so that equipment being shipped to there was able to ship to the front units quickly. The Iran and Pacific routes took MUCH longer to get the equipment to where it could be used by the fighting units.

[jaw]

In the real world, yes the Murmansk route is faster but in game terms that would'nt matter since equipment shows up immediately whether it's rolling straight out of a factory in Leningrad with the paint still wet or coming from Detroit. If you open the can of beans about how long it takes something to get to the front we have a lot more problems than whether Murmansk is on the map or not.

[carlkay58]

The big downside (historically) of Murmansk was having to convoy past Axis held Norway - the convoys were very vulnerable and had many losses - some of them disasterous. This is what prompted the majority of the deliveries through the 'safer' routes of Iran and the Pacific.

[captain18]

23% of Lend Lease arrived via Murmansk. Despite one particular Kriegsmarine interdiction the stats show 97% of sipments to Murmansk arrived.
Most of this material found deployment immediately primarily in the Leningrad Front, with some also to Moscow and aother fronts.
27% of Lend Leas came via the very long Persian route which wasn't opened until mid 1942. The majority of this material was employed on the Caucasian Front.
50% of Lend Lease came via the Pacific Route, however this had major drawbacks. Besides being so far away, the Japan-USSR neutraliy treaty meant that only non-war material could come via this route and it had to be transported by Soviet ships. This route wasn't opened unti AUG1941.

So in summary approx a quarter of badly needed war material arrived at the critical time and at the critical locations dircetly from Murmansk. Especially 1941/42 Murmansk was essentially it, hardly insignificant!

Added to this that critical lifeline was dependent on a single rail line running the length of Axis allied Finland.
Further more the historical reality is both sides "did" commit signficant resources to those fronts for that very reason.
Now no-one is debating that in compariason to the major eastern fronts the military allocations were less. Of course they were, but then so was every other European front in comparison to the "main" Russian Fronts. To a great degree that is an irrelevant viewpoint.
A "definitive" game is one that covers all aspects of the chosen simulation. GDW recognised this with Europa and included Finland without the bat of an eyelid (and Archangelsk for that matter). The Urals expansion was optional (or chrome if you prefer). There is little doubt Fire In the East/Scorced Earth/The Urals were the difinitive east front boardgames and rightful heirs to Drang Nach Osten.
In the computer world WIE is perportly the heir of those cardboard predecessors in terms of being "definitive", and I for one wholly support that as it is an excellent production, except for the above mentioned caveats.
Jedkos (later AHs) "Russian Campaign" chopped off Finland in almost the same place as WIE but then no-one would consider "Russian Campaign" a series "definitive simulation. Gary Grisby has a reputation for producing games to satisfy grognards and be historically accurate. WIE without Karelia/Murmansk obviously cannot fit in that category.
When I first purchased the game the first thing I did was scroll over the map, the absence of Murmansk stood out like a sore thumb and I immediately regretted the purchase. This was somewhat alleviated by the rest of the game being up to Gary Grisby's usual standard

Now grognards are a resaonable lot (we have been around to see many editions, companies, productions over the years), and to this end we accept the production teams rationale for not including the arctic in the original game.
Now given we have assurances that the ommission is to be corrected in the next edition, we all just have to wait and see before purchasing.
But it just seems a shame on such an otherwise worthy successor to the East Front crown.

Whilst we wait it may be time to jump across to Gary Grisby's WITP and play that. (please tell me Australia is on the map

[carlkay58]

One of the major problems with the fighting around Murmansk was the supply situation. Unfortunately WitE does not do a great job of portraying the supply problems of a single rail line and would allow the players to supply the entire Soviet or Axis armed forces along a line that could barely ship enough supply to support the limited troops that were able to function up there. All of the fighting around Murmansk was done on a shoe string supply budget. Supplies were accumulated for several months before the bursts of fighting and activity that did occur.

[captain18]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

One of the major problems with the fighting around Murmansk was the supply situation. Unfortunately WitE does not do a great job of portraying the supply problems of a single rail line and would allow the players to supply the entire Soviet or Axis armed forces along a line that could barely ship enough supply to support the limited troops that were able to function up there. All of the fighting around Murmansk was done on a shoe string supply budget. Supplies were accumulated for several months before the bursts of fighting and activity that did occur.

What you say is absolutely correct, supply was a major issue campaigning on those fronts. GDW adequately covered it in its games by making the costs for attack and resupply expensive in the arctic, so the simulation worked quite effectively. As you say periods of inactivity with intermittenent big offensives. Given such things as Finnish control lines, axis ally zones and weather zones I am sure the production team could encode more stringent supply applicable only to the the arctic zones.

[morvael]

Add option to copy commanders report to clipboard (tab separated) - it would allow easy pasting to spreadsheet. The currently shown list with headers should be copied.

Add option to copy oob to clipboard.

Add option to make screenshots from larger parts of map, saved to file.

[morvael]

There should be a way to mark units as "handled", either when moved or not, with a way to highlight "unhandled" ones. Pretty basic function in any computerized board game, allows to easily tracks what was done and what is left to manage.

[swkuh]

General idea that WitE could use some playability help is good one.

Don't know if handled vs. not handled does that because (in my games at least) there are many unhandled pieces each turn (after opening move series.) There are tabs to highlight pieces such as cav,mech, tank, inf, partisans, whatever but haven't used them. Could have handled or unhandled mark, too.

Maybe something in the commanders' reports could allow seeing a piece that needs attention and then going to that piece for resolution. There is some CR changes possible.

[morvael]

By handled/unhandled I purely mean a thing set by the player, because as you mentioned some counters are not moved every turn, yet I want to be able to mark them as handled (which means "don't touch me again, you're done with me for this turn").

[morvael]

Could the factory highlight mode highlight just the places where I can evacuate factories from?

[swkuh]

Again, to the handled vs unhandled thing.

I detect handled by the CV for units that have acted. But for changes that do not affect CV, 'tis a problem. These changes for me are support unit assignments and chain of command adjustments, but usually do these altogether. Seems I'm always working out a new approach for systematic handling of the pieces. Guess it would be useful to set my own "handled" marks, but some other new features would be preferred. See post following.

[swkuh]

Would appreciate some report or ? to help with strategic/tactic evaluation. There's a lot of data but hard for me to quickly comprehend. For example, for a division, corps, army, or army group (and whatever SU equivalents) be nice to know the sum of "detected" opposition. to include air, artillery, afv's, units, etc. Have to be some sort of "range of concern" for each command level. Of course would depend on usage of air recon, conflicts, and contacts.

How about a simpler way to assign air units to air bases?

Air base movement is unrealistic to me. Believe that air bases were never moved as allowed in the game. Maybe more penalty for moving or less mobility. Seems there should be a reduction in units available, or performance ratings, or ? besides range effect in game.

[carlkay58]

Another thought - if a unit does not flip adjacent hex ownership (such as brigades/regiments) then they should not have a ZOC.