ORIGINAL: sven6345789
Well, the question is probably what you want to have, a balanced Game or a historically exact Game. All the East Front Board Games i Know have some balancing built into them sacrifycing historical Reality for playability to make the german side interesting to play. Of course, people play Japan in witp-ae although they will most certainly lose. Historically there was no auto-victory. In the game it exists to give the japanese player a reward for performing well.
I think this is a very good point. I don't know the answer to its implementation in WitE, but for me its at the heart of issue.
ORIGINAL: sven6345789
The germans never really stood a chance of winning the war in the east.
To be honest, I've never really subscribed to this view. Hitler and his Generals came from a generation that had seen victory in the East culminating in the Treaty of Brest Litovsk during WWI. They'd done it once and they knew they could do it again.
Unfortunately for them they never realised that the Soviets were at least the equal to them in ruthlessness, brutality and resourcefulness, a completely different animal from the Czar's Army and Government of 1914.
Hindsight, as always is a wonderful thing, but the defeat of the Soviet Union
was achieveable through a culmination of victory in the military, economic, and political spheres. This is what is not reflected in the game. For instance, with the capture of Moshaysk in 1941, panic gripped Moscow, people were fleeing the city and the population expected the German Army to waltz in at any moment. Law and order was on the verge of collapse as morale wavered, everyone panicing about a paratroop drop in Red Square etc
If Moscow had fallen, the blow to the body politic of the Soviet Union would have been at least severe, and could have possibly been fatal to the government.
But in events like this, (
if the Axis player was able to outwit his opponent and capture this prize), any real hurt to the Soviets, is simply not reflected in the game.
The Axis needs these type of 'encouragements' to push them along, and to push the Soviets also.
SPI's War in the East, had a simple but elegant way for example to stop the wholesale falling back of Soviet troops during Barbarossa, ( which in my opinion leads to many of the problems we are encountering in 42 ).
It had a table that stated that the Soviet player had to hold onto certain towns and cities for so many gameturns, ie ( and this is off the top of my head now as it was quite a while ago since I played SPI's WitE, so don't quote me, or use these figures as Gospel ) that Minsk had to be held until the end of gameturn 2, Smolensk turn 5, Kiev turn 8 etc. etc. or something like this to stop wholesale evacution by the Red Army Otherwise something dire would happen, like German auto victory, substantial loss of Victory Points etc.
This somewhat simulated the the paralysis of command at the top of the Stavka, and also the colossus with feet of clay feel of the Red Army, still recovering from the shock of the purges, plus the all pervasive fear of Stalin and Beria's displeasure.
In the case of our beloved GG's WitE a system of morale hits could possibly be implemented??
Lets face it, wholesale evacuation of the Red Army is political suicide, and was not an option open to the Soviets in 1941, otherwise there would be a knock on the door at 2am and some nice gentlemen from one of those sinister NKVD units would ask you to accompany them, and then you'd never be heard of again.
( I must put in a caveat here about a conflict of interest:- I'm playing Sveint at the moment and the falling back of the Soviets has caused frequent bouts of rug chewing, high blood pressure and infrequent screams of frustration in my own 'Wolf's Lair'... damm, damm, damm
). [:D]
Because, if we are going to debate whether the game is going to follow a historical or ahistorical route, the Axis is already at a disadvantage from turn one, ie he cannot alter the physical makeup of his forces one iota, whereas the Soviet player can build certain units with no reference to the 'historical' timeline, with, I might add, almost complete abandon. This is just one example of imbalance.
ORIGINAL: sven6345789
Guess 1942 the Way it is now represents that. I think it is ok. Fall blau was a flawed offensive anyhow.
Either you Kick the russian off balance in 1941, or you loose. And that should Be very difficult to achieve.
Of course this should be very difficult to achieve, but not completely impossible. In 1941, the Germans came close to victory,... but no cigar.
In 42, they came close to securing the oilfields but then Hitler decided that VIth Army had to imolate itself at Stalingrad for no real Strategic gain....definately no cigar.
1943 and Kursk....don't even go there.
