Over rated Russian rail system.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Stoat
The argument is economic: in this Greatest of Struggles, both sides were labouring mightily to achieve various things that would help achieve victory. The two railway systems were certainly among these things, and they were huge, costly & significant endeavours.

In the context of the situation both sides endured, when both endured great privations and never enough of so many things, why would both sides choose to pour huge amounts of assets, labour and expertise into the greater enterprise such that the system would have far, far more capacity than needed, and such that the system, even under its time of greatest stress, i.e. at the beginning of the greatest military campaign in history, should not be stressed, but rather should operate with such a great amount of slack capacity.

I guess this is one of the "concise and straightforward" arguments that you are referring to?

You seem to be arguing that the Sovs SHOULD NOT have built the rail network that they did, but the fact is that THEY DID IN FACT BUILD A RAIL NETWORK CAPABLE OF EVACUATING MUCH OF THEIR MILITARY INDUSTRY IN THE FACE OF A RAPID GERMAN ADVANCE.

Right? They planned for it for a long time, they conducted much of their industrial development around the concept of keeping much of it in safe zones, and they did it. Whether or not you think it was rational, or economically sound, or whatever, is really completely irrelevant.

If there is any issue at all, it is the fact that neither hvy nor really manpower losses seem to have any bearing on the game, and these are rather clearly production model issues rather than rail capacity issues.

[janh]

I am curious what changes will find its way into WitW, especially given that fighting occurred on a different scale in France or Africa. Hopefully you guys will also consider a more refined air model, ideally something very similar to WitP or so.

Some interesting posts, in fact. True, the Germans struggled with East-West rail lines in 41 which influenced their tactical options. Maybe they are indeed better off than the Russians.

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
On June 23rd 41 mobilisation production plans went into force. On June 24th the Evacuation Council was set up and on the 30th the State Defense Committee was organised with Stalin as its head. In July 41 300,000 railway wagons were in operation in August 185,000 in September 140,000 in October 175,000 in November 123,000.

If you take those rough numbers, and assume that those cars were freight cars solely, and not used for anything else during the entire month, you can estimate the fraction of rail capacity the Russians used for transport of factories.  Taking the ca 2% loss value of engines or freight cars your source shows, they had ~1Mio freight cars in service. The loss of 2% is negligible with this estimate (as it was some 1.1 Mio in fact), and we can also neglect operational losses and ones disabled for repair, as we don't now incoming new builds either.
By similar estimate, some 270,000 passenger cars were available.

Now ideally you'd deduce a fraction of these cars that would not be used for military service or factory evac, i.e. those that represent the WitE rail capacity. Surely there was a good fraction of rail transporting supplies, passengers, raw materials in the Eastern territories.  I have no idea, but assuming at least until 9/41 the important point was in the east, I would say a fraction of 25% of those cars not working on the urgent issues would be a generous estimate.

That leaves 750,000 rail freight and some 210,000 passenger cars for service that account for the WitE rail cap.  Of those, some 300,000 were used in July for factory evac, which is barely a quarter!  An in the following months, it was even less.  Now even if you make the fraction of rail cars that perform duties in the far East or other tasks not included in the rail cap to 50%, still the Soviets would not have used more than 50% for factory evacs in July.  The rest must have been supply, replacement and finally troop movement.

That points to a questions: Did the devs already detract a flat fee from the rail cap to account for transport of supply and replacements, covering that? Probably yes.
If so, how much of the remaining 75% free rail capacity in July (or 50% resp.) in the above example, or the even larger free fractions in the following months, has been considered for this?
If not, I assume there is a good indication that those transport costs must be higher, or taken into account at all.  The idea to couple it to replacements is not bad, but you can't assume that all replacements need to go forward, nor all come from the rear.  Some very simple mechanism would be needed, and also, as suggested by someone above, a means of the player to limit the rail cap used by this.  Or maybe only the remaining railcap in a turn should allow for replacement transport, which in turn would limit again what replacements units would actually be allowed to receive. 
However, this sounds like it would be going to catch the Germans with pants down as they'd probably have much bigger problems transporting replacements to the front in 41, or their winter equipment... which is what happened!  So great, in fact, rail cap would be more meaningful, though not as Pelton wants it...
Perhaps it is worth looking into such a feature, even if it is kept very simple like this?

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
Zavod Nr. 13 in Bryansk was evacuated to Ust-Katav under German fire and began producing 82mm mortars and heavy AA gun mounts. Later it made 76 and 85mm tank guns.

So much about "factory raiding"... I would think a unit would have to move onto the rail line to block it, or the unit must be sitting right next to an empty hex containing the rearward rail line, have a very high CV so as to be able to detach a part of its strength to hold the rail in its ZOC.  But anyway, doesn't seem very serious compared to other things.

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
The Arsenal plant at Kiev began evacuation in late June, but the last train left on 9 September, narrowly evading the German encirclement.

Does that now mimic the player deciding to take out all parts of one type stepwise himself, or does this now mean that some stuff simply couldn't be moved within the time frame of 1 week?  I.e. how fast were factory evacuations in reality? 

[paullus99]

Pelton - it seems that you get very upset by the fact you don't regularly plant the German flag at the Urals & Baku.

I've also seen a majority of the AARs result in greater than historical German advances (including the loss of Leningrad & Moscow) - but I have yet to see an AAR where Berlin falls.

Until we start seeing some AARs that encompass the timeframe of the war, I'm going to reserve judgement on the overall balance of the game (and won't be complaining that I'm not crushing the Red Army every single game).

[*Lava*]

We know that Hitler hoped to knock the Soviets out of WWII with a quick blow. When, at the gates of Moscow, that didn't happen... I suppose he was probably thinking... "Oh, Sht."

Nevertheless, here is a question for the Sov dudes:

When you rail a unit the max distance possible, how do they end up double the strength on the next move? What is the rationale here? Is the unit picking up folks as it is moving West?

I would have thought the unit would be the same strength it had at the start of the rail move as at the end (this is what happens to the Axis, but their TO&E is pretty much 100%).

Here is an example: The first TO&E is what the unit looked like on turn 3 before moving by rail. The second TO&E is what the unit has available at the beginning of turn 4.

[*Lava*]

And here is a question about the Axis:

I get a new unit and transport it from the far left of the map as far east as I can (turn 3). When it gets there and is ready to operate (turn 4) it basically has the same TO&E that it started with, but it's vehicle need have dropped as has its move allowance.

What goes??

[Mehring]

@ Lava, I also wonder about the realism in units fleshing out while entrained. That said, their increased ToOE is counted against the second week's railcap it seems.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

FYI, when development on WitE began in 2000, Gary and Keith discussed and planned to have a system where every item moved down a rail line (supplies, men, factories, etc) would be tracked per hex, and there would be limits on what could be moved. Keith implemented a system but found it either wasn't working or was way too slow (or both). Work was put on hold in 2001 and when Gary restarted his work in 2007 he thought Keith's system was still in the game. He told me recently he spent most of a day looking for the code, only to discover that Keith had gotten rid of it due to the problems he had had with it. At that point we concluded it just wasn't feasible and decided to live with a simpler system. Many have identified this weakness of the game system which allows too much to be concentrated in one area. One advantage that the Soviets had was that they had an extensive rail net to work with (east/west and north/south). The Germans faced the problem that they only had select lines running east/west at first. While eventually I'm sure they repaired/re-gauged additional rail, I'm sure it was quite awhile before they could match the Soviets. In fact at the moment I think the Germans are getting the better deal with rail than the Soviets, at least in the first few years. Recently Pavel has started to experiment with rules that makes HQ's create depots in nearby cities on a rail line, with the idea that eventually limits can be placed on how much can go through any given city. This might allow us to create some density issues without having to track everything going through every hex. However, this could have a radical impact on gameplay and it's likely something that we'll first experiment with fully in WitW. I thought you might be interested in hearing some of the background from the dev side.

Thanks for the insight, it's always interesting to know why and how things important to you turned out the way they did. I would hope that a new attempt will be made on the 'complex' supply system for WitW and WiE, it would add so much for admin geeks like me.

Two things occur to me in the account you give of Keith's system. Firstly, the speed problems, which I take to be processing speed, might well be overcome by technological advances in the last ten years. I know my PC can quickly handle stuff today that would have crashed my old one. Secondly, given the imense distances a train could travel in a week it may be possibe to simplify the movement of units and materials by focussing on throughput chokepoints in a supply/movement chain, like resistance in an electrical circuit, rather than tracking movement in every single hex. Add roads and things become more complex of course, but then the distances are also shorter. Any way, if you decide to take another look at this for future editions, feel free to pass any ideas by me. [:)]

[ComradeP]

Lava: you could think of it as a division picking up replacements along the way, but I agree that it's odd that a division can be in much better shape one turn after appearing even if it was entrained. However, that's just a peculiarity of the supply system: everything is magically transported to units provided they succeed in some supply rolls, but there's no limit to the amount manpower/supplies/armaments/aircraft/ground element X produced in town/city Y can travel per turn.

As to the dropping vehicle requirements: if a unit doesn't move by ground movement, its vehicle requirements are reduced, so if you move them by rail, there's a reasonable chance that the vehicle requirements will be reduced at least slightly. The difference of 23 vehicles, in this case, is pretty trivial as a percentage of the total amount of vehicles in the game, though. The movement allowance depends on a variety of factors, as detailed in the manual, and I'm guessing that the unit wasn't within 5 hexes of OKH, its HQ, on the second turn.

[Stoat]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Stoat
The argument is economic: in this Greatest of Struggles, both sides were labouring mightily to achieve various things that would help achieve victory. The two railway systems were certainly among these things, and they were huge, costly & significant endeavours.

In the context of the situation both sides endured, when both endured great privations and never enough of so many things, why would both sides choose to pour huge amounts of assets, labour and expertise into the greater enterprise such that the system would have far, far more capacity than needed, and such that the system, even under its time of greatest stress, i.e. at the beginning of the greatest military campaign in history, should not be stressed, but rather should operate with such a great amount of slack capacity.

I guess this is one of the "concise and straightforward" arguments that you are referring to?

You seem to be arguing that the Sovs SHOULD NOT have built the rail network that they did, but the fact is that THEY DID IN FACT BUILD A RAIL NETWORK CAPABLE OF EVACUATING MUCH OF THEIR MILITARY INDUSTRY IN THE FACE OF A RAPID GERMAN ADVANCE.

Right? They planned for it for a long time, they conducted much of their industrial development around the concept of keeping much of it in safe zones, and they did it. Whether or not you think it was rational, or economically sound, or whatever, is really completely irrelevant.

If there is any issue at all, it is the fact that neither hvy nor really manpower losses seem to have any bearing on the game, and these are rather clearly production model issues rather than rail capacity issues.

onducted much of their industrial development around the concept of keeping much of it in safe zones, and they did it. Whether or not you think it was rational, or economically sound, or whatever, is really completely irrelevant.

If there is any issue at all, it is the fact that neither hvy nor really ma

Lol, brother, ya got me, that may be about as concise & straightforward as I get. [:D] Your main argument that the Sovs did in fact withdraw much of their industry is rock-solid and I can't really refute it, only pick around the edges with stuff like what is "industry", was the real value of what was evaced a bunch of old gears & mechanisms, or the 16 million (many skilled) workers? I believe it was far more the latter. Would also observe that when you try to do something complex by yourself, even small things (any "point of failure") can prevent you from being productive. I do not know, but guess that Lend-Lease was unbelievably helpful, not only in sending finished weapons systems, but also in helping address any number of shortcomings in the Soviet production system, without which the Great Bear would have been a lot less resilient. But you're right, they did it. That's all I got on that one.

Sorry for being harsh yesterday. I was already feeling a bit tired of writing.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: janh

I am curious what changes will find its way into WitW, especially given that fighting occurred on a different scale in France or Africa. Hopefully you guys will also consider a more refined air model, ideally something very similar to WitP or so.

Some interesting posts, in fact. True, the Germans struggled with East-West rail lines in 41 which influenced their tactical options. Maybe they are indeed better off than the Russians.

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
On June 23rd 41 mobilisation production plans went into force. On June 24th the Evacuation Council was set up and on the 30th the State Defense Committee was organised with Stalin as its head. In July 41 300,000 railway wagons were in operation in August 185,000 in September 140,000 in October 175,000 in November 123,000.

If you take those rough numbers, and assume that those cars were freight cars solely, and not used for anything else during the entire month, you can estimate the fraction of rail capacity the Russians used for transport of factories.  Taking the ca 2% loss value of engines or freight cars your source shows, they had ~1Mio freight cars in service. The loss of 2% is negligible with this estimate (as it was some 1.1 Mio in fact), and we can also neglect operational losses and ones disabled for repair, as we don't now incoming new builds either.
By similar estimate, some 270,000 passenger cars were available.

Now ideally you'd deduce a fraction of these cars that would not be used for military service or factory evac, i.e. those that represent the WitE rail capacity. Surely there was a good fraction of rail transporting supplies, passengers, raw materials in the Eastern territories.  I have no idea, but assuming at least until 9/41 the important point was in the east, I would say a fraction of 25% of those cars not working on the urgent issues would be a generous estimate.

That leaves 750,000 rail freight and some 210,000 passenger cars for service that account for the WitE rail cap.  Of those, some 300,000 were used in July for factory evac, which is barely a quarter!  An in the following months, it was even less.  Now even if you make the fraction of rail cars that perform duties in the far East or other tasks not included in the rail cap to 50%, still the Soviets would not have used more than 50% for factory evacs in July.  The rest must have been supply, replacement and finally troop movement.

That points to a questions: Did the devs already detract a flat fee from the rail cap to account for transport of supply and replacements, covering that? Probably yes.
If so, how much of the remaining 75% free rail capacity in July (or 50% resp.) in the above example, or the even larger free fractions in the following months, has been considered for this?
If not, I assume there is a good indication that those transport costs must be higher, or taken into account at all.  The idea to couple it to replacements is not bad, but you can't assume that all replacements need to go forward, nor all come from the rear.  Some very simple mechanism would be needed, and also, as suggested by someone above, a means of the player to limit the rail cap used by this.  Or maybe only the remaining railcap in a turn should allow for replacement transport, which in turn would limit again what replacements units would actually be allowed to receive. 
However, this sounds like it would be going to catch the Germans with pants down as they'd probably have much bigger problems transporting replacements to the front in 41, or their winter equipment... which is what happened!  So great, in fact, rail cap would be more meaningful, though not as Pelton wants it...
Perhaps it is worth looking into such a feature, even if it is kept very simple like this?

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
Zavod Nr. 13 in Bryansk was evacuated to Ust-Katav under German fire and began producing 82mm mortars and heavy AA gun mounts. Later it made 76 and 85mm tank guns.

So much about "factory raiding"... I would think a unit would have to move onto the rail line to block it, or the unit must be sitting right next to an empty hex containing the rearward rail line, have a very high CV so as to be able to detach a part of its strength to hold the rail in its ZOC.  But anyway, doesn't seem very serious compared to other things.

ORIGINAL:  Aurelian
The Arsenal plant at Kiev began evacuation in late June, but the last train left on 9 September, narrowly evading the German encirclement.

Does that now mimic the player deciding to take out all parts of one type stepwise himself, or does this now mean that some stuff simply couldn't be moved within the time frame of 1 week?  I.e. how fast were factory evacuations in reality? 

Interesting points/observations. Wish I had the answers.

About fac evacs. I *think*, that even if a Sov unit is in the city, if an Axis unit is next to it, the factories are pinned? Can't recall off the top of my head.

If so, that shouldn't be. No commander is going to shoot at factories if he has enemy troops in front of him. Least I would hope not.

I've been puting all this up to refute this "Over rated Russian rail system." stuff.

[PeeDeeAitch]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian
No commander is going to shoot at factories if he has enemy troops in front of him. Least I would hope not.

I would, a factory is a big target - I would get way more hits and likely more XP to level up.

[Mehring]

That was discussed in another thread. Some of us suggested that the evacuation pay some kind of premium according to the firepower ajacent to it but that it shouldn't be prevented.

[76mm]

Well, I'm sorry as well, but the "concise" bit did make me laugh!

As others have pointed out, the production model is screwed up, and the rail cap seems too high because of it.

I don't mean to deny that the Germans should have some ability to impact Sov production levels by advancing more rapidly, but I think that many German players have inflated expectations about what they should be able to achieve in terms of capturing Sov industry. Even if the Sovs had lost a lot more, their industry would be crimped rather than crippled--somehow, either via lend lease, or "jerry-rigging" they could have pulled together some kind of industrial capacity, they are very good that way. So I really don't think the issue is as important as some others do.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

ORIGINAL: Aurelian
No commander is going to shoot at factories if he has enemy troops in front of him. Least I would hope not.

I would, a factory is a big target - I would get way more hits and likely more XP to level up.

Well, ya got me there.

[Aurelian]

http://www.feldgrau.com/econo.html

[Peltonx]

The problem is not the system you picked.

1. Hvy is pointless and should have been thought out better and needs to be fixed or removed from the game.
2. It is a fact of history we know that 50% of all the industry in the areas the Germans over ran were destoryed or 64 armerment pts. With the current system it not historicaly possible to hit these numbers, because the rail system is broken.

Its screwed up because someone put next to zero thought into HVY industry.

Its a matter of FACT that all Russian player are exploiting this screw up. Everyone including testers.

Which means that 2 by 3 knows about this exploit.

You know someone thought that adding a flying pig rule (1v1=2v1) would be a great idea and we all know how that turned out.

Now we have a rail/hvy issue that was not thought out before release, just like the 1v1=2v1 one rule.

Instead of defending this screw up, just fix it as was the 1v1=2v1 rule.

Its being exploited and everyone knows its being exploited, Russian fanboys, poeple that play both sides, testers, devs and 2by3.

No one can honestly post its not being exploited to death, no ones even tried to defend the fact that russian players are not railing out any HVY and railing out only arm pts.

It is a given that the current system is being exploited.

Pelton

[M60A3TTS]

I think a key point is gradually surfacing here, which is a factory evacuation does not mean sticking some building complete with equipment and laborers on a giant flatcar. Bare essentials, you need equipment and the people who can run the factory with enough key equipment operators that can teach others to do the job. Getting factories set up in the Urals takes time, and that is represented in the by the game by damage. When the equipment eventually gets to the site, what that factory looks like in a month or two may not look anything like what left the original city. Think of all the women that eventually worked in these Urals factories, as the original skilled laborers in time might be drafted into the army as needs arose. These workers didn't need to be thrown in the boxcars from a threatened city, they came from all over the USSR and over a period of time.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

2. It is a fact of history we know that 50% of all the industry in the areas the Germans over ran were destoryed or 64 armerment pts. With the current system it not historicaly possible to hit these numbers, because the rail system is broken.

I might have missed the citation among all of the posts, but how do you equate 50% of all industry with any number of armament points? Presumably the Sovs evacuated higher-priority factories first, so the remaining 50% could have been making table-settings for all that we know. So where does this 64 AP figure come from?

Also, I think that someone pointed out that these "captured industry" figures don't make very clear what exactly was overrun--just the empty factory building, or the building and part of the equipment, or what? Even in a critical factory, presumably only a portion of the equipment is really critical, and other things can be replaced. So relying on such percentage figures is simplistic at best.

[Peltonx]

Read what I post. I clearly explained the % and then simply found a map on line of all the areas the Germans over ran.
Totalled up the numbers ect ecte cet

Go back and read the posts, thks.

I know most poeple defending the current exploit claim that everything got evaced, but thats only wishfull thinking. I beleive Hapless's claim was 45% of industry was destoryed by germans. The # has never been 100% nailed down.

I went with 50% to split the 40-66% of claims.

It surely is not the fanboy number of 0%.

Ok off to watch some football.

Pelton

[ComradeP]

Now we have a rail/hvy issue that was not thought out before release, just like the 1v1=2v1 one rule.

Instead of defending this screw up, just fix it as was the 1v1=2v1 rule.

Its being exploited and everyone knows its being exploited, Russian fanboys, poeple that play both sides, testers, devs and 2by3.

No one can honestly post its not being exploited to death, no ones even tried to defend the fact that russian players are not railing out any HVY and railing out only arm pts.

It is a given that the current system is being exploited.

Everything was thought out before release, otherwise it wouldn't be in the game. The fact that problems arise from time to time is perfectly natural for a game like WitE. The logistics system can only be changed gradually due to the effect even small changes have on the game. As you can see in the changelists since the period surrounding the release, production has changed considerably. We went from a situation where a lot of the Soviet heavy industry could be left to burn as it couldn't function to begin with due to resource shortages (something I reported and which was fixed afterwards) to the current situation where the Soviets don't need all of their heavy industry, which is at least partially due to there being only a minimal impact of not being properly supplied.

As such, it isn't accurate to state that there's no need to evacuate heavy industry and defining that as the problem, as you're talking about the consequence and not the problem. The problem is that fewer supplies are needed than are produced due to all units being to fight with a minimal supply percentage. As soon as supply requirements increase, there will immediately be a greater need for heavy industry.

You're also still not really presenting any evidence, something you usually don't do, which is why your criticism is often more like a rant or trolling than anything we can work with.

As to the system being exploited: imagine HQ build-up being removed completely, which is actually quite realistic, you would jump up and down, moaning about how everything is unbalanced and in favour of Soviet fanboys. You wouldn't for one moment try to find an actual argument supporting your case. You know you wouldn't.

Every game where you're the Axis tells us just as much about what's wrong with the current logistics system than any perceived or real problem with Soviet rail evacuations or production. It would be nice if you would admit that for only a split second, that you don't even attempt to play the game historically, but use weaknesses of the system to your advantage.

[Stoat]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

FYI, when development on WitE began in 2000, Gary and Keith discussed and planned to have a system where every item moved down a rail line (supplies, men, factories, etc) would be tracked per hex, and there would be limits on what could be moved. Keith implemented a system but found it either wasn't working or was way too slow (or both). Work was put on hold in 2001 and when Gary restarted his work in 2007 he thought Keith's system was still in the game. He told me recently he spent most of a day looking for the code, only to discover that Keith had gotten rid of it due to the problems he had had with it. At that point we concluded it just wasn't feasible and decided to live with a simpler system. Many have identified this weakness of the game system which allows too much to be concentrated in one area. One advantage that the Soviets had was that they had an extensive rail net to work with (east/west and north/south). The Germans faced the problem that they only had select lines running east/west at first. While eventually I'm sure they repaired/re-gauged additional rail, I'm sure it was quite awhile before they could match the Soviets. In fact at the moment I think the Germans are getting the better deal with rail than the Soviets, at least in the first few years. Recently Pavel has started to experiment with rules that makes HQ's create depots in nearby cities on a rail line, with the idea that eventually limits can be placed on how much can go through any given city. This might allow us to create some density issues without having to track everything going through every hex. However, this could have a radical impact on gameplay and it's likely something that we'll first experiment with fully in WitW. I thought you might be interested in hearing some of the background from the dev side.

Wow, a special thanks to Joel for posting! It feels great to know that the Big Guys are lookin' in on us every now & then, & I'm also always very interested to hear snippets like this about the game design & development process (in the "strategic timescale"). [:D] Thanks again!

I guess on the forums we often end up talking about the things we don't like, and it often seems pretty negative overall, so maybe now's a good time to mention I love the game. Love love love the game. Love the supply system, love the orbats, love the units, love the map, love the GUI, love the "rhythms" of the game, love the Editor (haven't used this one yet, but back in War in Russia my mass-produced "StuG II", a kind of baby Hetzer on a Pz II chassis with a 50mm L60 gun) was the saviour of the German Infantry. But anyway... thanks for making such an awesome game!!!

Surely have put in >500h if not close to 1000h in on GGWitE in this calendar year, and I've no doubt that many of the regs here are in the same boat if not more so. Surely have put in many 1000's of hours playing just GG/SSI games alone. Favourite wargames of the 1990's: War in Russia, Steel Panthers (series) & Clash of Steel. Must mention COS as it was a real gem (in which I believe JB was involved?). If I spent more time playing WIR, I for sure played many, many, many more games of COS _with friends_ as it was eminently playable (a couple hours, or less if your buddy kept quitting). [;)] Everything pretty much just worked, none of the abstractions really bothered us, great CRT, the pleasing "geometry" of ZOC's, encirclement & destruction in detail (of units OOS) was there. Outstanding product.

And if everything boils down to logistics (which in some sense, it does) a game that asks for 2 hours out of your life can get played more than a game that takes 1,000 hours (250 turns * 2 players * 2 hours per player turn).

Like everybody else, I'm excited to hear about War in the West and any other plans for this amazing engine & system surrounding it. If I could reveal a few of my deepest, darkest fantasies, & toss them into the stratosphere (more for the catharsis of doing so than in any expectation that anybody in particular ought to pay attention to them):

1) would love the core awesomeness of the GGWitE system to be preserved and ported to a "War in the _World_", whole world 1939-45 game. Actually since we're fantasising here it's '33-45 & has production & diplomacy (kinda like Days of Decision was to World in Flames). Game is dialed back up to Corps level from Div level (à la COS) and is playable in a Third Reich-ey amount of time, i.e. if you n' your buddies can hammer down for a weekend & put 20-30 hours together, you can get 'er done. In the world we live in (where not everybody is quite like *US*, and where even we sadly can't afford to spend all our time gaming), I think 24 hours is a good time requirement target for a playable, accessible wargame.

2) would love the full awesomeness of the GGWitE system to be fully preserved & expanded to cover a Div-level "War in the World", again, fantasising here, it's 1933-45 & has production & diplomacy. Kinda like World in Flames (+DoD etc.) but with the great GGWitE system which, having been refined over decades as a computer game, one can only imagine is less of a godawful nightmare to code & maintain than WiF (& hey, I'm really pulling for the Matrix WiF project and don't want to say anything bad about those guys & have a lot of admiration for the main guy & sympathy for his struggles, but after a decade or so you start getting antsy, that's all). Since such a monster would take several thousand hours to play, it would have to be multiplayer, played over the network.

Not sure what the basic mechanism would be to keep things moving in the Monster (Game #2) but here's my thought. Each side has a roster of players assigned commands, and perhaps a "General Staff", which is guys on the bench, but who fiddle with a few things like maybe run the production system, allocate reinforcements, develop operational plans, etc., all subject to permissions from the Supreme Commander. At this scale, a player might be an Army Group (Front) commander. In technical terms, that player is also a user of the system with certain permissions to do certain things. The idea is that your superior also has your permissions, and also further permissions, including the ability to replace you. So if the commander of AGN is failing to get his turns in on time, OKH can cover for him to keep the game moving, but if this keeps happening, OKH may well get cross, boot him & replace him with a guy from the General Staff.

I guess this is the point in the post where it should be getting traditional for me to apologise for going off-topic, so sorry for that, and a big thanks to GG (God of Games), 2by3, Matrix & all you guys for doing all the amazing things you do! Love you guys!