Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa
Japan did not expect to defeat the USA, they planned to make the recapture of lost territories so costly that the US would would recoil from that price, historically they were wrong.

You are using an euphemism here. If you bring the Americans to the negotiation table it's because the latter are admitting DEFEAT... That was the idea behind the Midway Operation. American carriers sunk = Americans might give up (the hordes of American CVs would only be ready in 1943-44) [:)]

Capture of Moscow in WitE and Midway captured and CVs annihilated in WitP would be the excuse to say "hey, they might have surrendered / sued for peace"...

I personally believe both the Germans and Japanese grossly underestimated their enemies... especially their WILL to fight to the end.

Obviously the Axis totally underestimated the will to fight of the Allied Nations, dictators often do. Their strategy meant that victory could only come if their major opponents gave up, rather than being able to force a defeat on them and I think they knew that.

Only the actual events can be proved, because they happened, anything else is conjecture, or worse. However, how do we limit the effect of hindsight in the game, the certain knowledge what is coming next?

I am trying to characterise the thoughts of the Germans and Japanese, which resulted in them attacking the Soviet Union and the US, not validating them. If you want to put yourself into the shoes of the commanders of the day (common thread - how am I doing against the performance of the real Germans/Russians), surely it would help to introduce a level of doubt. If I give away too much ground, suffer too many casualties might I lose. If I push on further might I win, rather than just play 300 turns to see which month Berlin falls.

The point is, subject to the devs, it's a possible option that nobody has to use, if they don't need it.[:)]

PS - euphemism - is that the one with strings, or do you blow it.[&:]

As an outsider looking in (for now)...

Would it make sense to punish Soviet units making excessive retreats by "liquidating" the leadership of those units and having them replaced with really poor leaders (party flunkies)?

Ed-

So I agree with pzgndr that if the SD thing works, additional conditions could be added for subsequent years, etc. I continue to think something simple should be tried that can be evaluated consistently by players and 2x3 alike. This thread is going the way of its predecessor into the deep end of historical debate and complicated design changes to the game.

ORIGINAL: pzgn

ORIGINAL: wadortch

What I suggest is to Patch (because people, me included, want an official rule not a house rule) in an OPTIONAL victory condition set that would involve sudden death victory conditions for both sides.

My proposal for the SD condition is this: if one side or the other occupies all the following cities on the 1st turn of March, 1942, they win the game: Leningrad, Rzhev Moscow, Tula, Voronezh, Voroshilovgrad and Rostov.

Let's try it and see if it doesn't eliminate the run for the hills tactics by both sides.

This proposal is still too narrowly focused on the initial 1941 campaign and neglects anything beyond March 1942. There needs to be something more that spans the entire war and keeps players continually focused on fighting for objectives rather than running for the hills; that's the core issue and the reason why those old boardgames had ongoing sudden death victory conditions. The Russian Front rules specifically provide for this and could be easily implemented as an optional victory condition set to be checked during the first weeks of March and November. A Decisive Victory would automatically end the game. A Marginal Victory would allow players to end the game at that point or continue on.

So yeah, patch it up if possible as an official optional rule which players can test and provide specific feedback on. Alternatively players can manually calculate these victory conditions themselves. If nothing else, players could go back and review a few recent game saves to see what the victory points were during the March and November turns. Given these sudden death victory conditions, it's no real accomplishment to run for the hills to save your Army for another day if you just keep handing your opponent a Decisive Victory in the process. It may be an entertaining alternative history, but not exactly the kind of wargame most players are expecting to play. And I believe that's the fundamental point Pelton and others are trying to make, and it's a valid point.

ORIGINAL: Mundy

As an outsider looking in (for now)...

Would it make sense to punish Soviet units making excessive retreats by "liquidating" the leadership of those units and having them replaced with really poor leaders (party flunkies)?

Ed-

Or maybe the Soviets could be allowed to gain a substantial amount of ADM-points by holding a number of cities that are likely to be early German conquests and likewise loose a lot if they give them up too early. This wouldn't be too unrealistic either, since a sudden major retreat to the east would surely have made the administration of the forces difficult.

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa
PS - euphemism - is that the one with strings, or do you blow it.[&:]

You were avoiding the harsh term (defeat, as on my book the Americans giving up is a "defeat"), using another expression: "could only come if their major opponents gave up, rather than being able to force a defeat on them". Or in your original post: "Japan did not expect to defeat the USA, they planned to make the recapture of lost territories so costly that the US would would recoil from that price". That's an euphemism [:)]

Cheers [:)]

ORIGINAL: Mundy

As an outsider looking in (for now)...

Would it make sense to punish Soviet units making excessive retreats by "liquidating" the leadership of those units and having them replaced with really poor leaders (party flunkies)?

Ed-

I am quite ok with the VP as implemented at this stage, and would rather wish the focus of the patching on some more fundamental things that couldn't be treated by house rules like for example the "reaction move" suggestion. The VP tracking BG and Q-Ball started seems to be fundamentally right. Selecting goals at random will not improve such an approach -- people will figure other ways to find out which the "sudden death" cities to take would be. And it might turn the game into a random ant chase, which would not look like the Eastern War at all.

Surely I am not a fan of any sudden death rules either -- I just have serious doubts that the loss of Leningrad and Moscow on top of the usual would really have triggered the collapse. Note that Stalin was preparing the evacuation of both, so it appears to have rather become a case of lengthening the war, as in game as well.

In contrast, the suggestion of liquidating leadership in case of excessive retreats would perhaps be something to evaluate. It is a means to simulate the soft factors of largely political origin, something that allows "what-if" changes much more than anything else. However, how to you quantify excessive retreats, and what is this based upon? That you wish to see the Soviets loose more by pockets and fighting early on. This in turn doesn't make sense if you don't allow the Soviets the corresponding CV capabilities, which presently are quite definitely on the low side, and are a prerequisite to make this a sensible strategy. Else, you would twist the system very poorly out of other deficits.
If it were evaluated, I would also then want to see the same standards applied to both sides. And very clearly the Axis was even less flexible to retreat later than the Soviets early. Demyansk, Korsun and the many disasters and near-disasters just to mention a few, would then be the corresponding expectation. Plus the clearing of the German command of skillful people like Guderian, Model and so on.

Surely you could implement that in a fair way. But since I prefer playing Germans, I would not want that rule. And only to implement it in a one-sided fashion for the Soviets would neither be fair, nor reasonable. Same as sudden death short of reaching the Urals, it wouldn't feel right.

Yeah, you'll have do decide on an algorithm to determine what kind of a retreat will incur Stalin's wrath. I doubt it's impossible to do so.

It's true, German generals were sacked for similar reasons, so it can work both ways.

It might force an adherence to national doctrine a bit, without forcing players to act according to a script.

Ed-

well.. there are ways within the engine to tweek the reward punishment for grund taken that have not been suggested..
take Lenn Moscow for axis get troops quality and number bump... take and hold..
take Len  Moscow Stalingrad get armaments and numbers and quality bump...
This are just some examples of how risk reward can be re writen...

ORIGINAL: Apollo11


Is this game / simulation flawed?

IMHO not!


Why do people think it is flawed?

Because many still think that Germany could have won against Soviet Union and / or that Japan could have won over USA in historic WWII!

Is this game / simulation fun for German?

IMHO not!


Why do (people) I think it is not fun?

Because 175 turns (around one year of play) of grinding and retreat without NO IDEA if you are winning (the game not the war) or loosing is VERY VERY long.

We need a VP system for GC !!

Besides a good designed VP system can induce other positive effects (see other posts above)

ORIGINAL: abulbulian
Allowing more flexible use of German production and TOEs (within reason) would be IMO huge improvement to replayability. I'm tired of seeing large pools of tanks that would never have sat in 'pools' from a historical context.

YES, please also add (with reasonable restrictions) the option to manually upgrade AFVs, just like already exists for air units. It boggles my mind why they created this for air units but not ground units. It makes no sense.

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa
Japan did not expect to defeat the USA, they planned to make the recapture of lost territories so costly that the US would would recoil from that price, historically they were wrong.

You are using an euphemism here. If you bring the Americans to the negotiation table it's because the latter are admitting DEFEAT... That was the idea behind the Midway Operation. American carriers sunk = Americans might give up (the hordes of American CVs would only be ready in 1943-44) [:)]

Capture of Moscow in WitE and Midway captured and CVs annihilated in WitP would be the excuse to say "hey, they might have surrendered / sued for peace"...

I personally believe both the Germans and Japanese grossly underestimated their enemies... especially their WILL to fight to the end.

I would really like to know the basis on which the loss of Moscow would of meant much. The gov't wasn't going to collapse. The gov't wasn't there. The only people who mattered as far as decision making goes were prepared to fight on. There wasn't going to a coup, as ole JVS killed all the possible rivals.

Losing DC during the War of 1812 didn't have much of an effect.

The Marshals declaring "enough" brought Nappy down. Not the fall of Paris in 1814.

Losing Moscow in 1812 did nothing more than piss the Russians off. (Much more important than St Petersburg was to the average Russian. )

The Chinese didn't fold when Nanking fell. They just moved the capital.

(This isn't directed at you TD..)

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa
Japan did not expect to defeat the USA, they planned to make the recapture of lost territories so costly that the US would would recoil from that price, historically they were wrong.

You are using an euphemism here. If you bring the Americans to the negotiation table it's because the latter are admitting DEFEAT... That was the idea behind the Midway Operation. American carriers sunk = Americans might give up (the hordes of American CVs would only be ready in 1943-44) [:)]

Capture of Moscow in WitE and Midway captured and CVs annihilated in WitP would be the excuse to say "hey, they might have surrendered / sued for peace"...

I personally believe both the Germans and Japanese grossly underestimated their enemies... especially their WILL to fight to the end.

I would really like to know the basis on which the loss of Moscow would of meant much. The gov't wasn't going to collapse. The gov't wasn't there. The only people who mattered as far as decision making goes were prepared to fight on. There wasn't going to a coup, as ole JVS killed all the possible rivals.

Losing DC during the War of 1812 didn't have much of an effect.

The Marshals declaring "enough" brought Nappy down. Not the fall of Paris in 1814.

Losing Moscow in 1812 did nothing more than piss the Russians off. (Much more important than St Petersburg was to the average Russian. )

The Chinese didn't fold when Nanking fell. They just moved the capital.

(This isn't directed at you TD..)

By that same train of logic, why than should the games victory conditions be predicated on the capture or non-capture of Berlin?

Because the germans run out of space and industry due to being sandwiched between 7 million angry russians east and a couple of million angry americans, brits, canadians, south africans, indians, australians, dutch, french, belgians, danes, norwegians, italians etc. etc. etc. etc. (takes a deep breath) etc. etc. etc... fighting for liberation of their territory...... geography is a bitch...

Even if Berlin falls as early in 1943, with the allies having a foothold in europe, I think Germany defeated is an understatement...

One can even argue that a rapid advance of the soviets would have caused transfer of additional units to the east, making a 1943 allied invasion of the french mainland feasable...

Soviets losing Moscow would have been bad, maybe very bad for Stalin and the state but they wouldn't have surrendered with so many miles to the east to retreat to, with the industry fairly safe behind the Urals...

Aurelian, in fact I am pretty certain what you say is what would have happened. All I know is Stavka ordered to build many defensive lines to protect Moscow. EAST of the city included aka they were assuming the city is lost but war conitnues. This says it all [:)] Mother Russia is enormous. There's a lot of manpower, industry to continue the war. And above all, the will to fight (Hitler indeed helped)...

I simply didn't want to look "extremist". No one has crystal balls. Well, some persons say they have it... [:D]

ORIGINAL: wadortch

FWIW.

This discussion seems to revolve around creating a vehicle for preventing the runaway strategies for both sides.

There has been voluminous posting about significant modifications to the game (reaction and idiocy rules, execution of commanders who retreat, etc.,) that based on what we have heard, is not in the cards for the small and valiant crew at 2x3 games.

So, I go back to a solution that Michael T proposed in another thread that lost its focus due to the same discussion about major modifications to the game, interpretation of history and so on.

I think the game is close to being what was intended, namely a great game.

What I suggest is to Patch (because people, me included, want an official rule not a house rule) in an OPTIONAL victory condition set that would involve sudden death victory conditions for both sides.

My proposal for the SD condition is this: if one side or the other occupies all the following cities on the 1st turn of March, 1942, they win the game: Leningrad, Rzhev Moscow, Tula, Voronezh, Voroshilovgrad and Rostov.

Let's try it and see if it doesn't eliminate the run for the hills tactics by both sides.


This thread is all over the place again. I'd like to take it back to a simple optional rule that players who want to eliminate run for the hill tactics by both sides can elect to use. I recommend a trial with a SD rule that will be employed in March 1942 as described above. As Joel has indicated, 2x3 is willing to take something simple like this up, but NOT other major modifications live manual upgrades on AFVs, reaction moves, etc, etc. etc.

I would ask people who would be willing to try this OPTIONAL rule to determine if it achieves the desired GAME effect to step forward and vote YAY so that Joel can determine whether coding such is a wasted effort. This proposal does not need to be evaluated against what Japanese strategy was vs the United States ad nauseum.

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Aurelian, in fact I am pretty certain what you say is what would have happened. All I know is Stavka ordered to build many defensive lines to protect Moscow. EAST of the city included aka they were assuming the city is lost but war conitnues. This says it all [:)] Mother Russia is enormous. There's a lot of manpower, industry to continue the war. And above all, the will to fight (Hitler indeed helped)...

I simply didn't want to look "extremist". No one has crystal balls. Well, some persons say they have it... [:D]

I had a crystal ball. I dropped it. Ya think it should of told me that would happen. [:D]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

Because the germans run out of space and industry due to being sandwiched between 7 million angry russians east and a couple of million angry americans, brits, canadians, south africans, indians, australians, dutch, french, belgians, danes, norwegians, italians etc. etc. etc. etc. (takes a deep breath) etc. etc. etc... fighting for liberation of their territory...... geography is a bitch...

Even if Berlin falls as early in 1943, with the allies having a foothold in europe, I think Germany defeated is an understatement...

One can even argue that a rapid advance of the soviets would have caused transfer of additional units to the east, making a 1943 allied invasion of the french mainland feasable...

Soviets losing Moscow would have been bad, maybe very bad for Stalin and the state but they wouldn't have surrendered with so many miles to the east to retreat to, with the industry fairly safe behind the Urals...

Mr Hitler certainly thought territory and cities were important. We all know how well that worked for the 6th Armee.

Manstein certainly didn't agree when he said about Kharkov "I'd rather lose a city than an army."

ORIGINAL: marty_01

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus



You are using an euphemism here. If you bring the Americans to the negotiation table it's because the latter are admitting DEFEAT... That was the idea behind the Midway Operation. American carriers sunk = Americans might give up (the hordes of American CVs would only be ready in 1943-44) [:)]

Capture of Moscow in WitE and Midway captured and CVs annihilated in WitP would be the excuse to say "hey, they might have surrendered / sued for peace"...

I personally believe both the Germans and Japanese grossly underestimated their enemies... especially their WILL to fight to the end.

I would really like to know the basis on which the loss of Moscow would of meant much. The gov't wasn't going to collapse. The gov't wasn't there. The only people who mattered as far as decision making goes were prepared to fight on. There wasn't going to a coup, as ole JVS killed all the possible rivals.

Losing DC during the War of 1812 didn't have much of an effect.

The Marshals declaring "enough" brought Nappy down. Not the fall of Paris in 1814.

Losing Moscow in 1812 did nothing more than piss the Russians off. (Much more important than St Petersburg was to the average Russian. )

The Chinese didn't fold when Nanking fell. They just moved the capital.

(This isn't directed at you TD..)

By that same train of logic, why than should the games victory conditions be predicated on the capture or non-capture of Berlin?

Ask the designer. And Berlin *did* fall.

Thanks all for the recapitulation of history that includes a reminder that Berlin fell.
Can people let go of this broken record and get on with agreeing to some kind of optional SD rule that Joel writes that @x3 people will code??

IMHO the VPs are fine the way they are: barring the death of Hitler Germany would have never surrendered or been otherwise defeated unless Berlin fell, and frankly there is no historical precendent to suggest that the SU would have ever "surrendered." WITE is a very long game, so if one is looking for an artifical set of conditions to cease hostilities, then play another game or have some fairyland houserules. Who in their right mind would have ever suggested to Stalin something like :"Joseph, if Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov fall in 1941 we must give up?"

Play to the bitter end: Berlin or Bust.

Marquo