Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Y'know, citing a bunch of old wargames made during the Cold War based on extremely limited information is perhaps not the way to go. Maybe, just maybe, they all got it wrong? The victory conditions made in these relics need not detain us, let alone be used as a guide for a modern game.

The one I brought up was designed in 2004....

But I'm still with you on SD rules.

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Y'know, citing a bunch of old wargames made during the Cold War based on extremely limited information is perhaps not the way to go. Maybe, just maybe, they all got it wrong? The victory conditions made in these relics need not detain us, let alone be used as a guide for a modern game.

The one I brought up was designed in 2004....

But I'm still with you on SD rules.

As you can see from certain of the forum's contributors, propaganda persists long after its aim is past. The relationship is fluid not mechanical.

ORIGINAL: Mehring

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Y'know, citing a bunch of old wargames made during the Cold War based on extremely limited information is perhaps not the way to go. Maybe, just maybe, they all got it wrong? The victory conditions made in these relics need not detain us, let alone be used as a guide for a modern game.

The one I brought up was designed in 2004....

But I'm still with you on SD rules.

As you can see from certain of the forum's contributors, propaganda persists long after its aim is past. The relationship is fluid not mechanical.

I know. Someday they'll wake up and see we're long past those days.

Kinda reminds me of new IL2 players. They'd use German a/c, and complain alot that they kept getting waxed by the more experienced. "Where's the I win button."

Allow me to dirgress abit. I was in Lancaster during the annual BPA a few years back. I spoke to the designers of both this and the newest edition of Russian Campaign. I bought RB based on, among other reasons, the far more accurate OOB.

You know, this has been a real strange exercise. From reading that asking people to vote yes or no (a situation not unlike delegates approving the US Declaration of Indpendence) being called fascist, now messages above talking about propaganda, etc.

What this thread was and is about is to find out if there is a group of players who would like to see an OPTIONAL SD coded. I would suggest that purpose has been achieved despite all this distracting and sometimes ugly language by people who have said they are not interested in such a rule. There is a group of players that support such.

I am working with several people to produce a SIMPLE and easy to code rule that does not involve significant redesign of the existing game and hope to post that on this thread soon.

I am not interested in getting feedback on this from people who have no interest in such, having already voted simply or painfully they are not.

It would be great if the posts here from now on are related to crafting this optional rule.
[8|]

At the minimum, you'd just be looking for lowering the amount of VPs needed to trigger the premature game end to a point where the German player can actually look forward to triggering it.

A lot of the other fluff would just be about keeping the Germans "honest"*, such as preventing a mad dash for that last VP, putting some kind of time-based element so that you have to take AND HOLD the VP sites, a time-based element on the part of the Soviets with regards to losing a city now instead of later being worse, or factoring losses into the formula.

* Insofar as the current victory conditions would not always produce such behavior anyway

ORIGINAL: wadortch
You know, this has been a real strange exercise... I would suggest that purpose has been achieved despite all this distracting and sometimes ugly language by people who have said they are not interested in such a rule.

It has been enlightening to see some of the comments. Granted, I can't say the old boardgame victory conditions were perfect, but I don't recall spending all the many hours I enjoyed playing those games that we ever agonized over them. I guess we just didn't know any better... [8|]

I am working with several people to produce a SIMPLE and easy to code rule that does not involve significant redesign of the existing game and hope to post that on this thread soon.

Again, even if 2x3 doesn't make a simple and modest code change for such an OPTION, it is easy enough for players to manually determine alternate victory conditions. That's how we used to do it, yes? Worked fine then, and still works fine.

ORIGINAL: wadortch

You know, this has been a real strange exercise. From reading that asking people to vote yes or no (a situation not unlike delegates approving the US Declaration of Indpendence) being called fascist, now messages above talking about propaganda, etc.

What this thread was and is about is to find out if there is a group of players who would like to see an OPTIONAL SD coded. I would suggest that purpose has been achieved despite all this distracting and sometimes ugly language by people who have said they are not interested in such a rule. There is a group of players that support such.

I am working with several people to produce a SIMPLE and easy to code rule that does not involve significant redesign of the existing game and hope to post that on this thread soon.

I am not interested in getting feedback on this from people who have no interest in such, having already voted simply or painfully they are not.

It would be great if the posts here from now on are related to crafting this optional rule.
[8|]

Can the victory conditions of GCs be tweaked via the game editor to acheive something like the results you are looking for?

Moreover...

From the manual: "The game will end in an automatic victory either when Germany surrenders (Soviet victory) or when the Axis controls sufficient points to meet the particular campaign scenario decisive Axis victory condition."

AND:

"Decisive Axis Victory - At any time the Axis controls 290 points."

Is it possible via the editor to develop some revised combination of victory points per city – like increasing the VP values of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Rostov (or whatever) such that the ability for the axis to obtain 290 VPs doesn’t entail capture of every city west of the A-A Line (The so called Archangel – Astrakhan Line). Or are the VP values of cities hard coded and untouchable within the editor?

wardotch, normally I am in the 'it isn't based on history so no way' catagory. but one of the posters upthread did point out that the SD rules are a way to reward a player doing better vs historical, so I can see how some players could get something out of it.

BUT, why do you need it coded? I really don't see the value of spending the resources on that. You and your op can agree to the conditions ahead of time, and then just look at the map. Sort of like the tabletop games we are talking about. It would be a more flexible system (what some people seem to want) and probably would make a German player more likely to push through if they don't get it, because they agreed to the conditions personally. why is it 'more real' if the computer says it rather than the players knowing it????

There really isn't a need to code it. The people who don't want to use it will not. The ones who do will make their own.

There is already an offical sudden win as marty_01 pointed out.

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

There really isn't a need to code it. The people who don't want to use it will not. The ones who do will make their own.

There is already an offical sudden win as marty_01 pointed out.

Hello Marty and Aurelian. The desire to have it coded is to establish a common optional rule that can be evaluated by players and 2x3 game'as described at the beginning of this thread. . Joel indicated that if it were something relatively simple, 2x3 would consider coding it (and this would not cause major resources from being diverted from other more complicated fixes since 2x3 has shifted its present focus to WITW.

It could very well be that some tweaking of the VP's as you suggest Marty will do it. The present 290 trigger is impossible to achieve against a competent human player.

Which still doesn't change the fact you and the opponent can make their own.

Which also doesn't change the fact that just because it does get coded, those in favor of it may not accept it.

Which means that you and the opponent can make their own rule.

Walt I have spent about 3 hours comparing the old AH Russian Front victory point system against WITE. While IMO the RF system is the best VP method in a East Front game I have seen it cannot be simply transposed in to the WITE game. You could use the same method but to work out the numbers and tailor it to WITE would be a big effort. Mostly because RF is a much harder game on the Germans so its numbers reflect that. If you simply used its numbers for WITE the game would be too easy for Germany to win.

Therefore I think the most simple and easiest method to do would be similar to what I suggested in the other thread. Something easy to code.

That is use the VP tally that WITE already keeps track of. Then simply check this tally every 6 months from end November 1941 (so again end May 42, Nov 42, May 43, Nov 43, May 44, Nov 44)

You just need to come up with 2 numbers for each check. 1 for a German auto win and one for a Soviet Auto win.

E.G. Nov 1941 you might calculate a German Auto win at 255 points, a Soviet win at ???.

Then calculate for the next check and so on. This is not as hard as some think. I have already worked out Germany November 1941.
I already have a spreadsheet with every city and its WITE VP value. See the attached image, I drew a line at what I considered would be a German Auto win (*Game* win, not *War* win) in Nov 1941 and added up all the VP west of that line. It came to 255.

I really think this is the most favourable method to get this to fly. Very easy to code as it uses the existing victory tally mechanism. And its not to far removed from the existing method. Just adding a level for every 6 months rather than just the 290 pts that are beyond most to achieve.

And South

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

Which still doesn't change the fact you and the opponent can make their own.

Which also doesn't change the fact that just because it does get coded, those in favor of it may not accept it.

Which means that you and the opponent can make their own rule.

Quite true. What is your point? I take it does not matter what SD rule is arrived at you would not use it anyway, right? If that is so, why are you wasting your time here in this thread?

I think I'd vote yes to Michael T's approach to auto victory.

Is there a way within GC scenarios to determine the victory points associated with each city hex? I dont get anything appearing in GC games when I click on the "Toggle victory locations" button -- no little flags showing VP locations and their associated points ala the "Road to Scenarios".

I vote YES as an option.

Perhaps other (stricter, less strict) options should be available too.

Marty and Paul
I think Michael is on the right track, too. I am talking with him off forum re some questions I have about fleshing it out further.

ORIGINAL: marty_01

I think I'd vote yes to Michael T's approach to auto victory.

Is there a way within GC scenarios to determine the victory points associated with each city hex? I dont get anything appearing in GC games when I click on the "Toggle victory locations" button -- no little flags showing VP locations and their associated points ala the "Road to Scenarios".

I believe it's a constant 1 VP per City hex, 3 VPs per Light Urban hex and 5 VPs per Heavy Urban. Only Moscow has a special rule regarding it where it's worth an additional 5 VPs.

I think scenarios have their own way of calculating VPs, but I don't know how radically they can be modded.

ORIGINAL: marty_01

Is there a way within GC scenarios to determine the victory points associated with each city hex? I dont get anything appearing in GC games when I click on the "Toggle victory locations" button -- no little flags showing VP locations and their associated points ala the "Road to Scenarios".

From the manual:

24.1.1. Victory Point Locations and Values
Cities and urban hexes have the following point values:
Heavy Urban - 5
Light Urban - 3
City - 1
National Capital - +5 (Moscow, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Bratislava, Helsinki)

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

I think scenarios have their own way of calculating VPs, but I don't know how radically they can be modded.

Yes, scenarios are different. The problem is that you can only add VPs to a total of 10 locations per side.

Modifying the VPs for cities in the grand campaign scenarios is not really possible/easy, as a lot of the data seems to be hard-coded.

To be honest, looking at most of the suggestions for auto-victory, they seem almost unachievable anyways - at least I haven't seen any AARs get all those locations in the map above in 1941. Basically, if you can achieve those goals in 1941, you will probably be able to either win with the already implemented rules in 42 or 43, or be so far in the east that the Soviet player doesn't have a chance anyways.