Matrix Games Forums

Am I right thinking combat results are either no effect, disorganisef, retreat or destroyed? As far as casualties go it's all or nothing, no damage or wiped out?

If so this surprises me. Wouldn't you end up with either excessive casualties or totally the opposite?

Such large units to get wiped out in one fell swipe.

My ignorance is no doubt obvious now. Not A clue really when it comes to large units and long turn times, I find it very hard to visualise it all.

That's right, those are the possible outcomes on the CRT. Most players avoid attacking at odds that are likely to result in their units being destroyed.

The way to generate large losses upon a defender is to put his units out of supply and ground strike them so that their defense values are minimal. In certain situations a defender will trade units for time, so then high odds attacks are easy to get.

What seems to create balance is that an attacker will eventually end up with many disorganized units and that takes the oomph out of what starts out as an overwhelming offensive.

ORIGINAL: wodin

Such large units to get wiped out in one fell swipe.

MWiF is a digital version of a (card)board game. In a cardboard game you either have a counter or not, but you don't change the numbers in it or have several versions of the same counter (with combat factors of 5, 4, 3, 2...).

SPI's ETO and PTO took a slightly different approach - but one that was still achievable with cardboard. They had step losses. Most land units had on their front the full size unit e.g. a 6-3 INF, while on the flip side the counter would be a 3-3. So a unit could lose a step loss rather than a full counter (depending on the dice roll of course). Good games but NOT WIF!

Remember though when thinking about the losses, these are two month turns. Yes all the losses may come about in impulse 1 for example, but the losses need to be looked at on a turn basis. Case Yellow historically was all over in the May/June turn. So losing entire army corps (or even armies) at a time is not out of place.

As far as casualties go it's all or nothing, no damage or wiped out?

There is also result S (shattered). Units is removed from map and it arrives next turn end as reinforcements.

Also, losses can be inflicted as one or two casualties. If the defender has a three unit stack, somehow the one unit lost is always the worst one. (Barring sometimes saving an undisrupted unit rather than a disrupted one.) And on the attackers side one tries to include easily replaceable units.

A strong defensive line does not generally disappear at once; it suffers attrition. See the a typical French campaign in the AARs. The French line does get beaten up, but it does not instantly disappear.

Factories in flames ( a more modern version or variant of WIF cardboard game) allocates damage in the form of damage hits. The units stay on board damaged till recovered with "replacements" or destroyed by further combats if they are not shattered or blitzed out of the board.

Thanks.

Coming from tactical game background it's hard to get my head around time and casualties etc. I find it hard to visualise it for some reason.

Well, the impulse, where the actual fighting takes place, is simulating the action during a week or maybe even more.

Historically the entire battle of France was over in little more than a month. That is less than one MWIF turn and perhaps in 5 or 6 Axis impulses. And Allies suffered some 2 million casualties. That is lots of MWIF units lost or shattered.

Or you can take a few turns in DC: Barbarossa and compare that to one MWIF impulse.

Yes. It is. I was surprised that the games CRT wasn't changed to take advantage of what a computer can do as opposed to cardboard counters and printing costs as you observed. That is why not step reduction?

ORIGINAL: TrogusP96

Yes. It is. I was surprised that the games CRT wasn't changed to take advantage of what a computer can do as opposed to cardboard counters and printing costs as you observed. That is why not step reduction?

Because the idea was to make a computer version of the board game, not something new.

ORIGINAL: wodin

Thanks.

Coming from tactical game background it's hard to get my head around time and casualties etc. I find it hard to visualise it for some reason.

When designing a game there are 3 elements that have to be in perfect balance: time, space, and units.

WIF has hexes that are roughly 90 kilometers across. Given that size for space, then the units should be corps size (or army size for the USSR). Using purely division sized units would require large stacks in each hex. For a board game, that would be unwieldy. A computer game could accommodate the large number of units, but from a player's perspective you would have to figure out where all those units should move every turn. The board game Drang Nach Osten from Game Designers' Workshop comes to mind (1792 counters).

So, given the space and unit size choices, the time line of two month turns, divided into roughly 4 two week impulses seems correct. The brilliance of this solution by Australian Design Group is that each impulse permits units to move around on the map and fight, while a lot of housekeeping tasks (e.g., production, partisans, conquest, etc.) only occur at the end of a turn.

Then making the number of impulses per turn variable according to the time of year provides variation to accommodate the seasonal variation for "good attacking weather".

But I digress, ...