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I'm very interested in getting WarPlan and to that end I've been following a number of let's play series of it on Youtube. However there has been a common theme among all let's plays that struck me so far; the war doesn't progress as fast as it did in history!

In one of the series I've been following, Benelux and France were invaded by the player in March 1940 and while Benelux fell rather easily, it took until July 1940 for France to fall. A similar timetable happened in other series as well.

In a Barbarossa let's play, by November 1941 the player had barely made it to the Dnieper.

My question therefore is this: Are those instances merely due to player incompetence? Or does the game have a tendency to turn into a grindfest after the initial campaigns in Poland and Benelux? Is it actually possible to tackle France in less than two months as in history? Or getting to Moscow by December?

I have just finished my first game as Axis along with some try out games at start. I ended up with a major victory but just played on historical difficulty. Poland and France tend to be a bit more difficult than historically mainly because Germany only has two Tank corps at start but then you can attack Luxemburg and Netherlands and Belgum earlier something that somewhat make up for this. But beware of attacking to much under bad weather, the losses might soon be to much to handle for your production. After getting a more balanced force you are sure to be able to meet the historicals goal as of my experience, both in Yogoslavia, Greece and North africa and especially in Soviet.
Important factor here is the use of the supply trucks, the special points allocation on key units and bringing in the top generals to your HQ by command points.
Also Tank/Mechanised are important but you can not have to many because they together with air and naval/sub drink oil! I run out of oil in both 42 and 43 in august and had to stop.
Also Tank/mech are not so good against cities compared to infantry. Its very important to buy a balanced force for a successfull campaign.

Wargames don't generally follow history. How the game plays depends on the skill differences of the players. Another note is that this is a new game so players don't know the strategies and I am not revealing them. I want players to find out. You might have looked at beta tests also.

And as with anything this complex it always takes time and a lot of players playing to get the A.I. better and to balance the game.

PBEM is quite fun and easy to setup a game.

You can edit scenarios as you wish.

What Al said, I can take out Poland in 2 turns, France about 6-7 turns. There are strategies for this.

ORIGINAL: MarechalJoffre
Is it actually possible to tackle France in less than two months as in history?

Most players are not going to lose half a million men by advancing to the Dyle river line as happened in history, so asking to crush France by June without first destroying those cut off troops isn't realistic I think. July seems fine given that Germany is facing a more organized foe in most games than they did historically.

The same can be said for Russia, players simply are not going to make the historical misktakes that hurt the Russians so badly in the first six months of the campaign.

Jim

It is possible to beat the historical timetable with the Germans, though, if they start going west immediately after the Polish campaign. There is indeed no real reason to wait, regardless of the weather.

Against the AI set at historical levels, I've taken out Paris by December of 1939. (I'm also in the process of overruning the Middle East in this same game in 1940.) But I'm pretty sure that even against a human you'll take out France well before the historical date if you skip the whole sitzkrieg business. Don't be put off by a little rain or snow.

One thing I noticed watching some videos is the AI doesn't make the same historical mistake in France of rushing a bunch of units into the Low Countries only to be cut off. Instead, it withdraws and defends Paris. So that could account for it taking longer.

All things are cascading. If the Allies defend France right the Axis will take higher losses.

Then the Russians aren't going to screw up as bad as they did in a game.

So that shifts things even more. What I try to do is balance the game against cheese plays like France falling in 1939 or a 1939 Sealion which I did playing vs myself just to push the cheese power I missed in Beta testing.

I once read someone talking about strategy in WiF that the defense of the Soviet Union begins in France. Good call, Alvaro.

I've played LOTS of WIF games. Seen everything.