GC 1941: Beethoven (Soviet) vs tyronec (Axis)

[Beethoven1]

Server game.
Updating to new patches within a week of them coming out.
Full FoG.
AI assist OFF.
TB Control OFF.

Suggested house rules:
No temporary motorisation.
No para drops.
No Amphib invasions.
Maximum of 5 Airborne Divisions for the Soviets.
No massed small mission GA/NP ADs.




TURN 1

(Note, this does not include my deployments on turn 1, it is pretty much mostly/entirely just my perspective of the Axis turn 1. I'll post screenshots of my deployments from Soviet turn 1 later with some sort of delay)


In the north, Germany took Riga and Daugavpils. They also advanced very close to Vitebsk, but however on a thin line. All the pockets in the north are secure:



In the center, the Bialystok pockets has very thick walls, and with how thick it is, it is quite clear it is unbreakable. Lead units have advanced very close to Bobruisk, and are not that far away from crossing the Dneper in the Gomel direction:



In the south, Germany did the drive to Proskurov and also drove to the Romanian border. Some mobile units from AGC were sent south to accomplish this, though I am not 100% sure exactly how many yet:



I set the entire Red Army on to supply priority 4. Although some other players think this is not a good idea, in my opinion it is a good thing to do with no significant downside.



In the south, the Lvov pocket was broken by an NKVD border guards unit and a tank division:



I launched one significant counterattack.



There were no other significant/successful counterattacks possible at such an early stage of the game, but in this one, out of 56 German AFVs, 35 were destroyed in just this single counterattack. And another 22 were damaged, for a total of 57 out of 56 German AFVs taken out of commission (I don't understand how the numbers work there).

[Beethoven1]

We are playing with theater boxes locked, so let's briefly talk about the implications of that. Most players think that having them unlocked favors the Axis, and there are some obvious reasons why - with TBs unlocked, Axis can bring additional specialized units such as the 2 Norway RADs, extra transport planes, and specialized support units for Panzers like flak regiments, and also can bring units like the Light Afrika division for an extra motorized division. It is also valuable for Axis to have them unlocked because then sometimes the scheduled unit transfers will remove units from a critical part of the front, where you need to hold the particular hex where the unit is going to withdraw from. That is more of a problem for Axis than Soviets because Axis has fewer units and also does not have the logistics to be able to move units willy-nilly around the map.

However, there are also some advantages to Soviets of having TBs unlocked. In particular, with TBs locked, the Far East theater box (and to a lesser extent the others) go up to well over 100% of requirement, and the scheduled transfers are pretty slow and gradual. Whereas if you have them unlocked, a player can bring units to the map somewhat more quickly. However, it takes 4 turns to manually move units from the far east, and the soonest that can start making any difference at all is around turn 7-8 or so, so the first few turns are the same regardless. However, on turns 10-20 or so, Soviets can have more units on the map with TBs unlocked.

As compared to games played with TBs locked, it is at least a bit easier for Sovies if they can transfer more units to the map earlier, as TBs unloced allows.

For Soviets, it is challenging in the early game, before enough unit are on he map to form a coherent front line, to form a cohesive defensive wih enough units in the right places, and enough depth. It can also be tempting to send units to the reserve, but I think this can often be a mistake. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I think the national reserve box is really not that great for Soviets. Soviet logistics is plenty good enough to support moving units around by rail, and you can reinforce units on the map without any difficulty at all as long as you just use supply priority 4. So I won't be using the reserve much at all, because I would almost always rather have units on the map. On turn 1, the only units I sent to the reserve were a small number that could not rail away and would have been doomed otherwise (almost all in the south).

[Stamb]

its a good summary
the only problem with having units on a map is that they gain exp very slowly( i checked couple of units in my GC and it was around 1 exp per turn while just sitting at the back, while in reserve they get it much quicker (around 3 per turn))
unless you manage to use them in a battles and prevent them from being under attack

[Beethoven1]

its a good summary
the only problem with having units on a map is that they gain exp very slowly( i checked couple of units in my GC and it was around 1 exp per turn while just sitting at the back, while in reserve they get it much quicker (around 3 per turn))
unless you manage to use them in a battles and prevent them from being under attack

This is true, but they gain 0 CPP, and if they are off map they can't dig forts. What you can do if you have them on the map butt don't want them to get into combat is put them on your 3rd, 4tth, or 5th line of defense where they are unlikely to get into combat. And they will then dig forts which your better troops can retreat into, and meanwhile they gain CPP and start to become useful if they do actually get in combat. If you have them a bit further behind the line (iirc more than 10 hexes away and on refit?) they also gain experience faster similar to the national reserve, so you can also do that, put them on refit, and set them on 50% TOE so that they don't actually pull in that many reinforcements if you want your manpower and equipment going to other units.

Alternatively, if you have some weak inexperienced rifle divisions with e.g. 3000-4000 men or so, you can use them as speedbumps like you would use NKVD border guards or cavalry. If they shatter or rout, who cares? They can force German mobile units to expend MP. If you are lucky, Germany may even go to the trouble of surrounding useless under-strength units, and then maybe you can break them out of the pocket the next turn.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 1

North defense. I had some more units obviously that are blocked out at this point, in some cases you can see outlines of units in the screenshots without seeing CV/unit type etc if I thought that would give too much away:



Although my land bridge defense is a lot of units compared to what most players normally do (especially a lot of low quality railed in airborne brigades etc which have not even gotten off their trains), it is actually a bit less than I normally would do. This is partly because tyronec made a bit less routed units etc than most other players, but also I voluntarily put less here and put some more elsewhere compared to my previous games. Tyronec faced the difficult choice of either blowing through this defense and lowering the CPP on his mobile units, and incurring a significant MP loss from the attacks and combat delay etc, or alternatively maybe encircling some extremely expendable units which I could possibly even break out the next turn.



I wanted to hopefully stop tyronec from getting across the Dnepr on turn 2. Hopefully this would have been sufficient, but my unit placement was slightly less than ideal in certain respects. Might well still have been good enough, I am not sure. In the lightly defended swamp areas, I had ZOC, which I think would have been enough to stop a turn 2 crossing, unless he had very high MP possibly.

I used my transport planes to evacuate 2 low strength/routed/depleted rifle divisions and 2 low strength/routed/depleted from the north/center pockets which are spread around various places. If tyronec had asked me not to, I would have been happy o not do this (and if hypothetically he wanted to start a new game and re-do turn 1, I would be happy to not do it if he wanted), but this seems to be pretty clearly an intended game mechanic from the devs. The 2 rifle divisions would not have been very useful in combat (both had low 30s morale and experience), but nevertheless they are counters saved. The 2 NKVD border guards rescued would have been useful as speed bumps, but the game often disbands those unfortunately especially if they are routed/depleted (which they were), so might not have gotten to use them.



There is no need to block anything out in the screenshots in the south:



In the Lvov pocket that I opened, I put the units next to the rail. Hopefully this would mean that either the rail repair was slowed from ZOC, or he had to attack the units and possibly rout some of them out to safety.

As a side note, I could not open any pockets in the north/center. However, even if I could have done so, I would not have, because I think it messes up the game too much for Germany to do that.

But I did not have any moral/sportsmanship problem with opening the Lvov pocket, because it is ahistorical, and IMO it perhaps ought not really to be possible for Germany to do so much in the south on turn 1. IMO this feature of the game, that Germany can do so much on turn 1 in the south, is one of the main causes for it not necessarily being wise for Soviets to defend too much in the south (or at minimum in the part of the south close to the front, where historically Soviets did defend and delay quite significantly).

I hope the devs might consider changing this - not now, because IMO the balance is tilted towards Soviets overall, but at some point in the future when balance changes and Soviets need an early game buff.

Nevertheless, if hypothetically tyronec had wanted or even does want now to re-do turn 1 without me opening the Lvov pocket, I would be fine with that.


In the far south, I had a fairly small but non-zero number of units on the approaches to Odessa which I could have railed out or sent to reserve, but didn't. I had my reasons for this, which I will hold close to my chest for now.



In retrospect, I ought not to have disbanded the fort line in front of Odessa yet. I did that first thing in the turn, however, so I could not undo it after moving my units, otherwise I would have undone that.


Overall, I only sent 5-10 divisions or so to the national reserve. Probably about half to 2/3 of those were from the south, but this also included some low morale. The rest of the units in the south were railed out to various undisclosed locations (I had no problem with having enough rail capacity to rail out all units that I wanted to). I won't reveal the exact location(s) that all the units were sent. Some are visible in the screenshots I shared, but those are clearly a relatively small number of the south units. The others I was railing to some particular places, some of which tyronec may have expected, but however I think some of them he may surprise him. Or maybe he would not have be surprised. I would like to say more about what in particular I had in mind for this game, but can't at the moment without revealing and blowing any element of surprise.

[Beethoven1]

Unfortunately, tyronec has backed out of the game before he even finished Germany turn 2. This seems to me a real shame, because I think he could have provided me with a real challenge due to his skill, and also I think (rightly or wrongly) that I could have given him a real challenge as well. As such, I think the game would have been fun and worthwhile, and I also think the resulting AAR could have been interesting and informative for other players as well as the game devs.

I also had some things planned on a strategic/operational level that I think he may not have been expecting and which might have challenged some of his assumptions. It is possible that because of some subjective expectation tyronec had, he quit the had of what I was doing was going to do. If so, that expectation may well have been incorrect, depending on exactly what it was. If tyronec had any such expectations, perhaps he might decide to clarify them in the AAR to explain his point of view.

If that is the case, ideally I would like to be able to say what I had planned, but I would like to be able to use these plans in another game with at least some element of surprise, so I will refrain from that for now, and hopefully do it in a future game instead.

At least to me, backing out of the game at such a ridiculously early point, after having agreed to start it, seems to me to be absolutely and completely absurd. Though from tyronec's subjective perspective, he no doubt has his reasons in his own head, but at least to me, they do not seem reasonable or clearly articulated. If he had simply realized that he didn't have time for another game or something, then that would be reasonable enough, but he made clear that this was not the case.

From my perspective at least, I was extraordinarily responsive and considerate (at least to my best ability) in attempting to redress any and all concerns that he might have, and also made as clear as possible that I was willing to agree to any and all rules and conditions regarding the game, and in general bend over backwards to accommodate him.

And even now, if tyronec decides that he was simply not satisfied with something about how turn 1 went or something, I would be willing to give him the opportunity to re-do it and start a new game over, with different rules or conditions or whatever if he was unsatisfied with anything. From what he has said, it sounds like he is not interested, but I just want to make abundantly clear that the game is not ending because of any obstinacy about changing anything or doing anything differently on my part.

Though from another perspective, if tyronec was going to be so quick to give up on a game and not give me any chance to address and rectify his concerns whatsoever, then perhaps, even though I am unhappy and disappointed with the game ending like this, it was better that he give up on the game now rather than waste time more time going forward a few turns and then giving up on the game.

However, perspectives may differ, and readers can draw their own conclusions.

But to draw their own conclusions, readers need to know what happened in one way or another to cause the game to end.

My general inclination is to try to be as transparent and open about things as possible. Accordingly, I would like to post my PMs with tyronec where we discussed the game. This has the advantage of making sure that we don't misrepresent anything that may have caused the game to end. And in addition, it is also a lot less work than trying to type up a separate explanation! However, out of consideration for tyronec, I have given him the opportunity to object, if he thinks that there is anything in the PMs that should not be shared publicly. If so, and if he provides a persuasive reason why not to share any PM(s) or part(s) of PMs, then I won't do so (but however will mention here that some or all parts are cut out, so that readers are aware).

[Stamb]

gg
it was a quick one

[Stamb]

my bet is that recon in front of Smolensk leads to such a result

[Beethoven1]

Prior to hearing back from tyronec about the PMs, I will go ahead and post this.

These are the original versions of the 2 posts I made at the start of this thread. It was these which tyronec originally objected to when he PMed me to express his discontent, iirc 2-3 days ago or so. This may or may not have been the only thing(s) that tyronec was dissatisfied about.

In order to attempt to address this dissatisfaction, I edited my 2 messages to the current state that they are in, if you scroll up to the top of this thread.

So for full transparency and context, I am now re-posting the original versions of the posts, which tyronec had objected to. I am not doing this to re-aggravate tyronec, but rather so that anyone reading the AAR can read and understand the full context of what seems to have initially sparked tyronec's dissatisfaction.




So, here are the original versions, before I edited to try to create a more serious tone that I thought tyronec would be happier with.

If/when I post the PMs, then readers can see tyronec's reaction to these posts, and draw your own conclusions. However, as mentioned, I want to give tyronec a chance to respond first if he wishes, and if he likes, to make an objection to posting the PMs (or any parts of them). If tyronec objects or if he has anything else he wishes to say, he is free to either object by responding in this thread, or alternately to PM me to privately object.

So anyway, here are the originals which tyronec expressed dissatisfaction with:

Server game.
Updating to new patches within a week of them coming out.
Full FoG.
AI assist OFF.
TB Control OFF.

Suggested house rules:
No temporary motorisation.
No para drops.
No Amphib invasions.
Maximum of 5 Airborne Divisions for the Soviets.
No massed small mission GA/NP ADs.




TURN 1

(Note, this does not include my deployments on turn 1, it is pretty much mostly/entirely just my perspective of the Axis turn 1. I'll post screenshots of my deployments from Soviet turn 1 later with some sort of delay)

Noted evildoer tyronec has launched a vicious and unprovoked attack upon the Soviet Union.

False reports and disinformation has been circulating in counterrevolutionary quarters claiming that supposedly a couple of Soviet divisions have been surrounded by deep Panzer thrusts into Soviet territory. In reality, Soviet troops are fighting hard from the Baltic coast down to Ukraine, and are maintaining a solid front line. Although the Germans have made some minor gains because due to the surprise attack the Red Army was not on a war time footing initially, these gains have been blunted







We also have received reports that some airmen in the VVS have been collaborating with the German invaders. They will be dealt with appropriately:



The most important action that we took in response to the insidious and unprovoked invasion was to immediately order the entire Red Army on to supply priority 4:



Having accomplished this, tyronec may as well go ahead and concede the game now, the war is as good as won.

In the south, the Lvov pocket was broken by heroic NKVD border guards and a heroic tank division:



Glorious counterattacks were also launched across the front. We will only bother to show one of them.



Out of 56 German AFVs, 35 were destroyed in just this single counterattack. And another 22 were damaged, for a total of 57 out of 56 German AFVs taken out of commission. Yes, that is more than 100%, but this is the Soviet Union, so we have Soviet Mathematics to calculate this, which does not obey bourgeois conventions:



We had many, many, many other tremendous counterattacks across all sectors of the front, every one of which was an undeniable victory and which all resulted in enormous German losses and paltry Soviet casualties. We, um, well, won't bother to show screenshots of those, however, because reasons. Also, every single other pocket was also broken, but um we won't show that either. OK. But they were all totally successful, you have to believe me. This is 110% true information (percentage calculated by the finest artillery regiment in the Red Army using the finest Soviet mathematics). However, you don't have to take my word for it, just look at this mathematical proof:

We are playing with theater boxes locked, so let's briefly talk about the implications of that. Most players think that having them unlocked favors the Axis, and there are some obvious reasons why - with TBs unlocked, Axis can bring additional specialized units such as the 2 Norway RADs, extra transport planes, and specialized support units for Panzers like flak regiments, and also can bring units like the Light Afrika division for an extra motorized division. It is also valuable for Axis to have them unlocked because then sometimes the scheduled unit transfers will remove units from a critical part of the front, where you need to hold the particular hex where the unit is going to withdraw from. That is more of a problem for Axis than Soviets because Axis has fewer units and also does not have the logistics to be able to move units willy-nilly around the map.

However, there are also some advantages to Soviets of having TBs unlocked. In particular, with TBs locked, the Far East theater box (and to a lesser extent the others) go up to well over 100% of requirement, and the scheduled transfers are pretty slow and gradual. Whereas if you have them unlocked, a player can bring units to the map somewhat more quickly. However, it takes 4 turns to manually move units from the far east, and the soonest that can start making any difference at all is around turn 7-8 or so, so the first few turns are the same regardless. However, on turns 10-20 or so, Soviets can have more units on the map with TBs unlocked.

It is possible this might be one reason tyronec has had more success with Axis in 1941 than some other players, because he only plays with TBs locked. He typically gets some some early encirclements and/or breakthroughs, and then Soviet players against him have a hard time getting enough units and enough depth to adequately defend. That would be at least a bit easier if they could transfer more units to the map earlier.

However, I think a larger part of it is probably his previous opponents putting units in the wrong places, underestimating how much depth they need, and sending too many units to the reserve for too long. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I think the national reserve box is really not that great for Soviets. Soviet logistics is plenty good enough to support moving units around by rail, and you can reinforce units on the map without any difficulty at all as long as you just use supply priority 4. So I won't be using the reserve much at all, because I would almost always rather have units on the map. On turn 1, the only units I sent to the reserve were a small number that could not rail away and would have been doomed otherwise (almost all in the south).

[Beethoven1]

my bet is that recon in front of Smolensk leads to such a result

That is possible, but he did not mention that. I did ask if he had anything like that which he was unhappy with or wanted redressed in some way, but never heard anything back with regards to anything like that.

I would suggest not jumping to any premature conclusions prior to hearing from tyronec, if he has anything he wishes to say, and also reading the PMs directly potentially. The PMs should make it all quite clear, at least from my perspective.

And, for what it is worth, it is quite possible to have more of a land bridge defense with even more depth/combat delay/etc than what I had here. I have had more in previous games I played against bread and also against jubjub.

[Veterin]

That's a shame the game ended so quickly. A lot of time and effort (from both sides) goes into the opening turns too.

[Zebtucker12]

Shame for such a funny andcwell madecAAR to emd so quckily hopefully a fresh one will apeer soon?

[loki100]

this is why, at the moment, I only play with locked TB. Its never been properly balanced and the scope is there for the more creative player to gain a substantial, unintended, advantage simply by legitimately maninpulating the options.

This was endemic in the early builds of WiTW (where it started as a huge axis benefit, then became a horrible trap if the axis player didn't know exactly what went and when), by the time it got balanced out the end result was better to play WiTW with it fixed.

So, best left alone and accept the oddities that result - at least the on-map game then has one less unintended source of advantage?

[Beethoven1]

this is why, at the moment, I only play with locked TB. Its never been properly balanced and the scope is there for the more creative player to gain a substantial, unintended, advantage simply by legitimately maninpulating the options.

This was endemic in the early builds of WiTW (where it started as a huge axis benefit, then became a horrible trap if the axis player didn't know exactly what went and when), by the time it got balanced out the end result was better to play WiTW with it fixed.

So, best left alone and accept the oddities that result - at least the on-map game then has one less unintended source of advantage?

For the record, we were playing with theater boxes locked.

I do agree that having theater boxes unlocked may adversely affect balance in a variety of specific ways, because there are a bunch of different things you can do with them to gain various (small) advantages in ways that don't necessarily make substantive sense. These include bringing the extra RADs and transport planes for Axis, sending troops from the far east to the map a bit sooner than otherwise for the Soviets, but also quite a few other things.

I do also think there are QOL benefits to having them unlocked, and in my own personal ideal world, it would be possible to have the QOL benefits while also not disrupting the balance from having them locked. Personally I think you can do that with the right house rule.

But in any case, as I said, we were playing with them locked, so having a TB box setting that tyronec didn't want was manifestly NOT the reason why he chose to back out of the game.

[loki100]

ah, apologies I must have misread the bit you had quoted as suggesting they were open, also thought you mentioned sending stuff to the TC theatre and bringing it back - but that may well have been the other game?

the ideal is they don't distort the main game (and that will come with refining the various factors) but do allow you to escape some of the more egregious issues such as the restrictions on pretty random Soviet units that go off to the Far East on T203. But I don't think they are anywhere near that yet.

[Beethoven1]

ah, apologies I must have misread the bit you had quoted as suggesting they were open, also thought you mentioned sending stuff to the TC theatre and bringing it back - but that may well have been the other game?

Yeah, that's the other game (jubjub AAR).

the ideal is they don't distort the main game (and that will come with refining the various factors) but do allow you to escape some of the more egregious issues such as the restrictions on pretty random Soviet units that go off to the Far East on T203. But I don't think they are anywhere near that yet.

I agree, the thing I don't like about TBs locked are the QOL issues like if you want to form a rifle corps with a turn 203 scheduled transfer division, you can't, or that if you have a transfer scheduled to a TB of an infantry division, but would rather keep that one on the map and instead send another one with identical TOE, you can't substitute the identical division which is on a part of the map where you don't need it as much.

[Beethoven1]

tyronec read my PMs a while ago and has still neither responded to them, nor to anything in this thread, so my assumption at this point has to be that he has no interest in sharing his perspective on the AAR, and he just doesn't care about this particular aborted game or the AAR thread and doesn't object to posting anything in the PMs for transparency's sake.

Anyone who actually bothers to read through all these should see that there is nothing really objectionable or dramatic in them from either of us. We were both polite and courteous throughout our discussion about the game.

Again, from my perspective, I bent over backwards to agree to literally everything tyronec said he wanted with regards to rules/conditions for the game, the AAR, etc. When he first raised his concerns about this AAR, I immediately apologized for having written anything he may have been unhappy with (literally the first thing I said was "Oh, I am sorry! I was not expecting that you would dislike it."). I offered to edit the posts (as I later did), or delete, and also offered to change the way I did the AAR. I offered him literally everything that I could possibly have offered him about anything, and I think made quite clear that I would agree to anything he wanted about anything. And I did this even despite the fact that, at least it seems to me, that a fair minded reader would not find anything actually objectionable or really out of place in what I had written in the AAR or in what I had done.

However, tyronec seemed to simply be totally unwilling to take yes for an answer, and totally unwilling to give me any chance to rectify the things that he said he did not like, despite my clear willingness to do literally anything that he wanted, and to agree to anything he wanted.

So, it seems that he simply did not want to play under any possible conditions. However, you can read below and judge for yourself if you wish, don't take my word for it.

I am willing to answer any questions from readers, though I don't really know anything more. Personally I am still at a loss as to exactly why tyronec backed out of the game. To me, it seems so bizarre, without any clear or explicable reason behind it. I remain willing to start a new game with tyronec if he wants, with literally any conditions regarding rules etc that he wants, and if we do start a new game, I am also willing to let him repeat turn 1 for as many times as he wants until he gets the perfect turn 1.

Each of the quotes below is one of our PMs setting up and discussing the game. This consists of our PMs in their entirety:

Open again as my first game just finished.

Hi,

I might be interested in a game with you if you want to play another as Axis with me as Soviets.

However, I am not 100% sure yet, it depends on whether jubjub wants to resume the game I had been playing with him. I stopped playing WITE2 for a while when the Russia-Ukraine war started, but am ready to get back into it, so our game went into hibernation.

But I thought I would go ahead and message you so that you know I am interested, while I wait to find out if jubjub wants to continue.

OK. Will wait to hear from you.
Tyrone

OK, looks like jubjub is too busy to continue my previous game with him for now, so I would be very happy to start a new one with you.

Regarding rules etc from your post, all of these are fine:

Server game. --- fine
Updating to new patches within a week of them coming out. --- fine
Full FoG. --- fine
AI assist OFF. --- fine
No temporary motorisation. --- fine
No para drops. --- fine
No Amphib invasions. --- fine
No massed small mission GA/NP ADs. --- fine

More generally, I am not wanting to exploit obvious flaws in game mechanics and from what I know of you I don't think you are either, so there are various other things that are possible which I assume we should not do, e.g. I won't merge units that are pocketed to teleport out extra equipment to the pool, won't try to manipulate things like the build limits to artificially get more of some kinds of divisions than you are supposed to, etc. And I assume you won't do those sorts of things either (though I think there are probably more exploits like that for Soviets than for Axis).



Questions/clarifications about these ones:

Maximum of 5 Airborne Divisions for the Soviets. --- What is the issue/reason for this? I remember a while back HLYA complaining about an exploit where you can apparently make extra guards rifle divisions to exceed the limit of guards divisions by combining airborne brigades to make too many of those and exceed the limit. If that is what you mean, I certainly won't do that. If what you mean is not having more than 5 of the airborne divisions like in the StB scenario, then I am not sure. It seems plausible that might make sense, but also plausible that it might not. If Soviets are clearly winning and the consensus is Soviets are too strong etc at that point, then I would not have a problem with limiting that to try and balance things out. On the other hand, supposing that Soviets are clearly losing, then it seems to me like it makes sense for Soviets to be able to build up to the limit programmed into the game. Either way, AFAIR that only starts to be an issue with the 1943 build limits in any case, so that is a while off, but if the game gets to that point and you are convinced then that too many airborne divisions (or alternatively, something else) are OP, then in general I don't see why I would have a problem renouncing it. As long as we are both playing in good faith, it seems like something we could note for now that it may be an issue, but wait to see how things go before making an irrevocable decision. Does that make sense?



TB Control OFF. --- fine in spirit. I do agree with you that the theater boxes are exploitable and could disrupt balance in various ways, and I would be happy to agree that we should not do that. However, I think it would be good to have it technically be on, even while agreeing to play as though it were locked, for some narrow purposes.

a) First, if you are forming rifle corps, in some cases it can be annoying if you can't form one using a particular division just because a transfer is scheduled 200 turns into the future or something.

b) Secondly, in some cases it can be problematic when there is a scheduled transfer for a particular unit that is holding a vital part of the front, which can't really be reinforced by another unit. This is more likely to be problematic for Axis than Soviets, since Axis has fewer units and it is harder to move Axis replacement units across the map for Axis to get it into the position to replace some unit that is scheduled to be transferred back to Western Europe. But it also can be problematic for Soviets on occasion. For example, in a previous game one of the units I had in Sevastopol City Fort was scheduled to transfer out to the Northern Front, which would have teleported it out of a besieged city fort that could not be replaced by another unit. Obviously that is not realistic.

In cases like these, I think it would be reasonable to allow each other to cancel a unit's scheduled transfer, so long as we replace it with another equivalent (same type and same size/TOE/whatever) unit. For example, suppose I want to cancel the transfer of an infantry division from the map to Far East that is scheduled for turn 150, so that I can use that division to form a rifle corps. That would be ok as long as I write down that it was supposed to transfer to the Far East on turn 150, and then when turn 150 rolls around, I send another infantry division to the Far East instead to replace it.

Similarly, if you wanted to cancel the transfer of a Panzer division, that is fine as long as you transfer another Panzer division in its place, etc.

But other than those sortst of cases, theatter box transfers would not be allowed. What we would both NOT be allowed to do is any transfer we wanted willy-nilly, e.g. no transferring a Soviet tank division to the Transcaucasus and pulling out a mountain division to replace it, no sending a Panzer division to the west in winter and replacing it with infantry, etc etc.

This would give us both the ability to fix these sorts of issues, but without bringing in the balance problems and gaming-of-the-system that can arise from fully unlocked TBs.

For my part, I would not expect to need or want to do this often, but on occasion might. I would be happy to keep a spreadsheet/list of any cases like this that might come up and ask/notify you before or at the time of doing it. The spreadsheet/list would record the scheduled transfers that are canceled, and then when the appropriate turn comes up then I could manually transfer another unit to offset the previously canceled transfer.




No Early End vs Sudden Death - you didn't mention this one way or the other, so I will say that in general my preference is for No Early End, simply because if you do Sudden Death and the game ends, there is no way to undo/edit that even if it is not what both players want at the time. Even if we are playing "no early end," if you want to track according to the various VPs/checks in order to declare the winner, that would be fine with me, we can always just look at the VP score in the game to do that. My only fear regarding Sudden Death is just that the game ends for some reasons that don't really make substantive sense given what is happening in the game at that point - basically that the game situation could be developing in some sort of unanticipated way - and then we are stuck with no way to fix it. This probably wouldn't happen, but it is possible. So that is my reason for preferring no early end. However, If you particularly want sudden death, I would be ok with accepting it, and just hope that no unanticipated problems come up.



I just created a game on the server, password is [edit - note I am editing to block out the password]

This is the No Early End Scenario and has Theater Box Control on (with the understanding that we would be playing "as if" Theater Box Control was off as described above).

If that is ok with you, then you can accept. If you particularly want Sudden Death and TB off though, you can create another game, then let me know, and then I will accept when I see your message.

Hi,
The 5 airborne divisions rule was to stop the exploit where the soviets can build lots of airborne brigades and make divisions, then build more brigades and repeat. Or also to reach the guards cap and then make more by combining brigades. If you are not going to work an exploit around the divisions am relaxed about it.

TB control. I just feel the game has been play tested for balance with TB off so and has an extra element of unbalance with TB ON. Both sides can manage their armies to deal with units coming and going, it can be a nuisance but not a game breaker. Plus I don't want to deal with the extra admin. So am not keen to play with TB on.

Sudden Death. Again the game has been play tested for sudden death ON. It is a factor in how the game is played and I'm not keen to play No early End.

Have set up a game with TB off and standard scenario.
I am on 2.28, the link is here https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=383759.

Happy to discuss other things as they come up, with Rosencrantus we made new house rules as our StB game progressed when new bugs were identified.

Regards,
Tyrone

Note that tyronec said: Happy to discuss other things as they come up, with Rosencrantus we made new house rules as our StB game progressed when new bugs were identified.

--- It is strange to read this in retrospect, because that is precisely how I would have liked to have dealt with any possible issues in the game, but if there were any issues within the game itself or about the rules etc, tyronec never brought them up for discussion, as he had suggested here he would be happy to do.

What is the password? I am willing to accept the game with your settings, but need that.

To be clear, regarding the theater boxes, all I would want to do is e.g. be able to cancel a transfer and replace with an identical division transfer if e.g. I am wanting to form a rifle corps in a hex and the only appropriate division that can get to the hex is one which has a transfer scheduled. I found in StB this sort of thing can happen, in particular in dense terrain where there are a lot of units, because stacking limits can block a lot of movement options. It isn't that big of a deal not to be able to do that, but at least IMO it is a clear design flaw, and as long as we limited manual transfers to that sort of thing by house rule, it would be effectively the same as having TBs locked. It can also be very annoying when you can't change the refit/reserve status of a unit that is scheduled to transfer in a couple of turns (because the UI sets the status to transfer and then you can't click the button). It just seems like an unnecessary annoyance. I am pretty sure it hurts Axis more than Soviets though because Soviets can more easily move units around on the map (especially in 1941) to plug holes caused by withdrawing units, so I am ok to accept it how you want it, but it is just flawed game design re: things like rifle corps formation.

Sorry, forget to include the password - [edit - editing password out of the quote].

Understand what you are saying on the TB but my preference is just to work around it rather than have the extra admin if shifting units in and out. If we went with TB control then the Soviets get the advantage of using it and to balance that as the Axis player I have extra admin load to do that from my side.
Tyrone

Sorry, forget to include the password - [ password edited out].

Understand what you are saying on the TB but my preference is just to work around it rather than have the extra admin if shifting units in and out. If we went with TB control then the Soviets get the advantage of using it and to balance that as the Axis player I have extra admin load to do that from my side.
Tyrone

OK, I accepted the game, so you can do your turn whenever you want. Good luck and have fun!

Have made a start, not sure when I will get done - Sunday by the latest but hopefully before then.
Got some of by GA ADs wrong so some front line fighters survived.

Have made a start, not sure when I will get done - Sunday by the latest but hopefully before then.
Got some of by GA ADs wrong so some front line fighters survived.

Hmmm... if some planes survived, that must mean that they are conspiring with the German invaders. We will investigate this and deal with the guilty parties appropriately. Thank you for alerting us to their malfeasance!

Hi,
I got your move back today and was just about to start playing and I read your posts on the forum.
I have played wargames in the past against opponents who engage in what I would describe as 'aggressive banter' and it just made me want to win more. However that was a long time ago and am more relaxed about my competativeness.
What I mean by that is that there is criticism about me and about my opponents - some of it I would say is a misrepresentation. But really I am not interested in a debate about your comments.
Clearly you are a good player but this is not the kind of game I want to engage in.
Tyrone

----- note, by my "posts" on the forum, tyronec is referring to the original versions of my first 2 posts in this thread of the AAR, those are the only posts I had made at the time. You can scroll up to see where I re-posted those.

Hi,
I got your move back today and was just about to start playing and I read your posts on the forum.
I have played wargames in the past against opponents who engage in what I would describe as 'aggressive banter' and it just made me want to win more. However that was a long time ago and am more relaxed about my competativeness.
What I mean by that is that there is criticism about me and about my opponents - some of it I would say is a misrepresentation. But really I am not interested in a debate about your comments.
Clearly you are a good player but this is not the kind of game I want to engage in.
Tyrone

Oh, I am sorry!

I was not expecting that you would dislike it. My intention was that it was supposed to be playful banter/joking around/role playing. However, if you don't interpret it that way, for whatever reason, I would be happy to edit and/or delete the parts of what I wrote that you are unhappy with, or alternatively leave it as it is but make sure not to repeat anything like it (whichever you would prefer, I would be happy to do).

If you would like, I would be happy to adopt a 100% serious and straitlaced tone and only discuss what is directly happening in the game in purely objective terms directly reporting about the evens happening in the game (battles, OOB, statistics, and analysis about what the implications of those in terms of purely game mechanics/history might be). An example of that sort of post is this one https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0#p5000610 (not sure if the link to the particular post works, but it is the first one on page 5, the Soviet turn #7 post, I quickly re-read that to make sure it didn't have any attempts at joking around to give a good example).



If that is what you want and the tone of e.g. that turn 7 jubjub AAR is what you want, you don't need to read/respond to anything below, but just let me know that is what you want and it will be fine, and just specify if you want me to edit and/or delete anything in my previous posts in the AAR.





However, would you mind clarifying a bit more specifically what you don't want to help make sure I accurately understand how much of it bothered you? I'd also like to quickly go through it to try to better convey what my intent was, not to debate (I agree that is a waste of time), but to hopefully show you that I didn't have any ill intentions and to make sure I don't do anything else in the future that you find objectionable.

The parts I can see that seem potentially problematic are:

1) " Noted evildoer tyronec has launched a vicious and unprovoked attack upon the Soviet Union."

- this was intended as joking roleplaying as Stalin/Soviet leadership. I don't actually consider you an evildoer or anything like that (hopefully fairly obvious).

fwiw in my past AARs, what I have generally done is to start out similarly with a propaganda style like that, and then transition into a more straightforward simple discussion of what happened in the turn and analysis.

For example if you look at the first post of this AAR (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2#p4904822), I started off by saying "Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, the jubjubite hordes slithered - (illegally!) - across the frontier and into Soviet territory" but then transitioned into talking normally about the game and simply reporting/analyzing each turn in the subsequent turn. The comment about "evildoer tyronec" was intended similarly as a lighthearted introduction to start off the AAR, with the general plan of transitioning to serious/straightforward posts for subsequent turns.

2) "False reports and disinformation has been circulating in counterrevolutionary quarters claiming that supposedly a couple of Soviet divisions have been surrounded by deep Panzer thrusts into Soviet territory."

- this sort of thing (and continuing in the post, with false claims of having made huge numbers of counterattacks successfully etc) was intended as roleplaying effectively making fun of Soviet denials/propaganda.

3) quoting your PM where you said:

- I don't know if you were upset at the mere fact that I quoted the PM, but if you were I would. What I have done with my other AARs when I have quoted conversations with people is ask them directly if it is ok the first time to post in the AAR, which was easier since we are on discord which allows quicker communication. I should have asked you, but I assumed it would not be a problem. I did vaguely think about it, but thought you wouldn't care and thought it was not worth waiting to receive back an answer to a PM I would have sent asking if it was ok.

4) "Having accomplished this, tyronec may as well go ahead and concede the game now, the war is as good as won."

- Similar deliberate roleplaying and propagandistic exaggeration for effect. I mention this specifically only because it mentioned your name, but my interpretation is this falls under the same category as #2, with the exception of the fact that it mentions your name.


5) References to nonsensical "Soviet math"

- This has nothing to do with the game, obviously, it was just intended as lighthearted fluff. But this is one example of the sort of thing that I would not post if you want to stick strictly to the game in a serious manner, obviously.



6) The second post discussing theater boxes being locked (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8#p5000938)

- This post was intended merely as an attempt at analyzing the costs/benefits to each side of the TB rules for readers. You say in your PM that:

"What I mean by that is that there is criticism about me and about my opponents - some of it I would say is a misrepresentation".

Other than the parts of the previous post where I said (deliberately) false/misleading things which I assume the readers will understand are deliberate exaggeration, such as claiming to have opened all the pockets and won tremendous victories etc, the only thing in either of my 2 posts that I see which I think you might consider as criticism/misrepresentation about you and your previous opponents is this part:

It is possible this might be one reason tyronec has had more success with Axis in 1941 than some other players, because he only plays with TBs locked. He typically gets some some early encirclements and/or breakthroughs, and then Soviet players against him have a hard time getting enough units and enough depth to adequately defend. That would be at least a bit easier if they could transfer more units to the map earlier.

However, I think a larger part of it is probably his previous opponents putting units in the wrong places, underestimating how much depth they need, and sending too many units to the reserve for too long.

I do actually agree and would readily admit that this could be misrepresentation of what happened in your previous games, because I only know what I saw in screenshots/AARs, and screenshots provide an incomplete picture and don't show the entire map etc (and also often skip a turn or 2 here and there). So I only have limited information and my analysis is naturally limited by that. This was only intended as my best good-faith interpretation and analysis, not to be insulting to anyone. I think I was definitely not criticizing or insulting you (by contrast I was trying to give you credit for good play in getting encirclements and breakthroughs).

If you are interpreting this:

"It is possible this might be one reason tyronec has had more success with Axis in 1941 than some other players, because he only plays with TBs locked"

as some sort of criticism of you, I don't think it is and that absolutely was not my intent. I wasn't trying to imply that you are a bad player and would lose if theater boxes were on or something like that, if that is what you are somehow thinking, I was just trying to analyze the effects of TB boxes. And like I said in the post, in my analysis I think there are some things that help/hurt both sides, so even if I am correct that TBs locked make it a bit easier for Axis on turns 10-15 or so due to fewer Soviet units being on the map, that might be offset (or perhaps even more than offset) by the impacts on Axis of scripted troop reinforcements during winter, etc.

The part that was intended as a criticism was of your opponents:

However, I think a larger part of it is probably his previous opponents putting units in the wrong places, underestimating how much depth they need, and sending too many units to the reserve for too long.

But even there, I was not trying to be insulting to your other opponents, I was just attempting to analyze what happened in some previous games. From reading the AARs, I thought they made some mistakes. Of course, I could easily be wrong about any specific thing that seemed to me like a mistake, and like I said I don't have the full picture of those games, just what I saw in AAR(s) and my understanding of it.


Anyway, I have no more desire to debate this than you do (again, I posted this extra detail not to debate but to hopefully show you that my intentions are good), but if you let me know about what are the specific things that upset you which I wasn't sure if you were referring specifically to or not, that should hopefully help me ensure that I don't repeat anything else like it.

To reiterate and sum up, I apologize for any offense I may have caused, and I will be happy to avoid repeating it in the future - the more specifically I know what you didn't like, the better of a job I can do to fix the issue.

Hi,
I am not going to continue with the game, am clear about that now.

I appreciate that you are offering to adapt what you write. So here are a couple of specif things:

I am not upset, you have made that up. I didn't like what you wrote on the forum but I was not upset because of it. However it made me question if I wanted to play a game against someone who was engaging in this kind of aggressive banter.

The TB control. I don't know if it favors Axis or Soviets, I think it favors Axis but am not sure. There are two reasons why I don't want to play with it; one is that it opens up the game to features have not been fully tested or thought through that potentially unbalance it. The second is that it requires a lot of extra admin. We discussed that before starting. It is not correct that I only play with TB locked however you wanted to make a point so you made that up.

Tyrone

Hi,
I am not going to continue with the game, am clear about that now.

I appreciate that you are offering to adapt what you write. So here are a couple of specif things:

I am not upset, you have made that up. I didn't like what you wrote on the forum but I was not upset because of it. However it made me question if I wanted to play a game against someone who was engaging in this kind of aggressive banter.

I am very surprised by all this, and I hope that you might still reconsider, because I think we could have a fun game and could help the devs to better understand and potentially improve game balance together.

With respect, I think you are totally misreading this situation! I think this is a situation where miscommunication is occurring due to the fact that we are typing messages purely with text (as can sometimes happen over the internet), which would not occur if we were speaking verbally and could hear each other's tone of voice, or even more so if we were speaking in person and could see all the additional social cues that are missing from purely text conversation.

If you'd like and think it might help, I would offer to discuss this over voice chat using discord, I suspect it might make this clearer due to the availability of better social queues with instantaneous discussion than with these clunky forum messages.

I have never had any similar sorts of issues that I can think of in my previous games.

From what I can tell, the word "upset" in particular seems to be an object of miscommunication. You say:

I am not upset, you have made that up. I didn't like what you wrote on the forum but I was not upset because of it.

So you are saying that you "disliked" what I wrote on the forum, but that you are not "upset," drawing a subtle distinction that seems to be important to you between those two words.

This seems to be a reference to where I said at the end of my previous message that:

Anyway, I have no more desire to debate this than you do (again, I posted this extra detail not to debate but to hopefully show you that my intentions are good), but if you let me know about what are the specific things that upset you which I wasn't sure if you were referring specifically to or not, that should hopefully help me ensure that I don't repeat anything else like it.

To reiterate and sum up, I apologize for any offense I may have caused, and I will be happy to avoid repeating it in the future - the more specifically I know what you didn't like, the better of a job I can do to fix the issue.

In the above quote, I bolded 2 parts for emphasis which, to me, are effectively synonyms, saying the same basic thing in my subjective interpretation.

In my understanding of ordinary English language, it means the same thing to refer to "something that someone doesn't dislike" and to refer to "something that upsets someone." If one doesn't like something, then one is unhappy about it, that is to say one is upset.

Similarly, at the very beginning of my previous message, I said:

Oh, I am sorry!

I was not expecting that you would dislike it.

(similar emphasis added with bold)

Above all since I started off referring to the word "dislike" rather than "upset," this should make clear that when I was talking about the stuff I wrote that you were unsatisfied with, I was not in any way intending to emphasize anything involving the word "upset."

Perhaps in your cultural background/upbringing/context/whatever, there was some sort of clear distinction drawn between the meaning of saying e.g. "something that someone doesn't dislike" or saying "something that upsets someone," and if so I apologize for missing that distinction, but I was not aware of it when I wrote this. In my cultural background/upbringing/context/whatever, these are the sorts of things that one could say interchangeably, quickly without thinking about it, and I was not intending anything more by it one way or another.

Beyond than that, when I was learning how to write in my high school English classes, my teachers taught me (rightly or wrongly) that one of the keys to good writing is to vary your sentence structure and to say things with slightly different phrasing, rather than to repeat the exact same thing in the exact same way. So for that reason, when writing, I will naturally tend to try to rephrase something that I have already said rather than to repeat it literally. This is why at the end of my message, I said "the specific things that upset you" whereas at the very beginning of the message referred instead to the things I wrote which you say that you "disliked."

The TB control. I don't know if it favors Axis or Soviets, I think it favors Axis but am not sure. There are two reasons why I don't want to play with it; one is that it opens up the game to features have not been fully tested or thought through that potentially unbalance it. The second is that it requires a lot of extra admin. We discussed that before starting.

That is absolutely fine, I understand the reasons for playing with TBs locked, and while I would have preferred playing with them unlocked for purely QOL reasons (e.g. it is annoying to not be able to disband the Soviet corps HQs that disband on turn 4 a few turns earlier simply to remove clutter), I was fine with playing with them locked, which was why I agreed to play with them locked when you made clear that was what you wanted.

In fact, I don't merely understand the reasons, but actually in my first grand campaign game which I played with Bread, I wanted to play with theater boxes locked for the essentially the same reasons, because I thought it might unbalance the game and give players the wrong incentives!!!

I arranged my first game over discord with him, and said (way back at the very start of my message history with him on April 17, 2021):



And I agreed with the same issue you have mentioned about TBs being unlocked causing extra and unnecessary micromanagement:



I started my second game with him with theater boxes unlocked because that was what he wanted (June 8, 2021):



The main problem he had with the TBs being locked as Germany was with the forced transfers of units off of the map which were in a critical part of the map, and they suddenly disappeared without him being able to move in replacements:



So far from disagreeing with you about TBs, I actually agree with you. The only thing I like about having TBs unlocked are the QOL benefits, which is a great benefit, but I am (and have been since my first game with Bread) in agreement with you about the extra micromanagement and the fact that it may disrupt balance since the game wasn't tested with that setting.

I am sure Bread would be happy to verify this if you want to ask him.

It is not correct that I only play with TB locked however you wanted to make a point so you made that up.

Tyrone

I was not trying to make a point and certainly not intending to make anything up, I simply thought in good faith that your previous games had been played with TBs locked, from having read through your previous AARs and also remembering having read previous posts you made on the forum about TBs, where I remembered you having made the same points about TBs.

1) e.g. your game with ToxicThug11 (aka Kulik/todger) has TBs locked

2) Bitburger game - " TB control is OFF." https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=382932

3) Rosencrantus game - I actually see now it doesn't seem to say if TBs are locked. I had thought, assumed, or misremembered that they were, so I may have been wrong in thinking that they were locked, and am happy to admit it.

4) MSAG game - " TB control OFF (I think TB control is of more benefit to Axis than the Soviets)." https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=378782

5) K62 game - " No TB control (which I think is of more benefit to Axis than the Soviets." https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 3&t=376261

I do see now at least one game where you played with TB control on, your STB game against Rosencrantus, " Rosencrantus wanted to play with TB Control on which I have agreed to with the condition that he lets me know what transfers he is doing. I will not be using it. This is a small advantage to Axis but I think not too significant in this scenario (whereas in '41 it would have more impact)." https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=372028

Mentally I had been thinking of 1941 GC games you had played, so I may have not remembered this game for that reason, I don't know.

I know there are also some older games, I could look through the AARs from all those to attempt to check, but the point is my off-hand memory was that they were with TBs off, and I was merely trying to express my best off-hand recollection, which was that I thought you had played all your previous games (at any rate, ones with AARs) with TBs locked.

So I was merely trying to make a factual statement. Like all other humans, I am certainly fallible and can misremember or misinterpret things. However, I have no problem with admitting when I am wrong if I am wrong, and correcting it.

Of course, many other factors were also different across all these games regardless of TB settings (played with different patches, etc), and the complexity is what makes it difficult to assess and understand the balance of this complex game. I was never in any way meaning to imply that theater box rules and the like were determination of outcomes in any particular game, and never said anything to suggest that. At most, they are just one little factor among many.





Anyway, to reiterate, I hope that you might reconsider and be willing to give me a second chance and continue the game. I was very much looking forward to playing with you, because I have read all of your AARs and learned a lot from them ever since the game was released. I think it is pretty clear that you are either the best, or one of the best players of the game. You are certainly better than me, if for no other reason than you can play Germany - I have tried o play Germany in single player, but have never managed to get far to my satisfaction. I'd like to eventually also be able to play Germany, but Soviets are easier for me at this stage because Germany requires so much finesse which I haven't been able to manage to my satisfaction, which is why I play Soviets. So, I was very much looking forward to the challenge of playing with you and seeing if I could survive.



If you would like, I would also be willing to change how I have been doing the AAR more broadly to accommodate your concerns.

My assumption, at the start, was it would probably be like the AAR for your game with ToxictThug11/todger/Kulik (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=383893) where he started off posting and then you posted some from your perspective. Since you have so many other AARs, I just assumed you would probably want to do that (or alternatively start your own AAR thread), and didn't particularly think it was necessary to mention.

However, if you prefer, I would be willing to do any of these arrangements, any of which could make 100% sure that nothing would appear in the AAR that you don't want:

A) PM all my AAR posts to you, and then you post them rather than me, after giving you the chance to edit and correct anything that you don't want.

B) PM all my AAR posts to you, and after you have a chance to respond with any edits/corrections you think are necessary, then I would post them. This is the same as A, just a bit more time consuming with more time lag.

C) You write an AAR how you normally write your AARs, and I don't write any AAR directly, but just post screenshots with no text from my perspective to complement your AAR. I could also periodically (but not every turn, maybe once every 10 turns or so) write up a brief general summary of the Soviet perspective of the situation, which I would then PM to you to look over and edit if necessary. Then you could either post my summary of the Soviet perspective yourself, or else I can post it after you have OK'd it.



If you are willing to give me any chance at all, I would suggest maybe let each of us do 1 single additional turn, and we can do a trial run of how the AAR would work. I would take screenshots and write my perspective on the turn with a purely serious and totally in a purely serious tone totally devoid of anything even remotely resembling "aggressive banter," as you put it. Then you could evaluate it, and if you are sufficiently satisfied that there is no aggressive banter or anything of the sort, then we could continue the game. Or if even after that, you still think I am engaging in any sort of aggressive banter, then you could leave it there at that point.

As a gesture of good faith, I will now edit the 2 posts I previously made in the AAR to remove anything remotely resembling aggressive banter.

There, I edited my posts in the AAR. I think that everything that could possibly have started things off on the wrong foot is gone, although if not, remember that all you have to do is let me know and I will be happy to address it. In general, that is my attitude to any concerns that other players I play with have, all you have to do is let me know if you have a problem with something, and in general I am likely to be very accommodating, because it is just a game.

At least in my opinion, this was a miscommunication/misunderstanding, but I think it is possible to avoid any issues like this from disrupting the game by communicating clearly. If you like, I would like to also invite you to discord, which I think can make communication easier and reduces the possibility of misunderstandings, because it allows instant transmission of messages and instant replies. I have had good success talking with jubjub using that, who was not on discord before but I invited him when we started playing together. If you don't want to, however, I am can simply use the forum messages.

As mentioned, I hope this will help satisfy you and that you might reconsider giving me a second chance and continuing the game.

If we continued the game, I would be more than happy to continue with this tone and without any of the previous aggressive banter or anything similar that you dislike. And if even that is not enough, as I mentioned I am also willing to change the basic way I am doing the AAR (including not even directly doing an AAR), if that would satisfy the concerns you have expressed.

Hi,
No, I am not up for continuing. I apologise for having wasted your time.
In retrospect there was an indicitation that we had a different approach to the game from your PMs before we started and I should have continued with that conversation further before agreeing to play.
Regards,
Tyrone

Hi,
No, I am not up for continuing. I apologise for having wasted your time.
In retrospect there was an indicitation that we had a different approach to the game from your PMs before we started and I should have continued with that conversation further before agreeing to play.
Regards,
Tyrone

I do appreciate the apology for having wasted my time.

However, this leaves the problem of the AAR, where we must now explain to readers why the game ended so absurdly quickly. In general, I believe in transparency, so what I would do is simply to copy/paste in our PMs for all to read, rather than for me (or you) to possibly misrepresent/mislead as to what happened to end the game here. However, I would like to give you the opportunity to object to that if you wish, and if you do object, to explain what good reason is there not to do so.

Also, one more question, you say now that "there was an indication that we had a different approach to the game." What exactly was this indication? Looking through the PMs sent before you did Axis turn 1, I don't see anything that insults or criticizes you or your opponents, and also regarding the rules, I pretty clearly bent over backwards to agree to literally everything that you wanted (and hence, if there was or is anything else, it seems pretty clear that you could have .

Or alternatively, did I do anything within the game itself on Soviet Turn 1 that you disliked or considered an exploit or something like that? If so, if you should have simply mentioned it, I am pretty sure I would have agreed to stop doing it. That seems to me like the normal thing that a reasonable person would do in those circumstances, y'know, talk about things like reasonable human beings. E.g. if there were any situation you considered to be analogous to that in your game with K62 where he was exploiting the small air missions, you could have simply asked me not to do that and then I would not do it (though I would note it in the AAR).

And if something like that which I did or you think would have done in the game is your actual problem - [in addition to (or as opposed to) your earlier complaints that I had, in your opinion, insulted or criticized you or your previous opponents] - then even now I would be willing to agree not to do it and to give you the opportunity to start a new game and re-do turn 1, so that it would be more to your satisfaction.

[Stamb]

wow
it was unexpected
personally i like Beethoven's humor
also i lost my bet...

[EwaldvonKleist]

Too bad, I would habe enjoyed seeing this game.
I do not see the problems with your comments, the best way is to forget about it and start with another opponent.

My experience with Tyronec was good, not sure what was the issue here but I am sure he had his reasons.

I <з Beethoven