Game balance & German strategy

[Patris]

This is the prosecution of the thread on the allied bombings. It's better read that first.

I'm not sure, as many have said in this forum, that the Axis is the weak side (even in the late war scenarios).
I think that it may be a problem of strategy.
I don't want to say that the German players don't play well, but that they probably apply historical strategies, which have failed in the war and fail even now.
For example, as I've said in the Allied bombing thread, it's possible to block almost totally the USAAF bombing with not great material effort, saving the bulk of the Luftwaffe for the East.
The russian production may be greatly reduced in '41 even without occupy Leningrad and Moscow with the application of heavy strategic bombing (with a curious revert of history, the Allied that are bombed and the Germans not).
It's true that the losses in the first winter are greater than historically, but also the speed of recovery is much greater: often in '42 the Axis can attack again on all the front (if the strategy of bombing and not advancing too much is applied), but historically in '42 the Germans were able to attack only in the south and even there with too little resources.
This is an effect of the too high Axis production until '43, for me.
I've read posts that complain the impossibility of reaching Minsk and Smolensk on historical dates, and it's absolutely true, but it's also true that in the south the destruction of the russian forces don't need, in general, the help of Army Group Center, and Odessa and Kiev are captured well before than historical.
The Finnish Army is much more active than in the real war (the political constrains don't bother you in WIR). I've seen games, human vs human, where the Finnish conquer Leningrad without direct support from the Germans! (of course they apply indirect pressure elsewhere).
The South and West fronts may receive less resources than historical, above all in the critical areas of air and AFV: I've seen that even if you don't put any air in these fronts they perform equally well if you substitute them with Italian and low-experience German infantry, even if you don't use Rumanians or others totally ahistorical solutions.
The point for me is: if you use creative solutions the germans have a fighting chance even without using truly "cheating" solutions, such as adding a Finnish unit to german korps (did you you know? I've seen that if you put even a Finnish artillery batallion in a panzer korps, it seems impervious to the combat effect of the blizzard!).

Tell me if you think my solutions are right, or consider them cheating, or simply don't work in your experience.

Hi
Fabio

[Kuniworth]

The game is consturcted so you cant win in 6 months thus makin it a struggle of attrition. And Germany is at a big disadvantage when it comes to that.

[MagnusOlsson]

You've done more testing and thinking than me on these issues, that's for sure. I am also not that updated on the actual numbers as Mist.
In spite of these issues, I think that the game is strategically impressively correct; as the german player you need to crush the russians in 41 or 42, after the autumn of 42 it is (more often than not) a game of delays and retreat (as it should be).
What it all boils down to is how much a player should be able to change and control in a strategic wargame. If you add political concerns (like the finns) the complexity will be enourmous. The scope of the game needs be determined and stated; like 'with the available resources and infrastructure, can you do a better job than what was done originally?'. I have no straight answer on where the line shall be drawn, but the discussion is interesting for sure!
One option (that I'm not advocating) in the other direction could be to remove player interference with production alltogether, adding production to the given factors (like the weather) that you just have to cope with.
Of course, if you want a truly fair chance of outperforming the historical leaders, you need control over all fronts and all factors, a setup that is truly beyond WiR's scope.

[MagnusOlsson]

Fabio, just to return to your strategy and question about cheating...
No, I don't think you are cheating. It is a game, and your'e supposed to use all available means to succeed. The question about historically correct or not easily becomes untangible (fx if you start moving around leaders or indeed units like LAH to theatres where they wasn't deployed historically).
BUT, I think that draining the West- or Italian front of fighters should have some impact; fx an unacceptable level of attrition on units deployed there.
Strategic bombing was not a Luftwaffe speciality, but with other leadership and thinking, it very well could have been.
A consistent and determined air protection over Germany could perhaps have kept allied bombing at bay to a larger extent than what was done.
Moving all bombers to the east seems natural enough. The bombing of UK ceased before Barbarossa (for all practical purposes since the air war was lost), thus freeing the bombers for other duties. I don't know enough about the role of the axis bombers in Africa, but I've never heard anything about them, so they played perhaps a minor role there. Better then to deploy them in Russia, where they can make a difference.

[Patris]

It's true that in the long run a war of attrition dooms the Axis, and that if you don't win decisively in '42 is very very difficult to win at all.
But the problem for me is that also for the Allies reach Berlin in Summer '45 is very hard. Of course this is only a gamey problem, because if the Russians reach Berlin, say, in Autumn it's always a strategic defeat in real life. Is's not the final outcome in discussion, but the victory in game terms.

[Kuniworth]

Despite WIR beeing a good game I have in the past critizised the game for the unrealistic barbarossa-scenario. Its impossible as the germans to reach Smolensk in time not to mention takin Moscow. At the same time as you mention Kiev fall very easily. I feel this to be very annoying and spoiling the fun of the game.

I mean, speakin of strategy, if the german player wants to take moscow early in an all-out attack effort let him have the chance for god sake. But this will then of course make him vunerable on other fronts but the decision is his!!! Imagine the possibilities the game would have functioning more historical. Lets say Moscow falls in october what then? Maybe Kiev holds or communications to Leningrad are cut of and that city falls.

As the game function today its totally unrealistic. You push the soviets around an all fronts ending up at smolensk-rostov-leningrad in october settling for winter. Then you are doomed, yes I really mean this, I mean how often do you really win the game in 42 against a human player? Often the game ends in a draw with the germans on the retreat.

So to conclude my taughts; I want to make it easier for the germans to push deep with their panzers. In the mean time I dont mind the soviets beeing stronger(as they historically were in the south) because this will create a situation which will really test the players strategy-skills.

[Patris]

I did not want to criticize you. Your ideas for Smolensk and Minsk are correct. I wanted to say that some ahistorical results in a point are balanced in game terms (not historical terms) by ahistorical result in other places.
I agree that very often the game ends in a draw with the Germans in full retreat, but it's almost inevitable.
Make a game totally historical is impossible, you can only have a good (or bad) approximation. I think that WIR is, all considered, one of the most historical strategic games on the market.

[Mist]

Kuniworth! It is *possible* to reach Smolensk in time in current version and it will be even easier in the next one because of three extra rail conversion at first turn for Germans. As a historical note, I would say that Smolensk was occupied by one motorized division but not panzer korps. And now German player will be able to do much greater success than historical one. Is it annoying? Problem is that player can direct combat only on korps level. It can be anoying that you can't send one infantry batalion to cut off enemy's communications, can't deploy AT-guns in ambushes, destroy bridge when retreating, cross the river on the sturmboats, dirrect artilery fire etc.. These are things that make STRATEGY differ from tactic. How much did German benefit from early capture of Smolensk? They were busy restoring their communications and supply lines, heavy fighting for Yelnia, etc. Yes, great tactical masters, unsurpassed generals were not able to benefit from that. So, strategical effect would be the same if you capture Smolensk in August and have good supply lines and more or less secured flanks. Come on, crush your enemy with high readiness troops instead of sitting in one place. Capture of Smolensk was divisional level effect which is beyond strategical scope of WiR and I think that it is ok. Don't blame it.

[matt.buttsworth]

dear fabio,
In games against myself I have used maximum German airpower with similar effects.
Strategic bombing devastating on Russia.
Ground bombing deadly on Soviet build up of tanks.
Result stalemate.
this was with version 1.? though and I believe in version 3.0 tanks and artillery are not so easily bombed which is a relief as before the German bombing was a real game stopper.
Soviet counter - build up special elite air defence units to defend Moscow, Stalingrad, Saratov etc with Leningrad being very difficult to protect until German forces pushed a bit back.
Decreasing the power of air power I think is a great step forward in version 3.0 making it more realistic.
How well the bombing strategy will work in this and hte new coming version I do not know as I have not tested it.
Mists map sounds very good and I would like to play with it.
I also think that despite its limits WIR is one of the best strategy games on the market that comes as close to history as a game can possibly do. Why else would we all be bothering playing, discussing, correcting and improving a 15 year old DOS game.
Excellent effort and the three rail conversion for the Germans should make the German attack and chances of success much stronger.
I will be interested to see how the reduced blitzkrieg effectiveness works.
What a great game!

PS - if you want to play a real game and test how your bombing strategy works on a human player I am more than happy to play. matt.buttsworth@freesurf.ch

[Kuniworth]

Fabio; No offence taken. I just dont see the point at all to create ahistorical situations, I want the game to be as historical as possible. If we tend to have unbalanced sides we can always change the victory-points. Thus giving the germans a bigger chance of a knockout blow. And remember that the war went on for four long years and maybe could a better axis-side create a standstill.

The problem with ahistorical balancing is that you build in other problems in the game that you not always notice right away. So the game tend to be more and more unrealistic trying to compensate for that.


To Mist;

First of all I must say that I think you contribute more than anyone else to find problems in game-play. Matrix should thank you deerly for that. And second of all your absolutely right that this is a strategic game, not some tactical crap.

However on this issue I dont agree with you. Are we talkin about the new version that is coming or the one at hand were its impossible to reach Smolensk on july 16th. And whats even worse its not possible to push forward even more(yes germans could have done that but chose to overhaul and repair their panzers instead.)
And its here I see the Barbarossa-scenario diminishing in fun because your hampered by ahistorical problems.

So you see I dont realy care if takin Smolensk in august is strategically ok becuase its not realistic. And that is my biggest problem with WIR.

[Mist]

Kuniworth, first of all we all must deerly thank Matrix for giving this wonderfull game to us for free . And I shudder when imagine burden of work on Arnaud and beta-testing team shoulders.
Returning to Smolensk, I would say that youre right. It is unrealistic to capture it in August. Strategical scale misses many things for the sake of playability. Even if you send single motorised division korps toward Smolensk as it realy was, you will be forced to deal with enemy armies not divisions. Besides, Arnaud, the programmer, is busy with bugfixing enough to be afraid to do something radical and WiR is very close to DOS memory limits.
Also, the point is that the deepness of tank operations was steadily decreasing during the war as sides were learning how to counter such operations. Here a wide blury boundary between strategy and tactic passes.
As you know, korpses weren't moving like in WiR, but leaving detachments(upto division size) to secure communications. It is also not implemented. I think there should be a certain limit were to stop detailing and in WiR this limit is good enough.
As Ricky said there will be 3 extra rail conversions at first Axis turn in the next version. I believe it will be more than enough.

[ June 06, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Mist:
As Ricky said there will be 3 extra rail conversions at first Axis turn in the next version. I believe it will be more than enough.

[ June 06, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]

Actually, it will be one extra conversion through the July 20 turn, or 4 total by July 20. This will allow 3 extra conversions by the July 13 turn.

Also, I think the key to realistic movement rates requires a very detailed supply model with actual supply costs during movement, combat throughout movement which increases supply usage, etc. This would require some complex code, and as Mist says, there just is no room in the code size for it - the game would not run. Also, there would be a need to model resistance inside a hex by units smaller than the corps size groups in the game, again as Mist stated. This part would be the hard part in replicating realistic movement - there would be a need to differentiate between almost no resistance on the days that motorized units made 100 km jumps versus the days that there was almost no resistance, but enough to slow the same unit down to a 60 km jump in a day. And this doesn't even account for the effects of fatigue, traffic jams, getting lost, the normal elongation of columns travelling rapidly down a road, and many other things.

At a strategic level, it would take some kind of wrapping of all this into an overall factor to make it work. Maybe allowing all units to plot further, but with a chance at each point of failing to carry out the rest of the plotted movement, infantry units failing more often than tank. That kind of abstraction could probably be squeezed into the current code size limits. Any thoughts about that? This would a long term down the road change.

We also discussed in the early days dropping off units as a corps moved forward to defend the breakthrough as would happen historically, as Mist suggested. However, that would require a complete reworking of the game processes and won't happen, but it would be great if it could be done.

[Patris]

Hey, this is a great idea! (randomize plotting I say).
On the realism side, all the wargames suffer from too much control by the player. Even at operational level, the real problem for the generals was not to lay the plan, but make it work. Any sort of thing happened to delay or even cancel a critical move, and was the hardest test for the commander overcome this.

Coordinated attacks for example, which are so easy accomplished in WIR (panzer korps that go around the enemy and attack from behind in cooperation with the infantry, attacks from 2 or 3 directions with armies that were not even in contact with the enemy...) were simply a nightmare.
The best solution would be make a test of skill between the opposite local commanders: Guderian should be able most of the time to make a succesful bold move vs Budienny, but the average russian commander should have a hard time for surprise Manstein and get a deep penetration unchecked! (Hitler orders not withstanding...).
But now I'm dreaming.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:
I want the game to be as historical as possible.

We'll never get this game as historical as any of us want. It ain't gonna happen. The game right now uses just about all available memory. Adding new complex code to add more "realism" just makes the game unplayable on most people's computers. In particular, your compliant about getting to Smolensk is beyond the scope of this game anyway. Its not a divisional based game like WiF (World in Flames) or RtM (Road to Moscow) were/will be/might be. RtM in particular should be the one you want, a game that allows you to see a German motorized unit on a wild hell-for-leather drive make it to Smolensk ahead of the panzers, but RtM is probably dead in the water because of its complexity, making a computer AI for it almost impossible. If WiF ever happens at all, it'll happen without an AI even being provided. It'll be interesting to see what Gary does with his "WiR III" that is allegedly planned (mentioned on 2BY3 Games's website), but if it happens it will be at least 2 years away, given the rule of thumb where you add a year to any release date given by a computer game company.

You can complain about its design limitations and ahistorical outcomes, but all in all, Gary Grigsby did just about the best he could do given the computer limitations imposed on him at the time (EGA, 640K limit). What is important to realize is that Arnaud faces those exact same limitations too, because we can't rewrite the whole thing from scratch for Windows. We have to fight that same memory limit, so major additions to the game or major modifications are out of the question.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Fabio:
The best solution would be make a test of skill between the opposite local commanders: Guderian should be able most of the time to make a succesful bold move vs Budienny, but the average russian commander should have a hard time for surprise Manstein and get a deep penetration unchecked! (Hitler orders not withstanding...).
But now I'm dreaming.

Well you already have the "organizes good/poor defense" which occurs based on defending commander's rating. This makes commanders much more important.

[Patris]

Yes, it has been a very good idea.
But I intended to apply it to the random plot, to simulate the ability of the attacker in coordinate his units and the use of small reserves by the defender for disrupt the enemy advance, to compensate for the absence of countermanouver by the defender (clearly impossible to represent in a strategic game).
Anyway, the problem of realism is truly impossible to resolve.
There are too much factors to consider: even the changes in production may product absurd results. I'm very doubtful that was possible even for Hitler force the german air industry to produce only FW190, for example.
If something clearly silly happens in a game, the only solution is use "gentleman agreements" in our games, also because everyone has his idea of "historical outcome", and anybody can find devious tricks in a system to force history.
For me, a good game is one that gives you the instruments to replay a reasonable simulation of real life, and WIR does just that.

[Mist]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

Well you already have the "organizes good/poor defense" which occurs based on defending commander's rating. This makes commanders much more important.

Is chance based only on defending leader check? Or on both defender and attacker? I think it should be harder to organize good defense against leader with rating 9.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Mist:

Is chance based only on defending leader check? Or on both defender and attacker? I think it should be harder to organize good defense against leader with rating 9.

We had a plan for the attacker's rating to be used to determine the amount of casualties on the offensive, if the defending commander did well, but that was ruled out by Arnaud, as the code for calculating losses is so complex and "fragile". So right now, only the defender's rating is being used. Yes, I know, but we do what we can. We'll find a way to use the attacker's rating too, somewhere.

[ June 08, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Fabio:
Yes, it has been a very good idea.
But I intended to apply it to the random plot, to simulate the ability of the attacker in coordinate his units and the use of small reserves by the defender for disrupt the enemy advance, to compensate for the absence of countermanouver by the defender (clearly impossible to represent in a strategic game).

We couldn't even add an extra available plot move (6 plots allowed instead of 5), to allow more flexibility with infantry corps. Simply doing that would take up too much memory, so anything more complex than that isn't likely to happen.

Besides, if my plots started failing on a regular basis no matter how much time I spend setting them up, Id'd end up putting my fist thru the monitor.

[MagnusOlsson]

I'm in a PBEM game right now where 'fist thru the monitor' is about the only viable strategy left .
The plotting seems improved a lot since the 'old days'. I also think the HQ OP adds a nice touch to the game play nowadays.
Maybe it's just bug fixes, but I sure like it more now than before!