Prospective buyer question

[marjur]

Hello,

Is there some sort of demo version of this game somewhere so that I could test it out a bit and see if I like it before actually purchasing it?

Regards

[Fänrik Stål]

No demo that I'm aware of. But if you liked that old gem of a game War in Russia, and you like Operational Art of War, this game could be for you. You could also have a look in the AAR section to get an idea of the game.

[marjur]

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

[sajer]

There is always someone that doesn't like this or that. The truth is that there is no perfect wargame. But this comes damn close. I have played this game non-stop (at least a turn a day - since purchasing it last July!).

Just this year they have come out with two new beta's and a whole new offical patch version 1.06.20. Plus there is ample support here - not only from other gamers but from designers and moderators.

My advice is to buy the game, you won't regret it.

[entwood]

I, for one, would say yes and respond in a positive way to all your concerns; support is very good and better than that from the big game companies and their titles I feel. A patch just came out today for example.

There are still debates about some game mechanics and rules, this is true. You get both passionate and dispassionate commentary back and forth on these things.

[AFV]

I think support is good. Its a very complex game, its really very good, and has continued support as witnessed by regular patches.
If you want a game that you play in an afternoon, this is not it. Each turn will take about an hour.
 
As far as late war TOEs, its not that the designers are unwilling to sort it out. What you have is a difference of opinion (for lack of better way of describing it) as to how this game should be designed. My opinion might be different from you or the devs- but that does not mean I am right (nor wrong).
 
They have actually been responsive to suggestions (for example, optional victory conditions in upcoming patch).

[Wild]

delete

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: Wild

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

Critiscm is one thing, but making it "political"... Thats a bit unfair don't you think?

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

ORIGINAL: Wild

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

Critiscm is one thing, but making it "political"... Thats a bit unfair don't you think?

More than unfair. Blatantly false.

[Encircled]

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: marjur
OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?

No demo, it is something I would wish Matrix/G&G would consider in the future. I bet for a ~$80 product, quite a few people may be held back by the lack of being able to test it prior to buying. And just relying on game magazines to publish their opinion, or to rely on the opinion of forummites, may not look to inviting to some with tight wallets, too. After all, a game is like a movie or book (or food), includes individual design decisions: it may be to your liking, or simply not.

For WitE I can say that I certainly had and still have a lot of fun with it. From my point, this is one of the few titles I bought in the last decade, and it really fills out any leisure time I spent at home. Lots of hours, and hardly enough to play this monster besides WitE-AE or keeping on with my AI modding in ARMA2. My personal opinion is that if you did like old War in Russia and can put up with the differences (no production, no equipment control, fixed withdrawals), you will not be disappointed by WitE.

As for the designers, Matrix and G&G are usually among better companies with regard to customer services. They are around here, listening, explaining, commenting, and occasionally picking up ideas or wishes from the community if a majority asks for changes. WitE is a huge game, thus also complex, and it won't be perfect immediately. The issues that are surfacing now, like the somewhat crude supply system, or the issue with the ToE, will hopefully be learning points for the next titles in the series. Some smaller changes may be ported back to WitE, it was said, but the large marjority will have to wait to incoporate all the new details picke up along the development of WitW 43-45, WitW 39-40 or whatever specific titles they plan before a WitE2, and a full-blown War in Europe.
Some of the problems discussed here are, however, also only occuring in rare instances, and may not be the norm. Many players may or may never notice them, and in the pre-internet time, wouldn't ever have known about them.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

As the self-proclaimed champion of this so-called 'tiny minority' I can tell the original poster that there is a wide swath of players who wanted a competitive game from the German perspective that simply quit and moved on.

I can give you a couple of examples of the borked nature of the German army:

The German pays 500 percent to 750 percent more, at a minimum, to move divisions between commands compared to the Soviet.

The Soviet morale setting (and consequently the formula for gaining unit morale, which is the single most important factor in combat effectiveness) automatically goes up at certain points on the calendar regardless of what's happening in the game.

The German morale setting automatically goes down every January, regardless of casualties.

The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

The German army starts out Barbarossa horribly over-burdened in command in Army Group South and Army Group Center, and there is literally no chance to sort that out even if you use every Admin Point the game gives you. Compare this to the Soviet side, which can change every division's HQ for 1 Admin Point (Germany's average is 5 to 7 points). Bear in mind that based on the fixed leadership values of the game, Germany only has a 20% superiority in command ratings than the Soviet (that's not a complaint - just explaining that the AP costs do not 'wash' with the command superiority of the Germans).

Now, meanwhile, the Soviet gets all sorts of new units and new HQs that always start attached to Stavka, so they can be switched around for free the first time (and 1 AP thereafter for the divisions). The result is that the Soviet army gets to reorganize in 1941 for free and will be organizationally superior to Germany by the middle of the summer of 1941.

This is to say nothing of the fact that no cities are worth holding for the Soviets. All that matters is the evacuation of Armament factories and tank factories. All the other factories don't matter, and Soviet players know this, so they abandon the other factories, evacuate all armaments, and then have tons of excess rail capacity (that historically would have been used by real Soviets to evacuate real factories - they didn't have the hindsight to know the US would make up for all their supply issues).

The Soviets have the ability to air-drop brigades with perfect efficiency in such a way that they can easily cut an entire army group's supply line for two weeks at a time. Partisans also have the ability to destroy an entire army group's supply based on how the rail system works.

Over and over again, this game design results in a fantastical Soviet ability to organize and fight in a way that is 50 years ahead of the tactics of the time. Meanwhile Germany is literally tied down to history in ways that defy reason. There is literally no way for a German player to improve substantially on the performance of his game army over the performance of the historical Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, with the failsafes and the gimmicks that the Soviets have, there is no way for the Soviet player to play worse than his historical predecessor.

The game is at its essence, a canned-hunt of Germany with the Soviet given free-reign to stomp the fascists and the Germans tied into a cage that shrinks every turn. I never had a German opponent (when I played Soviet) get past 1942, and I never got past that myself playing as a German. If you'd like to know more, feel free to message me, and I can put you in contact with others like myself, who think the game was a technical marvel, and a competitive mess.

This is to say nothing of the combat engine, which everyone agrees is flawed heavily. The combat engine is way over-specified, and the end result is that all types of combatants are in a rush to get to close range. This results in SMG squads out-performing MG-34 teams, and mortars slaughtering 5 times the enemy force as 150mm howitzers. In this system, where the Soviet has a fairly free ability to create support units, divisions, brigades, and corps, the Soviet player always has the ability to exploit army design. Germany has no such ability.

Those of us who felt that these decisions resulted in an anti-competitive game brought our math and our eloquence and our historical precedents of the actual war. And then we were called names by people, including the alpha and beta testers who were the de facto spokespeople for the game.

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet and increasingly more homogenous. Since I paid $90 for the game at release, I felt entitled to demand changes that reflected the actual capabilities of the armies at the time (I was really big about the admin point problem Germany faced versus the Soviet, and the morale changes being fixed on a timeline for Germany, rather than a casualty loss rate).

I'm not sure whether there will be another propaganda campaign designed to bully and intimidate people like me. Watch the tone of people who respond to me, and the absence of factual counterpoints. The last campaign succeeded, for the most part, and the community is now a closed group of people who love the Soviet game and don't recognize the biased design and anti-competitive force. You'll see there are fewer forum posts, and fewer requests for games (and everyone is looking for 'experienced' German players for some reason! Go figure!) What does that tell you?

Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy War in the East because of the problems now permanent in the game. Maybe 2by3 will in fact release a better War in the West and other products in the future, but I'll be damned if I'm an early adopter of one of their way-over-priced products again. In a world where you have a lot of options for your entertainment dollar, I would recommend you go to another product.

[Scook_99]

I think it is well worth the money, even if it isn't everyone's cup of tea. If you every played the board games, Fire in the East, etc., it is the closest computer game to playing that. If you play vs. the computer, you can adjust things to set up a fun experience. Playing vs. others is almost like playing a different version, as people almost always play to the rules.

Is playing German tougher than playing USSR?
Yes

Is there fair and unfair criticism of the system?
Yes

If you go and look in the AAR section, do you notice that Germany is romping over the USSR about half the time?
Yes

So....I recommend it, it will be something I will play until they come out with another Eastern Front game at this scale. It has a really steep learning curve, and will take a while just to get the basics down. If you also look over the Matrix forums, this one is still one of the most active, 16 months after game launch. I do wish they would put out a demo of the game, I think that would be fair, even just a 10-12 turn affair.

Don't buy it if you have no interest in the War in Russia, that's about it.

[entwood]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet

I have noticed this myself...depressing!

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

Is this true? More depressing.
Other games will take a very long time in coming to market


I really hope there is still an eager willingness and the drive to improve this game in a significant manner.
The scenario pack came out, now make Major changes into small purchase Download Content, fine with me, make everybody happy.
I really would like to see getting over the last humps, if possible.

[Denniss]

Support for WitE is not over although you'll only see bugfix or data update releases in the near future (unless a major problem pops up).

[M60A3TTS]

For the benefit of the OP, I do not believe either Wild or Heliodorus played as the Soviets with the more recent rules against a highly competent Axis player. To that extent their opinions on how heavily favored the game is in favor of the Axis is to be taken with a grain of salt.

To Wild's point on giving the Axis more options, I think that's understandable. Having large pools of combat vehicles sitting idle is certainly not historical. But fixing that does seem to be something that would require a major game change which doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

As far as what Heliodorus writes, he will forever comment on how unfair this game is with regards to the ability of the Soviets to organize like NATO. My counter to that arguement is it hardly matters in 1941 as the Axis units regularly stomp the Soviet ones no matter how well organized the latter is. The city of Leningrad is almost always taken, and with recent rule changes Moscow is also falling much more regularly than it ever did. Don't take my word for it, read some of the recent AARs. So while he may have a point as it pertains to the early game, it is largely immaterial. Later in the game the Soviet player regularly will pay penalties attacking because their army structures are capped and Soviet attacks require a large # of units to participate. The Soviet player also requires large number of admin points to rebuild the army in the latter war years. Otherwise, the Soviet player has no hope whatsoever of winning or at least tying the game against a good Axis player.

The Soviet player also suffers from an air war that really has a marginal impact to the game at best. The Soviet ratio of aircraft vs. Axis can go from almost even at the start of the game to 4:1 or more, but the impact on the game is hard to see- the Soviet player simply loses more aircraft in each battle.

And the comment on people only looking for experienced German players? Here are the most recent 10 PBEM requests on who people are looking for- right off the Opponents wanted forum page.

Looking for:
1st time Soviet
Soviet for alt 41-45 CG
Experienced Soviet
Experienced German alt 41-45
2 Soviets- intermediate to advanced
Soviet for Drama on the Danube
Axis opponent wanted alt 41-45
Axis opponent wanted
Experienced German
New player for either side

That's people looking for 5 Soviet, 4 Axis and 1 either side. Hardly an imbalance.

Finally, the forum is growing quiet not just because Axis players are abandoning the game. Stalemate is what is in the winds right now for the GC. Not that many games posted in the AARs have been runaway Soviet victories. If anything, skilled Axis players like Pelton and MichaelT have shown the Soviets can be beaten if you know what you are doing and stick with it. So where I see things going is a game where the 41-45 GC ends in a lot of cases with the Axis outlasting the Soviets. The Axis recipe is basically take Leningrad and Moscow north and center, capture the Donbas in the south during 1941. Retreat during blizzard months and when good weather of 1942 returns, surround and destroy a larger but still underweight Red Army and destroy their manpower centers. Then if you haven't won a victory, dig in and since your army remains largely intact fight the defensive battles which will frequently finish somewhere east of what was the historical outcome.

[comsolut]

+1

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

ORIGINAL: Wild

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

Critiscm is one thing, but making it "political"... Thats a bit unfair don't you think?

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Well, the Germans tired of the war rather quickly in real life and I seem to recall all the fun went out of Barbarossa just as fast. No need for an in depth analysis from me, I just tire of those complaints.

[DBeves]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

As the self-proclaimed champion of this so-called 'tiny minority' I can tell the original poster that there is a wide swath of players who wanted a competitive game from the German perspective that simply quit and moved on.

I can give you a couple of examples of the borked nature of the German army:

The German pays 500 percent to 750 percent more, at a minimum, to move divisions between commands compared to the Soviet.

The Soviet morale setting (and consequently the formula for gaining unit morale, which is the single most important factor in combat effectiveness) automatically goes up at certain points on the calendar regardless of what's happening in the game.

The German morale setting automatically goes down every January, regardless of casualties.

The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

The German army starts out Barbarossa horribly over-burdened in command in Army Group South and Army Group Center, and there is literally no chance to sort that out even if you use every Admin Point the game gives you. Compare this to the Soviet side, which can change every division's HQ for 1 Admin Point (Germany's average is 5 to 7 points). Bear in mind that based on the fixed leadership values of the game, Germany only has a 20% superiority in command ratings than the Soviet (that's not a complaint - just explaining that the AP costs do not 'wash' with the command superiority of the Germans).

Now, meanwhile, the Soviet gets all sorts of new units and new HQs that always start attached to Stavka, so they can be switched around for free the first time (and 1 AP thereafter for the divisions). The result is that the Soviet army gets to reorganize in 1941 for free and will be organizationally superior to Germany by the middle of the summer of 1941.

This is to say nothing of the fact that no cities are worth holding for the Soviets. All that matters is the evacuation of Armament factories and tank factories. All the other factories don't matter, and Soviet players know this, so they abandon the other factories, evacuate all armaments, and then have tons of excess rail capacity (that historically would have been used by real Soviets to evacuate real factories - they didn't have the hindsight to know the US would make up for all their supply issues).

The Soviets have the ability to air-drop brigades with perfect efficiency in such a way that they can easily cut an entire army group's supply line for two weeks at a time. Partisans also have the ability to destroy an entire army group's supply based on how the rail system works.

Over and over again, this game design results in a fantastical Soviet ability to organize and fight in a way that is 50 years ahead of the tactics of the time. Meanwhile Germany is literally tied down to history in ways that defy reason. There is literally no way for a German player to improve substantially on the performance of his game army over the performance of the historical Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, with the failsafes and the gimmicks that the Soviets have, there is no way for the Soviet player to play worse than his historical predecessor.

The game is at its essence, a canned-hunt of Germany with the Soviet given free-reign to stomp the fascists and the Germans tied into a cage that shrinks every turn. I never had a German opponent (when I played Soviet) get past 1942, and I never got past that myself playing as a German. If you'd like to know more, feel free to message me, and I can put you in contact with others like myself, who think the game was a technical marvel, and a competitive mess.

This is to say nothing of the combat engine, which everyone agrees is flawed heavily. The combat engine is way over-specified, and the end result is that all types of combatants are in a rush to get to close range. This results in SMG squads out-performing MG-34 teams, and mortars slaughtering 5 times the enemy force as 150mm howitzers. In this system, where the Soviet has a fairly free ability to create support units, divisions, brigades, and corps, the Soviet player always has the ability to exploit army design. Germany has no such ability.

Those of us who felt that these decisions resulted in an anti-competitive game brought our math and our eloquence and our historical precedents of the actual war. And then we were called names by people, including the alpha and beta testers who were the de facto spokespeople for the game.

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet and increasingly more homogenous. Since I paid $90 for the game at release, I felt entitled to demand changes that reflected the actual capabilities of the armies at the time (I was really big about the admin point problem Germany faced versus the Soviet, and the morale changes being fixed on a timeline for Germany, rather than a casualty loss rate).

I'm not sure whether there will be another propaganda campaign designed to bully and intimidate people like me. Watch the tone of people who respond to me, and the absence of factual counterpoints. The last campaign succeeded, for the most part, and the community is now a closed group of people who love the Soviet game and don't recognize the biased design and anti-competitive force. You'll see there are fewer forum posts, and fewer requests for games (and everyone is looking for 'experienced' German players for some reason! Go figure!) What does that tell you?

Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy War in the East because of the problems now permanent in the game. Maybe 2by3 will in fact release a better War in the West and other products in the future, but I'll be damned if I'm an early adopter of one of their way-over-priced products again. In a world where you have a lot of options for your entertainment dollar, I would recommend you go to another product.

I must say - I dont post a lot here and I bought and have never really started a game due to the frequency with which the patches come out - I had thought it would settle at some point but it hasnt.

I would only add that I was incredibly dissapointed in the air war implementation - for an such an expensive title it is unforgivable.

I have read a lot of what helio posts and the impression I have walked away with is that he speaks a lot of sense and his opinion of the game is largely correct. The counter arguments to his posts mostly seem to consist of people shouting but not proving him wrong.

Putting the air war aside - take just one thing he complains about - ie that the german player can have units withdrawn because they were historically, regardless of the current game situation - such as the withdrawals after bagration - seems to me from a game design point utter insanity. I have never seen anyone come up with an effective counter argument to just this one point. that a unit could be sitting in the crimea and it gets withdrawn because of a bagration offensive that happened historically just kills it for me as a game because it is indicative of a complex design that didnt see enough work squashing the anomolies certain design decisions led to.

I am in fact grateful to him for pointing out things I wouldnt have the time to find myself. It always struck me that the code for this game hung in the back cupboard for a long time till someone said - lets release this thing - and then concentration was on getting it to a stage where it looked like a game rather than spending the time to revisit the design decisions taken years ago that werent thought through properly.

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: DBeves

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

As the self-proclaimed champion of this so-called 'tiny minority' I can tell the original poster that there is a wide swath of players who wanted a competitive game from the German perspective that simply quit and moved on.

I can give you a couple of examples of the borked nature of the German army:

The German pays 500 percent to 750 percent more, at a minimum, to move divisions between commands compared to the Soviet.

The Soviet morale setting (and consequently the formula for gaining unit morale, which is the single most important factor in combat effectiveness) automatically goes up at certain points on the calendar regardless of what's happening in the game.

The German morale setting automatically goes down every January, regardless of casualties.

The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

The German army starts out Barbarossa horribly over-burdened in command in Army Group South and Army Group Center, and there is literally no chance to sort that out even if you use every Admin Point the game gives you. Compare this to the Soviet side, which can change every division's HQ for 1 Admin Point (Germany's average is 5 to 7 points). Bear in mind that based on the fixed leadership values of the game, Germany only has a 20% superiority in command ratings than the Soviet (that's not a complaint - just explaining that the AP costs do not 'wash' with the command superiority of the Germans).

Now, meanwhile, the Soviet gets all sorts of new units and new HQs that always start attached to Stavka, so they can be switched around for free the first time (and 1 AP thereafter for the divisions). The result is that the Soviet army gets to reorganize in 1941 for free and will be organizationally superior to Germany by the middle of the summer of 1941.

This is to say nothing of the fact that no cities are worth holding for the Soviets. All that matters is the evacuation of Armament factories and tank factories. All the other factories don't matter, and Soviet players know this, so they abandon the other factories, evacuate all armaments, and then have tons of excess rail capacity (that historically would have been used by real Soviets to evacuate real factories - they didn't have the hindsight to know the US would make up for all their supply issues).

The Soviets have the ability to air-drop brigades with perfect efficiency in such a way that they can easily cut an entire army group's supply line for two weeks at a time. Partisans also have the ability to destroy an entire army group's supply based on how the rail system works.

Over and over again, this game design results in a fantastical Soviet ability to organize and fight in a way that is 50 years ahead of the tactics of the time. Meanwhile Germany is literally tied down to history in ways that defy reason. There is literally no way for a German player to improve substantially on the performance of his game army over the performance of the historical Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, with the failsafes and the gimmicks that the Soviets have, there is no way for the Soviet player to play worse than his historical predecessor.

The game is at its essence, a canned-hunt of Germany with the Soviet given free-reign to stomp the fascists and the Germans tied into a cage that shrinks every turn. I never had a German opponent (when I played Soviet) get past 1942, and I never got past that myself playing as a German. If you'd like to know more, feel free to message me, and I can put you in contact with others like myself, who think the game was a technical marvel, and a competitive mess.

This is to say nothing of the combat engine, which everyone agrees is flawed heavily. The combat engine is way over-specified, and the end result is that all types of combatants are in a rush to get to close range. This results in SMG squads out-performing MG-34 teams, and mortars slaughtering 5 times the enemy force as 150mm howitzers. In this system, where the Soviet has a fairly free ability to create support units, divisions, brigades, and corps, the Soviet player always has the ability to exploit army design. Germany has no such ability.

Those of us who felt that these decisions resulted in an anti-competitive game brought our math and our eloquence and our historical precedents of the actual war. And then we were called names by people, including the alpha and beta testers who were the de facto spokespeople for the game.

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet and increasingly more homogenous. Since I paid $90 for the game at release, I felt entitled to demand changes that reflected the actual capabilities of the armies at the time (I was really big about the admin point problem Germany faced versus the Soviet, and the morale changes being fixed on a timeline for Germany, rather than a casualty loss rate).

I'm not sure whether there will be another propaganda campaign designed to bully and intimidate people like me. Watch the tone of people who respond to me, and the absence of factual counterpoints. The last campaign succeeded, for the most part, and the community is now a closed group of people who love the Soviet game and don't recognize the biased design and anti-competitive force. You'll see there are fewer forum posts, and fewer requests for games (and everyone is looking for 'experienced' German players for some reason! Go figure!) What does that tell you?

Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy War in the East because of the problems now permanent in the game. Maybe 2by3 will in fact release a better War in the West and other products in the future, but I'll be damned if I'm an early adopter of one of their way-over-priced products again. In a world where you have a lot of options for your entertainment dollar, I would recommend you go to another product.

I must say - I dont post a lot here and I bought and have never really started a game due to the frequency with which the patches come out - I had thought it would settle at some point but it hasnt.

I would only add that I was incredibly dissapointed in the air war implementation - for an such an expensive title it is unforgivable.

I have read a lot of what helio posts and the impression I have walked away with is that he speaks a lot of sense and his opinion of the game is largely correct. The counter arguments to his posts mostly seem to consist of people shouting but not proving him wrong.

Putting the air war aside - take just one thing he complains about - ie that the german player can have units withdrawn because they were historically, regardless of the current game situation - such as the withdrawals after bagration - seems to me from a game design point utter insanity. I have never seen anyone come up with an effective counter argument to just this one point. that a unit could be sitting in the crimea and it gets withdrawn because of a bagration offensive that happened historically just kills it for me as a game because it is indicative of a complex design that didnt see enough work squashing the anomolies certain design decisions led to.

I am in fact grateful to him for pointing out things I wouldnt have the time to find myself. It always struck me that the code for this game hung in the back cupboard for a long time till someone said - lets release this thing - and then concentration was on getting it to a stage where it looked like a game rather than spending the time to revisit the design decisions taken years ago that werent thought through properly.

What an enormous load of cr*p. If the game will kill it for you with some withdrawels which are debatable, then by all means don't play. Just don't think, pretend or calim that you know anything of the game as you admit yourself that you haven't played. You don't even know, what the game is about.