Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: rmonical

Well thinking about it some more. The pre-emptive retreat doctrine follows from
1. the one week time scale and the incredible mobility 50 movement points gives a high morale unit.
2/ The all or nothing pocket rules.

...
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The German motorized regiment traversed 160 KM of mostly contested territory to get to Vyazma. I long ago suggested that we should increase the cost of battle related hexes. Some ideas:
- Double for a hex which was defended. Alternatively - add 50% for each hasty attack and 200% for each deliberate attack launched against a hex.
- Add 50% for each attack launched from a hex (cumulative). So a hex cleared by a hasty attack and then from which a hast attack is launched counts double.
- Impose an MP cost for displacing zero combat factor units. I hate the current approach for dealing with these.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wga
Unlike boardgame play of a dozen titles where Soviets can chip away at lead elements with counterattacks, it does not seem likely in WTIE. Any unit which attacks is forfeit by following isolation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wga

I am in my first campaign game (turn 4) after playing five different 1941 scenarios, all vs human opposition, all with me as soviets. What I have learned is the soviets cannot defend anything or even slow the Germans down much. Soviets have no offensive capability what so ever. German units are immune from effective attack. In the Operation Typhoon, all Soviet stacks had a combat value of 1 (likely rounded up to 1) and German stacks all had double digit defense. Until blizzard shows up; Strengths shift greatly artificially due to weather. However attacking at 5:1 odds, the Soviets still incur more losses.

it does not look like there will be a midgame or endgame, there is nothing much to stop the German movement forward. Forward isolated German units do not have to worry about being attacked when large swaths of the front are devoid of Soviet units.

In scenario play RTL, Leningrad falls in September/October. May happen sooner in my current campaign game. It is a challenge for the Russians to keep it in various boardgame but is unlikely in both the SPI War in Europe and Matrix WITE.

Unlike boardgame play of a dozen titles where Soviets can chip away at lead elements with counterattacks, it does not seem likely in WTIE. Any unit which attacks is forfeit by following isolation.

it may be that WITE is another title in the modern era that ensures the German player will win. In the old days, games challenged the aggressor player to win as would normally lose. Similar to WITP, WITE removes all the historical limitations, tendancies, etc by giving players a unified command & ability to customize units.