Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: paologvn

Hi,
like "derhexer" I am an old wargamer (table and computer) from Italy.

I bought CEaW few weeks ago, and I have completed three complete games with the Axis player, in different difficulty levels.
The rating after 3 games (against AI) is surely favourable and I think i will play again the game, also as the Allies player.

But...

When I found a good game (and CEaW is!) I immediately think about the details that it would to improve it. Below some ideas:

1. At first I have to notice that there is a mistake on the map. The trace of river Po interrupts his course in the middle of North Italy, but a tributary of river Rhone (that flows in France) cross the Alps and continue to flow in Italy instead. Correct please.

2. The rule on railway tranportation is good (not more than 2 ferry or you have to pay with industrial capacity points), but (as derhexer noticed) you can cross the sea with almost your complete Army whithout any connection with the actual capacity of the commercial fleet that is supposed to support the movement. This is completely unrelalistic.

3. The British Fleets in the Meditteranean Sea sleep for the entire game, and never try to intercept the traffic between Italy and North Africa and react only on italian direct attacks (even if more powerful). Really unrealistic!

4. A weak italian Army (1 armoured, 1 motorized 4 infantry corps supported with one figther and 1 tac bomber wing) can overrun British forces in western desert, conquer the Egypt, go over Lebanon and occupy Iraq and Persia with their oil reserves. The Allies don't react and only garrison units resist against the invasion. Really unrealistic!

5. Garrisons units are evidently not necessary. After the occupation of a Country the invader should not leave any unit in the conquered land (no revolts and partisans appeared only if the country is actually at war). This is not realistic (expecially if the invader is the Axis player). What's more, the Allies don't try to invade the uncontrolled country (I left France and Belgium without any garrison in '41, '42 an '43 but no invasion was attempted by the Allies.

6. The number and quality of units to build is not related with the historical Capacity to buid them and are connected only with money and (I suppose) with trained people.

7. The rules about limited oil availability are surely good. But conquering an oil source if it negates the source to the enemy it doesn't enable the conquerer in using it. The oil should be transported to the industries on the original countries or distributed to the units (assuming that fuel is immediately available from the sources). But in the game immediately Axis receives oil points after the occupation of oil sources...

8. While in Europe the railway net covers practically the entire continent (and so you can supply the units wherever they are) this is not valid in North Africa. Allies and Axis units should be supplied there with oil, ammunitions and food. And you should have to transfert this goods through the sea. Why don't you think about "supply units" on terrain and "supply lines" on the sea?

9. Debarkments. During the war debarkments without landing crafts were performed only against unprepared coasts. (Norway) If the enemy was alerted it was mandatory to use landing crafts for massive land and supply the units). With the current rules the player is non only autorized to transfer forces from port to port (as actually happenend) but also to debark troops on shores of enemy controlled countries. Not realistic at all.

10. Industries. I think that you should ridesign the "general" possibility about research. It should be possible to invest money on industrial growth (as it appends in Jonh Prodos' 3rd Reich for example) without mixing this with "radars" or "organiztion" (I cannot really realize what you intend with it). Instead you didn't foresee to invest on synthetic fuels for example.

I think that is enough for now, and, after all, I think that the game is a good game and worth the money. But try to think about what I wrote.

paologvn

PS (Please, don't reply that inserting rules based on what I suggest the playability will suffer, ..... and "World in Flames" is not available yet.