Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Aurelian

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ORIGINAL: veji1


Now NM is also influenced by events : For example to emulate's the pressure in the Union for offensive action to finish of the reb rabble, several times the USA have to get armies within two provinces from Richmond otherwise they lose 5 or 10 NMpoints...

True, but those events are also open to abuse. A hyper agressive Rebel, with all those excellant leaders, will pour North. He can be sitting in Baltimore, lay seige to Washington, be sitting in Harrisburg, etc. And your newspapers will be screaming. Not because of that, but because you're not advancing.

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ORIGINAL: Michael T

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I think you're going to find that a lot of us on the Soviet side flatly will refuse to play with these sudden death victory conditions; we're just not buying into the idea that this was in the cards. This whole thing seems like an exercise in futility to me. Even if the community somehow manages to cobble up an optional rule and convinces Joel to code it, Axis players (and this is really an Axis wish list) aren't going to find many Soviet opponents willing to play under these conditions

What you continually fail to acknowledge is that *either* side can win a sudden death victory. Its not a German fanboy dream. Sudden Death victory is a well established method to put pressure on both sides of a game to act in a historical manner in regard to defending and attacking. It is also a method to end clearly one sided games early. But thats secondary in this case.

Sudden death victory conditions are supposed to offer a equal chance for both sides if designed properly. Thats what I would advocate. I hate the fact that the runaway tactics employed by both sides can go unpunished. It's totally wrong. That is my primary motivation for sudden death.

The fear of losing is greater than the ambition of victory in most people. Thats why we see all this running away. I don't beleive the game is so unbalanced that there is no choice for the Russians to run in summer 1941 or the Germans to run in winter 41. People do it because its the no risk way to play. A mechanisim is needed to force people to fight for every inch just like the real war. I think sudden death is a way to do this. If not that then something else please... perhaps a victory set like James has described. HPS use it in their WWIE series. It would do the job but its complex to work out in the first instance. But beautiful when done right. It would mean giving up too much ground too early would mean giving up a lot of VP and increase dramatically the chance of a losing. Not the war, but the GAME. This is another point people are mixing up. Sudden death does not mean you neccesarily lose the war, but you lost the GAME

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I think you're going to find that a lot of us on the Soviet side flatly will refuse to play with these sudden death victory conditions; we're just not buying into the idea that this was in the cards. This whole thing seems like an exercise in futility to me. Even if the community somehow manages to cobble up an optional rule and convinces Joel to code it, Axis players (and this is really an Axis wish list) aren't going to find many Soviet opponents willing to play under these conditions.

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ORIGINAL: Aurelian
Perhaps you can provide the basis on which the fall of Moscow would of meant much.

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ORIGINAL: Alchenar
The specific problem is that the game fails to simulate the breakdown of C&C in Summer '41 right?

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

I lost an AACW game exactly because of that. Spent six months working on an effective Army of the Potomac. I had smashed Confederate armies in Tennesse in August and had laid siege and captured New Orleans. And then I had to send the Army of the Potomac in a wild geese hunt around Richmond in autumn. After a "satisfactory" campaign across the Shenandoah valley, I found myself stranded at the gates of Richmond while the Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania. After extricating it with a murderous winter march across the Allegheny, I was completely defeated in a major battle northeast of Washington, and it was game over.

I mean, the game was a kind of cool what-if. But the whole business was sort of a "self-fulfilling prophecy" engine, since it sort of creates an incentive to send a unadequately organized, supplied, equipped and trained army into Virginia, with the guarantee of it being shattered in the field.

It's worse against the AI, that exploits this and sends his über leaders with cavalry divisions to Albany, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc. totally destroying NM in the process even if Richmond falls and the CSA economy collapses...

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ORIGINAL: pzgndr

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I think you're going to find that a lot of us on the Soviet side flatly will refuse to play with these sudden death victory conditions; we're just not buying into the idea that this was in the cards. This whole thing seems like an exercise in futility to me. Even if the community somehow manages to cobble up an optional rule and convinces Joel to code it, Axis players (and this is really an Axis wish list) aren't going to find many Soviet opponents willing to play under these conditions.

It's odd then I suppose that those old boardgames that did have those pesky sudden death rules managed to be enjoyed by so many wargamers over the years?

Something to keep in mind is that those old victory conditions worked both ways: first to keep the Russian player from running like a rabbit during the first couple years, and second to keep the German player from running like a rabbit during the last couple years. It is not simply an Axis "wish list" request. There's a damn good reason those old games had these mandatory sudden death victory conditions integrated as part of the game design, and seeing these disagreements pretty much validates why they were used. It's certainly no skin off anybody's bones to have them reintroduced as a game OPTION.

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ORIGINAL: Aurelian
You're quite welcome.

Perhaps you can provide the basis on which the fall of Moscow would of meant much.

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ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000
And why would it need to mean much? Victory conditions don't necessarily have to be based around a "realistic" political/diplomatic outcome.

As I said previously, these same developers felt comfortable assigning a VP threshold for the Japanese that would award a game-ending "win" for them despite the lack of evidence suggesting that the Western Allies would ever have laid down arms and just accept an in-place Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Indeed, it may well be that this is an acceptable auto-victory threshold because it represents Japan doing significantly better than its historical performance.

So why shouldn't the German player be given a similarly game-ending win for similarly exceeding historical expectations, even if there's nothing to suggest that Stalin would sign an armistice either?

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

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ORIGINAL: pzgndr

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I think you're going to find that a lot of us on the Soviet side flatly will refuse to play with these sudden death victory conditions; we're just not buying into the idea that this was in the cards. This whole thing seems like an exercise in futility to me. Even if the community somehow manages to cobble up an optional rule and convinces Joel to code it, Axis players (and this is really an Axis wish list) aren't going to find many Soviet opponents willing to play under these conditions.

It's odd then I suppose that those old boardgames that did have those pesky sudden death rules managed to be enjoyed by so many wargamers over the years?

Something to keep in mind is that those old victory conditions worked both ways: first to keep the Russian player from running like a rabbit during the first couple years, and second to keep the German player from running like a rabbit during the last couple years. It is not simply an Axis "wish list" request. There's a damn good reason those old games had these mandatory sudden death victory conditions integrated as part of the game design, and seeing these disagreements pretty much validates why they were used. It's certainly no skin off anybody's bones to have them reintroduced as a game OPTION.

The Soviets are not "running like rabbits." The frontier armies are being annihilated in the first couple of turns -- including, ahistorically, SW Front, and there's simply not much left to stop the Wehrmacht until it's gone very far east. People are not "running" away from Leningrad. Nor or are they "running" from the Dnepr.

Right now the game's offensive tempo is just ridiculously fast, and what people are confusing as "running" is in fact the Germans running out of targets in the first half dozen or so turns and simply stampeding what scattered resistance they meet.

There's a problem with 1941, but it's not the problem that most folks here think it is nor is it a problem that will be solved by fiddling with VP.

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ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The Soviets are not "running like rabbits." The frontier armies are being annihilated in the first couple of turns -- including, ahistorically, SW Front, and there's simply not much left to stop the Wehrmacht until it's gone very far east. People are not "running" away from Leningrad. Nor or are they "running" from the Dnepr.

Right now the game's offensive tempo is just ridiculously fast, and what people are confusing as "running" is in fact the Germans running out of targets in the first half dozen or so turns and simply stampeding what scattered resistance they meet.

There's a problem with 1941, but it's not the problem that most folks here think it is nor is it a problem that will be solved by fiddling with VP.

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ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


Based on my own gaming experience, playing primarily the Russians, I agree with this completely. If the Russian player "Runs for the Hills" he will lose the game, even Pelton acknowledges this. I personally have never "runaway", at least I would not characterize it as that. What I try and do is build a series defensive lines each 3 to 10 hexes (ie 30 to 100 miles) depending on terrain behind the other. As each line is compromised (ie I am in danger of a significant number of units being surrounded) I fall back to the next line. Depending on what my opponent is doing sometimes I will hold out on each line for several turns, other times I will fall back to the next line after only one or two turns. Are these retreats of 30 to 100 miles considered running away? Admittedly I have not yet played Pelton, or Michael T or Jamian; perhaps if I did I would be forced back much quicker and then I would be officially "running away". But until then I will continue doing what I am doing.

From my review of the AARs I personally don't see much that I would characterize as "Running Away." What I do see is the Russians in the summer and the Axis in the blizzard falling back to better defensive positions as their respective lines are compromised. This just makes good miltary sense. Maybe neither side did this very often historically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Unlike our historical counterparts we have the advantage of both hindsight and the ability to replay the War over and over to perfect our play. The net result is that both the Soviets and the Axis will probably sustain less losses than historical. But to date I don't now as this has affected play balance. We'll have to wait until some 1.05 games get into 43 or later to find out.

In the meantime, I personally don't want the game forcing me to make the same stupid mistakes that my historical counterparts made.

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ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net

So a German PBEM opponent playing too conservatively in 1942 to "avoid losing" will lose VP's for not taking the Caucasus or Stalingrad or Leningrad etc.  In other words, high command is not content with each player sitting tight, or in the Russian case running away. Maybe you lose more VP's for losing Kiev "too quickly"?

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ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net

That's a fair point Alfonso- I'm playing a 1942 PBEM as Germans and i've strategically gone "defensive" while launching sector wide offensives to pocket Russians where I can.  So i know what you mean, however the time staggered VP's idea really makes more sense on the Russian side:

Let's say the Russian player loses Kiev much earlier than historical, he might lose more VP's permanently.  And say the Russian holds Kiev until November 1941, way longer than historically, he may lose less VP's or even gain VP's for such a successful defense.  

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


Based on my own gaming experience, playing primarily the Russians, I agree with this completely. If the Russian player "Runs for the Hills" he will lose the game, even Pelton acknowledges this. I personally have never "runaway", at least I would not characterize it as that. What I try and do is build a series defensive lines each 3 to 10 hexes (ie 30 to 100 miles) depending on terrain behind the other. As each line is compromised (ie I am in danger of a significant number of units being surrounded) I fall back to the next line. Depending on what my opponent is doing sometimes I will hold out on each line for several turns, other times I will fall back to the next line after only one or two turns. Are these retreats of 30 to 100 miles considered running away? Admittedly I have not yet played Pelton, or Michael T or Jamian; perhaps if I did I would be forced back much quicker and then I would be officially "running away". But until then I will continue doing what I am doing.

From my review of the AARs I personally don't see much that I would characterize as "Running Away." What I do see is the Russians in the summer and the Axis in the blizzard falling back to better defensive positions as their respective lines are compromised. This just makes good miltary sense. Maybe neither side did this very often historically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Unlike our historical counterparts we have the advantage of both hindsight and the ability to replay the War over and over to perfect our play. The net result is that both the Soviets and the Axis will probably sustain less losses than historical. But to date I don't now as this has affected play balance. We'll have to wait until some 1.05 games get into 43 or later to find out.

In the meantime, I personally don't want the game forcing me to make the same stupid mistakes that my historical counterparts made.

I agree completely. Very well said!

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ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

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ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

The discussion keeps shifting towards auto-victory / VP / sudden-death rules because it directly influences the way that players behave.

That is, a Soviet player who knows he isn't going to "lose" outside of letting the German go farther than Stalingrad is of course going to trade massive amounts of space for time. There's simply no reason not to.

And conversely, a German player who knows he has little-to-no hope of triggering the auto-victory condition isn't going to stick his neck out after the 1941 campaign season barring a massive mistake on the part of the Soviet. All that real estate is just room to breathe on the way to Berlin anyway, right?