Joel Billings
Posts: 32265
Joined: 9/20/2000
From: Santa Rosa, CA
Status: offline
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Thanks for all the feedback provided on the forum over the past 6 weeks regarding the state of play in WitE. As usual, it’s hard to sort out exactly what’s changed about the game, and how these changes are impacting 2 player and AI games (often they are impacted very differently by changes in the game, be they design changes or bug fixes). As we’ve previously stated, our primary focus now is on War in the West, and making major changes to WitE is not going to happen. Any changes to WitE are risky to make at this point (they can cause more bugs and or alter gameplay in ways that make things worse not better). Big changes have to wait for the next Eastern Front product that will use the War in Europe map we’ve developed for WitW (what has been called WitE 2.0 for lack of a better name).
Given the changes that came with 1.07, we did think it was appropriate to revisit the game and see if there were some relatively simple/safe changes that could be made. We put out a version to testers early this week with some changes that move things in the right direction. I expect that this version (or one with 1 or 2 other changes) will go out to the public within the next 1-3 weeks. In the process of exploring possible changes, we found a few items that had not been documented in the past so we’ve included this info in the readme notes. We had a fix in for one other bug (some combat units getting credit for 2 wins instead of 1) that unfortunately got wiped out by another change, but hopefully we’ll get that fixed in the near future.
As you would expect, the big (although fairly simple) changes were in the morale area. We agreed with the observations that units with low national morale were reaching 50 morale too easily when units were left in the rear training. Coincidentally we had been noticing the same thing with the Italians in WitW. We’ve put a cap on this now so that units won’t exceed their NM from this kind of training. There is still a way for units to reach a morale of 40 even if they have a lower NM (one of the old undocumented rules). We also lowered the chance of the die(nm/10) morale gain (the rule first fixed in 1.07). The net effect should be slightly lower Soviet morale in 1941, with the biggest impact on Soviet units toward the end of 41 and 42 when their national morale is low. During this period, Soviet rifle brigades will be worth more (as they should) as they have a minimum NM of 50 while the rifle divisions will have an NM of 45. Initial tests are showing the results we’re looking for. Taken together we believe the changes improve the game in 41 and 42.
Something we found while we were doing this work was that there were some undocumented bonuses given as soon as morale help was set above 100. This was a surprise to all of us, and we decided to move these bonuses to only kick in when morale help was set to 110 or higher. We still think when playing against the AI, experienced players should play at Challenging level or harder. By moving this major bonus to the 110 level, players should be able to use the levels from 101 to 109 to slightly modify the balance in a 2 player game if they wish.
In addition to the code changes, there were several data file changes made to try to improve various issues that have been brought up, including changes in the scenario files to weaken the Super Lvov Pocket strategy (we considered limiting rail movement through Hungary under certain conditions, but elected for a safer data change instead). Below is a complete list of the changes made in the version we now have in test.
V1.07.09– August 9, 2013
• New Features and Rule Changes
1. Rule Change (section 9.1.1) – Possible morale gains for a unit being at least 10 hexes from an enemy unit (in refit or not) will now only happen if the unit’s morale is below its national morale, or 50, whichever is lowest. Note it is possible to receive up to 0-2 morale points from this when not in refit mode, and 0-4 points when in refit mode (this has not changed).
2. Rule Change (section 8.4.3) – The air group unit commitment system will only allow the transfer of recon air groups to Wehrmacht airbases.
3. Rule Change/Errata (section 3.3.2) – There was an undocumented +1 morale bonus from victories whenever the morale help level was set >100. Similarly, there was one less loss of morale due to a lost combat when the morale help was set >100. These have now been changed so that these bonuses only apply when the morale help level is set >109. We have also fixed a bug that could cause a unit with morale help level >100 to potentially gain one morale point from a lost battle.
4. Formula Change (section 9.1.1) – Reduced the chance that a unit below its national morale will receive the die(10% of national morale) increase in morale. The chance is now 10% (was 15%).
5. Rule Errata (section 9.1.1) – Units that are below 40 automatically gain one morale point in the logistics phase.
6. Rule Errata (section 9.1.3) – The Finnish National Morale is 70 for the entire war.
7. Rule Errata (section 15) – There are a maximum number of units that may participate in a combat. The absolute maximum is 40 units per side (including HQs, on-map and support units). The system will try to include all on-map units if possible, but as the number of units gets large (over 25-30), there is a chance that some support units will be left out of the battle even before reaching the 40 unit maximum.
• Bug Fixes
1. Fixed a bug that was causing the number of victories and defeats to be credited to leaders to only work for 3 levels of command (causing OKH and Stavka not to be properly credited in all cases).
2. Fixed a bug that could prevent some Fighter-Bomber air groups from upgrading.
• Data and Scenario Changes
Data Files
1. 37mm Anti-tank Gun (67) – Added upgrade path to 75mm Anti-tank Gun (69) and changed Last Month from 12 to 10. 75mm gun begins production in November, 1941.
2. Changed the upgrade dates of WitE German infantry and pioneer squads and Slovakian infantry squads.
3. Added the missing accuracy modifier to the Slovakian (322) and Hungarian (358) 50mm anti-tank guns and added a German-made 75mm anti-tank gun for the Rumanians.
4. Changed the domestic Rumanian 75mm anti-tank gun start to a more accurate date of 3/44 and added a German-made 75mm anti-tank gun for the Rumanians.
5. Corrected production period of 39M Csaba Armored Car (288) armored car.
6. Maultier (174) – Renamed to SdKfz-4 Panzerwerfer.
7. SdKfz-250/9 – Added this vehicle as an armored car type in WitE (no picture/no symbol) and as a Recon Halftrack (new ground type 73) in WitW. It’s an upgrade from the SdKfz-222 armored car and needs 3 factories (initial size 1) in WitW; it uses the SdKfz-222’s orphan factories in WitE.
8. Fixed spelling of leader von Edelsheim, Maximilian. Changed Leader 1189: Demidov, Aleksandr from Ground only to Air only.
9. Fixed an error in the 42c SS Motorized Division (OB 463) that had its 75mm infantry guns entered twice.
10. 42a Guards Tank Corps (OB 404) – Added missing upgrade path to 42b Guards Tank Corps (OB 402).
11. 43 Assault Engineer-Sapper Brigade (OB 446) – Added missing upgrade path to 44 Assault Engineer-Sapper Brigade (OB 486).
12. 44 Airlanding Division (OB 133) – Renamed to 44b Airlanding Division (WitW only change).
13. 41b Infantry Division (OB 338) – Corrected upgrade path from 41 Jager Division (OB 32) to 42 Jager Division (OB 335).
Scenario Files
1. Some minor changes to arrivals including strength and experience were made to the Stalingrad to Berlin Campaign and the Winter 1942-43 scenario based on Matrix forum feedback.
2. In all campaigns and scenarios starting June 22, 1941, moved 2 Rumanian units back from the border near Chernovtsy. This allows Soviet units to use the rail next to the border on turn 2 if it is not cut by German units from the north. This was done to reduce the effectiveness of the German Super Lvov Pocket strategy. Also reduced the fort level of Hanko to 3.
_____________________________
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
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