Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:
ORIGINAL: aspqrz
When I first bought WiF ... when it first came out, basically ... here in Oz (before it was even available in the US), I was disappointed with some of the crazy things that were allowed under the rules. Things that were patently not possible given the political and economic constraints that existed at the time ... and that, along with the size and lack of opponents and setup space made me give up on it. Never quite completely ... I bough 'Patton in Flames' for the simple reason that it was a 'what if' scenario and, basically, everything was realistically up for grabs.
But basic original 1st Edition WiF was too much like later games such as Hearts of Iron, where Tibet can conquer the world (not that it can in WiF).
Now, I understand that a lot of gamers like 'gamey' games, but some of us, at least, like to have historical options. Which is all I would have liked.
I have been keeping a general eye on these forums up until recently as it seemed very likely that CWiF would actually never see the light of day ... and, obvoiously to me, the whole forum was filled with WiF partisans.
I like to comment on historical problems or limitations with games, mostly, because that's what I am interested in, and wasn't interested in being torn to shreds, or ignored, or whatever, by enraged fanatics ... more importantly, it looked as if CWiF was never going to eventuate, so it would all have been a waste of time, anyway.
Now, it may well be that my feeling about the forum was wrong (always a possibility), and CWiF certainly exists now, but the fact remains that there seems to be exactly zero interest in producing a reasonably historical setup and never has been, which speaks, IMO, strongly to the audience that has existed at least to the present.
Look, I have no problems with ahistorical situations (hence my purchase of 'Patton in Flames'), and with a 'Days of Decision' add-on the whole problem will disappear ... as you can change the preconditions that actually existed in 1939 (or decide whether the war even breaks out in 1939!), but, as it stands, a game nominally representing history that doesn't provide a historical setup option is not great.
YMMV, and, indeed, obviously does.
Phil
Well, one way of looking at WIF is that the simulation doesn't start on September 1st, 1939. Instead, the players get to deploy their units as they might have in early August, before war was declared. Keeping to that idea, then perhaps the major powers involved didn't 'build' precisely the same land and air forces as they actually did in the 3-6 months leading up to the war. Instead there were some elements of the various power struggles within each country that affected whether one type of available aircraft design or a different one was put into full production.
So what you get to set up on the map reflects those potential variations.
Regardless, every simulation makes an enormous number of assumptions before the designer even begins to flesh out his design on paper. By the time the simulation design is complete, many more assumptions have been made. I've been involved in a lot of different simulations: chemical processes, sound propagation under water, railroad breaking distances, corporate economics, helicopter maintenance, manufacturing production schedules, human anatomy responding to disease and treatment. Encoding the design into software imposes more compromises.
It is the gestalt that determines whether the design is good or not. Too much precision in one aspect of the design is often an illusion because of compromises elsewhere. One crucial balance is between the time iterations simulated and the real world events. Chemical processes and sound propagation were completed within a minute, breaking distances within minutes, helicopter maintenance was episodic, production scheduling and human anatomy were hours, days, or weeks. Changing the time interval to increase precision didn't increase precision, if all the other elements were to a cruder scale.
Just my thoughts on this. Not to start an argument, or even a discussion. I would enjoy a discussion because this is a passion of mine, but "a lot of people" would be mad at me if I spent too much time on this.
_____________________________
Steve
Perfection is an elusive goal.
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