Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

In fact I have some additional questions:

a) is the game still maintained/improved by the devs and by the community ? patches, DLCs, mods,etc.
b) How active is the community ?
c) How easy is it to find players committed to PBEM ? What if you're a newbie ? Are there not too many quitters ?
d) How long would last a game ?
e) is there a WiF 2.0 coming soon or any other product that will make the game obsolete/outdated ?
f) How complex is it compared to the Gary Grigsby "War In ..." series ?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vanman

It is an AMAZING game, absolutely outstanding. My favourite of all time. Peter Garnett (see above) and I have played together numerous times and we still experience many moments where we say to each other: 'what a game'. As stated, he and I use Teamviewer in conjunction with play by email so we needn't always be online at the same time (particularly 'rail' to the 'land moves' phase). It is my understanding that other players use automated die rolling sites to help out. Here is a link to one: http://www.pbegames.com/roller/#theRoller. We use this sparingly as our times generally align quite well. For the Global War scenario we recommend you adapt the following two 'house rules' (we learned this the hard way):

1. There is a Russo-Japanese Neutrality Pact in effect. Garrison ratio (as per the rules) can only be broken by either side if Garrison value above 6 to 1 in 1939, 5 to 1 in 1940, 4 to 1 in 1941, 3 to 1 in 1942 etc. We found not playing with this rule tends to kill games early and so getting deep into the game just was not happening (either Japan was falling apart early in dealing with both USSR & China or the Soviets overcommitted and were crushed by the Wehrmacht).

2. If the Axis do not win outright, they can still win by having more than 15 Objectives by the end of July/August 1945. Less than 15 = Allies win. 15 even = game ends in a tie. Many Axis players quit when the war goes against them and this rule provides an incentive to keep at it and still come away victorious.

For myself I mostly learned by playing rather than the manual (though you have to use both really). Learning via experience tends to work best. I played solo for awhile but it gets dull relatively quickly. Enjoy!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vanman

If you download 'Teamviewer' let me know and I can have you come on my computer and see how it works. Real simple actually. I can also show you the game Pete and I are currently playing. I downloaded a few graphic mods that make the art even look better. Your call. You can email me at vancanste@shaw.ca if you are interested.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vanman

2. If the Axis do not win outright, they can still win by having more than 15 Objectives by the end of July/August 1945. Less than 15 = Allies win. 15 even = game ends in a tie. Many Axis players quit when the war goes against them and this rule provides an incentive to keep at it and still come away victorious.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cohen_slith

a) is the game still maintained/improved by the devs and by the community ? patches, DLCs, mods,etc.
By what I see it is still being developed and patched.
I doubt DLCs will come out and the game is not moddable beyond cosmetic looks by what I saw or maybe adding some units - namely the KIF ones. (For the better)

b) How active is the community ?
It seems there are some regulars.

c) How easy is it to find players committed to PBEM ? What if you're a newbie ? Are there not too many quitters ?
Not really a PBEM game for my perspective. It is very interactive and is far from the old wargame formula of IGO-UGO.
Quitting is often a problem, due to the long term investment a match is - if you play campaign.
Newbye should prolly start with smaller scenarios or some single player practice or at least find someone that are up to play grand campaign for 1 year and start over so they get the grip of things.

d) How long would last a game ?
Lots of time for Grand Campaign. Depend how frequently you can play / hours per week you can devote to it.

e) is there a WiF 2.0 coming soon or any other product that will make the game obsolete/outdated ?
Matrix WiF itself is 'obsolete' compared to the tabletop game it sprung from, that moved on to a new editions (some rules changed, some counters modified, etc).
I doubt there will be a MWiF 2.0 though in the foreseeable future!

f) How complex is it compared to the Gary Grigsby "War In ..." series ?
I own only War in the East and abandoned it long ago. Mental games are not for me - WiF has the HUGE benefit of being a translation from a tabletop game.
It means it is a game in human mind reach, I can simply see this plane is worth 5 or 6, or so it that land unit.
A unit is in supply or out of supply.
There are no obscure, astral equations of "Hmm my unit can fight as 1 or 20 strength... depending if the leader check pass, if the morale check pass, if they get airplanes there or not, if the support battallion manages to get committed, etc".
WiF beats other strategy games hands down. If you want a valid Gary Grigsby game, go for the old World at War. Elegant, simple in rules (to grip at least), without strange obscure mechanisms.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cohen_slith
WiF has the HUGE benefit of being a translation from a tabletop game.
It means it is a game in human mind reach, I can simply see this plane is worth 5 or 6, or so it that land unit.
A unit is in supply or out of supply.
There are no obscure, astral equations of "Hmm my unit can fight as 1 or 20 strength... depending if the leader check pass, if the morale check pass, if they get airplanes there or not, if the support battallion manages to get committed, etc".
WiF beats other strategy games hands down. If you want a valid Gary Grigsby game, go for the old World at War. Elegant, simple in rules (to grip at least), without strange obscure mechanisms.