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RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/28/2005 11:30:08 PM   
duskdeep

 

Posts: 9
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: Iasi,Romania
Status: offline 		That you both for your positive feedback

(in reply to cadmus)
Post #: 211
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 3:19:11 PM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline 		Hello everybody. I am a new member of this forum and have only recently started playing SPWAW. While I think it is an excellent game and one of the best ww2 games I know, I still think there is room for improvement.
I too am a Romanian an I want to join my voice to those that ask for a better representation of the minor axis powers and especially of Romania. I do not mean to say that the game is poorly done. On the contrary, I am impressed with the good job the game developpers have done with their depiction of the Romanian army during ww2 and I am confident that they can iron out the small errors that still exist, thus staying true to the standards of quality that they have set thenmselves. Hoping that one of them will read this post, here are my comments about the morale/experience values in version 8.4:

First, the pattern in which these values change does not match even the most well known facts about Romanian history during ww2.
morale: the morale of troops and leaders starts at 35, then rises slightly after the entry into war and then drops continuously, reaching 25 at the end of the war (1945).
Correctly, the morale should be average to low in 1939 (Romanians did not want a new war), then drop even lower as a result of loosing territories without a fight in 1940, then increase significantly at the start of hostilities (It is important not to underestimate the enthusiasm of the Romanians in 1941, which was comparable to that at the start of ww1, people were actually kneeling in the streets thanking God that the war had started!)-I think that at this point the morale values for Romania should be close to those for Japan-then drop when the peasants (and not only them) found out that the war must be continued into Russia, then decrease steadily until 1944. At this point, the game assigns the value 30 for morale, wich drops by 5 points into 1945. I think this is a grave error. The morale should actualy increase in 1945. Consider this: at this point, the Romanians had joined the winning side and recovered the terittory lost to Hungary in 1940, and captured the enemy capital. I guess you all agree that this should translate into an increase in morale.

I have to stop now but I will be back with more comments

(in reply to duskdeep)
Post #: 212
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 4:09:32 PM   
Alby


Posts: 4855
Joined: 4/29/2000
From: Greenwood, Indiana
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: duskdeep

Although Moldavia,Valachia and Transylvania (the states that later formed our country after uniting) never became a Turkish "pasalâc" (I don;t really know the English equivalent, it was when the turks moved their whole administration into a territory), Valachia (the southern region of modern Romania) and Moldavia (the Eastern part) had to pay tribute for a long time to the Ottoman Empire.Also, from the beginning of the 18th century until 1821, these states had rulers brought by the turks from Fanar, Constantinopole. These more or less direct contacts with the turks led to some influence.Actually, all the Balcan states in Europe suffer more of corruption than their western neighbours, corruption which is thought to be caused by contact with the oriental culture and way of living.In our language we have e.g. the word "ciubuc" pronounced [ts`ubuc] (ts stands for that diftong in which tou have a t and a long s after it) which is of Turkish origin and means a small bribe.

As for the word "vlahi", it seems that it was first used by the germanic people ("wälschi") in order to name the peoples that were of Latin origin.The Slavs seem to have truncated this into the word "vlah".As history progressed "vlah" gradually became the name given to all those that spoke Romanian.As a side note, Romanian wasn't limited only to the territory north of the Danube, where modern Romania is situated today, but also it was spread to the south of the Danube river.From "vlahi" came also the name of the southern region "Valachia".Anyway you put it, nobody seems to have contested our latin origin (except maybe Hungarians ).

And lastly, speaking of origin, we are more proud of our Dacian ancestors than our Roman ones.

Hope I didn't say anything wrong and hope I didn't start to bore anyone, but I'm always happy to speak about my country when someone is interested.


and what of Vlad the impaler?

heheh watched a special on him last night

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Post #: 213
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 7:54:30 PM   
Puukkoo


Posts: 472
Joined: 7/19/2005
From: Seinäjoki, Finland
Status: offline 		What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.

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Post #: 214
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 9:21:06 PM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline 		Hello again! I got interrupted while writing my first post. I have some more sugestions regarding the issue.
I have allready discussed morale, now about experience:
Acording to the 8.4 version, in 4 years of continuous and hard fightion on the eastern front, the Romanians not only did not aquire any combat experience, but ended up even dumber than at the start, by 10 points! (comparatively, the US army gained 15 experience points over the same time period). It is true that there would be some setbacks - 1943, after Stalingrad, and again (in the case of the officers) in 1945 (communist purges), but the overall trend should be one of increasing experience, or at least it should stay at the same level.
Second, another problem is the relative difference between various countries. Romania constantly has the lowest values of morale and experience. Do you think this is the country that recieved the gratest number of Knights Crosses among Germany's allies, and was described by some German generals (like Manstein) as the most important ally of Germany? I agree with the fact that the morale of the Romanians was quite low in 1943-44, and throughout the war it probably was probably a bit lower that the morale of the Hungarians and Bulgarians, because these countries had gained terittory while Romania lost. (but it was newer as alow as to make the Romanians run away without a fight!) However, the situation was certainly different in the last year of the war. In 1945, Romanian morale should be higher than that of the other minor axis countries. The Finns and Bulgarians not only lost terittories, but were forced to fight in a war against Germany in which they had no interest and nothing to win. The Hungarians were in an even worse situation: they were forced to fight to the end for Hitler, and they had just seen their country overrun and their capital conquered. The situation was dramatically different for the Romanians. They too had lost some terittory to the Russians, but during the western campaign, they fought to recover Northern Transsylvania and to avenge themselves for the Vienna Diktat. They allso wanted to "teach the Germans a lesson" and prove they were more than just cheap cannon fodder. The Romanian comittment to the war is ilustrated by the size of the contingent fighting against Germany, which was the forth largest, right after those of the "big three". Definately the morale of the Romanians in the last year of the war should be close to the level of 1941/42 and significantly higher than that of Bulgaria, Finnland and especially Hungary.
Regarding experience: romanian troops are not only depicted as beeing unrealistically inexperienced in absolute terms, they are actually worse than the Bulgarians! Where did the Bulgarians get the 5-10 extra experience points? Bulgaria fought for a couple of days in 1941, Romania fought for 4 years on the Ostfront.
I hope the game developpers take these facts into consideration if they decide to modif the morale/experience values again.

(in reply to Puukkoo)
Post #: 215
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 10:16:57 PM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline 		I have allso made a list of possible objections to improving the stats of Romanian troops, and my conterarguments to them.

"Your comments are disrespectful to the people who worked on this game."
I did not write my comments because I think the game developpers are "stupid Americans" / "historically illiterate" or whatnot, but because I know they are true professionnals comitted to creating quality wargames, and I know they will try to get even the smallest detail right. So, if my comments are correct, they will act accordingly. Allso, if I believed they were bad designers, why would I bother writing all these comments?

"This is a free game and so who cares about errors"
So what if it's a free game? Do I have to believe that some people spent days/weks/months, even years working on this game (that does not bring them any profit), but they don't care about the end result? Exactly the fact that this is a free game tells me that the developpers are very passionate about this project! If they would not care about it and were not comitted to improving it, we wouldn't have an 8.4 version today.

"If you don't like it, rewrite the game yourself"
I can't. I am still learning how to play the game! Writing a mod, or even creating new scenarios, is still a distand dream for me. This is wy I wish to leave this matter to those who really know what they are doing.

"The minor axis are weak to provide a challenge for the one playing them"
What about novice gamers like me? Do I have to train for half a year before I can play a battle with Romanian troops? The truth is that these nations are unplayable for most people, so wha's the point in having them in the game at all.

"These nations were defeated in the war and the game needs to simulate this"
The way I see this, minor powers are weak because they were outnumbered and/or outgunned. This has nothing to do with the performance of the individual soldier! Even if the Romanians would be beefed up to the level of the USMC or the German SS, the game would still simulate their defeat at Stalingrad, if they would lack adequate equippment and had to fight agains owerwhelming enemy forces, but on the other hand, this version of the geme can't replicate any of their victories.

"This is only the base value, elite troops get bonuses, etc."
A bonus for elites is not enough. Even regular Romanian troops sometimes performed very well in battle. For example, after changing sides in 1944, the Romanian 1'st army, which was guarding the border with Hungary, was engaged in stopping a German-Hungarian offensive in Transylvania. This army had been kept in the reserve, it had not seen any combat before and allso lacked elite units (for obvious reasons). It is true that sometimes these soldiers ran away or surrendered to German tanks, but on most ocasions they held their ground and the enemy offensive was defeated! This could not happen in SPWAW because a single german tank would rout all the Romanian soldiers!
Allso, if the designers decide to implement a system with different values for different cathegories of troops, I hope that this will be used for other countries too. For example, the German Volkssturm should have significantly lower values that regular troops. In the current version, regular Romanian (but allso Hungarian, Bulgarian, ...) soldiers, peasants perhaps, but with regular traning and wheapons, are still wastly inferior to Volkssturm soldiers, "old men and boys" with barely ani training and incomplete equippment. I dont think this is realistic.

Again, I hope my humble comments are not recieved as rude criticism. As I said, I generally have a good opinnion about his game and play it a lot, this is exactly why such small details are so bothersome!
Have a nice day everyone.

(in reply to SiG)
Post #: 216
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 10:57:23 PM   
KG Erwin


Posts: 8981
Joined: 7/25/2000
From: Cross Lanes WV USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.


Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding)

Actually, I look at photos, and this country is a fascinating mix of the pastoral, the modern, and the stuff of legends.


< Message edited by KG Erwin -- 10/29/2005 11:01:56 PM >

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Post #: 217
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 10:58:10 PM   
Puukkoo


Posts: 472
Joined: 7/19/2005
From: Seinäjoki, Finland
Status: offline 		SiG! Welcome to the Boards. You have started with in medias res attitude, I like that and those are fine arguments, but people are sensitive here. You don't need to yell at them. It is true that no one likes to see his country as Russian cannon fodder and I don't like to see any country as that.

The default values given to units represent the average. Not the whole army. If you created a historical scenario the values should be adjusted to meet the requirements. There have been not too many scenarios/campaigns concerning Romania anyway.

Sources for the Romanian history have not been paid enough heed of western scholarly interest, until present, to end up as detailed and updated information into a wargame such as SPWAW. The values have been based on secondnary sources, such as Russian history, which explains the low ratings. That's not utterly designers cause and hardly their purest will either. If gamers' interest towards Romania increases, there will be corrections and additions as well accordingly.


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(in reply to SiG)
Post #: 218
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 10:59:46 PM   
Puukkoo


Posts: 472
Joined: 7/19/2005
From: Seinäjoki, Finland
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin


quote:

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.


Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding)



I'll let some of these heatened up Romanians to answer that!

_____________________________

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Post #: 219
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 11:03:16 PM   
Goblin


Posts: 5547
Joined: 3/29/2002
From: Erie,Pa. USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

quote:

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin


quote:

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

What most people know about Romania are Vlad Draculi and Nicolae Ceausescu.


Are they not one and the same? (Just kidding)



I'll let some of these heatened up Romanians to answer that!


Don't poke 'em! You'll stir them all up!!


Goblin


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(in reply to Puukkoo)
Post #: 220
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/29/2005 11:13:48 PM   
KG Erwin


Posts: 8981
Joined: 7/25/2000
From: Cross Lanes WV USA
Status: offline 		Now, now, I WAS just kidding. Jeez, I'm starting a Romanian travelogue. Here's a nice photo from the Black Sea coast:


(in reply to Goblin)
Post #: 221
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 12:53:23 AM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

SiG! Welcome to the Boards. You have started with in medias res attitude, I like that and those are fine arguments, but people are sensitive here. You don't need to yell at them. It is true that no one likes to see his country as Russian cannon fodder and I don't like to see any country as that.

Thank you for your welcome Puukkoo! I know I started a bit abruptely, but I just hoped I can make a difference. I tried to keep the tone as civil as possible. I picked this topic because it's the only one where I can make meaningfull comments. I'm not experienced enough to discuss strategy.
quote:

The default values given to units represent the average. Not the whole army. If you created a historical scenario the values should be adjusted to meet the requirements. There have been not too many scenarios/campaigns concerning Romania anyway.

Well that's what bothers me. How did the game developpers determine that the average Romanian soldier was the worst and most incompetent one in the whole world? In 1941/2/43/44 and '45, in each of these years Romania had 2 (two) armies on the frontline. Obviously these armies were not 100% elite. How was it possible to field such a large force if the soldiers kept running away or surrendering? I agree that Romanian soldiers had outdated/insufficient equippment, but I have yet to hear an example where Romanian troops lost a battle because they ran away out of sheer cowardice.
I think the best solution would be to simply reduce the differences between countries. This way it would not matter who's first and who's on last place. In the end, the major powers weren't supermen, and the minors weren't subhuman
quote:

Sources for the Romanian history have not been paid enough heed of western scholarly interest, until present, to end up as detailed and updated information into a wargame such as SPWAW. The values have been based on secondnary sources, such as Russian history, which explains the low ratings. That's not utterly designers cause and hardly their purest will either. If gamers' interest towards Romania increases, there will be corrections and additions as well accordingly.


Sadly, this is true. Romanian contribution in ww2 has been very poorly researched. I find it hard to accuse the Matrix staff of bad scholarship, when there are even Romanians who believe such things. Throughout the comunist period, the campaign in the East was a forbidden subject. WW2 started for Romania on 23 August 1944, and the only subject discussed was the western campaign. (Now the situation is the opposite. Nobody writes anything about the western campaign and the only sources I know are communist-era propaganda. Try quoting that on the froum!) For western historians, the only sources available were German documents that tried to put the blame for every defeat on the minor allies and paint them as subhuman. Sadly, many have accepted this information indiscriminately.
Regarding Romania in SPWAW, I must say that, leaving aside the experience/morale issue I think the deveoppers have done a very good job. Obviously a lot of work went into the Romanian OOB. That's why I was surprised to see that the game perpetuates myths about Romanians beeing cowards /incompetent /dumb peasants /"surrender monkeys", etc. I really hope this can change.

I need some sleep now so that's it for today. Tomorrow maybe I will post something about Ceausescu and Dracula. I hope I will come across as less beliquose. Good night!

To KG Erwin: I see you're enjoying Romania. Where was that photo taken? Eforie?

(in reply to Puukkoo)
Post #: 222
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 12:56:51 AM   
duskdeep

 

Posts: 9
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: Iasi,Romania
Status: offline 		The photos are nice, especially the first one which is probably taken near a village in the mountains.It's very nice to know that when you want peace and quiet from the aggitation of the city, or maybe just adventure soloing through the woods , you can find these things at aprox. 4 hrs of driving.But places like these, which are almost isolated from the world around them, are beginning to slowly disappear...

As for Vlad the Impaler , or "Vlad Tepes", he was simply the ruler of Valachia during a short period of the 15th century. During that period, he proved to be very harsh with internal criminal acts (minor as thieving to major ...),his enemies and with Ottomans, who ,at the time, were the most dangerous threat. He had the habbit of impaling those mentioned above. Vlad Tepes was supossebly a cruel ruler, but his behaviour wasn't at all exagerated during those times.The rest is myth, legend and fantasy. Maybe some of it was spawned by the fact that Vlad Tepes' father was Vlad Dracul, a member of a certain order, the dragon order if I recall...


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Post #: 223
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 1:25:20 AM   
Goblin


Posts: 5547
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From: Erie,Pa. USA
Status: offline 		Welcome to the forums, SiG!


Goblin

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Post #: 224
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 5:59:50 AM   
soldier

 

Posts: 199
Joined: 5/24/2005
Status: offline 		Some excellent posts SIG
You and others have provided some good discussion and rationale over an issue some of us can see is an obvious problem. Its an unintentional slap in the face for all those who stated " Romania sucks " or "thats history, live with it" at the start of this thread.

(in reply to Goblin)
Post #: 225
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 11:22:47 AM   
Puukkoo


Posts: 472
Joined: 7/19/2005
From: Seinäjoki, Finland
Status: offline 		LOL!!!

Gunny Erwin had to post those 'beautiful pictures' for not to annoy Romanians.

You know it's Halloween and maybe Dracula is there somewhere too...

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Post #: 226
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 11:52:10 AM   
duskdeep

 

Posts: 9
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: Iasi,Romania
Status: offline 		Well, I don't think he really wants to mess with an angry Romanian mob

Since we're at exchanging lore about general facts regarding our countries, I would like to ask people in the US why is it politically correct to call Indians "Native Americans"?... I mean, when we were learning universal history, we were being taught that we should call them Amerindians.I just stumbled across this thing while browsing the Ensemble Studios forums, who have just released AOE3.

And another question: our English teacher who we had in high-school told us that while she was visiting England, she was a bit shocked by the fact that people there called blackboards just "boards" as it would prove racist if you were to use the word "blackboard"...I'm wondering if you have the same thing, and even if you don't maybe someone can enlighten me

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Post #: 227
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 11:56:20 AM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline 		Hello again! As I promised, I will write now something about Dracula.
As duskdeep has allready pointed out, Dracula is based on a real historical character, known in Romania as Vlad the Impaler. Contrary to popular belief, he never ruled Transylvania, but just spent a part of his youth there. His father, allso named Vlad, had joined the order of the dragon (which was a sort of personal bodyguard for the emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg). He was called Vlad Dracul (the Devil) by his people. The word draco (latin for "dragon") is like the Romanian word drac (=devil). The young Vlad was named "Draculea", which in ancient Romanian means "son of the Devil". He was a very harsh, but allso very just ruler, and certainly he was no "devil". His favourite punishment, impaling, was in no way exagerated in an age where common forms of execution included being roasted alive, broken on the wheel, skinned alive, disemboweled alive, etc.. (you get the picture).

(in reply to Puukkoo)
Post #: 228
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 12:21:14 PM   
Terminus


Posts: 41459
Joined: 4/23/2005
From: Denmark
Status: offline 		I've seen somewhere that a lot of Romanians these days think of him as a sort of folk hero. Is that accurate?

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Post #: 229
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 3:38:15 PM   
soldier

 

Posts: 199
Joined: 5/24/2005
Status: offline
quote:

His favourite punishment, impaling, was in no way exagerated in an age where common forms of execution included being roasted alive, broken on the wheel, skinned alive, disemboweled alive, etc.. (you get the picture).


.....and i was always thought Vlad the impaler was a cruel sadist, this puts him in some perspective. Don't know if I'd want him for a neighbour though

(in reply to Terminus)
Post #: 230
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 4:02:04 PM   
VikingNo2


Posts: 2918
Joined: 1/26/2002
From: NC
Status: offline 		I think they do, and I believe he is, after the battle where the nick name comes from it discuraged his enemy's. Of course I am novice about this.

Most history is written by the winners by the way

< Message edited by VikingNo2 -- 10/30/2005 6:21:47 PM >

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Post #: 231
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 5:02:43 PM   
Puukkoo


Posts: 472
Joined: 7/19/2005
From: Seinäjoki, Finland
Status: offline 		And it's not only that Vlad Draculi had been better than his fame.

Russians have also claimed that Ivan the Terrible was not 'that evil'. They believe that he was actually quite lenient at least in the Russian scale.

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Post #: 232
RE: 3 years and nothing changed - 10/30/2005 10:46:21 PM   
SiG

 

Posts: 14
Joined: 10/29/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I've seen somewhere that a lot of Romanians these days think of him as a sort of folk hero. Is that accurate?

Yes. Many romanians today admire his swift justice. Romania today is plagued by corruption and this drives the people crazy, so they hope that "Lord Tepes" could come back to cleanse the land.
He is allso a national hero because he fought against the Turks, for the freedom of his country.

(in reply to Terminus)
Post #: 233
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