Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals

Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (Full Version)

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Mike Dubost -> Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/5/2008 6:12:53 PM)
In one of the old threads with new posts, I was reading the older posts and saw a discussion of how to simulate that fact that Italy, for example, was unlikely to pull out of North Africa to support a "kitchen sink" Barbarossa in real life. The issue is that as a team player, you want to support the overall Axis goal, while still getting objectives for Italy. I realize that the victory conditions are fixed for MWiF product 1, but I would like to place an idea before the group for a potential later addition. When I was in high school, my friends and I played a few games of WiF. I no longer recall if it was 3rd edition or 4th (it's been over 20 years). In that edition, the objectives were broken down into groups and assigned a point value. Each side secretly picked one group of objectives per theater in play (Europe and/or Pacific). The values for the objectives in that group were increased for that side. The thought occured to me that we could simulate the different national objectives by having each country pick a group. We could allow them to pick the same group, to indicate complete allignment of goals, or different groups to show the tension between differing goals. The picks would be important for determining individual victory (only). As I say, this is only food for thought, since the objective of MWiF Product 1 is to match WiF:FE, but this could make an interesting optional rule for added realism in later versions. Your thoughts?

KosMic -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/6/2008 6:56:56 PM)
That's an interesting suggestion, but probably best saved for a subsequent expansion. I've always thought certain objectives should have greater or lesser values for nations, as opposed to the current system where each one is worth the same to everyone.

Mike Dubost -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 2:27:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KosMic That's an interesting suggestion, but probably best saved for a subsequent expansion. I've always thought certain objectives should have greater or lesser values for nations, as opposed to the current system where each one is worth the same to everyone. Yeah, I agree that this would be for later. I just wanted to get it out there now, since I doubt I will remember it in a few months when the game is released.

brian brian -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 5:40:52 AM)
I can't say I miss those objective groups. As for making different places worth different points, I would not want to see this. An obvious one would be to make Suez or Cairo worth double for Italy. But would you really want that in the game? In a 6 player game, Italy would always be trying to get the Axis to support an Egyptian campaign. Anything that veers from the WWII historical line in WiF could be questioned. Is it 'historical' for Germany to build a lot of ships and dedicate it's war effort to conquering England? We all know Hitler just wasn't likely to have pursued that strategy. But if the possibility of Germany doing this was far less likely because Kiev was worth more victory points than London, WiF would have gotten stale a long time ago. For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. In general though I think the game works fine as a multi-player game, but is best with Japan and Italy combined, because we all know Italy is the least likely to survive until 1945. Solving the problem of Italy building nothing but air force to participate in Barbarossa could be better addressed by increasing the action limits on airplanes. The game encourages this as the action limits now stand; the Western Allies can see similar historically strange building programs later in the war. Is it realistic for the proud Free French to build nothing but landing craft and bombers? My idea for this would be to make any hex that is ground struck, port struck, or strategically bombed, cost one air mission, instead of each plane costing one mission. That would be a small easy change that could open up the game some I think. I would like to see one change to the victory cities; I think two of Truk, Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein, and Rabaul should be moved elsewhere. It strikes me as odd to make the central Pacific worth so much in the post-war world and I think the Rabaul and Kawajalein objectives could be moved to the Asian mainland.

composer99 -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 3:56:48 PM)
The objective system seems to work fine enough to me. One comment about Italy playing a Med campaign - at WiFCon every single Axis team at the tables that lasted the week (save the Classic game that the organizers were amusing themselves with when they weren't filling in elsewhere or adjudicating) conquered Gibraltar in 1941 and then turned on USSR in 1942. So Italy & Germany both got what they wanted: the Med secured so Italy could go the distance and a fat Italian airforce for Barbarossa, fed with USSR pact resources through 1941. Sure, a 1942 Barb won't go as far as a 1941 Barb, but you'll probably still pick up the 3 USSR objectives on the European map.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 7:37:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: brian brian I can't say I miss those objective groups. As for making different places worth different points, I would not want to see this. An obvious one would be to make Suez or Cairo worth double for Italy. But would you really want that in the game? In a 6 player game, Italy would always be trying to get the Axis to support an Egyptian campaign. Anything that veers from the WWII historical line in WiF could be questioned. Is it 'historical' for Germany to build a lot of ships and dedicate it's war effort to conquering England? We all know Hitler just wasn't likely to have pursued that strategy. But if the possibility of Germany doing this was far less likely because Kiev was worth more victory points than London, WiF would have gotten stale a long time ago. For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. In general though I think the game works fine as a multi-player game, but is best with Japan and Italy combined, because we all know Italy is the least likely to survive until 1945. Solving the problem of Italy building nothing but air force to participate in Barbarossa could be better addressed by increasing the action limits on airplanes. The game encourages this as the action limits now stand; the Western Allies can see similar historically strange building programs later in the war. Is it realistic for the proud Free French to build nothing but landing craft and bombers? My idea for this would be to make any hex that is ground struck, port struck, or strategically bombed, cost one air mission, instead of each plane costing one mission. That would be a small easy change that could open up the game some I think. I would like to see one change to the victory cities; I think two of Truk, Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein, and Rabaul should be moved elsewhere. It strikes me as odd to make the central Pacific worth so much in the post-war world and I think the Rabaul and Kawajalein objectives could be moved to the Asian mainland. The imbalance is that Italy does a ton of ground strikes/ground support which doesn't make a lot of sense historically. Or, to put it another way, players exploit a loophole/weakness in the rules to make the Italian air force more formidable than the German air force. To mitgate the power of the Kitchen Sink approach to Barbaroosa, it would seem to me to be simplest to limit the number of ground strikes/ground support missions Italy can perform, while letting them use all their air missions for other purposes if they so desire. So, while Itlay might have unlimited air missions, in general, never permitting them to have more than 1 or 2 ground strikes/ground support missions per impulse would cut down on some of the craziness.

brian brian -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 9:11:45 PM)
My initial thought is I think I would rather open up rules than try to get more historical realism by limiting things. The action limits are what make the Italians so effective in Barbarossa; their ground strikes are already limited some but what makes them also great is the rebasing of fighters. (And a good CW player should be able to make them refocus on Italy sooner rather than later). If you made it a lot easier to use the Luftwaffe instead, you might just see more pure-Italian garrisons in France instead, and you're back to the same problem. But maybe you're on to a good point, Steve. One of the problems all the countries faced was military bureaucracy. I just read a Len Deighton compendium type book that detailled the massive inefficiencies the British suffered through in their base areas in Alexandria, Cairo and Suez. The French surrendered in 1940 with hundreds of fighter planes that had never flown in combat. The Italians had similar problems; even the efficient Germans had some of these problems and meanwhile had other problems due to ideological constraints, much like the Russians. Thus, action limits in WiF I think. Gamers dislike them; the best wargamers never leave a piece sitting around doing nothing. But I would imagine supreme military leaders in WWII hated this too. I think what WiF gets slightly wrong is making it very easy to rebase planes around the map, but a bit more difficult to actually use them. I think the basing/logistics/maintenance were the limiting factors; once you got the planes/bombs/fuel/spare parts to the airfields you wanted to use, the planes would fly. At least ground support and interception don't count, but I think the mission limits could be opened up some while keeping tight limits on rebase. (Although I think being able to rail move airplanes during a land impulse would help some too.) But maybe the limits on strike missions actually simulate the basing throughput quite well.

peskpesk -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/7/2008 11:28:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets The imbalance is that Italy does a ton of ground strikes/ground support which doesn't make a lot of sense historically. Or, to put it another way, players exploit a loophole/weakness in the rules to make the Italian air force more formidable than the German air force. To mitgate the power of the Kitchen Sink approach to Barbaroosa, it would seem to me to be simplest to limit the number of ground strikes/ground support missions Italy can perform, while letting them use all their air missions for other purposes if they so desire. So, while Itlay might have unlimited air missions, in general, never permitting them to have more than 1 or 2 ground strikes/ground support missions per impulse would cut down on some of the craziness. If you play with Option 42. Allied combat friction it solves the ground support exploit Option 42: Subtract 1 from the dice for each attacking major power providing combat factors to the attack except the first (e.g. if Commonwealth land units are attacking with French shore bombardment and US ground support, subtract 2 from the die-roll). A General house option to stop the loophole can be Option 80 Limited Italian expeditionary forces in USSR If the Germany/Italy declared war on the USSR At anytime a maximum of four Italian units can enter the USSR Modified by the below - Add one for each printed European factory city in Axis controls in the USSR If the USSR declared war on Italy there is no limitation on the number of units that can enter the USSR

Mike Dubost -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 2:44:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: brian brian I can't say I miss those objective groups. As for making different places worth different points, I would not want to see this. An obvious one would be to make Suez or Cairo worth double for Italy. But would you really want that in the game? In a 6 player game, Italy would always be trying to get the Axis to support an Egyptian campaign. Anything that veers from the WWII historical line in WiF could be questioned. Is it 'historical' for Germany to build a lot of ships and dedicate it's war effort to conquering England? We all know Hitler just wasn't likely to have pursued that strategy. But if the possibility of Germany doing this was far less likely because Kiev was worth more victory points than London, WiF would have gotten stale a long time ago. For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. In general though I think the game works fine as a multi-player game, but is best with Japan and Italy combined, because we all know Italy is the least likely to survive until 1945. Solving the problem of Italy building nothing but air force to participate in Barbarossa could be better addressed by increasing the action limits on airplanes. The game encourages this as the action limits now stand; the Western Allies can see similar historically strange building programs later in the war. Is it realistic for the proud Free French to build nothing but landing craft and bombers? My idea for this would be to make any hex that is ground struck, port struck, or strategically bombed, cost one air mission, instead of each plane costing one mission. That would be a small easy change that could open up the game some I think. I did not explain myself clearly enough. The "kitchen sink Barbarosa" is merely where the discussion began. I had not intended to require Italy to pick the Med. group. The historical Mussolini did, but a player could choose otherwise. It just sparked the thought that the 2 European Axis powers had "selected different groups". Your hypothetical anti-Bolshevik Mussolini would pick the group containing the USSR, and a naval-minded Hitler would pick the group containing the UK. The idea would be to allow a choice, independent of what the other powers chose, and giving extra rewards for success in a region of significance. A total alignment of goals would be simulated by choosing the same group, but even closely cooporating allies did not view each "objective" equally. The UK was much more interested in driving Japan out of Burma than the US was, so Churchill weighted the southeast Asian group more heavily than FDR did. A hypothetical FDR who selected southeast Asia as a major objective group would pursue a much different strategy than that pursued by the historical USA, but it would not be wrong, just different. Anyway, I am glad that the idea has sparked some good discussion.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 6:01:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost quote: ORIGINAL: brian brian I can't say I miss those objective groups. As for making different places worth different points, I would not want to see this. An obvious one would be to make Suez or Cairo worth double for Italy. But would you really want that in the game? In a 6 player game, Italy would always be trying to get the Axis to support an Egyptian campaign. Anything that veers from the WWII historical line in WiF could be questioned. Is it 'historical' for Germany to build a lot of ships and dedicate it's war effort to conquering England? We all know Hitler just wasn't likely to have pursued that strategy. But if the possibility of Germany doing this was far less likely because Kiev was worth more victory points than London, WiF would have gotten stale a long time ago. For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. In general though I think the game works fine as a multi-player game, but is best with Japan and Italy combined, because we all know Italy is the least likely to survive until 1945. Solving the problem of Italy building nothing but air force to participate in Barbarossa could be better addressed by increasing the action limits on airplanes. The game encourages this as the action limits now stand; the Western Allies can see similar historically strange building programs later in the war. Is it realistic for the proud Free French to build nothing but landing craft and bombers? My idea for this would be to make any hex that is ground struck, port struck, or strategically bombed, cost one air mission, instead of each plane costing one mission. That would be a small easy change that could open up the game some I think. I did not explain myself clearly enough. The "kitchen sink Barbarosa" is merely where the discussion began. I had not intended to require Italy to pick the Med. group. The historical Mussolini did, but a player could choose otherwise. It just sparked the thought that the 2 European Axis powers had "selected different groups". Your hypothetical anti-Bolshevik Mussolini would pick the group containing the USSR, and a naval-minded Hitler would pick the group containing the UK. The idea would be to allow a choice, independent of what the other powers chose, and giving extra rewards for success in a region of significance. A total alignment of goals would be simulated by choosing the same group, but even closely cooporating allies did not view each "objective" equally. The UK was much more interested in driving Japan out of Burma than the US was, so Churchill weighted the southeast Asian group more heavily than FDR did. A hypothetical FDR who selected southeast Asia as a major objective group would pursue a much different strategy than that pursued by the historical USA, but it would not be wrong, just different. Anyway, I am glad that the idea has sparked some good discussion. I played in a tournament at an Origins (in the 1970's) where the players drew their objective evaluations randomly from a hat. I crushed my opponent in a Civil War game slaughtering his units 5 to 1 to my losses, conquering the entire map and reducing him to 2 units remaining. Needless to say, I lost that game because he had victory conditions that if he destroyed a small number of my units he automatically won.[:@] I've never been keen on hidden victory conditions since then.[:-]

yvesp -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 9:48:53 AM)
The initial suggestion has merits of it's own that are worth discussing. For exemple, why would the axis attack Greece in WiF ? There is little to gain, and much to lose as Greece is costly to keep secure, due to it's large shoreline. However, historically, it was almost unavoidable because it was part of the Mussolinian dream of reforming the antique "mare nostrum". The question then is : how to bring in the game incentives to push the players (or that AIO) in such directions (which may be detrimental to the "big plan".) It is indeed interesting that the game itself offers an optional rule for something along the same lines (diverging centers of interest), but which much less strategical impact : I speak of the "japanese command conflict rule" of course. Why would it not be possible/interesting to devise optional rules to reflect the diverging interests of the various powers ? If not implemented in terms of victory points, it could be in other terms ; for exemple, Italy might not commit more planes to the russian front (or whatever non-mediteranean front) than the number of german corps committed to the mediteranean fronts. Such rules would add some "realism" to the game ; Rommel never went to Lybia due to a grand plan by Hitler to seize Egypt (he'd have loved it though) ; rather he went as a way to prevent a breakdown of the Italian army that would have been a blow to the whole axis image : what optional rule could incite such behavior ? On the other hand, I agree with Steve that these rules (be it in victory conditions or whatever) should not be opaque : every player has to know the other players interests and special rules. Yves

iamspamus -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 5:04:39 PM)
I kind of like the idea of choosing which objectives that you are going after, but as others said maybe later. quote: ORIGINAL: brian brian {snip} For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. For the first part, this is hypothesis. The game starts at a specific point and then becomes alternate history as it unfolds. These heightened Communist threats didn't happen in the 1920's, so they would not factor in. This is something to add to Days of Decision or something like that. For the second part, releasing colonies is our current thinking. This was the age of having colonies if you were important. (OK it was the END of that age, but still...) Even England kept their colonies til after the war and reluctantly gave them up then. Italy came late to the game and was not going to give them up, which is why Hitler had to bail out Mussolini in Africa and the Balkans. In fact, part of the reason that Franco didn't get into the war was some of the stuff that he claimed in Africa was already claimed by Mussolini. Not something to give up without a big fight. quote: {snip} Solving the problem of Italy building nothing but air force to participate in Barbarossa could be better addressed by increasing the action limits on airplanes. The game encourages this as the action limits now stand; the Western Allies can see similar historically strange building programs later in the war. Is it realistic for the proud Free French to build nothing but landing craft and bombers? My idea for this would be to make any hex that is ground struck, port struck, or strategically bombed, cost one air mission, instead of each plane costing one mission. That would be a small easy change that could open up the game some I think. {snip} I like the action limits change. I think that they started with wif and were never really adjusted as pif, sif, asif, afif, etc were all added. This would not be RAW at all, but is something that I've thought about since the "final edition" (snicker) came out. Jason

iamspamus -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 5:11:05 PM)
Steve, I don't think that it's an imbalance. The issue is that this is something that they can choose to do within historical constraints. The Germans can go after Gibraltar or the UK or Russia or all three. (they didn't do all of them.) The US can go after Japan first rather than Germany first. Britain can try to put a real presence on the continent before 1944. Japan can go after Russia in 1939 or 40 or 41. I like the liberty to choose. I don't think these type of restrictions need to be added. If the Italians put all of their stuff into A/C which are then sent to Russia, then punish them by hitting them earlier. I think that it'll work itself out. Jason quote: ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets The imbalance is that Italy does a ton of ground strikes/ground support which doesn't make a lot of sense historically. Or, to put it another way, players exploit a loophole/weakness in the rules to make the Italian air force more formidable than the German air force. To mitgate the power of the Kitchen Sink approach to Barbaroosa, it would seem to me to be simplest to limit the number of ground strikes/ground support missions Italy can perform, while letting them use all their air missions for other purposes if they so desire. So, while Itlay might have unlimited air missions, in general, never permitting them to have more than 1 or 2 ground strikes/ground support missions per impulse would cut down on some of the craziness.

Froonp -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 5:15:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost In one of the old threads with new posts, I was reading the older posts and saw a discussion of how to simulate that fact that Italy, for example, was unlikely to pull out of North Africa to support a "kitchen sink" Barbarossa in real life. The issue is that as a team player, you want to support the overall Axis goal, while still getting objectives for Italy. I realize that the victory conditions are fixed for MWiF product 1, but I would like to place an idea before the group for a potential later addition. When I was in high school, my friends and I played a few games of WiF. I no longer recall if it was 3rd edition or 4th (it's been over 20 years). In that edition, the objectives were broken down into groups and assigned a point value. Each side secretly picked one group of objectives per theater in play (Europe and/or Pacific). The values for the objectives in that group were increased for that side. The thought occured to me that we could simulate the different national objectives by having each country pick a group. We could allow them to pick the same group, to indicate complete allignment of goals, or different groups to show the tension between differing goals. The picks would be important for determining individual victory (only). As I say, this is only food for thought, since the objective of MWiF Product 1 is to match WiF:FE, but this could make an interesting optional rule for added realism in later versions. I know that ADG has considered high water marks kind of victory conditions, mixed with objective cities controlled at the end of the game victory conditions, and I think that this would be a good addition to MWiF product 2 if ADG finaly publishes something like that.

Froonp -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 5:20:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: peskpesk If you play with Option 42. Allied combat friction it solves the ground support exploit Option 42: Subtract 1 from the dice for each attacking major power providing combat factors to the attack except the first (e.g. if Commonwealth land units are attacking with French shore bombardment and US ground support, subtract 2 from the die-roll). I agree.

composer99 -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 6:59:02 PM)
To be honest, I think the current action limit and victory objective system work fine, although I would not object to some sort of high-water-mark objective system for the Axis. The present victory system already rewards the Axis for attempting to maximize their expansion (including into the Med). The combination of overwhelming CW/US airpower in 1944-45 and USSR city-based production multiple increases in 42 and 43 mean that if the Axis have not significantly expanded their defensive perimeter (either in the Med, in the USSR or in the Pacific) they can probably be reduced to below their baseline objective requirements by the end of the game. While the action limit system does encourage a 'kitchen-sink' Barb (along with the "USA builds land/CW builds air" (or reverse) over-specialization), I think such a strategy leaves the European Axis far too vulnerable to early Western Allied offensive activity (especially if the CW built AMPH early on).

brian brian -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/8/2008 8:23:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: iamspamus For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. For the first part, this is hypothesis. The game starts at a specific point and then becomes alternate history as it unfolds. It wasn't anything needed to add to the game. It was just an idea of how an Italy attacking Russia strategy _could_ have came about in an alternate history, of which every game of WiF is. It's not something that has to be added to the game, just leave the players free to do what they want. Leading them more and more towards recreating WWII is exactly what WiF is NOT about, and the reason it has been such a heavily played game for so long. If you want to recreate WWII, there are players who would be glad to agree to sticking with historical strategies. But if you write rules to force people into more historical lines beyond the bare minimum constraints currently in RaW, a lot of players would just treat those rules as optional.

Mike Dubost -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/9/2008 3:18:46 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: brian brian quote: ORIGINAL: iamspamus For Italy going 'all-in' with Germany during Barbarossa, it's not hard to imagine a somewhat different Italy trying this; maybe Italy went through turbulent Communist revolutions in the 20s and Mussolini came to power as a fervent anti-Communist in the Hitler mode. As for the Italian empire, their colonies were actually a drain on the treasury; perhaps Mussonlini encouraged emigration to countries like the USA where his peeps could be sending money back to Italy instead of costing him money trying to colonize Libya. For the first part, this is hypothesis. The game starts at a specific point and then becomes alternate history as it unfolds. It wasn't anything needed to add to the game. It was just an idea of how an Italy attacking Russia strategy _could_ have came about in an alternate history, of which every game of WiF is. It's not something that has to be added to the game, just leave the players free to do what they want. Leading them more and more towards recreating WWII is exactly what WiF is NOT about, and the reason it has been such a heavily played game for so long. If you want to recreate WWII, there are players who would be glad to agree to sticking with historical strategies. But if you write rules to force people into more historical lines beyond the bare minimum constraints currently in RaW, a lot of players would just treat those rules as optional. I agree that we don't want to force players into the historical path, but I think it would be fun to have optional rules to simulate the historical choices facing the powers a bit more closely. As it stands, there is no way to show the tension between different natonal objectives. As far as it being a bit opaque to your opponents, I consider that a feature, not a bug. In order for it to matter much, your side still has to win, but there was not complete certainty over what it would take to win the real war. I expect that certain aspects of the choice will become readily apparent. An Italian who pulls out of Libya clearly has not chosen the Med group, for example.[;)] Your milage may vary, so if it is done at all, it must be an optional rule. There are probably as many sets of prefered optional rules as there are WiF players. I am not offended if you disagree with my opinion, but I do enjoy discussing it and attempting to defend it.

morgil -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/19/2008 10:21:40 AM)
What does the term 'kitchen-sink" mean ?

Froonp -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/19/2008 10:42:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: morgil What does the term 'kitchen-sink" mean ? It is a short for "throwing the kitchen-sink". I understand that this is an expression that means that you are throwing everything you can at your adversary to beat him, everything you have at hand, even the kitchen-sink. Which means that you have throwed all that can be throwed already. In WiF this means that you are doing an all out attack, neglecting every other theaters to attack this one. Usually this is the Axis against Russia.

Frederyck -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/19/2008 6:17:13 PM)
It is an idiom: "Everything but the kitchen sink", where you are bringing basically everything with you when you leave for something. Apart from the kitchen sink which usually is considered too bulky/difficult to remove from your house. It's the last item you'd bring. For example: "He brought everything but the kitchen sink when he went camping". So a "kitchen sink" strategy is as Patrice says when you bring every little unit available to a particular campaign, no matter the consequences elsewhere.

Neilster -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/20/2008 3:27:48 PM)
Actually, it usually means "everything, including the kitchen sink". That is, everything you've got. I'm sure Swedish kitchen sinks are of such excellent design and high quality that no-one would dream of throwing one [;)] Cheers, Neilster

composer99 -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/20/2008 5:20:01 PM)
The standard metaphor is as Frederyck notes - everything but the kitchen sink. In the context of the "kitchen-sink" Barbarossa, Neilster has the metaphor down pat - the Germans & Italians (and even the Japanese) go all-out against the USSR, neglecting every other theatre in a single-minded bid for victory.

Neilster -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/21/2008 4:26:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: composer99 The standard metaphor is as Frederyck notes - everything but the kitchen sink. In the context of the "kitchen-sink" Barbarossa, Neilster has the metaphor down pat - the Germans & Italians (and even the Japanese) go all-out against the USSR, neglecting every other theatre in a single-minded bid for victory. Ah! but Australian kitchen sinks are traditionally flimsy rubbish that one would be happy to remove and fling at something/someone, to be replaced with a high quality one, possibly from Sweden. That's why the expression has a different meaning here. Probably. Of course I could be wrong [:'(] Our kitchen sinks now compare with the best in the world! It's the ruthless international competition you see. There was a savage shake-out of the local kitchen sink industry, leaving only the best companies. It's really a fascinating story [:D] p.s. Don't get me started on laundry tubs. Cheers, Neilster

Frederyck -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/21/2008 7:07:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Neilster Ah! but Australian kitchen sinks are traditionally flimsy rubbish that one would be happy to remove and fling at something/someone, to be replaced with a high quality one, possibly from Sweden. That's why the expression has a different meaning here. Probably. Of course I could be wrong [:'(] Our kitchen sinks now compare with the best in the world! It's the ruthless international competition you see. There was a savage shake-out of the local kitchen sink industry, leaving only the best companies. It's really a fascinating story [:D] p.s. Don't get me started on laundry tubs. Cheers, Neilster IKEA will conquer the world with their sturdy, yet amazingly cheap kitchen sinks (DOMSJ�). If only Germany had had access to the IKEA range of tanks as well, then the world would look mighty different now.* [:D] * The latest issue of the IKEA home catalogue includes the fast and efficient GUDERIAN and the popular and easy to carry HOBART.

micheljq -> RE: Food for Thought-Simulating Different National Goals (10/22/2008 1:21:36 PM)
IKEA will conquer the world with their sturdy, yet amazingly cheap kitchen sinks (DOMSJ�). If only Germany had had access to the IKEA range of tanks as well, then the world would look mighty different now.* [:D] * The latest issue of the IKEA home catalogue includes the fast and efficient GUDERIAN and the popular and easy to carry HOBART. [/quote] IKEA already conquered my kitchen.

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