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ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Compare this with the Soviet ability to NOT create inefficient 1942 corps combat units (42a and 42b Rifle Corps). Soviet players are encouraged NOT to create these units and instead to use the existing divisions. They skip the inefficiencies and magically STAVKA figures out how to improve on Corps anyway.

Soviets already have the ability to bypass TOE mistakes and inefficiencies.
Germany can actually end up through withdrawals having a worse army than was historical, but that NEVER bothers the Sovie-o-phile side of the playing community.

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ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

My reply is in red

What we know is that Germany must stick to its actual TOE at each and every step of the war.
Soviets do not.

I think you mean OOB not TOE as neither side can change the TOEs in an ongoing game. Giving the Axis player the ability to create units would not dramatically effect the game as he really doesn't have the resources to do much different than what was done historically and there is very little diversification in his TOEs to begin with.

Any serious game player can take one look at that dynamic and know that strategic playing options are wildly different for the two sides.
Germany is on rails to withdraw Totenkopf in the second half of 42 irrespective of whether there is a Demyansk pocket.

Germany greatly narrowed its strategic options when it initiated a two front war; as the Axis player you must live with the consequences of that decision. You can control what happens on the Eastern Front but not what's happening on those other fronts or decisions being made by the supreme command; you are not Hitler.

So you waste your breath talking to me about history, I'm talking about equanimity in play (though not identical capabilities).

The Soviets get all sorts of tools and abilities with which to improve the efficacy of their whole army that results in a seriously improved 1942 and 1943 fighting force over history's. They get to learn lessons without first failing.

You can't seriously try to tell me that the Axis player doesn't benefit from historical hindsight. Yeah, he might not be able to improve his army but he can certainly improve how it was used.

Germany, meanwhile, can have the entire summer's worth of success snatched from it by the fiat of arbitrary adherence to history. It occurs in morale drops, it occurs in TOE changes, it occurs in withdrawals.

The withdrawals have already be explained, both sides have TOE changes and German TOEs don't significantly decline until late 1943, and German morale is superior to Soviet morale up until 1944.

What I see is a huge community of soviet-fan players who do not care that their opponent's major setbacks are handed to him by game design, not you.

To me, you all have no meaningful concept of fair play.
And this is why I encourage people considering this or future Matrix titles to pay attention to the lop-sided nature of the discussions, the hypocritical and selective adherence to history, the personal attacks against people with different opinions, and my favorite, the insults based on what you have or have not read.

This is Matrix games and its fan base.
This is the future of War in the West.

If you desire a game in which both sides have an equal chance to "win" then games like WitE are not your cup of tea. In any valid simulation of an historical conflict the probability of the historical victor winning has to be greater than 50%. How much greater depends on how overwhelming the historical victor's victory was. Given that the Axis forces were utterly crushed and its supreme command forced to commit suicide, I would say that the Soviet victory was rather overwhelming.

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To re-state my position is less snarky terms, go ahead and put a production OPTION in the game to let people who want to fiddle with it fiddle with it. Don't spend a lot of debug time trying to dig out the deeply buried bugs, but include the function as an untested Beta option.

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ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Compare this with the Soviet ability to NOT create inefficient 1942 corps combat units (42a and 42b Rifle Corps). Soviet players are encouraged NOT to create these units and instead to use the existing divisions. They skip the inefficiencies and magically STAVKA figures out how to improve on Corps anyway.

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ORIGINAL: jaw

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ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

My reply is in red

What we know is that Germany must stick to its actual TOE at each and every step of the war.
Soviets do not.

I think you mean OOB not TOE as neither side can change the TOEs in an ongoing game. Giving the Axis player the ability to create units would not dramatically effect the game as he really doesn't have the resources to do much different than what was done historically and there is very little diversification in his TOEs to begin with.

Any serious game player can take one look at that dynamic and know that strategic playing options are wildly different for the two sides.
Germany is on rails to withdraw Totenkopf in the second half of 42 irrespective of whether there is a Demyansk pocket.

Germany greatly narrowed its strategic options when it initiated a two front war; as the Axis player you must live with the consequences of that decision. You can control what happens on the Eastern Front but not what's happening on those other fronts or decisions being made by the supreme command; you are not Hitler.

So you waste your breath talking to me about history, I'm talking about equanimity in play (though not identical capabilities).

The Soviets get all sorts of tools and abilities with which to improve the efficacy of their whole army that results in a seriously improved 1942 and 1943 fighting force over history's. They get to learn lessons without first failing.

You can't seriously try to tell me that the Axis player doesn't benefit from historical hindsight. Yeah, he might not be able to improve his army but he can certainly improve how it was used.

Germany, meanwhile, can have the entire summer's worth of success snatched from it by the fiat of arbitrary adherence to history. It occurs in morale drops, it occurs in TOE changes, it occurs in withdrawals.

The withdrawals have already be explained, both sides have TOE changes and German TOEs don't significantly decline until late 1943, and German morale is superior to Soviet morale up until 1944.

What I see is a huge community of soviet-fan players who do not care that their opponent's major setbacks are handed to him by game design, not you.

To me, you all have no meaningful concept of fair play.
And this is why I encourage people considering this or future Matrix titles to pay attention to the lop-sided nature of the discussions, the hypocritical and selective adherence to history, the personal attacks against people with different opinions, and my favorite, the insults based on what you have or have not read.

This is Matrix games and its fan base.
This is the future of War in the West.

If you desire a game in which both sides have an equal chance to "win" then games like WitE are not your cup of tea. In any valid simulation of an historical conflict the probability of the historical victor winning has to be greater than 50%. How much greater depends on how overwhelming the historical victor's victory was. Given that the Axis forces were utterly crushed and its supreme command forced to commit suicide, I would say that the Soviet victory was rather overwhelming.

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ORIGINAL: randallw

If it is unfair for the Soviet player to be able to avoid the early rifle corps, what should be done in game terms? Should the player be 'forced' to build some, or be penalized APs? Should the first X rifle corps be the early TOE, no matter whether they are actually put together?

If we want the option for the Germans to stop their TOE changes, does the Soviet side get that option too? If the Germans get the option of avoiding teeny panzer divisions and globs of crap Volksturm divisions does the Soviet player get to keep his tank divisions through the war ( instead of the breakdown into brigades in 1941, then experience penalty when tank corps are created the next year ), and motorized divisions, and keep rifle divisions of 1941 at 14k men ( instead of having to switch to the 1941B division of 10k )?

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ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
I want control over my TOE upgrade dates......just a simple switch...."upgrade available" and I get to choose whether or not to upgrade that particular unit and when. I would like control over armor upgrade/downgrade ability within defined types.....light, med, heavy, assault etc.......

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ORIGINAL: randallw

If it is unfair for the Soviet player to be able to avoid the early rifle corps, what should be done in game terms? Should the player be 'forced' to build some, or be penalized APs? Should the first X rifle corps be the early TOE, no matter whether they are actually put together?

If we want the option for the Germans to stop their TOE changes, does the Soviet side get that option too? If the Germans get the option of avoiding teeny panzer divisions and globs of crap Volksturm divisions does the Soviet player get to keep his tank divisions through the war ( instead of the breakdown into brigades in 1941, then experience penalty when tank corps are created the next year ), and motorized divisions, and keep rifle divisions of 1941 at 14k men ( instead of having to switch to the 1941B division of 10k )?

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ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Well, do we have a list of all the Russian units that were built by the Russians at will like they do in the game?

He seems to want the German to be strictly historical, while the Russians have complete freedom to design their army at will. If he wanted a strictly historical simulation then why on earth did he allow the Russian players complete freedom?

Your tossing the same argument as everyone else about everything. "But the Germans did not have that in real life" when we are saying "why do the Russians have the ability to construct their army from the ground up at will".

Not some BS about lists........I would be perfectly happy if the Russian ability to build anything outside of completely historical OOB was removed and they had to deal with the same thing the German players have to deal with. They can have their units arrive via exact timetable just like the German player. If a Russian is destroyed, his unit will do the same as the German, head east and rebuild. They can have no more and no less than what the Russians had in WW2.

Then the playing field would actually feel more level.

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He seems to want the German to be strictly historical, while the Russians have complete freedom to design their army at will. If he wanted a strictly historical simulation then why on earth did he allow the Russian players complete freedom?

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He seems to want the German to be strictly historical, while the Russians have complete freedom to design their army at will. If he wanted a strictly historical simulation then why on earth did he allow the Russian players complete freedom?

Helpless

You are fighting the windmills. There is no such advantage you are talking about. As Jim says I'm yet to see the late war save file with the historical amount of units built. In fact if you made such list it won't fit into the current amount of free slots. Not to mention arranging all the time schedule. Game still would be in development.

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Game was released year ago and still received patch after patch, what mean that there were some misjudgements.

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If I am right and development team is not omnipotent, then why do You thing You are right in that case, when clearly other option wasn't extensively tested?

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In my opinion. fact that it is possible to adjust Soviet army according to in-game situation is big advantage for red side.

When I saw Soviet army in AAR presenting "Don to Danube" scenario I lost all of my doubts.

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If I am right and development team is not omnipotent, then why do You thing You are right in that case, when clearly other option wasn't extensively tested?

Helpless


Don't understand how opinion can be tested..

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In my opinion. fact that it is possible to adjust Soviet army according to in-game situation is big advantage for red side.

When I saw Soviet army in AAR presenting "Don to Danube" scenario I lost all of my doubts.

Helpless

It is possible to do ahistorical things for each side.

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hehe, that was unnecessary remark

and I have to confess I have written option not opinion

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First blizzard. Soviet cavalry corps.

Is Soviet side benefiting from ability to build them or it does not matter what kind of units Soviet army consists of?

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ORIGINAL: jaw

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ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Look at a lot of the units withdrawn from the Russian front historically......they were withdrawn to be rebuilt because they were devastated. Not all of them mind you, but a bunch of them had suffered tremendous losses. Look at the German withdraws in Spring 1942......what pressing front were they heading to? None, they were devastated during the blizzard of 41 and needed to refit and retrain. Now, currently, those units leave whether I suffer a single loss to that unit or not. I have watched withdrawing Panzer Div fill out with the cream of the tanks, while the ones I have left are using so called obsolete designs. If the production we currently have is only what basically went to the Eastern front, why must my Eastern Front portion of that production be used to fill out the unit. Let that puppy use the remaining production NOT going to the east. Barring that, give me control so that I have the better tanks for my remaining units.

Now, when or if the linking of the games occurs, then I will have to choose who gets short changed in the deal. Which front is in more pressing need.

I think you don't understand the withdrawals. The only units being withdrawn from the game are those that were either re-deployed to another front (e.g. 10th Panzer Division) or substantially re-organized (e.g. the SS motorized divisions). As long as a unit returned to the Eastern Front after re-building, it is not a withdrawal in the game.

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hehe, that was unnecessary remark

and I have to confess I have written option not opinion

Helpless

it doesn't change the fact - I see no way how we could test (every) option, which is still driven by someone's subjective opinion.

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First blizzard. Soviet cavalry corps.

Is Soviet side benefiting from ability to build them or it does not matter what kind of units Soviet army consists of?

Helpless

I don't understand the question?

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He seems to want the German to be strictly historical, while the Russians have complete freedom to design their army at will. If he wanted a strictly historical simulation then why on earth did he allow the Russian players complete freedom?

Helpless

You are fighting the windmills. There is no such advantage you are talking about. As Jim says I'm yet to see the late war save file with the historical amount of units built. In fact if you made such list it won't fit into the current amount of free slots. Not to mention arranging all the time schedule. Game still would be in development.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MechFO

My comments are in red.

Yes and no. I was looking at Nbw units the other day and what I found was:

WITE:

- unit first in the east, at date xy unit get transferred to the West

Reality:

-unit gets destroyed in the East, gets rebuilt in one of the western Wehrkreise, and because the western front is nearer, gets sent there instead of trucking all the way back east. Very logical.


However, while at first glance these seem the same event, they are not. The rebuilt unit was in quite a few cases new from the ground up (old one was pocketed, got overrun in Bagration etc.), de facto the unit in the West had nothing to do with the old one except reusing a pre-existing name, which was an administrative convenience, nothing more. There's no reason a differently named unit couldn't have been setup with those resources instead, or the resources being used as replacements.

If a unit is withdrawn from the Eastern Front never to return it is a withdrawal. It doesn't matter what the reason for the withdrawal was or what the subsequent fate of the withdrawn unit is. Likewise it doesn't matter what the reason is for a unit being a reinforcement. If it is sent to the Eastern Front it is a reinforcement.

The WITE handling in this context doesn't make sense, because it uses the rebuilt units war history instead of recognizing that from the point of destruction onwards, the real path and game path diverge, and have to diverge. A new unit being set up and then used in the West is very different from withdrawing a functional active unit in the East and sending it West, yet WITE treats both events as being equivalent.

Units in the West that never go East are not in the game.

This pretty identical to the handling of my pet peeve, German Divisional Arty TOE's. Sure, WITE is replicating historical administrative decisions, but without any regard for why those decisions were made and in which context the decisions were taken.

I've raised your concern with Joel and offered a compromise solution but have not gotten a decision as of yet.

EDIT: To me this seems like attempting to avoid potential problems with the Pull-production model if the Germans were to be given more control over their units. If that's the case, give the Germans more control over unit administration and instead impose the limits where they really exited: production. The same mechanism thats's being used for tanks now could also be used for guns. Production figures for everything above 20mm are fairly easily available. No guns in the pool pretty much puts paid to the notion you can have unlimited Arty even if you have the AP's, but the player should be able to use the available !historical! numbers as he sees fit.

We've thought about that but for the moment have kicked that can down the road.

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ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Well, do we have a list of all the Russian units that were built by the Russians at will like they do in the game?
.

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ORIGINAL: Baron von Beer

Jaw: Units that withdrew. Trouble is that some that never withdrew in reality, are still withdrawn in game. Eg: 29th Motorized division. Destroyed at Stalingrad. New division with same name formed.IE new equipment, new personnel, a new division, same number, and sent to Sicily. In WITE world, 29th withdraws. [&:] Reality, had it not been destroyed = 2 motorised divisions. WITE = 1 division.

Same for most of the Stalingrad divisions. New divisions built and went elsewhere, in WITE, original unit sent. 2 separate divisions treated as a single by the game.

Same applies to many support units, etc.

As it currently stands in the world according to WITE, the Yorktown class Yorktown and the Essex class Yorktown were the same ship.

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ORIGINAL: jaw
To begin with, let me say that what I'm trying to do when I comment is to explain the design decisions and the reasoning behind them. Whether you except those decisions or not is your choice but at least I hope I've given everyone a better understanding of the game design.

Your 29th Motorized division example is a good one because it exemplifies the withdrawal philosophy of WitE. The 29th is NOT withdrawn because the historical division was destroyed at Stalingrad. The 29th is withdrawn because a motorized division from the Eastern Front re-building in the West was sent to Italy. In WitE terms what happened at Stalingrad has nothing to do with the 29th's withdrawal. If you check the withdrawal date you will note that the 29th does not withdraw when its historical counterpart surrendered at Stalingrad. The 29th withdraws when it was re-built and sent to Italy.

We could have taken the approach of the old SPI WAR IN THE EAST board game and only had withdrawals or reinforcements when the net strength of the German Army in the East changed. The problem with that approach however is that it doesn't work very well when units can fluxuate in strength as the do in WitE. If a message popped up saying "withdraw one motorized division to the West" what Axis player isn't going to send the weakest division he has to fill the requirement?

What you are asking for is full War In Europe game where you are Hitler and you determine what goes where when. Unfortunately that game is still a few years off.