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Harrybanana -> RE: Observations from a Casual Gamer (5/31/2015 9:25:23 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Arne Beruldsen
I just finished the Main Campaign as the Allies vs the AI. I play a lot of war games (Total War, Panzer Core, WITE, Civilization, Civil War II, To End All Wars ...) and always against the AI. Here's what I noted playing a complete campaign in WITW. I make these observations assuming the the developers want WITW to be playable to gamers of all levels (grognards to newbies):
1. The Learning Curve is simply too Steep especially the Air Campaign. After a million restarts, countless posts on the forum, I still don't feel like I have a decent grasp on how to play the game. Here's my recommendation...at the beginning of every turn have an Adviser, like your Chief of Staff, make suggestions and observations. Here are some examples...you'll need so much shipping tonnage for 5 landings (I learned this the hard way), some of your Air Drops are not valid (still don't fully understand why some aren't), there a 20 V-Rockets in xxx city that would be a good target, you are seriously short on fuel in 5th and 9th Armies. You get the idea. I understand all this info is available if you dig deep enough ... but doing hours of research, each turn, detracts from a fun gaming experience. A quick summary at the start of every turn would be very helpful. Here's what happened to me. I spent all this time planning for an 8 TF landing in France only to realize at the moment of execution that I didn't have nearly enough shipping. Obviously, that was a big mistake on a number of fronts but the point is I had invested all that time only have to restart my game. Very frustrating. Frustrated gamers are not happy gamers.
I think your adviser is a good idea. Not sure if it could be made to work or not.
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2. The Air Campaign. After all those restarts I believe I figured out how things worked ... but I never got a sense of what was working. As a result I probably spent too much time using my Tac Bombers (especially Typhoons) on Panzer units and with good success. Railyards, Railroads, Units, Manpower, Interdiction are all fuzzy. I have ADs on Interdiction and I see these big numbers in yellow on the results screen but I don't know what they mean and I certainly don't want to drill down to find out the specifics. I liked managing all those squadrons but the user experience needs to be improved.
There is no short answer here, you have to read the manual. What would be nice is if the manual had an index so you could, for example, look up "interdiction" and get the pages numbers where it is referred to. FYI you can see the results of your interdiction by pressing one button on the toolbar. This will display number on the map (from 0 to 9) showing your level of interdiction in each hex. The higher the number the better. Interdicted hexes will slow movement, hamper supply, cause disorganization and increase casualties on units retreating through them.
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3. What's with the Other Losses. On many, many turns the biggest number was Other Losses. I've heard it might losses in transport but it must be more than that since I often had big numbers when no units where being transported. This category needs to be expanded so it is clearer how to avoid these losses.
"Other Losses" means Other than US Losses. In other words losses to the British, Canadians, etc. You receive more negative VPs for losses to these units than you do to your US forces.
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4. Bombing Cities. Ok, I get it, you need to bomb cities to reduce German production. But what cities and how many each turn? I've heard some folks were getting 14-16 bombing VPs a turn. I never got over 9 and most of the time much less. A little guidance here would be helpful.
People were only gaining 14-16 (actually some claim they got as much as 18-20 VPs per turn) in 1943. In 1944 the VPs you gain from bombing are reduced so you are doing good to get 4-5 VPs perturn. Also, you only get VPs for bombing certain things: namely HI and Manpower in Germany and Oil and Fuel anywhere (you get VPs for bombing something else but I forget what). The other targets (aircraft, vehicles, AFVs, etc) do not gain you any VPs. So your only purpose in bombing them would be to reduce German production to hinder their war effort. However, there is currently a debate in the Forum as tho whether or not Strategic Bombing does anything to impact (or at least seriously impact) the German war effort. For example, The German tends to run out of pilots long before he runs out of planes. For this reason most WA Players have just been bombing for VPs. In this case you primarily want to target the HI and manpower as they are repaired more slowly than Oil and fuel. But upcoming rule changes may change this.
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5. Bombing U-Boats and V-Rockets. Late in my last campaign I found a way to list the targets by type (just V-Rockets and Lauchers for example). How many do you have to destroy to get a point? Given that these make up much of your VPs, a summary, as noted in #1 above, would be helpful.
You do not get any points for bombing U-Boats and V rockets. But in 1943 you gain negative VPs (call them German VPs deducted from your WA VPs if you want) for U-boats and in 1944 and later you gain negative VPs for V-Weapons. The larger the U-boat factory or V-weapon factory or launch facility the more negaitive VPs you get. So you want to target the larger sites. However, just 1 point of damage prevents that site from generating and negative VPs. In other words it makes no difference if the site has 1% or 100% damage, either way it won't hurt you that turn. Of course, the more damage it has the longer it will take to repair.
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6. Aircraft Type and Loads. I had some fun playing with this but I had no idea what worked. Early in my campaign, I switched a bunch of Spitfires to Typhoons, not realizing they would be inactive to 2 months. When you make this change a message box should appear indicating this and perhaps how many are in transition. There should be a summary where you can go that helps in spelling out what aircraft are best for what and the corresponding loads. The Air Campaign is daunting ... anything that simplifies the process would be helpful and add to the enjoyment of the process.
Changing aircraft type from Spitfires to Typhoons should only have made the squadron inactive for 1 turn. It is retraining an airgroup from fighters to bombers that puts you out of action for 2 months, and I believe there is a warning for this.
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7. Early End to Game. I'm not sure why but the Campaign is suppose to go for 110 turns, but in my campaign it stopped at 95 turns and ended as a Draw just as the German heartland was wide open. Is this a bug?
Answered above.
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8. Finally, Scoring the VPs. I'm not sure you could have made it any more confusing. I don't want to see all those pluses and minuses I just want to accumulate points. Destroy 10 U-Boats ... 10 VPs, capture Essen ... 5 points. I remember looking at the manual and thinking thank god we've graduated from slide-rules to calculators. Was it really necessary to make it so complicated. I remember crossing the Rhine and guessing what cities I should target. As a caveat, in my game, I was inflicting losses on the Germans at almost 2 to 1, which I would have thought would have been pretty good as the attacker. All I saw was US Losses.
I think the scoring system is actually easier then the system you are talking about. Not saying I agree with it, but, in my opinion, it is not too difficult to figure out what you have to do to win as the WA. Take out the subs factories in 43 and the V-weapons in 44 and 45. Bomb for VPs (ie HI, Manpower, Oil and fuel) especially in 43. Avoid taking too many casualties, and capture Cities as quickly as possible. Of course, all of this is easier said than done. As you may know inflicting losses on the Germans doesn't earn you any VPs, but does make you job of capturing cities easier.
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That's it...at least for now. Now I know a bunch of you will bemoan my laziness for not taking the time to find out all this information ... for not digging deeper into the Commander's Report or filtering the Production screen but playing this game should not be an exercise in minutia. Expand the tools available and the user/gamer is likely to have more fun gaming.
Playing this game does not require that you get involved in all the minutia. However, playing it well does. Luckily I think you will find that you don't have to play as an expert to beat the AI. Just take it slow and learn one thing at a time. Eventually it will all come to you. But it is a steep learning curve and I, for one, would not have it any other way. Edit: Well that last bit is not true, I wish it was an easier game to learn and agree with you that it could have been made more user friendly. What I meant is that I enjoy complex games and I would rather play a complex game with lots of detailed accuracy than a simpler game.
One thing I could have done without n this game is choosing the aircraft loadouts. Could it not have been possible to design the game so that the AI chooses the best loadout based on the mission. Such as "Oh we are performing a naval interdiction mission this week, guess I can ditch single 4000lb bomb and load up on mines" or "We are off to bomb Essen this week and the priority is Manpower, time to load the incendiaries".
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