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shermanny -> RE: Kicked butt and still lost (7/4/2016 4:21:25 AM)
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Garrison points are the game's way of prompting the German player to conform to Hitler's determination to guard everything and to keep a mobile reserve. In hindsight, the Germans could hardly have done worse, and probably would have had much more success, if they had gambled and stacked up on some one or two beaches that seemed likely Allied targets.
While this strategy does make for an interesting what-if experiment, it doesn't make for all that good a game. Almost everything will ride on whether the Germans have guessed right. If they have, then the Allies cannot gain a beachhead and can only retarget their invasion forces and hope for better luck in August. Since an August invasion comes too late in the year for any big success in France, the game, though not the war, is effectively over. If the Germans guess wrong, of course, and leave a targeted Pas-de-Calais open, their forces will be out of position and the Allies will have a quick trip to Berlin.
If the Germans stack up on the beaches nearest Germany and let the Allies walk on at Normandy, they are in too good a position to effect a smooth withdrawal to the river lines near the German-French border. Again, the game collapses.
So the design incorporates this strategic delusion of Hitler's, that he could cover everything, and more or less writes it into the rules.
What would happen to GGWITE if the Soviets got even one week to adjust their dispositions before the Germans struck? That, too, would more or less ensure a Soviet victory: simply withdraw from the zones where pockets are now built into the game, and you save nearly 100 divisions.
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