What we do like from WitP (Full Version)

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Jaws_slith -> What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 4:18:08 PM)

Well these days everybody is asking for improvements, patches and add-ons. But let's not forget what we do like about WitP.

Here I go:
1: Auto-convoy system
2: Computer control system
3: The Map
4: Mass of planes/ ships/ bases and LCU
5: Industry system
6: Complexity
7: Aviation units
8: The Russians
9: The AI
10: This forum[;)]



MadmanRick -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 4:33:14 PM)

What I like about the game:

Scope (i.e. the whole war in one game, from beginning to end)
Graphics
Sounds (although I prefer some of the UV sounds vice WitP)
Complexity (this is no Pacific War-lite)
Frustration (damn I forgot to add those engineers!! etc.)
The sheer numbers and variations of units and platforms

The jury is still out for me on the Auto-Convoy system and the AI.

Rick



ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 4:35:21 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jaws43

Well these days everybody is asking for improvements, patches and add-ons. But let's not forget what we do like about WitP.

Here I go:


quote:


1: Auto-convoy system


Yes, a nice feature, but you have to watch it closely as the Japanese player. It tends to suck dry the Home Islands. Right now every base in the home islands is sitting at under 10000 supply as the auto-convoy has over 50TF's delivering supply all over the captured SRA.

quote:


2: Computer control system


No experience with this. Posters seem to have mixed feelings on this one. Computer seems to do some really DUMB things every now and then. I personnaly don't use it.

quote:


3: The Map


Yea, it's pretty nice.

quote:


4: Mass of planes/ ships/ bases and LCU


Good and bad. Good for the history buffs out there. A bit of data overload, though. Getting more comfortable with the volume now, though.

quote:


5: Industry system


The single biggest point of confusion about the whole system. A REAL drawback, especially for the Japanese player. Needs a LOT more abstraction and simplicity. Most of us are not all that interested in being Albert Spier but would rather be more of a Yamamoto. That flow chart posted yesterday speak volumes all by itself.

quote:


6: Complexity


Goes with the above. Great for anal detail nuts but a lot of potential players will get bogged down in a hurry. Leads to excruiatingly long orders phases and long resolution phases. Not sure how a game that will take the better part of a YEAR to play one scenario is going to fly, long term. Not many, if any, other than the testers, seem to have gotten past March 42 in #15. And the game has been out over a month now.

quote:


7: Aviation units


Yes and no. Missing some key models like the C46. The pilot training issues, the upgrade method and path complexity, the aircraft production complexity, the aviation support mechanism, is all a potential big drawback for many. Again, depends on your perspective and likes and dislikes.

quote:


8: The Russians


Yea, that's kind of nifty. Nice to actually see them in the game. And nice to be able to trigger them, if you want to. Not sure, though, how historically accurate they are modeled, at least early in the game when Stalin was stripping the Soviet Far East bare. They may of still had number, but not sure the quality by late 1942 was anywhere near as good as modelled.

quote:


9: The AI


AI's suck in general. To be fair, this AI is as good as any in the genre, better than most, but you have to really strive to limit yourself as the human to historic reality or else you will cause it to do outlandish stuff and work itself into these death spirals. (Try, as the American player, for instance, to go all out and spend PP's place 2 full Div's, aviation support units and as many planes as possible in Rabaul before the Japanese get there in about three weeks and watch the AI impale itself for weeks on end).

quote:


10: This forum[;)]


Yea, pretty cool. Matrix basically gets a FREE support and customer service staff right here. Not sure if by design or hapinstance, but it's so.



MengCiao -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 4:46:08 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MadmanRick

What I like about the game:

Scope (i.e. the whole war in one game, from beginning to end)
Graphics
Sounds (although I prefer some of the UV sounds vice WitP)
Complexity (this is no Pacific War-lite)
Frustration (damn I forgot to add those engineers!! etc.)
The sheer numbers and variations of units and platforms

The jury is still out for me on the Auto-Convoy system and the AI.

Rick



I thought UV was one of the best games of all time. WitP is in many ways a very
much improved UV.

I guess the best thing about WitP -- which is the best war game of all time -- is the
many layers of interlocking problems in time, space, tactics and strategy. There's
a lot to do (I'm running the Little Empire in a campaign game), but it all is entertaining
and thought-provoking and it all can potentially make a big difference in how things
turn out in your particular game.



Q-Ball -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 5:11:24 PM)

What I love shows the developer's attention to detail:

Despite the fact that this is at heart a Naval/Air game, the Ground Combat is modeled well enough to produce realistic results.

Weaknesses of UV were not only addressed with UV patches, but incorporated and improved upon in WITP

The best computer wargame of all time by a wide margin[&o]



DrewMatrix -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 5:23:40 PM)

Everything that is non-combat.

Supplies and Fuel and Oil and Resources
All those classes of auxillaries (AE, AD, AVD etc)
Construction
Aircraft upgrade and replacement juggling

Heck, I wish the AI could be set "AI runs the combat, Player handles the Airplane Upgrades and puts AVDs in clever places"



Damien Thorn -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 5:52:09 PM)

I like:

being able to control aircraft upgrades and pilot replacements,
the way ship upgrades work,
being able to change my AK into other ship types,
a great editor.

Some things I don't like:

asw nationality and year modifiers still hard-coded. They should be editable like the pilot pool exp levels.
no fog of war for planes on the information screen.
anything hard-coded based on slot location. If I want two bomber groups capable of doing a-bombing I should be able to make them with the editor.

As you can tell from my likes and dislikes, I'm a bit of a control freak in my games. I think most of the hard-core gamers probably share that trait with me.



esteban -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 6:02:14 PM)

I really like the production system. My one complaint about it is that the aircraft engines layer should be abstracted. Just double the heavy industry cost when you assemble the actual aircraft, and remove all the engine factories from the game.

The AI is ok for the Allies so far, but the Japanese AI can be broken pretty easily.

Mostly I like the addition of requests that we made in UV. The ability to upgrade or not upgrade air units, to take or not take replacements, putting in max strike ranges on your bomber squadrons (a personal request of mine), a max react range on your task forces, etc.



Chaplain -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/28/2004 6:51:57 PM)

I enthusiastically endorse the complexity of production models, aircraft management, etc. There are plenty of games that are streamlined for simplicity. I love the fact that WitP isn't. I love giving detailed orders to every collection of AK's headed to Palau. It's beautiful.



chili614 -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/29/2004 7:51:07 AM)

Basically, I dreamed about this game better than 20 years ago when I was playing SSI's Guadalcanal Campaign on my Apple II+ for hours on end. I thought it would be so cool to be able to play the whole war out in the entire arena. There have been some previous attempts at this, but I was disappointed with them. What was the name of the Pacific War game about ten years ago? Maybe, "Pacific War"? Anyway, it would always crash on my Mac in about Feb '42 and I finally tossed it out. Anyhow, this game, with all it's faults (which I suspect will be addressed as I learned with UV), is what I have been hoping would be developed. Thanks.



mogami -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/29/2004 8:40:55 AM)

Hi, I would like to explain why the Japanese have to deal with both engine and airframe production.

They are seperate industries. As such they are 2 different targets for Allied bombing. As the Allies I can try to bomb Zero factories or I can bomb the places where the engines are produced. The two items require different material to be produced. So while it might have been OK to just make aircraft cost more it would not accuratly if abstractly reproduce the Japanese problems in aircraft production. To build any aircraft Japan has to have two or more factories. Not only does this give the enemy more targets it creates more factories for the Japanese heavy Industry. The Japanese cannot simply increase the production of a type of aircraft they also have to spend the supply and time to insure they produce enough engines. Engines are used by type of aircraft. SOme need a single engine and others need more. Japan may be able to expand her bomber production factories only to find no actual increase because of a shortage of engines. However where a game containing only aircraft at increased price would result in no production the Japanese player will at least have airframes ready and waiting when the engines are produced.

The Allies can attack Japanese Aircraft production by:
Targeting resource, oil, Engine, Airframe or heavy industry. The Japanese player has to defend them all (not just a single type of target placed in Home Islands and easy to defend) There was little point in designing a game on this subject that did not cover Japanese production. The entire war is about the Japanese trying to keep it going and the allies trying to shut it down. The Japanese production is not a feature. It is one of the main parts of the game. It is the object of both sides actions. THe Japanese player does not have to be Albert Speer. Thats not why the system exists. The Japanese players mission is the care and feeding of the system that is true but what he is really doing is defending it to the death. When it dies he dies.

Japanese production is not a side show it is the main attraction. It can be fataly hurt in many ways. In order to show this the system required a bit of complexity. It adds much to the tedium of the Japanese players turn input. It also will cause all his hair to fall (be pulled) out. But it is the central object of the war. How could it be ignored? or made too simple? The Japanese production hangs by many threads (count your tankers) The Japanese have to avoid having a single one cut or they die a slow death. Let the enemy get in B-29 range and the end is approaching swiftly.



viking42 -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/29/2004 3:01:39 PM)

I like the headaches it provides, the entire pages of written notes you compile reading the forums, the fact that i'm close too loose a loosy girlfriend, and the painfull struggle between the will to make a clean restart with the new knowledge and the horrible threat of loosing a month of playing (already 06/43)

Something quit close to masochism



Jaws_slith -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/29/2004 3:30:32 PM)

I also like the excitement if a see some enemy carrier group almost within range of my carrier TF[:)]..... than make a run for it at full speed[:)]... lost contact.[&:].....and than being surprised by 125x zero's/120x Val's/ 60x Kates out of nothing[:@]



ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/30/2004 1:14:29 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Damien Thorn

I like:

being able to control aircraft upgrades and pilot replacements,
the way ship upgrades work,
being able to change my AK into other ship types,
a great editor.

Some things I don't like:

asw nationality and year modifiers still hard-coded. They should be editable like the pilot pool exp levels.
no fog of war for planes on the information screen.
anything hard-coded based on slot location. If I want two bomber groups capable of doing a-bombing I should be able to make them with the editor.

As you can tell from my likes and dislikes, I'm a bit of a control freak in my games. I think most of the hard-core gamers probably share that trait with me.


Somewhere in the bowels of this forum's threads I made a list of what I thought were reasonable recommendations for future development guidelines for current or prosepctive Matrix Partners. I should have added this:

Hardcoding ANYTHING in application code is the DEVIL! Either get it from a configuration file, the database, a resource file, or calculate it the fly (as in GUI widget locations/positions so we can have variable screen resolutions).



Black Cat -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/30/2004 1:19:46 AM)

I like the Map and the way the typography and colors are represented, it`s pleasing to look at for long periods.



Titanwarrior89 -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/30/2004 1:35:17 AM)

1. It's a true simulation. 2. The scale and scope of it. 3. "HISTORICAL" 4. Fun. 5. AI 6. The level of detail. 7. The unknown. 8. Best wargame "Ever" made. 9. The Map. 10. Team Matrix.[:D]



moses -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/30/2004 3:29:31 AM)

This game even in its current pre-patch state is the greatest wargame ever created. I'd doubt that it will not be surpased this decade and if it is I would bet the same team is involved.



Montrose -> RE: What we do like from WitP (7/30/2004 4:03:41 AM)

Political points.

Those things are a great idea. The organisational chaos I'm facing after evacuating the Commonwealth out of Singapore seems quite realistic. Mind you, you would think that they would sign up for ABDA immediately after a few weeks with Percival [sm=terms.gif] [:D]



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