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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: I played Third Reich so I'd like to know more about WIF? (10/30/2005 8:23:03 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lebatron
Hi everyone,
I got a broad question for you. How does WIF stack up to Third Reich. I have owned all versions of T.R. up to the lastest revision called World at War. Although I have to admit I have never played Advanced or WAW since I can not find anyone willing to play such a monster game. Hence I never finished reading their rule books. I fiqured why bother I'm not going to get to play it because there is a real shortage of Grognards in my area(the UP of Michigan). Anyway i guess WIF is more complex than regular Third Reich, and about the same level as Advanced. Am I close? So its probably best to compare adv. or WAW to WIF. So what does WIF do better or worse. What are the fundamantal differences? Is WIF quaterly? Things like that. I will probably give this game a try if it ever comes out because I would really like to play something on this grand level.
My recollections of Third Reich are hazy, though I do own a copy and have played it several times. Perhaps others can answer your question more directly.
But here is an indirect answer. The thread "Directory" in this forum gives an overview of this forum and you might find it interesting to getting a better understanding of MWIF.
MWIF covers the entire world with a map 360 hexes wide (it wraps around) and 195 hexes high (no polar regions). It includes 238 countries/territories, 13 terrain types for hexes, 7 hexside terrain types, and 6 global weather regions. There are over 180 sea areas (groups of all sea hexes treated as a single area for naval movement), and 5000+ coastal hexes. The units types are primarily land, naval, and air with over 64 uniquely different unit types. The time line runs from September 1939 through to August 1945 though that can vary depending on which of the 11 scenarios is being played. Each turn covers 2 months of the war but within each turn there are a varying number of impulses which can range from 3 or 4 up to 10 or more depending upon the time of year and weather.
And here is an excerpt from one of my working documents:
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Overview
1.1 MWIF Objectives
World in Flames is a game of conquest where the winner is determined based on victory hexes held at the end of the game. Indeed, the game ends early if one side controls a sufficient number of victory hexes. Since control of a hex is only achieved by having land units either traverse the hex or occupy the country’s capital, land units determine who wins.
1.2 Land Units
There are dozens of types of land units and they can be corps or division size. In order for land units to attack outside of their home country, they need to be able to trace a supply line back to a supply source, either in their home country or an occupied country. To do that, they need to be near a headquarters unit which can trace supply back to a primary or secondary supply source using rail lines. Because the only way to take out enemy held victory cities and enemy capitals is by attacking in foreign lands, these lines of communication are crucial for making any progress.
1.3 Naval Units
If the enemy is overseas, then supply/communication lines need to extend overseas. This is done by having convoys in contiguous sea areas stretching from the overseas location to the home supply source. To keep overseas units in supply, there must be at least one convoy per sea area, thereby forming a convoy pipeline. The convoys are extremely vulnerable to attack, so naval units are used to defend friendly and attack enemy convoy pipelines. If all supply lines could be land based, then the naval units would have very little value. This is why historically Germany and the USSR could fight such a prolonged and bloody conflict with virtually no naval units.
1.4 Air Units
Air units enable a player to provide additional striking power at the point of attack. This can be done both attacking and defending and both on land and at sea. Air units also have a limited ability to transport land units and supply. One unique role they perform is to attack enemy production through strategic bombing. In general though, air units are augmentations to land and naval forces, which respectively perform the primary tasks of taking territory and providing supply.
1.5 Transportation Lines
In addition to the rail lines and convoy pipelines providing supply, these same 2 transportation lines are used to transport resources to factories and reinforcements to the frontlines. The mechanism is so similar to those for maintaining supply, that for most purposes they can be thought of as the same. What has to be kept in mind is that the importance of the rail lines and convoy pipelines is multiple: (1) provide supply, (2) send reinforcements to the frontlines, and (3) send resources to factories.
1.6 Production
Once resources have been delivered to a factory, a currency known as production points are produced. Depending on the intensity of the war effort, these production points are converted into a number of build points. Build points can then be used to create new land, naval, and air units. They can also be used for repairing naval units, generating supply depots, and creating new factories. Being unable to generate a substantial number of build points each turn means that a country is unable to replace losses to its army, navy, air force, and merchant marine and eventually it is doomed to defeat.
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