Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: 1275psi



And thats why i am un installing. Some one decided that the game MUST reflect real life in losses - how many times do we see comment -nearly mirrors real life -so its OK in the test AARs?
No matter what you do -you get crushed!
i took Moscow -besieged leningrad against AI -ON EASY level -just to see what would happen - dug in two turns before the mud - and still got crushed.
God help me in PBEM -that would be madnes to start.
There is no reward for the German player -you get crushed
No choices, no options -the blizzard starts-and its the end. I have tried limited attack -got crushed, stopped at somolensk - got crushed, all out -got crushed
I am sorry, thats not a game.
great potential -wonderful detail, brilliant mechanics.
No fun to play all the way through.

my two cents

1) What part of the Manual led you to think that digging all over the frontline was the best strategy for blizzard?

2) Have you read the posts by BigAnorak on how to fight during Blizzards?

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: 1275psi



And thats why i am un installing. Some one decided that the game MUST reflect real life in losses - how many times do we see comment -nearly mirrors real life -so its OK in the test AARs?
No matter what you do -you get crushed!
i took Moscow -besieged leningrad against AI -ON EASY level -just to see what would happen - dug in two turns before the mud - and still got crushed.
God help me in PBEM -that would be madnes to start.
There is no reward for the German player -you get crushed
No choices, no options -the blizzard starts-and its the end. I have tried limited attack -got crushed, stopped at somolensk - got crushed, all out -got crushed
I am sorry, thats not a game.
great potential -wonderful detail, brilliant mechanics.
No fun to play all the way through.

my two cents

1) What part of the Manual led you to think that digging all over the frontline was the best strategy for blizzard?

2) Have you read the posts by BigAnorak on how to fight during Blizzards?

I for one *am* slightly peeved to have folks keep telling me that my blizzard experience is because "I'm doing it wrong". There seems to be a subset of folks posting here that are happy to opinion that the blizzard is survivable with the proper, mysterious, strategy.

Show me a human vs human AAR where an axis player successfully defends the blizzard please.
Every one I've read stopped by mid january because the axis army had vaporized.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: 1275psi



And thats why i am un installing. Some one decided that the game MUST reflect real life in losses - how many times do we see comment -nearly mirrors real life -so its OK in the test AARs?
No matter what you do -you get crushed!
i took Moscow -besieged leningrad against AI -ON EASY level -just to see what would happen - dug in two turns before the mud - and still got crushed.
God help me in PBEM -that would be madnes to start.
There is no reward for the German player -you get crushed
No choices, no options -the blizzard starts-and its the end. I have tried limited attack -got crushed, stopped at somolensk - got crushed, all out -got crushed
I am sorry, thats not a game.
great potential -wonderful detail, brilliant mechanics.
No fun to play all the way through.

my two cents

1) What part of the Manual led you to think that digging all over the frontline was the best strategy for blizzard?

2) Have you read the posts by BigAnorak on how to fight during Blizzards?

I for one *am* slightly peeved to have folks keep telling me that my blizzard experience is because "I'm doing it wrong". There seems to be a subset of folks posting here that are happy to opinion that the blizzard is survivable with the proper, mysterious, strategy.

Show me a human vs human AAR where an axis player successfully defends the blizzard please.
Every one I've read stopped by mid january because the axis army had vaporized.

Is that an answer to my questions?

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey


I have read a variety of post by a variety of players, including BigAnorak on how to fight the blizzard.
I have also watched various HVH games where axis players actually tried to implement those strategies (Q-Ball went so far as to try a bunch of different ones to test them out).
I have yet to read a HVH AAR where any of these "advanced" blizzard strategies worked.

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ORIGINAL: Marquo

What would be the result of a, "successful" blizzard strategy? What should happen?

Marquo

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ORIGINAL: alfonso
1) What part of the Manual led you to think that digging all over the frontline was the best strategy for blizzard?

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

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Show me a human vs human AAR where an axis player successfully defends the blizzard please.
Every one I've read stopped by mid january because the axis army had vaporized.

Is that an answer to my questions?

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ORIGINAL: Marquo

"Quite a simplified calculation. Did you read the Q-Ball's AAR?"

An "n" of one? Not a very scientific approach; certainly not a large enough sample size to make any valid conclusion one way or the other. I, for one, simply enjoy the game - it is what it is, and I think we can all agree that it is fun and are thankful for the on going efforts to refine the experience.

But...reading the comments on the forum is almost more fun than playing WITE.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

<snip>

For the record: I still think German summer supermen are almost as overpowered as Soviet winter supermen, and almost as irritating. So I am not taking sides here. WITE's way of dealing with 41 seems to be using two waves of supermen having it at each other, which is a) wrong, b) too one sided to be enjoyable as a game.

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ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Emir, unless I was on drugs, I am pretty certain the experts (aka the testers) said somewhere and not only once that:

a) they could survive the blizzard (Big Anorak perhaps?)

and

b) a Soviet player CAN stop the Germans IF he plays correctly (Flavio certainly)

Now of course I might be wrong and NEVER read that... but I doubt it

These two questions deal with both the German and Soviet supermen (summer and winter that is).

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ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

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Show me a human vs human AAR where an axis player successfully defends the blizzard please.
Every one I've read stopped by mid january because the axis army had vaporized.

Is that an answer to my questions?

You didn't answer his question either

There's not one HvH AAR showing that blizzard is survivable, but there are many that show that even with proper homework, really big advances, victories, forts, prepaprations, what have you.... Axis still suffer defeats on scale that can only be described as ridicolous.

quote:

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

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ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Emir, unless I was on drugs, I am pretty certain the experts (aka the testers) said somewhere and not only once that:

a) they could survive the blizzard (Big Anorak perhaps?)

and

b) a Soviet player CAN stop the Germans IF he plays correctly (Flavio certainly)

Now of course I might be wrong and NEVER read that... but I doubt it

These two questions deal with both the German and Soviet supermen (summer and winter that is).

Erm, I almost always agree with you but I recall a senior tester admitting in the forums a month ago that at the time of release nobody had even played the game through to 1945. Several people remarked on this when it was posted. At the time, I thought this meant that they had played satisfying games up to 1943 and the combat was still going on somewhere in Russia, but now I am not so sure.

Is it that no games could be played through to '45 because the game is so badly balanced? Are the testers under NDA? Perhaps they are not allowed to tell us all that they know...

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

Please note that I don't have an informed opinion about this issue, because I really think that there are not enough data at the moment. My impression is that the game is unbalanced, but in the sense that it seems much more difficult to master from the Axis side (the 41 GC at least).

Maybe we are seeing a race between a walking man a man with a bicycle. The latter lags behind because he has not yet learnt how to ride the bicycle. But when he finally learns....

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ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

Please note that I don't have an informed opinion about this issue, because I really think that there are not enough data at the moment. My impression is that the game is unbalanced, but in the sense that it seems much more difficult to master from the Axis side (the 41 GC at least).

Maybe we are seeing a race between a walking man a man with a bicycle. The latter lags behind because he has not yet learnt how to ride the bicycle. But when he finally learns....

And this is key. All I know now is my Socratic stupidity (the only thing I know is that I am stupid) concerning this game still, and it will take some time to digest and learn. Your point about the initial blitzkriegs is important, the first few AARs did not show the panache of more recent ones.

Again, I am not saying that there are things not broken here, I am saying that the wailing and gnashing of teeth seems to be a bit premature. I wail and gnash all the time about the blizzard, but mostly it is because I really can't put things into practice that I think might work (see comrade P and his discussion in Q-Ball's AAR).

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ORIGINAL: bdtj1815

I bought this game on the day it was released and I think it has many things going for it. What I did not realise when I paid my £70 was that I was not buying a finished product. So far I have had to download six patches and still I read that the "game will only be balanced" when enough people play it who can point out its faults.

35 years ago my first wargame, bought as a present for my fifteenth birthday, was "Drang nach Osten" by GDW. In real terms it probably cost more than WITE but worked "straight out of the box" and is still playable today without amy major modifications.

When I bought WITE I wish someone had written on the Matrix website that "this game will be great when you all find what is wrong with it now".

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ORIGINAL: pat.casey

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ORIGINAL: Marquo

What would be the result of a, "successful" blizzard strategy? What should happen?

Marquo

In my opinion:

If the axis player is overextended and in an offensive deployment (the historical situation), then I'd expect soviet gains in line with history with the ability of the soviets to support two major thrusts and an ability to inflict significant german casualties.

If the axis player is more conservatively deployed than was historically the case, I'd expect the ability of the soviets to launch limited spoiling attacks to solve "problem" areas of the lines, clean up bridgeheads, etc.

As it stands right now, regardless of the axis player's deployments, the soviets are going to take more ground and inflict more casualties than the historical counterattack did.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey


If the axis player is more conservatively deployed than was historically the case...

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ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey


If the axis player is more conservatively deployed than was historically the case...

...then the Soviets would be stronger than was historically the case. So why do you think that Axis strategy should be rewarded? When do you want to commence to dig? In September? Before taking Ukrainia, Moscow, Leningrad?

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

OK, summarizing this and other threads.

Phase 1. When playing Axis, you get stalled because there is no way to break the carpet wall made of infinite Soviet hordes. Game flawed.

Phase 2. When playing Soviets, there is no way to stop a human Axis player with your CV 1=1 ants. Game flawed.

Phase 3. When playing Axis, there is no way to prevent the vaporization of your army in blizzard. Game flawed.

Phase 4 ???

Last week I bought F1-2006 for my PS3. Driving with Fernando Alonso in Renault I consistently reach the Finish flag in the bottom part of the participants (Historically Alonso won that year the world championship with Renault).

Conclusions: please tick the correct one

A) Game is crap
B) My driving skills are crap. I should improve. Perhaps I should learn how to optimize the
aerodynamic load.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey


If the axis player is more conservatively deployed than was historically the case...

...then the Soviets would be stronger than was historically the case. So why do you think that Axis strategy should be rewarded? When do you want to commence to dig? In September? Before taking Ukrainia, Moscow, Leningrad?

Historically, the axis made one last push in October and November, operation typhoon. Most of the pictures you see of staff cars being lugged through the mud and whatnot date from this period when the Wehrmacht wore itself out (and gutted its supply infrastructure), in a fruitless effort to take moscow before winter really set in.

I think the relative strengths of the two sides actually favored the germans more prior to operation Typhoon than after. The germans lost about 400k men in the operation and ended up in very exposed forward positions away from their railheads, ripe for a counterattack.

On oct 2, had the axis chosen instead to stand pat and wait for spring they'd have been much better off relative to the sovets. They could have used the time to dig in while the ground was still workable. There'd have been less strain on the supply system so they could have brought forward winter supplies, etc.

The thing you have to remember is that historically, the Germans really wore themselves down during Typhoon, which is one of the reasons the winter counterattack did so well against AGC.

To my mind the historical lesson isn't that the blizzard makes soviets into supermen, but rather that if you stretch an army to the breaking point and then bad weather hits you can spank them back to their railheads.

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ORIGINAL: Zort

Guess I am confused concerning the Axis superman status in 41.  I have been playing 2 CG games on the server, and did several against the AI to get my feet wet (didn't finish any though, got thru blizzard on a couple).  So far the only reason I have gotten further then historical is because my opponent retreated more.  When he has been doing the forward layered defense I am behind historical.  I am not an expert player and I don't think most people are so I must be missing something.  What is this axis ability?

So my other question is if you do away with the "superman" status for the axis in 41 will they have the ability to get as far as they did historically against an average soviet player?

quote:

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfonso

OK, summarizing this and other threads.

Phase 1. When playing Axis, you get stalled because there is no way to break the carpet wall made of infinite Soviet hordes. Game flawed.

Phase 2. When playing Soviets, there is no way to stop a human Axis player with your CV 1=1 ants. Game flawed.

Phase 3. When playing Axis, there is no way to prevent the vaporization of your army in blizzard. Game flawed.

Phase 4 ???

Last week I bought F1-2006 for my PS3. Driving with Fernando Alonso in Renault I consistently reach the Finish flag in the bottom part of the participants (Historically Alonso won that year the world championship with Renault).

Conclusions: please tick the correct one

A) Game is crap
B) My driving skills are crap. I should improve. Perhaps I should learn how to optimize the
aerodynamic load.

Alfonso,

I'll repeat my earlier question:

Please show me one HVH AAR where the axis player has successfully defended the blizzard.

If you want to define "defended" as generously as possible and just find me a HVH AAR where the axis player reached spring of 1942 with an intact army capable of strategic offensives, that's fine too.

I submit, however, that there is no such beast on these forums.

If *I* couldn't defend in the blizzard, but other, better, players could, then it'd be fair to say "its a problem with the player not the game".

In this case though, I've yet to see any evidence that *any* axis player can defend the blizzard, which implies, to me at least, that its a problem with the game.