RE: Doctrine and what if's

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> RE: Doctrine and what if's

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RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 6:48:06 AM

Skanvak

Posts: 577
Joined: 4/3/2005
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AGEOD World war one have alternative strategy that stay in the line of the possible or expected. I am on the line of more options but few of them. It is not to make it a fantasy game, just to be able to explore what if on both side.

Though the greatest change I wish is : FREE SET-UP. This is something from old school game that I just love and miss in computer games. This would had a lot of possibility for replayability with no game change.

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(in reply to Wild)

Post #: 31

RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 7:11:12 AM

Muzrub

Posts: 1780
Joined: 2/23/2001
From: Australia, Queensland, Gold coast
Status: offline

I would like the option to accept Baltic, Ukrainian and Russian manpower into the Axis forces...

This could work easier as replacements (fighting much like Hiwis) or as individual units.

I believe with this option you can remain close to the historical period without being to 'sci-fi' for the Grogs- its a realistic option (and one taken upto a point later in the war).

< Message edited by Muzrub -- 4/8/2011 7:19:39 AM >

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(in reply to Wild)

Post #: 32

RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 3:09:56 PM

Steelers708

Posts: 138
Joined: 12/7/2010
From: England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wild

quote:

ORIGINAL: Angelo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wild

Lots of great comments guys.

I agree that there would be nothing wrong in having some ahistoical options for players who might want them. I just wouldn't want the developers to spend too much time on that until the game has been fully polished.

Wow, Angelo. I couldn't disagree more. For me this is probably the best game ever made. I certainly don't come anywhere near to feeling cheated, and they are improving it all the time. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

Now bring on War in the West!!!

I like the game or the idea of the game and will still play it occasionally but "the best game ever made" give me a break!

As an operational game Matrix Decisive battles or HPS Panzer series are way better.

And as a strategy game it lacks potical events, strategetic level options and the German side can't even change it's prroduction!

Again if WitE is any indication of what War in the West will be, I ain't buying it.

If steps are taken to make an actual strategic level game with all the trimmings, I'll reconsider. But there is no indication from 2By3 games that the basic game designs will be improved.

Again, i couldn't disagree more.

This game blows decisive battles away. Hands down! I've never played HPS so i can't comment on that.

I think part of the problem is people not understanding the design philosophy behind the game. You can't change production because you are a theater commander, not adolf hitler. It makes perfect sense to me.

Like i said though, different strokes for different folks.

This is my favorite wargame that i have ever played. With WitP a close second. So for me that makes 2by3 my favorite developer.

You might not like the developers philosophy, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision. It just means you are more suited to a Hearts of Iron style game, or some such.

The HPS Panzer Campaigns are excellent at what they portray and the OOB's are very detailed and accurate given the information available on a particular campaign.

Hearts of Iron is an excellent game also, albeit a global game in the sense that I can control any country in the world, not just the major combatants of WWII.

WitE is somewhat inbetween, a very large campaign in a fixed setting. As much as I enjoy it and appreciate the hard work put into it by the Devs it is not totally historically accurate. Yes the divisions are there, but there is no historical differance between units, all the pz divisions have the same TOE, even though some had 2 Pz Abt, whilst others had 3 e.g. Units are missing, e.g. some independant Pz Abt and the Einsatzgruppen which would be useful assets for hunting partisan units( I am aware of there history in this regard, but it is only a game).

As for being a Theatre Commander and not Hitler, then why can we manually change aircraft, but we can't manually change the armour types in armoured units. As much as I would like to change production I know it won't happen but please give me the option to manually change the tank/td etc type in armoured units. As it is newly produced tanks etc get parceled out willy nilly, e.g. if 12 brand new Panthers are produced 4 units may receive 3 each, losing all their PzIII's in the process (which may be a considerable number), I should have the option of waiting until e.g. 60 have been produced and then placing them all in one division, which not only makes more sense but is historically accurate.

Also, in the game I am Hitler as well as the theatre commander, otherwise where in the 1944-45 campaign are the 'Hold at all cost' orders that created Festung Posen, Festung Konigsberg, Festung Kustrin etc, along with the Kurland Pocket. The Theatre commanders did not have free reign to make Operational decisions, everything went through Hitler via his 'situational reports' meeting he held every day, if you disobeyed Hitler you did so at your own peril. Many a time in this game I have had a commander replaced by the game mechanics only for me to put him back in place immediately, If I was just the Theatre Commander I would not have the authority or ability do so.

(in reply to Wild)

Post #: 33

RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 4:01:25 PM

color

Posts: 324
Joined: 7/24/2001
From: Oslo, Norway
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Steelers708

The HPS Panzer Campaigns are excellent at what they portray and the OOB's are very detailed and accurate given the information available on a particular campaign.

I used to play a lot of Pz Campaigns, and it was great fun. Funny though, my biggest dissatisfaction with the game was it's lack detail actually, regarding the OOB level.

Oh yeah, it broke units down to battalion level in some cases and the unit 'tree' & command structure was very well researched. But I always found the level of abstraction they introduced at the lowest level where a regiment/battalion was abstracted into a strength number with attack/defense values to simplistic for my taste. They abstracted it too much IMHO and I would have very much liked for them to portray all weapons inside the unit just like WITE do.

That is one of the things I love the most about WITE, the incredible detail down to the composition of weapons for each squad, yet they manage to calculate a 'generic number' which represents that units combat value. It's a win-win where both camps get their 'fix'.

Had Pz Campaigns dropped that last abstraction, then it would have been close to perfect in my eyes.

Then HPS introduced the Total War series. It had the potentional of fulfilling my wet dream of a WW II game covering the complete european theather with units down to divisions/regiments with full details about composition. But again the abstraction which reduces divisions to a simple XX strength number. So I decided not to buy it based on this single fact.

I suppose I just get turned off by moving strenght '24' counters around a map without any details that show me why that strength is 24. I need to understand why and relate to it, just not having to accept some game designers opinion of why that strength should be '24'.

You can probably argue I'm missing the real intention of the game designer by focusing on that aspect, but hey I need my fix to be 'excellent' happy

(in reply to Steelers708)

Post #: 34

RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 4:23:08 PM

color

Posts: 324
Joined: 7/24/2001
From: Oslo, Norway
Status: offline

Just to state it - in my opinion WITE is the closest yet to my wet dream as described above - and it is quite possible that at end of the WITE series they might decide to make an the whole european/africa/middle east theather game that have the potential of eventually fullfilling that wet dream.

Yes there are some things I would have liked to see with WITE, like control over production and manually swapping of tanks. It was in the previous installment - WiR - and I suppose they decided to disallow it this time as it seems the dev focused this game more on simulating history and how you could perform differently under the same circumstances, and less on allowing a player to tinker with the production system and open up bigger what-if (jet fighters in 43/panthers in 42) possibilities in the game.
It still easy to do this just be creating an alternative campaign where these models appear much earlier.

Yet still, I fail to know about any game out there that actually has the same detail as WITE, producing a myriad of different tank models in factories and putting them in pools for units to draw replacements from.
Most other games just decide to abstract this away into 'replacements' that just magically appear out of nowhere or even worse just 'tank' instead of all the myriad of models which adds so much more flavour to the game.
Abstraction are turn offs in my twisted detail freak head

(in reply to color)

Post #: 35

RE: Doctrine and what if's - 4/8/2011 5:57:00 PM

saintsup

Posts: 133
Joined: 10/27/2003
From: La Celle Saint-Clouud
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: color

Yes there are some things I would have liked to see with WITE, like control over production and manually swapping of tanks. It was in the previous installment - WiR - and I suppose they decided to disallow it this time as it seems the dev focused this game more on simulating history and how you could perform differently under the same circumstances, and less on allowing a player to tinker with the production system and open up bigger what-if (jet fighters in 43/panthers in 42) possibilities in the game.
It still easy to do this just be creating an alternative campaign where these models appear much earlier.

Problem with this IMHO is that in reality there was a loop between actual operational results on this theater or others and things like TOE, replacements, new material and so on. This loop is not modeled in the game so you can have very unplausible results if situation in game differs a lot from situation in real history.

I'm confortable with the theater commander point of view of this game with the set of liberties/constraints associated. I'm not with the fact that the 'outside' world is modeled in a very rigid and foreseeable way.

(in reply to color)

Post #: 36