Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: enael

i just start with WITE. it's a very good game. Someone one can explain what you all talk about : 1:1= 2:1 ?

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What I really wanted to say with my example was: Flavio said the rule only kicks in at odds between 1-1 and 2-1, but apparently it always kicks in whenever the odds in a Soviet attack is greater than 1-1. I am wondering if this doesn't matter since the odds are 2-1 and that's it, or if the odds have some other effect besides causing a retreat. Do they affect retreat casualties for example?

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ORIGINAL: Marquo


Until we see a good sample of at least 10 or more games of 1941 - 1945 played to the bitter end, then all crticisms about "unfair," "broken," "pig rule," etc. are tantamount to emotional diatribe unsubstantiated by fact.

Marquo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marquo

Until we see a good sample of at least 10 or more games of 1941 - 1945 played to the bitter end, then all crticisms about "unfair," "broken," "pig rule," etc. are tantamount to emotional diatribe unsubstantiated by fact.

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ORIGINAL: pompack

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marquo


Until we see a good sample of at least 10 or more games of 1941 - 1945 played to the bitter end, then all crticisms about "unfair," "broken," "pig rule," etc. are tantamount to emotional diatribe unsubstantiated by fact.

Marquo

+1

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

There are some good points in here, and some rants too, but I am in the club where the Germans need more help somehow.

I hope the game I am playing with Tarhunnas will help. At this point I am fairly confident that there Wehrmacht will be smashed earlier historical, and that there isn't alot Tarhunnas can do about it. I look at the OOB and loss trajectories, and the numbers don't look very good for the Germans. I hope Tarhunnas plays as well as he can, and I will, and the result should be an "honest" look at what works and what might need to be looked at.

I also caution anyone who rants about the game: Any of us who played WITP-AE know that it takes a long time to get it "right". The more complex a game, the more levers to pull or push to get the desired result. This game is less complex than WITP-AE, but that engine took 6 years to get basically "right". Hopefully this won't take as long, but the fact that Matrix is in it for the long-haul to fix that rather than fire-and-forget is what you are also paying extra for.

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ORIGINAL: Pawlock
+1

My current pbem is more or less a mirror of Q-Balls albeit about 5-10 turns behind. I wont name my opponent , but he is one of the best offensive guys around so my current finding are not against a novice.
In a nut shell for me, it is not so much the soviets are overpowered in 42 as more like the Germans are underpowerd. Im still out on the 1:1 bump as the soviets do need something to give them the ability to attack in 41 and 42. As some have said perhaps a gradual toning down say 1.5 summer 42 -43 and then phase out completely in 43.
Id be more in favour of giving the german units a one off moral boost after the blizzrd perhaps.

Anyway , my opponent is still giving me a kicking if I step out of line too much

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ORIGINAL: Harovan

To be won, a combat needs at least 2:1 odds. The Germans have to achieve these odds by themselves, the Soviets only have to achieve 1:1 odds and get another 1 for free: (1+1):1.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

It's a bigger problem. Opinions differ on what the problem consists of, but to me it's mostly a problem of casualties.

-Even though high experience units fire more often in battle, effects of having high experience are generally underwhelming for the Axis in terms of the casualties they take from indirect fire. Soviet Rifle squads rarely hit anything even if they fire, but as soon as the Soviets get their mortars out even barely trained conscripts give the Axis infantry a pasting that tends to ruin the loss ratio for the Axis.

-Hasty attacks usually don't do a lot of damage (which is fine), but mobile units don't have the MP's to make deliberate attacks and advance in the same turn, which is a problem.

-As there's no "chase" segment for combat, casualties caused by mobile units are often a bit underwhelming. A unit with very little mobility and no safe route for a retreat, like a Rifle brigade/division in a clear hex, can just walk away with low losses from a 90 morale/experience mobile unit.

-Retreat attrition for guns is fairly high. The Soviets can take that, the Axis can't.

-There is no period for recovery for the Axis due to the constant attrition, which shrinks the Wehrmacht every turn.

The odds modifier leads to some of these problems, it's not the direct cause of any of them.

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ORIGINAL:  Tarhunnas

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ORIGINAL:  Marquo
Until we see a good sample of at least 10 or more games of 1941 - 1945 played to the bitter end, then all crticisms about "unfair," "broken," "pig rule," etc. are tantamount to emotional diatribe unsubstantiated by fact.

I would say that such sentiments are always a sign of emotional diatribe, however long you have played!
Are you implying that I have used those words? If so, could you kindly quote those specific posts? If not, I would prefer that you expressed yourself more clearly so that your posts do not indirectly ascribe such expressions to me.

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ORIGINAL: Marquo

"I was going to say something about Marquo's highly biased hypothesis, but thought I might come across too critical. Now I'm afraid I must."

Highly biased hypothesis; really?? I advanced no hypothesis, my friend. Au contraire, I opined for restraint until enough data is accumulated to properly ajudicate the facts.

"The reason you are not seeing games go to 1945 is that the game so favors the Soviet side that your target market (see note) simply doesn't have the endurance to play through a boring game in which poorly executed mechanics (theoretically speaking; I'm not asserting any specific mechanic here) create the foregone conclusion of a particularly early Soviet victory ?"

Your reflection is the is the poster child of a highly biased hypothesis.

"Under your hypothesis, you default to "L2P kthxbai" and no changes are made to the game (unless they are advocated by the coterie of people who believe everything is right in WitE). This is a 'good-old->boy' system, in which you end up in an echo chamber without new perspective."

Frankly preferable to the echo chamber of self appointed pundits who feel that their opinions should prevail, choking the bandwidth with self-righteous indignation if anyone dares to advance a contrary point of view.

"I'm not a fan of waiting for more data because the game is 9 months old, and you already can see that German players find the game tedious to slog through and the Soviets clearly out-perform their historical counter-parts on the path to a final victory. "

So stop playing, stop posting and stop whinning; your choice.

"At the present rate of patching and at the present rate of AAR data accumulation (don't get me started on that), and given that Matrix appears (to me at least) to throw out gobs of AAR data whenever they make a new update, forcing players to start all over again (and in fact and effect making it impossible to collect the data Marquo would like to see from the latter years of a game), you're just never going to get what you're looking for, and while you continue to wait for latter-game data, more and more owners are going to stop playing, or at a minimum, stop writing time-consuming AARs."

You have no idea what I want because you never asked; you appear to be an expert in highly biased hypothesis generation.

Enjoy the game

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Marquo, I get what you are saying about unintended consequences, but there's a clear pattern emerging here in game after game between relatively equal opponents in 1942. And it's not a good pattern.

We don't need to play it out to 45 to see this.

I'm going to be candid here. Changes are coming. I can't tell you what they are, or exactly when, but the decision has been made that tweaks are needed.

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ORIGINAL: pwieland

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Ketza, that makes a lot of sense, and is in fact the kind of macro effect I would take seriously. We're seeing this happening in some games.

It's not clear if the problem is the result of the 1-1 rule as such, or that in combination with other things, but it has to be considered.

It's the stalemated games in 1942 that are testing the game engine to destruction. This game that Tarhunnas is using here just isn't very interesting from a design standpoint, it isn't showing anything wrong or overpowered about the Soviets. (If we were looking at this game only, we might even consider the Soviets need help, or that the Germans needed to be ratcheted back. Note I do not actually believe this, but that's the conclusion I would draw from this single and very exceptional example. I don't in fact believe this is going to be a standard game result. It's an outlier.)

I dont think it should matter if the particular game in question is one in which the Germans are rolling. If this is the game between him and Q-Ball, then Tarhunnas got smacked around fairly well by an opponent that not only lost its largest industry base in the north, but its own capital. And I bet when 1943 and 1944 rolls around the crushing manpower advantages are going to allow Q-Ball to field massive stacks of doom. Already, German spearheads are getting pushed aside.

What should matter is if the rule is needed or simply used as a fudge factor in order to generate more than the usual German casualties. I dont know, but am reading the arguments for both side with interest.

ATT CV     DEF CV      DISPLAYED RATIO    ACTUAL RATIO
   92        64             2.4 : 1          1.4375 : 1
  133       106             2.2 : 1          1.2547 : 1

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ORIGINAL: glvaca

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Marquo, I get what you are saying about unintended consequences, but there's a clear pattern emerging here in game after game between relatively equal opponents in 1942. And it's not a good pattern.

We don't need to play it out to 45 to see this.

I'm going to be candid here. Changes are coming. I can't tell you what they are, or exactly when, but the decision has been made that tweaks are needed.

Good news!
Any chance you could give toss us a bone