Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wild

quote:

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wild

quote:

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

Critiscm is one thing, but making it "political"... Thats a bit unfair don't you think?

quote:

ORIGINAL: marjur
OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wild

quote:

ORIGINAL: marjur

OK, thanks.

What about the designers' support?
Do they respond to players' constructive criticism? I mean, I've looked around a bit and read something about some problems with late-war TOEs and designers' unwillingness to sort that out... I don't know too much about it 'cause I'm new on this forum, though. Are they willing to patch the game? You know, it sometimes happens that a game comes out and then the producer "forgets" about it in spite of the fact that lots of things could be improved... (Master of Orion III comes to my mind here, although it's a totally different genre)

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

Since the Devs have become so anti axis i have noticed a large decline in posts on this forum.And i expect there next game WitW to be a flop. It's really heart wrenching to watch. If only they would have listend to there customers this could have been the best series ever.As evidenced by the huge following the game got after release. But when people realized the fix was in and the devs were not going to be responsive,then it died out pretty quickly.

I think they still could turn it around by giving the Germans more options i mean the market is still there. Unfortunatly i have come to the conclusion that they would rather see the series go under then change their political views. It's a dam shame, i will not be buying anymore of 2by3 games, and i had owned them all previously.

Critiscm is one thing, but making it "political"... Thats a bit unfair don't you think?

quote:

If you prefer to play the Russians then you will most likely love this game, but if your choice is to play the Axis then i would not buy this game as playing them grows old and loses it's fun fairly quickly.
The axis are simply not given many of the fun options that the russians get and their game is to a great extent predetermined. The devs have made it clear that they do not intend to fix the axis no matter how many complaints they get, so buy at your own risk.

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

quote:

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

As the self-proclaimed champion of this so-called 'tiny minority' I can tell the original poster that there is a wide swath of players who wanted a competitive game from the German perspective that simply quit and moved on.

I can give you a couple of examples of the borked nature of the German army:

The German pays 500 percent to 750 percent more, at a minimum, to move divisions between commands compared to the Soviet.

The Soviet morale setting (and consequently the formula for gaining unit morale, which is the single most important factor in combat effectiveness) automatically goes up at certain points on the calendar regardless of what's happening in the game.

The German morale setting automatically goes down every January, regardless of casualties.

The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

The German army starts out Barbarossa horribly over-burdened in command in Army Group South and Army Group Center, and there is literally no chance to sort that out even if you use every Admin Point the game gives you. Compare this to the Soviet side, which can change every division's HQ for 1 Admin Point (Germany's average is 5 to 7 points). Bear in mind that based on the fixed leadership values of the game, Germany only has a 20% superiority in command ratings than the Soviet (that's not a complaint - just explaining that the AP costs do not 'wash' with the command superiority of the Germans).

Now, meanwhile, the Soviet gets all sorts of new units and new HQs that always start attached to Stavka, so they can be switched around for free the first time (and 1 AP thereafter for the divisions). The result is that the Soviet army gets to reorganize in 1941 for free and will be organizationally superior to Germany by the middle of the summer of 1941.

This is to say nothing of the fact that no cities are worth holding for the Soviets. All that matters is the evacuation of Armament factories and tank factories. All the other factories don't matter, and Soviet players know this, so they abandon the other factories, evacuate all armaments, and then have tons of excess rail capacity (that historically would have been used by real Soviets to evacuate real factories - they didn't have the hindsight to know the US would make up for all their supply issues).

The Soviets have the ability to air-drop brigades with perfect efficiency in such a way that they can easily cut an entire army group's supply line for two weeks at a time. Partisans also have the ability to destroy an entire army group's supply based on how the rail system works.

Over and over again, this game design results in a fantastical Soviet ability to organize and fight in a way that is 50 years ahead of the tactics of the time. Meanwhile Germany is literally tied down to history in ways that defy reason. There is literally no way for a German player to improve substantially on the performance of his game army over the performance of the historical Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, with the failsafes and the gimmicks that the Soviets have, there is no way for the Soviet player to play worse than his historical predecessor.

The game is at its essence, a canned-hunt of Germany with the Soviet given free-reign to stomp the fascists and the Germans tied into a cage that shrinks every turn. I never had a German opponent (when I played Soviet) get past 1942, and I never got past that myself playing as a German. If you'd like to know more, feel free to message me, and I can put you in contact with others like myself, who think the game was a technical marvel, and a competitive mess.

This is to say nothing of the combat engine, which everyone agrees is flawed heavily. The combat engine is way over-specified, and the end result is that all types of combatants are in a rush to get to close range. This results in SMG squads out-performing MG-34 teams, and mortars slaughtering 5 times the enemy force as 150mm howitzers. In this system, where the Soviet has a fairly free ability to create support units, divisions, brigades, and corps, the Soviet player always has the ability to exploit army design. Germany has no such ability.

Those of us who felt that these decisions resulted in an anti-competitive game brought our math and our eloquence and our historical precedents of the actual war. And then we were called names by people, including the alpha and beta testers who were the de facto spokespeople for the game.

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet and increasingly more homogenous. Since I paid $90 for the game at release, I felt entitled to demand changes that reflected the actual capabilities of the armies at the time (I was really big about the admin point problem Germany faced versus the Soviet, and the morale changes being fixed on a timeline for Germany, rather than a casualty loss rate).

I'm not sure whether there will be another propaganda campaign designed to bully and intimidate people like me. Watch the tone of people who respond to me, and the absence of factual counterpoints. The last campaign succeeded, for the most part, and the community is now a closed group of people who love the Soviet game and don't recognize the biased design and anti-competitive force. You'll see there are fewer forum posts, and fewer requests for games (and everyone is looking for 'experienced' German players for some reason! Go figure!) What does that tell you?

Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy War in the East because of the problems now permanent in the game. Maybe 2by3 will in fact release a better War in the West and other products in the future, but I'll be damned if I'm an early adopter of one of their way-over-priced products again. In a world where you have a lot of options for your entertainment dollar, I would recommend you go to another product.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DBeves

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

quote:

ORIGINAL: Encircled

I bought this game in Dec 2010, and played it continuously until about two months ago. I only stopped because I've had to concentrate a lot more on RL for a variety of reasons.

The only game that comes close to the amount of time I have spent on this is the Football Manager series (which are effectively a new game every year).

Its well worth the money, but you have to put in a certian amount of effort to get the best out of the game.

Its very disappointing that a very tiny minority of posters on here appear to think its borked. They have explained their reasons at length, but its still not enough to convince the vast majority.

As the self-proclaimed champion of this so-called 'tiny minority' I can tell the original poster that there is a wide swath of players who wanted a competitive game from the German perspective that simply quit and moved on.

I can give you a couple of examples of the borked nature of the German army:

The German pays 500 percent to 750 percent more, at a minimum, to move divisions between commands compared to the Soviet.

The Soviet morale setting (and consequently the formula for gaining unit morale, which is the single most important factor in combat effectiveness) automatically goes up at certain points on the calendar regardless of what's happening in the game.

The German morale setting automatically goes down every January, regardless of casualties.

The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

The German army starts out Barbarossa horribly over-burdened in command in Army Group South and Army Group Center, and there is literally no chance to sort that out even if you use every Admin Point the game gives you. Compare this to the Soviet side, which can change every division's HQ for 1 Admin Point (Germany's average is 5 to 7 points). Bear in mind that based on the fixed leadership values of the game, Germany only has a 20% superiority in command ratings than the Soviet (that's not a complaint - just explaining that the AP costs do not 'wash' with the command superiority of the Germans).

Now, meanwhile, the Soviet gets all sorts of new units and new HQs that always start attached to Stavka, so they can be switched around for free the first time (and 1 AP thereafter for the divisions). The result is that the Soviet army gets to reorganize in 1941 for free and will be organizationally superior to Germany by the middle of the summer of 1941.

This is to say nothing of the fact that no cities are worth holding for the Soviets. All that matters is the evacuation of Armament factories and tank factories. All the other factories don't matter, and Soviet players know this, so they abandon the other factories, evacuate all armaments, and then have tons of excess rail capacity (that historically would have been used by real Soviets to evacuate real factories - they didn't have the hindsight to know the US would make up for all their supply issues).

The Soviets have the ability to air-drop brigades with perfect efficiency in such a way that they can easily cut an entire army group's supply line for two weeks at a time. Partisans also have the ability to destroy an entire army group's supply based on how the rail system works.

Over and over again, this game design results in a fantastical Soviet ability to organize and fight in a way that is 50 years ahead of the tactics of the time. Meanwhile Germany is literally tied down to history in ways that defy reason. There is literally no way for a German player to improve substantially on the performance of his game army over the performance of the historical Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, with the failsafes and the gimmicks that the Soviets have, there is no way for the Soviet player to play worse than his historical predecessor.

The game is at its essence, a canned-hunt of Germany with the Soviet given free-reign to stomp the fascists and the Germans tied into a cage that shrinks every turn. I never had a German opponent (when I played Soviet) get past 1942, and I never got past that myself playing as a German. If you'd like to know more, feel free to message me, and I can put you in contact with others like myself, who think the game was a technical marvel, and a competitive mess.

This is to say nothing of the combat engine, which everyone agrees is flawed heavily. The combat engine is way over-specified, and the end result is that all types of combatants are in a rush to get to close range. This results in SMG squads out-performing MG-34 teams, and mortars slaughtering 5 times the enemy force as 150mm howitzers. In this system, where the Soviet has a fairly free ability to create support units, divisions, brigades, and corps, the Soviet player always has the ability to exploit army design. Germany has no such ability.

Those of us who felt that these decisions resulted in an anti-competitive game brought our math and our eloquence and our historical precedents of the actual war. And then we were called names by people, including the alpha and beta testers who were the de facto spokespeople for the game.

The result, as you can see and observe by yourself, is a forum that is growing quiet and increasingly more homogenous. Since I paid $90 for the game at release, I felt entitled to demand changes that reflected the actual capabilities of the armies at the time (I was really big about the admin point problem Germany faced versus the Soviet, and the morale changes being fixed on a timeline for Germany, rather than a casualty loss rate).

I'm not sure whether there will be another propaganda campaign designed to bully and intimidate people like me. Watch the tone of people who respond to me, and the absence of factual counterpoints. The last campaign succeeded, for the most part, and the community is now a closed group of people who love the Soviet game and don't recognize the biased design and anti-competitive force. You'll see there are fewer forum posts, and fewer requests for games (and everyone is looking for 'experienced' German players for some reason! Go figure!) What does that tell you?

Support for War in the East is OVER, and the developers have said that no major changes will occur. They expect to release other games now. They've gotten all the money they needed from War in the East.

If I were you, I wouldn't buy War in the East because of the problems now permanent in the game. Maybe 2by3 will in fact release a better War in the West and other products in the future, but I'll be damned if I'm an early adopter of one of their way-over-priced products again. In a world where you have a lot of options for your entertainment dollar, I would recommend you go to another product.

I must say - I dont post a lot here and I bought and have never really started a game due to the frequency with which the patches come out - I had thought it would settle at some point but it hasnt.

I would only add that I was incredibly dissapointed in the air war implementation - for an such an expensive title it is unforgivable.

I have read a lot of what helio posts and the impression I have walked away with is that he speaks a lot of sense and his opinion of the game is largely correct. The counter arguments to his posts mostly seem to consist of people shouting but not proving him wrong.

Putting the air war aside - take just one thing he complains about - ie that the german player can have units withdrawn because they were historically, regardless of the current game situation - such as the withdrawals after bagration - seems to me from a game design point utter insanity. I have never seen anyone come up with an effective counter argument to just this one point. that a unit could be sitting in the crimea and it gets withdrawn because of a bagration offensive that happened historically just kills it for me as a game because it is indicative of a complex design that didnt see enough work squashing the anomolies certain design decisions led to.

I am in fact grateful to him for pointing out things I wouldnt have the time to find myself. It always struck me that the code for this game hung in the back cupboard for a long time till someone said - lets release this thing - and then concentration was on getting it to a stage where it looked like a game rather than spending the time to revisit the design decisions taken years ago that werent thought through properly.

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

quote:

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer


I suggest you should start a 1941 grand campaign scenario as the Germans. And then go into the info screen and from there go to the reinforcement/withdrawal schedule screen. Go to Feb 43 and tell me what do you see.
I'll bet you see nothing about the 6th army withdrawing. Why… because it does not happen. Look at the summer of 44 do you see all of Army group center being withdrawing… nope you do not, because it does not happen. Only historical withdrawals happen like moving units to Italy because the Allies invaded.
As far as I can tell

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

is a lie

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04


The German player is forced to remove specific divisions (often based on historic timetables that reflect actual world war 2 combats that may not have happened in game, such as Totenkopf being withdrawn after Demjansk when the latter probably won't happen). The best examples are Stalingrad, of course - you lose those units whether or not Stalingrad happens.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RCH
These units were destroyed at Stalingrad and withdrawn from the game at the above dates. The issue is that these units were not historically withdrawn, but reconstituted (rebuilt using the number, but very few if any of the original troops).
These units are lost to the Axis player not because they were sent west, but because they were destroyed. Not one of the above units (and 2 HQs)was "withdrawn" historically from the eastern front. The issue is a bit technical, but represents the argument being made.

A number of German divisions destroyed at Stalingrad are not "withdrawn" from the game. This includes all the panzer divisions even though the 16th panzer was rebuilt and did serve some time in Italy before returning to the eastern front.

From the Axis side those 2 HQs can be huge. In 1943 who wants to lose divisions in the face of a growing enemy?

Some may think it is a non issue, others think that it is. For me the issue is a bit technical and not a real big deal to me. I think that there are bigger fish to fry when it comes to what I would like to see changed. To each his own.

I wish they would allow the Axis player to construct certain HQs that would represent combat formations such as "Army Group Kempf". At times I feel quite constrained and would love to organize such a group for specific purposes. In dealing with my Soviet opponent my organization is all over the place dealing with all his threats and actual attacks.

quote:

What an enormous load of cr*p. If the game will kill it for you with some withdrawels which are debatable, then by all means don't play. Just don't think, pretend or calim that you know anything of the game as you admit yourself that you haven't played. You don't even know, what the game is about.