Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation - player's challenge

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Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation - pl... - 1/19/2022 2:29:05 PM

MSAG

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I am devoted fan of the game. Have spent 100s of hours on it & still enjoy discovering it. The effort to recreate the complex war with its strategic, tactical and logistical challenges is unmatched.

I would like to share with you my concern as to it however. Here it goes: SOME THINGS THAT WOULD BE OBVIOUS / VISIBLE / REPORTED IN REAL LIFE ARE DIFFICULT TO SEE IN GAME. I mean KEY THINGS, CRUCIAL ASPECTS, not details. The things that if missed completely break the game or at least significantly weaken your army. The mistakes that affect the whole army, whole game.

Examples:
(1) The game mechanism for balancing the replacements and supplies/ammo/fuel is not clear. In some occasions the replacements are sent to troops instead of supplies. (If I read the AARs correctly many experienced Axis players limit the MAX TOE% to 50% during the first offensive to make sure there is enough of suppl
(2) Vehicles. Soviet player can "over mechanize" the army. Axis player can loose too many of the vehicles through reckless offensive (especially during winter). Both resulting in lack of vehicles to deliver supplies to troops.
(3) Many players mismanage the Depots placement and priority significantly diminishing the power of their armies.
(4) I have played H2H game with relatively new player and he (as Axis) have not repaired the rail & recreated the Depots. It took him 5 turns to see the strength of the front line decline. He missed all the signals!

Of the above (1),(2) and (3) are pretty advanced and become visible after mastering many "layers" of the game engine. Only very experienced players seem to manage it well (or at all) . It requires the in-depth knowledge of the game and (sometimes) a lot of micromanagement. Mistake (4) is more of the beginner/intermediate type. Still - it may be not obvious that one has to repair the rail lines manually. I can imagine the frustration pf the player when he realized that he missed it after investing a number of hours into the game.

Please, understand - I am not criticizing. The game strives to model complexity. In my opinion does it very well. And the resulting system is complex too.

But the resulting learning curve is steep. Difficult to climb. Full of frustration.

My questions to you are:
(a) do you see it as well?
(b) what was your biggest "thing" that you believe you had missed? (I am guilty of all, with (1), (2) and (3) quite recently).
And finally
(c) what could we do to highlight the obvious mistakes and omissions of the player in game? to make catching obvious inefficiencies easier?

While I believe that the Turn Summary screen is the attempt to do just that, I am sure more can be done. And that could make the game experience better for us and also for all gamers and WITE2 fans.

< Message edited by MSAG -- 1/19/2022 2:38:31 PM >

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/19/2022 9:31:25 PM

Stamb

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Personally for me it was pretty hard to start and play a game. How do i even move units? Right click or left click? How do I move AOGs, as you start from an air phase. I had to watch Strategy Gaming Dojo - then pause, then go to a game.
Manual is explaining different aspects of a game, but it does not show how to play it. In game videos or popups like in any other game would help very much. But maybe game engine does not allow it.

Some may say that there are one page guides, or how do you call it, in a manual folder. But it should be in a game. Ideally - animated. I just opened it for a first time and if I was a new player - I would be overwhelmed by the info.

< Message edited by Stamb -- 1/19/2022 11:03:02 PM >

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/19/2022 10:54:58 PM

MemoryLeak

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That is one of the reasons I end up asking a lot of basic questions, even though I watched a gazilloion videos and put myself in a coma reading the manual. The guys on this forum who are knowledgeable have been very patient and have helped a lot.

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 6:52:40 AM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

...How do i even move units? Right click or left click? ...
Manual is explaining different aspects of a game, but it does not show how to play it. ..

Some may say that there are one page guides, or how do you call it, in a manual folder. But it should be in a game. Ideally - animated. I just opened it for a first time and if I was a new player - I would be overwhelmed by the info.

odd, I found the left click to select, right click to move routine set out in 3 places in the manual

Attachment (1)

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 8:49:48 AM

Stamb

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ok, my bad, but probably I am not the only person who had, and still have, a lot of questions about a game

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 10:01:21 AM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

ok, my bad, but probably I am not the only person who had, and still have, a lot of questions about a game

oh I agree, and think the first post is a good attempt to engage with the issue of how to get someone up and playing at a level that doesn't just lead to frustration

but there is a difference (I think), between asking questions about any aspect, including the basics of select and move, and making an assertion that something is not covered in the manual? Not least if you read the structured 'how to' section this left to select, right to target concept is again covered - anyone who plays that step by step will be walked through at least some of the fundamental assumptions, game mechanics and UI

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 10:35:11 AM

Stamb

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I have to admit that I had no idea that such one page guides even exist in a game folder. Maybe it is written somewhere. But I am talking about my experience when I was starting with a game.

I wanted to play this game with my brother and when he saw UI (personally I have no problems with it) and missing in game tutorial, he told that it is way to complicated. And even when I was sitting next to him and explaining what every button is responsible for and where to go and so on, he was still not interested to play it. Probably he will not play it. I understand that this game is not for everyone. Just showing an examples.

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 11:08:16 AM

KenchiSulla

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

Some may say that there are one page guides, or how do you call it, in a manual folder. But it should be in a game. Ideally - animated.

Spoiler alert, trying to start a constructive discussion:

I don't want to be spoon-fed, I want to learn how to cook and eat with knife and fork as I firmly believe:

- It is the journey that matters
- A silver platter ruins the taste

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 5:45:17 PM

gw15

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There are a lot of tasks that must be performed and remembered in the game. It helped me to create a checklist and a "to-do" list that I go through every turn. The comment about RR repair just happened to me 2 turns ago. Playing the Russians in 41 I received the one precious RR repair unit and I needed it to repair one hex north of Rzhez. I forgot I had to manually make it repair even though I have many hours playing WitW and WitE1. It's added to my checklist now. I should have known better but this game has detail overload for an older person like me.

The game has a few reminders like, "are you sure you want to end the game without AI depot management?". Maybe more could be added to remind the players.

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/20/2022 11:52:24 PM

MemoryLeak

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Every time I decide to start a scenario I get completely overwhelmed by the complexity and not even having a clue where to start.

I am currently reading thru this AAR: The Oder must hold! VtB: xhoel (Axis) vs Gunnulf (Soviet).

Whenever I think I am making progress understanding a portion of it then I come across the various diagrams he has put into the AAR. I know the abbreviations are second-nature to the experienced player but it is hieroglyphics to me. Examples: AMEN, AGUN,AAFV,DMEN,DGUN,DAFV,AMENL,DMENL,DGUNL,DAFVL,DTHQ,TOEM,
Miss (Refit) Pool (Trans) Manpower (Refit) Not in OB.
So many things in Parenthesis and I don't have a clue what any of it means.

I assume it is in the manual but I have had this game for three weeks and still haven't played it because I can't start something without knowing what all of the not-very-informative-abbreviations-on-the-dozens-of-displays mean.

I try to dig this out of the manual but the meanings of the abbreviations are scatted throughput the 520 pages. It would be nice to have all of the abbreviations and their meanings and the meaning of everything that is in parenthesis in one place.

There are a lot of AAR's but each one assumes that the reader is as knowledgeable about the game as they are. And that means a lot of basic info is missing that a new person requires.

I am not being lazy, I have put in many hours of study and watching a lot of hours of videos. And I still don't know a step by step procedure for the various sections of the game.

What and why or why not transfer air groups, Exactly what SU's should be assigned and how many and where to and why. What leaders should be dumped and why. Where to put depots and HQ's and exactly what priority should the depots be, not for the whole game but to get a person started. And how in gods name do you read a report and tell if you have enough supply or not. It comes in here and goes around and around and comes out there. But what do the figures in the reports really tell you? It's just a bunch of numbers without a clear relationship between them. Pool. Great. does that mean I get that stuff, or it is around somewhere and I might get it or what is the relationship of these numbers? am I getting enough or ain't I , That's all I want to know.

I really hope this doesn't come across as whining because I really am committed to playing this one. I bought WitW, WitE, WitP:AE. But I gave up on them. I am sticking with this as long as I can.

Yes, it is a great game and the manual is great and all the rest.
Thanks

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/21/2022 1:19:57 AM

Sammy5IsAlive

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In terms of the abbreviations - the first set are from the battle screen I think. So you have the numbers of men/guns/AFVs(armoured fighting vehicles) committed on each side (attack/defence) - AMEN/AGUN/AAFV vs DMEN/DGUN/DAFV. The next set of abbreviations (with an L added at the end) are the respective losses in each category. DTHQ means distance to HQ (although this is displayed in a slightly quirky fashion where 0 is the maximum effective range to the HQ, so you want to be avoiding any minus figures in that column as this represents units out of command range). TOEM is the 'target' TOE (Table of Equipment) percentage that the player has set the unit to try and seek replacements towards. Not sure of the others off the top of my head.

quote:

I have had this game for three weeks and still haven't played it because I can't start something without knowing what all of the not-very-informative-abbreviations-on-the-dozens-of-displays mean

quote:

There are a lot of AAR's but each one assumes that the reader is as knowledgeable about the game as they are. And that means a lot of basic info is missing that a new person requires.

I am not being lazy, I have put in many hours of study and watching a lot of hours of videos. And I still don't know a step by step procedure for the various sections of the game.

I appreciate that everybody has different learning styles but my personal opinion of the above is that it sounds a very inefficient, time consuming and frustrating way of learning the game.

As with so many things the best way of learning the game is by playing it. So (in learning terms at least) my suggestion would be stop reading AARs, stop watching the Youtube videos. Don't try and read the whole manual. Don't 'study' - it's a game and is supposed to be fun! My suggestion would be:

1) Read Chapter 4 of the manual and follow the walk-through of the starter scenario
2) Once this is done the Road to Leningrad scenario (as Axis) is probably the best scenario to learn on - you have a straightforward goal (get to Leningrad) and not too many units to manage. Let the AI manage the air war and logistics to begin with and just concentrate on the basics of moving your units and attacking. Your first play through may well be a disaster - if that happens try and work out what you could have done differently, start again, and put right that mistake.
3) Once you've played through the scenario a couple of times read Chapters 7, 21, 22 & 23 of the manual and then play the scenario once more, paying special attention to the things you have just read about and consulting the manual where necessary. If needed re-read and replay till you are comfortable. Note that you may well still be losing the scenario at this point - don't get disheartened.
4) Read Chapters 25, 26 & 27 and keep playing the scenario but manage the logistics yourself.
5) Read Chapters 16, 17 & 18 and again keep playing the scenario but with the AI assist turned off in the game options and start managing at least some of the air war

If you are getting bored of the Leningrad scenario you can try the Destruction of SW Front Scenario, although this is quite a bit larger and so more complicated to manage. Although the concepts remain the same so you will still be learning.

< Message edited by Sammy5IsAlive -- 1/21/2022 1:21:57 AM >

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/21/2022 8:12:39 AM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MemoryLeak

Every time I decide to start a scenario I get completely overwhelmed by the complexity and not even having a clue where to start.
...
I assume it is in the manual but I have had this game for three weeks and still haven't played it because I can't start something without knowing what all of the not-very-informative-abbreviations-on-the-dozens-of-displays mean.
...

Everyone learns in different ways but this is a game not a closed book exam. You really don't need to know everything before playing, I've been testing this since 2016 and wrote the manual and I really wouldn't claim to know everything, or even all that much (& certainly still misinterpret or simply forget).

take the advice in Ch 4, start with all 3 AI assists. The logistics one is actually very good, the other 2 are fine.

The logistics one will actually teach you a lot about a good depot system (as it produces one - one that I ended up copying and adapting to great effect). The other 2 become a matter of setting priorities - which formation matters the most, which the least.

You can pretty much ignore the production system, unless your game really deviates from history then it will give you what happened historically.

HQs, the direct commands within 5 hexes of their units (usually this is an axis corps or Soviet army), the next level 10-15 hexes from the front and so on. But especially army or army group HQs should almost always go on a depot as they raise its processing capacity.

Then play, get a feel for the big stuff, did you over-extend? could you have generated a pocket, whats the trade off between your operational goals and moving this unit?

edit: the logistics system is all about delivery but its also all about not being able to deliver all you'd like to receive, so its an allocation routine

< Message edited by loki100 -- 1/21/2022 8:13:33 AM >

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RE: Visibility of key aspects of the in-game situation ... - 1/21/2022 7:34:08 PM

MemoryLeak

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Many thanks to Sammy51'salive and loki100. I copied and printed what you wrote and I will give it a try. Thanks again.

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