Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Hubert you got this part figured out or you want us to provide the stats? There is an excellent book "the economics of world war 2" edited by Mark Harrison one can use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 What I really want before we start this vital discussion is to get the the economics right this time around. That means in contrary to sc 1 that means that playbalance gotta come from some other factor. The effect in sc1 with understrenghtning US(MMP) and USSR(troops) created the unrealism of the cookie cutter strategy, where Germany goes after all minors instead of Barbarossa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzgndr Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 There is an excellent book "the economics of world war 2" edited by Mark Harrison one can use. I saw the link ev provided on another thread. Does Harrison's book describe what percentage of GDP was devoted to military production in the ETO and how this changed over the war years? That would be very useful. Just looking at the raw numbers doesn't tell the whole story, and if we were to adopt these numbers as what SC2 "should" be matching for "historical accuracy" then we may find ourselves with a skewed game. Play balance has to be considered also, and that means tweaking the numbers if necessary and perhaps some other abstractions. Who wants to play a game if it's a given that one side always wins and the other side always loses? I've played 3R/A3R and always considered the economic flow in those games to be OK. The latest version, AWAW, looks good and provides a useful benchmark. WiFFE also provides a useful benchmark. These games have also been throughly playtested over many years and probably offer a better sense of play balance than raw economic numbers provide. SC1, COS, and HC have their own interesting systems which can be considered for comparison purposes. It would be great to have a reference like Harrison's book or others and be able to create a perfectly historically accurate game, but again play balance and replayability are much more critical for a game and this is a game of abstractions we're talking about. Hubert is well aware of this issue. The new editor in SC2 provides a lot of flexibility for adjusting resource numbers and economic growth rates, plus new script events that can add in either historical or variable effects. By the time we get into some playtesting and experimenting with the new features, we should be able to create a pretty good economic model that resolves most of the issues we had in SC1. This is important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Bill what does ETO means? The book got numbers on all the combatants wartime GDP year by year and percent of gnp gone to miltary outlays. I can try to scan the figures and post here if you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin P. Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 ETO = European Theater of Operations I agree that replayability and play balance rank higher than historical accuracy. This is a game of historical possibilities. What if you could change history? Would you have ordered a total mobilization of Germany's industry for war? What would the effects of this have been? Production increases by 50%, 100%? Any negative effects? The question is how to do this in a manner that maintains play balance. More important, in my opinion is the effect of oil on the Axis economies. I know that this is not in the game but it would be interesting if Axis access to oil had some effect on the game and if this could be mitigated by a Synfuels technology. It would also increase the strategic importance of controlling the oil resources in Romania, Iraq, and Southern Russia. For the allies it would increase the importance of controlling the Atlantic. Perhaps have each nation start the game with a Fuel Bank. The starting balance would reflect the stockpiles that each nation has at the start of the conflict. Thus the effects of oil will not be felt until later in the war. Each movement(and production?) of a naval, air, or armor unit uses 1 point of fuel. For Germany and Russia each controlled oil resource adds 10 points to the fuel bank each turn. With Synfuels tech each home country city generates an additional point of fuel per tech level each turn. Naturally the US would not have any fuel based limitations and the UK would receive 10 fuel points per turn via merchant shipping in addtion to generating one point per port and city. Of course, if adopted this should be an optional effect that can be toggled on or off. [ May 23, 2004, 11:30 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glez_ Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Can there be an option for a historicaly correct economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 hm that is a result of conquering territories as well which makes it difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Some facts to start with more is coming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin P. Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Its interesting to note in Kuniworth's chart that although UK production was double that of Italy that the number of men under arms in both countries was relatively equal until 1943. Its one of those items that makes it hard to model war economies as two countries with relatively equal GDPs may have vastly different numbers of men under arms due to differing cost structures and population resources. Much like China with a small GDP is able to field a large army by paying its soldiers much less than Western armies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Ive just ordered a book from amazon by John Ellis called the "WW2 databook". Hopefully it will be full of stats to use. Read about it here the ww2 databook [ May 23, 2004, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Kuniworth ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaMonkey Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Kuni, I have the book. The section to concentrate on will be #7, Production. All the information is there for all belligerents, it is just not assimilated as a % GDP for war goods. I believe it can be done and then you will need to take the lowest producing country and assign it a value of 1. From there it should be easy to construct a table of relatively useful values for all countries, year by year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Seamonkey can you tell me more about the book? Review it and describe it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaMonkey Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Simply Kuni, it is a collection of WW2 data, mostly tables and schematics outlining all the crucial parameters of the conflict. Absolutely no political spin. The single most comprehensive collection of facts I have ever been exposed to in one book about WW2. Is it completely factual? I must say I have seen some other print that is not totally corroborating but I believe it was unintentional of the author. Its a reference book, not easily readible, imagine an encyclopedia, a scenario(strategic scale) designer's dream. If its not in there, its not important. May I recommend a companion, "The Oxford Companion(ha!) to WWII" by John Keegan which is more like a dictionary format, brought to my attention by one of our forum members, don't remember who, but a good piece of advice. I'm not a great reviewer, just a communicator of facts so here are some: Sect.1 The War in Maps (strategic scale) Sect.2 Command Structures Sect.3 Orders of Battle Sect.4 TO&Es Sect.5 Strengths Sect.6 Casualties and Losses Sect.7 Production Sect.8 Hardware and then of course a bibliography, 315 total pages You'll love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted May 24, 2004 Author Share Posted May 24, 2004 I'm sure I will. I took a look at the oxford companion down at the library and it was one fat motha****er. I'm looking to buy Stalin's generals by Harold Shukman next. [ May 23, 2004, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Kuniworth ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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