SCripts and Strategie... weird effects and human cunning

[Sombra]

I really love WaW even more than sC2.

Still some of the game mechanics are simply strange or feel very artificial for me.

1. Siberian transfer.... Usally they arrive automatically right after "pearl habour" => Winter 1941/42

Ok thats more or less fine for me even when its amazing that the msot advanced high tech troops have been sitting in the far east....

My problem with the Siberian transfer is, it is triggered too when the Germans arrive before that date and get to close to Moscow...

There is no benefit for germany to do an actual Blitzkrieg. either way Rusia receives a huge amount of very powerful (At Leaast I tray to may out tech always before teh transfer to get the most of it) stopping any advance of germany usally right cold in its tracks...

Worse as thee is no PENALTY for Rusia to transfer the troops even before Pearl Habour there is no game reason to try a forward defense at all. THe allied player will give up most of its land simply without any fight. He cant hold it anyway and its even better for him if the axis player makes a wrong move and triggers teh siberians.

My suggestions would be:

- Delay the Siberian automatic transfer a bit... Even if Japan attacks Pearl Habour in Dezember 1942 it woukld take a few weeks /months acess teh situation and transfer any troops.

- IF teh transfer is triggered before November /Dezember 1942 there could be risk of a penalty for Rusia. => Japan sees that the east is totally undefended and takes resources from rusia away or something like that....

I hope this would force the Rusian palyer to invest troops and material in a more forward defense.

Right now an alleid rusian player : Runs away...high tech weapons get deployed....runnign further away Building up of strengh...end struggle....

Hmm doesnt refelct very well the war with hordes of low tech rusians trying desperately to slow down or stop the german advane in Rusia. Simply, the game mechanics dont give any reason to even try this its suicide even worse with the issue of the "fist of god" aka "Tac Bombers"

2. Talking about scipts:

- Amerika transfers Naval assets to Atalntik...Again here no penalty for Amerika to do that? Imagine if at Midway a whole carrier group , battleship etc would have been missing?

3. Transfer of English capital to Egypt...

Human vs human usally invest lots and lots of material all over the world (At least I do) forcing many times deciding battels already in Egypt.. Hey either I break him there and if I lose England to a determined German palyer uaslly thats even worse for germany (I get good supply and Rusia and Amerika come to play earlier)

Ok I can understand it has been done in the beginnig to prevent always a sealion... (long discussion in SC2)

Afterwards came changes which made the Royal Navy actually useful to prevent a sealion.

Right now the only issue would be the TAC Bombers able to wipe out any resistance in England.

I would like to see the capital transfer go away in SC2 waw . It prevents the "real struggle of England to be sieged in England and to keep all resources at hand to prevent a sealion. => aka right now mostly the royal navy goes out sub hunting .. no real risk at that because a sealion is damm unattractive... etc.

Best case would have been after the fall of England that the Britsh governament would have moved to Canada. stil they would have lacked the resources to keep the British army working...aka perhaps a few free Britsh units and an minium income from the empire but thats it. Not suddenly a "Wirtschaftswunder " in Egypt to supply the brtitsh army with material from the Egypt dessert.

Even if Patton drives east is before the doors I would really love to see these issues adressed in Waw as they destroy for me the sense of reality in the WW2 simulation. As game mechanics they work and keep the game balanced but I think after all the other changes now its time for them to go.

[arado234]

Sombra as far as the Russians just falling back,in most cases that is what they should do,regardless of the Siberian Trans.

With the penalty of Russia transfering troops because of a threat from Japan,Stalin already knew through his spy Richard Sorge in july 1941 that Japan had no real interest in attacking Russia and by Sept 41 there was no doubt Japan was not going to attack Russia and the Russians had already made plans to move those units west(from the book:What Stalin knew).

With the Transfer of Britains capital you can always just change it so the Capital just goes to Canada or have it so there is no transfer of the English capital.

I do agree with you that Sealion should have more of an effect than it does,but because some of the workings of the game arenot historical for obvious reasons its a fine line to make the game somewhat more historical and winnable for both sides.These forums are a great place for us to discuss and give suggestions to the designers(who do an excellent job)to make a great game even better.

[Sombra]

Thx arado for your reply. My problem with the scripts are right now is that the encourage "gamey" gameplay or force the player to ply ahistorical.

I can paly the game and I van win it twith the current rules but these things feel simply wrong for me.

[Timskorn]

I understand what you're saying Sombra, and in most cases it is the way it is mostly for balancing reasons. I think if some of your concerns were re-visited and discussed, some novel ideas may bubble up.

Siberian Transfer: A simple fix for this in the short term, would be to give a greater date range for when they arrive. Right now, a player knows that when Axis troops near Moscow, they arrive. This could also have a minimum date condition on it so an aggressive and successful Axis player who reaches Moscow early is not penalized for doing so.

US Naval Assets: This, and to some degree the above, would work better on a global war map where the loss of Pacific ships would hurt them against the Japanese. If Fall Weiss was re-visited with the Decision events from PDE, the US player could be presented with the choice to transfer the Pacific fleet. If he does, overall US MPP production could be diminished (abstracting the need for more resources dedicated to fighting the Japanese now) but you'd get a fancy fleet for the Atlantic.

As for players never doing a Russian forward defense, that's tough to entice players to do any way you slice it. The only viable situation may be in a H2H game where an Axis player is overextended before Barbarossa. Otherwise, it's always wise to defend deep.

You don't want to force the player to have a forward defense, either. Overall, this is probably less of an issue because the core of the Russian War is deep in the steppes anyway, with plenty of strategy on both sides to employ.

[Scook]

Yep, they are kinda gamey, but I feel its for a play balance situation.

1) Siberian troops in August. If the German is steamrolling, essentially this is the last wall. The longer I play WaW, the more I want to see the Siberians early so I can get a crack at them before winter.

2) Capital to Alexdria vs Canada. It's an MPP thing. Once US enters the war, Canada is connected to a major power so the production is increased. Try s script change and move the capital to Canada and play around with the MPPs to see if it can work and not unbalance the game.

3) US naval assests. the carrier in question transferred is a light carrier, and would conceiably occur late 1940 or early 1941, not the turn after Spain is in the war. The effects on the Pacific theatre would be slight, as US production became very overwhleming.

As far as Sealion goes, I have been reading lots of obscura, and I think this the most glaring part to WaW. Will post more later when I get more research done.

[arado234]

Sombra if both sides were forced to follow the historical path of WW2 then the game would be to predictable.You would also have to set the industrial might of all the nations to historical levels and we all know what will happen then.

I like Timskorns idea about the Siberian trans.date but by Sept 41 those Siberians were already getting ready to move west.

In one way its good to have the Siberians arrive early because usually the Russians havent been able to tech.out their units yet and the earlier they arrive the less tech.the Siberians have.The Russians then have to pay for upgrades and may be forced to commit them before they are ready to fight and are easier to wipe out.

Im not to sure why if Spain joins or is conquered by the Axis there even is an American naval move to the Atlantic.Im thinking because of play balance and if thats the case then it makes total sense.

[SeaMonkey]

First of all, I don't have any problem with the way the Siberians arrive so long as we're discussing the European theater only.

I have long been an advocate for an inherent value(MPPs) for owning player's tiles. This lends a degree of incentive to defend all of one's territory. It also would incite movement from partisans to shift control of tiles, perhaps allowing them some degree of reinforcement.

I never play with the Sealion conquered UK capital moving to Egypt...totally unrealistic and as many have noted perhaps gamey as well. Canada is the natural fall back position and UK should be able to obtain lendlease MPPs from USA to rebuild their strength.

IMO it makes for a great late game.

Sealion....well...I think it can come off pretty accurately if you as the Axis approach it from the beginning turns of Fall Weiss. I mean who here can say that the Germans weren't capable if they truly had prepared for the invasion even before the War started?

On the other hand, UK can deliver a crippling blow to Axis forces if they choose to concentrate on defending the Homeland and not go off running around with other adventures. This includes a measured deployment to North Africa.

There are of course still some exploits of the game engine as Baron noted in his response in the TAC power thread. But you might be able to delay that scenario with an early involvement in France or some other diversion for the Axis AFs.

Ponder some ways to take them out of range of London.

So that's the essence of my response, no matter what your opponent might try, there always seems to be some alternative for you to follow to derail his plans.

And that's what makes SC such a great game.

[arado234]

The only thing(imho)that should be changed is the conquering of England and the effect on the

Allies as a whole(especially Commonwealth troops)

-The Germans should get a huge morale boost and a permanant small morale boost.

-All the remaining European mainland countries and the Middle East(except Russia)get a major diplo. hit towards Germany.

-If Gibralter is open it automatically is occupied by Spain and the Axis are allowed free passage.

-The Russains war readiness goes down(there is noway Stalin would threaten Hitler after England was conquered) but there should be a trigger(like the Siberian trans.)that if the Germans suffer to big a loss in the attempt the Russians can attack instantly.This way Germany has to think twice about it(backstabbing at its best).

-Russia and America get 3 free chits in both their ind.and prod.tech.and their overall ind.might starts to rise rapidly.

-Canada gets an overall ind.increase.

-Untill England is liberated all British replacements start in Canada.The British navy is supplied by Canada and the U.S.when they join.

-Americas war readiness goes up the same as if England wasnt conquered(since England was never attacked directly and conquered there is noway to know what America would do.If the Americans were really serious about helping England directly you would think they would do it before England was attacked and conquered not after.Remember alot of America gave Britain only six weeks so if they were going to help with direct support it would have been right away.

England being wiped out should have a major effect.It would have a huge influence on the Japanese and what America would do now that they wouldnt be recieving to much support from the British navy(it would probably get sunk it the attempt to save England as the British would no doubt try).

[SeaMonkey]

Got to agree with your assumptions arado.

America was in no real position to help(seriously or not) until probably some time in 43 at the earliest given the conquest of the Isles in 40 or 41. Remember Pearl Harbor was the wake up call.

In the event of the loss of UK homeland I would assume a more concentrated effort in the Pacific first even though Hitler probably still would have DoWed USA at the instigation of Japan.

We can assume that sometime after a Sealion recovery Germany would have gone at the USSR. Lendlease would have been less pronounced as historical I'm sure, especially with the Japanese sitting astride the supply lines.

Probably this scenario is better left to be played out on the world map which we should see soon enough in the WaW adaptation.

I believe one thing is sure, UK would have kept up the fight from the Western Hemisphere and USSR would have assumed even a greater burden in the years before 44.

The Royal Navy would assume nothing but the frosting on the cake as the US Navy grew to the size of all other belligerents combined by 45. I really can't see any competition for the US Navy as they steam the Earth's Seas supreme just like the present. Remember what happens when America gets focussed.

A protracted conflict none the less and who knows when the final victory would have been attained?

Does it really ever come as long as evil dwells within the hearts of man?

[arado234]

SeaMonkey your last comment is the most important.