ORIGINAL: oscar72se
Ahhh... The good old days...
I think this is now getting out of hand.
Most World in Flames players people think that the rule changes form Wif 5 to WIFFE make the game better. How many people come to play Wif 5 at conventions and talk about it on boards? Of course certain rules are always examined but this issue, being brought up here, has not historically been a main topic. Some people on baordgamegeek say they prefer WIF 5 but that is a different crowd and it is a very small voice.
'Stuffing' or the Soviet production multipliers were not created to make the Soviets 'sexier'. People may think I'm lying, but the idea was to make forward defense vs. rear defense an interesting, difficult choice, and that the historical result (Soviets caught in a bad position at the border) can occur. The Soviet production modifiers have been debated endlessly since WIFFE came out, ADG and the gaming crowds have been trying to balance them for a long time and have a lot of options (Like Hitler's War) to give alternatives. The production multipliers are totally dominated by views on play balance.
Most people who know Harry Rowland will tell you he is trying to make a good, playable, fun game. The issue of which side is stronger is also endlessly debated, meaning that the game as a whole is working well. Right now the 'Allies are stronger side' appears to be in the majority, but apparently not so much so that major changes are in the works - there are many optional rules to alter play balance for the benefits of particular groups that want to swing balance based on their experience.
It all comes down to the issue that the posters on this forum are saying:
Stuffing is broken. The older players and the people playing at the tournaments over the last decade are just a bunch of bad players because they use rear defenses. They didn't realize that 41 Barbarossa's always win for the Axis and are superior to 42 Barbarossas.
Some of the older players actually knew this, and despite Harry Rowland's and about half of the WIFFE community personal view that a 42 Barbarossa is better, 42 Barbarossas are really done because stuffing is too good and it always wins; we suspect the reason that they CLAIM all of these other strategic benefits is to hide the fact that they know the 'secret' - all strategy in WIFFE is totally dominated by stuffing the border as the hidden way to always win, so they claim other reasons to fool the other people about the 'secret' they don't want to let out - therefore we can ignore the reasons they say they do 42 Barbarossas as ridiculous.
Finally, it is good thing that the people here got the computer game changed because Harry Rowland doesn't have the ability to make these decisions properly. After all, we all know stuffing is broken and Harry Rowland never stopped it, so this is proof that we are saving the game by going to Matrix and having them overrule ADG in the computer game specs. Harry, you are going to thank us one day! We now also know that he makes decisions for the game to be 'sexy' instead of properly worrying about play balance.
Old line crowd:
The game works fine as designed. Rules have been changed to accommodate issues that have come up but they have largely stood over time. Tournaments and to some degree discussion over boards are used as grounds to determine if the rules are working as specified. 41 Barbarossas and 42 Barbarossas are both good strategies with people roughly evenly on both sides of the fence. This has been the experience of the tournaments and the people posting on the boards. Forward and rear defenses are designed to be roughly even strategies.
At the tournaments rear defense are substantially more popular so it is hard to see why a strategy that is practically never used is considered broken and indeed there had been seriously discussion about making it stronger. The 42 Barbarossa crowd practically never list fear of forward defenses as a reason for their strategy. (Indeed, Harry Rowland once said that he thought one of Germany's biggest mistakes in the war was not taking Gibraltar and closing the Mediterranean after France fell.) Harry Rowland and ADG is in a better position to decide what are the proper rules and optionals than the Matrix programmers, have seen more tournaments, have played more, and in involved in these kinds of discussions far more than the Matrix programmers. (This isn't a knock on the Matrix programmers, but they just don't know WIFFE as well as Harry Rowland does.) We are open to the benefits of rear defenses but given how complex WIFFE is, it should be tested and proven at tournaments as evidence and some opinion from ADG before changes are made.
So, I guess I don't think the old line players like me are a bunch of morons; of course, the other crowd just thinks this is greater evidence of how severe a bunch of morons we are since we aren't willing to change our views even after the overwhelming evidence (theoretical evidence, not tournament results) of the 'secret' has been presented.
For me, some of these last posts have gotten to the point where the discussion is getting crazy. EVEN IF STUFFING IS BROKEN, it has not been some accidental issue coming from multiplier changes and the like - these have always been examined for their impact on the forward defense. If you want to say it is broken, fine, that is your opinion - if you say it hasn't been considered, thought about, and studied, you are just absolutely 100% wrong. If stuffing is broken, then it is because the assumptions you are using are different from the ones used by the ADG crowd in their calculations, not because they flippantly made rule changes to be 'sexy' and didn't consider this issue.
Good gaming,
Breunor
