I this what 2 by 3 started out to design back 5+ yrs ago?

[Baelfiin]

Old school sudden death victory conditions = when one player chucks the dice at the other player, calls him a [expletive deleted] and doesn't play again for a couple weeks.

Quoting an old wargaming friend " Victory conditions? I never looked them up, I just play untill the other guy quits "

I think there is a lot of unnecessary angst over this issue of VP's.

I would much rather see resources devoted to more important things (airwar, etc.) than trying to come up with some arbitray victory condition that everyone can agree to disagree to.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000
And why would it need to mean much? Victory conditions don't necessarily have to be based around a "realistic" political/diplomatic outcome.

As I said previously, these same developers felt comfortable assigning a VP threshold for the Japanese that would award a game-ending "win" for them despite the lack of evidence suggesting that the Western Allies would ever have laid down arms and just accept an in-place Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Indeed, it may well be that this is an acceptable auto-victory threshold because it represents Japan doing significantly better than its historical performance.

So why shouldn't the German player be given a similarly game-ending win for similarly exceeding historical expectations, even if there's nothing to suggest that Stalin would sign an armistice either?

Reg. Sudden Death: You do realize how tight these auto-victory conditions for Japan have been chosen in WiTP-AE? There are few people who have succeeded with that, and even then the game usually continued since both players agreed that the End was inevitable as long as the Allies have the means to achieve it.

The question would be: what corresponding auto-victory condition would the Soviets get in turn for lowering the VP-conditions for Axis presently to what you call a Sudden Death? The reduction of the Wehrmacht to 2.3M men? Or below 500 ready tanks? Or a rapid Soviet advance over say 20 hexes on a frontage of 20, emulating a crushing breakdown of a whole front part?

Victory is very clearly defined in Soviet terms, yet not in German ones, because it is all very speculative. As such, I am not interested in playing with such speculative victory conditions in 1941 or 1942 that I would reserve rather for a what-if game, which two specific players would have to agree upon -- playing on neither side.

Maybe an auto-victory by late 43 would be a choice, but none in 41 or 42 unless it is the Wehrmacht standing 200 miles east of Gorky with the Soviet Army in real shatters. By late 43, if the Wehrmacht, being intact, would hold Moscow, Rostov, Kharkov, Kursk, Leningrad or whatever you chose, then most players will automatically ask to quit the game if there is really no more point in getting to Berlin before 46. Kind of an auto-victory indeed...
LATE EDIT: In fact, the simply best rule to decide on defeat and victory would be an Axis player accepting a Soviet surrender because the Soviet player feels not be able to achieve anything like a victory with the tatters of his army and economy anymore, be it Berlin or just retaking Russian territory. So it is up to individual reasoning -- a natural houserule, of you like. As long as any sides still sees a chance to achieve something, it obviously isn't defeated...

Perhaps you should start a poll on the question which players would actually want to play GC on the Soviet Side with Sudden Death rules, and who wouldn't. I bet the minority would. The fun of the game for Axis is not averting the outcome, it is about the route to the end and how skillfully you can handle the trouble you will get into, and if you can do any better. And for the Soviets it is surviving, and getting to Berlin without have to use brute
force methods, but also skill and elegant tactics.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I think you're going to find that a lot of us on the Soviet side flatly will refuse to play with these sudden death victory conditions; we're just not buying into the idea that this was in the cards. This whole thing seems like an exercise in futility to me. Even if the community somehow manages to cobble up an optional rule and convinces Joel to code it, Axis players (and this is really an Axis wish list) aren't going to find many Soviet opponents willing to play under these conditions.

It's odd then I suppose that those old boardgames that did have those pesky sudden death rules managed to be enjoyed by so many wargamers over the years? [&:]

Something to keep in mind is that those old victory conditions worked both ways: first to keep the Russian player from running like a rabbit during the first couple years, and second to keep the German player from running like a rabbit during the last couple years. It is not simply an Axis "wish list" request. There's a damn good reason those old games had these mandatory sudden death victory conditions integrated as part of the game design, and seeing these disagreements pretty much validates why they were used. It's certainly no skin off anybody's bones to have them reintroduced as a game OPTION. [;)]

The Soviets are not "running like rabbits." The frontier armies are being annihilated in the first couple of turns -- including, ahistorically, SW Front, and there's simply not much left to stop the Wehrmacht until it's gone very far east. People are not "running" away from Leningrad. Nor or are they "running" from the Dnepr.

Right now the game's offensive tempo is just ridiculously fast, and what people are confusing as "running" is in fact the Germans running out of targets in the first half dozen or so turns and simply stampeding what scattered resistance they meet.

There's a problem with 1941, but it's not the problem that most folks here think it is nor is it a problem that will be solved by fiddling with VP.

+1

I seem to recall also that the western and northwestern fronts had to be encircled and some elements took many weeks to reduce. In game, the German can just drive through them frontally and that's it, over. As it stands, the game may be fun and absorbing in its own right but it really doesn't work as a simulation of WitE. Let the devs sort the system if they're going to, and use your own house rules if you must. Breaking the game more won't fix it.

[wadortch]

This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

While I agree with Marquo, that it is unlikely either side would surrender it is ALSO equally unlikely either side would have tolerated giving up vast spaces (we know this to be true right?).

So, fairyland or not, whether or not Axis players will find any takers or not is simply beside the point. What is so terribly tough about trying a SIMPLE to code OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL rule that "fairyland" players can elect to use to see if it creates the sought after tension and historically desperate fighting over real estate and towns??

[janh]

ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

wadortch, this is because it is all mingled, and you have to find the right origin of the problem if you don't want to screw up more than you fix.
Run-away strategies, as Flavius and many other point out, start with the Lvov pocket and continue with the fact that you couldn't even fight effectively as a Soviet with such low CV even if you wanted to -- you would create a sudden red army dead scenario. And since preserving the Army is more important than holding a few cities, or industry complexes, it is a no-brainer...

VP per time held can force players to fight longer. So can MP changes for the Soviets in 41. But what side effects will this have, and is it rationally correct?

What is missing is a real national will to fight, a national moral that reflects this, and it is the weirdness of doctrines and people like Hitler and Stalin. You won't stop and withdrawal tactics on either side, but just attempt to squeeze the game into a very tight suit if you don't bring in the true reasons why certain battles where fought for useless terrain, and why Stalingrad or Kiev happened. And I bet neither side wants to wear that tight suit.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The Soviets are not "running like rabbits." The frontier armies are being annihilated in the first couple of turns -- including, ahistorically, SW Front, and there's simply not much left to stop the Wehrmacht until it's gone very far east. People are not "running" away from Leningrad. Nor or are they "running" from the Dnepr.

Right now the game's offensive tempo is just ridiculously fast, and what people are confusing as "running" is in fact the Germans running out of targets in the first half dozen or so turns and simply stampeding what scattered resistance they meet.

There's a problem with 1941, but it's not the problem that most folks here think it is nor is it a problem that will be solved by fiddling with VP.

Based on my own gaming experience, playing primarily the Russians, I agree with this completely. If the Russian player "Runs for the Hills" he will lose the game, even Pelton acknowledges this. I personally have never "runaway", at least I would not characterize it as that. What I try and do is build a series defensive lines each 3 to 10 hexes (ie 30 to 100 miles) depending on terrain behind the other. As each line is compromised (ie I am in danger of a significant number of units being surrounded) I fall back to the next line. Depending on what my opponent is doing sometimes I will hold out on each line for several turns, other times I will fall back to the next line after only one or two turns. Are these retreats of 30 to 100 miles considered running away? Admittedly I have not yet played Pelton, or Michael T or Jamian; perhaps if I did I would be forced back much quicker and then I would be officially "running away". But until then I will continue doing what I am doing.

From my review of the AARs I personally don't see much that I would characterize as "Running Away." What I do see is the Russians in the summer and the Axis in the blizzard falling back to better defensive positions as their respective lines are compromised. This just makes good miltary sense. Maybe neither side did this very often historically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Unlike our historical counterparts we have the advantage of both hindsight and the ability to replay the War over and over to perfect our play. The net result is that both the Soviets and the Axis will probably sustain less losses than historical. But to date I don't now as this has affected play balance. We'll have to wait until some 1.05 games get into 43 or later to find out.

In the meantime, I personally don't want the game forcing me to make the same stupid mistakes that my historical counterparts made.

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

The discussion keeps shifting towards auto-victory / VP / sudden-death rules because it directly influences the way that players behave.

That is, a Soviet player who knows he isn't going to "lose" outside of letting the German go farther than Stalingrad is of course going to trade massive amounts of space for time. There's simply no reason not to.

And conversely, a German player who knows he has little-to-no hope of triggering the auto-victory condition isn't going to stick his neck out after the 1941 campaign season barring a massive mistake on the part of the Soviet. All that real estate is just room to breathe on the way to Berlin anyway, right?

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

Perhaps the victory conditions for the various Grand Campaign games could be set more like the Case Blue scenario?  For those who have not tried the 20 turn Case Blue scenario- the Russian player gains points each turn he holds major cities like Rostov, Stalingrad etc.  So the German player is compelled to take Rostov in the first few turns and Bouguchar, Voronozeh as quickly as possible. 

So a German PBEM opponent playing too conservatively in 1942 to "avoid losing" will lose VP's for not taking the Caucasus or Stalingrad or Leningrad etc.  In other words, high command is not content with each player sitting tight, or in the Russian case running away. Maybe you lose more VP's for losing Kiev "too quickly"?

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


Based on my own gaming experience, playing primarily the Russians, I agree with this completely. If the Russian player "Runs for the Hills" he will lose the game, even Pelton acknowledges this. I personally have never "runaway", at least I would not characterize it as that. What I try and do is build a series defensive lines each 3 to 10 hexes (ie 30 to 100 miles) depending on terrain behind the other. As each line is compromised (ie I am in danger of a significant number of units being surrounded) I fall back to the next line. Depending on what my opponent is doing sometimes I will hold out on each line for several turns, other times I will fall back to the next line after only one or two turns. Are these retreats of 30 to 100 miles considered running away? Admittedly I have not yet played Pelton, or Michael T or Jamian; perhaps if I did I would be forced back much quicker and then I would be officially "running away". But until then I will continue doing what I am doing.

From my review of the AARs I personally don't see much that I would characterize as "Running Away." What I do see is the Russians in the summer and the Axis in the blizzard falling back to better defensive positions as their respective lines are compromised. This just makes good miltary sense. Maybe neither side did this very often historically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Unlike our historical counterparts we have the advantage of both hindsight and the ability to replay the War over and over to perfect our play. The net result is that both the Soviets and the Axis will probably sustain less losses than historical. But to date I don't now as this has affected play balance. We'll have to wait until some 1.05 games get into 43 or later to find out.

In the meantime, I personally don't want the game forcing me to make the same stupid mistakes that my historical counterparts made.

I agree completely. Very well said!

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net

So a German PBEM opponent playing too conservatively in 1942 to "avoid losing" will lose VP's for not taking the Caucasus or Stalingrad or Leningrad etc.  In other words, high command is not content with each player sitting tight, or in the Russian case running away. Maybe you lose more VP's for losing Kiev "too quickly"?

But what happens if the best Axis strategy in real life had been precisely to switch to a "defense mode" as early as 1942? Are you going to penalize the player trying that promising strategy? Do you really think Zhukov deserves "to lose VP points" for advocating a retreat from Kiev in 1941 to avoid disaster?

As a matter of fact, I think that the "no-retreat" order was not as universally widespread as sometimes is assumed. There were a lot of voluntary retreats for both sides during the war. But they are not so "glamorous" as the stand-fast battles and are somewhat neglected.

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

That's a fair point Alfonso- I'm playing a 1942 PBEM as Germans and i've strategically gone "defensive" while launching sector wide offensives to pocket Russians where I can.  So i know what you mean, however the time staggered VP's idea really makes more sense on the Russian side:

Let's say the Russian player loses Kiev much earlier than historical, he might lose more VP's permanently.  And say the Russian holds Kiev until November 1941, way longer than historically, he may lose less VP's or even gain VP's for such a successful defense.  The Russian player thus must balance preserving his forces with political objectives (a very real constraint that in Wite you don't really have, but you do have in War in the Pacific)  This may encourage a more grudging retreat by the Russians and still encourage an aggressive German offensive.  One reason for these rules may be to inspire each side to really "get after it" in 1942 and on rather than let the game degenerate into trench warfare, as the starting post mentioned.
 
Its worth playing Case Blue to see these kind of Victory Conditions rules in effect  
 

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net

That's a fair point Alfonso- I'm playing a 1942 PBEM as Germans and i've strategically gone "defensive" while launching sector wide offensives to pocket Russians where I can.  So i know what you mean, however the time staggered VP's idea really makes more sense on the Russian side:

Let's say the Russian player loses Kiev much earlier than historical, he might lose more VP's permanently.  And say the Russian holds Kiev until November 1941, way longer than historically, he may lose less VP's or even gain VP's for such a successful defense.  

With the current state of the game, (Lvov Opening and the offensive logistics bias.), holding Kiev longer than historical isn't possible.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: alfonso

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


Based on my own gaming experience, playing primarily the Russians, I agree with this completely. If the Russian player "Runs for the Hills" he will lose the game, even Pelton acknowledges this. I personally have never "runaway", at least I would not characterize it as that. What I try and do is build a series defensive lines each 3 to 10 hexes (ie 30 to 100 miles) depending on terrain behind the other. As each line is compromised (ie I am in danger of a significant number of units being surrounded) I fall back to the next line. Depending on what my opponent is doing sometimes I will hold out on each line for several turns, other times I will fall back to the next line after only one or two turns. Are these retreats of 30 to 100 miles considered running away? Admittedly I have not yet played Pelton, or Michael T or Jamian; perhaps if I did I would be forced back much quicker and then I would be officially "running away". But until then I will continue doing what I am doing.

From my review of the AARs I personally don't see much that I would characterize as "Running Away." What I do see is the Russians in the summer and the Axis in the blizzard falling back to better defensive positions as their respective lines are compromised. This just makes good miltary sense. Maybe neither side did this very often historically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Unlike our historical counterparts we have the advantage of both hindsight and the ability to replay the War over and over to perfect our play. The net result is that both the Soviets and the Axis will probably sustain less losses than historical. But to date I don't now as this has affected play balance. We'll have to wait until some 1.05 games get into 43 or later to find out.

In the meantime, I personally don't want the game forcing me to make the same stupid mistakes that my historical counterparts made.

I agree completely. Very well said!

Yep. And as one who has done it, I can tell you that running away makes for a short game for Russia.

[wadortch]

In response to a suggestion to poll the players on this topic I created another thread--Vote on a Sudden Death Rule---. Hope folks just keep it simple, yes would be interested, no way I would ever use such a rule, etc. Maybe there actually is only several die hard Axis players out there who want such a rule.
Walt

[mmarquo]

"well established method to put pressure on both sides of a game to act in a historical manner in regard to defending and attacking." Or they may very well act in a very silly antihistorical manner to simply capture a VP city in complete disgard of any semblance of prudence.

Marquo [:)]

[wadortch]

Sure, can work both ways. Fact that the Germans can't send in a motorcycle squad to win the game by taking Moscow before the blizzard commence is one deterrent to that. Soviets could theoretically grab a win that way at the end of the blizzard but let's just give it a try and see what kind of game behavior changes it produces if any.

[jazman]

This game had the "Hitler Directive" rule which introduced some insane chaos into the German effort:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5480 ... stalingrad

Interesting feature. A lot of players didn't like it, but I thought it fun. Otherwise, the game was quite broken...

[wadortch]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

ORIGINAL: wadortch
This does keep going around and around in circles.

The intent at the start of the thread was to tackle the run away strategies in the game.

The discussion keeps shifting towards auto-victory / VP / sudden-death rules because it directly influences the way that players behave.

That is, a Soviet player who knows he isn't going to "lose" outside of letting the German go farther than Stalingrad is of course going to trade massive amounts of space for time. There's simply no reason not to.

And conversely, a German player who knows he has little-to-no hope of triggering the auto-victory condition isn't going to stick his neck out after the 1941 campaign season barring a massive mistake on the part of the Soviet. All that real estate is just room to breathe on the way to Berlin anyway, right?

RIGHT!

[mmarquo]

What was the military objective of Barbarossa in the first place? Advance to the grail-like "AA" line stretching across deep eastern Russia. And that is how the game should be played for the Axis.

What was the military objective for the Soviets? Remove Hilter form power and occupy as much of eastern Europe and Germany as possible. And that is how the game whould be played for the Soviets.

There were no sudden death or VP considerations: a total war of annihilation.


Michael T kicked my ass and captured Moscow, Tula, Stalino, etc before the first mud because more than any one else he has discovered the art of keeping his motorized units maximally supplied. Before any consideration is given to any sudden death rules, the developers need to perform an autopsy on games such as this, and diagnose how some very astute players have figured out how to sustain offensive operations at a pace and tempo which outstrips anything which would have been even remotely possible. The truth is, as long as Micheal T can turn his panzers into universal acid, then there is no point in playing him with sudden death rules because the Soviet will lose everytime.

If the logistical system was modeled a bit more realistically, then there would be much less clamor for sudden death rules.

My 2 cents.

Marquo [;)]

[wadortch]

Marquo
In the game with MT, did you play through the first blizzard and if so, did you retake any of the proposed SD victory cities?