Improving Production Planning & Convoys

World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.

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Omnius
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:10 pm
Location: Salinas, CA

Improving Production Planning & Convoys

Post by Omnius »

I'm really looking forward to the 1.212 official update. Right now I'm enjoying my Brute Force game where I'm now into the Nov/Dec 1945 turn after about 6 weeks of play. I decided to play sans oil rules and saving oil and build points with version 1.207. I wanted to avoid the frustrations of my first game having to fight so hard getting convoys working properly to ship things from where I wanted to where I wanted.

I still see that the original sin of Marinacci hasn't been fixed yet. I still see that oil is used for production before non-oil resources because almost anytime I have extra resources they are always the non-oil resources that sit idle. Until this original sin of oil first to production is fixed we'll always have to fight this pervasive problem.

A good ways into my game I finally cleared the Med for the British to convoy resources through. First problem I encountered was that the resource from India that was being shipped around Africa the whole game all of a sudden was switched to route through the Med by the program. That made it hard for me to get the resource from Cyprus to Britain difficult. Whenever I tried to reroute the Indian resource back around Africa the program would whine that there was no valid path when I had checked to make sure that there were unused convoy points in every sea area. Of all the times the program gets religion about making an efficient path it would have to be then. Luckily for me I had extra convoy points along the Med route so I could add enough to route the Cyprus resource to England. I have seen this problem before, whenever there is a change for the British to ship resources through the Med and not being able to.

The above example is one reason why I think the program thinks too much when new resources are captured. I had to laugh as I added resources in my new game and watched as each time I added a new resource from some far flung place the program would use it in lieu of a closer resource. After a while Germany stopped shipping resources from Sweden, Finland and Norway. Of course the resources that always were used were the oil resources, the excess unused being non-oil resources. And we're supposed to save oil when the program does this to us?

I read the new production planning fixes in the September update and will enjoy starting a new game with 1.212. I will return to using oil rules and saving oil and build points. I hope that the problem with Japan not shipping a build point to the USA will be fixed so we don't have to save an oil point before the program fulfills the USA-Japan trade pact. The program does a nice job shipping build points when not saving oil and build points.

I do like the fix for shipping resources where the originating country chooses which resource to ship and the receiving country chooses what to do with it.

While it's less frustrating to play without oil and saving oil or build points and it's fun to be able to build more units I still think the game is much better when these rules are used. It really makes Axis players think twice before doing something that expends oil. I found that while it is fun to move Axis naval units at a whim I think it would be much better if the Axis players have to labor under the same oil disadvantages the Axis had to deal with historically. Plus it gives the Allies more juicy targets for strategic bombing and makes strategic bombing more realistic and fun.

I'm looking forward to starting my next game and enjoying the new production planning fixes, but first I want to enjoy learning more from my Brute Force game where I'm now into Nov/Dec 1945. I have the Germans all over the Middle East after they broke through the Caucasus after aligning Turkey. After invading Morocco with the Americans I saw that it would have been better to do Portugal and then Spain first. I didn't collapse Vichy as Germany until after I pretty much wiped out the Vichy fleet in battle. I am learning the joys of keeping invasion forces in port as the Allies for doing end runs to unhinge tough defensive positions like the Germans enjoyed in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Omnius
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