ASW?

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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blackcloud6
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ASW?

Post by blackcloud6 »

Does adding the ASW units add much more time and work in managing units? Do they take more production? It seems they would help in having more units to cover more ocean ares to fight submarines. Or does just using CLs to cover more areas work?
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Dabrion
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RE: ASW?

Post by Dabrion »

CL help tremendously with coverage. ASW units just make them better defended (retaliation potential).
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RE: ASW?

Post by bo »

ORIGINAL: blackcloud6

Does adding the ASW units add much more time and work in managing units? Do they take more production? It seems they would help in having more units to cover more ocean ares to fight submarines. Or does just using CLs to cover more areas work?

This ASW is not my forte, I am sure people here much more astute in the game than I am can answer this one. But an opinion I have is that if adding ASW units makes the game more complex so be it, there are enough games out there that are beer and pretzel games, [over simplified] Just my opinion but I like a game where I have to think with every move I make and every option that adds realism to the game.

I think it adds a lot of realism to naval warfare especially when a lot of submarines are involved. I love the time and work involved if it makes the game better IMO. There are some players who might not like new games because they have to set up all the various nations forces. I happen to enjoy that as I place each individual unit, they become more than cardboard cutouts [WIF board game] or Nato counters in the computer game, they are my units of war and I need to place them [with love and care[;)]]


Bo
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paulderynck
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RE: ASW?

Post by paulderynck »

It's hard enough already for the Axis to make a good Battle of the Atlantic. I'd avoid CLiF and ASW units for play balance purposes.
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RE: ASW?

Post by AlbertN »

CLs appear to offer a more than wide coverage, and to my personal experience the Submarines are more a threat forcing the UK to deploy an amount of Navan units, more than something which can cripple for real their economics.

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warspite1
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RE: ASW?

Post by warspite1 »

original: cohen

cls appear to offer a more than wide coverage, and to my personal experience the submarines are more a threat forcing the uk to deploy an amount of navan units, more than something which can cripple for real their economics.

warspite1

not having played the game to anywhere near its conclusion i do not know if the german ability depends on what they spend on subs or whether, regardless of this, they cannot hurt the uk.

if its the latter then that may be a game balance problem but if its the former then there is no problem.

the german economy could not build all the tanks, aircraft and subs it needed to defeat the cw and the soviet union so - as ever - there is a choice to be made. if germany put more effort into subs (possibly combined with a coherent policy at the start of the war that actually meant they had a sensible number to field) then there is no doubt that the cw could have been in trouble. but in so doing they would have to have sacrificed building on other hardware. and as we know, such build programs were already woefully inadequate for the all the tasks required of the wehrmacht.

how weird - i can now edit my posts - but cannot write capitals [x(]
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RE: ASW?

Post by brian brian »

The historical Germans deployed a bit north of 1,150 U-Boats. At the high end of the 25~30 submarines per SUB counter, that's 38 SUBs. They lost about 60% of those in combat.

I think very few WiF players will ever put 35 new SUB counters on the board in a game of World in Flames. Perhaps MWiF with it's less time/space investment in playing a game, would be more likely to see that happen in a game.

The U-Boats perhaps came close to breaking the UK's war effort, in the words of British leaders themselves. It is a What If? of history. But with the worst "came close" moment in the early months of 1943, it is doubtful the British war effort would have been broken for long with the US industrial effort continuing to ramp up. There were other rough patches for the Allies, sure. The U-Boats certainly forced the Allies to divert significant war resources (men, munitions, steel for ship building, four engine bombers, etc.) into fighting them and replacing things lost to U-Boats, so they probably helped keep the German Army in the field longer than it would have been otherwise. Imo. The Germans can certainly create this effect in World in Flames, for a while at least.

Even if a WiF player controlling the Germans were to build 35 U-Boats for a cost of perhaps 80 or more Build Points (2~3 BP each and every turn though tough to estimate with the cost of "Damaged" SUB counters), they would quickly tire of trying to use them, due to the action limit system. The price of using the U-Boats regularly is the Russians infiltrating your temporarily paused lines with the extremely nimble land units in the game. And this leads most players away from using the U-Boats, well aside from the ASW mechanics. That, and in 1942, the Allies get ASW points that no longer cost them Build Points, unlike the German SUBs.

Perhaps a U-Boat + Sitzkrieg strategy in the east would work, where the Germans build a very tough double line on the eastern front.
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composer99
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RE: ASW?

Post by composer99 »

IMO ASW units benefit the Axis, because the Allies have to spend build points to get them; where in regular WiF they just get intrinsic ASW for free from their convoy points from 1942 on.

So the Allies have to allocate the cruiser, carrier, and naval bomber forces early on to keep the convoy lines protected in 1939-1941, and have to spend build points to build up the ASW units to have them in force by the time they would normally get free ASW.

The one thing favourable for the Allies seems to be the ASW CVs which can stay in the 0 box. Some of them can carry quite potent carrier planes.
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paulderynck
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RE: ASW?

Post by paulderynck »

CLiF is a bigger problem for play balance than the ASW stuff - true.
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RE: ASW?

Post by blackcloud6 »

the german economy could not build all the tanks, aircraft and subs it needed to defeat the cw and the soviet union so - as ever - there is a choice to be made. if germany put more effort into subs (possibly combined with a coherent policy at the start of the war that actually meant they had a sensible number to field) then there is no doubt that the cw could have been in trouble. but in so doing they would have to have sacrificed building on other hardware. and as we know, such build programs were already woefully inadequate for the all the tasks required of the wehrmacht.
The price of using the U-Boats regularly is the Russians infiltrating your temporarily paused lines with the extremely nimble land units in the game. And this leads most players away from using the U-Boats, well aside from the ASW mechanics. That, and in 1942, the Allies get ASW points that no longer cost them Build Points, unlike the German SUBs.

It seems to me, and note this is without playing the game much at all, that the extra rules like ASW, further put the German and Japanese in the strategic pickle they really put themselves in in WWII. The real Germans tried to do way too much, in too many directions, against too many enemies, with not enough stuff/resource and paid a big price for it. Maybe it is in the end a play-balance issue but it really should be extremely difficult for the Axis to win WWII.

Thanks for the responses, they help see the insights in this game.
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RE: ASW?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: blackcloud6
the german economy could not build all the tanks, aircraft and subs it needed to defeat the cw and the soviet union so - as ever - there is a choice to be made. if germany put more effort into subs (possibly combined with a coherent policy at the start of the war that actually meant they had a sensible number to field) then there is no doubt that the cw could have been in trouble. but in so doing they would have to have sacrificed building on other hardware. and as we know, such build programs were already woefully inadequate for the all the tasks required of the wehrmacht.
The price of using the U-Boats regularly is the Russians infiltrating your temporarily paused lines with the extremely nimble land units in the game. And this leads most players away from using the U-Boats, well aside from the ASW mechanics. That, and in 1942, the Allies get ASW points that no longer cost them Build Points, unlike the German SUBs.

It seems to me, and note this is without playing the game much at all, that the extra rules like ASW, further put the German and Japanese in the strategic pickle they really put themselves in in WWII. The real Germans tried to do way too much, in too many directions, against too many enemies, with not enough stuff/resource and paid a big price for it. Maybe it is in the end a play-balance issue but it really should be extremely difficult for the Axis to win WWII.


Thanks for the responses, they help see the insights in this game.
warspite1

Personally I'd have to disagree with this view. One of the (many) great things about WIF is that it is a game that both sides can win.

It's not WITP-AE or WITE, whereby the OOB is as realistic as possible, and does not set out to be. There are many liberties taken with the counter values for that reason - they make the game more balanced - and that is a perfectly acceptable trade-off for me [:)]
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RE: ASW?

Post by brian brian »

ORIGINAL: blackcloud6

It seems to me, and note this is without playing the game much at all, that the extra rules like ASW, further put the German and Japanese in the strategic pickle they really put themselves in in WWII. The real Germans tried to do way too much, in too many directions, against too many enemies, with not enough stuff/resource and paid a big price for it. Maybe it is in the end a play-balance issue but it really should be extremely difficult for the Axis to win WWII.

Thanks for the responses, they help see the insights in this game.

You make a good point, but "winning" in war can be a very subjective thing. In a game, it is easy enough to simply define the historical results as a draw and then see if a player can do better than history = winning the game. (Which is a way many players intuitively approach the idea). I couldn't say the ASW counters not yet in MWiF are something that helps hem in the Axis (rather they improve the fine detail of the naval system), but you nailed it on what the game does in general. For example, if the Axis don't bother with the Mediterranean theater at all, they can launch a very much more dangerous Operation Barbarossa. I don't think I could play a grand strategy game of WWII with a fixed OOB any more.

I like Composer99's point about using Convoy in Flames without adding the Light Cruisers. We've had some good games using House Rules that go a little further in tweaking the ASW system via reducing the role of SCS defending the convoys from SUBs and then giving the CW the Food in Flames bonuses to pay for the ASW counters, and encourage Axis attempts to disrupt those bonuses.

World in Flames has always evolved since it was published, and I look forward to it evolving more.
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Grotius
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RE: ASW?

Post by Grotius »

Could MWIF be modded to allow people to experiment with, say, stronger submarine attack values (or cheaper sub construction costs, though it's hard to see how they could be much cheaper)? How much modding does MWIF permit, anyway?
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RE: ASW?

Post by blackcloud6 »

Personally I'd have to disagree with this view. One of the (many) great things about WIF is that it is a game that both sides can win.

I agree with you in the context of "winning the game." Note I said in my OP: "... it really should be extremely difficult for the Axis to win WWII"

This got me thinking about Germany. Prior to WWI, Germany was a strong regional power but a "wannabe" global power somewhat envious of great Britain. That it built its fleet to be only able to sortie in the North Sea so hows that Germany did not grasp its strategic position and thus it blundered into a global war that ended badly the nation.

Prior to WWII Germany was trying to regain its status as a strong regional power and it did so somewhat on the land but didn't really become so at sea (the U-Boat was the good college try that technology overwhelmed). But once again, it blundered into a global war war through strategic hubris and the reality of launching a series of regional campaigns that had no chance of winning the global conflict it slid into. The nation paid even more dearly for its strategic ineptitude. WWII was a strategic "forlorn hope" for Germany but they didn't understand it.

How does this relate to WiF? Well it seems to me that WiF actually puts all the strategic pressure on the Axis, and the more you add: ASW, CLs, Pilots, Oil etc.; the more realistic a game it becomes while, apparently for what others have posted, making a game that the Axis can win. This speaks highly of WiF.
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RE: ASW?

Post by brian brian »

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Could MWIF be modded to allow people to experiment with, say, stronger submarine attack values (or cheaper sub construction costs, though it's hard to see how they could be much cheaper)? How much modding does MWIF permit, anyway?

I can't remember if counter values can be changed but I think so. The values seem to work out OK as-is, and the Submarine and ASW systems do work. There has been a slow but steady loosening of the action limit rules over time for SUBs to make it a little easier to fight the Battle of the Atlantic and Case Blue at the same time, but that is usually the bottleneck you reach, not limits on what the SUBs accomplish in combat or the price of building them. This can lead to quite gamey situations such as building out the Italian SUB pool and then using it to attack Murmansk convoys.
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RE: ASW?

Post by paulderynck »

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Could MWIF be modded to allow people to experiment with, say, stronger submarine attack values (or cheaper sub construction costs, though it's hard to see how they could be much cheaper)? How much modding does MWIF permit, anyway?
Yes you can tweak the unit CSV files, although a first round cost of zero for a sub might make the program blow up. Certainly second round costs could all be 1 and attack and protection values modified.
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RE: ASW?

Post by Grotius »

Good to know about modding unit values. Maybe I'll try my hand at it some day. As in, years down the road, once I've finally figured out how to play this game competently. :)
ORIGINAL: brian brian

There has been a slow but steady loosening of the action limit rules over time for SUBs to make it a little easier to fight the Battle of the Atlantic and Case Blue at the same time, but that is usually the bottleneck you reach, not limits on what the SUBs accomplish in combat or the price of building them. This can lead to quite gamey situations such as building out the Italian SUB pool and then using it to attack Murmansk convoys.

I like the action limit system (though, as I just posted in the Divisions thread, I'm curious what it represents), but I do think Germany should get more of a chance to play with its U-boats. There's a historical argument for this, but more importantly, the sub war is just plain fun in the game. :) I kinda wish there were a "sub action", so that a land move could include zero naval but, say, one sub move. But I doubt MWIF could be modded to do that.

Alternatively, could a modder give a land action one naval move? I'm guessing not.
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RE: ASW?

Post by brian brian »

In MWiF the activity limits can't be changed by the user. They are part of the rules of the game.

The best example of how the action limits work in history, in my opinion, can be discovered by reading Winston Churhill's six volume history of the war. You can see clearly sometimes how the supreme leaders of the major powers (the personalities pictured on the front of the box) get focused on this or that operation, or take X amount of time to decide on a request from a military commander to approve this operation or that. Hitler left no memoir, but he was the most infamous micro-manager in the war, and I think Stalin had his fingers on every Soviet decision. It is much easier to command cardboard or pixels and make mistakes than real military units, so players of wargames don't always agree with such limits on their decision making.
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RE: ASW?

Post by Grotius »

I'm all for game mechanics that limit a wargamer's freedom of decision-making. All too often, command & control is too easy in these things. I love Advanced Squad Leader, but I readily admit that its C&C model isn't its strong suit. In general, I think WIF strikes a pretty good balance between constraints on players and freedom of action.
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RE: ASW?

Post by Extraneous »

Anyone going to mention rule 22.4.19 Convoys in Flames (CoiF option 76) ?

In particular: "ASW units have a special pre-fire attack against included enemy SUBs (only) in each surface or submarine round of naval combat".

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