Spanking of the Sheep! - Allied Surrender on T53

[JocMeister]

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[font="Verdana"]Surrender[/font]
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Over night the entire political situation suddenly changes. The politicians suddenly believe the war is lost. The military staff tries to explain that nothing has changed. In fact the allied situation looks very promising. The weather has cleared and 9 Infantry and 8 Armored division are poised to strike the German lines and cut off the Cotentin peninsula.

But alas the politicians stand firm in their belief. "If we had only secured 2 more hexes the entire war would be different they say. Military advisers are baffled. Two hexes? Why does they matter? We have the worst behind us already. We are expanding each week and growing stronger and stronger.

But no. The politicians have made up their mind. Those 2 hexes are vital to the war. Without them we must seek peace. The war can no longer be won.

What has changed the military ask? Isn´t it obvious the politicians answer.

-"Its now July the first! If we don´t have 10 hexes before July the 1st the war is lost. Everybody knows that!"

But we have 8 hexes the military answers. It makes no sense at all to give up now. We can reach Berlin before the Soviets. The politicians look at their military advisory with contempt in their eye.

-"You know, winning the war has NOTHING to do with winning the game. Silly Generals! You don´t go to war to win the war. You go to war to win against the VP system!"

[Peltonx]

Thanks for the game.

The tactical side of the air war your the best I have played easly to date.

[Flaviusx]

What an idiotic end to a perfectly good game. For want of a nail a kingdom was lost, etc.

Honestly, I would just go ahead and play on and say the hell with the silly VP system. Ignore it. This was shaping up to be one of the better AARs. You were well positioned to break the Germans and achieve something like a historical result.

Bah.

[NotOneStepBack]

Loved the ending.

[Seminole]

What an idiotic end to a perfectly good game. For want of a nail a kingdom was lost, etc.
Honestly, I would just go ahead and play on and say the hell with the silly VP system. Ignore it. This was shaping up to be one of the better AARs. You were well positioned to break the Germans and achieve something like a historical result.
Bah.

I don't understand not playing it out either.
I think of the VP bonus as reward to Germany for holding the WA to less than the area they achieved by Op. Cobra.
I think Joc is conflating the game's measure of his progress against history with whether or not he is 'winning' the war.
Would have also been interesting to see how the final score played out as well as final front lines.

[JocMeister]

Because if I play on disregarding the silly VP system I´m pretty certain I could bludgeon the Germans to death in a couple of months. You don´t really believe the negative VP modifier is there to "reflect the political situation" do you? [8|] Its there to prevent exactly that from happening. Instead of doing things properly the devs came up with some glorious VP penalties.

And thank you Pelton for a good game! Always fast to get the turn back and no bitching. Perfect opponent. [:)]

[sven6345789]

Actually You have a victory Point system in War in the Pacific too. As much as i know many players ignore it.
Is this a sudden death VP-system?
If not why don't ignore it?

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Because if I play on disregarding the silly VP system I´m pretty certain I could bludgeon the Germans to death in a couple of months.

You Sir have discovered what LiquidSky did.

This release is very much like WitE in many respects.

When game is first released ( WitE and now WitW ) and OMG the Germans are over powered lol Allies need help, but after a
while people started to figure out that Russia had allot of tools in the tool box. Players were not using all the tools, so
then after people figured out how to play Russia it became crystal clear that Russia was way way over powered and were winning
(all things being equal with player skills) in mid 1944. The game before 1.08 was boring, but with 1.08.02 the game is finally in question.

I can see the HUGE weakness that is Germany, but so few Western Allied players have figured it out yet as they are just now looking under the hood and seeing the engine for what it is, which is great. WitE and WitW are amazing games of which none have come close to matching and probably never will.

What will happen as it did with WitE, people will start to see the weakeness and more and more players will zero in on those weakness.

People are just now starting to figure out the WA side of things.

Liquidsky won the game as WA turn 20 aka if we played it out Berlin would have fallen by May 44 and not May 45.

In other words WA players need to ignore the VP system over all and get to Berlin asap.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: sven6345789

Actually You have a victory Point system in War in the Pacific too. As much as i know many players ignore it.
Is this a sudden death VP-system?
If not why don't ignore it?

I´ve been down that route in AE (playing for fun). The difference between AE and WitW is that AE is fun enough to play without the VPs. This game is not. [:)]

If you take away the VPs in this game you take away the motivation to win. And without it there is nothing left to motivate me to continue playing WitW.

[JocMeister]

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[font="Verdana"]Thoughts on the Game (Conclusion)[/font]
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Besides the D-day landing which was quite fun and tense the rest of the game lacked the kind of excitement I usually get from playing MP games. It never hooked me even the slightest. Not even the air war which I truly like. Mainly its because I don´t feel like I´m playing a human. And in a sense I´m actually not...

..I am playing against the VP system. The greatest enemy for the Allies are not the Germans or their allies but rather the atrocious VP system. This intrusive, hideous being that blankets the game smothering all sense of enjoyment and freedom. It sits there governing every move you make. Always there to punish you. Not because you do something stupid or clumsy. But as to mock you it will punish you even in your most successful moments.

But now comes the biggest irony of the game. If you remove the VP system (or ignore it) the game becomes absolutely unplayable because behind it there are no proper mechanics. Instead the VP system was used as a lazy design tool. Something to hard/costly to do properly? Let the VP system take care of that with rules and penalties. That works well in the beginning... Until people start to poke though the hard crust that is the VP system and gets into the real mechanics of things. Then it starts to fall apart quickly and all the time gained by using the VP system as a lazy design tool is soon eaten up by trying to patch things up.

I´m not going to repeat the specifics on why the VP system and with that the game is a failure. For those interested I´ve already done that in this AAR in several locations.

Besides the problems with the VP system the game also suffers from some critical problems nothing can fix. IgoUgo, scale and one week turns makes this game feel rather clumsy at certain situations and especially so during amphibious operations. The naval interdiction system is an absolute joke. Its so abstract no one can really tell what is happening. This engine should have stayed where it belongs: On the Eastern Front where it can shine. But in their urge to make a "War in Europe" they decided to release this game despite the fact that the engine is unsuited for it. That gave us a game that even in its finest moments are mediocre at best. All fine if this wasn´t supposed to be Matrixgames flagship for the coming year(s). Mediocre isn´t good enough for that. Not by far. Definitively not so with the extremely hefty price tag that came with the game. This game simply isn´t up to Matrix usual standard, not even close to it.

Prediction: They will release the Tunisia addon in a couple month. It will come with a big price tag and it will sell horrible. Then they will quickly go back to the Eastern Front and never come back. In 4-6 months no one will play WitW and it will be remembered as the game that shouldn´t have been. There is already a worrying lack of activity on the forum for a game of this magnitude. Logging into the game looking for an opponent is equally depressing. Sadly WitW has the word failure written all over it.

I hope I´m wrong though. I wanted to love this game so badly and I´ll continue to monitor AARs and the forum in the hopes a miracle will happen.

In the meantime I´ll be where this engine truly come to life. On the Eastern Front. I can only hope now that the failures WitW doesn´t undo a WitE 2.0...

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: sven6345789

Actually You have a victory Point system in War in the Pacific too. As much as i know many players ignore it.
Is this a sudden death VP-system?
If not why don't ignore it?

At least in his most recent WITP AE games Jocke has used the VP system, and aggressively. He plays to win the game...that is his motivation. Not hard to understand, and consistent from one game to the next.

For those that avoid the VP rules in WITP AE they are usually doing it so they get a chance to play with some late war toys, plans or strategies.

Apples to oranges comparison.

One of the neat things of WITW is its relatively short time frame...heck that is pretty appealing!

I am sorry to see the game conclude, and I hope and think the developers will examine the fun factor a little more and tweak the game some. I want to buy, but I am holding off for now and will live vicariously thru some AARs. Really liked LiquidSky's![:)]

Good game Jocke and congratulations to Pelton.

[NotOneStepBack]

The problem is that the Allies never took Berlin in real life, so there really isn't an objective way to measure results without some arbitrary VP system.

[loki100]

real pity this has ended, especially this way.

I realise you have become irritated with the VP system and this 1000pt penalty is a bit of the final straw but you are playing someone who plays the game with the narrow mindset of winning regardless. Pelton will have spent an age looking at the accumulation of VP and how to maximise that, which can be a wee bit frustrating for his opponents.

I guess the 1000pt issue is designed to force an allied player to carry on attacking even at low/marginal odds (and thus run up losses) till the landings can be declared a clear success. The term limit and the size of the required terrain are both pretty arbitrary, so should be modifiable if there are enough instances of clearly successful landings running up against the current time/space rules.

thanks for the AAR, really learnt a lot from your description and discussions

[british exil]

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

The problem is that the Allies never took Berlin in real life, so there really isn't an objective way to measure results without some arbitrary VP system.

NotOneStepBack if I am not mistaken, and I know I am not, the Soviets took Berlin. The Soviet flag flew from the Reichstag. The cost of lives on both sides was horrific, when one considers the war was nearly over. Civilians committed suicide due to fear of reprisal, being in the Nazi Party or females fearing multiple rape. SS fighting in the sewers and underground tunnels to the last man.

The Soviets were not western but were coming from the east, but were Allies. Talks with Churchill and Roosevelt in Yalta!? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference

Mat

[NotOneStepBack]

ORIGINAL: british exil

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

The problem is that the Allies never took Berlin in real life, so there really isn't an objective way to measure results without some arbitrary VP system.

NotOneStepBack if I am not mistaken, and I know I am not, the Soviets took Berlin. The Soviet flag flew from the Reichstag. The cost of lives on both sides was horrific, when one considers the war was nearly over. Civilians committed suicide due to fear of reprisal, being in the Nazi Party or females fearing multiple rape. SS fighting in the sewers and underground tunnels to the last man.

The Soviets were not western but were coming from the east, but were Allies. Talks with Churchill and Roosevelt in Yalta!? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference

Mat

Uh, I'm not ignorant of history, I know what occurred. The Soviets were "allied" yeah, but my post was obviously directed at the western allies, which the game is focused on.

[Seminole]

I am playing against the VP system. The greatest enemy for the Allies are not the Germans or their allies but rather the atrocious VP system. This intrusive, hideous being that blankets the game smothering all sense of enjoyment and freedom.

Should you be 'free' to never invade Europe?
The VP system rewards the German player for containing Allied advances beyond historical, and by this your feel punished.

Your kvetching is rooted in admitted ignorance of the rules at the outset. I have a feeling if you give them game another go with a better sense for the abilities you have at your disposal you won't find those 'milestones' of historical advance so daunting.

Other people aren't having the problem you are generating bombing VP, so it's hard for me to blame the 'system' for your results here.

It sits there governing every move you make. Always there to punish you. Not because you do something stupid or clumsy. But as to mock you it will punish you even in your most successful moments.

You don't like the fact that the Western Allies do not seek a Pyrrhic victory?
I think when you get a better handle on your airpower you'll find as the Allies did that its easier to win with explosives than blood.

Besides the problems with the VP system the game also suffers from some critical problems nothing can fix. IgoUgo, scale and one week turns makes this game feel rather clumsy at certain situations and especially so during amphibious operations. The naval interdiction system is an absolute joke. Its so abstract no one can really tell what is happening.

I still want to see competency on both sides before making any declarations about naval interdiction. It can be difficult to separate something being 'broken' from individual inexperience and ineptitude. Knee jerk compensations for the latter can unbalance the game as WA player experience develops.

So far the only thing that has really disappointed me in this game is people quitting.
The outcome - the Allies winning the war - shouldn't really be in doubt. The measure is how well you do versus historical results, and the VP system tries to make sure you have some of the historical constraints (e.g. focusing some air assets on u-boats or v-weapons).
But I'm the kind of guy who accepts a WitE '44 as the Axis just to see how I can do...

[Peltonx]

There is always an exception to every rule even with all things being equal.

Russia in Berlin is not always the case for sure in WitE.

Stalin moved to East of the Urals never to return

[british exil]

Just how many divs have you got contained in that pocket? The mini map is just a massive red blotch.


Mat

[Flaviusx]

Joc, you are giving up on this game way too easily, and taking the admitted shortcoming of the VP system way too seriously. You are so determined to find fault with this thing that you are practicing the gamer form of coitus interruptus. This game in particular you dumped just as it was about to get interesting.

In the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka: lighten up, Francis.

[Seminole]

ORIGINAL: Pelton
There is always an exception to every rule even with all things being equal.
Russia in Berlin is not always the case for sure in WitE.

In my view the VP penalty in response to lack of activity by the WA in Europe is in some small part a reaction to how you 'turtled up' against MichaelT, retreating in the fall of '41 back to the original Reich frontier so you could avoid blizzard penalties. There was a call then for 'sudden death' VP rules so that people would try to fight something more akin to WW2 than just exploit game mechanics.