Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.

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von Beanie
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Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Post by von Beanie »

I'm late to this game, and couldn't easily find the answers to these questions in earlier posts.

In the 1943-45 campaign I got to the first Jan 1944 turn and suddenly suffered a large "Other VP loss." This also happened on the first turn of the game. On all other turns it has been minimal. I can't find out what happened. Is there a way to figure out what happened on these turns to cause abnormal "Other VP" losses?

Secondly, playing with a recent patch, I noticed that the Germans are regularly suffering about about 1/10 of my ground losses each turn even though I have forced several of their divisions to surrender. However, their overall total losses are more than double mine. This has happened for several turns and doesn't make sense to me. What's going on?
"Military operations are drastically affected by many considerations, one of the most important of which is the geography of the area" Dwight D. Eisenhower
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RE: Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Post by HMSWarspite »

The game primes the pools with losses on the first turn, to feed the return of wounded men to readiness. This priming is used as a VP balancing as well (the losses provide VP balance), sp you get a big VP loss due to these losses. Don't know about Jan'44 though.

As to your second point, I do not follow you. Can you be more specific please. Do you mean that the combats all have low German losses but the loss button (the graveyard button) shows higher?
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von Beanie
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RE: Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Post by von Beanie »

I hope the attached screenshots are what you want. They didn't show up in the preview, but the site says the image was successfully uploaded.

Anyway, the first two screens show the "Other VP" losses suddenly jump up to 24 when they've consistently been about 2 or 3. I have no idea what happened in Jan 44, and I don't know how to figure out what did happen to cause this result.

The third screen turns up at the end of my (W. Allies) turn. It shows the axis lost 392 men to my 6925. Something similar has been happening for many turns. However, the total men lost are Axis 321,689 to W.Allies 209,904. I'm trying to figure out how I could be suffering more than 10x the Axis losses, but have a much smaller grand total.


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"Military operations are drastically affected by many considerations, one of the most important of which is the geography of the area" Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Joel Billings
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RE: Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Post by Joel Billings »

I can't explain the Jan 44 casualty points. Did you happen to conduct an amphibious operation and/or airborne drop in the past turn? Sometimes there is a delay in that you take a bunch of damage to elements that lead to losses being recorded in future turns. Did you have a unit that surrendered? You need to realize that the losses screen is zeroed out for the turn at the start of each player's turn after they view the loss screen. You will not see the losses that the enemy takes during his logistics phase in the turn totals, only in the overall totals. So you miss a major source of losses each turn. You will see your losses you take during the logistics phase. The only true way to compare total losses for a complete turn is to record the totals at the start of each of your turns and compare them.

Losses during the logistics phase can be a significant number as the game sorts out damaged elements and destroys some and disables some manpower from some of the elements. In terms of losses, a large amount of the German losses are from surrendered units, while you've taken more killed men.
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von Beanie
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RE: Newbie questions about campaign VPs and ground losses

Post by von Beanie »

I did conduct a major amphibious landing in northern Italy and several units had one or more transports sunk on the way to the landing zone. Is there a way to look at some screen and see that is what caused the point loss?

I didn't realize I was only looking at my turn losses. Since both my and the AI numbers are positive, it is natural to believe that one is looking at both sides' losses. Perhaps when you get the the WIE design a single screen can be provided that compares all major powers' losses at the end of all portions of a single turn. Thanks for the response. I'll now continue on my path to Berlin.

"Military operations are drastically affected by many considerations, one of the most important of which is the geography of the area" Dwight D. Eisenhower
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