Advice on New WITE game

[Wheat]

I'm fixing to start a new campaign vs a similar level player. We haven't played for a couple of years, so, do we do the +1 Russian attack thing or not? Seems to me most are not using this in PvP. Also, it seems Russian CV are better than versions ago. Any consensus?

He also wants the severe Blizzard effects.

[GamesaurusRex]

Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. Your experience of overly high Russian CV in this particular game was a false one. It was due to my spending large amounts of AP on reorganizing Mechanized Corp command. Unfortunately, I did not recall that the Corp HQ's disband in the first year and while only one or two Corp disbanded each turn on turns one thru four... on turn five, 25 Mech Corp and 31 Rifle Corp HQ's vanished reducing my frontline CV's from mid 20's stacks to 8's and 9's swiss cheese. That was not a viable strategy. As for the "plus one" Russian bonus... without it, I fail to see how the Russian player can make any meaningful counterattack in 1941. If you choose to play without it, then you are choosing to have the Russian simply evacuate all positions without a fight... and that is problematic for the Russian, since he will not be able to fend off the German long enough to evacuate enough industry. In this particular game, we did allow the Lvov pocket without limitation... so I suppose we could disallow the Lvov pocket and not use the "plus one", but without the "plus one" there is just no threat of any counterattack and the German has no risk at all of pressing his advance beyond historically possible limits. Even with the higher CVs in the first four turns, here on turn 5 the Germans have arrived at the door of Leningrad and now with the disbanding of 51 Corp HQ's, the defence (although somewhat entrenched) has been reduced to nothing. This AP approach, though it does produce temporary CV increases, won't work for the Russians.

[Nix77]

I'm relatively new to the game, but having spent way too much time discussing the game and it's nuances, to me it seems I'd start a new game with mild blizzard, random weather and +1 Soviet attack bonus.

Mild blizzard seems to be the consensus currently, but the current game with that option seems to favor the Germans slightly. I'm playing against a more experienced player but I'm still way ahead of the schedule with the Germans in September '41. Especially the push in south with the Romanian Express FBD seems to be way to easy (I would go as far as making house rules for FBDs in Romania and Lvov pocket, but that's another discussion). I'm running into supply problems only after taking Stalino. In my opinion my opponent has played a very good game and knows what he's doing. He has perhaps made some small mistakes that have given me an advantage, but still it feels I'm doing "too OK" even with random weather and turn 10 mud behind me. There are some key things that me and my opponent didn't know how to leverage when we started, not sure how those would tip the scales if we'd got them right in the beginning (air supply for Soviets being one of the biggest things imo).

My reasoning behind choosing the Soviet +1 attack bonus is part historical: the Soviets DID counter-attack in 1941! Without the attack bonus, running away as fast as you can seems to be the favored option. I don't like that, and it doesn't make 1941 feel like the actual historical Barbarossa. The bonus would bring some balance to the game, and would force the German to hold the reins a bit when over-extending their forces. Also it would reward the Soviet player for launching effective counterattacks, which is a rare feat without the attack bonus. It'd also reduce the comfort and warmth of the mild blizzard for the Germans!

I'd really love to see two experienced and evenly-matched players going at it with these options, to see whether it helps the Soviet side too much or not. My own experience is so limited that most of my points may be false assumptions, but I'm hoping they aren't [:'(]