Other Fronts.

[Picohertz]

I bet this has at one time or another been discussed before, however I’ll throw it out and see what happens.

In a future version of this game might the western and Italian fronts be made more unpredictable? By that I mean allow for the allied armies to shatter if the right conditions are met. As it is now we all know the fronts will shatter after a while and once they do nothing can be done to reverse the situation, other than try to buy more time till the next shatter. Nothing is wrong with this of course, but in order for a greater degree of replayability or for the sake of variety a few changes might be considered.

For example, lets suppose the allies are fighting in Normandy. As the German player I now have to make a big decision. Do I pour reinforcements into France and try to force back the invaders, or do I just try to hold them up while the battle with Russia goes on. If the allies are forced back (shatter) lets say that it allows the Western front a 6 month lapse till another event check is performed. Knowing this information beforehand the German player would really have to think about what choice to make. Take a lot of units and air power from the east to fight the allies, then if successful turn a great deal of the western front out to fight the Russians perhaps? Of course while the western front is being reinforced the Russians might be gaining even more ground than before. Makes things more interesting and unpredictable, at least to me.

A similar example holds true for Africa. As is now, the African corps is usually kept to a minimum with everything else going east. I do it myself, after all you can’t beat the British so why try? But lets suppose that a more aggressive and supported African campaign is held in 41 than was the case. More air power, more divisions, higher reinforcements priority. Perhaps Rommel might be able to score a win then. If the allied front shatters it might say “The British retreat, now fighting near Cairo” if the Italian front is significantly reinforced. Another victory after that might push the British out altogether, and then cause the event checks on the Italian front not to be carried out till say November 42 (operation Torch) Freeing lots of troops up for service elsewhere in the meantime. Again the risk of this would be huge, a reinforced Africa front means less gains by the Germans in the critical months of 41, when the Russians would be at their weakest. But that is exactly what I think would be so good about it. You would never know what the player would do, or how he might react to different event checks. I would not want it easy for the Germans either, in other words force the German player to tie down lots of units if he wanted to shatter the allied front.

Anyone think something like this might be fun or worthwhile? Might make for more variation during the game.

[heibis]

Sure, I love the idea. As I have come to know, there are many other issues regarding these other fronts that needs to be taken care of as well.

And BTW, why not introduce Russian far east front facing Japan as well? Might give the Russian player some strategic options of his own.

Jens

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Picohertz:
I bet this has at one time or another been discussed before, however I’ll throw it out and see what happens.

In a future version of this game might the western and Italian fronts be made more unpredictable?

Yep, this has come up before. There is now much more unpredictableness with the Front system as there was orginaly, but the system was really never designed to do this, so there is no back-and-forth in the Fronts. I'm very interested to see what Gary does about this in WiRIII.

[kisslove]

Originally posted by Heibis:
Sure, I love the idea. As I have come to know, there are many other issues regarding these other fronts that needs to be taken care of as well.

And BTW, why not introduce Russian far east front facing Japan as well? Might give the Russian player some strategic options of his own.

Jens

If this will be done, then number of soviet divisions must be incrased to real one...

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Heibis:
And BTW, why not introduce Russian far east front facing Japan as well? Might give the Russian player some strategic options of his own.

Well its a nice idea as it clearly is a "Front" thats "adjacent", or "connected" to the action in WiR, but there is a couple of problems. First, the Soviets won't be interested in this front as there is nothing important for them to gain by boosting strength here. Second, Japan's strength falls as time goes on in this "Asian Front", so it'll be easy for the Soviets to keep enough strength there, and focus on the Eastern front, and occasionally move forces west as Japanese strength falls.

This could work in a what-if scenario that has the Japanese attacking the USSR, but this is an unlikely scenario historically, since the Japanese feared Soviet forces after being defeated in fighting with the Red Army in '39. After that there was no possibility of a Japanese offensive against the USSR.
The reality is the Japanese Army was not at all impressive. Against the weak forces in Asia they were sucessfull early on, including the understrength, ill-equipped and unprepared US forces in the Phillipines. However against a tank-heavy force such as the Soviets of '39, and US forces later, they really had no ability to win against anyone when fighting in terrain that allowed the significant use of tanks.