A WitP Player Thinking of Moving to the East

[Chad Harrison]

Hey all

WitP has been my 'monster' game for years now. Having enjoyed it so much, WitE has me interested. Have read a number of the AAR's, watched all the movies available and generally tried to get a handle on what the game is all about.

But, I have some questions from my WitP (and AE obviously [:D]) experiences and am to a limited degree looking for input from the many WitP players in here playing WitE:

1. My first question is about the one week turns. Part of me feels like the grand campaign will be short due to lits limited length (~250 turns against ~2200 turns). But, much like WitP, its a *huge* game with plenty of units to go around. So my question is whether or not you feel like you are rushing to meet your objectives due to a lack of game length?

I dont mean rushing to beat the winter, or rushing to get things done before the Russians become a juggernaught. I mean do you feel like you have enough time to pull a division off the line to let it refit for a few turns? Do you feel like you have time to hunker down on a front and let your units rest for a few turns? Or do you feel like each turn is so long that leaving any unit unused for a single turn is a waste - regardless of its need to rest/refit? Do you feel like the movement and combat rates are proportational to the week turn?

2. Along those same lines, from what I can tell units obviously upgrade and change as the war moves on very similar to WitP. How long does it take in gametime for this to take affect? One turn? A couple of turns? Similar to the above question, I would hate to see a unit out of commision for 8 turns to refit. How about rebuilding destroyed units or severly damaged units? Can they be rebuilt? How long does it take generally?

3. From the menus I have seen, it would appear that you can change any units parent formation - ie. I can switch XX Division to YY Corps, and YY Corps to ZZ Army. Is that the case? Or are they locked in historical associations?

4. Russians control their industry, Germans dont. Is this an issue like it was in WitP? In other words, a savy Japanease player could pretty easily outpace the American plane production throughout the entire war which and never struggle for oil if they were good. Are there similar issues with WitE?

5. Speaking of industry, how much control does the player have over which replacements go to which unit? If I recall, you can put a unit into a state of 'refit'. Is there more control beyond this?

6. And lastly, we all love the land combat model in WitP [:D]. How are we doing with that in WitE?

Thats all I can think of for right now. Game looks very good - especially the artwork on the map and counters. Very clear, clean. Great work 2by3.

Thanks in advance

Chad

[Tophat1815]

DO IT!! You will love it! Then you'll play Russians first turn in GC and feel really,really bad the first turn.....but it gets better. By the way you must consider an AAR like your BFTB aar's please.

Answers:
1) One week turns I thought would be too large a time increment,I was wrong it plays smoothly and feels like a week of operations take place in the scope of a turn. You actually have to play it to see what I mean.

2)Not had enough experience with GC to see units fill-out properly. In the shorter scenarios I have done it wasn't an issue. After a week or so of GC play I'll get back to this with an informed observation.

3)First turn Russians some corps/Armies are locked but the readers digest answer is if you have the administrative points you can change unit commands.

4) Still unknown to me but I'll let you know.

5) There is control through refit..and the support the parent Hq has of the refitting unit.

6)The Land combat model actually looks understandable! It is a great deal of fun! Unless you are the Russian on turn #1...then its a real horror story actually.

7) Unasked question......the air-war is kinda a game in itself,not as detailed as Witp-AE....but not totally abstrct by any means. The recon and bombing missions you can plot-out are wonderful.

Give yourself a present this holiday season and buy the game,you'll enjoy it. And the blasted map is fantastic...the snow cover visual is less so.[:D]

[Grotius]

I'm only just getting into WITE, so I can't all your questions. I'm sure others will chime in. But I like this game every bit as much as WITP/AE, which is itself a great game.

1. I wondered about weeklong turns too, but it works, partly because the turn sorta proceeds in fits and starts -- "phases," they call them. I actually find turn 1 easier in WITE, but turn 2 is more work in WITE. Turn 2 in WITP, everything's already set in motion. But in WiTE, you have to push every unit every turn; you can't send off a sub and check on it 20 turns later.

3. You can change HQ attachments pretty freely, if that's what you mean. HQs are rated for how many units they can command effectively. Proximity to one's own HQ dramatically affects supply. I find much more flexibility here than in WITP. I find WITE's system more intuitive, I guess.

4. Not sure about production yet, but I don't think it's as lopsided as in WITP. Neither side has as much control here as the Japanese do in WITP.

6. Heh, well, WiTE's land combat model is far superior to WITP's. But you already knew that. Seriously, it's an elegant, straightforward system with a good UI and an appealing graphical look. The leader system is reminiscent of WITP/AE's, which is a good thing. The AI seems surprisingly good for a wargame of this complexity. What's not to like?

I do miss a little of AE's chrome. I miss AE's quaint little air combat "animations," for example. If WiTE had those, I might watch more of the air-to-air in WiTE; as is, I tend to skip past it. Even recon flights can be fun to watch in AE, but then I suppose I'm a geek. Here, we just get a little text-based account of the recon, and afterwards we hover over the hex to see the outcome. But these are nits. All in all, WiTE is every bit as impressive a game as AE, IMHO.

Hope this helps.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison
1. My first question is about the one week turns. Part of me feels like the grand campaign will be short due to lits limited length (~250 turns against ~2200 turns). But, much like WitP, its a *huge* game with plenty of units to go around. So my question is whether or not you feel like you are rushing to meet your objectives due to a lack of game length?

Well only played in 41 yet so its sorta hard to say yet. By the nature of it until the winter 41 action is VERY fasted paced and i purposely havent removed any unit from the front lines since all has been needed.
So i cant really answer whether u'd see a quiet front section line like much of AGC through '43

2. Along those same lines, from what I can tell units obviously upgrade and change as the war moves on very similar to WitP. How long does it take in gametime for this to take affect? One turn? A couple of turns? Similar to the above question, I would hate to see a unit out of commision for 8 turns to refit. How about rebuilding destroyed units or severly damaged units? Can they be rebuilt? How long does it take generally?

Yeah its superficially similar to WITP, but then not. Put a unit of refit on a in supply RR and it might very well be full strength in a turn or 2. Rebuild if destoyed works different too the 2 sides. It does takes some turns to reconstituate a fully destoyed unit. Example german side the unit reappaere in german and is "frozen" for 6 turns IIRC refitting.
Russian side buys back units with points.

3. From the menus I have seen, it would appear that you can change any units parent formation - ie. I can switch XX Division to YY Corps, and YY Corps to ZZ Army. Is that the case? Or are they locked in historical associations?

U get "command points" that can be among others used to change commands, so no historical association per say.

4. Russians control their industry, Germans dont. Is this an issue like it was in WitP? In other words, a savy Japanease player could pretty easily outpace the American plane production throughout the entire war which and never struggle for oil if they were good. Are there similar issues with WitE?

No idea, Chad. Havent on purpose started up the game as russian before i have beat it as german. From what i read its not like WITP, there are restriction. Where u can get a head start is evacuation more factories than historical. If u do that u will eventually get more than historical and ofc less if u fail to evacuate them in time.

5. Speaking of industry, how much control does the player have over which replacements go to which unit? If I recall, you can put a unit into a state of 'refit'. Is there more control beyond this?

U can manually upgrade some stuff, but refit is the way to control which units get replacement. Refit is a "bad" term, should have been, "Get replacement first", but then thats to long.

6. And lastly, we all love the land combat model in WitP [:D]. How are we doing with that in WitE?

We do? [:D] well by the nature of it land combat model is all in this game. Its still early but, so far it seems fine at leased im able to reproduce fairly accurate and near historical results as germans in 41 vs the AI. At leased until i had played it a few times and going on with my "i've learned the AI quirks so now i try play my perfect game", where im doing fairly better than historical. Still far from an autovictory tho.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[dazoline II]

I've played WitP since 2005.

The biggest change from WitP is that you are fighting all the time, every turn.

1. Do you have time to rest your units? Not if you want that last extra hex, rest is for mud turns. Although I've never felt rushed by artificial game constraints playing a turn.

2. Haven't played far enough to encounter crushed units on the German side, only side I've played so far. Don't worry you've got hundreds of other units to play with while a few refit. You can also refit units while they are in the front line.

3. You can switch them.

4. Nothing like WitP, industry is all under the games control you only recieve units you don't control how.

5. Refit and you can modify the TOE so effectively cut off a unit from having over a percentage of its paper TOE.

6. Compared to any other operational land war game I've played it Rocks, compared to WitP its solid gold. Remember Gary and team have had 5 years to improve the "mistakes" from WitP. The only thing about the game is all naval operations are abstracted you can only move troops by sea.


The game is a keeper.

[CarnageINC]

CH you will not regret this purchase if you like the east front theater.  This game is 99% complete IMO, not like WitP or AE was when released.  The level of detail is there and a lot of cool tools to help you manage your army's.  If your into the micromanagement aspect it has all the bells and whistles like WitP/AE has.  The only thing that I feel would need tweaking is how the air war is handled, its a all or nothing kind of thing that can be manipulated somewhat by setting doctrine levels.  

[jazman]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison


1. My first question is about the one week turns. Part of me feels like the grand campaign will be short due to lits limited length (~250 turns against ~2200 turns). But, much like WitP, its a *huge* game with plenty of units to go around. So my question is whether or not you feel like you are rushing to meet your objectives due to a lack of game length?

Leave it to a WITP player to worry about this monster having too few turns [:D] . The rulebook here is thicker than the one for WITP, about 380 pages. You can micromanage to your heart's content. Get it, play it, enjoy it.

[Q-Ball]

Well, I am a long-time UV/WITP/AE-er, in fact the only games I bought since 2004. I still think AE is #1 in my book, but WITE is looking like a close second. And that is saying something, because nothing else is even in the picture out there.

WITE figures to be a time-vampire almost as much as AE, maybe even morese, because the AI gives a better game so far than AE.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Well, I am a long-time UV/WITP/AE-er, in fact the only games I bought since 2004. I still think AE is #1 in my book, but WITE is looking like a close second. And that is saying something, because nothing else is even in the picture out there.

WITE figures to be a time-vampire almost as much as AE, maybe even morese, because the AI gives a better game so far than AE.

I think that AE is probably a better pbem game than WitE, only because a person probably won't be pocketed as easy. The AI for WitE doesn't even compare to AE's, but that is also from the complexity of the AE dealing with land, air and sea.

[Bobswanson53]

I'm having performance issues with WITE. Befor you buy make sure your system is way over recomended levels. WITP runs great on my P4/2.6 Geforce7900. They are working hard on patches for older machines but the game still runs slow/laggy at present. Great game other wise. If you really like Gary's pacific game you should love WITE.

[Chad Harrison]

First and foremost, thanks for the replies everyone. Sounds like 2by3 has come out with a winner for sure!

Nice to see so many fellow WitP:AEers in here. If anyone else has anything to add, feel free to do so. Looks like I am just left to shoot the lock off of my wallet . . . [:D]

Thanks

Chad

[kfmiller41]

Another long time WITP-AE player here and it is worth buying in my opinion. It has alot of complexity and depth to it but is easier to jump in to. This sound strange but compared to WITP it is easier but only in a size sense. You will have hours of fun learning everything and if you like land combat on the Russian front it would be a shame to miss this one[:D]

You want it you know you do[:'(]

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: miller41

You want it you know you do[:'(]

I know. I wanted to be strong. But . . . its . . . calling . . . to . . . me . . .

[Chromius]

Man down, I repeat man down!

Ok, I have had this page up for the last week reading comments. You all deserve a cookie. This thread put me over the edge. The couple Bourbon and colas didnt help. Thanks for your feedback.

"Thanks for your order

Your payment of $101.64 USD is complete.

You're now going back to Plimus Ltd..

If you are not redirected within 10 seconds, click here."

Bought the boxed w/ shipping.

It cost me $147.00 NZ and I make less in NZ dollars per year than I used to make in US dollars back in the US. But from what I have read I know I wont be sorry.

Merry Christmas to me !!!!!!!!!!!! Lol (shh the woman must never know.)

Everyone have a nice Christmas.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

Hey all

WitP has been my 'monster' game for years now. Having enjoyed it so much, WitE has me interested. Have read a number of the AAR's, watched all the movies available and generally tried to get a handle on what the game is all about.

But, I have some questions from my WitP (and AE obviously [:D]) experiences and am to a limited degree looking for input from the many WitP players in here playing WitE:

1. My first question is about the one week turns. Part of me feels like the grand campaign will be short due to lits limited length (~250 turns against ~2200 turns). But, much like WitP, its a *huge* game with plenty of units to go around. So my question is whether or not you feel like you are rushing to meet your objectives due to a lack of game length?

I dont mean rushing to beat the winter, or rushing to get things done before the Russians become a juggernaught. I mean do you feel like you have enough time to pull a division off the line to let it refit for a few turns? Do you feel like you have time to hunker down on a front and let your units rest for a few turns? Or do you feel like each turn is so long that leaving any unit unused for a single turn is a waste - regardless of its need to rest/refit? Do you feel like the movement and combat rates are proportational to the week turn?

2. Along those same lines, from what I can tell units obviously upgrade and change as the war moves on very similar to WitP. How long does it take in gametime for this to take affect? One turn? A couple of turns? Similar to the above question, I would hate to see a unit out of commision for 8 turns to refit. How about rebuilding destroyed units or severly damaged units? Can they be rebuilt? How long does it take generally?

3. From the menus I have seen, it would appear that you can change any units parent formation - ie. I can switch XX Division to YY Corps, and YY Corps to ZZ Army. Is that the case? Or are they locked in historical associations?

4. Russians control their industry, Germans dont. Is this an issue like it was in WitP? In other words, a savy Japanease player could pretty easily outpace the American plane production throughout the entire war which and never struggle for oil if they were good. Are there similar issues with WitE?

5. Speaking of industry, how much control does the player have over which replacements go to which unit? If I recall, you can put a unit into a state of 'refit'. Is there more control beyond this?

6. And lastly, we all love the land combat model in WitP [:D]. How are we doing with that in WitE?

Thats all I can think of for right now. Game looks very good - especially the artwork on the map and counters. Very clear, clean. Great work 2by3.

Thanks in advance

Chad

Chad - you will like WitE very much - I am quite sure! [:)]


It has been 21 months since I started my involvement with WitE (it was early ALPHA at that time [8D]) and I still find it extremely interesting, fun and fascinating! [:D]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Avenger]

I don't think that you will regret it. WiTP was my monster game too. I have been here in the Forum for many years, playing in the Pacific War since I joined. WiTE might take me just as long to complete a Grand Campaign as War in the Pacific. I have been on turn nine for three days. I am sure that I could do a turn in five hours, but there is so much to check and double check and test. In WiTP I could just grab a stack in San Francisco and set it running towards Austrailia. Not even worry about it for 2 weeks. That doesn't happen in Wite. There is no automation. I have to move every unit, every turn. This is even more of a monster than WiTP.

[amatteucci]

Buy it. If you have a more than passing interest about the Eastern Front you won't regret it.

But be prepared to a very different experience from WitP-AE. As the Allied player, you'll sustain more casualties on the first turn of WitE than in an entire campaign game of WitP! [:D]

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

... I have some questions from my WitP (and AE obviously [:D]) experiences and am to a limited degree looking for input from the many WitP players in here playing WitE:

Ditto, and I also have experience with Decisive Battles: Korsun Pocket, which I found lacking, and which looks very much like WitE.

I also have the impression that WitE plays like HPS' Stalingrad, and I don't care to manually maneuver and track all those units over a massive battlefield, and then have enough time to read "War and Peace" when it's time to resolve the turn.

So, am I all wrong about WitE?

[bwheatley]

As a long time matrix gamer and witp & witp:ae and uncommon valor i think you will really like the game.

I just dream of the day when gary and his crew integrate witp:ae, wite, and witw (i'm wishing yes) into World at War and we will have our end all be all mecca.