Concern about leader skills

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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morvael
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Concern about leader skills

Post by morvael »

I think that currently in WitE, promotions and skill increases are earned from victories. While in case of promotions that is ok, I think in case of skill increases this is not a good idea. As you know, people learn from mistakes too, sometimes even better than from successes! In WitE we have a positive loop for the Germans - they win, they get better, they win even more. Soviet leaders are bad, but what's worse they can't learn from their mistakes (losses). They need to win to improve and it's almost impossible until 1943 (except some occasional blizzard and Axis Minor Ally spanking). I suggest number (part of) of losses should also count in case of skill increase checks... What do you think?

http://scienceofstrategy.org/main/conte ... g-mistakes
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cpt flam
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by cpt flam »

this could be useful for others too
Rumania, Hungary, Slovak
even if you are my opponent I can see good ideas [:D]
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morvael
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by morvael »

Actually those on the frontlines (assigned to a command) should improve in skills with every experience, good or bad. On the other hand those that are sitting idle (not assigned) should be in danger of losing skills.
Walloc
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by Walloc »

While i can understand ur concern. U cant increase skills to more than 6 IIRC. Since its not that common to find german generals with skills less than 6 and thats mostly in the lesser importand abilities. Then i dont think that overall i there is much to be concerned about.

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elmo3
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by elmo3 »

Wins and losses are both taken into account when determining if a leader rating changes. See sections 11.2.6 and 11.4.1 of the manual.
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morvael
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by morvael »

But it says "Based on the number of wins compared to losses (11.4.1), leaders may see some of their skill ratings increase" - I understand that it's the leaders that win most often than not are the ones who see skills increase. What I am suggesting is that losses are also good for one's skills. I would like to see the manual and algorithm changed to "Based on the number of wins and losses accumulated [...]".

@Walloc - but the Soviets with 6+ skills are rare, and they stay bone-dumb for most of the war thanks to this rule, they don't start to learn until they start to win, and they don't start to win because they are dumb (one of the reasons, anyway, aside crappy morale and unit equipment).
elmo3
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by elmo3 »

Might be a good suggestion for WitE 2 but I don't think you'll see this kind of change to the current game. WitE is pretty much in maintenance mode with bug fixes and minor tweaks as needed but no major enhancements are being considered.
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morvael
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by morvael »

That'd be just a minor tweak from code point of view, but it might affect balance. Anyway, it's time to turn WitE engine for the community, like Paradox did with their older games... just a suggestion, but might make a lot of people happy. For me, as a developer, there's nothing more depressing than a great code rotting in some repository, unchanged, untweaked for years, while on the other hand there are people that would love to work with it :)
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by elmo3 »

You'd be surprised how much effort went into getting leader skills and promotions working right and balanced during testing, and even after launch. A change like it being suggested would not be a minor tweak and could certainly affect balance IMHO.
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morvael
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RE: Concern about leader skills

Post by morvael »

That's understandable. Leader skills are very important in WitE, speed and strength of units as well as combat results depends largely on them, even though that's almost completely under the hood and invisible to the players (which, in some parts, I do not consider a good thing). It just didn't look good to me from the real life point of view, where also (sometimes especially) hard experiences make (or break) good generals. I hope that could be resolved in WitE2. Or I'll better start making my own WitE :)
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