[WarInEur] Flying the friendly skies

Sat Aug 4 22:00:36 EDT 2007

Hello All,

I am not a frequent poster, but have monitored this board for many years.
My deployment schedule keeps me from participating in this forum and the
game itself more than I like (as friends of mine can tell you all too well).
Anyway, here's my two cents worth.

WIE to me was a fun game that allowed for more creativity in game play than
most games of the era (1970's).  No game was the same and I really felt like
I controlled the game and it (and its scenarios and rules) didn't control
me.  It was as close to a free-form game as you could get back then.  I knew
it wasn't very realistic in game play: it was just based on real events.
With that in mind, I played it knowing things would always go ahistorical.
The game was perfect in that the rules weren't too complex yet allowed for
very creative strategic-level planning and operations.  I didn't want a game
with super complex rules and detail (e.g. Tobruk), nor one too simple to
play (e.g. Third Reich).  WIE was popular because it filled a niche.  It was
in between the complex, realistic and the simple.  I yearn for a CWIE that
takes me back to the basic WIE board game without the forced KC errata or
other code-locked changes from the original game.

In summary, please don't get too caught up in realism to the point where the
game loses itself.  If you really want true realism, someone needs to create
a whole new game for it.  With the CPU power that is available today, a
strategic game can be designed where the computer handles the tactical and
operational units, assigning leaders with random traits, supplies, basically
doing the AH Squad Leader game level stuff down to a man and a bullet.  But
I, (IMHO), don't think this game should go that route.  The main reason for
the game's success was a large scale game with small scale rules.  Let's
keep it that way.

I think the programmers have done a tremendous job to date in trying to keep
everyone appeased - the original game rules for those who wanted the true
WIE game, and having options for everything under the kitchen sink.  But
there comes a time to stop adding and changing and tweaking each optional
rule.  Instead, make sure the basic game remains play-balanced.  If optional
rules imbalance the game, then the end users can chose to not use them or
use other optional rules to bring it back into balance - like the old CWIE.
Otherwise the game will never make it through its development stage.

My two cents on extra-ordinary air - keep it even if no planes are there or
are flying.  No one should feel safe running their Naval units outside their
air cover and within range of enemy air - whether it is actual or perceived.
They don't know for sure whether or not there are aircraft around - maybe
not a full-up Air Point equivalent of forces, but aircraft here and there
may very well exist.  Even if the enemy has no squadrons available, they
could most likely get some planes in the air to attack such a tempting
target.  So my vote is to keep the extra-ordinary air penalties.

Thanks for listening and thanks for all the posts.  Know that there are a
lot of us who sit in the dark corner of this forum and just observe so
please keep posting.  But most importantly, let's shift gears and work
towards marketing this game instead of adding more and more complexity.

Jim

> From: sgminfo <sgminfo at aol.com>
> Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:09:46 +0100
> To: Hansen <ultrasoundimages at sbcglobal.net>
> Cc: <warineur at mailman.halisp.net>
> Subject: Re: [WarInEur] Flying the friendly skies
> 
> Yes indeed,
> 
> The abstraction will always leave us with distortions and
> incompatibilities, the Granularity of the front concept was a most
> necessary simplification if you were not to be caught in the dizzying
> spiral of complexity that greater and greater detail was asking us to
> provide.
> 
> The problem was self fulfilling,
> 
> Simplify in order to make playable,
> 
> but the very customers drawn to this type of game,
> 
> having mastered the scale,
> then mastering the sheer volume of the (rather simpler) rules
> promptly began to wish for the very complexity
> that  would wreck the delivery schedule,
> the market appeal,
> and the engagement of the more junior members,
> who actually hankered for DNO,
> but did not want to grapple with the sheer confusion of the complexity
> of the latter.
> 
> In turn this threatened turning the game into a lossmaking behemoth.
> As it was, the game hoovered up quite a lot of scarce resources, and
> must have had an impact on on other items going through the production
> system at the time.
> 
> "I don't think you are going to find a tight rule that is realistic and
> playable."
> 
> is very true, the holy grail of realistic simulation usually dies on the
> altar of complexity.
> Generally speaking, the one is always achieved to the exclusion of the
> other, at some point.
> 
> The difficult art, is realising where to draw the line.
> 
> And in a "monster", to a certain degree one already has both feet across
> the rubicon, before addressing the question.
> 
> Simplification was everything in a game manually powered with thousands
> of counters. The physicality limited us all, and we were grateful that
> things were sinple enough for us only to have the odd battle over
> suicide paras etc etc. With the computer though, suddenly the main
> limitation, physicality, suddenly vanishes. We can have automatic
> bookeeping, auto die rolling, transit commands (gotos) that liberate us
> from the sheer drudgery of moving repetitively great heaps of counters
> from A to B all over the map.
> 
> We lose sight of the original intentions, and the limitations that
> spawned those design choices.
> 
> Once that limitation goes, then the design choices are governed by more
> style and  ethos.
> 
> We here ,are very much cast in the position of the interwar Pacific navies:-
> 
> Do we
> 
> 1.Pursue the US design route, keeping on with the best until a
> completely new vessel is built?
> or
> 2.Pursue the Japanese route, bolting on and converting the old until it
> is totally reworked almost into an entirely different beast?
> 
> -|steve|-
> 
> 
> Hansen wrote:
>> 
>> What I was trying to do was point out the corner cases for the rule
>> you were supposing. I'm not advocating any side for the rule. I can
>> see a good reason for either rule (always have air range/no AP,no air
>> range), but with the air abstraction as is, I don't think you are
>> going to find a tight rule that is realistic and playable.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> *From:* SGMINFO at aol.com [mailto:SGMINFO at aol.com]
>> *Sent:* Friday, August 03, 2007 3:09 PM
>> *To:* ultrasoundimages at sbcglobal.net; warineur at mailman.halisp.net
>> *Subject:* Re: [WarInEur] Flying the friendly skies
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> In a message dated 03/08/2007 19:15:49 GMT Daylight Time,
>> ultrasoundimages at sbcglobal.net writes:
>> 
>>     I think I agree, but let me pose a couple of corner cases.
>> 
>>     1) German moves first and withdraws all air points from the front.
>>     His air
>>     range remains 12, even though there are no planes left to fly. Any
>>     naval
>>     movement covered by his air range is safe from extraordinary (but not
>>     ordinary) air-sea interdiction. The cowardly RAF must gather its
>>     courage
>>     before recklessly flying where the 109G normally flies.
>> 
>>     Wallie moves second and withdraws all of his air points from the
>>     front. His
>>     air range remains 12, even though there are no planes left to fly.
>> 
>>     Q: Can the German interdict movement in the channel? I would say
>>     no as he
>>     has no planes on the front. He may have planes coming in and he
>>     has planes
>>     leaving, but no planes are actively on the front.
>> 
>>     The war continues from the point above:
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Taking your example above, does this not describe the German
>> operational plan for Husky, and indeed Normandy?
>> 
>> Luftwaffe abandoned all forward airfields, taking their forces into
>> the interior, then stocked up various airfields to enable a massive
>> mutiple unit transfer at the moment of decision? In Tunisia a version
>> of this was donee by operating the tunisian bases (and later in Italy
>> and Sicily) as advanced landing fields.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Where your illustration breaks down, is the weakness of the airforce
>> whilst it is xferring, leaving you opponent with the initiative during
>> those key turns as you bring the front up to strength.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> As indeed happened in Normandy, and in Sicily.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> There are penalties inherent in what you propose, which are not yet
>> modelled (although I do have a version of this that does cater for
>> your proposal).
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> -|steve|-
>> 
> 
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