[WarInEur] Pro-German bias

[Chuck Sutherland]

 Karl wrote:
  And the Pro-German Bias is REALLY bad in my opinion.  OK, they probably
need some help in 1940 in France.  But not so much that Sealion becomes a
viable option we need to spend a lot of energy debating.   But almost EVERY
discussion of Barbarosa I read about is how can the (Germans) be helped to
do better?  Well gee folks, yes, the base case is that the Russian Army was
a shambles in 1941;  But somehow they hung on, and by November 1942 were
able to start dealing it out to the Germans.  Which DOES NOT HAPPEN in the
majority of games I have heard/seen.  Even an average performance Barbarosa
seems disapointing to the Germans, and then, for some reason, they lose
interest.  Just when I can have some fun as the Russian Player.

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Chuck replied:
There are several issues with the game, France 1940 is a big one and fixing that should make the English stay home to defend their ports Instead of overloading NA and killing it early, assuming you don't overrun Libya on the first turn from Tunisia when Italy DOWs that is!

As for Barbarossa, it is broken in several ways. First Rostov is unreachable unlike history and at the same time Leningrad is vulnerable and doubly so because it is the only way to mount a supplied attack on Moscow. So with good German players you have them concentrating on Leningrad to take it out early. Then moving south to Moscow from there. So you have a couple of army groups gaining supply from a few ports when you have not enough transports to supply them in reality but because of how supply works you are in like Flin. As for 42, if the Russians lost a lot of troops defending in 41 then they will be open to para attacks to break up the line and can be defeated, if not and they have extra 3-5 built along with a 3 or 4 deep defense then you have WWI till the game ends.

I don't have a pro-german bias I do have a pro-history bias and want a game this size to be able to duplicate history as a baseline before exploring alternative strategy.

Transport ability should be tied to supply IMHO. In that Italy should have trans and so should the allies and it should have to be built up if you want to supply your army over a sea lane. I don't have any firm rule in mind but if transports were linked to supply through ports it would stop a lot of the dogpile in NA and take Leningrad First. Then you could address the general supply issues in Russia better once the port flaw was fixed!

As for France, Germans crushed them in 6 weeks. Even if they had not taken the bait they did not have the ability to defend against blitzkrieg. The English learned in NA how to fight against it. If the allies had the ability to defend against it in 1940 then they would have won simply because they had better tanks. But they could not put the mobile combined arms attack to use because they were still fighting WWI.

France should fall fast enough to make Sealion viable but it should cost the Germans a lot of production to supply their invasion forces so much so that they either win or lose the war that way.

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John wrote:
In my experience, if the players are at all equal and play a "standard" game
(Poland - France - Russia), there is a 90+% chance the allies win. Often in
1944 (or the situation by the end of '42 is so bad the game is called). I
think that is why the various options are proposed that are 'pro-German'.


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Chuck replied:

John did the Germans use the Swedish gambit so that Talinin was in para range on turn one? in any of the games? Did the Germans have amph ready to invade near Leningrad to open supply in that location and move a rail unit to Finland so that when Leningrad fell you could repair rail towards Moscow to attempt to take it? Did the Germans risk para attacks in Russia to break the lines open after the attrition from the 41 northern Moscow campaign set in? For that matter did the allies take Libya in 1940 from Tusisia?

If not then you have not pushed the game to its limits to expose this.


Again I'm not pro German I cut my teeth in WiE on Russian defense!