Slitherine

We occasionally get comments that we're making GS too constraining by forcing it to follow history too closely by removing "innovative" and "non-historical" strategies that can significantly alter play balance. To that end I thought I'd post what my opinion is on this and create a thread so other testers to weigh in this and vent as they see fit.

WARNING: The following is my opinion of what we're trying to accomplish.

From our manual, our defacto mission statement, as I see it, is:

The goal for this mod was to transform the standard game into the most accurate simulation of WW-II in Europe and North Africa while maximizing play balance, enjoyment and re-playability. We didn’t want to create a mod that forces players into a historical timeline of events; but to create a mod that allows players to explore alternate timelines and events that are historically reasonable. Of course, what’s historically reasonable is a matter of opinion and subject to debate but the developers and the beta testers did the best job possible given the constraints of the CEaW game engine and the fact that we do this as a hobby and not a job.

Note, "... but to create a mod that allows players to explore alternate timelines and events that are historically reasonable."

Our goal is to create a mod, or expansion, where games played stay true to historical realism, or believability. This does not mean that only the things that happened historically happens in every game but that the things that happen in the game are things that COULD have reasonably happened in real life. Also, we wanted the "historical" strategy to be as attractive as any other COULD have reasonably happened strategy that produces winning results.

I think it is good that you limit the wildly unexpected or ahistorical possibilities. This game is interesting and enjoyable because of how you have tuned it. It might become more interesting/unpredictable with more varied/wild options, but it would be less enjoyable. It is best to keep the 'gamey' possibilities out.

I think the design team has done an outstanding job in this regard.

I'm glad that over this period of time with this mod, that the game,is becoming what it should of been.I like, for one, that this is based-off historical elements and time frame and just follows the historical path. But on the other hand i'm glad that there is the element of surprise and randomness to it. After all, playing session after session and having basically the same(historical) path every game, can be quite boring after awhile. I as a gamer want to have the option to do this or do that, without being too restricted(if at all)to my strategic plans.

Yes,some may want complete oddness to there games, or want it die hard WW2 and its events/timeframe, look at some of the games in the past, i played Hearts of Iron series for alittle while, back in the day and it had best of both worlds, that is following a historical path while offering some slight if not major differences too,witch is nice too.

I mean when you hear things like--

We occasionally get comments that we're making GS too constraining by forcing it to follow history too closely by removing "innovative" and "non-historical" strategies

I think that there right to some extent, i mean sure it would be nice some games to have a major-what-if event like the USA joining the Germans(very unlikeable or possible as that may be) but it could be nice to have some hypothetical event for something, for the example i gave, i dont know, lets say there was a coup in America, and they were sympathetic to the German Cause, stuff like that, anyway i enjoy the game now like it is.

Is it actually fun to play a game where USA joined the Axis? Wouldn't the Allied player just quit because he knows he has no chance at all to stop the Axis. Germany can almost win fighting against all 3 Allied powers. If they got USA on their side they could win blindfolded.

I think that if USA had joined the Axis in the real world the Churchill would have sued for peace. Germany might have accepted that and Russia would have been crushed. Ultimate Axis victory.

So it's possible to make all the what if scenarios, but if they change the balance too much you can't expect your opponent to complete the game. He would quit and complain in frustration that the game is crazy because it allowed USA to join the Axis.

Although I in no way would want the US to join the Axis, I'd like to see stiffer penalties for Allied aggression. Particularly should the Allies invade Italy. The US had a large population of Italian immigrants and descendants who until this time have retained a large part of their Italian identity. I think a DOW on Italy should at the very least delay the entry of the US into the war.

It was after all Hitler who DOW'd the US bringing them into the war. And since we are playing Hitler, I don't think the date should come any earlier than Pearl Harbor.

"... but to create a mod that allows players to explore alternate timelines and events that are historically reasonable."

This is the essence of a good game. Basically, if the game gives players the same basic historical constraints, but leaves open different possible approaches, it is doing a good job of modeling history, and so it should be a fun game for those of us who are interested in the history.

Just for a few small examples, the Germans didn't invade Spain to take Gibraltar, or assault Malta or occupy Sweden. All of these were contemplated, to greater or lesser degrees, by the Axis, but for various reasons, the war took another path.

There is one real historical possibility that is missing – a postponement of the Russian invasion until 1942 and/or Russian DOW on Germany (in 1942). This might be one to explore in the future.

metolius wrote:There is one real historical possibility that is missing – a postponement of the Russian invasion until 1942 and/or Russian DOW on Germany (in 1942). This might be one to explore in the future.

Check the change log.

v2.00z2 (January 26, 2011)

4. Removed reduced surprise if close to activation date except for Russia. This is done to simulate that the Russians were less unprepared in 1942 than in 1941.
5. Moved the Russian activation date to May 1942. Let the Russians mobilize at the end of October 1941. A message about this is shown.
6. Made sure you save the surprise hit when DoW'ed. The surprise remaining will drop 5 per turn. That seemed best in testing because then you can get to max efficiency in October if you rest your units. With 10 you got to max in August and that's too soon, provided a June 1941 Barbarossa. One reason is that the Russians will often place leaders covering their main front sections. With this change the Germans will reach Dnepr before the Russians have regained enough efficiency, but they can't get to the rear defense line in time. Deployed units will lose efficiency equal to remaining surprise or 15 (as before). Efficiency regain halved as long as surprise is still remaining.

Is it actually fun to play a game where USA joined the Axis? Wouldn't the Allied player just quit because he knows he has no chance at all to stop the Axis

haha yea well back before i ever knew about the GS mod i had fooled around with the editor. On my Vannila game, i have 3 new SEN's i made,Nothing fancy or anything, each one went like this

1.) USA joins Axis DEC-1941(makes you wonder,say the US joins Germany to tag team against Japan and the Allies, for Pearl) And yes Stauffenberg
you are most right, if America is Axis they can 95% of the time crush the UK, while Germany focuses on the USSR

2.) The 2nd one i created Russia joines the Axis, yea you think America would be a challenge to UK & allies,ha. Of course now you have 2 Juggernauts that teamed up,again a unlucky win for the allies

3.) the last one i made was really different, i decided to do a cold war, after Germany fell, taking place in 1946 So you can say Nato and Warsaw pact going at it. And i have threw Italy around too, having them on the Allied side during the war and all that stuff.

But to be frank, out of these little changes i did,witch anyone could have done, there was allways one fault,and this is something we hear,here on the GS team.... Balance...The balance was always F-ed UP always having one side dominating another,too powerfully. But there still fun for my personal enjoyment

Now i day dreamed one day about this game,being bored around the house, and soon before you know this game can be ancient history, u kept thinking how cool it would be to have each Major Power a single player,and imagine how kickass(PardonMyFrench) that would be online, then its like Axis & Allies haveing each Nation conduct there own tactics while coordination together as a whole, the only thing i wish for,as many others is a online lobby. Where you can simply join a pool, of other players and then talk with one another and join games.

I know this would be/and must be alot of work to do. But i figure, if you do it, then you finished then you would never have to worry about it,other then updates and all that(dream,dream,dream)

This is not venting - more like just stream of consciousness spouting ...

How to deal with hindsight when trying to recreate historical events in a computer game simulation.
Creating a game that tries to mirror historical conflicts can really restrict design creativity, and this makes some of the decisions you guys are dealing with very difficult. With that in mind I think you have done some wonderful things here to encourage some historical decisions, without handcuffing a player too much. Some grand strategic WW2 games start in 1942 in order to get around the problem of needing similar early war results in order to make the game fair/balanced & interesting, so starting from 1939 is a much tougher task. That's reflected in the how carefully you guys keep track of the fall of France date. If France consistently holds out much longer than it did historically, you know it's not going to be a very interesting game.

Cheers for removing the most ahistorical event in most Grand Strategy WW2 games: The Axis capture of North America.
The Axis never would have even invaded North America, but probably due to user expectations caused by popular games like Panzer General this option was required in CEAW. One of my favorite things about GS is that you have dramatically changed the original victory conditions so this ridiculous option is not a requirement for Axis victory. Germany never expected to to have to conquer all of the Soviet Union either, but that at least makes some historical sense compared to an Axis attack on North America and is possible in CEAW GS (though highly unlikely, as it should be).

Concerns about Axis fuel - big picture.
With historical hindsight in mind one of the most awkward design decisions must be Axis fuel. In reality Germany only planned for a shorter war with Russia, and therefore did not make major efforts to conserve fuel early in the war. This cost them dearly later on as any CEAW GS player knows. The game design problem with trying to mirror the axis fuel shortages later in the war is that a smart CEAW player will do all they can to conserve fuel early in the war (as the manual highly recommends). That conservation should allow them to push back fuel shortages in CEAW GS by 1-2 years as compared to their less knowledgeable historical counterparts could, and therefore this ends up being not very historical. To balance that inaccuracy CEAW GS could reduce axis oil further, so that they would get into fuel issues early on regardless of how careful they were, but that's obviously not a good solution either. 20/20 hindsight over axis fuel concerns not only impacts the Axis decisions in CEAW GS, it also impacts the Allied decisions since they can do a lot more than their historical counterparts could do to make the Axis side burn their fuel as early as possible.

Concerns about Axis fuel - The dramatic impact of the latest GS technology changes.
One of the most significant changes in CEAW GS 2 is the technology track changes for fuel usage and how it will impact axis oil shortages and unit purchases. My historical concern here is that the tech changes to the fuel usage of armored units greatly decreases the value of armor in the game, at least for the Axis side (since the Allies don't easily suffer fuel issues in GS). With that decreased value in mind it seems to me a smart axis player would not build any armor at all in the game, and use mechanized infantry for breakthroughs. Additionally, that player could also save PP's by not spending on armor labs either (no need since they will build no armor). If that ends up being the only smart way of playing the axis side in GS then I see that as a significant historical accuracy problem. It might be a game balance issue as well since the Allies would have few qualms about building armor, but regardless, if that thinking is accurate then it will make the game less interesting and less historical for the Axis side.

Trying to recreate historical mistakes.
It seems to me that the GS changes in the Mediterranean and in Norway are designed to make those area's more interesting in the game, not necessarily to try to mirror real life actions. In many cases those real life actions were ill-conceived strategic errors by both the axis and the allies, so forcing a player to make the same historical errors is a good example of a point where a simulation should diverge from reality. I'm happy there has been no attempt to encourage users to commit to an Operation Market Garden/Operation Watch on Rhine debacle!