German Biased?
 

I don't want to argue whether its ethical or not to play as the Germany Army during world war 2. This seems to come up a lot. and people seem to love playing as the "romantic" whermacht. but one thing I noticed in SPWW2, is a clear emphasis on the German Army in scenarios. relative to the amount of German scenarios in lets say WAW or even MBT (yes, not about ww2).

I would say conservatively that 60-75% the 330 something scenarios are to be played as the German Army. Then you have some American army, and Royal army scenarios, and a handful of Red army ones. This nearly ignores and de-emphasizes the other biggest players in the War.

What do you guys think of this?

Re: German Biased?
 

There is no inherent German "bias" in the game.

However, scenarios come from outside designers and hence tend to emphasise their preferences. And also - references. There is much more written work available for designers to base research on the Germans, or battles involving them as the enemy after all. Not so much available about (say) the Vichy French versus Allies in Syria.

One idea Don and I were thinking about was to get a series of "lunch hour" scenarios together, i.e. short but interesting (maybe 10-12 turns, probably on small maps) as perhaps too many of the more involved or even "monster" type was in the current mix. That might just be a place to investigate the "smaller" countries and/or little known conflicts of WW2.

As this is scenario related - it probably would have been better in the scenarios sub-forum, but I will leave it here for general discussion.

It may be an idea to start off a separate thread there along the lines of "what sort of scenarios would you like to see developed" in there later, maybe as a poll once any general ideas were thrashed out here. Everyone coould then vote for front, infantry heavy or tank-heavy etc etc.

But I would bet that the Great Patriotic Anti-Fascist War theatre of the conflict would predominate, as I believe many players would gravitate to the area with the "biggest kewlest tanks"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Cheers
Andy

(sorry if the above is a bit rambling, but have just allowed myself an all-nighter playing Sims 2 and am just about to crash http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

Hi,

From the scenario designer's point of view, what really matters is how much challenging is a scenario and how many on-line resources the designer may easily find available.

So, I don't really think that there is a point to discuss this issue any further.

But I will tell you three things in order to help you understand that there isn't any pro-German conspiracy among the designers:

1. Currently I am participating in two campaign projects (Anzac WW2 campaign and the Warsaw Uprising 1944; from the Poles POV)
2. My last scenario was Greece against the Italians 1940 (played as the Greeks)
3. Finally, I suggest you to take a look at the Campaign questionnaire and see yourself what is the choice of the audience.

Campaign questionnaire
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

cheers,
Pyros

Re: German Biased?
 

I'm fairly satisfied with your replys. I did look at the questtionaire, and perferred nation for campigns was 33% germany and 30% USSR, yet there isn't a single Red army campign.
I'm not trying to blame anyone or call it a conspiracy, but there is clearly an un-intentional bais towards the germans.

Re: German Biased?
 

There was a good Red Army Campaign in the original SP. Poland 1944, I think it was?

Re: German Biased?
 

I don't really think it's an unintentional bias. The Germans and all their cool WWII hardware are what sells war games. The game is called steel PANTHERS not steel SHERMANS. It's based on a couple of old board games called PANZER leader and PANZER blitz. They're just giving the people what they want.

Re: German Biased?
 

All in all I think the majority of players find the Germans the most "interesting"...

My own favourite topic is the Polish army 39-45 but sources are hard to find..., for the German, American, and British armies it's much, much easier finding good, detailed sources...

I've also taken an interest in the French army, particulary the battles of 1940 (but finding translated stuff is hard - it's mostly Sedan, Arras, Dunkirk...)

Re: German Biased?
 

My favorite are Russians. They have a lot of cool tanks too, especially before Barbarossa, and after 1944. And KV-2 monstrocity, single tank capble with veteran crew to stop 1941 panzer division. Unit wich can be used as artillery, infantry support and assault tank. I want to play Chinese Communists and Nationalists too later. BTW do Chinese Communists have Red Pikes (mlee only) units ?

Re: German Biased?
 

like I said, the USSR according the survey on this site is perferred by 30% of the people who voted, Germans recieving only 3% more. again, no Red Army campign, and very little scenarios compared to "demand". people clearly want some Soviet scenarios and campigns

Re: German Biased?
 

I think that vote would come out much differently if people were only allowed one choice each.

Re: German Biased?
 

steel panthers is not a german army only game. and it shouldn't be. I think people would perfer more variety than a focus on a single nation, which the polls shows.

Re: German Biased?
 

There is a USSR based WW2 campaign in the game. It is the WW2 Long Campaign. In 41/45 the main theatre choice is the "Great Patriotic War", with the Finnish winter and other wars apearing as appropriate as front choices.

There is no user campaign as yet based on a Soviet core, perhaps because the WW2 LC does the job for most folks?. Or perhaps more likely because sources at the batallion/brigade level for the GPW are not that easy to find (works by Glantz etc are usually translations of entire operations like Kursk sourced from the Soviet military academy sources , at the front level with little fine detail at our game level POV, and also rather dry reading).

If the scenario designers feel there is something interesting to make an USSR based batallion level UC from, then one may appear, but my normal campaign as USSR is just to use the WW2 LC (sometimes starting in Poland, sometimes at the GPW date). Same for the British. The choices of front, and historic battle locations in there do the trick for me.

Cheers
Andy

Re: German Biased?
 

I guess your right,Mobhack. it could be the lack of very detailed battalion level information, but there are plenty of translated soviet materials, or at least enough information to estimate how battalions would have behaved during some of the more famous battles (most campaigns are probably not 100% historically accurate, but focus more on making it fun to play).

and there is a difference between generated battles and user created ones. If WW2 LC is so satisfactory why create any user made campaigns in the first place?

not trying to create hostility, SPWW2 is a great game, and u guys did amazing job with the conversion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. But we should at least aknowledge deficiencies, and work to improve them. (develop scenarios and campigns for the other major players of WW2, I like what Pyros is doing)

Re: German Biased?
 

Smersh,

If you can find me 4-5 Russians that are willing to work hard as historical researchers, map designers, scenarios designers and play-testers; then I will be happy to initiate a project concerning a Russian campaign.

So, what do you think? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

cheers,
Pyros

Re: German Biased?
 

It isn't a "German Only" game.

It is a fact though, that most WW2 type games originating in the USA from the 70's on whether cardboard-shuffling or computer tend to use German-related names. Like Panzerblitz, Cross of Iron, Tigers on the Prowl, Panthers in the Shadows, PanzerBlitz, Blitzkreig, Steel Panthers etc etc.

Here in the UK, we tended to avoid paper hex based games as wargamers, and concentrate on "proper" tabletop games with model soldiers and rules books. US imports were rather expensive (£30 for each module of Squad Leader, when I bought my first Honda 125 for about £370, which if I had bought all the modules, would be about equivalent ISTR http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif!) Commercially available wargames rules here tended to the prosaic, like "Wargames Research Group Rules 1925-50" and about the only "snappy" titles were the late Bruce Rea-Taylor's "Firefly" (WW2) and "Challenger" (modern) from tabletop games, or "Cambrai To Sinai" in the 70s (1914-80s) by London Wargames Club (or was it Reading?). A book of rules cost about £3, enough troops for an army in 1/300 were a fiver, and the local wargames club provided the tables and terrain.

Perhaps from a USA-oriented "marketing" POV the Germanic-centred names in games titles were seen as "sexy" or "kewl" ? - who knows?. This side of the pond, certainly not.

Cheers
Andy

Re: German Biased?
 

I second Pyros' post.

We could do with a user campaign from the Soviet POV, as well as maybe a British one. If I remember, I may borrow my dad's copy of "Bugles and a Tiger" and "The Road Past Mandalay (?)" from his John Masters collection. As well as being an author in the post war time, Masters was an officer in the Ghurkas, and commanded a column in the Chindit operations and these 2 books concern his Ghurka service.

But stuff like that is not easy to obtain in English for the USSR in the GPW. Maybe in Russian, there are histories available of batallion/regiment level stuff?.

Cheers
Andy

Re: German Biased?
 

I will agree with Smersh regarding the fact that the long campaign of random battles is not nearly as interesting as a well designed campaign. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun with long campaigns because they can cover much more time and geography than most designed campaigns will. But the random maps and VH placement is very generic, you sometimes feel like you are fighting the same battle over and over except with upgraded units. And any scenario will suffer if unit purchasing and deployment is left up to the AI.

I did not mean to imply that this is a one country game, just that it is natural that a game named after a German tank will favor the Germans.

Re: German Biased?
 

One reason is probably because the vast majortiy if not all are "User Made". Anyone who has done one knows the amount of work it takes to do it right. You usually spend months on the maps, OOB's, creating the scenarios and linking them all together into a working campaign. And we won't even bring up the stacks of text files needs for the campaign. You need at least 6 per scenario and then the ones for the campaign introduction and any added instructions.

My little 7 scenario Mexican Drug War Campaign needed 44 text files. Nobody puts in those kinds of hours unless they have a personal interest in the campaign they are designing and committment to work on it long term.

Just my $0.02 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

Also, one shall remember that the Germans lost. It seems to me that the loosing side often are popular with wargamers, wanting to prove themselves. Atleast when it was a close figth.

Halstein

Re: German Biased?
 

The reason there are more German based scenarios is because the primary sceanrio designer who contributed many of the scenarios early on as we developed the game over the past few years was interested in that aspect of the conflict. If he had been interested in the Pacific island battles we'd have an "imbalance" of USMC scenarios and I'm sure someone else would be complaining we have a "USA or USMC Bias".. As Double_Deuce pointed out the amount of hours required to build a decent sceanrio let alone a decent campaign is quite large and the only way anyone can get through that is if he's interested in the material he's working with. You cannot build a good sceanrio if you are not interested. Everyone who has contributed is a hobbyist with a limited amount of free time and his own personal interests in the second world conflict

As the game has evolved and more people who are qualified to create quality scenarios have shown an interest in producing and submitting them we have expanded the variety of nations that you can play as but that is primarily becasue different designers have different interests. As for scripted campaigns we have 10 at the moment. Five are played from the US side ( US Bias ?!? ) Three play from the German side, one from the Japanese and one primarily from the Polish perspective. Agreed. There are no Russian ones. ( or British ones ) If you think there should be....build one. I do not issue "orders" to the people who work hard to produce these things and neither will I tell them that because we may have more than an average number of German based ones that I will not accept any further scenarios from a German POV until we somehow re-address the "imbalance" in the game.

I'm Canadian. There are a number of "campaigns" that could be produced for this game based on Canadian participation in WW2 but I have never once asked anyone to build one and never will. Not because I don't want one. I would be happy to have one but anyone willing to put multiple hundreds of hours work in into a campaign must WANT to do it. When someone is inspired to do so they will and if it is any good I will gladly include it in the game. If YOU or anyone else feels there should be more Russian POV scenarios and campaigns in the game then please crack open a book, do some research and get to work and if you produce a good one I will be happy to include it in a future update of the game.

Don Goodbrand

Re: German Biased?
 

I am in the process of gathering info for a Russian based campaign. Time period would be winter of 1941 when the Russians launched attacks against Army Group North. This will most probably be a fixed core campaign where you will have a few choices to beef up your core force. At this time the forces I am looking is a mixed infantry force of Ski and Cavalry troops with other support troops added for each scenario. This will most probably take a few months time for research and building the maps and mapping out the story line. IF this one goes well I plan another which would center around the offensive following Kursk.

Tom

Re: German Biased?
 

good points DRG. I understand what you are saying, designers have favored the german army for whatever reason. there is a clear misunderstanding by player though, some have said what I called the "german bais" was intentional, and other said it was intentional. I was only pointing out a objective observation.

So, your saying the designers who have created this great game have had a "german bais" or interest as you said, this is the reason for the proportionally large amount of german scenarios, and a "ignoring" of other major nations: Britain, Soviet Union, lesser extent the United state in scenarios.

I'm not trying to give orders to anyone, everyone can agree that addressing some of the other major armies and even minor ones would be an improvement to the game. In, fact when I have more free time (in a few weeks). I will attempt researching a red army campign, and gathering a team, following pyros' suggestion.

Re: German Biased?
 

Well how about those guys who did Russian Steel campaign into SPWAW sometimes? It was great campaign, very accurately made maps/battles... Maybe Pyros could try to contact them and start to convert that into WinSPWW2?

Re: German Biased?
 

Warhero,

Russian Steel campaign is truly an excellent campaign!

But my point of view concerning a Russian WinSPWW2 campaign is that if Smersh manage to assemble a Russian team, then the outcome of the Russian project may be better.

I base this remark on the fact that WinSPWW2 CD version is providing very advanced designing tools that most of the users have not yet discovered (since the CD version is not yet released http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif).

cheers,
Pyros

Re: German Biased?
 

And thank you very much to the designers for the long Japanese Campaign starting in China in 1931.

Re: German Biased?
 

Actually, the designers of the game are a different group than the designers of the scenarios and campaigns. Most, if not all of the scenarios and campaigns included with the game were designed by individuals not associated with the game designers. The vast majority were created by regular people and submitted to the game designers for inclusion in the game.

I would definately like to follow this projects progress once you get it started. I have several ideas for Red Army projects (and others using the so called "axis minor nations" on the Eastern Front) but translating the small amount of available documents to keep the design as historically accurate as possible make it an almost impossible task to do.

Personally, I would like to see some campaigns designed around the amphibious operation in the Black Sea in 41/42 and operation in front of Moscow in the Winter of 41/42. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

The good site about red army in english:
http://battlefield.ru
And site with big number of war memories, dayries, letters and documents in russian:
http://militera.lib.ru
some other russian
http://rkka.ru

and of cause wikipedia have some info.

Re: German Biased?
 

I frequently check the http://rkka.ru site as they are a good source of information. Does anyone know of a good place to get 1:50,000 maps of areas of the Eastern Front? I thought about getting the Moscow map set from HPSSIMS specifically for the purpose of a Moscow area campaign. Of course, it would also require some detailed OOB's of units operating in that area of at least Regiment/Battalion level. Would also need to know locations of thise units to match up with the maps.

Are you volunteering to help out if a project can be started? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

I designed a lot of the scenarios for this game over the years and can say the following:

1) Don and Andy never directed what scenario topics should be covered. They pretty much gave scenario designers the freedom to design the scenarios which interested them most. Personally, I believe that has led to more and better scenarios from the designers;

2) I've always been more interested in the German military than the other sides in WWII -- and that relates primarily to the fact that I find German armor to be far cooler than the armor of other nations. That's not to say that JSIIs and T-34/85s aren't cool, but I'm willing to bet that most wargamers/modelers agree with me and are bigger fans of German armor than other nations' armor;

3) Over the past twenty (20) years, there has been a TON of books published relating to the German military in World War II (including the translation of many German unit histories) making it possible to accurately design scenarios from the German point-of-view. Unfortunately, there are very few books from the Soviet point-of-view. Thus, if you are an Eastern Front fan (as I am), it is a breeze to design historically-accurate scenarios from the German point-of-view but next to impossible to design Soviet ones. Hopefully that will change in the future.

CBB

Re: German Biased?
 

And how about converting Lost Victories/Desert Fox/Watchtower megacampaigns into WinSPWW2;)? Heh it could be too BIG task to anyone...

Just dreaming;)...

Re: German Biased?
 

The ANZAC project is bigger and more complicated than any of the above... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

cheers,
Pyros

Re: German Biased?
 

No, it's biased toward nations that have a lot of info available in English. There's a lot of material about the British, American and German armies in English, so those tend to get the attention. There is, I am sure, a lot of info about the Japanese Army out there. But it's in Japanese, which most wargamers don't understand. There's a huge number of books on the Great Patriotic War in Russian, most of which have never been translated into English.

If the game is biased, it's biased toward the USA, the only country to have two orbats. Don't flame me, I know why.

troopie

Re: German Biased?
 

I don't think the game itself is German biased (after all, despite its name the game starting screen or Mobhack loading screen sport solely Western Allie's stuff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif)... As for the scenario, I think it's partly because there are lots of materials and partly because it's percieved to be more challenging to play a company of Pz IV's against a regiment of T-34's than vice versa http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

On the other hand, the Japanese are one of the least interesting nations by far in terms of a total inadequacy with tanks and anti-tank capabilities.

Even the Italians could often field a decent medium tank at various times.

You also don't see that many French-oriented battles, but they did have some of the best tanks in the world for a while, but then they didn't fight very long either. I don't know about WinSPWW2, but most games I see have more USSR scenarios than the French and Japanese combined.

The USSR has the glamor of being a large nation with a lot of times having the best in some unit or other, while all the Japanese have that is different, or better, is the regard towards their often fanaticism in battle.

The best the WWII Japanese had to offer, their ships, isn't in this game of course.

For myself, I don't know if I will ever play a Japanese campaign (though I have started a few), just because the tank/anti-tank capability is so dreadful. I at least want a reasonable chance to destroy the enemy tanks without having to throw a suicidal man with a mine strapped on to achieve it.

Re: German Biased?
 

But for someone like me who is tired of The Battle of The Monster Tanks, the Japanese are an extremely interesting infantry force.

Gotta love this game - something for everyone.

But then this morning I shot up some Nationalist Chinese Marmon Harringtons mini tanks with a 37mm infantry gun (you know - the French one with the pathetic APCR round) so I'm feeling pretty happy with my Gunjin.

Re: German Biased?
 

If that where the case you would expect similiarly high proportion of german scenarios in ever sp type game. But Spwaw and even MBT (again, not ww2) have much more vareity. Spwaw has two Soviet Union campigns, and several English Campigns, and alot more scenarios.

There is clearly a "german bais" or german slant whatever you want to call it, (take a look at the scenario list).

There is no information available in english on the USA or Britian? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Compare the combined scenarois of the USA and UK vs. Germany. a clear high ratio of German scenarios.

I think we have already addressed why this is the case, other people have answered this already.

there are a few people interested in a possible red army campign and even a british one. this is a good thing.

Re: German Biased?
 

There will be a British campaign pretty soon..., based on the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry (8th Armoured Brigade), Alamein to Germany 42-45. The desert scenarios are done, beginning with Normandy now...

Re: German Biased?
 

What that "proves" is there are more German POV scenarios becasue the primary sceanrio designer early on was interested in that aspect of the conflict. As I said we could just as easily been accused of having a "USMC" bias or slant had CB been more interested in in the Pacific Theater of operations but he wasn't and here we are debating political correctness in a wargame. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

But you just couldn't resist saying it again could you?

OK I get to say my little speech again then.

NOBODY set out to build up or put down or feature any one nation while the game was being developed. There was no master plan to promote the German cause in WW2 though scenario design. I did not reject the quality sceanrios offered to me simply because we had exceeded some kind of "quota" system to create a "balance" that would satisfy everyone at some point in the future. Yes, there are quite a few German POV scenarios and many of them take place on the Russian Front. Played from the other side there are now an almost equal number of Russian scenarios. Some will play well from the Russian side. Some do not and will be too easy to win as the Russians. The ones that "do not" make fine beginner scenarios when played from the Russian POV.

If I am offered quality scenarios for the game I will continue to accept them no matter if they are written from the Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Croatian, Japanese, Canadian or German POV. I will NOT accept scenarios that attempt to make a political point. The ones in the game now do not so although there may be more scenarios with a German POV added in the future that does not mean the game was designed to be biased towards the German cause.

Don

Re: German Biased?
 

wow, what is this hostility. I was not trying to create any problems or attack any designers or this game. and I very much appreciate the work you guys have done converting and enhancing the game. now...

maybe I should rephrase "german bais or slant" (since this seems to upset people) to say "a majority of the scenarios are german". we can agree to that, right? although this wouldn't have sounded good as a subject header.

my orginal point was commenting on the lack of nation diversity in the scenarios, ie. dominated by german scenarios. look at my first post:
some people said, it wasn't intentional, others said it was intentional because people "love" loving playing as german army, they have the big toys. etc. others said their easier to design for , and the designers where interested in the germany army etc. these were peoples responses to the high proportion of german scenarios

my last post was in response to troopie saying No, "it's biased toward nations that have a lot of info available in English". a good comment but which is clearly not the (only or major) reason.I already explaine why, there is no reason to repeat it. and I ended my post with its a good thing that their maybe a red army campign and a british campign possibly being developed (apparantly there is already a british one, already far along). is this not a good thing!?

for some reason, me being upset at the lack of coverage specifically little material on the red army a big player (objective, we can all agree to this statement) and a clearly popular nation in sp shown by the poll, to a lesser extent the british and (even) the USA and minor nation (repeating myself), is motiviated by political reasons, and I'm given a speech about points I already said I accepted.

in reponse the last part of your post DRG:

some scenarios do in fact have a (slight) german "bais" or whatever politically correct term you want to use. you seem to say that every scenario is completely objective and neutral. one scenario when speaking about hungary and romania leaving the war, call it a "defection", and another scenario (hypothetical) is a joint american/nazi germany offensive/counter-attack on the soviet union. now, a scenario where the usa and nazi germany "team up" together is cleary totally unbaised and not pro-german "cause" right?
and I say this with complete in hostility DRG. when I first started this thread, I never planned on getting to this point.

Re: German Biased?
 

While I dont think Don and Andy need any back up from anybody on this topic I cant resist to add my own opinion (mostly because I am well known scenario PBEM lover and honestly speaking I dont think anybody here PBEMed more stock scens than I did).

Firstly while playing human vs human MOST of ingame scens are playable for both sides. Out of around 100 scens I played H2H ONLY 20%, maybe 25%, were totally unbalanced. There are many scens which I was able to get beaten from both sides. If you guys think those scens usually favor first side, I will give you contact to handfull of players, who will beat you with ease, commanding so called weaker side. My point is, as Don noted, if you have 200 scens facing Ger against Sov, you dont have to be math genius to find out you have 200 scens facing Sov against Ger.
Now, I am aware of the fact that playing AI IS somewhat different. Thereare many scens where, for many reasons, AI just cant handle to play first side in the scenario. But it still leaves us handfull of scens where AI can be assigned any side.
Also, if you take time into account, recently made scenarios have much wider variety of nations involved.
One more thing I havent seen raised here (although I could missed it) - it is quite difficult to make French, Polish, Brittish, Russian etc historical scenario without Germans being involved, dont you agree ?
I am not german biased (although I agree with CB they did have coolest staff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ), and I would love to see another 300, 500, 1000 new scenarios with the game teeling about less known asspects of the war, with minor nations, but hey, lets get realistic, it is not that likely to happen unless someone makes them.

Secondly, you may not known how open persons both Don and Andy are. They do listen what players say. But I wouldnt expect them to delete someone's hard work ( german POV scens) only becasue some people think it is too many of them. BTW there are independent sites where you can upload and download player made scenarios. Some excellent staff there. I dont think much time will pass untill winWW2 scens will be there for all of us to enjoy.

have fun
Czerpak

p.s. I just cant understand why people must carry this on AFTER they got reasonable explanations.

Re: German Biased?
 

yeah, I agree fully. I think we have had alot of reasonable exlplanations.

I want to add though

Its difficult to tell which scenarios can be played form other nations point of view, specifally when their designed to be played by one side, and many of them say "take x side if human". this is not jut for the sov point of view either.

and I don't think anyone thinks it realistic to have 300-1000 new scenarios about minor nations. when I started this I wasn't arguing that the game was missing lots of minor tiny battles. But you would expect some kursk scenarios/or campigns from the su pov, or campigns/scen. from the uk pov from north africa. these are big names, not minor lesser known ascpects.

and I and nobody expects anyone to delete any scenarios. even the ones I mentioned. I was just pointig out that they are there.

300 scenarios...
 

No...

...but it would be a challange. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Hammer.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: 300 scenarios...
 

Ulf,
I am ready to test them if you take that challange... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

Well yes, there's always some nation wimpy enough to provide a fight for any of the major combatants. I was thiniing of course about how wimpy their anti-tank capability was against GB or the US. China don't even count in my book. I might someday start a Republic China campaign and hope I see a lot of commies to attack, but, alas, i would probably get bull-dozed by Japan in virtually every battle. I wonder if the commies have a greater chance of fighting Japan than the Republic Chinese?

Re: German Biased?
 

Czerpak: Besides, not only did the Germans fight so many nations, but they often proved to be very worthy adversaries; a true test for every nation. Pit USA vs. Japan and Japan can't stop the tanks. It seems at least half of the more minor nations the Germans fought, had at least one unit that had decent or good anti-tank capabilities against the Germans, especially in the early years when the German stuff wasn't too well armored.

By the time Japan fights the US there's plenty of Shermans available to where the only thing that could stop them for the Japanese was being strapped to their backs. Japan is certainly interesting to fight if you have no armor, but a bore if you're going to do a long campaign against them and have at least a dozen medium tanks.

Italy vs Japan might not be too bad a campaign though.

Re: 300 scenarios...
 

...tempting, tempting... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: German Biased?
 

Look up the 8th route army. As for the rest of the wimpy Chinese, even after 15 years of warfare, only 4 of which involved the Americans and Allies, Japan never conquered China.

Re: German Biased?
 

I meant wimpy in terms of their equipment and ratings in WinSPWW2. Surely you will agree that their in-game army is much weaker than the in-game armies for GB and the USA for example?

Re: German Biased?
 

Fair enough about the equipment and ratings.

As for comparison of any in-game army against another, I have to disagree - with some caveats.

Above the tactical level, the game operates on the basis of "all other things being equal" - this ensures the player enjoys the game. We see this in the points ratios and the fully topped up formations and amount of rare kit we can purchase (though some attempts have been made to compensate e.g. Japanese home defense tank units). While Chinese equipment is not nearly as good as that of some other armies, you can buy a lot of it. As Uncle Joe said: "Quantity has a quality of it's own". The numbers for quality trade-off can fail (spectacularly in SPMBT with M1 vs T72) but these failures can often be resolved through thoughtful force selection and tactics.

What we don't see is the ability of American or British mechanized forces to punch through CCP lines and push deep into their rear areas nor do we see the effects of local villagers supporting CCP forces through information, logistics and guerilla support.

My second caveat would be about terrain. Chinese vs US over open ground is one thing, in close terrain it could be quite different. As I mentioned in a PM, I ran tests showing that in close terrain, Japanese infantry without specialized AT can hold their own against American combined arms or tank forces.

The game starts with all other things being equal, our job as commanders is to make sure they don't stay that way.

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Re: German Biased?
 

Well sure, but I'm playing primarily from the German POV no matter what side I play and the Chinese are WAY bad in that department. Heck, what infantry isn't good in jungles against AFV's? I gave Japan that concession by mention of the ol' satchel charges on the the back routine (but I don't believe in fighting that way - suicide). It's just that I don't really consider that warfare, and really confined quarters where the Chinese or Japanese might hold their own against tanks or combined arms, though it does happen in warfare, is just a bore to me, because any ol' schmo can do it. Of course the worst thing is that there never is such thing as the advancing unit getting next to the defender undetected, such that the attacker might attack first for a change. No, the defender has to have multiple 'targets' thrown against it in the same turn, such that it runs out of shots, then that 6th or 7th target has a chance to 'start' attacking the defender (I realize the attacker 'can' shoot after the defender attacks him, should he rally and have shots left himself). I realize that's a part of the system that can't be helped, but you can see plainly how the Japanese, and worse yet the Chinese are very inadequate at stopping medium AFV's beyond range 1. Seems there ought to be times where the attacker gets the first crack, even if he is an AFV (though much less likely) or the first infantry going in. Maybe a 100 experienced commando should be able to move and attack before a 45 experienced Chinese infantry notices him at times?