Realistic settings?
 

Hi all!

A question about this part of manual:


"In real life, for a platoon to eject 1 enemy squad from its position can be expected to take 20 to 30 minutes (10 to 15 turns), and an hour if it does
not go too well. In WinSPWW2, this will not take quite as long."


Can I get a realistic timing (wanting "20 minutes to 1 hour to eject 1 enemy squad from its position":) ) by mean of raising infantry toughness setting?
If yes, what percentage should get winSP more realistic?

Re: Realistic settings?
 

It takes longer in real life because real life troops aren't so eager to get themselves killed as gamers do and are therefore far more cautious

Re: Realistic settings?
 

It takes longer in real life since troops are individuals, who only know what is in front of them or what they have been told. Not Prussian automata run by a God-player with 100% knowledge of the situation.

Consider a SP universe road crossing. A battalion is going north to south, and another one is merrily proceeding east to west. No enemy is about to cause hiccups. It is night time... In the SP universe, the God-player simply individually moves all elements of both and there are absolutely no snarl ups or traffic jams and everything moves at full speed. Piece of cake!. Now consider the real world situation... (There is a reason for the real world planning rule of thumb that "a column proceeds at an average speed of half the speed of its slowest unit")

There is a reason there are MPs in real life armies, who prepare movement plans before troop movements, and traffic lights (or at least, give way signs) at crossings in the real world. Neither are required in the SP-verse. You are in total control. You have a 100% accurate map, and you have 100% accurate knowledge of where all your units actually are, and what they are even doing. Luxuries that even the modern digital command and control systems have not yet delivered.

It is a game and not a simulation.

So that is why we say take the number of turns played and multiply by (about) 5 minutes to get a sense of what it would have taken in reality. All the "dead time" that normal human fears and snafus and natural indolence (no slipping off for a crafty smoke for any of your digital squaddies!;)) introduce are removed by you the all-seeing, all controlling "Player God" figure.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

Thanks for explanation, now it's clear to me, I misunderstood that manual part into open post by no considering effects of "all controlling "Player God" figure".

so default setting percentages are the most realistic?

Re: Realistic settings?
 

The default settings are, naturally, what we consider to be the more realistic.

Those who disagree can play around with the options to suit their particular view of "reality". If playing someone PBEM, then you may have to come to some sort of agreement should any side wish to use other settings than the default.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

They're a fairly reasonable approximation, as interpreted by the creators. However, if you feel they could stand an adjustment one way or another, you have the ability to do so to suit the experience you desire. :)

Re: Realistic settings?
 

my supposition in open post was based only on that misunderstood text of manual, you developers say default settings are the best so I'll use default, no need to search for other settings :)

Re: Realistic settings?
 

As you gain experience with the game you may want to tweak some of the preferences ( that's why they are there........ ) ....or not .....but give the stock settings a try for awhile first.

Don

Re: Realistic settings?
 

I don't ever tweek the settings and always use default,and beleive most others do also.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

OK, but the manual says "One game move (player 1 turn plus player 2 turn) represents roughly 3 minutes [my emphasis] of 'real time'." (That always seemed pretty short to me.) Or are you suggesting that the 3 minutes be multiplied by 5, so that, say, a 30-turn scenario (90 minutes in game time scale) would probably take more like 450 minutes, or 7-and-a-half hours in real combat? Thanks.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

We go though this every couple of years what part of "roughly" is unclear? Call it three to five minutes of " real life " per turn. What Andy said was......."take the number of turns played and multiply by (about) 5 minutes "....... so far we have said "roughly" as in " represents roughly 3 minutes " and "about"..as in "the number of turns played and multiply by (about) 5 minutes ".. because the game ABSTRACTS real life because IT IS A GAME NOT A SIMULATION. I think of the time span as three minutes or so.......Andy thinks of it as five minutes or so if you want to think of it as longer that's fine........go ahead, An infantry section can move across clear terrain three hexes per turn......that's 150 metres per turn. Down a road it's 300 metres. A "brisk" walking pace is around 8 minute per 1000 meters that's 125 metres per minute without a pack a rifle and without wondering is someone going to open fire at any moment. That's 375 metres per 3 minute. So is it not reasonable that in three minutes a section could move across 150 metres of level field ..... 50 meters per minute ?? Or five ??

Don

Re: Realistic settings?
 

Game time as said is about 4 minutes a turn, easy to check as this game gets it right by looking at RL & game speeds/movement rates.

Things get resolved a lot quicker in this game than real life due to eye of God & very limited command issues.
You can react & bring meaningful fire to bear far quicker than in real life.

You have eyes on an enemy unit in hex xx/xx so move units to intervene.
They no exactly where to go, don't get lost on the way & then don't have to scout around to locate it, even if they are in heavy jungle etc we can take the best path.
They are then overwhelmed by superior numbers (hopefully) so the whole process is over quickly.

Real life especially WWII with dodgy or no radios attacks could go very wrong. Night time especially units could turn up an hour or 2 late or even attack entirely the wrong place.
Whats with all those muzzle flashes on that hill, err guys I think that's the hill we are supposed to be attacking not this one!!!

At the start of WWII French tanks were largely superior to German ones but they used old school tactics & many tanks did not even have radios. They lost pretty quickly because they could not react to the situation they were busy following commands by flag & if they lost sight of the flag they were on their own.

Germans did not have the God view & response time you have but the difference between their command structure & the French meant the inferior tanks won the battle pretty sharpish.
Probably why military vehicles today the big push is on battlefield awareness & vision.
See them react & kill before they know what happened.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

Yeay French side were slightly more numerous and had the best blitzkrieg tanks of the world lol (and maybe the best heavy too), while germans had armored-car-like tanks (like Italians but nobody moked germans as they won with a so critical victory).
Germans could well train their army in Spain then Poland, learning too the tactical aerial support, where the radios were very important for communications between bomber and tanks.
There was many other reasons to this huge surprise french defeat, like Pétain and Gamelin removing the 7thArmy defending the Ardennes for it was easy to defend :doh: (so surely the germans would not try to pass here).
In general the french command was so conceited, still full of dinasties of nobles (see their names).

Re: Realistic settings?
 

If I could mention, one thing not to mess with is probably Armor toughness. I remember maxing this out ages ago before I learned how to play the game properly and it makes the armor stats for the various vehicles fairly useless since they won't shift to show the change. So I had Panzer 38's standing up to T-34 fire fairly easily. Best to leave that as it is. Everything else is pretty fair game though.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

For myself, I find the settings in the pic below to be the most comfortable for me.

Attachment 14119

As far as breakdowns are concerned, I would rather have the terrain slow me down than have vehicles get stuck.

For the command setting, I find that I'd rather just leave the units in contact, this setting doesn't affect rallying anyways as you must still be within 5 hexes of a unit under a particular leader's command to get the extra rally whether the units have radios or not. Being out of contact only affects whether a unit can order support fire, which only x0 units can do anyways and usually from FO or the A0 units, and the only other effect of being out of contact is to cause suppression on the unit.

Re: Realistic settings?
 

I screw around with the default training levels fairly often, and I've found reasons to mess with rout/rally (simulating die-hard fanatics or indifferent conscripts). A lot of scenarios designed for PBEM often advise you to turn searching and hitting down for your side if playing the AI. Vehicle breakdowns are always ON and sometimes I wonder if something similar should exist for infantry (soldier falls off impassible slope, breaks his leg).

Don't think I've ever messed with toughness variables, though I'm sure I could find an excuse to.