German Biased?

[Mobhack]

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

[Smersh]

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 . 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)

[Double_Deuce]

Smersh said: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 . 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)

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

[halstein]

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

[DRG]

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

[desh44]

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

[Smersh]

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.

[Double_Deuce]

Smersh said:
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.

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.

Smersh said: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.

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.

[PatG]

Mobhack said:
There is a USSR based WW2 campaign in the game. It is the WW2 Long Campaign.
<snip>
Cheers
Andy

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