Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

WitP - Admiral's Edition

felicity

Scholar
Joined
Dec 16, 2008
Messages
339
More ad hominem impressive.

To which I said, operational/strategic level games of depth should be about this. You have a fundamental misconception of what this level of wargame is about.

Someone has a different opinions than me so he must be dellusional. It gets old Mefi. You keep on insisting that anyone don't like WITP's trivial management has fundamental misconception. Who are you to say operational wargame should be like? Serious, just look around you can find similar criticisms from veterans within wargaming community. I have played my fair shared of operational wargames, I got WITP when it was released, loved it, then hated it, when I realized the complexity is only a disguise to the suckiness of the game. I know the complexity may seem appealing at first, but eventually the novelty wears off and you'll be forced to look at its ugly face.

Address your inability to use the interface? Why? As I said, if one foul up with the interface screws up your operation, then your operation is obviously dubiously planned to start with.

Strawman. I said most of your time is spent doing clerk works, menial tasks, trivial managment. Clunky interface only makes it worse.

Actually. 1% of my time is taken making a plan. Any dick can make a plan. Bullshits. Bullshits.

Go read some AARs and l2p.

Decisive Battles aren't strategic/operational level games - they are straight operational level and exceptionally similar to HPS' games in scale and 'depth'. Their logistic rules are close to retardedness too. But don't let that get in your way when making false comparisons.

Yes yes they are not operational because you said so. Go on. WITP is 4X operational level. It tries to excel at both but not surprisingly, end up being mediocre at both. It reminds me of The Spore enthuaists: I can oversee evolutions and conquest the galaxy! It's teh best shit EVAR!

What has balance got to do with a historical based war game? Are you sure you've played one? The 'balance' in a historical war game is always going to be wonky, because it's very rare for both sides to be perfectly equal. Want balance, play a game with a points-to-buy system for a battle or something. That's why there is a points based system to reward better than historical performance with most decent operational and strategic level games.

I'll let you into a secret - for the first two years, Japan will be on the attack, for the rest of the war, Japan will be on the defensive.

First, it is ultimately a strategy game, not historical simulation. I criticise its strategic elements, not simulation. It's fine if WITP can fulfill your geek needs, but not everyone is looking for that. Game balance is important, what's the fun in playing a strategy game when you know no matter how well you do you simply cannot win? WITP tries to solve this by having objectives for each side to reach. Japan in the later stage is impossible to win the war, but if the player meets the objectives set by the campaign, he wins the campaign. The impossibility of throughout play testing makes this game badly balanced for PvP.

The AI is poor. That's a reflection of the complexity of the game. No more, no less. I've yet to find any decent AI for an operational level game and above. The best AI in a wargame is probably that for Conquest of the Aegean which is so processor intensive it struggles above corps sized units and is only that effective because of the AI controlling the orders issued by the player and the orders being done in real-time (advantage for the AI). Hopefully, the AI in AE will be an improvement and it can now be modded and scripted.

Another reason you shouldn't mix 4X with operational level details. You got a shitty AI, and you find PBEM impractical because it takes month to begin a campaign, finding a partner who will fit your time schedule is a challenge in itself, and then chance are your game will be terminated just when it gets interesting (read: past the initial logistics nightmare) because one of you can't keep up the scheduel anymore, or some weird bugs ruin your game (not sure now, but it had 10x more bugs than Troika-wares). Decisive battles series's AI is ok, there are a lot of maths in calculating the odds, which the AI shines at. WITP's AI is so slow that I don't see how you can complain about CoA.

GarfunkeL:
You CAN auto supply, but given the retarded AI, leaving tasks to AI really isn't feasible in WITP. If you play Japan you have very limited amount of transports, a Japan player will want to save their larger transports for specific operation. Small transports unload faster but AI don't include it in its equation. Against human if he figures you use auto supply he will place sub patrols around the default routes and hunt your cargo. Losing even a few supply transports is a big blow to Japan. Besides, what's the point to have this level of details if you just leave them to AI? They're supposed to be the charm of WITP.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
7,953
Location
Cuntington Manor
GarfunkeL said:
Wait wait wait, what? You CAN leave Commonwealth and Dutch to the AI and focus on being US. You CAN leave Northern and Central Pacific to AI and concentrate on being Halsey&McArthur on South/SW-Pacific.

So you don't have to be a multiheaded dick overlording the front unless you want.

Felicity, I find some of your points misleading.

1) Supply. Handled by game engine. Units and bases automatically request the amount of supplies and fuel they need, player does NOT have to deal with that. Game automatically creates Cargo TF's to ship those supplies&fuel where they are needed - AS LONG AS IT'S SAFE! You only need to create Transport TF's if you want to create an supply depot ahead of time (Hey! That's logistical planning for future operations! WHOA!) or if you want to risk your ships going to the bottom thanks to enemy air/naval power, ie resupplying cut-off bases. Now, I really DO NOT want the AI to decide that and creating those TF's is not utterly banal micromanagement.

2)... I was gonna write something here about combat TF's and how you can leave them partly to the AI if you want or you can micromanage them and whatever but meh. You keep complaining about the strongest features of a special niche game.

I asked these very questions on the forums, more than once I might add, about being not having to be the multi-headed dick overlord, and the answers, from head honcho's themselves was "no, you cannot leave theatres to the AI". What the fuck?
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
15,463
Location
Insert clever insult here
Hmm... it's been ages and I always played way more Pacific War than WitP. While WitP is the sequel to PacWar, it is somewhat different as well. Could be that I'm confusing PacWar's features into WitP's features. Still, doesn't make any sense that I could let the AI deal with various fronts in PacWar and then PacWar2: WitP has suddenly removed that feature.

That goes both to Felicity and Blackadder - but again, I find it hard to believe that Grigsby fucked up his own sequel to his own original game.

Just to make sure, PacWar is this game:

pacificwarmatrix_profilelarge.jpg


And WitP is this game:

s294_screenshot21.jpg


right?
 

Mefi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
1,364
Location
waiting for a train at Perdido Street Station
Well reading is teh shitz, and you fail at that too felicity (Decisive Battles are operational in scale but not strategic - the difference either eludes you or you get so excited you write your reply without reading mine. Perhaps that's why you do the tired old editing thing?). So I'll reply to the silliest part of your post (was a close thing but I went for the following paragraph...).


felicity said:
First, it is ultimately a strategy game, not historical simulation. I criticise its strategic elements, not simulation. It's fine if WITP can fulfill your geek needs, but not everyone is looking for that. Game balance is important, what's the fun in playing a strategy game when you know no matter how well you do you simply cannot win? WITP tries to solve this by having objectives for each side to reach. Japan in the later stage is impossible to win the war, but if the player meets the objectives set by the campaign, he wins the campaign. The impossibility of throughout play testing makes this game badly balanced for PvP.

First, it is a strategy game aiming at historical simulation. You criticise its strategic elements because they involve having to make choices with consequences over logistics and the micro-scale which some of those decisions then default to. This is not crticising the 'strategic elements', it's not grasping that you cannot have meaningful choices and consequences without accepting the micro-managerial tasks (and while the AI can be set to automate much, of course it's dumb and so one tries to optimise by, erm, taking even further control and increasing the micro-managerial task work.). The scale of those tasks in terms of number are what you are whinging about. The tasks themselves are found in every wargame at some level - "oh noes I have to select each unit seperately in order to get them to fire in the way I want!".

You ask where's the fun in playing a side with no hope of winning? The fun is in the challenge. Teh horrorz! Want the playability > historicity angle? Go play Germany in HoI2. If you lose the war, give up strategy games because you obviously suck at them. Balance should not found in the units available or means at hand but in how the scoring is conducted. Better than historical performance should mean you win by the pont scoring system - so if you're playing Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn, yes you might well still lose the battle to the natives but if you cause sufficient casualties, you may well 'win' the game. If the wargame is well modelled, a balanced game will give a historical outcome between two players of equal skill in PvP.

Most of your complaints about balance apply to any wargame which is why your posts fall into 'dumbfuck' territory. If the issue is you don't like the scale and the number of tasks, fine. That's understandable. Such things as the AI being crap were mentioned in the OP, the time involved in playing by the third post of the thread. Sorry but you aren't giving any insightful revelation into the game but you are confirming that you tried it and failed and got upset at paying so much for a game you now hate. Lot of angst in your posts. It's ok though. You'll get over it. Move on. Command and Conquer don't even have logistics to worry about :)


-----

@garfunkel - you can leave theatres to the AI. It's strongly advised not to because the AI won't understand what you want for your particular theatre and you may find your game shafted as a result. It's more a case of most players not being willing to tolerate AI interference which can be quite so dramatic in impact rather than it not being possible to just take personal control of one theatre.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
15,463
Location
Insert clever insult here
Hmm, at least in PacWar I could decide which ships and units were under AI control AND I could give AI theatre a target to either attack or defend. That way I could leave ABDA, SW Pac, ANZAC and other small scale theatres for the AI and they wouldn't do anything too surprising while I concentrated on N/C/S Pacific with US. I'm pretty sure I did the same thing in WitP but maybe I didn't play it enough to notice if the AI is much more stupid than it was in PacWar.
 

Mefi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
1,364
Location
waiting for a train at Perdido Street Station
Been a long time since I've played PacWar so I can't really make comparisons (War in Russia was more my thing anyways). The issue in WitP tends to be around units being transferred out of your 'command' and that supply runs by the AI tends to be based on immediate need which can really crimp your style if you're trying to build up stocks for something interesting.

Having the scripting opened up to modders should, hopefully, make a difference. I'll be looking into AI scripts as I'm no longer able to do PBEM and I'm sure the SP crowd will be revitalised by the opportunity to improve the AI. Even more basic scripts based on common SP scenarios will make a huge difference. Hopefully, a lot of this is already in place (the developers are claiming that AI Japan now performs the Singapore invasion almost as well as a human player of skill but then the first month of gameplay should be the easiest to script) but obviously scripts depend on triggers and as the situation in the game changes, there may well be issues around insufficient scripts to cover all bases as triggers are avoided.

Whether the basic AI auto-routines have been improved (for transport of supplies, raw materials etc) remains to be seen though.
 

felicity

Scholar
Joined
Dec 16, 2008
Messages
339
More bullshits. :?

Mifi have you even played WITP? As I said, you are not expected to win the war, you win by meeting the conditions set by the campaign. Additionally, you get bonus victory points from sinking enemy ships or holding bases. Players have good reason to expect to win the campaign. It's first a strategy game, not being able to win (or bad balance) is unacceptable.

Well reading is teh shitz, and you fail at that too felicity (Decisive Battles are operational in scale but not strategic - the difference either eludes you or you get so excited you write your reply without reading mine.

Sorry I had underestimated your reasoning faculty, Mifi. Let me explain - I criticised WITP shouldn't try to mix operation level details with economic and logistic details you will find in a 4X game, because it results in a bloat-ware in which the trivial management adds more chores than warranted. You insisted that WITP being a bloat-ware is totally ok, because it is a mixed - guess what, begging the question.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
7,953
Location
Cuntington Manor
GarfunkeL said:
Hmm, at least in PacWar I could decide which ships and units were under AI control AND I could give AI theatre a target to either attack or defend. That way I could leave ABDA, SW Pac, ANZAC and other small scale theatres for the AI and they wouldn't do anything too surprising while I concentrated on N/C/S Pacific with US. I'm pretty sure I did the same thing in WitP but maybe I didn't play it enough to notice if the AI is much more stupid than it was in PacWar.

I, too, used to do this in PacWar many moons ago. So when I asked this on the WitP forums and got a "no", I was fairly ticked off.

I usually played ABDA command myself, and edited a few ships out of the US lineup for later, while editing in British ships to replace them over in the Indian theatre :cool:
 

Mefi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
1,364
Location
waiting for a train at Perdido Street Station
Just downloaded AE tonight. Erm, yeah, think it's time to check the manual out. There's a lot more there than in WitP. Ran the historical first turn as Japan to give myself a starting save and was exceptionally impressed by the level of detail in the combat reports and the feedback given - massive, massive improvement over WitP. But looking at the unit screens made me realise that it really is a case of learning the game afresh.

Will do an LP at some point soon once I've got to grips with the game.
 

Zakhal

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 5, 2008
Messages
119
Ive played this for like week now. Its truly improved with all the neat details and all. And it looks great on my 52" HDTV even with the low resolution! The manual is ok but mostly useless for me since I know mostly how to play this game allready. I took only few glimpes at it before starting.

Best way to start the game for new players is with allies (easier to defend). You can take the second scenario that gives boosted japanese for enhanced challenge.
 

Mefi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
1,364
Location
waiting for a train at Perdido Street Station
I feel like a n00b because I've had to go back to the manual to recheck some of the changes from WitP. The new unloading and loading limits at ports is a really important area to get to grips with. Still assimilating how best to get it sorted. For a Japanese player, there are a lot of major changes which need to be checked and rechecked before ploughing on ahead - especially with regards to keeping the Home Islands industry afloat and min/maxing aircraft production (the second generation Zero not being carrier capable is a major PITA!). Still, I'm just messing about until the first patch and then I'll start a proper campaign. The bigger scale of the map is also something I need to get to grips with - China especially is now absolutely massive for the forces available.

I've got to say that from what I've seen so far of the AI, it's a massive, massive improvement over WitP. The AI does seem to require a lot of cheats to make it competitive, but then from what little the AI scripter for AE is willing to say, that was the only way they could overcome some of its dumb behaviour patterns. But, allowing for that, the scripting itself is impressively comprehensive. There's actually a challenge (and a decent one at times) when you play the AI.

There are several bugs (playing with the hotfix) but it seems many have already been fixed for the first patch which is due for release relatively soon.

I envy you your 52" HD TV Zakhal :D
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom