German Biased?

[Pyros]

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

Just dreaming...

The ANZAC project is bigger and more complicated than any of the above...

cheers,
Pyros

[troopie]

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

[Marek_Tucan]

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 )... 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

[Charles22]

troopie said:
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

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.

[PatG]

Charles22 said:
<snip>
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.

<snip>

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.

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.

[Smersh]

troopie said:
No, it's biased toward nations that have a lot of info available in English. troopie

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? 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.

[wulfir]

Smersh said:
...there are a few people interested in a possible red army campign and even a british one.

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...

[DRG]

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

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.

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

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

[Smersh]

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:

Smersh said:

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?

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.

[czerpak]

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 ), 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.