FWW... whats next?

[Mr Grumpy]

I agree with ComradeP that both the first two titles and especially EP14 are fantastic value for money with a massive amount of "replayability" within the scenario list, add in the scale and scope combined with amazing amounts of research (the designer notes alone are a fantastic read) plus Jison's bespoke artwork and they are worth every penny (or cent).

I actually don't mind a gap between titles as it gives me a chance to explore the title before moving on, I think I would feel frustrated if I was unable to do this fully. I think in the past there are so many PzC titles that have been abandoned in favour of new releases and you only have to check the reported games list to see titles that have not been reported against for years and this is despite all of the PzC titles being patched to the same level so there are no "old" titles.

ComradeP, if you liked the first two FWWC titles then I see no reason why number three will not be as impressive based on what I have seen so far!

BTW I am playing the new "what if" EP14 scenario covering the siege of Königsberg so far my gallant defenders are holding back the Russian hordes and desperately waiting for a releiving force to break through.....  

[ComradeP]

I sometimes wonder about reported games too, as though I get the impression all titles are being played or have been played thoroughly since release, numerous scenarios have either no reported games or only a handful.

It's difficult to determine how much we at the Blitz represent as a percentage of total JTS customers. Panzer Battles is a very successful series, but I get the impression that for PzC and slightly more obscure series like the Napoleonic games, the people that are or were on this forum form a reasonable percentage of total customers.

As to when a new title is released: "when it's done" works for me, though having been "spoiled" by the teaser threads for Panzer Battles, a guessing game with info being released every once in a while is nice too.

Most of the time when I load a JT game, I just look at the map or check something. Like Mr Grumpy said, the designer notes are nearly a work of literature by itself, and it's very nice to be able to have an actual "map" of sorts to look at by launching the game. Maps are (for reasons I'll never understand, as how can you truly grasp what happened and why it happened when you don't have a map) not the strong suit of most military history authors so having such a game is a great aid to those interested in military history of the period covered by the game even if you don't play it.

[BigDuke66]

I guess one point that has to be considered if making another title is the availability of research material.
Gallipoli or Caucasus sounds nice but how much material can you get about the Turks?

But even if you have the material you still have to see if major adjustments to the game engine are needed. The series had already a lot changes and I doubt we can expect this to continue to fit any misfit title, afaik John does the programming alone and he has already a lot to do with he PB series and the PC series that also needs a new series of patches.
The need for new PC patches comes from the fatigue bug, if fatigued units are combined the fatigue isn't averaged but the highest is taken and that can cause a lot trouble depending on the scenario.
And that bug is still in all but the JTS titles, and here I'm still unsure if Tunisia '43 got it fixed.

So even if these misfit titles sound interesting I still hope we go for the doable titles in FWWC because we can expect new games there much faster.

[Mr Grumpy]

The Tiller "family" of games have been the backbone of this club since its launch in 1999 with only CM coming close to matching its popularity, as you say it is impossible to determine how many of the total players are located here, but such a niche style of game cannot have a huge pool of players especially when you remove the AI only players and boil it down to the PBEM gang most of whom must play or have played here at some time in the last 17 years.

I have been led to believe that good maps represent most of the cost of a book release and hence are often absent or are of poor quality, so like yourself I have often used the maps of various titles to view while reading a book on the subject, of course with the spread of the web maps are much easier to find and view from there.

[Ricky B]

...
The need for new PC patches comes from the fatigue bug, if fatigued units are combined the fatigue isn't averaged but the highest is taken and that can cause a lot trouble depending on the scenario.
And that bug is still in all but the JTS titles, and here I'm still unsure if Tunisia '43 got it fixed.
...

The way fatigue is currently handled was per design, NOT a bug. It is documented as being designed that way from many years ago, from JT himself and the manuals. Now JT may have forgotten that and so it got stated it is a bug, but not a bug. There now may be a desire to change that, still doesn't make it a bug .

Rick

[BigDuke66]

Well regarding fatigue, it was never meant to work that way:
https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...#pid400462

And it really doesn't make any sense at all, one company gets fubar and by combining it with the other companies the complete battalion gets fubar.

[ComradeP]

Most status effects have a binary nature in the game: they either apply, or they don't. They don't slowly build up to a certain point, nor do they have extents to which they apply/stages scaling up.

Fatigue is one of the two values (the others being manpower strength) with a "regular" numerical value attached to it.

Quality, though represented as a letter, is technically also a number when used in calculations, but it isn't represented as such and it doesn't fluctuate to the same extent as fatigue or manpower strength. The maximum number of available movement points fluctuate based on other conditions or states applied to them, not directly through combat operations.

Fatigue  for combining units could thus be fixed fairly easily by averaging the fatigue value, just like manpower is averaged when combining and decombining units. However, this isn't entirely without problems: though you're right that a wrecked company wouldn't drag down the entire battalion along with it, it's also strange that a wrecked company in an abstracted sense swaps platoons with fresh(er) companies so it recovers men and readiness. That's not how a military formation works, as it throws cohesion, organization and unit hierarchy out of the window.

It's also, for obvious reasons, only a problem for the side that can (de)combine units, which for Eastern Front titles is usually just the Germans for infantry units. In Moscow '42, the Germans have 4 company battalions to make decombining less punishing in terms of fatigue gain. Other sides would mostly notice it when (de)combining vehicle units.

For all other status effects, from Disrupted to using mixed quality units in an assault, the worst unit still degrades the capabilities of the entire battalion/stack when combining or attacking.

[Xaver]

Well, the fatigue system was improved a lot in last years... merge units and have an average fatigue is for me a great step forward, could be improved the fatigue system??? yes, but now is ok for me.

Is obvious that "darker" the battle-campaign lower the resources to create the map, OOB and scens but this is why i think for serie create a title with Meggido as core is the best option because number of units in the battle are limited in size and well, allways in Tiller games the composition of units in soldier and gun numbers are "standard"... other point is not all Tiller games OOBs are 100% historical (lack of M47s for Jordanian army in 67 battles or the early PzC titles with the mixed tank units for soviets... or german early war mixed tank units) but is good enough to represent the battles, a 100% correct OOB is not allways possible and when resources are limited is ok accept a certain level of "fantasy".

To create scens... well, the initial pic of unit deployment is the key and in "small" battles like Meggido is not like you are going to create a lot of sub-scens based in later periods of battle... apart this the what if option to complete this titles open more the creation of scens thinking in offer something diferent to the historical scens, here OOB and info is important but you can play with it to have more the scen you like offer and not be limited by historical factors.

Changes in engine to cover new titles??? i dont think FWW engine needs a lot even to cover late period battles BASED in 1914 mobile combat style... and many things are present in other series maybe add the ability to split battalions in 2 (or even in companies) and introduce the gas ammo from MC (and see if serie could in general have the ability from Nap serie to move deployed campaign arty/MG units to move 1 hex without be in travel mode using all their action points) are the most usefull.

I use to Tiller games as complement when i read books, many times the maps in books (specially for battles-campaigns) are not the best to understand what you read (tactical acions are usually better represented in books maps) maybe this is why i like see darker battles covered because is allways good try learn about something new.

PD: talking about disrupted status... i dont know if is possible do like with broken status and show it in the counters... i dont think is possible do like with PzB and how is showed here disrupted status but a way to show it sure help a lot to offer more info with less clicks (even do like in last campaign title and show important values for units in the counter... quality, fatigue, status disrupted-broken-isolated-low ammo-dug-in...).

[Don Czirr]

As a customer, I'd like to see some additional "packaging" options.

Such as "small scenario" compilations etc - in roughly the same time period. Perhaps an offering that includes some smaller battles from the lesser covered "exotic" fronts and then also some from the Balkan Wars, post Russian revolution etc ...

And then perhaps package a few "large / campaign" style scenarios for those that like that type of experience.

Given the move away from physical disk and box delivery, I would think a more "virtual" approach would be possible going forward?

[ComradeP]

Creating the map and compiling the OOB takes a lot of time, with scenario balance taking even more.

If you make scenarios with very different forces, each fighting in its own way like WWI armies did, such package deals would be very time consuming to create and would offer only marginal benefits over simply waiting until the titles covering them would be released.

If you mean that scenarios of a certain size from existing titles might be bundled, then I guess that might be a possibility, but I'm personally hoping mister Tiller and the various design teams stick to making full titles.

It's one of the strengths of this developer that you get well rounded titles that cover most or all operations on the game map at a certain type, with the exception of Panzer Battles: Normandy which is close to the PzC: Normandy map with platoon-sized units in terms of scale and thus can't possibly cover every battle on its scale in Normandy without having a very large number of scenarios.