War in the East 2 Now Accepting Pre-Orders

Looks great! I will not get it though to protect my life. Looks like a game that will completely suck me in, and with the amount of work required in the game (quickly skimmed through the website and video) will drown out most other things in life! ;)
 
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Its definitely a time suck and what some can consider work. I was actually going to retire 2 years ago, but when I mentioned it to my managers it soon sunk in that I had no plans on what I would actually do when I retire. I worked a full week with lots of after hours, weekends and on-call thrown in. I had no idea of just how big a decision it would be, so after a lot of research and talking to other people I discovered that one of the things mentioned was to have at least 3 and better 5-7 hobbies you are really passionate about and pursue them.

Computer gaming is one of them and Gary Grisgby games fills the bill. Plus I've always loved history. The other alternate is the one I see a lot of people doing, especially retired people I see and know is drinking too much and watching too much TV as they don't have anything better to do and that's not for me.

Regarding the air war section in War in the West and now War in the East...I'm seeing posts that many are confused and turned off by it. You can automate it and it does a decent if not brilliant job of handling the air war. When War in the West came out I watched videos then started out in the small scenarios managing the air war. After a while I got the hang of it. It wasn't the most intuitive in War in the West and so far I haven't delved too much into it in WitE, but at some point I will.
 
olaf said:
I just started a new 41 campaign and ive used about 10 hours on two turns following a lets play.
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Nice...I'm now setting up a turn 1 strategic bombing missions for War in the West based on The Strategic Bombing Survey in War in the West video. The creator read the actual WW2 Bombing survey and argues the best thing to go after in War in the West is truck (vehicle) production. I'm going to mimic the strategy, with a twist. I'll also use the RAF to night bomb the cities where truck production is located too...

Now I'm trying to figure out where to use my B-25/26.

Another thing I've heard and will try is to send the RAF Typhoons to the Italian Theater in 43 as they will be more useful there than in Europe in 43 and then transfer them back in 44.

Once you learn the air section in War in the West you discover just how much of a masterpiece it is. War in the East is based off the air section from War in the West and it looks great. It has more improvements and modifications for the Eastern Front theater and I hope some of the new features get ported over to War in the West in a update.

Next up -War in the Pacific. Its been 12 years since AE and I would love to see that redone next.

There is speculation that War in the East will eventually be linked to War in the West and you’ll be able to play both West and East front as one game. The theater map of the Western front included in War in the East seems to indicate some future plan.

Just need some naval units....

The ultimate would be War in the East/West with War in the Pacific combined.

That would be the Mona Lisa of war games. Probably cost $200 and take a decade to finish.
 
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Should be quicker once I get to know things more. But still, time accelerates when playing!
 
I just finished the Road to Leningrad scenario and the Russians won a minor victory. There's a lot to learn and master and it has major impact on gameplay-air being one of them, support units and assigning them another and of course logistics. There are some interesting threads on logistics and rail systems...welcome to the world of Gary Grigsby games.
 
@Zeke_21 , do you think Witw would be fun to play as German/Axis, or is everyone playing the Allies? Is the Allied AI smart enough to give the Axis player a good game?
 
Just spent a day on 41 Campaign air war and got to >3800 Soviet aircraft kills (air planning phase only). I had 195 losses for the Luftwaffe. :2charge: Feeling good. Might be able to make 4k but may not be worth it.

Either I have learned something or the air war is much easier to control compared to WiTW. The map also looks better than WiTW.

Kraut said:
@Zeke_21 , do you think Witw would be fun to play as German/Axis, or is everyone playing the Allies? Is the Allied AI smart enough to give the Axis player a good game?
Click to expand...

I have played the Torch to Tunisia scenario and enjoyed it as the Axis.
 
Hardradi said:
Just spent a day on 41 Campaign air war and got to >3800 Soviet aircraft kills (air planning phase only). I had 195 losses for the Luftwaffe. :2charge: Feeling good. Might be able to make 4k but may not be worth it.

Either I have learned something or the air war is much easier to control compared to WiTW. The map also looks better than WiTW.



I have played the Torch to Tunisia scenario and enjoyed it as the Axis.
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Can you show us how you planned the first turn air war?
 
Kraut said:
@Zeke_21 , do you think Witw would be fun to play as German/Axis, or is everyone playing the Allies? Is the Allied AI smart enough to give the Axis player a good game?
Click to expand...
The air war planning for the Germans should be easier. I haven't played much as the Germans so hard to say. In general the AI is going to have exploitable weaknesses. Playing the Italian Campaign as the allied I was able to make amphibious end around's and be more successful that historically was the case, because I exploited them aggressively-while historically as at Anzio the allied command was passive...

I don't know how the Allied AI will play the campaign game since I've never tried it as the Germans. I also don't know if the AI gets any cheats to make up for the fact its the AI. Does the AI use amphibious end arounds aggressively in the Italian campaign or does it just try and slogh its way forward? I don't know that either.

Your task as Germany is to do better historically than was the case and that should be an interesting challenge.

The last time I played Torch as the allieds I tried to interdict the air dropped supplied being sent to German forces. Historically the allieds had a day or 2 of a turkey shoot downing a large number of JU52 transport aircraft. All my mission had zero effect in the game. Discovered it was a known bug in the game. Don't think its been fixed.
 
Hardradi said:
Just spent a day on 41 Campaign air war and got to >3800 Soviet aircraft kills (air planning phase only). I had 195 losses for the Luftwaffe. :2charge: Feeling good. Might be able to make 4k but may not be worth it.

Either I have learned something or the air war is much easier to control compared to WiTW. The map also looks better than WiTW.
Click to expand...
I have seen post by a play tester that a lot of work when into the AI for the air section in War in the East, so if you let the AI do most or all of the work it will do a decent job.

I've seen some youtube videos that are starting to go into the air section and its probably a little more complicated and feature rich that War in the West. Whats may be different is the interface and flow of doing things.

In War in the West its not very intuitive and you have to take time to get to know how to get it to work. Its classical Gary Grigsby design. If you played his games from the 80's-90's you'll know what I mean. The air war section in War in the West is akin to War in the Pacific in interface and button clicking.

That's just my initial impression. Another thing to get used to is the terminology and organization of the Luftwaffe and Red air force. Since I'm so used to playing the American side in War in the Pacific and West I'm used to the terminology and organization for American/British system.
 
olaf said:
Can you show us how you planned the first turn air war?
Click to expand...

Here it goes.
Apparently the order that you set up Ground attacks (on the screen upper right) is the order that they are undertaken but this also interplay's with the Priority setting. Not yet clear as to how they interact. I generally set up all my Very High Priority missions first, then High and then Normal. I did miss one High level base and put it at the end of the list as a High Priority mission and it still seemed fine. This can be checked by slowing down the “action” using the number keys, using 1 Message level is the fastest.

All Soviet bases with Mig-3’s and Yak-1’s are set to Very High priority. Then all other fighters (and FB’s) are attacked with a High priority. Then I set the bombing of all Bomber and Recon bases to Normal priority. This kills off most of the fighters along the border, clearing the path for unescorted bombing runs into the interior where there are more enemy bombers and recon.

There is a string of enemy air bases northeast of Bialystok where often a few Soviet F/FBs survive and intercept some of my escorted Medium priority bombing runs causing about 20 to be shot down. I have allocated a Fighter group to an Air Superiority mission to this area but I am not yet sure if it is working. This needs more refinement.

The south is a bit trickier and here I re-based some of the units something like this:
  • Hungarian fighters and one shorter range bomber group were moved to Ungvar and Munkacs.
  • Re based fighters from JG 77 to Stefanesti (to the north) to provide escort cover.
  • Re-based fighter from JG 77 to Iasi to provide fighter cover towards and almost to Odessa
I used the Rumanians to take out the enemy bases in southern Bessarabia but no Odessa. I attack Odessa with IV Fliegerkorps.

General tips:
​
- Day 1 bombing only.​
- Altitude 6000​
-With bigger enemy airbases (100/150+) I set it to 2 strikes per day. Most other are set to 1 strike per day. Odessa I have set to 3 strikes per day.​
-Change the staging bases so that flight path is shorter and/or escorted. This is needed in the Galicia region where the AI sets the staging bases away from where the V Fliegerkorps is situated​
-Most of my Ground attack air objectives are set to individual air fields. Although in the Galicia region, west of Lvov I have two multiple base attacks set up and they did fine. Also another one west of the Nikolaev region in the Ukraine.​
-Try to minimize flying over strong flak positions.​
-It is useful to click on your Fighter Grp and have the “Rng Circles” ticked so that you can see how far they reach the interior.​
-There were a couple of spots where my Fighter escort fell short by one hex (eg, Odessa) but the bombing run seemed to have no problems with being intercepted.​
-I think there were one or two times where I picked specific BF109 Group and changed their load out to include drop tanks. This allowed me to reach some enemy fighter bases with a longer escort​
-Change all the Ju-88’s t using 50kg bomb load outs. It may be optimal to set up some of these with Drop Tanks so that you can reach deeper into enemy territory.​
-Make sure the He 111’s are set to 50kg bombs ( I think this is the default). Again, it may be optimal to set up some of these with Drop Tanks so that you can reach deeper into enemy territory.​
-Change Rumanian Bombers to lowest calibre highest number of bombs (I think its 50kg).​
-I also changed the Ju 87 to 50kg load outs but I am not yet sure if this is optimal as it reduce their range. In WITE 1 these were the most effective ground attacks aircraft so this may need refinement. Perhaps they would be optimally targeted at the biggest and most dangerous enemy air bases and/or rebased for the same purpose.​
-Towards the end of my “planning” I was running two instances of the game at once, looking at the results in one game and making adjustments to the save file in the other game. Mainly looking for intercepts and adding deeper targets.​
-95% of the time I am letting the AI pick the air group participating in the attack. I just pick the FliegerKorps or equivalent.​
 
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Now there are heaps of damaged Soviet air frames in the airfields all across the front. This must be taken into account in the land campaign as these can be swept up as the Panzers and Infantry push east.

In addition, the remaining remnants of the Soviet air force along the front and those untouched fighter and bomber groups deeper inland will try to engage in ground support of there defending forces. For this I need to make sure I have fighters ready to intercept. How do I do this? I am not sure yet.

Maybe some sort of Air Superiorty mission would need to have been set up, maybe with Drop Tanks. Reviewing of the Commanders Report shows that a lot of my Fighter Groups (JGs) have very little fatigue and miles flown. Then can figure out how many I need to allocate to Stage 1 (above) and how many I set to Air Superiority. Can they be advanced across the border as I move throughout the turn like in WITE 1?
 
This is seriously awesome by you Hardradi! Im going to have to run a few tests based on your experience here.
 
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