What Future Titles Would You Like To See?

[Squadman45]

Yes, i know about the changes in how hold a line after 1915, economy of resources (soldiers) allow Entente in west front mount offensives leaving the "calm areas" with very few soldiers. And well, germans play defensive in west and need all resources they can send to east.

In Verdun 2 sides, 2 different ways to deal with keep the front. For me this needs 2 different systems, for french the ability to change a front line for a reserve line automatic, you can select a unit in the line and next turn, if is not defeated, move to rear and appear a fresh unit, for germans, units in the front working as "boxes" where you send soldiers to refill them.

French system is good to mantein in front line units with low fatigue BUT has the problem you never have troops that really understand and know their combat area and you receive "green troops" all the time with no veterans to help them.

German system is good because you have really more adapted troops to their front area and green troops can receive valuable lessons from veterans BUT you have a real problem with fatigue.

French units are going to have low quality because they are allways new in the area but german troops are going to have low quality because they are going to have a lot fatigue.

If you want represent Verdun we are going to need a total new engine and apart this, give more value to supplies, part of game is going to be keep the front supplied.

But returning to 1915-1918... games are going to focus in offesives, this means one side is going to have a great amount of troops to perform an ofensive, this increase the number of troops in one side and in numbers related with the front line, concentration is bigger compared with east front for example.

I really expect after we have the 3rd tile (Galitzia cof cof cof) move the serie to a later period in war and if we see new armies (turks) for me much better. I expect with a title based in smaller battles we can see more what ifs playing with expanding or even adding, expeditionary forces from allies. Meggiddo could be a more interesting battle if we can see german troops and more AH forces... and french units for allies.

[Verdun1916]

That’s a very interesting observation. The beauty of the ‘campaign titles’ is that as a designer I could emulate the situation you mention of unit turnover vs in unit replacements.

I would have overlapping reinforcements vs withdrawals for the French, so that new units would arrive knowing that a particular unit was going to withdraw in a few turns and could be replaced. For the Germans I would give a much higher replacement rate allowing a constant infusion of new troops. One of the nice features Ed introduced for FWWC was the ability to vary replacement rates down to individual units, so that may play a part too.

So in summary, armed with this knowledge it could be emulated in game. The nice thing is you would see an interesting ebb and flow for both sides based upon the different approach.

I had no clue the game system could accomodate for that. That is awesome info! Thanks for sharing!
I find myself learning alot in this thread, and others, on this forums about how the game mechanics work.

Glad my historical knowledge can be of some assistance aswell. The First World War, and the Verdun/Meuse sector, is a passion off mine. But I know little about programming and how games work under the hood. The JTS/WDS games have always been favorites of mine due to all the historical research go into them. And if I can provide any historical knowlege that might aid the WDS team, modders or scenario makers that might them in making of thse games I'd be glad to share what ever might be helpfull.

Cheers!

[Verdun1916]

Yes, i know about the changes in how hold a line after 1915, economy of resources (soldiers) allow Entente in west front mount offensives leaving the "calm areas" with very few soldiers. And well, germans play defensive in west and need all resources they can send to east.

In Verdun 2 sides, 2 different ways to deal with keep the front. For me this needs 2 different systems, for french the ability to change a front line for a reserve line automatic, you can select a unit in the line and next turn, if is not defeated, move to rear and appear a fresh unit, for germans, units in the front working as "boxes" where you send soldiers to refill them.

French system is good to mantein in front line units with low fatigue BUT has the problem you never have troops that really understand and know their combat area and you receive "green troops" all the time with no veterans to help them.

German system is good because you have really more adapted troops to their front area and green troops can receive valuable lessons from veterans BUT you have a real problem with fatigue.

French units are going to have low quality because they are allways new in the area but german troops are going to have low quality because they are going to have a lot fatigue.

If you want represent Verdun we are going to need a total new engine and apart this, give more value to supplies, part of game is going to be keep the front supplied.

But returning to 1915-1918... games are going to focus in offesives, this means one side is going to have a great amount of troops to perform an ofensive, this increase the number of troops in one side and in numbers related with the front line, concentration is bigger compared with east front for example.

I really expect after we have the 3rd tile (Galitzia cof cof cof) move the serie to a later period in war and if we see new armies (turks) for me much better. I expect with a title based in smaller battles we can see more what ifs playing with expanding or even adding, expeditionary forces from allies. Meggiddo could be a more interesting battle if we can see german troops and more AH forces... and french units for allies.

You make some interesting points here.

One of the main issues at Verdun was the fact that the battlefields were the vast majority of the fighting took place was so small. And that you had such large numbers of artillery pieces, from 42 cm siege mortars like the M-Gerät and the Gamma down to trench mortars and everything in between almost constantly pounding this confined battlefield.
This lead to that trench warfare as most of us are familiar with when we think of the First World War ceased to exist. The poor bloody infantry on both sides would have to survive in shell holes and fragments of trenches. Plenty off eyewitness accounts from both sides describe how the soldiers spent the nights digging new trenches only to watch the same trenches be blown to pieces during the daylight hours. It was a moon landscape in the worst sense of the word. Shell hole touching shell holes, with dead bodies and body parts almost every were.
And because this extreme shelling came down on such a small area almost all indentifying landscape features disappeared. And there were little to no communication trenches connecting the rear with the front line because these to were obliterated by the artillery. So it made it extremely difficult and dangerous for German and French soldiers alike to move from point A to point B. Many are the stories of runners, food parties or units on their way to the front line to relieve another unit that simply lost there way and couldn't get to were they were supposed to go. And for those that did reach their destination it usually took an entire night leaving them decimated and exhausted when they got there.
One would assume that the many deep ravines on the battlefields would help conceal movement and help individual soldiers aswell as entire batallions to move about in relative saftey. But it was the opposite since the artillery on both sides kept these ravines under more or less under constant shelling. There was always some batteries tasked with keeping these natural approaches under fire.
And becasue of this the soldiers holding the front line suffered greatly from a lack of food and water. It was DIFFICULT to supply the men in the shell holes and trenches. And off course small arms ammunition and hand grenades along with barbed wire, sand bags, trench mortar shells etc. was prioratized to bring up to the line. Eyewittnes accounts from both sides describe how soldiers were so thirsty that they had to resort to drinking the putrid water from the bottom of shell holes, which according to Paul Ettighoffer, a German officer who served at Verdun, almost always contained dead bodies or body parts in them. Ettighoffer also explained that thirst was worse of a problem than hunger, becasue the ever present smell off dead bodies, burned flamethrower fuel, and smoke and gasses from all the artillery shelling prevented any form off appetite.
Off course all this also deprived the soldiers of sleep which didn't make things better.
French eyewitness accounts about the relieving prosses at Verdun are telling. They often describe how they themself, as part of a batallion on their way to relieve a unit in the front line met the remains of other batallions who had just been relieved after their 4-6 days in the line. The descriptions are pretty unanimous about the sight of such a batallion on their way back: a rag tag group of 30-50 men, dragging their feet, almost zombielike, all covered in caked mud and blood, most with some sort of bandage over some sort off lighter wound, smelling of death with a dead stare. Exhausted sleep walkers almost.


As a side note, today the Verdun battlefield is mostly covered in forrest planted after the war, besides the Memorial, the huge Oussary and all the forts and monuments. But when you walk into the forrests, leave the roads or tracks behind you, you still see the countless shell craters and stumps of trenches. Not to mention the vast amount of shellfragments and shrapnell balls, small arms ammunition and spent cases, barbed wire, unexploaded artillery shells and all mannar of other military equipment strewn about the battlefield. And on occation also human remains. It gives you a sense off how beyond hellish it must have been for the poor French and German soldiers who fought at Verdun.
The terrain itself is also difficult. From a moving car the hills, ridges and ravines doesn't seem that steep. But when you walk it you really understand how difficult and tiring it must have been for the soldiers to just move from one point to another a few hundred, not to mention a few kilometres away. It is steep terrain. And when it rains the soil turns into a thick, extremely sticky mud that's slippery as hell and tries to steal your boots dirctly from your feet. An when the sun it up and it's hot the same soil gets hard almost like cement. So even digging the simplest foxhole or trench must have been increadibly hard work for the soldiers.
My dad and I once parked at the Vaux pond next to were the village of Vaux was, until it was obliterated in 1916, and walked up the same slope that leads up to Fort de Vaux. The same slopes the German infantry "stormed" up in April, Mai and June 1916 to capture the fort. It was a climb I can tell you. In 1916 there were no trees on this slope, only bare ground and shell holes. Now the slopes are covered with trees and shell holes. It was an exhausting "walk", at some point it was so steep you amost had to go on all four to get from one tree to the next. But it made me appreciate how increadlible a feat it was for the Germans to attack up that slope while the French shelled them, machine gunned them and threw hand grenades at them.

On your point about the Western Front 1915-1918 in more general terms: besides the big offensives there were also many more smaller scale ones. The French 1917 offensives at Verdun would fall under these for example. Or the German offensives in the Argonne and along the Tranchée la Calonne in 1915. Or the battles in the Vosges mountains like Hartmannweilerkopf or Lingkopf for example. So a Western Front based game set later than 1914 wouldn't have to confine itself only to the big battles like Verdun, Somme or Ypres. There are plenty of more limited and small scale offensives that could be covered. Not to mention what-if scenarios.

[waldo]

If Galicia 1914 is to be the next title, the designers should consult the following work for the Russian side of the operation:

Beloy, Galician Operation, 1929. It is available here (in Russian):

http://www.grwar.ru/library/Beloy-Galicia/index.html

Don't read Rissian? The Google Translate app produces a serviceble English translation. The maps at the end of the volume are excellent

[Strela]

If Galicia 1914 is to be the next title, the designers should consult the following work for the Russian side of the operation:

Beloy, Galician Operation, 1929. It is available here (in Russian):

http://www.grwar.ru/library/Beloy-Galicia/index.html

Don't read Rissian? The Google Translate app produces a serviceble English translation. The maps at the end of the volume are excellent

Tanks Waldo, I will let Ed know. I have used the same methodology when working on various Moscow titles.

[Mrpfleck]

Yes, the Verdun conversation is interesting. I do think that the long, grinding attritional battles of the middle of the war could possibly be playable at this scale. The Panzer Battle scale is also intriguing.

I think it is assumed by most of us that Galicia 1914 is the next title. After that, I would love for the series to stay on the East Front for the 1915 battles and campaigns there--Gorlitz-Tarnow would be a good start.

I remember years ago reading an interview with Ed where he said he wanted to tackle the whole war and, IIRC, do it sequentially. Working out the mechanics to get the evolutions of trench warfare right will make for an interesting series of games but IMHO could also be worked out on the more fluid Eastern Front. So I would like to see the battles and campaigns that had more movement on the East Front and in 1918 on the Western Front and then the system fine-tuned for the 1915 French attacks, the Somme, Verdun, Arras, etc.

[Arrighi]

Off the top of me head:

-Balkan Wars 1912
-Galicia 1914
-Russian Revolution
-Salonika

[Chris]

Galicia 1914
Caucasus 1914-1918
Russian Revolution

I hope someone will take all the information from the FWW series and creates a Strategic War version at 10K per hex. It would be interesting for the Germany to remain on the defense in the west and concentrate on the east possibly keeping Britain out of the war.

[Volcano]

All I can say is that no area would be off limits. I am attracted to the idea of campaigns that people think will not be enjoyable for wargaming, and the challenge of trying to make it "fun". It is why I was attracted to creating the FWWC in the first place.

But of course the real issue would be time -- these games take massive amounts of to create, each one being an exercise in varying degrees of insanity. At one point I had thought that I need to try to simplify the process, which probably involves cutting corners, but I just seem to be incapable of doing that. So, it is what it is. Slow and tedious. Anyway, I can't promise anything since it revolves around real life, but several titles are indeed in development. Let's see what happens...

(Also, don't expect me to reply much to posts, but I do try to read things occasionally - as I recently mentioned I wasn't even aware the forum existed until a few hours ago).

[D-Day_Dodger]

Those with an interest in the battle of the Somme definitely should watch the YouTube documentary 1916: The Year the Great War Should Have Ended which is based upon a new book called 1916: The Battle of the Five Empires by Benoit Chenu. The film explains how after the French successes in the early phases of the battle of the Somme, the French high command committed a blunder of such monumental proportions that they literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. In essence, they squandered an opportunity to drive Austro-Hungary out of the war and possibly force Germany to sue for peace.

Benoit Chenu is the great grand son General de CastelnauIt, who was Chief of Staff of the French Army at the time of the Somme offensive. General de CastelnauIt never published his memoirs, possibly out of fear for the fire storm of controversy they would create, but Chenu has access to these and other documents that shed new light on this famous battle.