War in the East & operating vs. playing a game

I found the Three Moves Ahead podcast thanks to a link over at ACOUP. They mentioned "War in the East" so I found the episode where they discuss it.

Here is the link:

Three Moves Ahead: War in the East

One criticism of the game by the podcasters was that in a way you operate the game, rather than play it. In other words, much of what's going on in combat resolution is effectively a black box - it's hard to gauge the odds and the possible results. So you don't so much play the game as move the pieces around, try things, and see what happens. In other words, operate the interface.

I don't think that's entirely fair (or that my summation really does the argument justice.) But I can see where it comes from.

In a way, I like that about War in the East. It's resolving individual tank-on-tank attacks, company assaults, artillery bombing of units, and so on. You can turn the highest level of detail on and watch combat take place shot by shot (don't, it takes forever.) But you don't have to do it all. You can make an educated guess if you two Soviet infantry corps and two infantry divisions backed by front artillery is enough to prise a German division out of its fortifications behind a minor river . . . but you could save the game and play that fight out 10 times and get 10 different calculations of effective attack strength/results/etc. as random factors come into play.

And I like that. I like that it's not just some math-grinding of putting X units vs. Y units and getting Z effect 100% of the time. Or even 50% of the time. I like it when I put a single division a little too far forward and it gets mauled, or I put it forward and against all odds it holds out. The AI makes better guesses about what will work than I do, but that's fine - I make better decisions overall. I feel a lot more like STAVKA or O.K.H. when I order a front to attack, move it into place, and then sigh because they couldn't get the job done. Yet I still have enough control to feel like I'm making the good stuff happen - encirclements, reinforcing success and starving failure, implementing my own strategy and operational choices.

It was a good listen - especially on the pricing, actually. But this is what made me fire up WiTE while I was listening and play it. It's because I like the uncertainty and the level of decision making. Thought provoking stuff.