Old Gamers Never Die, or: Victory at Last in Strategic Command WWII: World at War

One down (Germany), two (Finland, Japan) to go: the Allies defeat the Axis' most powerful nation-state in Europe in 1944: Triumph and Tragedy. © 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I finally did it: I played a complete scenario in Strategic Command WWII: World At War....and won.

Nemesis: The Western Allies and the Red Army overrun Nazi Germany in the fall of 1945. © 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

Yesterday was Sunday; I didn't have any good ideas for a blog post, and because my latest script is now in the hands of the director (Juan Carlos Hernandez), I also didn't have any pressing outside obligations to fulfill, so I took the day off from writing.

Even though I used to play computer games when I was younger, I don't devote too much time to gaming as I used to. Yesterday I had plenty of options as far as entertainment was concerned: three new books to read, lots of movies and old TV shows to watch on DVD or Blu-ray, or a lot of music albums to listen to.

However, I decided to play Strategic Command: WWII World at War (WAW) instead. After all, even though I'm no longer a dedicated gamer, I wanted to play at least one scenario from beginning to end to see if I could beat the game's artificial intelligence (AI). I was also curious about how WAW depicts the endgame period of World War II, especially if I played as the Allies instead of the Axis powers.

To be fair, I chose the shortest scenario in WAW: 1944: Triumph and Tragedy for two reasons. One, it is the only scenario in which the Allies have the initiative; in the other campaigns in the game, the Axis powers (Germany, Japan, Italy, and minor satellite states such as Finland) get to move first. Second, it begins on June 6, 1944, which means that as the Allies I don't have to worry about the North African campaign, and Italy has already switched sides and is a co-belligerent along with the Americans, British, Canadians, Chinese, French, and the Soviets.

Another thing I need to say is that because 1944 Triumph and Tragedy spans various theaters (Northwest Europe, the Eastern Front, the China-Burma-India theater, and the Central Pacific, I chose to play the session as the Soviet Union and let the AI control the other Allies. I've attempted to play the scenario before without this option, but I find that commanding more than one major power is overwhelming and too time-consuming for me.  I picked the Soviets not because I like playing the role of Stalin, but because the USSR can focus on the Eastern Front throughout much of the scenario, whereas if I am the Americans or the British I still have to wage war in two or more theaters. 

Now, don't worry, I am not going to write a play-by-play account of my game session, which I started late yesterday afternoon, played until I defeated the Third Reich, saved it, then resumed earlier this morning to conquer Finland and turn my attention - as Stalin did during the real war - to Japan's forces in China, Manchuria, and Korea. 

The list of scenarios and their start dates. The one I played from start to finish is 1944 Triumph and Tragedy. © 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

Basically, my mission as the Supreme Commander of the Soviet forces (and after September 1944, a small Polish contingent) was to first expel the Axis armies from the western Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), destroying as many German units as possible. Then, once the Soviet Union was cleared out of any occupying enemy armies, I turned my attention on crossing first into Eastern Europe and the northern Balkans (leaving Greece to be liberated by the English-speaking Allies), liberating Yugoslavia, then invading the Reich itself as the Allies advance in Italy, France, and the Benelux countries.

Interestingly, WAW's 1944 Triumph and Tragedy is not a cakewalk for the Allies even at the Novice level. Even though the Grand Alliance is at the height of its military power, beating the Axis took me longer to achieve than it took the actual Allies in real life. History tells us that final victory in World War II was achieved in September of 1945 with Japan's surrender to the Allies; in this session of WAW, the war lasted until December of 1947, even though the Americans dropped three atomic bombs on Japan in 1946: one each on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Osaka.

There were several factors that determined the outcome of the game. I mentioned earlier that the difficulty setting was Novice, which is the second easiest level in WAW. In Novice, both sides are more or less on equal footing as far as experienced units and military tech are concerned. Unlike in Green (the easiest difficulty setting), the enemy AI  suffers a 10% reduction in Military Production Points (MPP), which is the "money" players use to pay for new units, conduct diplomacy, or invest into research and development for weapons technology and industrial advances.

Again, if you're worried that I'm going to write a Ph.D. dissertation about World at War, relax. I'm not inclined to do that. Besides, I didn't record my session on video (I don't know how to do that!) or keep a detailed turn-by-turn log.

Suffice it to say that the game's AI - even on Novice level - doesn't just roll over on its back and give up easily. The Germans and their minor allies (Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria) put up a fierce fight against the vastly superior numbers of the Red Army in the East. Helped by spells of bad weather in the autumn and winter of 1944, plus the difficulty in keeping my armies well supplied as I advanced westward, Germany fended off the Soviet armies in the East until February of 1945.

In the West, the Anglo-American forces established a beachhead in Normandy in the summer of '44, but they lost an American Army HQ unit and were also slowed down by enemy resistance and bad weather that grounded the Allied air forces just enough turns to prevent the liberation of Paris till December of 1944. If the game did not factor in partisans and Resistance forces, the Allies would probably have taken longer to expel the German armies from France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

The Baltic Front at the end of the war. Note the large number of Soviet (and Western Allied) units still in the region; this reflects the difficulty of defeating Finland even after the defeat of Hitler's Third Reich. © 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

One factor that negatively affected me as the Soviet leader was Finland's refusal to surrender, even after Hitler's death (which is one of the game's "trigger events"). This stubborn Finnish resistance tied down several Russian armies and air force units that could have been better used to conquer Germany or even sent to Siberia to prepare for the war against Japan. I kept hoping that Helsinki would sue for peace after Germany threw in the towel, but no. I had to invade Finland on several fronts along that country's border with the USSR, including an amphibious landing at Hanko, a port city west of Helsinki.

Still, this session of Strategic Command WWII: World at War was fun to play! Even though I delegated control of the Allied naval powers to the AI, as Russia I explored every aspect of the game, from fighting the various battles on land and air to investing MPPs on research and development. I did not sway any neutral powers to join the Allies through Soviet diplomacy alone; eventually, Turkey declared war on Japan after a string of Allied victories across Asia, including the Soviet conquest of Manchuria and Korea. However, I did modernize my armies somewhat as a result of R&D, but not as much the U.S., which by the end of the war was flying jet fighters and deploying Flying Wing bombers against Japan.

As I said earlier, the scenario ended not in September 1945 (the actual historical date in which Japan surrendered); in 1944 Triumph and Tragedy, World War II dragged on until 1947, until reverses on Mainland China and an American invasion of Japan put an end to the fighting. I wasn't expecting Japan to hold out after three A-bomb attacks, but it did, even though by then there was no Japanese navy left and most of the Imperial Army was trapped in the tar baby that was China and Southeast Asia until war's end.

The end draws near for the evil Axis!

© 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

All in all, it was a rewarding experience to finally complete a scenario of WAW after a month or so's worth of trial and error playing the game. I had fun, especially when, after a couple of turns in which it looked like the Axis were going to wear my armies down to a stalemate in eastern Ukraine, I finally cracked the German front lines and started advancing far into Poland and Central Europe. That's when I no longer felt that I had wasted money on a game that would always beat me no matter what strategies I conceived or how carefully deployed my forces were.

Huzzah for the great Soviet Rodina and her gallant Western Allies! The scenario ends in a decisive victory for the Grand Alliance.

© 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

The convoy map at the end of the war. Note that the Axis Powers' blue convoy lines have vanished.

© 2018 Fury Software/Matrix Games and Slitherine Ltd.

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