Flames and Steel: Game Design

Below are the main considerations that went into designing this game. 

Recreating the Historical Feel of WWII

In the historical WWII, the Allies had overwhelming advantages in both manpower and industrial capacity. In 1941, the German Army consisted of 150 divisions, 100 of which were used to invade the Soviet Union. The Soviet Army consisted of 600 divisions. As though that was not bad enough for Germany, the Soviet Union had vast reserves of manpower, and for a stretch of over a year added new soldiers to its army at the staggering rate of 500,000 per month. As though that was not bad enough for Germany, the Allies had an overwhelming advantage in industrial production. According to Adam Tooze’s book Wages of Destruction, “The Soviet Union in 1942 managed to out-produce Germany in virtually every category of weapons. The margin for small arms and artillery was 3:1. For tanks it was a staggering 4:1, a differential compounded by the superior quality of the T-34 tank. Even in combat aircraft the margin was 2:1. . . . by 1944 Germany had clawed back the Soviet advantage in every category.” (pp. 588 - 589)

This was the result of a dramatic, across-the-board increase in German weapons production between 1942 and 1944. Germany produced over four times as many tanks in 1944 as it had in 1942. Moreover,  over a quarter of the tanks produced in 1944 were the superior Panther or Tiger tanks; as compared to less than 2% in 1942. German aircraft production increased from 15,000 in 1942 to over 40,000 in 1944. Japan experienced a similar increase in military production during WWII. It produced less than 9,000 military aircraft during 1942, and over 28,000 military aircraft in 1944.

During WWII, the Soviets produced 105,000 tanks to Germany’s 47,000 and Japan’s 2,500. The Soviets produced 520,000 artillery to Germany’s 160,000 and Japan’s 13,000. The U.S. produced 325,000 military aircraft, Germany 190,000, the Soviet Union 157,000, and Japan 76,000. (See http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Military-production-during-World-War-II )

The Axis had some offsetting qualitative advantages. The German Army was extremely well run, and German soldiers were on average able to kill or capture two or more enemy combatants per man lost (see http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob62.html ). Toward the end of the war, German jets achieved a 4:1 exchange ratio against enemy aircraft. However, Allied armies tended to have better equipment and to employ better tactics than did the Japanese Army. Moreover, British and American advances in electronics gave Anglo-American ships and planes a qualitative advantage over their Japanese counterparts, especially later in the war.

Even after qualitative factors are taken into account, it is impossible to create a WWII game which combines historical accuracy with game balance. The Allied advantage is simply too overwhelming. The best I’ve been able to do is to create a set of rules which is as historically accurate as is consistent with game balance. Germany gets to build jets in late 1942 instead of ’44. German Panthers are both less expensive and less vulnerable to air attacks than they should be. The Axis probably starts off with more military strength than it should have. The U.S. is more dependent on transport shipping than it had been in the real war. But while I’ve had to fudge things here and there to give the Axis player a chance to win, I’ve worked hard to keep historical inaccuracies to a minimum. The result is a rules set that recreates the feel of WWII.

Key Game Concepts

Research. Research was an absolutely critical part of WWII participants' war efforts. In early 1942, the Japanese Zero was considered top-of-the-line. By 1944 it had become obsolete. Not only did technology change at a rapid pace, but changes tended to be widespread. They affected numerous combatants, on land and sea and in the air, and occurred across a wide range of unit categories.

To ensure that technology formed a core part of the game, I decided to implement the following traits for tech:

  • There would be no element of luck in researching technology.
  • Most technological advances would significantly increase a player's ability to wage war.
  • To avoid the confusion of having too many unit types present, technological advances would upgrade existing units.
  • Each nation's available technologies would be based on the units it produced (or at least developed) later on in the war.

Industrialization. As noted earlier, WWII participants significantly increased their production capacity as the war went on. I had several options for recreating this aspect of WWII. Initially, I'd chosen to allow players to increase the PU value of specific territories under their control--specifically territories with major industrial complexes. However, that would result in too much value being concentrated into too few places. My next inclination was to force players to divide the production increases between territories with major complexes and those without; and to use rules mechanisms to prevent too much of the increase from being concentrated into too few territories. Unfortunately, those rules were overly cumbersome, and would have been tedious to implement. I finally settled on having all territories' PU values locked. Individual nations experience early game penalties to prevent them from collecting the full value of those territories until later in the game. As those production penalties become smaller, nations' productive capacities increase. This relatively simple rules mechanism should also allow map designers to implement their own economic model without too much trouble. 

Purchase units. It is worth noting that no matter how much industrial capacity the Axis nations managed to capture, they could not field infantry forces as numerous as those of the Allies, due to their smaller population sizes. The use of manpower points is intended both to recreate this Allied advantage in infantry, and to all but force players to use some infantry without being overly reliant on infantry.

Unit attributes: There are three ways in which basic unit stats can be designated. 1) Each unit has an attack value and a defense value. 2) Each unit has an anti-air value, an anti-land value, and an anti-naval value. 3) Combine the first two systems. Each unit has an attack value (anti-air), a defense value (anti-air), an attack value (land), a defense value (land), etc. The third system seemed too cumbersome. As between the first two, choice 1) made sense in cases where infantry (for example) were hiding in trenches. But it seldom made sense in other contexts. For example, no one has ever heard of an aircraft carrier hiding in a trench it dug out of seawater. On the other hand, a unit like a fighter was specifically designed to destroy enemy aircraft; whereas a dive bomber was designed primarily to attack tactical targets on the ground. 

Units' hitpoints can symbolize two different things: 1) thick armor, which allows a unit to absorb a hit that would have destroyed a lesser unit, or 2) increased maneuverability, which allows the unit to dodge an attack that would have hit a slower and less nimble unit. Some units (such as tanks) were specifically designed to be able to soak up a lot of punishment; which was not the case for other units (such as artillery). 

In thinking about die rolls, I wanted there to be an element of luck--but not too much luck! There should be enough of an element of luck to keep this game from being chess; but not so much that an inferior player could beat a significantly better player based on luck. Imagine two scenarios: 1) you roll 12 dice, each with a 1/6 chance of getting a hit, 2) you roll 3 dice, each with a 2/3 chance of hitting. Under each scenario, you will get exactly two hits with neutral dice. But under scenario 1, you have over an 11% chance of coming away without any hits. Under scenario 2 (the one I chose for this rules set) you have a less than 4% chance of coming away with no hits. Under scenario 1, the (relatively) high probability of getting no hits is balanced out by a significant chance of getting twice as many (or more) hits than a player "deserves." Under scenario 2, it is impossible for a player to receive more than 1.5 times as many hits as he or she "deserves." Therefore, scenario 2 is significantly less prone to wild fluctuations in luck than is scenario 1; while still keeping the game unpredictable.

Naval combat. This aspect of the game is intended to be something of a paper-rock-scissors. Escort ships are intended to destroy subs, and to provide some degree of air defense for the entire fleet. Battleships are limited in what they can do--only being able to target surface ships--but are extremely powerful in that role. Aircraft are also a powerful weapon against surface ships; and can also be used against subs (albeit at half the usual attack value). A player's primary defense against air attacks should normally be his own fighter force. 

Strategic bombing raids. Late in WWII, a good-sized Allied bombing raid could result in 30,000 or more civilian deaths. Over time, such raids would result not just in the destruction of machinery and other replaceable items, but in the loss of a noticeable portion of Germany's workforce. Each game turn represents six months of real time--plenty of time for many such Allied raids to occur, as they had in the real war. The loss of immediate cash reflects the economic pain inherent in rebuilding destroyed cities; whereas the permanent income reductions represent the loss of civilian life. 

Aircraft. Fighters are specialized for air-to-air combat; but also have some ability to strafe enemy infantry or ships. Dive bombers are intended primarily for delivering payloads to land-based military targets (such as enemy tanks). But they are single-engined, maneuverable aircraft that can hold their own in a dogfight. Strategic bombers are four-engined behemoths intended to operate at a high altitude, and to devastate enemy cities. They are not intended for tactical combat. 

Transports and the economy. During WWII, many nations relied on obtaining raw materials from places like South America and Africa, and using them in factories in the U.S. and Britain. Maintaining transports throughout large stretches of the world's oceans was critical for this economic model to work. Transports required to ship materials represent the economic dependence nations like Britain, the U.S., and Japan had on transport shipping; and hence their vulnerability to attacks against that shipping. This aspect of the game also serves to create an economic reward for controlling the ocean, which some players might otherwise be tempted to ignore. Without that incentive, for example, the U.S. player might decide to withdraw from the Pacific in order to focus everything on Germany.

Transportation of food. According to the book Wages of Destruction, (praised by The Times (London), The Wall Street Journal, etc.), the British food blockade of Germany during WWII resulted in a dire food situation. "By December 1940 the entire military and political leadership of the Third Reich was convinced that this was the last year in which they could approach the food question with any confidence. Nor was this simply a German problem. All of the Western European territories which had fallen under German domination in 1940 had substantial grain deficits. . . . Given the isolation imposed on the European continent by the British blockade, only the Ukraine could provide Western Europe with the millions of tons of grain it needed to sustain its animal populations. . . . [However] the Ukraine, in fact, produced only a small net surplus of grain for export outside the Soviet Union." (pp. 477 - 478.) The book also describes the response Germany had to the food shortage. Some groups--notably Germans and workers producing armaments, were to be adequately fed. Others--such as most people living in occupied territories--were to be fed just enough to (barely) avoid starvation, if even that. And some groups--especially the Jews--were to be starved to death to reduce the demand on the food supply. 

In practice, Germany fell short even of the modest goals it had established: large numbers of captured Soviet solders starved to death, despite Hitler's explicit order that they be fed. "But Backe was in an impossible position. The Fuehrer had demanded more workers. Gauleiter Sauckel was committed to delivering them. Hitler and Sauckel now demanded that the workers be fed, which was clearly a necessity if they were to be productive. And yet, given the level of grain stocks, Backe was unable to meet this demand. What was called for was a reduction in consumption, not additional provisions for millions of new workers. The seriousness of the situation became apparent to the wider public in the spring of 1942 when the Food Ministry announced cuts to the food rations of the German population. Given the regime's mortal fear of damaging morale, the ration cuts of April 1942 were incontrovertible evidence that the food crisis was real. . . . When the reduction in the civilian ration was announced it produced a response which justified every anxiety on the part of the Nazi leadership. [The ration cut's effect on morale was] 'devastating' like 'virtually no other event during the war.' Studies by nutritional experts added to the leadership's concerns." (p. 541.) 

Crush Communism: during WWII, nearly 1 million citizens of the Soviet Union agreed to serve in Germany's effort to conquer the Soviet Union and destroy communism. To put that number into perspective, the Anglo-American force which occupied Western Europe at the end of the war numbered 2 million men. The Soviet citizens who served in Germany's army were typically neither Nazis nor sympathetic to Nazism, they felt communism was far worse. Many were Russian nationalists and anti-communists; while others were Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians who wanted to liberate their homelands from the brutal Soviet occupation that had begun in 1940.

Prussian Military Tradition: in the battle of Stalingrad (a decisive defeat for the German Army), Germany experienced 841,000 casualties (including men captured), to over 1.1 million casualties for the Red Army. More typical was the battle of Kursk, fought the following summer. Kursk was the largest land battle in history, and represented the last major German offensive against the Soviet Union. The Germans had fewer than 800,000 men in the battle; the Soviets had over 1.9 million. The Soviets had almost twice as many tanks, over 2.5 times as many guns and mortars, and more combat aircraft than did the Germans. Moreover, the Soviets had been expecting an attack against the Kursk salient. They had dug defenses seven layers deep, had laid over a million land mines, and had deployed a staggering number of artillery pieces. During the battle, the Soviets experienced 860,000 casualties to the Germans' 170,000 for a 5:1 loss ratio. The Soviets lost 6,000 tanks and assault guns to the Germans' 700--an 8:1 loss ratio. Those ratios, however, were not good enough to prevent a decisive German defeat.  

Jet: While other nations (such as Britain and the U.S.) had also developed jet aircraft, only Germany's jets were superior to the best available piston aircraft. Germany's jets were significantly better than their Allied counterparts largely due to advanced research conducted at its Göttingen laboratory. After the war, Britain and the U.S. scrapped their own jet designs; and instead began using the German jet design as a template for their future jet aircraft.

Panther tank. In 1941, it became abundantly clear that the Soviet T-34 tank was significantly superior to any extant German tank design. To solve that problem, German engineers went to work to design a tank to do to T-34s what the T-34s had been doing to German tanks. The result of their efforts was the Panther tank design. While it was significantly more expensive to build than a T-34, a Panther made up for this with better armor and better weaponry. A German general once told the Americans, "One of our tanks is worth ten of yours. Unfortunately, you always have eleven." 

Type XXI U-boat. This highly advanced submarine had three times the battery capacity of its predecessor; allowing for substantially longer dive times. It was also significantly quieter than other subs of the era; adding to its stealthiness. The submarine's advanced sonar system allowed it to target enemy ships without using a periscope, also increasing stealthiness. Other subs of the era had to surface for brief periods in order to sprint into attack position against enemy ships. That was not the case for this sub. Its advanced, streamlined hull design allowed it to move faster when submerged than it could on the surface. In fact, its submerged speed was faster than the speed many surface ships could attain. In combination with its long battery life, this was an exceptionally difficult submarine to hunt down and destroy. The submarine's advanced torpedo system allowed its crew to reload all six tubes at a faster pace than it would take to reload just one tube of its predecessor. Its advanced electronics suite allowed the sub to do a superior job of detecting and targeting enemies, while in turn avoiding detection. Fortunately for the Allies, only four submarines of this type (out of the 118 assembled) had been deployed for combat by the end of the war. This sub design strongly influenced the postwar sub designs of the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.

Wasserfall. To deal with Allied air attacks, Germany developed radio-controlled surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Allied bombers. Based on a smaller version of the V2 rocket, the nighttime variant of Wasserfall involved an analog computer and radar guidance beams for targeting. "To this day, I am convinced that substantial deployment of Wasserfall from the spring of 1944 onward, together with an uncompromising use of the jet fighters as air defense interceptors, would have essentially stalled the Allied strategic bombing offensive against our industry." - Albert Speer. 

T-34. The T-34 was by far the best tank design of 1941. As the war went on the tank design became somewhat outdated. However, Stalin opposed any major revisions, on the theory that it was more important to avoid production delays than it was to have the best possible tank. The design was tweaked as the war went on; in two respects. It was simplified to reduce the number of moving parts; and hence the production cost. Also, the turret was upgraded to address the most significant shortcomings of the previous tank design. The T-34-85 had a new, more powerful weapon to allow it to penetrate the armor of Panther tanks; which the old T-34 design could not do. Also, the T-34-85 had three men in the turret (as opposed to two men in the old T-34). The third man's job was to pay attention to the terrain. In the past, Soviet tanks had done far worse than their German counterparts at taking advantage of the terrain; largely due to the lack of that third man. The improved weapon and turret of the T-34-85 allowed the T-34 to remain a very competitive tank design right up to the end of the war. 

Improved fighters. The Spanish civil war saw fascists fight against a side that was somewhere between democracy and communism. The Germans and Italians sent aid to the fascist side; and the Soviets sent aid to the far Leftists. Early in the war, the Soviet aircraft dominated the skies. But in 1937, Germany introduced a new, radically improved generation of aircraft which quickly seized control of the Spanish skies. This shift in the balance of power was to decisively impact the Spanish civil war. Soviet aircraft which had been first-rate by the standards of 1936 had, by the new, 1937 standards, become hopelessly obsolete. Soviet engineers therefore went to work to design the next generation of their own aircraft. By the spring of 1941, many of those prototypes had been completed, and were being put into production. At the start of the war, the vast majority of the Soviet air force still consisted of models that were obsolete by 1937 standards. The obsolete aircraft were quickly destroyed. But the replacement aircraft produced by Soviet factories were, typically, as good or almost as good as those from German, British, or American factories. The Lavochkin La-7 was among the best piston-driven fighters of the war; and the ridiculously heavily armored Il-2 Shturmokik was devastating in its intended role of ground support. 

Light tanks. The European powers' armies could draw upon their experiences from WWI. Japan did not participate in Europe's trench warfare; causing its army to lose out on what had been a major learning experience for the Europeans. Japanese tanks were light, and were intended for use against poorly-armed Chinese soldiers. They lacked both the armor and weaponry needed to be effective at destroying enemy tanks. One reason why Japan chose the light tank design was its lack of industrial capacity. In autumn of 1941, Japan had only a tenth the industrial capacity of the United States. Given Japan's lack of industrial capacity, Japanese military planners opted for lighter, less expensive tanks.

Improved anti-air defenses. Later in the war, British and American ships had significantly more anti-aircraft guns than did their Japanese counterparts. 

Long-ranged aircraft. Americans developed drop-tanks with which they extended the range of their aircraft.

Proximity fuse. This device significantly improved the effectiveness of British and American artillery. It also helped their anti-air defenses.

Superfortress. This was a heavier bomber, with a much larger payload, and a longer range, than any previous American strategic bomber had been. Superfortresses appeared too late to see action against Germany, but were used to devastating effect against Japan's cities.

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