War in Europe (game) - Production

Production

The game places great emphasis on German and Soviet production; only German production is used in War in the West and only Soviet in War in the East (in each of these sub-games the German player must add or remove units to reflect historical transfers between the fronts). Once each month, the players spend production points to construct units, which are placed on giant production spiral displays to show how many months in the future they will become available – infantry units being available fairly quickly, with armour units taking longer, and air and naval units longer still.

German production points are generated from industrial and resource centres (provided the Western Allies have not bombed them), with resource centres in Romania and the USSR – representing oil and other raw materials – needing to be controlled for the German economy to operate at full effectiveness (Germany also has a limited capacity to "loot" production points from conquered countries). German production points are increased by a multiplier, which reflects the increased productivity of the German war economy as the war progresses.

The German player has a wide of choice of units to produce: infantry, garrison infantry (for fighting partisans), static infantry (for coastal defence), Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions (stronger SS versions of both of these becoming available later in the game), small Panzer brigades, paratroops and air transport points, flak, fortifications, supply depots, and railroad repair units. Replacement points may be produced to rebuild battlegroups into full-strength divisions at the front. The German player is limited to spending at most 30% of his production on naval units, although he may spend between 30% and 50% on the Luftwaffe.

Soviet production points are created from personnel and arms points; the latter are increasingly available as the war progresses, whereas personnel points, abundant in 1941, become scarcer and by 1944 are not available every turn, often forcing the Soviet player to cannibalise no-longer-needed infantry units for their personnel points (the arms points used to create them are lost). Soviet production is largely determined by the course of the war: the USSR needs to build infantry and antitank units first – although even in the desperate early turns the USSR is still required to build two new air factors each turn, so the Red Air Force will gradually increase in size – then switch to armoured corps and artillery units (which have offensive firepower of ten factors, equal to a German Panzer division) as the tide turns.

In the original version of the game, the Western Allies received only the historical reinforcements, which may be delayed or advanced somewhat depending on whether the German U-Boat campaign is more or less successful than in reality. Western Allied production was added in the 1999 reprint of the game.