ComradeP
Posts: 7192
Joined: 9/17/2009 Status: offline
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quote:
ComradeP, give me mud, and I'd happily take the early start as the Soviet. If not, not. The opposite applies for the German player. This seems like a pretty shaky basis to start a game and is a recipe for trouble. Somebody is going to wind up very unhappy. Yes, but it will be the Axis player that will be unhappy after an early start, which is what most people who prefer an earlier start seem to forget. They want to change other historical parameters too, but that creates an ahistorical fantasy as you already said. An earlier start date would be fine by me, an earlier start in fair weather is rubbish. quote:
I'm leaving aside entirely the questionable idea that the German could totally ignore events in the Balkans. That's not even an operational decision within the parameters of this game, it's something at the head of state level and most definitely takes us into weird and ahistorical places. As I said earlier: I'm not too sure about that. If the earlier start date would be March, there wouldn't be a lot going on in the Balkans. The Germans could send a mountain division or two to Albania and make the Greeks and Italians guarantee they won't violate eachother's borders again. Mussolini will protest, but without German help Africa is lost so there isn't a lot he can do. The British don't have the men for both a campaign in Africa and a campaign in the Balkans and it's questionable whether they would ever have the men for a campaign in the Balkans to begin with. The capture of Greece was convenient for the Germans in a number of way, but there was little strategic need to do so in 1941, as I don't think there would've been a significant effect on anything other than the African campaign and maybe not even on that (doomed to fail in any case, it might even be better if it failed earlier). The "no campaign in the Balkans in 1941" alternate reality is a lot more credible than, say, "America never enters the war" or "Sealion worked in 1940-1941 and the British moved their government to the colonies". Those lead to wild and ahistorical circumstances, a no campaign in the Balkans mostly leads to some curiosities and some problems later on in the campaign for the Axis, but not in 1941. quote:
This game really isn't designed to deal with that kind of thing That's the best argument, which is why I'm happy the spokespeople for the developers are using that argument. People might want Murmansk, an earlier start date or a campaign in Yugoslavia later on, but the game isn't designed for that and that's that. - There is one thing that has been troubling me, well the theory in any case as naturally I haven't touched the game yet. The 7 day turns, which are basically 14 day turns as first the Axis play their 7 days without the Soviets being able to respond and after that the Soviets play their 7 days without the Axis being able to respond, could create some problems in the first few months, possibly in 1942, but perhaps especially when the Soviet counteroffensive starts (if there will be one). The main problem I'm seeing is encirclements. We know isolated units can't disband, which is a good thing, but player units that start the player turn in a pocket, but can trace supply after some player actions are, if I'm interpreting the AAR's correctly, no longer isolated. That would mean they can disband. In the dead units thread, there's no mention of what happens to disbanded units. If the Axis disband units, and they indeed don't get them back as they're not "destroyed or shattered and have not surrendered", that could be a problem for them. The Soviets, on the other hand, can build now units. Some Soviet units seem to return after being automatically disbanded, and if all pre-November 1941 Soviet units return after being disbanded, the Soviet player has little reason not to disband units in a pocket if he can. The Axis player might cry foul and will interpret it as a gamey strategy, even though the fact that he created the pocket in 7 days worth of moves which the Soviet player couldn't respond to probably isn't gamey in his opinion. The pocket that will form west of Minsk is probably unreachable in most cases, but perhaps supply can be restored to smaller pockets. Personally, I'd be fine with the Soviet units disbanding as it would model the historical problems the Axis had with sealing a pocket with insufficient forces. Soviet units would escape in small groups and reform later. Isolated units in a pocket will tend to surrender with most of their manpower, so the Axis player already gets the benefit that there's a slim chance as many men will escape from pockets as they did historically. When the Soviets are attacking, the problems might also apply to Axis. If units formerly in a pocket, but in supply during the player turn can disband, I'm guessing a houserule would be needed to decide whether they can, as it can seriously annoy the other player if nothing was officially agreed on and it happens.
< Message edited by ComradeP -- 8/13/2010 11:04:34 AM >
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