Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

9) Will there be someone that uses all those exported Hetzers to Hungary ?

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ORIGINAL: RocketMan

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

9) Will there be someone that uses all those exported Hetzers to Hungary ?

No unit in the game uses Hungarian Hetzers [Hetzer(H)], so the answer to that question is no.

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

Hi matrix, well I have stopped playing my frustrating game vs. the AI again, I'll bring up a summary of issues here as I remember them. I have brought up most of them before but have seen nothing mentioned in the release notes regarding fixes.

Game was started around march - so yes with old data files but I bet alot of issues are still in the latest data files. In fact some issues I get frustrated over were already mentioned in Pyledriver's alpha AAR from 1.5 yrs ago.

The attached save is from around 1/1 1945, and some "crazy" moves were made with mobile axis forces to inspect CVs of opposing Soviet forces. More on that later.

Issues:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

2) Hetzer production is glitched. Open production screen and look at Hetzer production figures, then scroll up and down. Sometimes when opening production the figures are wrong, e.g. zero production / week. Possibly a graphical glitch on my computer only, in any case it is annoying.

3) Soviet AI has no problem conducting offensives ~50+ MP from their closest railhead in blizzard conditions, while retaining strong CVs. Check the save and the areas E. of Leningrad and between Stalingrad and Astrakhan.

4) Every round there are some german factories not producing, although I should be up to my neck with oil, fuel and resources. If this is WAD then we need some info texts somewhere on why production is hampered.

5) Soviet losses are not felt by the AI. Please nerf the Soviet AI ability to produce units, losses of hundreds and hundreds of corps and still fielding a strong army as in the save is just silly. Soviet leader and command structure capability should have crumbled away a long time ago. Not that it was good at the start of the war mind you.

6) Why has the Soviet production capability not collapsed yet? By now they should not have enough oil, supply, or resources with that many centers captured (Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Tula, Caucasus). I see no signs of collapse here at all, nor any severe shortages in raw materials, supply etc. in their pools.

7) No warning when your SEC units convert to regular army units, causing lots of garrisons to go from 100% to 45% in one turn in blizzard. Cheap and annoying trick of the game to backstab you. In blizzard of course.

8) Allied air units mostly refuse to fly, and I have PTF set to 5%.

9) Will there be someone that uses all those exported Hetzers to Hungary ?

10) Exports to Finland are lacking (no planes for the Finns). If the reason for this is historical (yadayada), why not just teleport axis units around after each end of turn to comply with historical front lines as well.

11) Why is the Italian manpower figure etc. still visible in the total figure long after they are gone. Confusing.

12) Some elite (sic) units are hell-bent on using obsolete junk as e.g. flammpanzers and SP-inf guns years after production of these museum items have long ceased. So these "elite" units are impossible to get up to max. strength, which is a tad unhistorical as they should have priority to get the "elite" stuff. If you really want to follow history here, at least inject more flammpanzers, SP-Inf vehicles etc. in the pool as needed. E.g. if Grossdeutchland div. really had 20 flammpanzers at say 1/1 1945, I want to have that as well.

13) I have hundreds of tigers, kingtigers, jagdtigers, jagdpanthers in my pool collecting dust but some panzerdivs. are really starved of equipment, several fighting over the few T34s, Valentines etc. captured. Root cause: more historical yada yada here but the current situation is even more ahistorical and in fact a tragic fail by game developers. The Wehrmacht was known to adapt to survive so this is just plain silly.

14) The overall feeling of the game is that the Soviets are much too strong in 1943 and onwards and also are capable of offensives over too much distance and across too much of the front line. Axis counterattacked successfully all the time in the real war, well good luck in counterattacking those riflecorps of death harassing you all along the front. Ant units (including isolated ones) also causes unacceptably high losses against panzers in open terrain. Hell they should just shatter, but instead I bet they could retreat to the pacific in good order if you let them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: davetheroad

how many Jagdpanther battalions are in the game?
I can find only one (560th) in the 44 campaign game
Some sources suggest 7 panzer divisions on the east front were issued with them from feb 45
Duffy in Red Strom on the Reich quotes a panzer platoon commander in 4th panzer division complaining
about being given a jagdpanther rather than a tank in feb 45. he changed his mind after knocking out 15 russian tanks in one day.

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ORIGINAL: jaw

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

Hi matrix, well I have stopped playing my frustrating game vs. the AI again, I'll bring up a summary of issues here as I remember them. I have brought up most of them before but have seen nothing mentioned in the release notes regarding fixes.

Game was started around march - so yes with old data files but I bet alot of issues are still in the latest data files. In fact some issues I get frustrated over were already mentioned in Pyledriver's alpha AAR from 1.5 yrs ago.

The attached save is from around 1/1 1945, and some "crazy" moves were made with mobile axis forces to inspect CVs of opposing Soviet forces. More on that later.

Issues:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

2) Hetzer production is glitched. Open production screen and look at Hetzer production figures, then scroll up and down. Sometimes when opening production the figures are wrong, e.g. zero production / week. Possibly a graphical glitch on my computer only, in any case it is annoying.

3) Soviet AI has no problem conducting offensives ~50+ MP from their closest railhead in blizzard conditions, while retaining strong CVs. Check the save and the areas E. of Leningrad and between Stalingrad and Astrakhan.

4) Every round there are some german factories not producing, although I should be up to my neck with oil, fuel and resources. If this is WAD then we need some info texts somewhere on why production is hampered.

5) Soviet losses are not felt by the AI. Please nerf the Soviet AI ability to produce units, losses of hundreds and hundreds of corps and still fielding a strong army as in the save is just silly. Soviet leader and command structure capability should have crumbled away a long time ago. Not that it was good at the start of the war mind you.

6) Why has the Soviet production capability not collapsed yet? By now they should not have enough oil, supply, or resources with that many centers captured (Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Tula, Caucasus). I see no signs of collapse here at all, nor any severe shortages in raw materials, supply etc. in their pools.

7) No warning when your SEC units convert to regular army units, causing lots of garrisons to go from 100% to 45% in one turn in blizzard. Cheap and annoying trick of the game to backstab you. In blizzard of course.

8) Allied air units mostly refuse to fly, and I have PTF set to 5%.

9) Will there be someone that uses all those exported Hetzers to Hungary ?

10) Exports to Finland are lacking (no planes for the Finns). If the reason for this is historical (yadayada), why not just teleport axis units around after each end of turn to comply with historical front lines as well.

11) Why is the Italian manpower figure etc. still visible in the total figure long after they are gone. Confusing.

12) Some elite (sic) units are hell-bent on using obsolete junk as e.g. flammpanzers and SP-inf guns years after production of these museum items have long ceased. So these "elite" units are impossible to get up to max. strength, which is a tad unhistorical as they should have priority to get the "elite" stuff. If you really want to follow history here, at least inject more flammpanzers, SP-Inf vehicles etc. in the pool as needed. E.g. if Grossdeutchland div. really had 20 flammpanzers at say 1/1 1945, I want to have that as well.

13) I have hundreds of tigers, kingtigers, jagdtigers, jagdpanthers in my pool collecting dust but some panzerdivs. are really starved of equipment, several fighting over the few T34s, Valentines etc. captured. Root cause: more historical yada yada here but the current situation is even more ahistorical and in fact a tragic fail by game developers. The Wehrmacht was known to adapt to survive so this is just plain silly.

14) The overall feeling of the game is that the Soviets are much too strong in 1943 and onwards and also are capable of offensives over too much distance and across too much of the front line. Axis counterattacked successfully all the time in the real war, well good luck in counterattacking those riflecorps of death harassing you all along the front. Ant units (including isolated ones) also causes unacceptably high losses against panzers in open terrain. Hell they should just shatter, but instead I bet they could retreat to the pacific in good order if you let them.

I can't respond to your first 8 issues as they all involve programming which is Gary & Pavel. Here's what I can answer of the remaining:

9) Hopefully they will now. I changed the Hungarian Hetzer from a tank destroyer to an assault gun. Theoretically if you run short of the assault guns (Stug-IIIs & Zyrinyi IIs) defined in the Hungarian TOEs the program should substitute Hetzers.

10) Yes, this is an historical limitation caused by the fact that Leningrad never fell and the Finnish front was then largely inactive until mid-1944.

11) Haven't a clue, another issue for Gary & Pavel.

12) The Flamm Panzers were put into Grossdeutschland's TOE for use in 1943 and not removed until the 1945 TOE in 12/44. I could remove them from the 1944 TOE but that will probably leave a lot unused in the pool which seems to irritate people equally. Historically the sIG33 type self-propelled infantry guns were amazingly survivable; there were even original sIG33s built on the Panzer I chassis in 1940 still in service in 1944. Unfortunately they are not nearly so survivable in the game. Perhaps they should be re-defined as SPAs but that might create other issues.

13) By the spring of 1944 the only division still using the Tiger/King Tiger organically is Grossdeutschland. All the other Tigers/King Tigers were in independent battalions, same for Jagdpanther. The Jagdtiger was never used on the Eastern front so it is not organic to any unit. If you have hundreds of these vehicles available in 1944 you've probably won the game and should start a new one.

14) I can't address play balance issues but there seems to be a contridiction between you saying the Soviets are too strong while building up a reserve of "hundreds" of Tigers. What am I missing here?

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor


Issues:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I have a hard time understanding how you say the Soviets are too strong and yet you say that you hold Moscow, Lgrad, Stalingrad, Caucauses in Jan 1945? Sounds like you're doing OK to me?

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ORIGINAL: 76mm

I have a hard time understanding how you say the Soviets are too strong and yet you say that you hold Moscow, Lgrad, Stalingrad, Caucauses in Jan 1945? Sounds like you're doing OK to me?

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I assume you are saying the planes were lost, and no replacements were available to fill them, correct? Or did the scenario start with no aircraft. In the latest version of the 41 campaign I'm looking at (not yet out to the public), the Rumanians start with 394 AC and have about 200 in the replacement pool. In a PBEM game I have a save for from the summer of 42, the Rumanians have 627 aircraft.

quote:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I have a hard time understanding how you say the Soviets are too strong and yet you say that you hold Moscow, Lgrad, Stalingrad, Caucauses in Jan 1945? Sounds like you're doing OK to me?

I don't think the fact that someone is doing well should disqualify them from having an opinion on play balance.

I am doing rather well in my game "The Wolf and the Bear", but nevertheless I feel that the Soviet army is somewhat overpowered in WITE. That coupled with the lack of a good VP system makes the GC for both sides something of an endless grind with no clear purpose to strive for, except in the very long term.

In most other East Front games, German possession of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad and perhaps Sevastopol would render a German win. I am not saying they are right, but I am saying that in game terms they have definable victory conditions and clear objectives that make the games more exciting and tense.

Edit: Typo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I assume you are saying the planes were lost, and no replacements were available to fill them, correct? Or did the scenario start with no aircraft. In the latest version of the 41 campaign I'm looking at (not yet out to the public), the Rumanians start with 394 AC and have about 200 in the replacement pool. In a PBEM game I have a save for from the summer of 42, the Rumanians have 627 aircraft.

quote:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

Hi Joel I think I described the issue clearly enough ? OK a step-by-step then:

1) Open the attached save
2) Inspect the Romanian squadrons (many/most have 0 planes, this is a symptom of the suspected fault.)
3) Toggle "manual" selection of types for the squadrons with zero planes (most want types that are NEVER exported to Romania, at least not until the date of the save ~1/1 '45). This is the suspected fault.

I guess as they never get any exports except for a few fighters, and have a net production of maybe five (5) planes/week after attrition, accidents etc., their numbers dwindle towards zero.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Glantz lists Red Army losses in 41/42 as 6 million KIA/MIA/Captured and 5.4 million wounded/sick, with another roughly 5% additional losses for other services. In 43 another 2 million KIA/MIA/Captured and 5.5 million wounded/sick. Even so, he had the Red Army at roughly 6.4 million at the end of 42 and again at the end of 43. They took a licking and kept on ticking.

It's possible that our system of disabled return is too generous and/or we still have too much population coming into the Soviet army (we've reduced manpower multipliers once already for 41/42 and have considered some additional reductions especially later in the war).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I assume you are saying the planes were lost, and no replacements were available to fill them, correct? Or did the scenario start with no aircraft. In the latest version of the 41 campaign I'm looking at (not yet out to the public), the Rumanians start with 394 AC and have about 200 in the replacement pool. In a PBEM game I have a save for from the summer of 42, the Rumanians have 627 aircraft.

quote:

1) Romanian airgroups are mostly empty with zero planes. Root cause: Bug, they never get exports so they stay empty forever. Check it out for yourselves in the attached save.

Hi Joel I think I described the issue clearly enough ? OK a step-by-step then:

1) Open the attached save
2) Inspect the Romanian squadrons (many/most have 0 planes, this is a symptom of the suspected fault.)
3) Toggle "manual" selection of types for the squadrons with zero planes (most want types that are NEVER exported to Romania, at least not until the date of the save ~1/1 '45). This is the suspected fault.

I guess as they never get any exports except for a few fighters, and have a net production of maybe five (5) planes/week after attrition, accidents etc., their numbers dwindle towards zero.

I looked into the data for both campaign 41 and campaign 42 and you are right that aside from 150 fighters, most of the Rumanian imports are showing with 0 max imports (so no imports will happen). Not sure why this is, but I'll bring it up to some of the data guys and see if that was a mistake.

You still have over 400 Rumanian aircraft in 45 compared to the 394 they start the war with. There is something that looks odd that I don't know enough to explain. Most Rumanian air groups start with 9 AC but have a max ready of 24. This means that a few units could build up over time to 24 AC, leaving the other units to whither away for lack of replacements. Not sure why the Rumanian air force was organized this way.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Glantz lists Red Army losses in 41/42 as 6 million KIA/MIA/Captured and 5.4 million wounded/sick, with another roughly 5% additional losses for other services. In 43 another 2 million KIA/MIA/Captured and 5.5 million wounded/sick. Even so, he had the Red Army at roughly 6.4 million at the end of 42 and again at the end of 43. They took a licking and kept on ticking.

It's possible that our system of disabled return is too generous and/or we still have too much population coming into the Soviet army (we've reduced manpower multipliers once already for 41/42 and have considered some additional reductions especially later in the war).

I will repost something I did jokingly in one of my AARs. Fighting the Red Army in WITE is like a horror movie:

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

I don't think the fact that someone is doing well should disqualify them from having an opinion on play balance.

I am doing rather well in my game "The Wolf and the Bear", but nevertheless I feel that the Soviet army is somewhat overpowered in WITE. That coupled with the lack of a good VP system makes the GC for both sides something of an endless grind with no clear purpose to strive for, except in the very long term.

In most other East Front games, German possession of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad and perhaps Sevastopol would render a German win. I am not saying they are right, but I am saying that in game terms they have definable victory conditions and clear objectives that make the games more exciting and tense.

Edit: Typo.