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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/16/2011 10:14:48 PM

elmo3

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

...Right now the soviets just put the best guys in command of the critical areas and try to get the worst of the lot killed....

Like real life except they just executed the worst of the lot.

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Post #: 31

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/16/2011 11:05:47 PM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike13z50

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

I defy anyone to give me examples that demonstrate how Soviet ineffectiveness of command and control is reflected in this game, and I further defy anyone to demonstrate how WitE German command & control is superior to WitE Soviet C2 in meaningful game terms (in other words, stuff the German can do in the C2 arena that the Soviet cannot do equally well).

(because Soviet leadership is so bad it's irrelevant when they're over-loaded).

You did it yourself.

Unless you don't think the horrible numbers that 9/10 of the Soviet generals have are a C2 advantage to the Germans?

Not to mention that the typical German Division has 4 quality leaders rolling for him. Corps/Army/AG/OKH

The Russian unit has two. Army/Front. (with Stavka being permanently overcap)

I'll concede the rolls to a certain extent. I doubt there are many times when the distance to an army group or OKH make long-term differences given the leadership advantage you yourself point out. But Army Group South and Army Group Center, in 1941, are so over-loaded that they might as well not make certain rolls anyway.

The Soviet doesn't suffer as severe a problem at Front level because a) Leaders are of inferior quality in general so the range of variation is narrow and results generally low; and b) Soviets simply have more fronts and thus, given the way game mechanics work, the Soviets have more C2 flexibility at the Front level than the German does at the Army level or at the Army Group level.

But I will NOT cede that leadership is the equivalent of C&C in this game because it is not. Leadership has precious little to do with C&C in game terms. At best, it adds a few movement points with a good roll here and there, and for the Soviet, that is largely irrelevant.

When on the defense in 41/42, you're retreating over friendly terrain at the optimal cost given your poor morale. By 43 and later when Soviets take the initiative, it's a slow army and thus the MPs aren't making the difference in maneuver warfare the way they need to for Germany in 41/42. When Germany misses rolls at the corps/army level for movement allowances, the Army Groups are over-loaded and won't be of much help in 41, and the difference between an infantry corps (to speak nothing to the panzer corps) with an average MP of 10 versus average MP of 12 in 1941 is absolutely enormous compared to a Soviet rifle division in this same period.

Things you could do to easily make the C2 differntial better for Germany:

Make Soviets round UP for successful command transfer rolls, let Germany continue to round down.

All Soviet Army HQs that arrive are automatically assigned to the nearest Front HQ. All divisions that arrive are automatically assigned to the nearest Army HQ.

The advantage the Soviet side gets for having units come in under STAVKA are absolutely enormous. As the German player, I'd trade that for every reinforcement coming in assigned exactly as it was historically, and we all know this would be in Germany's favor simply because they get so few units.

The Soviet reinforcement table gives them a blank slate to reorganize as near to perfect an army as can be managed, for almost no cost in AP.

These are the kinds of unspoken, unrecognized advantages that make Germany the weaker army by comparison and doom it to be a bit player in a Soviet grand strategy game. There are more.

< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 11/16/2011 11:13:36 PM >

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Post #: 32

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/16/2011 11:16:42 PM

heliodorus04

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double-post

< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 11/17/2011 3:43:39 AM >

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Post #: 33

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 3:13:39 AM

carlkay58

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The Soviet army in 1941 WAS a blank slate. The purge had eliminated most of the commanders with any initiative or innovation. The leadership was still in flux and turmoil - and after the war started there was the fear of being 'fired' by Stalin as a very real threat.

The German command, on the other hand, was a strict hierarchy with the commanders being arranged by seniority of rank. There were political factions within the military that had many effects on the conduct of the war. Corps and Army commands worked together for several campaigns. Transferring the command of divisions was rare in contrast to the Soviets.

There was a single Soviet division in September of 1942 near Stalingrad (the 264 Rifle Division pops into mind - but I can't recall for sure) that switched armies twelve times in that month. Divisions were swapped between armies and fronts on a regular basis. When a division wore down in combat, it was reassigned to another army/front for moving to a reserve area. In the reserve area, it was quite commonly reassigned to another army/front for its recovery and rebuilding - often several hundred miles from the front.

The place where the German army had much greater flexibility was in cooperation between commands - temporarily loaning formations from one command to another. This should be shown in the game in a smaller penalty for different formations participating in combat together - I don't know if the game does have different penalties for this for the Axis vs the Soviets - but this is where I would argue that the Germans should be better than the Soviets.

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Post #: 34

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 3:30:00 AM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Soviet army in 1941 WAS a blank slate. The purge had eliminated most of the commanders with any initiative or innovation. The leadership was still in flux and turmoil - and after the war started there was the fear of being 'fired' by Stalin as a very real threat.

The German command, on the other hand, was a strict hierarchy with the commanders being arranged by seniority of rank. There were political factions within the military that had many effects on the conduct of the war. Corps and Army commands worked together for several campaigns. Transferring the command of divisions was rare in contrast to the Soviets.

There was a single Soviet division in September of 1942 near Stalingrad (the 264 Rifle Division pops into mind - but I can't recall for sure) that switched armies twelve times in that month. Divisions were swapped between armies and fronts on a regular basis. When a division wore down in combat, it was reassigned to another army/front for moving to a reserve area. In the reserve area, it was quite commonly reassigned to another army/front for its recovery and rebuilding - often several hundred miles from the front.

The place where the German army had much greater flexibility was in cooperation between commands - temporarily loaning formations from one command to another. This should be shown in the game in a smaller penalty for different formations participating in combat together - I don't know if the game does have different penalties for this for the Axis vs the Soviets - but this is where I would argue that the Germans should be better than the Soviets.

The actual history is incidental to the game mechanic, and I don't care how the real commanders did things, because they didn't have Admin Points!

REAL Soviet Generals had political commissars ready to execute anyone who stepped east. Since WitE ignores the concept of fighting westward as a national Soviet imperative that it was historically, I don't give a crap about a division that changed hands several times in a year. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Eastern Front (and I count myself among them) can stop any given game discussion by citing some anecdote that coincidentally justifies a faulty game mechanic. (Queue the crazies who cite that Ju-87 pilot who destroyed every tank on the eastern front at Kursk)

I'm dealing with game balance. The history is done and WitE deviates from that history starting on Turn 1...

The Soviets still have too many game mechanics unrealistically bent heavily in their favor in that the hindsights of history make clear an optimal strategy that the German simply can't compete with. The Soviet side is uncompetitive. Now, I understand there's a school in the community that says this is historically accurate. To them I say, fine: if you're happy with WitE, then maybe my expectations are faulty.

But I expected a competitive game, and I don't see that product here (again; I had that feeling in 1.04 before, too, and now it's back).

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Post #: 35

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 10:26:27 AM

janh

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Yes, that's it. Two schools, one that wants a game that gives the German better chances for an even or even offensive ("total") victory, and there is the school of people that play this to get into the mood of these times and the situation that both sides did find themselves in. The designers attempted a little of both, getting the overall strained situation into the picture without some "confusing orders from supreme command" (Hitler,Stalin) or other political implications. This is a compromise, and such necessarily never optimal for people at the two extremes. However, they called the game "War in the East", and not "War in the East -- a fictional alternative history".

I am of the latter type and although I vastly prefer the Axis side of the game, care little about the fact the Germany must loose and likely never stands a chance to bring the bear to fall, but I am looking to find myself in the same desperate struggle that we know so much and at the same time so little about.
I think the modeling of C&C/changing seems to me to be a well-conceived design. In fact, fortunately we won't see a Hitler sacking some 20 generals in one round after the termination of the last Axis offensive of 41 for political and loyality/control reasons, which would add a lot of burden to an Axis player to fix his ranks with poorer leaders. So actually I find myself well off compared to what I could imagine it could be. And for the lesser AP points to be spend Soviets, Flavius explained that nicely. The counterpart of a German division is a Soviet corps, and a Soviet division is very different in nature and should be "more flexible (cheaper)" to reassign.

Now of course people that want to play WitE as a more balanced, more even game, you could perhaps create an alternative mod in which certain historical constraints to both side could be thrown overboard. Not as ideal as having an option in the difficulty settings to disable AP on transfer, but could could boost the Axis AP by either offering a larger start pool, or add more AP per turn. You could even add some other benefits, such as higher production rates of better Axis equipment and perhaps kill the withdrawals in return for tigher victory conditions. That would be an equivalent to the Japanese WITP/AE Iron Man scenario, which besides the historical campaign is being played a lot in PBEM. Not for everyone, but perhaps a nice addition?

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Post #: 36

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 11:40:39 AM

ComradeP

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One thing to keep in mind is that even though Soviet formations were historically often seriously understrength, that is not always or even often the case in the game. I have yet to see a Soviet player create so many units that he can only keep them at about 60-70% TOE like their historical counterparts.

Most players create an optimized Soviet army. No matter how you spin it or the historical justification, that is a big advantage. Not game breaking, but it is a big advantage.

We've recently discussed the possibility of lowering Soviet army HQ command capacity, but the developers are understandably reluctant to do so without giving the Axis a historical penalty like poor logistics after 2-3 months in 1941.

The in-game Soviet leaders tend to be worse than their German counterparts, and although I am still of the opinion that a number of leaders are rated for their potential rather than for what they had actually achieved at the start of the campaign in 1941, I don't see Soviet leader quality as a problem now that the Soviets are (how exactly it happened is a mystery to me) not as likely to get good modified CV values than they got around release.

The requirement for the Soviets to use more HQ's should the army HQ command capacity be downsized at one point will also automatically result in them being forced to use more of their mediocre leaders. Currently, a Soviet army is an actual army, not a corps sized formation by Western standards, as it can include 12 full strength divisions/6 full strength corps. That also means fronts can become similar to army groups.

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Post #: 37

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 2:04:27 PM

heliodorus04

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MARK MY WORDS: Just as I was correct about forts being the major inhibitor to competitive games in 1.04, Soviet freedom of movement is about to coalesce into a 1941 standard strategy that German players are going to be unable to unbalance. The game is about to take a shift toward one ultra-effective 1941 Soviet defense that will push the 1942 game back toward 1.04 Soviet detente.

The strategy will be a massive, hedgehog-coordinated retreat that prevents Germans from taking armament points and prevents them from large-scale isolation of units, and preserves an army in the 5-million mark by Turn 17.

With the continued re-balancing of supply, German infantry will not be able to reach a point where it has enough supply to conduct deliberate attacks until about turn 12, leaving German players 5 turns to try to damage the Soviet army and take the more meaningful population centers.

The Soviets will be at 7 to 8 million men by summer 1942, and German attacks will be able to push the line by 10 or 12 hexes, but won't be able to capture units or take ground, so Germans are going to go back to trying to create World-War-1 style trenches in 1942 and waiting it out in boring, uninspired gameplay.

That's the game the Soviet players' community is inviting based on their defense of Soviet a-historic advantage of C2.

This thread is replete with examples of Soviet players describing how their armies are superior to the historic 1941 Red Army. No one is even denying that your WitE armies are superior to the 1941 Red Army. Instead, they're arguing that Soviet command was more agile than German command. Which is ludicrous.

It is ludicrous that the Soviet Army has greater freedom of command in 1941 than Germany. The reason the Soviet Army switched the corps operations in 1942 is because 1941 division operations were unacceptably inefficient. This historic fact is better reflected in Corps being LESS expensive to transfer than Soviet divisions (or at least at scale, so maybe they BOTH cost the same to transfer in a command tree).

So WitE, in another example of play balance that is actually backward, makes divisions MORE efficient for the Soviet, but also more efficient than Germany.

This game continually makes thing easier on the Soviet than they were historically and gives them a head start on getting to 1943 levels of army efficiency. So when your 1942 armies are perfectly capable of keeping Germany from crossing the Don in 1942, remember that I told you this would happen.

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Post #: 38

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 3:03:13 PM

karonagames

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Any chance of any evidence to back up these rather sweeping statements?

The evidence I have from the game I am playing is that I caused the Soviets 4m casualties and faced a 4m Red Army by the Blizzard. My opponent did not run away and made me fight for every single hex - the same tactics I would use. I would be surprised and disappointed if the reduced manpower multiplier and armaments multiplier allowed the Red army to increase in size by 75% in the next 24 turns.

I can't say what the axis potential for offensive action is in 1942, but at least I know I will not be faced with lvl 4 entrenchments, 4 deep, which was the situation when I took a break from playing 6 months ago. At least 2 AARs have shown successful Case Blue offensives - something we never saw prior to 1.05.

I do agree that Axis C&C seems much tighter than the SU, especially when 11th Army leaves the theatre. I have lobbied for "Armee Abteilung" to made available from winter 1942 onwards, but as yet I have not received a positive response, and I support the idea of reducing soviet command capacity levels.

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Post #: 39

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 3:04:17 PM

ComradeP

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You're acting like it's a new problem, virtually nothing has changed regarding Soviet C&C since release (things like brigades not being able to merge into divisions until mid 1942 now have little to do with C&C directly). If anything, things have improved a bit because the Soviets now don't get seriously high modified CV values on a regular basis anymore.

< Message edited by ComradeP -- 11/17/2011 3:06:11 PM >

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Post #: 40

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 4:21:46 PM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

Any chance of any evidence to back up these rather sweeping statements?

The evidence I have from the game I am playing is that I caused the Soviets 4m casualties and faced a 4m Red Army by the Blizzard. My opponent did not run away and made me fight for every single hex - the same tactics I would use. I would be surprised and disappointed if the reduced manpower multiplier and armaments multiplier allowed the Red army to increase in size by 75% in the next 24 turns.

No evidence that you would believe because you're an apologist who flat-out said Soviet command was more agile and better able to change plans in 1941 than German (who historically changed ARMY GROUP-level priorities successfully at Kiev, Leningrad, the Donbas/Rostov, and Moscow over the course of these 17 turns). We can't agree on what the facts are, so we can't have a discussion.

Case in point, don't cite your anecdotal data from one game in which you point out that your opponent is doing the non-exploitive (that's not a pejorative) strategy of fighting forward. It's when Soviets realize the advantage of the organized hedgehog "eastward shuffle" that you'll see what I'm talking about. If your opponent lets you get deliberate attacks on a majority scale (i.e., he can start breaking a Soviet line with infantry deliberate attacks and then has MPs available with infantry to conduct stack-hasty-attacks thereafter), then he's not doing the eastward creep, so it's not going to create the same downstream, Blizzard 5-million and Spring 7 million Soviet army.

The key to the eastward creep is setting up Soviet lines each turn so that the German infantry cannot hit you with deliberate attacks and stack-hasty-attacks in the same turn. Once you're doing that as the Soviet, you're playing to the unbeatable strategy for 1942's 7-8 million men army. By about turn 12, the Soviet has saved enough of everything (AP, guns, men, combat counters on the map) that he can re-organize around strongly lead armies, assigning rear-echelon units in reserve. The result is a German army that has to commit massive force to Deliberate attacks in order to avoid failure when the plethora of reserve units get committed. I'm seeing turns where 75% of my deliberate attacks are seeing Soviet reserve commitment, and in about half of those, the reserve commitment causes the Held result. This is the true advantage of eastward-creep: setting up the strongest lines a Soviet can make for turns 12-17 in the best defensible terrain around Moscow, and around the rivers, where ZOC movement penalty effects are amplified against the German (you either cross rivers or you pay ZOC costs, both of which gimp German movement).

IF I had enough time, I could overcome this massive layered, Kursk-1943 style defense with deliberate attacks on a massive scale, but since this doesn't happen until around turn 12, at the Valdai-Moscow-Voronezh-Rostov defensive line, there's not enough German supply to do enough attacking each turn to make it pay off. You need a penetration in depth which will take several turns to achieve (remember: the non-fighting eastward shuffle can result in major AP savings, allowing for more Soviet fortified regions, and thus, many more level 3 forts in this critical Turn12-Turn17 german operations zone, which is very likely to be at Rzhev/Tula/Kursk/Kharkov/Dnepopetrovsk), and will amplify your movement restrictions due to ZOC swarms. The key to beating it would be to finally start winning the deliberate attacks even when reserves are committed such that Soviet units route out of position and you get a penetration that prevents reserves.

The problem is you only have 5 turns do affect this, at the point on the map where your supply is most problematic, at a time when the Soviets are reaching their zenith of 1941 power. Remember that around turn 12-14 is when the free units from the early-game pockets start forming up in the hinterland, and they are in perfect position, can be freely assigned from Stavka wherever they are most appropriately slotted, with plenty of army HQs to choose from in terms of where the good rest spots are.

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Post #: 41

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 4:57:50 PM

karonagames

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quote:

No evidence that you would believe because you're an apologist who flat-out said Soviet command was more agile and better able to change plans in 1941 than German

Excuse me, but where did I say this????

I understand that you have a bee in your bonnet about something you feel may have happened in a game you are playing but this does not mean this is, or will be happening in every game as you stated in your post, while I stated something that has factually happened in a game. I avoid making sweeping statements based on my experience, as it is clear every single game is different and everyone's experience of the game is different. Yes in some games, the Red Army does get to 5 million + before the blizzard, especially in games where the Axis use the factory raiding strategy, rather than a "kill and capture" strategy that I have used to get the Red Army down to 4m. Like you I failed to captured many factories, but only time will tell if manpower or armaments factories are the key to Red Army success.

So you have fallen out of love with the game, so did I six months ago, but I am now falling back in love with it despite it's flaws. If making these kinds of unsupported statements makes you fell better than I will not argue with you - I was simply trying to establish how much detailed analysis you had made on which to base your statements. This information can then be fed back to the developers, as I still maintain informal links via the development forums.

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Post #: 42

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 5:06:49 PM

Flaviusx

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Helio, take a chill pill, man. The game right now, if anything, is leaning strongly in the German favor. Forward strategy? I don't think so. First class Axis players who know how to grind will welcome such a thing and proceed to wreck the Red Army.

A forward strategy could work very well in earlier versions of the game. Now, it's damn near suicidal.

BTW, if the German knows what he is doing, he can be attacking in good supply along the Valdai Hills and Moscow as of turn 12. Supply shouldn't be an issue at all in the northern part of the map. Voronezh and Rostov are another matter, but frankly, these are not important objectives in 1941 and should be regarded as a natural stop line for the Axis come winter. If you've gone this far, you have all the space you need to fall back down there and reduce the blizzard counteroffensive to a dull roar.

Now, in 1942, Voronezh is arguably the most important city on the map, but that's another rant.

< Message edited by Flaviusx -- 11/17/2011 5:20:18 PM >

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Post #: 43

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 6:59:17 PM

Schmart

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

One thing to keep in mind is that even though Soviet formations were historically often seriously understrength, that is not always or even often the case in the game. I have yet to see a Soviet player create so many units that he can only keep them at about 60-70% TOE like their historical counterparts.

Most players create an optimized Soviet army. No matter how you spin it or the historical justification, that is a big advantage. Not game breaking, but it is a big advantage.

I think this is an important point, and has more effect on the game than one might think. Players are not building enough Russian units, with the result being that units are far more often at full strength than they should be, allowing the Russian player to get significantly more strength into the front line. In other words, for the most part, Russian players are not playing with a very historical army, against the Axis who must play with a very strictly historical army. Thus the Russians are stronger than they should be, requiring the developers to strengthen the Axis to re-balance things (or use other artificial balancers), which then throws a number of other factors out of balance, etc.

A solution to this would be to start putting restrictions on the building of the Russian army, funneling players into a more historical (and realistic) direction. A very easy start would be to take the building of Rifle Divisions out of the palyers' hands. They should be re-building automatically when destroyed for the whole war, not just up to Nov 41. In addition, when a Rifle Div flips to Guards, a new replacement 'regular' division should appear. These two simple steps are precisely what the Russians did historically. It would also force the Russian player into the historical reality of having to maintain a very large army, and juggle the historical manpower crunch that it created.

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Post #: 44

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/17/2011 7:28:09 PM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

quote:

No evidence that you would believe because you're an apologist who flat-out said Soviet command was more agile and better able to change plans in 1941 than German

Excuse me, but where did I say this????

My bad: I thought I was responding to Flavius, who said that (if you allow my paraphrasing, and I do allow my paraphrasing). I apologize.

quote:

I understand that you have a bee in your bonnet about something you feel may have happened in a game you are playing but this does not mean this is, or will be happening in every game as you stated in your post, while I stated something that has factually happened in a game.

Data analysis is what I do for a living. I spot trends based on data patterns. If the Soviet wants to utterly destroy the German offensive into Russia, they have every game mechanic in their favor to do so starting on Turn 1. With proper planning on the critical time period of turns 10 through 18, the Soviet can husband his army into a tremendous juggernaut by simply running away faster than the German can practically catch him. There are no mechanics available to the German to counter this except massive abuse of HQ buildup.

(Aside: I don't like spamming HQ buildup as a game mechanic because I've realized the supply system is so borked that I can better supply my army by the exploding-rocket-truck-armada than by advancing railroads. So because I find this too gamey for my tastes, and because I expect buildup to be nerfed again, I don't use the sequential chain buildup right now.)

There are simply too many built-in mechanical advantages that, probably unintentionally, blunt the Soviet inefficiencies of command and control in 1941. This artificially enhanced Soviet efficiency is destroying any remote chance of 1942 sweeping (i.e. Vorenezh to the Caspian Sea) Axis offensives. Without sweeping Axis offensives in 1942 that shuffle the Soviet Army's deck of cards (hurting factories, enveloping again hundreds of thousands of Soviets and leaving their attacked Fronts hopelessly unable to regain command and control), the game is a dull husk of a representation of Eastern Front warfare.

Again, I'm not advocating the Germans should have it any easier on supply (where right now I would argue they have it too easy, but without it, there's no hope of a successful 1941 offensive knocking the Soviet off-balance before the blizzard). I'm arguing that the Soviets have it far too easy on Command and Control and as a result, the game mechanically forces Germany to sit relatively still in predictable patterns so it can take a beating from the juggernaut Red Army starting in 1942.

You will see it eventually, even if I have to trounce a few German guinea pigs to show that it's a strategem that can't be beaten.

I'm also not saying that this means Soviets will march into Berlin in June 44. I'm saying the game will be a dull husk of the representation of actual Eastern Front warfare, with the whole game reflecting only the kind of warfare fought around Leningrad from 1943 to 1945.

< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 11/17/2011 7:30:21 PM >

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Post #: 45

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 12:09:58 AM

carlkay58

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Helio - it seems to me that you are saying that the Soviet ability to control their troops are what should be hampered. You have phrased it in several different ways - including the army design/growth comments that I responded to earlier - but I think I see your point and actually agree with it. How to express that in game terms, however, is not easy - as shown by your attempts.

I am not really sure how the game could be changed to do what you want. Perhaps you feel that the Soviets should have less mp, less rail cap, AP, or something else?

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Post #: 46

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 12:33:54 AM

Flaviusx

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Um, I did not say that Helio. Keep looking for that straw man.

What I did say was that Soviet rifle divisions should not be treated the same as ordinary western divisions for command purposes. They are certainly not as combat capable as a western division. The design decision to discount the reassignment costs reflects the different army structures. The Red Army is getting what it pays for with these cheap reassignments: a rather bare bones unit with little combat support and limited staying power.

I don't see how anybody could actually prefer a Soviet rifle division to a German one, even taking into account the difference in reassignment costs.

< Message edited by Flaviusx -- 11/18/2011 12:35:56 AM >

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Post #: 47

RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 1:49:43 AM

ComradeP

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quote:

I don't see how anybody could actually prefer a Soviet rifle division to a German one, even taking into account the difference in reassignment costs.

But that's mostly due to their morale, as if the divisions would be at the same morale level, the difference wouldn't be too great in terms of combat elements. The support is inadequate, though.

Currently, the biggest differences between the Soviets and the Germans are in their TOE's, force structure and morale/experience levels. With a good army leader, I'm not seeing significant differences in MP's (for example) between units attached to a Soviet army and those attached to a German corps. There is no C&C limitation to limit the size of a Soviet army to a roughly corps sized formation, as it can be an actual 12 division army without penalties. At some point, it would be nice if that was changed, preferably after changes to supply slow down the Axis a bit.

< Message edited by ComradeP -- 11/18/2011 1:50:38 AM >

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 2:09:22 AM

Flaviusx

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Pieter, I've never gotten a rifle division past 7 cv or so. That's pretty good...until you consider that the Germans can nurse an infantry division into a 15 point monster with attachments included. That compares very favorably with a rifle corps. If rifle divisions could take attachments, then it'd be a different story.

The challenge is nursing those German infantry divisions past 1941. You've got to set aside some of the landsers before the blizzard hits as elite units for future campaigns.

German infantry in 1941 is pretty powerful stuff, though. I fear them more than the panzers in some ways. Properly organized and led, there is almost no line they cannot crack -- as seen with the ubiquitous fall of Leningrad.

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 2:16:24 AM

LiquidSky

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Perhaps the Russians should get a bonus to CV (perhaps double) if they are within a certain range of a Russian held city. Perhaps 3 hexes for a minor city and 5 hexes of a Major. Would clear up a lot of problems all at once...give the Russians some teeth in areas they actually had teeth, help prevent raiding so that a couple rifle divisions can stop a tired panzer division hundreds of km's from its supply line, give the Russians a reason to defend forward in areas such as Kiev, Smolensk, help Leningrad hold, and even maybe stop the Lvov opening....

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 2:23:36 AM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Um, I did not say that Helio. Keep looking for that straw man.

What I did say was that Soviet rifle divisions should not be treated the same as ordinary western divisions for command purposes. They are certainly not as combat capable as a western division. The design decision to discount the reassignment costs reflects the different army structures. The Red Army is getting what it pays for with these cheap reassignments: a rather bare bones unit with little combat support and limited staying power.

I don't see how anybody could actually prefer a Soviet rifle division to a German one, even taking into account the difference in reassignment costs.

And that's where WitE deviates from macro-level historical accuracy in a manner that provides the Soviet Union efficiencies of command that it did not have, in the name of an arbitrary equalizer that the Soviets do not need.

The Soviet command structure was proven ineffective in 1941, which is why they themselves changed it in 1942. Yet these inefficiencies of command are not at all reflected in the game. To the contrary, the assignment of all these divisions and armies (especially the armies) to Stavka enables the Soviet Union to make order out of chaos for no cost in APs.

What would you estimate as the number of armies that come in to STAVKA rather than their historic fronts? What are the number of divisions? How many APs do you think that saves the Soviet players? How realistic is it that the inefficiencies of divisional-level organizations and command structures are not only not reflected in the game, but that they are effectively improved by the game mechanic that enables Soviet divisions to transfer command more cost effectively than the German army of 1941.

Phrased another way, how realistic is it that the Soviet Union in 1941 gets the same level of admin points as Germany, given all that they will save from probably easily 40% of their 1941 Army coming in a la carte to Stavka?

Half the Soviet army of 1941 comes in attached to Stavka. THAT'S ENOUGH!

Let me phrase the debate somewhat differently:
Which side would benefit more from starting the game in a turn 0 mode with a blank slate allowing both sides to assign commands as they choose?

Why does the Soviet Union get all of this stuff FOR FREE? These kinds of handouts wouldn't be AS big a deal if the Soviet Union didn't also have so many other synergistic advantages that Germany cannot match. Take for example the Soviet players' ability to bypass (as you yourself advise players) the inefficient corps-level combat units of 41a Rifle and 41b Rifle (or maybe it's tank you advise against, you get my meaning) types... Combine this with the advantages of hindsight, which strongly favor the Soviet side in the macro game, and you're just pinning the German side into a barrel that you then shoot at him in.

I can go on and on about these synergistic advantages. The point is that game design decisions need to be questioned at this point, because what looked necessary when the game was in its infancy is now becoming anti-competitive. I wouldn't invoke historical realism because that's not my sticking point, but in this case, it's a reversed position from how it should be: Germany should have the advantage of leverage in how it can use Admin Points, not the Soviet Union (at least in 1941).

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 3:37:43 AM

mmarquo

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Heliodorus04,

The SU does not have the advantage AP wise --> initially the APs must be used to restructure the commander structure, shuffle leaders and build SUs whereas the Axis has a decent command structure and SUs are fixed. Later the SU has a choice: fine tune command or buy units - must find a good balance and this is hard.

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 3:47:31 AM

heliodorus04

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marquo

Heliodorus04,

The SU does not have the advantage AP wise --> initially the APs must be used to restructure the commander structure, shuffle leaders and build SUs whereas the Axis has a decent command structure and SUs are fixed. Later the SU has a choice: fine tune command or buy units - must find a good balance and this is hard.

Except that this creation of doodads is an ability Germany has nothing comparable to, and therefor, the only choke on the Soviet doing it is APs.

Otherwise you make a fair point in terms of the downstream consequence of the change I advocate and unintended consequence to game balance, but one of the easiest thing to balance in this game (I would think) is the amount of APs each side generates per turn. This 50 per side per turn is definitely not turning out to be equitable (guess who gets the advantage?), and APs should probably differ for each side in different periods of the war to reflect growth/shrinkage of flexibility per side.

I'm fine with opening the debate on how much things should cost for the Soviet Union to do, but I'm adamant that Germany should be able to switch divisions within an Army and Corps within the umbrella of the parent Army Group much more cheaply than is the case right now, and the Soviet divisional cost to change should definitely be increased considering half the 1941 army is getting allocated for free when it arrives. Further changes should be punished to reflect poor C2 flexibility by Soviet High command.

< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 11/18/2011 3:50:26 AM >

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 11:00:36 AM

Mehring

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I think that Heliodorus may be right on the corps/division question. It does seem skewed that more sophisticated C&C as the war goes on should be penalised with more AP expenditure to transfer corps. I often transfer divisions around in 1941 to maximise leader benefits, it's so cheap and easy, later, and in spite of the extra 10 AP, it's much more difficult.

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 11:19:26 AM

BletchleyGeek

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Devaluating AP's by increasing their influx isn't going to work in the long run.

Has anybody checked how much AP goes "wasted" because of the difference in the POL ratings between leaders? I think that might be a huge AP sink for the Germans, which is somewhat surprising to me. It's one of the few game mechanics in WitE that look to me as pure chrome (and perhaps a crutch).

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 11:21:29 AM

janh

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I don't see the problem as huge as Helio makes it sound, but on the other hand cheaper AP costs for changing German formations within the same HG/Army wouldn't do much harm either.� However, rather than asking to cut the Soviet potential (and force them back on poorer OOBs), I would ask for the German options to enhanced, for e.g. by allowing to build formations, manually changing ToEs etc.� It would be far better for the fun in the later part of the game if the weaker side would get the benefits of flexibility (such as the R&D and production in WiTP allow to generate what little hope Japan might have).

It was pretty clear from the beginning that the designers intended for the Soviets to be much more flexible in Army building, and given them the opportunity to form an idealized Red Army rather than to repeat the historical course, and thus necessarily mistakes, that the Soviets obviously have made.� This including the control of production (that will influence ToE), it includes the fixed withdrawal scheme (as opposed to picked more rearward, idle units with a certain CV threshold), the building of units etc.� The designers surely could have implemented a fixed schedule for the Soviet reinforcements as well, say by automatic rebuilding of destroyed units and otherwise creating them by historical dates.� Hopefully the production will in the future take a change towards the WiTP/AE model, as hopefully will also the air war, and hopefully the Germans will also be allowed flexibility in unit administration.

What I would like to see much more in term of C&C and leader would be some "FOW", because presently we can pick the leaders based on totally accurate leadership quality statistics. Numbercrunching -- put it on the cluster wait for the ideal solution to be computed. Like the ideal 1st turn, that logically leads to an ideal 1st turn defense, 2nd... It would be much more sensible if we could only see a crude assessment of the leader qualities, rated "excellent, good, mediocre, poor" in the respective categories. There could even be some misjudgments by the Chief of Wehrmacht Personal in the files, so we have to eye the performance of the leaders in fact a bit ourselves. Logically the next step the would be optional rules that either leave leader qualities historical (and allow hindsight), or have a control bar that allows to randomize the values in a certain range.

< Message edited by janh -- 11/18/2011 11:33:49 AM >

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 11:38:03 AM

BletchleyGeek

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As a footnote, I'd like to note that Soviet corps base cost for transferring is of about 15 AP's. Soviet corps-sized units are formations in the same league as German Divisions (Soviet divisions and brigades certainly aren't as has already been remarked by Flavio and Pieter).

Managing high-admin leaders properly is also a big time saver. On-map units can be transferred as many times as AP allows in one single turn, so AP can be saved by detaching units from the "source" command to OKH/STAVKA and then back to the "target" command, usually at half or so the cost of doing it directly.

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 11:43:15 AM

Rafo35

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quote:

It was pretty clear from the beginning that the designers intended for the Soviets to be much more flexible in Army building, and given them the opportunity to form an idealized Red Army rather than to repeat the historical course, and thus necessarily mistakes, that the Soviets obviously have made.

I disagree. The Soviets are forced to make all the mistakes (or all the learning) they made as far as TOE is concerned. They have to go through their hopeless TOE until mid-42 and then only slowy begin to improve things at great cost. Basically, it means the thousands of tanks they have and build are almost useless until late 42..

As far as German are concerned, the TOEs are basically right from the beginning and until very late in the war. The raw numbers of every thing are his true pb.

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 12:00:45 PM

ComradeP

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The last part of Bletchley Geek's post is important to note, and could also be seen as a problem: it's nearly always much cheaper to reassign something to OKH/STAVKA and then to the command you wanted to assigned it to than to reassign it directly. Soviet divisional reattachments are cheap, but when corps come into play, doing it through STAVKA is often the most cost effective unless you get lucky with the 1/2 AP reduction leader roll.

quote:

Pieter, I've never gotten a rifle division past 7 cv or so. That's pretty good...until you consider that the Germans can nurse an infantry division into a 15 point monster with attachments included.

But that has little to do with C&C and everything with morale. For example: 70 morale/experience infantry/Rifle divisions have the same CV's. The Germans get an edge with being able to attach support units, but they have no significant TOE advantage to the Soviets aside from more support squads.

That's also why I'm still worried about the increases in Soviet morale, because collections of 70 or even 75 morale Guards Rifle corps are close to unstoppable currently in 1944-1945. Even 65 morale Guards 42c and beyond Rifle corps are quite good.

< Message edited by ComradeP -- 11/18/2011 12:04:26 PM >

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RE: C&C: REALLY important - 11/18/2011 1:27:14 PM

TulliusDetritus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Half the Soviet army of 1941 comes in attached to Stavka. THAT'S ENOUGH!

No, it's not enough. It was a basic principle of the Red Army, first said by Lenin himself... The militaries simply adopted those ideas. And what was this basic principle? Have abundant Strategic Reserves. They are obviously attached to the high command, Stavka that is. They are supposed to be attached to high command per definition. Most Soviet players ignore this simple fact (they have irrelevant reserves or none at all). I don't. Playing around with 100 rifle divisions in 1942 (reserves) is a joy...

Not the Soviets' fault if the Germans could not afford huge strategic reserves. But then why did they start a war a) without them and b) vs a industrialized state that had lots of them?

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