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Puzzled (perhaps a little frustrated) by this game. - 10/20/2014 12:20:13 AM

istari6

Posts: 56
Joined: 12/12/2013
Status: offline

First, let me compliment the designers. I can see there's a great game here, and I'm solidly in the core demographic. Grew up in the late Cold War, played MBT, TacAir and Chadwick's Assault back in the day, etc.

As a new player, what has me puzzled (and a little frustrated) are the victory conditions for the scenarios. I've now played through several scenarios and feel I have a handle on the basic mechanics. I'm playing through the scenarios sequentially along with the timeline, eager to see how the war develops.

However, I just finished "Third Herd", and was left with 58% and a "Contested Battle". This has me scratching my head, and feels very deflating after playing for 3-4 hours.

At the end of the game, 1st Brigade/3rd Armored had completely annihilated the opposing Soviets. I had 177 runners from starting 254. The Soviet MRR had 9 left of 397, of which 6 were off-screen Fighter-Bombers refueling at the VVS airfields. The US held the entire battlefield except for one 1000 VP location in the rear (which had an entire company of Bradleys closing on it unopposed when time ran out).

So the 3rd Herd, operating with almost no intelligence of what was coming at us, inflicted a 5:1 kill ratio overall in a Meeting Engagement. In high-value assets, we lost 39 M1/M2 versus 141 T-80BV/BMP-2, and 2 AH-64A vs 12 Mi-24 Hinds. However, only 2 of those M1/M2s were destroyed, all the rest were "fallen out".

These losses are higher than I would have liked, but almost half (19) of those M1/M2 losses were from CAS strikes from the MiG-27s and Su-24s that were an unpleasant surprise. Note that 3rd Herd has NO air defenses in this scenario. Another 9 were from Soviet 2S7 artillery strikes - note that 3rd Herd never gets anything stronger than M106 mortars, greatly limiting ability to counterbattery.

Given these kill ratios and possession of the battlefield, how is this a Contested Battle? I was proud of my little "digital warriors" despite the nasty surprise of the fighter-bomber strikes and the failure of DIVARTY to show up and help deal with the 2S7 batteries. We fought it just with mortars, DF and AH/OH, and did pretty well :).

Perhaps these victory conditions are set assuming that players play these scenarios multiple times? That they're "puzzle missions" like some RTS games? Now that I know that there will be WP fighter-bombers, that the Soviet MRR is weaker than my own Brigade (no T-80Us like I faced in Blackhorse), and that my own M109s will never show, I'd fight it differently a 2nd time - dispersing my armor more and attacking into the rear more aggressively. But that's with 20/20 hindsight. I like to try to play these scenarios as written - with limited intelligence and trying to do the best I can, rather than playing over and over with knowledge beyond the briefing.

Was 3rd Herd an anomaly? Or is the bar for NATO victory set so high that need Desert Storm like exchange ratios to get even a basic victory?

Chris

< Message edited by istari6 -- 10/20/2014 1:20:30 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: Puzzled (perhaps a little frustrated) by this game. - 10/20/2014 12:51:33 AM

CapnDarwin

Posts: 8467
Joined: 2/12/2005
From: Newark, OH
Status: offline

Chris,

Welcome aboard. First off, can you tell us which version of the game you are running? I want to make sure we know if it is after the 2.04 updated with the Sudden Death scoring overhaul.

It can be tough to achieve a decisive victory in the game without minimizing losses to your high value units. Unlike a lot of games out there, Red Storm is more than wiping the enemy off the map. As the commander you have to have forces left to deal with tomorrow's fight. There is no magic puzzle solution either. Planning and execution of a plan is critical to success. You will also find that the AI does not fight the same battle each time. It will react to what it sees and at times launch attacks from an unexpected direction. Check out some of the AAR threads and the War Room to get some ideas. Asking questions is a good way too.

I hope we can help sort out the issues for you so you can enjoy the game.

_____________________________

OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!

Cap'n Darwin aka Jim Snyder
On Target Simulations LLC

(in reply to istari6)

Post #: 2

RE: Puzzled (perhaps a little frustrated) by this game. - 10/20/2014 1:42:09 AM

istari6

Posts: 56
Joined: 12/12/2013
Status: offline

Hi Capn,

Appreciate the quick reply. I do have the 2.05 update, and was grateful for the option to extend past the Sudden Death (when the Soviets still had the town and I was launching a counterattack). The score would have been quite a bit worse had the game ended there :).

I understand that the major reason for the Contested Battle was the loss of 25 M1A1s at 157 points each. That really hurt. Most of those came from the fighter-bombers and Soviet SPA. Now I know not to mass quite as much (I was worried about not getting defeated in detail by massed T-80Us, but didn't know until after scenario ended that there weren't any. So that's a reasonable tactical lesson to learn, the need to balance concentration versus dispersion in environments of air inferiority.

A few questions:

1) How are VP values determined for the individual units? 157 for M1A1(HA) versus 57 for T-80BV meant that even massacres of the opposition couldn't counterbalance the loss of a few M1s in a CBU strike. If the T-80s had been worth more or the M1 worth less, than the lopsided kill ratios would have been reflected more in the final score. The T-80BV has the same gun power (38 AP), marginally inferior armor (35 vs 41), no thermals and less advanced composite armor (2 vs 4). That's obviously inferior to the HA Abrams, but 1/3rd the value?

2) Are reinforcements also randomized? M109s were mentioned in the briefing as arriving within 2 hours, and I had organized part of my strategy around getting OH-58s into the rear and spotting the Soviet artillery parks for artillery strikes. But the M109s never showed. Does that vary from scenario to scenario or was that just a red herring? Just curious for future scenarios if reinforcements are randomized for whether they arrive at all.

3) How can I simulate shoot and scoot tactics to avoid the Soviet artillery strikes after an ambush? Given 30 min+ intervals between orders, I had many situations where my Abrams and Bradleys opened fire, then sat there for 20+ minutes and suffered barrage after barrage. I was practically yelling at them to follow their training - fire a few shots and displace, you dummies! ;)

Chris

(in reply to CapnDarwin)

Post #: 3

RE: Puzzled (perhaps a little frustrated) by this game. - 10/20/2014 4:25:28 PM

CapnDarwin

Posts: 8467
Joined: 2/12/2005
From: Newark, OH
Status: offline

1). We have an internal formula that places a cost to a unit based on various weapon, systems, tech level, mobility, and armor/protection measures. This value is then adjusted by the cost factor in the national tab of the data files. To be honest with all the changes to the game engine from 2.04 onward, we probably need to reevaluate those national factors.

2). There is no random reinforcements at the moment. Units should arrive when specified. Check the FS tab in the Command Notebook to see if they arrived off map. You should still get a radio dialogue box stating their arrival.

3). For now. Screen. We will be adding a better defending AI, orders, and simple SOP in 2.1 to better address this situation and allow players to better tailor the response they want for given units.

Hope that helps.

_____________________________

OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!

Cap'n Darwin aka Jim Snyder
On Target Simulations LLC

(in reply to istari6)

Post #: 4

RE: Puzzled (perhaps a little frustrated) by this game. - 10/20/2014 7:09:22 PM

istari6

Posts: 56
Joined: 12/12/2013
Status: offline

Hi Capn,

Great! I'll stop barraging you with questions :). These are all helpful, particularly understanding that Screen might help units displace quicker under artillery barrages even if the enemy hasn't moved within the Standoff range. Great game, looking forward to where you go next with 2.1 and Southern Storm!

Chris

(in reply to CapnDarwin)

Post #: 5