Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pelton
1. WitW's current logistics system simply will not work on WitE 2.0 because the AI takes a very
long time doing a turn for WitW its going to take 10 hrs per turn atleast for WitE 2.0
So someone has a ton of work tring to figure out how to stream line that and the air system ect ect
not all players have super computers.

It's already being worked on - I think that is what Pavel was saying but it might have been lithuanian basket weaving techniques.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton
2. German movement east will be very slow after turn 2 or 3 much slower then 1.0 which means balancing issue very early in game.

As it was historically! The Germans stalled at Smolensk from July - September 1941.
Vast areas of the front were static from Winter 41 to 43.
There will be a balancing issue all the way through the game but
you cannot use WitE1.0 as a justification for arguments about 2.0.
One of the first questions that we will need to answer is will Turn 1
be a whole week and will it have special rules?
Although before my time the length and behaviour of T1 was all about initial balance.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pelton

3. Its hard as hell to get pockets in WitW.

Is this using the Axis or the Allies? They are quite different because of the different TOE mobilisation levels, interdiction, the impact of trucks and fuel on MP points, resupply in turn (all difference from WitE1.0). The combat delay code does play a factor and we have already considered the importance of preparation for offensive operations. Unlikely as it may be, it might be that you are playing WitW too much like WitE - they are superficially very similar but very different in a number of areas where learning the nuances makes a big difference.

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ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



It's really easy to make pockets in WiTW.
Just play the allied invasion of Sicily.
The Italians will be very much like the Russians.
The allies will be a weaker version of the Germans.
No trouble pocketing Italians.

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ORIGINAL: loki100

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ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

...
For discussion is it:

- All Combat should generate X% higher casualties.
- Combat in Year X should be more/less costly than Year Y. (If so, how would you achieve that differential? Is it morale?)
- Soviet losses should be more expensive than Axis losses. (If so, how would you achieve that differential? Is it morale? Is it certain weapons should be more dangerous?)

You can change morale levels now - Dominick added that functionality to the editor although I admit my focus is very much WitE2 (and if people didn't spot Joel's comment in a post on the WitW forum now that Torch is released that is what we are concentrating on)

...

to have a go at the easier one, I think that Soviet losses should be higher but keyed to two factors - (a) unit experience and (b) commander capacity.

There is already an experience rule (ie the combat flips to scouting) and the stop-range rule in WiTW is a more sophisticated version of this. In effect less experienced units are more likely to do one of two things - stop an attack too early or persevere to the point of excess losses. Given the nature of the Soviet command chain and the importance of the plan, the latter happened too often.

I think it was Gorbatov in charge of 1 Gds Army who muttered about 'us all getting killed but at least we'll carry out the plan' about one of the innumerable botched assaults by Western Front around Vyazma-Mogilev from late 42 to early 44.

So a test, if exp>z%, unit will avoid too much commitment and the level of command capability can lower z (randomly). The contrast I'm thinking of is the relative ease and elegance of Rokossovsky's liberation of Gomel in early 1944 compared to almost 16 months of incompetence on that sector?

Its a combination of command and control and doctrine. Soviet doctrine was, even at its best, accepting of losses. At its key was the idea that the violence of an attack could offset overall losses (never did but that is a different point).

edit ... I don't think this a weapons system issue, German artillery may have been more accurate, each side clearly had certain weapons that were better (the Germans liked to use captured PPSh41s for close quarters fighting etc), for 1943 the T-34 was clearly outclassed by the newer German tanks etc. All this matters but its not really the core issue?

The problem about absolute losses/army size/NM is these are tools to an end. I've never had a problem with slightly unrealistic means to gain a realistic end. What WiTE needs oddly is both to be made more constrained and more free.

By that I mean, as you say, large sectors saw no action at all from late 41 into early/mid 44. Equally both armies had large operational pauses. But the game engine doesn't capture the disruption of a breakthrough. Soviet planning was that roughly a 10km breakthrough caused 20km of chaos but if you got a 50km breakthrough the chaos was > 100km, as the losing side lost all command and control and local commanders started to make their own decisions etc etc.

The ideal is to get the Germans by early 1943 to the position where somewhere something will break and when it does they will have real problems, but the capacity to recover. rinse and repeat for the rest of the war but each time the breakage is larger and the recovery smaller.

I actually think the WiTW supply system offers the means to achieve this. It is simply harder to keep everybody in full supply and the penalty for lack of supply is more nuanced.

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ORIGINAL: chaos45

One idea- and just an idea as I have no idea how well it might work in WiTW type system compare to WiTE1. WiTE1 it might be to powerful.

Germans get the first turn of the game with a perfectly executed plan, and due to player knowledge will most likely do better than historical most the time.

This in turn give the Germans the initiative of first player to see weather and dictate the tempo of the game until they lose the ability to attack.

Perhaps to add some uncertaintity to the game the first player turn needs to be switched at some point in the game, and give the soviet player a double turn. This gives them two turns to get a smooth breakthrough and changes the initiative for the rest of the game.

Or give the soviet player some type of surprise offensive bonus they can use once or twice a game to replicate the prepared and super successful offensives they did perform....may the preparation bonus in WiTW replicates this IDK.

That aside- Casulaties- Losses need to be higher period. More and larger variance of results, and I would honestly use 20% as a measure for realism. Most commanders wouldn't stop an attack until about 20% of their unit was combat ineffective as thats typically the real life loss threshhold commanders operated under...for Soviets probably closer to 50%+.

This, due to the extra rounds of combat to get to these loss number should burn down more ammunition and due to more/longer fighting cause even a winning defender more losses to finally drive off an attacker in theory if the system does it right.

Even for successful attacks pryrrhic victories happen.....should be cases where attackers take some heavier than expected losses.....Especially against certain enemies...KVs/T34s in 1941.....Tigers/panthers later 1942+ as examples when smalled more lethal elements often killed far more enemies than statistics would usually account for.

Some games account for this with a surprise roll that is a seperate roll before the actual combat but can modify the combat table drastically. As sometimes even a skilled attacker might walk into a well laid defensive trap or make a mistake that costs lots of troops....happened all the time. Other times a skilled attacker could overcome a well planned defense through hitting a sudden weak link.....some generals were better at this than others.

In Carius's book he talks about preparing to attack soviet positions and German artillery falling short and virtually wiping out the entire infantry battalion that was around his tiger platoon to support the attack....these things happened in the real war. Same with allied level bombers dropping short and killing lots of allied soldiers.

So more variation of results with more losses on both sides is really whats needed. A divisional/corps level attack should have consequences above well we attacked and a couple companies in 2nd battalion got bloodied so we stopped.

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ORIGINAL: VigaBrand

Give the soviets the special ability, that in 41-42 are no morale changes after unsuccesfull attacks.
This means, the soviets can attack against all odds and only suffer the material casualties and no moral changes.
So the soviet player can attack with high casualties (1:5 or so) and didn't weak his units because of Moral drops and strengthen the germans with increasing there moral.
If I attack a german division and losse. The germans maybe suffer 200 men penalties but after that combat they are stronger, because they get one moralpoint.

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ORIGINAL: charlie0311

This is absolutely true. The one exception is if the players agree to no Lvov pocket, but the Reds fight forward in the South and so you get a "slow" Lvov pocket. Then the axis players needs to get a kill in '42, usually because the sov player gives up, not quite knowing how to deal with the '42 panzer ball or understanding how to rebuild/build the Red army.

Given highly skilled players means no Lvov pocket = Red win.

My hope is that no one takes offense.

I am referring to the Lvov pocket post.

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ORIGINAL: chaos45

Interesting that morale will no longer be hard coded so if a unit loses alot of combat how does it ever recover? Does rest at least restore you to a certain minimum?

Both sides take way to few losses- its not just a Soviet issue. By 1942/1943 you end up with about 1 Million extra Germans and about 1-2 Million extra soviets....so not just 1 side has to many men. Its why combat needs to increase losses for both sides.

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ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

...

- So let's turn this around a little - is the problem that the Soviets lose too little manpower or receive too much? Would we be better ignoring the combat issue and focusing our time on manpower production and population evacuation? If we made population evacuation more difficult - perhaps so that players would have to hold ground forward to get them out would that be better? So you could run away but it will mean that you will receive less men.

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ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



A lot of Russian formations should start the game STATIC anyways which would put a big damper on their ability to run away on their first turn.

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ORIGINAL: xbmoore

I concur to a certain degree, not so much "static" but more of being locked in their theater of operations(unless that is what you meant by static). So the Southern front units are tied the whole first turn to the Southern front and cant be moved north of hex row X.X. in example. The Russians, in my opinion, have too much rail on the first turn & able to build a good defense in key places. Did the Russians in real life rail that many units around to different fronts?

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ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



A lot of Russian formations should start the game STATIC anyways which would put a big damper on their ability to run away on their first turn.

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ORIGINAL: chaos45
Both sides take way to few losses- its not just a Soviet issue. By 1942/1943 you end up with about 1 Million extra Germans and about 1-2 Million extra soviets....so not just 1 side has to many men. Its why combat needs to increase losses for both sides.

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ORIGINAL: Bozo_the_Clown

He's been quoting these numbers for years because they suit him. Do a search on Walloc and you will find some lengthy and interesting discussions on historical numbers. Unfortunately, Walloc has left the forum. His posts were very informative.

We all want balance but the numbers need to be plausible. A 4,2 million German army on 1st July 42 is not plausible.

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ORIGINAL: jzardos


It's a game ... a game ... we're talking about a game, not the real war 41-45. Why is it not plausible for the Germans to have 4.2 million army starting on 1st July? When I play, it's not Hitler in charge and I'm not always playing against Stalin/Zhukov. Bozo, if you want to know what happened in history and re-live it .. read some books, watching some documentaries, even take some classes. An education might be good for you, I don't care. But this is a game and the reason I bought it was to play and have fun. I want to try and win as the Germans not create the Stalingrad pocket again. What you just said about the July 42 German army size is testament to how you view WitE and why you will never find satisfaction with it. You want a simulation to go through battle by battle just like history. I'm at a lose to understanding why you bought the game in the first place? Maybe just to have some credibility to come in the forums and spew your nonsense. IDC.

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ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

I'm wary but happy to argue to open the Pandora's Box of the combat engine but only if I know what the intent and endstate is. Always think to the finish.

I'm not convinced that the losses is the only answer. It's too simple a solution - a bit like introducing cane toads. I'm looking at WitE2 - here we have a blank canvas although the paint and brushes are chosen. This is a fleeting opportunity.

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ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

quote:

ORIGINAL: chaos45
Both sides take way to few losses- its not just a Soviet issue. By 1942/1943 you end up with about 1 Million extra Germans and about 1-2 Million extra soviets....so not just 1 side has to many men. Its why combat needs to increase losses for both sides.

But is too many men a result of too few losses (given that swathes of manpower are not represented so that historic statistical comparisons are difficult) or because each sides manpower pools are receiving too many people. Losses are not the only manpower regulator.

I know I'm being picky put I'm trying to focus on the key elements to try to save development time and effort and address an obvious bone of contention. I get it that manpower and morale are perhaps the key factors in game balance and we have three levers we can pull - inflow, losses and national morale levels. It is undeniable that the conduct of 1941 is pivotal as the manpower levels at the end of 41 have a huge impact on the rest of the campaign so we need to ensure that 41 cannot be easily be exploited to reap later benefits.

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ORIGINAL: chaos45

Pelton if both players sat around and did nothing i could understand high OOBs....but as are game shows both sides fighting hard pretty much every single turn aside from mud and OOBs are still way to high.

How many army/army groups size major engagements did we have over the summer, and my continued winter offensive of 1942-1943 with assaults hitting 5-6 areas of front at once every single turn. Yes its causing slow grinding attrition but the losses for both of us are way to low. Both of our forces in each of those sectors should be fighting at greatly reduced strength after 4+ months of continuous action yet most of my units are still around 90% ToE......Hell the only thing im actually short on is trucks.....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

I'm wary but happy to argue to open the Pandora's Box of the combat engine but only if I know what the intent and endstate is. Always think to the finish.

I'm not convinced that the losses is the only answer. It's too simple a solution - a bit like introducing cane toads. I'm looking at WitE2 - here we have a blank canvas although the paint and brushes are chosen. This is a fleeting opportunity.

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ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

Pelton - it's very difficult to have a constructive discussion when you don't answer the questions posed.
As always I'll persist as you do raise valid concerns.

- Actually we are about to test Pavel's new logistics code - this isn't about the rules - it's all about how quickly
the game engine calculates the logistics phase which I understand is your point in this regard.

Good luck

- MORALE IS NO LONGER HARD CODED!!! I hope that is now clear -
in WitW Randy and I changed the WitW Italian Pilot morale for precisely the combat losses issue.
I agree that morale is a huge factor and perhaps too big.

Not sure how that's going to effect combat losses on EF

- I agree that over a period that the combat loss to manpower inflow rate can lead to ahistoric balance which manifests
in a need to pocket to survive for the axis.
Trust me I get it loud and clear - we are now in the let's consider how we solve it phase.
Firstly you cannot logically argue that one imbalance is justified to support another.

Who is?

I know that logistics bores you but you cannot use perceived flaws in a combat engine to rubbish the WitW logistics system.

Who is?

A logistics system that I believe will better depict the factors in play on the eastern front. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Your going where with this? I am talking combat ratio's I am fine with the logistics model.

Liquid Sky's comments are absolutely valid - you say that you cannot pocket in WitW - this is untrue - he can and I can -
but this has nothing to do with WitE or the experience of playing WitE.

Again your taking an island which can be attacked from 4 sides, a very small scale and the Italian Army is not the Russian.
I am talking about Russia. You see no pockets in France or Germany, in my games. I never lost and Italian unit on Italy to a pocket other then an invasion for that matter
That's a piss poor example and you know it. I have played both WitW and WitE more then 15 times each.

This is like arguing about scoring goals in ice hockey using field hockey experience to justify your approach.

Wrong dead wrong your looking at it that way not me. For the 400th time-
The combat ratio is way off way off and losses to low for 43-44. AGAIN OR AGAIN I am not talking pockets, but straight up combat.

I appreciate that your view is that pockets are vital to maintain manpower balance under the current
loss regime but there are other levers in this regard beyond combat losses. Remember in WitW that replacements cost
freight so often you can't get men out of the pool.

Both Russia and Germany in all my games have men in the manpower pools from 42-45, freight cost, but its a simply depot chain to the front with men flowing turn by turn to front nothing different then WitE there will just be more in the river so to speak,
I know that's how I get around WA air power and my front line troops always get stuff. This has nothing to do with combat ratio.

Using logistics as a tool to slow combat( low MPs ect ect) does nothing to change the combat ratios. It simply makes the game more static. In WitW if the German player applies WitE
strategys you never see pockets in France its very static



- I agree that the Russian ability to run away at the start increases the manpower imbalance issue.
However this too is not an argument to justify problems in the logistics construct.

Combat enigne

Perhaps the improved rail congestion code will impact on supply as factory evacuation causes congestion.
I do not know yet but perhaps this, limiting supply to the Russians, will reduce the speed of evacuation.
However we may well need to encourage the Soviets to fight forward.

- So let's turn this around a little - is the problem that the Soviets lose too little manpower or receive too much?

Not an issue

Would we be better ignoring the combat issue and focusing our time on manpower production and population evacuation?

This has been tried for years and never works, this issue has been around before release like 1v1=2v1.

If we made population evacuation more difficult - perhaps so that players would have to hold ground forward to get them out
would that be better?

Data is cool bro, check out my game vs Dave. He lost far more then historical and no real effect. Industry looks to be window dressing at this time. Russians just need Rifle Corp and a few mobile Armys and they can grind east starting in late 42 ( historical loses)
or early 43 ( higher then historical ) The games will all end withen a few turns of each other

So you could run away but it will mean that you will receive less men.

Might help, but its been tried.