Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dunkelheit87

It seems that if there is town or city in pocket (and in most cases it is so) troops will receive full reinforcements, at least soviet.

quote:

Also, you have to wait until the effects of low supply actually kick in. I've seen a few letsplay vids where players surrounded enemy units and attacked them in the same turn expecting to do severe damage - that's too impatient.

quote:

If you place two units directly adjacent to the town, it will lose one supply every turn (except the capital).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dunkelheit87

But all these features just make pocketing strategically meaningless (at least in Barbarossa) at Army/Corps level, because you must destroy the enemy as quick as possible, and that can (must?) be made without pockets.

quote:

Like Hartman said, place two or 3 units around that city and unless it's a capital or major supply source it will lose supply and the capacity to repair beyond 5 and even less after time. Think Leningrad in real life.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dunkelheit87

It seems that if there is town or city in pocket (and in most cases it is so) troops will receive full reinforcements, at least soviet.

quote:

If any can reinforce to full strength then they must either have a HQ present or not really be cut-off in line with what I described above. It's simply not possible otherwise.

quote:

Pockets are often a net loss for me as surrounding a unit takes more guys than you would think and I do lots of low damage to units with sub 20 morale and readiness.

quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

We shouldn't look on cut-off units as being reinforced by new equipment, supplies and soldiers. We should look on this as units reorganizing their resistance after being attacked.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Malor

I'm tired of surrounding a unit in a city and losing more points to the units attacks against me than I do against it and than watch it reinforce back to strength 10.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hotschi

Don't forget to bombard the pocketed units with your tactical bombers, this really makes a difference. As I see it, if a enemy unit gets bombarded before your own ground units attack it, it takes way more damage than without air-attack. Same is true for heavy artillery.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill Runacre

Tactical Bombers upgraded to level 2 Ground Attack will also remove 1 level of entrenchment, so they can play a role in this too.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mrslobodan

completely agree. The "effectiveness" of pockets need to be increased. I like that resource hexes can hold out longer than normal hexes, but there needs to be a system that takes time into consideration when calculating strenght/supply of surrounded units.


For example:
Surrounded - normal hex = start losing 2-3 supply per turn (regardless of how many enemy units there are in adjacent hexes)
Surrounded - resource hex = start losing 1 supply per turn (regardless of how many enemy units there are in adjacent hexes)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mrslobodan

completely agree. The "effectiveness" of pockets need to be increased. I like that resource hexes can hold out longer than normal hexes, but there needs to be a system that takes time into consideration when calculating strenght/supply of surrounded units.


For example:
Surrounded - normal hex = start losing 2-3 supply per turn (regardless of how many enemy units there are in adjacent hexes)
Surrounded - resource hex = start losing 1 supply per turn (regardless of how many enemy units there are in adjacent hexes)

quote:

ORIGINAL: James Taylor

What some people see as a problem, I see as an opportunity. Like sPzAbt653 & Hartmann relate to, patience and bringing the proper forces to the battle set up the mechanics to build those experienced units that are so coveted.

You want to win? It's just like real life, understand your tools and how to use them to be successful.

quote:

ORIGINAL: itkotw

It is kinda funny that everyone is describing how to destroy encircled, "out of supply" units by listing how to stack bonuses using many different unit types. The way everyone is talking you would think we were trying to destroy some sort of fortress hex. The even "funnier" thing is that encircled/"out of supply" units have the same supply as enemy units that are in supply, but are a few hexes from their supply source. The attack methods everyone is describing works better on "in supply" units that are a few hexes from their supply source. There needs to be night and day differences between surrounded and not-surrounded troops.

Troops that are surrounded in real life have a really hard time when you consider that size of the units we are using, corps and army. The supply needs of an army sized unit are HUGE and it is not just food and rifle bullets. Artillery and anti-tank shells (these units would have some "organic" artillery and AT units), vehicle parts and tires, medical services, the list is endless. There is no way an army sized unit would be considered "supplied" for months if they were encircled. If an army sized unit tried to fight at full intensity and not ration its artillery shells, I bet it would run out in a week. Remember we are just talking about city hexes and not fortresses or fortified hexes. Just an average city where an army decided to stop.

Not all city attacks are or were "sieges". Not every city is a fortress or even "fortified". Here are some rough dates for the historic capture of cities (quick internet searches are not the best, I know): Minsk - "On 26 June Minsk, the capital of Belarus, fell to the Wehrmacht"(Wikipedia), Smolensk - "However, when the Smolensk pocket was finally eliminated on 5th August the Soviet 16th, 19th and 20th armies within had ceased to exist, and another 309 000 POWs had been taken" (operationbarbarossa.net). So, the Minsk "pocket" was destroyed FOUR DAYS after the start of Barbarossa, and the Smolensk attack started on July 10 and ended August 5th, that is about 21 days to create AND destroy a "pocket" containing three armies. And we can assume that every pocket up to Smolensk was destroyed by that August 5th date, that is about 45 days after the start of Barbarossa, or about 4 game turns. Yes four game turns to take Smolensk.

Just off the cuff, I would say that units should not be able to reinforce in any way if they don't have a rail or port link back to the capital and supply should be reduced to one or two for city hexes. Another problem I have ran into is that if your units attack to reduce the entrenchment number, but receive damage, the enemy unit gets experience. If your attacks fail multiple times over the span of a few turns the enemy unit gains significantly more experience than your units. I think it would be better if the attacking units get experience for destroying entrenchment points equal to causing losses to strength points. So many of the attacks in game are done to reduce the entrenchment, but these attacks are not rewarded with much experience. If there were no other changes to the game other than the experience change, I would be happy.

I realize that many of the game mechanics are only there to create difficulty for the player. But we need to figure out a better way to create player difficulty without creating too many grossly ahistorical situations (I would call them "grossly ahistorical" because EVERY town in the game creates these hard to crack nuts). Remember that the game has to change to get better. The game will never get better by staying the same.