Hubert Cater
Posts: 5199
Joined: 7/22/2013 Status: offline
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To go back to some of the logic behind the changes, and especially supply as much has changed over time since the original WiE release, the initial inspiration for the changes were that the Axis generally had too much supply, and especially in the USSR, where they could press forward at maximum supply via HQ linking/boosting, giving little chance to the Soviet player to ever mount a reasonable comeback. A tipping point was rare in the earlier versions of the release. Thus the change from WWI Breakthrough: 1 supply required to provide 8, 6 to provide 10 supply, to what we have now. Generally speaking, the mechanism for how HQs are linked for boosting has not changed at all, i.e. a low supply HQ can be boosted by another HQ etc., just the supply rules and what constitutes the minimum thresholds and so on. With that in mind, once we amended the supply distribution chart, it then made sense to change some of the thresholds. For example, if a previously boosted HQ was at one time able to distribute 10 supply (which was found to be too high as mentioned above), and we wanted to lower it to 8, then we just needed to make sure all the other values continued to make sense. This is why at one time we lowered HQ distribution supply to 5 for any HQ with its own supply < 3, and why an HQ to be boosted needed to have a supply < 5, as otherwise it made no sense when considering we wanted to lower distribution supply of a boosted HQ and so on. So what did this get us for War in Europe? Earlier on it much improved the situation in the USSR, resulted in North Africa and the Middle East feeling more realistic as the Axis arguably had a bit of an edge there as well due to higher supply and seemingly much improved the balance of the game overall, including when we take into account the attachment rules/changes for air units as well. However, due to some of the perceived issues with World at War, as well as continued concerns regarding pockets still having seemingly higher supply than what would be expected, and because we would like to have consistent rules between both games, we've made a few further changes. Key being these ones here: - HQ supply = 0 will have a distribution supply value of 3 (previously it was 5). - HQ supply 1 or 2 will have a distribution supply value of 5. - HQ supply 3 or 4 will have a distribution supply value of 6 (previously it was 8). The first change helps to deal with out of supply pockets making them easier to destroy, while the last change helps to address higher than expected supply on overstretched advances. To compensate we did make adjustments for HQs that have recently amphibiously landed which mimics mulberry supply, and scorched earth was amended for War in Europe to slightly lower the impact. Essentially we didn't want it to have any change on the overall balance of War in Europe (despite some supply changes for both sides) while at the same time it could greatly address the perceived issues in World at War. As Sugar has mentioned, for War in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East should for the most part feel the same as there will be supply issues for both sides, in the USSR the Axis player will feel a bit of a supply distribution difference but this is compensated by reduced effects from scorched earth and should more or less be mitigated so long as HQ boosting is still employed. While D-Day, Torch or Italian landings by the Allies will potentially be more effective with the HQ mulberry supply effect. For World at War, Axis supply in the USSR will be a bit more challenging under the new supply rules, which is what we were after, and Japanese supply in China should be more challenging as well as we were definitely after this there too. The Strategic Bomber strategy in the USSR will also be less effective since we made a change to the cooperative status of the USSR in World at War and amended cooperative supply to now a max value of 3. Hope this helps, Hubert
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