WAW update and notes (Full Version)

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tweber -> WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 6:13:43 AM)

I posted v27 of the WAW scenario to the scenario bank. Here are the changes:

- Boosted up R&D a bit (I forgot who made the suggestion - Barthheart?)
- Reduce air def power on level 1 cruisers and battleships by 50% (freeboy)
- Fixed Pacific events and message on special units (freeboy)
- Made it so you cannot build resource centers

There was also a question on unit sizes. I basically scaled things to the Polish campaign. Germany had about 60 divisions, they have 12 on the map, so 1 unit is roughly 5 divisions (corp +).

There was also a question about US and Soviet entry. In 1942, the Germans must maintain a 1:1 power level. If they do and the Japanese never launch a major offensive, then the US is prohibitted from joining the war. However, I am not sure that this is a winning strategy for the Germans as the Soviets and the West should be pretty strong. The West also gets a production boost if the UK falls. I would be interested in the view on the US and Soviet entry mechanism. For me, this is the most difficult aspect of the game design. I did not want to force the Axis into entry (e.g., it's December so we must attack Pearl Harbor). By the same token, I wanted to give the Axis enough incentive to take on the future production that the US brings to bear.

The nice thing about debating the US / Soviet criteria entry is that I know players have gotten at least that far in the game.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 6:38:19 AM)

well, I think if my german, playing german opponent decides to not invade USSR, then I will eventually invade the West med and force him to pul troops from the East or risk collapse.. in the other game as Axis the geramns over ran an unprepaired USSR, combination early invasion after a late fall of france combined with a 100 percent invasion bonus.. plus the research grant.. has USSR gone.. only siberia left and soon we will see if Londan can be taken in 42  with the uber ca's guardingthe port cities...

Tom, Ship level one to level two will not make that much differrence for the CAs and then they reduce enemy air to insignifacance... I suggest you stop using the computerized reference and do some ca twos vs carrier air in a test say thirty carrierr air vs a smaller fleet of ships andsee.. I thing the build ratio is 2:1 ca to carriere air.. so try 30 to 10 or so same level two three etc and see if my findings are not upheld, primarily that ca are WAY overdone against airpower causing the naval war to be funky



Vic -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 11:22:47 AM)

Yes and in v26 it was fixed that the German AI would play Vichy card and that the DOW on Russia went properly. Versions keep going so quickly that v26 is the version i uploaded for the v1.10 gold installer.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 3:09:37 PM)

what is wrong with v25 sov dow?



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 3:30:35 PM)

Tom, i am currently trying a strategy of spamming factories with germany in my game vs. freeboy. The plan is to boost production enough and then do a powerful offensive on the soviets in spring 1942. This way the Usa enters the war much later and i hope to have about the same economy then as the allies through my economic buildup + the captured soviet resources.

Since germany gets France + Poland early and the Balkans and Italy and Romania, Hungary and Bukarest they have the edge. Norway is nearly impossible to secure though imho.

So in early 1941 the resource distribution should be about like that (assuming no side built factories):
Axis:
Germany 40k Production + Italy 16k + captured territories (Balkan, Denmark, Low Countries, Northern France, Poland) 26k + Balkan Allies 8k + Finland 2k
Japan 22k

Allies:
Gb 16k, Lend Lease 8k, Gb Commonwealth + Dutch east indies 28k, Norway 4k
China 8k
Soviets 34k

So 114k Axis vs. 98k Allies
Also important is that most of the axis production belongs to germany. Germany can further increase the gap by starting to build factories after the conquest of France.

In the game vs. Freeboy we are now in August 1941 and i have built 7 Factories so far and building one more each turn now. I could have played riskier and spammed more factories, but i also invested in new troops. Now about 1/3 of my production each turn goes into PP, giving me 72 per turn so i can build one additional factory each turn and every now and then a tech upgrade, ~50% in troops and the rest in supply.
I am very optimistic currently that if i invade Russia in spring or summer 1942 i can cripple Russia before the Us is fully in war.
If i counted correctly the Usa has 14 8k towns + 2 resources 2k each. So 116k resources. But  they only get 4 of them after the japanese Dow, 1 is included via lend lease already in the allied production and they get the gear up only after 12 and 24 turns.

So i think the economic system might need to be reworked, especially allowing the building of factories is maybe not a good idea.




tweber -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 3:47:41 PM)

I would be interested if this strategy works.  I assume that the West still has the UK.  Will you have enough pp to keep the Soviets out of the war or will they attack you in Jan of '42. 



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 3:53:42 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tweber

I would be interested if this strategy works. I assume that the West still has the UK. Will you have enough pp to keep the Soviets out of the war or will they attack you in Jan of '42.


I will keep you updated and post a few screenshots when the game progresses. We are playing V25 though, but from what i read about the changes it should not be too different :)



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 4:51:43 PM)

ok, Are heaqvy bomber unable to be loaded on ships? If so this is a game killer for me as my US production to counter his factory builds is stuck in Boston HELP!



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 6:28:34 PM)

In our former game i could at least tranfer fighters from canada to the uk, so if you have enough cargoships i think you should be able to tranfer bombers too.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/15/2008 8:44:01 PM)

ok, panic over, prepare to see bombers over Europe



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 12:30:40 AM)

Currently we are in November 1941.

I built 11 factories with germany so far. Axis controlled europe is basically a fortress.
This is the first time i play this scenario as axis and my only other game was with Freeboy too but only lasted till may 1940 or so because we played the version with the china bug.

Freeboy did some excellent moves and i made some serious faults in the beginning. First i forgot that dive bombers are not useful vs. ships in waw and lost most of my initial airforce trying to sink one of Freeboys fleets. I also lost my fleets. Then Freeboy made a good move in France, he abandonded Maginot Line already in the first turn. I took France in July 1940 then after starting the war historically waiting till april 1940 and using the blitz card, but took some serious losses there too. Then i also underestimated the RAF and historically lost the battle of britain and Freeboy also quickly took away oslo with his fleet.

After all those desasters i got my factory idea then. I don't want to provide details about the german army yet, currently i plan to start barbarossa in late spring 1942 and want to surprise Freeboy a bit hopefully because i am trying a somewhat excentric strat i think.


[image]local://upfiles/27405/4C2BBA7BF979407C977BAB19895D7C6D.jpg[/image]



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 12:37:02 AM)

With Japan i made serious faults too. My idea was to kill China in the limited war via destroying their production with heavy bombers. Freeboy countered with repairing the cities with engineers, but waited long enough to milk lots of PP. I think he got 80-100 PP this way from USA-help.
Iirc in late 1940 i stopped the war then.

Japan i plan to use mainly as supporter for the germans, built no factories with them. They shall simply try to conquer China when Germany starts their eastern crusade and take away any unguarded or at least insufficient guarded resources in the phillipines and dutch east indies. Maybe if all that is successful they can also try a minor offensive vs. british india to bind british troops. But my goal for Japan is simply that they shall try to survive and tie up enough allied forces to enable germany to win.

[image]local://upfiles/27405/DCA1B43BA88E403F869CAF0D3D4F73BB.jpg[/image]



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 12:56:12 AM)

do not forget about the pearl harbor attacks you get for "free" ..
turn sent fyi

As The game stands, I am rapidly realizing my error of not having a huge airforce, spent too much early on Huge English fleets, lots of bb and ca3's woit hsome dd ... am also building defenses against hte japs.. must not lose there!
My efforts now are to regain air supperioty, and have some other surprises for my oponenet. I think that if I can get air supperiority, he will have to put pp into defense, rather than the conquest of USSR.. I wounder after the attack there how long he will wait to attack pearl?
PLease let him attack soon!

I have mixed gug in forces in USSR, well forward to avaopid a dissasterous 100pp and 200 percent uber surprise... must have more than 75 % within four hex of border to avoid this! After my initial panic of having no troops nd terrible quality, I am confident I will slow him down in the borders, then he hits the second line of troops nd slows down again I hope, by then I hope to unleash my western aids the reds plan PATTON andsee what we can stir up.



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 1:13:07 AM)

How do the pearl harbour attacks work? The briefing is a bit vague there. Sent you the next turn also.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 1:35:01 AM)

pearl attack through a blitz card, there are fleets there in hawaii, send a dd or sub to scoutthem out, then launch your carrier air units againstthem at an advantage due to the blitz card, 50 percent reduced streangth I think.  TURN SENT FYI



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 1:36:22 AM)

Well things look bleek for air supperiority in the short term.. and I hope I can get enough reds into the fight to make a difference.I also hope to stir up enough trouble to draw off some resources



Twotribes -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 2:21:00 AM)

You have to manually move your carrier fleet to attack Pearl? Yes?



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 2:38:28 AM)

Hm found maybe an exploit i think. I am not doing it in our current game since it feels way too cheesy imho, but i think you could save a lot of production power if you station your troops in the winter in southern terrain. Japan especially can easily do this in south china as long as they are not at war with anybody and germany could at least deploy their airforce to the south in winter maybe to also save some supply.



tweber -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 6:20:15 AM)

Actually, any ship at sea does not get the supply penalty either.  I do not think it is cheesy because ships do not as impacted by bad whether.

The ultimate exploit is to use neutral fleets to blockade.  If you build Austrailian ships, you can easily blockade the Japanese fleet before Japan wakes up.  I would suggest a house rule that prohibits the use of neutral fleets for this type of blocking. 



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 12:38:27 PM)

tom, one note my axis game failed as Japan was "beaten" as the event in vs 25 declared china a default winner as I had not played the card, which I of course did. Is this corrected in v27?



SMK-at-work -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 12:46:49 PM)

I note that Lend LEase to the USSR only passes through Murmansk - in fact Murmansk only handled about 25% of LL tonnage.  Another 25% came through Persia, and 50% came from the US West Coast via Vladivostok and Siberia. 

The Pacific route mainly handled non-military supplies tho, due to its vulnerability if Japan declared war on the USSR - it was serviced by an air-bridge through Alaska for aircraft, and US ships given to the USSR and crewed and flagged by them for the rest.

Persia actually handled over 50% of the military supplies.

So some provision should be made for those routes.

Also I'm pretty sure the "Murmansk" route was not closed by ice in the winter months - the actual port of Murmansk was closed by ice, but the Sov's kept a channel open to Archangel and convoys were delivered to there instead.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 1:50:41 PM)

good points
'



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 1:51:48 PM)

Started Barbarossa now in April 1942. Could have easily delayed it as long as i want, but this would be too unfair imho.

I am not waging Barbarossa in the classical axis blitzkrieg way though but rather american attrition style. Not shown in the Screenshot are 7 lost soviet scouts.

The first turn thus killed 71600 russian production points at an axis loss of 1300. Russia only has 28k production power + 6k resources. I think i can keep killing about 50k russian material each turn.

[image]local://upfiles/27405/FFAA41B5755647CF9D55317AAF8860E8.jpg[/image]



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 2:11:59 PM)

Since freeboy loves raiding and paratroopers and strategic bombing i am holding back about 40% of the german military to guard the reich and the west vs. british operations.
Territorial gains are basically not made, the german army consists mostly of infantry divisions. Also i lack some engineers and freeboy blew almost all bridges.

Forces currently assigned to barbarossa:
~60 Artillery II, ~1800 Rifle II, ~70 Divebomber II and ~50 Fighter IV. My techs are rather low, i plan to eventually upgrade Rifles and Artillery and Divebombers. "Wasted" at least 100 PP and if i count the production also rather 200-300 for armor lvl 2. The plan was to use tank destroyers heavily, but they performed badly in the french campaign, so i abandonded this idea.

I am very curious if freeboy manages to find a countermeasure for my excentric approach. At least i follow the historic archetype, currently i am way too confident of victory [sm=happy0029.gif]

[image]local://upfiles/27405/B72307AD413D433E820B6FEECB64BA35.jpg[/image]



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 6:56:00 PM)

Operation Patton, as in history, succeeds as much of the German army is withheld and the sovs retreat in order to prepared possitions after gaurding hte front and avoiding uber rsurprise.
A small raid on Athens is a mild success and a multi formation, can u say HUGE air war was held over france as over 100 total formations from each side battled for supremacy. The vaunted LW retreated unable to reach the level bombers that then leveled Paris in this first test of Lord Boo Boo big wing theory.
In the Far East Japan does not awaken the sleeping giant, instead kills off some Chineese peasents,and maims one city.. that is not good. Large JAp air formation seen in China forbodes bitter struggle their( note we now know ther is a bug and JApan area will go "cold" as game will misfire after a bit.

In the Barberossa front mighty german formation inched forward , While the reds retreated to fixed possitions and requested the west open a second front, there is rumers Chirchill was heard laughing at Stalins request. A large red air formation of early war fighters and tactical bombers attacked in Finnland where massed German forces combinned with the Finnish army North of Lenningrad. What will we see this summer, will the rivers be crossed? will riga be taken? Smolensk Kiev? we will see, and we await the actual plan Mountgomery to see where we shall attack!



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 6:58:39 PM)

! 1800 rifle sft? That must be a missprint cries Stalin.. reaserves are mobilized and plans to upgrade forces are re evaluated...
Next ?, how does he feed them all and what is the troop limit?

turn sent fyi



xBoroNx -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 7:45:01 PM)

Hm in total according to the stats my 3 army groups vs. russia have 1750 rifle units. And the fins have ~200.

This turn russian material worth 57850 production is wiped out. Fresh engineers are deployed to the front, so next turn we can cross those rivers and advance a bit into russia. Germany lost units worth 1400 production.

The air battle was indeed impressive, i did not think that the west has so many planes. The Reich deploys their strategic reserve to the west and might need to deploy some fighters from the east front maybe too :(.

Edit: Turn sent, and the russians lost slightly less, ~55000 powerpoints, the rest were british engineer losses which reconaissance aircraft killed.



freeboy -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 9:05:37 PM)

This turn things are tough over europe with nearly 200 fighters and bombers fighting for control of the skies, about ten % of the bombers where knowcked down and nearly 25 german interceptors and 21 Aliied  more or less. The totals where about even in losses with another targer errased from the map. LEvel four B 29's now rolling off the factory lines.

Athens is shells and China losses some more peasants.

Russian forces shell Finnish held territory, and continue to wait for german to blitz forward... no word from Churchill regarding the second front .
turn sent fyi



rowdied1 -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 10:28:40 PM)

Downloaded v27 but need a password to open it and it only shows a txt file not a pt file?



Vic -> RE: WAW update and notes (1/16/2008 11:36:22 PM)

@rowdied,

Are you trying to unzip a .pt2 file? please do not.

kind regards,
vic



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