RE: Toss us a bone (Full Version)

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ComradeP -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/5/2011 4:00:14 PM)

Pelton, the necessity of air supply and your abuse of the supply system are both extremes that show that there's a serious problem. Contrary to what you seem to think/how you like to play, what you're doing is a fantasy on the same level as the odds modifier.

I'll also repeat again that the basic foundation of your pet peeve is false, namely that the odds modifier itself causes casualties. It doesn't. With more balanced casualties, it would be much less of a problem. The problem isn't that the Soviets win the battle, the problem is that you lose a big chunk of a division in the process for each of those attacks and that there's no way the Wehrmacht can replace any kinds of serious losses.



Flaviusx -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/5/2011 4:21:33 PM)

Pieter, the two things do interact, insofar as the odds modifier allows the Soviet to engage in many low odds attacks that otherwise wouldn't cause retreats.

This isn't a big deal post 43 because mostly Soviet attacks will exceed 1-1 in odds. But it does matter in 42 when the Red Army isn't really capable of strong attacks across the front. Especially if the front is static and the situation lends itself towards attritional attacks.

Because retreat losses are so significant, it pays to grind the German even with marginal attacks, provided the replacement situation can cover the losses on the Soviet side; in a static front, the Soviet can contrive to keep his own attrition under control.



ComradeP -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/5/2011 4:35:34 PM)

Yes, they interact, but if the attacks would cause 200-400 instead of 2000-4000 losses, they would not break the Wehrmacht's spine like they can do currently. There is also no difference between a "natural" 2:1 attack and a 1:1>2:1 attack in terms of the losses they cause, as the losses depend on how well the elements perform in battle and on leader rolls.

The odds modifier doesn't make attritional attacks effective, the high Axis losses for somewhat reasonable attacks make them effective. As long as you don't attack at really poor odds and get 1/4 to 1/2 of a division zapped whilst killing maybe 100 men, it's worth attacking currently as you know that if you can bump the Axis out of their hex, their losses will be ugly by default without anything the Axis can do about it.

Like the supply system, the combat system is currently too focussed on extremes: on one hand you have the Soviets getting massacred if an attack fails, on the other hand you have attacks "automagically" achieving 1:1 or 2:1 losses if they succeed, even against the same defender that would butcher the Soviets if an attack failed and even if the attack fails by just 1 CV point. That's why some changes Pavel proposed like linking the casualties to the retreat odds was a good idea, but as it turned out Soviets losses were even lower than they are now when they retreat which means the system would require further tweaking.

Currently, it's fairly common that a successful Soviet attack causes me more losses than I could cause to a similar sized Soviet force, even though my men have better leaders and a 20 to 50 point edge in experience. Yes, a fair number of Axis casualties are just damaged elements, but due to the transition system it might be a while before you see them again, not to mention that attrition remains the real killer for your OOB strength over time.

For some reason, Axis artillery is also rather underwhelming. If you'd remove the extra losses that the Soviets take, their 50 morale/experience units might actually take fewer losses from my 70-90 experience mortars and artillery than my men take from their 50 experience mortars and artillery.



veji1 -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/5/2011 4:49:36 PM)

We are playing with words here.. It is to an extent because the 1/1 rule leads to a 2/1 and a retreat that the losses are so high, given the current engine. 2 courses of action
- Either you tweak the engine so that the losses can be minimised for a German retreat that isn't a military rout. I am not talking here about the ingame mechanism of a unit routing, I am talking about the fact that the game would recognise that the German troops retreated in good order, inflicting losses while minimizing theirs... Might be doable, but requires quite a bit of reworking of the battle engine and testing to make sure it isn't exploited.. And what would it mean for the rest of the game ? Basically you would make a sort of German retreat losses grid where they are minimal between 1/1 and 2/1, modest between 2/1 and 3/1 and then get more severe beyond that... hard to know how to put that in place, but why not. This would allow the Russian to keep advancing fairly easily as they could still get the 1/1 to 2/1 conversion, but protect the German force from being hollowed out. It could lead to a steady bu painful advance for the Soviets.
- You don't change much of the engine but modify the 1/1 to 2/1 rule. This would strongly curtail the offensive capabilities of the Soviets in 42 and beginning of 43. The Soviets would have to mass troops for selected offensives, rather than grind down the Germans on frontwide WWI style offensives. But it might only lead to a delay in the German collapse as soon as the Soviet get regularly enough good odds, the infernal cycle of retreat losses/Hollowing out/further retreat losses would eat the German army again. But actually if this were to happen quite late, say 44, it would be pretty realistic as the German army starts to really suffer then...

Two different approaches, one easier than the other I think.



ComradeP -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/5/2011 5:12:07 PM)

The Soviets can make good attacks in 1941 as well and if the odds modifier goes, the extra Soviet casualties also go, so Soviet losses when attacking will be (much) lower than they are now. Axis casualties, however, would remain fairly high, which is why at this point I'd be in favour of balancing losses instead of removing a rather arbitrary rule without really removing the problem it can cause.



Ketza -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/6/2011 1:44:03 AM)

Thanks for the bone and good conversation.



Farfarer61 -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/6/2011 6:52:32 AM)

How about a Generic playtest scenario we can D/L test that starts May 42 non historic, but a WAG average of the AARs vice the historical non-interesting scenario?



Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/6/2011 9:57:42 PM)

quote:

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.


You must be joking right? What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.



JAMiAM -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/6/2011 10:27:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T

quote:

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.


You must be joking right? What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.

Agreed.



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/7/2011 6:45:10 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
You must be joking right?


Absolutely not.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.


There is nothing wrong with supplying troops. Dropping units from a corps HQ, moving it back, building it up and moving it forth again however is undermining the 20 MP rule that was just introduced, and for a reason too, by the way.



MechFO -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/7/2011 9:55:12 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T

quote:

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.


You must be joking right? What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.


Moving 2000 Tons, 300 km from the railhead with a weeks notice, and then up to another 750 km away a week later, was not possible, period. Even more so without truly massive truck losses.

300 km rule limitation makes sense because it mirrors the real world constraint of rapidly diminishing returns as soon as supplies have to be moved by truck.

Moving those fuel and supply dumps any distance further should eat up those fuel dumps very quickly, right now, fuel wise, it's for free. In addition the concentration of trucks such a move requires takes time to build up and more time to shift anywhere else, if you have the excess trucks in the first place. These factors already make the current system "too easy".

In many ways, making on map supply units like in TOAW might be better. Lots of trucks, burning fuel to move, needs time to move and giving units in a certain radius additional supply.



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/7/2011 12:05:15 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MechFO
Moving 2000 Tons, 300 km from the railhead with a weeks notice, and then up to another 750 km away a week later, was not possible, period. Even more so without truly massive truck losses.


If we're riding the realism train (which is always questionable in a game), even more funny is to use a corps HQ for this. I have a hard time imagining the face of Reinhardt, Schmidt or von Mackensen, if the high command told them to give up their units to the neighboring corps and move their staff 500 miles back for fuel.

Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with supplying troops. But the 20 MP rule just introduced clearly means, that you're not supposed to build up units farther than 20 MP + 5 hexes from the railhead, and that's just what's done with this trick. Sure it costs more AP, but if the devs intended that, they could have just ramped up AP cost of HQ buildup more. But they introduced a new rule by purpose, clearly limiting distance to the railhead, and this is dodged by moving back an empty HQ. That's why I don't expect this trick to last very long.



Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/7/2011 11:38:30 PM)

Its not even worth the time to debate with people like you.



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/8/2011 3:07:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
Its not even worth the time to debate with people like you.


Yes, your precious time is better spent looking for a new exploit. Perhaps you find a few seconds to wave this one goodbye. [:D]



Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 1:10:44 AM)

Ok, for starters the units getting fuelled are not getting BU. They are drawing from a HQ that was legally BU within 20 MP of a railhead. The HQ then moves up the units. This process takes 4 turns to implement. HQ's act as supply dumps by the way. Its an abstraction used in the game. The HQ loses trucks as it moves. If you don't have enough trucks in the pool it can't even be done or is non effective. It takes planning and forethought. To my thinking its perfectly feasible and reasonable. You think its an exploit. Fine. We won't ever have to waste each others time by playing a game. IMO OCS is one of the best Operational games ever produced. Creating a dump and moving it forward with available assets is a fundamental part of the system. That’s all I am doing, all be it in a rather abstract fashion but the process is very representative of what occurs in OCS. That was the inspiration and I have no problem with it despite your narrow minded view. If the devs squash it then so be it. But I see no problem with it and never will.



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 4:31:30 AM)

I'm not telling it's easy or convenient. I'm telling it's clearly not WAD. I'm not even calling for a nerf, I just see it coming, that an empty HQ won't get a flatrate of fuel and supplies anymore (that's the whole problem here), but only for the units directly attached. I don't care if you see me "narrow minded" or even don't "talk with people like me". I'm perfectly able to see "an abstraction", but I'm also able to judge if something is probably WAD or not, which is an ability you are obviously lacking.




Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 4:46:40 AM)

Man you are stubborn. Do you know a HQ just left to its own devices in the rear will build up with fuel. Maybe not 1000 dumps. But several hundred, even without HQ BU. A player can move said HQ forward with its gas and other supplies and attach whatever units he likes. Which will then draw on that HQ next turn. Forget HQBU, this can be done anytime. Are you trying to say HQ's that just happen to have a nice stockpile shouldn't be able to change its attached units? I could if I wanted have as many HQ's as I like stockpiling fuel near a rail head over a series of turns and then move them forward. This is already covered in the rules re truck losses/shortages and what not. The only limiting factors are trucks and AP's, just as the case should be. Get over it. Grow some creativity in your brain dude.



delatbabel -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 4:56:33 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: veji1

We are playing with words here.. It is to an extent because the 1/1 rule leads to a 2/1 and a retreat that the losses are so high, given the current engine. 2 courses of action
- Either you tweak the engine so that the losses can be minimised for a German retreat that isn't a military rout. I am not talking here about the ingame mechanism of a unit routing, I am talking about the fact that the game would recognise that the German troops retreated in good order, inflicting losses while minimizing theirs... Might be doable, but requires quite a bit of reworking of the battle engine and testing to make sure it isn't exploited.. And what would it mean for the rest of the game ? Basically you would make a sort of German retreat losses grid where they are minimal between 1/1 and 2/1, modest between 2/1 and 3/1 and then get more severe beyond that... hard to know how to put that in place, but why not. This would allow the Russian to keep advancing fairly easily as they could still get the 1/1 to 2/1 conversion, but protect the German force from being hollowed out. It could lead to a steady bu painful advance for the Soviets.
- You don't change much of the engine but modify the 1/1 to 2/1 rule. This would strongly curtail the offensive capabilities of the Soviets in 42 and beginning of 43. The Soviets would have to mass troops for selected offensives, rather than grind down the Germans on frontwide WWI style offensives. But it might only lead to a delay in the German collapse as soon as the Soviet get regularly enough good odds, the infernal cycle of retreat losses/Hollowing out/further retreat losses would eat the German army again. But actually if this were to happen quite late, say 44, it would be pretty realistic as the German army starts to really suffer then...

Two different approaches, one easier than the other I think.



Something I put forward some time back was to allow players, through a commander/order system either at the Army/Front/AG or Corps/Army HQ level, to define whether units should "hold" or "retreat" or some other path. This is essentially something borrowed from the W3 games that provide an overall "orders" framework on a per-army basis that modify what happens to an army in terms of its movement and combat capability.

Simply put, the mechanism would allow a commander to set his units to:

* Hold, meaning they are less likely to retreat a hex, but will suffer higher losses in place when they are attacked.
* Retreat, meaning they are more likely to retreat, but will suffer fewer losses while they retreat in good order.
* Some other variants, e.g. "Pursue" (reduces the attacking CV but adds additional MPs for follow up), "Assault" (get ready to blast enemy units out of their hex, regardless of the cost), "Mobile" (flexible attack and defense, advance but not at any cost, or retreat if hit with high odds attacks), etc.

Hold orders might entail a reduction in MPs. Retreat orders might entail an increase in MPs but a higher cost to enter enemy hexes. Pursue gives an increase in MPs and/or a reduction in cost to enter enemy hexes, but at a cost in reduced CV.

Of course to make the game more interesting, Hitler or Stalin might intervene and change your retreating units' orders to "hold" where you're least expecting it. [:)]



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 5:33:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Man you are stubborn. Do you know a HQ just left to its own devices in the rear will build up with fuel. Maybe not 1000 dumps. But several hundred, even without HQ BU. A player can move said HQ forward with its gas and other supplies and attach whatever units he likes. Which will then draw on that HQ next turn. Forget HQBU, this can be done anytime. Are you trying to say HQ's that just happen to have a nice stockpile shouldn't be able to change its attached units? I could if I wanted have as many HQ's as I like stockpiling fuel near a rail head over a series of turns and then move them forward. This is already covered in the rules re truck losses/shortages and what not. The only limiting factors are trucks and AP's, just as the case should be. Get over it. Grow some creativity in your brain dude.


Of course I know, that HQs build fuel dumps. It doesn't even need to be in the rear, it suffices that the units attached don't burn many, and if none are attached, even better. I still find the idea of moving a corps HQ back an forth just to "harvest fuel" ridiculous, mo matter the level of abstraction. I agree, that the supply system needs a rework, for instance air supply shouldn't be as much a necissity as it is now. But I'd prefer it to be done without such a kind of "shoehorning".

Look, I don't really care what you do with your HQs. I wouldn't play against people with that kind of "creativity in their brains" anyway. All I am saying is, that I doubt that this is intended and expect it to be changed sooner or later, if only for the simple reason, that it undermines a just introduced rule. If that is "stubborn", shrug, so be it.



Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 6:21:05 AM)

Well we can agree on one thing. The supply system needs some work. As someone said necessity is the mother of all invention. The fact that the logistics system does not allow players to select who gets the gas and who doesn't means players will try and find a way to do just that. Patton did just that. Sucked all the gas from everyone and gave it to the units he wanted to continue the advance. Thats all I am doing (and others no doubt) but in an abstracted way. Air supply also plays its part. But really I should be able to select the units I want to give priority to and let the program handle it. As long as something like HQ BU exists players will be creative to get the most out of it.

You can do a HQ BU on turn one and get a couple of HQ's up around 2000 fuel each. Move those HQ's forward as mobile dumps for turns 3 and beyond. I have never done that but its possible and probably how Pelton gets to Stalino on turn 5 or whatever. But it has its costs so it doesn't worry me at all. I am hopefully that eventually HQ BU will be gone completly some day and a better system evolved. But till then players need to be able to get gas to the guys they want to. Its a means to an end.



Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 6:32:11 AM)

Can agree with that completely.




Harovan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 6:34:47 AM)

That aside, I'd prefer gimmicks allowing you to get to Stalino on turn 5 be taken out of the game. That has nothing to do with being creative, it's simply a gamebreaking flaw.




misesfan -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 6:36:20 AM)

I can say OCS is not completely like this Michael - the player is required to manage his fuel dumps which are physical entities on the map.  These dumps are not in the rear, but on railheads - the HQ is able to funnel supply to combat units from the dumps, but it certainly is not running to the rear and then moving up to supply combat units in which it is not attached. 

But, I do agree that OCS simulates supply in an excellent fashion.  I think fundamentally, given the lack of physical supply dumps, it is much more abstract in WITE which causes some of the gamey tactics being used.   If one were able to manage their own supply flow from the rear to its own supply dumps, and finally to the combat units, then the richness of the logistical game within OCS could be compared. 

For one thing, the results of isolation in WITE seems weird to me - no attrition and combat values lowered beyond reason.  Shouldnt  combat values be lowered over time, but attrition be much greater?  I think that if they lowered front line attrition and made supply attrition more meaningful (read: lets see losses through actual supply isolation), would make deep operations more palatable for both sides.



Michael T -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 9:11:46 AM)

Look all I am saying is WITE allows a player thru HQ BU to 'replicate' what occurs in OCS. I don't care about how it is acheived. The fact is it should be able to be acheived. The end result is no different to what happens in OCS or from my knowledge what happened in reality. A player should be able to get limited units ( AP's and trucks being the limiting factors) up to close to 100% fuel as long as its physically possible. In OCS I can use trucks to ferry supply from Kharhov to Stalingrad or from Rostov to Baku. I might have 6 Pz/Mot divisions at the front but only enough fuel to have 6 at 50% or 3 at 100%. Surely I should be allowed to determine what I prefer. Using a HQ as a psuedo dump allows me to do that. FWIW IMO the use of ants by the Soviets to slow the Axis advance is a far greater problem than a player using HQ BU to get his tanks rolling.



DorianGray -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 3:40:48 PM)

+1

Agreed. Seems my JU-52 transports are one of my most critical air assets.

Perhaps if there was less mystery behind how the air system works it would help dispel appearances of a flawed game mechanic?



neuromancer -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 9:45:10 PM)

My bombers accomplish so little I don't intentionally fly them every turn. But the JU-52 transports fly all the time that they can.

Like some other players, I've put this game on the virtual shelf until many of these issues are fixed.


Some notes -
- The Soviets were not magically better at warfare than the Germans and thus able to beat them easier. In fact it could be argued that the opposite was true. Even once pushed back to Rumania and Poland the Germans were making the Soviets pay for land (assuming they could mount a credible defence) and luring them into traps. So Pelton definitely has a point that the silly rule should go. It may not solve all the problems, but it would be a start, and should be a start.

- Ground support caused quite a bit of damage. The Stuka and IL-2 were not famous just because they looked nifty. They were famous because they were freakin' deadly. The air model needs a LOT of work.

- Logistics and supply are completely wacked. There is too much available, but it moves very inefficiently. This has the effect of everybody having enough supply to be annoying (i.e. attacks all along the front), but not enough focused supply to allow for proper major offensives, particularly of mobile formations.
Major offensives took a LOT of planning, it wasn't a case of "hey, look, the enemy is weak there, lets pour 200,000 men and a few thousand tanks and guns into the gap!" Its hard to organize that much manpower and equipment on short notice. APs should be used to focus the supplies to appropriate units for an attack, and would also represent the effort spent planning the offensive.

- Artillery is pretty freaking effective (i.e. deadly). A unit can be effectively destroyed by a sustained artillery barrage inflicting over 50% casualties to the unit. The Finns found that as little as 17% casualties (suffered from a heavy barrage over a few minutes) could suppress a unit.
Infantry that haven't dug in could be completely obliterated by a heavy artillery barrage, more guns and barrages fired followed a pretty steep curve up until around 90% casualties, where it flattened out until 100%.
Dug in infantry suffered casualties at a pretty regular ratio with the increase of guns and volleys fired. Estimates hold that 51% of Soviet casualties in WW2 were to artillery (61% in 1945), and 70% of German casualties on the East Front were to artillery (the Soviets eventually fielded a lot of artillery). Thus artillery isn't as effective in the game as it should be.

- The winter of '41-'42 was damn cold, this was a problem. Sure, no argument. The Germans were unprepared, and even the Soviets were less than thrilled (it was really cold). Lots of casualties to frost bite and equipment failure to the extreme cold - to be honest, the Soviets should take some attrition to the cold as well. But the entire German army wasn't suddenly turned to a boy scout troop! A 10 CV unit suddenly becomes a 1? Really? A 5 I could accept, plus the attrition, but to reduce effectiveness to between 10% and 20% normal seems excessive. Seriously, reduce the loss of effectiveness the Axis suffers in that winter.

- Level 1 and 2 forts, are relatively easy to make (foxholes, some entrenchments, sand bags, etc.). But at the same time, once you leave, you are going to lose track of most of those things. A 100 square kilometres is a lot of space, even with a whole bunch of foxholes. Oh... and if the mud is THAT severe (and it was), just how well do you think those earthen entrenchments are going to hold up? Those forts short degrade very quickly when occupied, and should suffer damage in a mud turn even if unoccupied!

- Level 3 and 4 forts would be more like constructing actual buildings, whether wood and sandbags, or concrete. This is a more complex process and should be much harder to construct - requiring supplies, and unless actually trained in construction (e.g. engineers) should be really slow. On the other hand, they shouldn't detonate very quickly.

- Units building forts should suffer fatigue, at least beyond level 1 forts.

- A unit that is routed that suddenly finds itself in contact with the enemy again should at the very least Shatter. They are already fleeing as fast as their legs can carry them, and... "Oh crap! The enemy! Head for the hills!" At that point they should run in every darn direction, leaving their equipment where it is (rifles and helmets and such are heavy and slow you down when you are running like a madman). And of course they would take casualties and some would surrender. None of this magically teleporting away from the enemy crap.

'Displacement'... looks more like magic to me.



randallw -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 10:18:55 PM)

In non-clear weather the counter CVs can be a bit fudgy and not represent actual strength.



ComradeP -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/9/2011 11:36:42 PM)

neuromancer: air support is effective, but you might not see the full effect because a lot of it is disruption. Now that we're testing a version with Pavel's additional detail levels, it's much easier to see what is causing the losses/disruption. Air support does sometimes have a tendency to go for support squads, but it still disrupts a fair number of other elements. Even 20-30 tactical bombers can make a fairly serious impression in terms of losses and disruption.

Based on the battles I've seen thus far, my early conclusions are that mortars can indeed be probably too effective (something some of us, myself included, were already convinced of), but that regular artillery can be underwhelming. Infantry guns and field guns tend to perform well, but howitzers don't do too well. 100 ready 150mm howitzers destroying 2 squads and disrupting 4 isn't a stellar performance, although currently the results don't show how many of those ready elements actually fired. If it's possible to code in, Pavel might add a column to the additional detail screen detailing how many shots were fired, which will allow for even more accurate data gathering.



BletchleyGeek -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/11/2011 11:27:48 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- The Soviets were not magically better at warfare than the Germans and thus able to beat them easier. In fact it could be argued that the opposite was true. Even once pushed back to Rumania and Poland the Germans were making the Soviets pay for land (assuming they could mount a credible defence) and luring them into traps. So Pelton definitely has a point that the silly rule should go. It may not solve all the problems, but it would be a start, and should be a start.


Not magically, but by way of raising experience and morale by winning battles. The 1:1 rule should definitely go away from summer 1943 onwards, if not perhaps, entirely.

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- Logistics and supply are completely wacked. There is too much available, but it moves very inefficiently. This has the effect of everybody having enough supply to be annoying (i.e. attacks all along the front), but not enough focused supply to allow for proper major offensives, particularly of mobile formations.


The HQ Build-up function tries to simulate focusing supply in key areas, but the thing is that, as you say, it tends to be too much available for starters (especially if you're Russian), so it is not necessary to use it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
Major offensives took a LOT of planning, it wasn't a case of "hey, look, the enemy is weak there, lets pour 200,000 men and a few thousand tanks and guns into the gap!" Its hard to organize that much manpower and equipment on short notice. APs should be used to focus the supplies to appropriate units for an attack, and would also represent the effort spent planning the offensive.


They take a lot of planning. Another completely different thing is that people try to play the game like you say: "hey, there's a row of weak units there, let's stack a bunch of Rifle Corps/Panzer Divisions/whatever there and punch a hole". That hardly happens: usually one needs to concentrate the attack force first. Then, you might perhaps want to assign key leaders, well-groomed combat units and support units to the HQ's involved. That costs time and AP's.

Anything that goes beyond the: "oh, my opponent forgot to relieve a infantry unit that has been too long on the front and it's understrength, let's clobber it with all units available within 3 hexes" will cost significant time and AP. The thing is that it is very possible to win the game just by doing that, by wearing down the Germans nibbling a few divisions each turn. It just takes some patience.

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- The winter of '41-'42 was damn cold, this was a problem. Sure, no argument. The Germans were unprepared, and even the Soviets were less than thrilled (it was really cold). Lots of casualties to frost bite and equipment failure to the extreme cold - to be honest, the Soviets should take some attrition to the cold as well. But the entire German army wasn't suddenly turned to a boy scout troop! A 10 CV unit suddenly becomes a 1? Really? A 5 I could accept, plus the attrition, but to reduce effectiveness to between 10% and 20% normal seems excessive. Seriously, reduce the loss of effectiveness the Axis suffers in that winter.


You should check the 1.04 rules better. Rather than discussing the CV drop, which is just and approximation that doesn't have to do that much with actual combat power in an startling number of cases, I would discuss logistics and the problems ComradeP has described very precisely about combat and "ant units". December 1941 wasn't precisely the German Army finest hour: it actually did very badly. Problem is that in current games, the Soviets get to the blizzard much stronger than historical. And that's more of a problem with what Germans do during Summer and Autumn than a problem with the game system.

Then a disturbingly high number of people playing as the Germans throw rationality out of the window and cling to unsustainable positions (in game and historically). Axis players that use hindisight, plan to build a line of forts, anchored on key cities, that allow him to shelter the German Army during the worst of blizzard. The ones who don't do that, or just plainly refuse to give up land, suffer. My opinion is that this behavior is motivated because it's just too easy for the Soviets to turn the matter into a "Verdun in the East".

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- Level 1 and 2 forts, are relatively easy to make (foxholes, some entrenchments, sand bags, etc.). But at the same time, once you leave, you are going to lose track of most of those things. A 100 square kilometres is a lot of space, even with a whole bunch of foxholes. Oh... and if the mud is THAT severe (and it was), just how well do you think those earthen entrenchments are going to hold up? Those forts short degrade very quickly when occupied, and should suffer damage in a mud turn even if unoccupied!

- Level 3 and 4 forts would be more like constructing actual buildings, whether wood and sandbags, or concrete. This is a more complex process and should be much harder to construct - requiring supplies, and unless actually trained in construction (e.g. engineers) should be really slow. On the other hand, they shouldn't detonate very quickly.

- Units building forts should suffer fatigue, at least beyond level 1 forts.


I mostly agree. Joel Billings made a statement a month or so ago on these forums acknowledging the issue and assuring people that they would look into the matter.

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- A unit that is routed that suddenly finds itself in contact with the enemy again should at the very least Shatter. They are already fleeing as fast as their legs can carry them, and... "Oh crap! The enemy! Head for the hills!" At that point they should run in every darn direction, leaving their equipment where it is (rifles and helmets and such are heavy and slow you down when you are running like a madman). And of course they would take casualties and some would surrender. None of this magically teleporting away from the enemy crap.

'Displacement'... looks more like magic to me.


As a few people have remarked on the past, the way to understand the "routing" mechanism is that routed units aren't really on the map as organized forces, but rather they model many scattered groups or columns of forces in retreat. When a routed unit is displaced, it suffers additional attrition (whether it's too little might be debated). And units which are routed while encircled should definitely shatter, rather than rout, especially if there are enemy combat units forming a ring around it (not just hexes whose ownership was just flipped or ZOCs).



BletchleyGeek -> RE: Toss us a bone (8/11/2011 11:52:48 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

quote:

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
- The Soviets were not magically better at warfare than the Germans and thus able to beat them easier. In fact it could be argued that the opposite was true. Even once pushed back to Rumania and Poland the Germans were making the Soviets pay for land (assuming they could mount a credible defence) and luring them into traps. So Pelton definitely has a point that the silly rule should go. It may not solve all the problems, but it would be a start, and should be a start.


Not magically, but by way of raising experience and morale by winning battles. The 1:1 rule should definitely go away from summer 1943 onwards, if not perhaps, entirely.


On a second thought, removing the rule from the early stages of the campaign would be harmful. It's an incentive for the Soviet player to attack and take risks. So we perhaps should look at it as a way to "herd" players into the historical, very offensive mindset of Soviet High Command.

The problem with the rule as the campaign progresses is that the Germans are bound to suffer much higher losses due to retreat that in 1941, as Flavius and ComradeP have pointed out before on this same thread. The difference lies in the lower experience - due to material, manpower and morale losses - of the Germans.

What other people have been discussing is whether this experience and morale losses are penalizing too much the German side. The German edge in 1941 is the much higher morale, which entails a higher level of experience. Perhaps it's too easy for the Germans to get that edge blunted, but I say just "perhaps". I haven't seen any AAR where this edge hasn't been lost, ultimately, due to decisions made by the players themselves.



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