|
Harrybanana -> RE: RELOADS and HQ Build Up (12/7/2011 2:14:09 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Again, the history is completely immaterial to the game design.
To create divisions in game, Soviets need AP. For some reason, they have to pay a horrible penalty to build them in the first 20 turns. But then, to get around that 'constraint' in every meaningful way, during the same time period they get baby-sat with the safe knowledge that literally every division destroyed in this period doesn't need to be thought of again. Like hydra-teeth, they sprout up just when they're needed most.
Why have BOTH rules in effect? The free-units trump the need to think about the complexities of AP budgeting. If you enforced the mechanic that all units must be created through the expenditure of AP by Soviets. That would require adjustment of APs, to be sure, but the 1-size-fits-all of 50 AP per side throughout the game is another decision that says "throughout the game, both sides' C&C was roughly equal." Clearly that is not how historians view it... Not that I'm invoking history here to help my argument (I will only use history to undermine others' arguments).
The Soviets ALSO get to save FURTHER AP in that all these divisions arrive attached to Stavka, and can be seamlessly put into the line with complete efficiency like a NATO 1986 air-lifted defense. This is what I refer to as the double-punishment of Germany. They save AP, and any need to think of strategic tradeoff because they come back for free. They save AP again, without needing to think of strategic tradeoff, that these units can be attached to the closest/easiest/best spot for free (which is further compounded by the fact that Soviet divisions are 1/3 to 1/2 as expensive to transfer between HQs).
Soviet reinforcements in 1941 arrive in pristine C2 shape and can be easily slotted in perfect dispersal, perfect layering in depth, perfect organization of command. On the other side of the front line, the side that ACTUALLY trained to seize initiative, to act boldly from corps commander down to unterscharfuehrer, can't move a depleted division from the corps command to its parent army command for Rest and Refit without it costing 3-to-7 AP to move them (or more than 5% of their AP per turn, minimum for 1 division). Corps between armies is worse. And while Flavius and others will say that this is because Germany gets an extra layer of command for die rolls, etc., I say this: It doesn't matter, because the Germans have to pay more in leadership costs and AP costs to maintain that level of Command and Control. Soviets don't have to worry about moving corps between armies (AP savings) or moving divisions within corps (AP savings) or assigning leaders to corps (AP savings).
Many game design decisions that might appear to hurt the Soviet Union are undermined by rules or mechanics making up for it, as in the 'punitive cost to create units in 1941' being undermined by 'free units in 1941 for Russia YAY!'. To name another easy one, Soviet national morale is low, but it's far easier to recover morale at rest when your NM is low - bonus!). Meanwhile, Germany's high-morale starting army is hard-coded to pull Germany down regardless of what's happening on the map, in the losses column, or in the pools.
Other aspects of game design artificially assign parity to the two armies. The Soviet Union gains that benefit of easy re-assignment of newly arriving units, but Germany cannot HOPE to unwind its command mess in AGC and AGS until 1942. Why, when Germany was at its highest strength, is it forced by artifice to behave on parity with the Soviets?
Over and over again, game design shows favoritism to the Soviet side.
The ultimate, is of course, unit creation, which I won't even go into, because if you can't readily discern how big an advantage that is, I got nothin for ya.
Heliodorous,
I agree with you that it is unfair that the Soviets can build units and the Axis can't. If the Axis have the extra AP's, manpower and armaments I generally see no reason why they shouldn't be able to build new units and support units just like the Russians. The only exception may relate to panzer and motorized units. I say this only because I am not too sure yet (not having seen a game get to 1944) if the Axis will actually be suffering in the game from oil shortages as they did historically or not. If oil will be a problem for the Axis later in the War unless they are careful to conserve it, then I would remove this limitation as well. Does anyone know if this the case?
I don't agree with you though with respect to the free unit creation for certain Soviet units destroyed upto November 41. My understanding is that all destroyed German units get rebuilt for free throughout the entire game; so if anything the rule, at least on it's face, favors the Axis. In any event, the fact is that historically all of these destroyed Soviet units were rebuilt within a short period of time and then thrown back into battle. In the game the Soviet player would simply not have enough APs to do this if he only recieved 50 APs per turn. So since historically they were rebuilt the designers needed to come up with something to allow the Soviet player to do so in the game. One option would have been to give the Soviet player a lot more APs per turn, another would have been to give the Soviet player a large stockpile of APs to begin the game with, the third is to do what they did. What would you have liked to see them do?
|
|
|
|
