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Toidi -> RE: Please fix Soviet morale in 1941, its broken. (7/11/2013 7:28:25 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Michael T
Mr anauso, with respect, if you stick around long enough and play some good Soviet players you will come to realize how mistaken you are.
I would add, as it is currently, the Axis player must be much better than the Soviet player to put Soviets under serious pressure (expert vs average, average vs inexperienced player with this game etc). Before the changes, when equal players played, Soviets would always win, but games with not equal players (expert vs good or good vs average) were relatively balanced.
The Axis to be successful need to capture a lot of industry in '41 and destroy the Red Army (deplete in '41, continue in '42 and onwards). If the industry is not captured, Red Army will be able to build expensive in ARM/Vehicles (but cheap for manpower) units in '42 and onwards which will make Axis play tough (especially when both ARM and vehicles are available for the Red Army). To capture much of the industry, one needs to advance quicker than historical which is tough when Soviets can defend a hex against tanks (and now they often can).
Destroying Red Army in '41 is not really possible (as generally the units return free of charge). However plenty (at least 3 millions) troops must be destroyed (preferably pocketed) in '41 to drain Soviet resources, so in winter '41 and in '42 Soviet army is a bit limited by manpower. Encirclements are usually only possible due to misjudgment(s) made by the Soviet player and the margin for error is now bigger than it was before. With all the changes, it is true that Axis may be slightly stronger in '42 and onwards, but unless the industry is captured, Soviets can resist almost as well as before, especially that now they can muster the brigades to passable morale of 50 quicker than before (and thus having new 50 morale divisions quicker).
The problem is that all apparently small changes in the game have big impact because the game mechanics reinforces the side which is winning. So if the Axis gets over the tipping point, the snowball effect occurs, and they tend to win big. On the other hand, if Axis does not reach the tipping point, the Soviets quickly become impossible to overcome. Bouncing back from the tipping point as Soviets is often possible in '41 due to Blizzard rules (and generally very large production of equipment), so Axis generally needs to reach it again in '42. Bouncing back from the tipping point as Axis is almost impossible due to limits in manpower and production. Also if Axis does not achieve its goals in '41, achieving them later is very tough (I know about a single case that it happened, but it was only possible because Axis losses in winter '41 were very small, and in '42 Axis suddenly started playing much better than it played in '41).
Reaching the tipping point is obviously dependent on player skills, but small changes in morale affects that much more than one would expect by simply seeing the numbers (50 average morale Soviet army is quite different to 48 average morale Soviet army, and very different to 46 average morale Soviet army).
T.
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