RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (Full Version)

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Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 9:51:43 PM)

Another cool interaction would be dynamic NM. Losing cities ahead of schedule is reducing Soviet NM and boosts Axis. Soviet manage to take back major city? Vise versa (when urban combat is fixed ofc). It would make Soviets think twice if they want to have 30NM division in the winter for giving cities for free.



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 9:54:39 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec

quote:

I have sent the entire Southwestern front to reserve, and they will be deployed to Moscow and Leningrad. I do not believe the South is worth defending remotely, and most Axis players will get +6 VPs regardless. I will not bother evacuating industry - it is a mechanic I have ignored so far, and will continue to ignore unless I reach the unlikely state in which Leningrad, Moscow, Tula, or other such cities that did not fall historically are threatened.

If the Soviets don't defend the South would expect Axis to achieve a sudden death win in '41, am not sure if that is what you are aiming to demonstrate ?


I have not once came close to losing sudden death after abandoning the south. Its very possible it happens this game, sure, but it would be my first ever soviet loss if so.

The south will be defended by solely cavalry and when I can afford it a contingent of armored units to hit panzers. Cavalry will cut off any deep spearheads that recklessly advance, and also flip hexes to remove admin movement.



Beethoven1 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:04:25 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

Another cool interaction would be dynamic NM. Losing cities ahead of schedule is reducing Soviet NM and boosts Axis. Soviet manage to take back major city? Vise versa (when urban combat is fixed ofc). It would make Soviets think twice if they want to have 30NM division in the winter for giving cities for free.


This would not make any difference, because Soviets will always lose e.g. Kiev ahead of historical schedule. Same for Odessa, the only other VP city that is accessible in the first few turns for the Axis in the south (at least assuming that you don't have the exploit of spamming 80 small un-intercepted interdiction missions for Soviets). The only way it would make a difference is if there were a difference between losing a city such as Kiev on turn 3 as compared to losing it on turn 7.

So what would happen is you would end up with the same national morale from losing Kiev and Odessa early regardless of whether you try to defend them, in which case you will lose them earlier than historical, or if you don't try to defend them at all, in which case you will also lose them earlier than historical.

The same reasoning applies to the VPs from losing cities early. It doesn't matter if you lose Kiev on turn 3 or on turn 9, Axis will get the exact same VP from it for early capture. And you are definitely not holding it until turn 13, its historical capture date.



Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:11:54 PM)

My dynamic NM idea is not supposed to work only like captured date ahead of histrocial? true/false

As you wrote - the closer historical date is the lower the penalty.

Some cities should not count and be an exception, like Odessa. As clearly it is not possible to hold it for so long.

Right now for VP you have base value and bonus. With a time, bonus points are lower and lower. From +6 to +4 and so on.



Beethoven1 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:16:22 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

From my point of view the only way to make Soviets defend upfront - change VP allocation so it will really hurt them for giving cities for free as well as make armament factoiries matter.
Stalino, Dneproterovsk, Krivoy Rog is taken 2 month ahead of schedule? Less arty/weapons for ID are being produced. Not how it is right now.

Imagine giving whole country (Ukraine) for free. How ahistorical...


It is not just a matter of *making* Soviets defend in the south, it is also a matter of them having the ability to do so. Even if Soviets try as hard as they can to defend the south, they will not be able to do so, and will easily lose both of them well before their historical capture dates. So even if you increased the VP penalty for losing cities in the south, it would probably still not be worth it for a Soviet player who is trying to maximize VPs to defend the south - at least not unless they have some sort of special trick up their sleeves like K62 in his game against tyronec with the naval interdiction not getting intercepted due to the flights being too small and numerous.

It is true that there have been some games where Axis has advanced slowly in the south and has not taken cities by their historical dates, but for the most part that is because in those games the Axis players either were new players that did not know how to play Germany at all, or alternatively they were experienced players who did not want to advance more quickly, because they are aware that advancing too fast is very bad for their logistics and in the long run is detrimental to their trucks and long-run logistics. As an example of that, you can probably look at HLYA's game against jubjub, and I would bet also his game against Zov. HLYA will advance fairly slowly in the south, but that is not because he could not advance more quickly, it is because he believes it is not a good strategy for the Axis to advance too quickly.

So the idea that you can punish Soviets for not defending the south and letting the Axis take it too quickly also assumes that the Axis wants to take the south quickly. But it may not actually be a good idea for them to take it too quickly.



Beethoven1 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:26:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

My dynamic NM idea is not supposed to work only like captured date ahead of histrocial? true/false

As you wrote - the closer historical date is the lower the penalty.

Some cities should not count and be an exception, like Odessa. As clearly it is not possible to hold it for so long.

Right now for VP you have base value and bonus. With a time, bonus points are lower and lower. From +6 to +4 and so on.


You would then also have to have an exception for Kiev as well as Odessa, and likewise for Sevastopol and I would think Zaporozhie, and perhaps Kharkov. That leaves only 3 VP cities in the south which realistically can be held until the historical capture dates - Dnepropetrovsk, Stalino, and Rostov (perhaps Kursk if you consider that the south rather than the center).

This would mean that the Soviet player would still be better off not defending the south or having a minimal defense in the south, and instead making sure that they held other cities in the north and center which can potentially be held for longer, such as Pskov, Smolensk, Tallinn, Rzhev, Kalinin, Tula, and Orel. If Soviets concentrate on doing that, I think they can probably avoid even losing some of those cities in the north/center at all and hold them outright (at least unless Axis makes that their main target in 1942). For example, if Soviets heavily defend the center by re-deploying the entire Southwestern Front there in the first few turns, Axis may never take Kalinin at all, ever. Holding Kalinin alone would be worth 16 VP, which is about the same as the VP cost of losing 3 cities in the south earlier than historical, and while the specifics of your proposed dynamic national morale might be a bit different, similar sort of logic would presumably apply.



Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:27:30 PM)

I understand this, but there is a huge problem with ahistorically low Soviets losses.

From wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union

4.4 mil total losses for 1941 Q3 and Q4. Show me a game where Soviets have such losses. There is no, maybe against an AI.

If Soviets are defending upfront then they will take maybe 3 mil. As a result they have insanely huge army already in first winter.

Check topic about h2h games: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5076008

Try to guess who is winning more. And I think by a huge margin. Part of this is huge army as Soviets has no reason to risk with divisions and fall back while in reality they would be killed for retreating.



Jango32 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:31:02 PM)

Those are also with the Krivosheev casualty figures, which are readily agreed to be far too low for 1941.



Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:35:25 PM)

I think this is very successful Axis campaign and look on the losses. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5086606&mpage=1&key=

Which leads to my point. Can Soviet defend cities in the south - no. Can they delay the advance - yes, and they have to pay for it with their divisions. Otherwise get hit in VP/production/NM.

What do we have now? Retreat, get huge army, smash Axis. It is enough to break through initial defense and most likely there will no second line of defense for the Axis side and there is just not enough divisions.
So you will not only get VP back, you can basically win a game.

Of course there are different AAR that goes into 43 or 44. But they are rare. And probably Soviet players do not understand how powerful retreat is.

Hopefully comrade RedJohn will show it and this topic will bring more attention to this problem



Beethoven1 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:40:14 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

I understand this, but there is a huge problem with ahistorically low Soviets losses.


I don't disagree about overall casualties. I think if you have Soviet and Axis players that both know what they are doing, Soviet casualties will end up less losses than historical in 1941, mostly due to avoiding major historical encirclements (although I think that Axis casualties in 1941 may also be less than historical, though I am not sure about that).

My general opinion is that it is too hard for Soviets to defend the south, but too easy to defend the north/center. With the artillery patch it was a lot harder for Soviets to defend the north/center, but since that was a result of a bug, now it is pretty trivial for Soviets to hold in the north/center due to the terrain. I think that more historical results might possibly be achieved if it were slightly harder to defend swamp and heavy forest terrain, but slightly easier to defend clear terrain.



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:51:24 PM)

Personally I like the idea dynamic NMM, but as beethoven says the south is overran far faster than historical assuming competent Germans. Its just not viable to defend, and if you do you're liable to lose multiple armies. Armies that as I will hopefully show in this aar, will be used to thoroughly stall Moscow and Leningrad.

And whilst it's fine to point out the low soviet casualties, I think the German casualties are equally as low? I'm not sure, actually!

The artillery patch was a step in the right direction-I only played 3 soviet games with that patch and whilst some results were unbelievably silly it felt a bit more accurate (axis casualties were far too low though).

Certainly I think something needs adjusted,based on my own experience.



HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 10:59:23 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb


quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

quote:

ORIGINAL: RedJohn


quote:

ORIGINAL: RedJohn

To be most efficient one should probably also use corps, but the only corps I use are the mech corps. I already have 1500 AFVs building up CPP in the back, and will increase that by a few thousand over the coming turns. These will attack any exposed panzers.


Here is an example of this, turn 3 of my other game. These units will be put under Rokossovosky or some other such mech general. Many hundreds/thousands of AFVs will be lost in battles, but it's a worthy sacrifice.




I believe I know where you are going with this. But I feel many are still playing WITE1 on how they are advancing and attacking. But what you are about to write should pan this out rather nicely.


I understand that Axis should not leave panzers as screening forces, but in the same time you do not want to attack with panzers. And if there is no motorization (which is an exploit IMHO) then it takes ages for an infantry to come and fight. So if you do not risk with a panzers - you will not make pockets, unless Soviet player is not smart enough to retreat. Maybe you will show some magic in your AAR, but I would like to see what would you do vs running Soviet without motorizaton.


I believe on motorization as you do. I personally think it should be out of the game or limited as many have started to do. I have been an advocate against it and wanted to show how bad it was in a game. I just can't do it in this game. All my other games it was outlawed.

I started showing what I talked about in the above post in the Jubjub game and to a lesser extent two other AAR's. I will bring it to fruition in my Zovs game & the way I will advance will work both with a up front playing Soviet and one that will run all the way to Rostov. At least I believe I am correct in my assessment, time will tell.



HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/26/2022 11:02:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

I think this is very successful Axis campaign and look on the losses. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5086606&mpage=1&key=

Which leads to my point. Can Soviet defend cities in the south - no. Can they delay the advance - yes, and they have to pay for it with their divisions. Otherwise get hit in VP/production/NM.

What do we have now? Retreat, get huge army, smash Axis. It is enough to break through initial defense and most likely there will no second line of defense for the Axis side and there is just not enough divisions.
So you will not only get VP back, you can basically win a game.

Of course there are different AAR that goes into 43 or 44. But they are rare. And probably Soviet players do not understand how powerful retreat is.

Hopefully comrade RedJohn will show it and this topic will bring more attention to this problem


Soviet Retreating is a double edge sword. You have to have the mixture right or the concoction will explode in your face.



Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 11:26:54 AM)

This is my PvP game vs retreating player (no blaming him of course, he plays really well and I would play just the same!)

t16, oct 5

Few more hexes in a pocket with enemy divisions to clear. Maybe additional 100k, in best case.

[image]local://upfiles/82464/CEAFF9079D24400CAD6756FC929BA65F.png[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 4:46:22 PM)

Turn 3 begins. The Pskov river has been broken thoroughly, and Smolensk has fallen to a direct assault!

[image]local://upfiles/68404/EC1EA9D7D5B8444A8E933D74571574C6.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 4:46:53 PM)

Smolensk 1

[image]local://upfiles/68404/3CCDC4C88A0340659467CB857B06FC4F.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 4:47:24 PM)

Smolensk 2

[image]local://upfiles/68404/8B0A7FF7122145B19156B0220E937963.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 4:47:59 PM)

And Smolensk 3. A valiant hold, all things considered.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/4E57D5DA004D46C79222C7CF46789A8C.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 4:56:55 PM)

We flew 30,000 sorties this turn. That seems like a lot, but I don't know if it really is relative to history! [X(]

The vast majority are ground attacks on panzers/motorised. Now to check the results.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/7D249E7D7ECF460A8649CC08E5DE5056.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:00:33 PM)

935 Germans dead, 18 guns, 8 AFVs and 165 vehicles. Not a particularly worthwhile trade, but that's primarily because out of 12 ground attack sorties on a hex you'll get maybe 3 actual ground bombings.

We generated quite a bit of interdiction at least, I think most relevantly at the breach of the dnepr near Smolensk.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/CCA64257709D48B0A65AABC9282B8BE9.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:02:12 PM)

We cut off the majority of AGN's mobile forces with 2 units. I believe he wanted to isolate and surrender them, or at least the rifle division.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/32336F7B3A6A4DE9BC2AF620C4C2F65B.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:10:32 PM)

A Panzer regiment is hit North of Smolensk. 2-1 trade in AFVs, which is acceptable.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/A67BFBE102A040F181CBE41CB44A7848.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:30:55 PM)

After making all my moves - mostly just retreating from the Dnepr at centre and hugging AGN's forces (as well as reinforcing the existing crimean units so they make up a full army) it's time to divvy out the reserve - and what a reserve it is!

[image]local://upfiles/68404/C3BE6005EC944564B1CB7024E798EFF0.jpg[/image]



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:38:04 PM)

Reserves post-movement. I deployed around 16 rifle divisions to Leningrad, deployed all the mountaineers at Vellie Luki, deployed all my mechanized/armored east of Smolensk, and split the rest of the rifle divisions north-east of Smolensk towards Vyazma, and the approach to Bryansk.

I also deployed the airborne brigades east of Kiev, as well as the one cavalry unit I could. There's an additional 17 cavalry units to be deployed whenever they're made ready to me, and these will be our defensive cordon for Ukraine.

[image]local://upfiles/68404/14B3867AB9664888B368C1D667CC3477.jpg[/image]

I also deployed all of the corps I put in reserve somewhere near Tula. I'm not sure if they can disband in the reserve, nor am I sure if they can swap TOEs.



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 5:42:16 PM)

Oh, and I also declared the Western Front as my first assault HQ. In games where I don't abandon the south I prefer that to be my first HQ, but in every other game the Western front is the natural choice.



Pionpion -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 6:28:16 PM)

A simple and historical solution to this gamey gameplay would be to fix a maximum percentage in the Reserves Box. It would be a great asset in soviet hands without allowing such choices. IMHO this harms the interest of the game. In "paper" wargame, limited soviet reserve mechanisms have long been tested (think about the recent and excellent Stalingrad from GMT, if anyone knows). But it is a great AAR, with an acute sense of teasing.



Stamb -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 6:46:05 PM)

I see no reasons why do we need such TB as Reserve. Every other TBs are fine.



Pionpion -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 7:40:48 PM)

Playing with it could be optional ? Again, it's classical wargame functioning. It gives Soviet more flexibility with their pop up capability, even if I understand you conisder railmove is enough



RedJohn -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 7:57:38 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Pionpion

Playing with it could be optional ? Again, it's classical wargame functioning. It gives Soviet more flexibility with their pop up capability, even if I understand you conisder railmove is enough


For whatever reason there is less flexibility in this games settings when compared to 1. [&:]

If I'm not remembering incorrectly anyway.



Beethoven1 -> RE: The Red Army Is (Not) Overpowered - A tongue in cheek aar (1/27/2022 9:34:47 PM)

I don't think your reserves are large enough. Perhaps you should strip the theater boxes in order to send more men to the map. I think you will need them to buff up your meager north and center defenses.



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