Slitherine

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Morale reflects that in the game. German morale goes down as the war goes on, and Soviet morale goes up. Morale effects so much in battle results...

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ORIGINAL: Phenix

I just think that morale which has alot of influence on combat should have some relation to the amount of victory points you have captured/lost.
It just seem strange that if Germany does better than historically and captures Leningrad, Stalingrad  and Moskva, suddenly they get war weariness ,because a paramter is coded in the game that states that by May -42 German Morale will be lowered by xx, it somehow should have some relation to how just that game is unfolding.

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Eliminating any influence of either Hitler or Stalin from the CinC makes the game non-historical.

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The biggest influence on National Morale is the quality and length of training that troops receive. German National Morale erodes during the game not because the German people were becoming war weary but because the Germans kept reducing the training period and broadening the recruitment pool to produce the replacements necessary for the front.

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It will not be historic, therefore unrealistic, if the shattered remnants of the Whermacht are able to zip around the map like Porsches as the Red Army crosses the Vistula. Look at all the encirclements the Germans suffered after Kursk. The Soviets had become much more nimble and the Germans, due in part to Hitler's interference, had become much less so.

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If you able to minimize (or maximize) your losses your units can look as good (or bad) as they were.

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If the Germans have not won by 1943, and they have still got an army where they could sustain the old TOE it must have been a remakably quiet game! I think people are worrying unnecessarly...

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TO&Es are always a reflection of the needs of the time and I understand fully that if the Germans had been more successful that those TO&E changes would have been different. But how would you model these potential what if TO&Es? What if the Soviets do worse in your game than they did historically. How would the game model these potential TO&E changes? Who is the smart guy that is going to figure out a new and hypothetical TO&E for every possible historical outcome and then manage how the game switches and then test them out, etc. Eventually, you are going to have to make this game and develop some concrete goals to get this game published and tested and you are going to have to compromise and balance realism, historical correctness, and playability for a game that a broad band of people will be willing to pay and play this game. I see a lot of people focusing on narrow aspects because x feature isn't included or that x isn't modeled correctly but when you see the final product, I think most everyone will be satisfied. In the production process, you have to make those compromises or you end up with an unplayable spreadsheet.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

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If the Germans have not won by 1943, and they have still got an army where they could sustain the old TOE it must have been a remakably quiet game! I think people are worrying unnecessarly...

That depends, you don't need a quiet game not to lose the historical amount of men. Remove most of the casualties of the 1941-1942 winter offensive (halt early, dig in and prepare), the losses at Stalingrad (the Axis were there by choice and due to Hitler, not out of any strategic need, simply don't go there unless you have the men to guard the flinks) and those at Kursk (never attack where the enemy is strongest and expecting you) and by removing the losses of those battles alone the Axis would be in a much better shape. Heck, the minor Axis would still have their armies in that case. The Axis player can and should take care of his men.

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TO&Es are always a reflection of the needs of the time and I understand fully that if the Germans had been more successful that those TO&E changes would have been different. But how would you model these potential what if TO&Es? What if the Soviets do worse in your game than they did historically. How would the game model these potential TO&E changes? Who is the smart guy that is going to figure out a new and hypothetical TO&E for every possible historical outcome and then manage how the game switches and then test them out, etc. Eventually, you are going to have to make this game and develop some concrete goals to get this game published and tested and you are going to have to compromise and balance realism, historical correctness, and playability for a game that a broad band of people will be willing to pay and play this game. I see a lot of people focusing on narrow aspects because x feature isn't included or that x isn't modeled correctly but when you see the final product, I think most everyone will be satisfied. In the production process, you have to make those compromises or you end up with an unplayable spreadsheet.

It's a problem other games have provided a practical solution for, which is why I think it shouldn't have to be in this game. TOAW gives a pretty good example of how it could be done: simply include both equipment categories, the old and the new.

For starters, many Soviet divisions start Barbarossa (seriously) understrength. The wrong way to handle that situation is to take the average strength of all those Soviet divisions and turn that into their 1941 TOE. The right way would be to take their allowed paper strength TOE. Even if the Soviets would not lose as many men as they did in real life, their command and control difficulties would still mean that the size of a Corps wouldn't change all that much. Besides, the Soviet player already gets to build his own divisions.

For the Axis, the mid-late war TOE problem seems to be fairly easy to solve in the same way TOAW solves it: include the old TOE equipment in the new TOE as long as it isn't outdated or if there's a logical reason why it shouldn't be there (such as foot infantry in a division that upgrades to a motorized/mechanized unit).

Note that I'm not asking for ahistorical TOE's, I'm only talking about the downsides of forcing a downgrade in TOE on the player.

Two examples:

In a mid-late war infantry unit, allow both motorcycle and leg/bicycle recon. If the player still has motorcycles in the pool, he'll be able to use them. If not, infantry recon elements will switch to foot/bicycle Fusilier battalions. Likewise, allow infantry divisions to draw enough infantry replacements to create early war size battalions (maximum strength of 800-900 men/battalion), instead of forcing the player to end up with ~600 men regiments.

In a mid-late war Panzer division, allow a tank strength of around 150 tanks (mostly medium), or two battalions of about 75 tanks as in real life.

That way, the Axis player wouldn't have to look at all kinds of equipment sitting in the pool because the TOE doesn't support them. Similarly, obsolete equipment could be "send" to minor Axis partners by a change in their TOE.

That would keep the game mostly historical without forcing a disadvantage on the Axis.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

That depends, you don't need a quiet game not to lose the historical amount of men. Remove most of the casualties of the 1941-1942 winter offensive (halt early, dig in and prepare), the losses at Stalingrad (the Axis were there by choice and due to Hitler, not out of any strategic need, simply don't go there unless you have the men to guard the flinks) and those at Kursk (never attack where the enemy is strongest and expecting you) and by removing the losses of those battles alone the Axis would be in a much better shape. Heck, the minor Axis would still have their armies in that case. The Axis player can and should take care of his men.

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Ah - the Germans dont make their mistakes but the Russians do...
If the Germans dont fight the battles, neither do the Russians, they dont lose the territory, the populations, the losses on the Russian side were horrendous. And by Kurzk it was all over bar the shouting anyway... However that is all detail, the point I was trying to make isn't that it isn't an issue, just not the be all and end all...