heliodorus04
Posts: 1647
Joined: 11/1/2008
From: Nashville TN
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
quote:
ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
I’m disillusioned with the game again (if you can’t tell from my recent Forum posts)
Yeah, it shows...
Frankly, I think you're overreacting a bit, but so this post will be constructive, let's address a few concerns...
I know I'm over-reacting. And I'm annoyingly self-righteous when I'm over-reacting. I've come down a bit regarding this specific game's outcome.
But speaking for the unintended synergies that all tilt the table in favor of the Soviet and make the game overall much worse than (I feel) it would otherwise be (if designed in my image) is legit. It's based on a game I have no AAR for.
This is the one where my Soviet opponent ran for 12 turns, set up a crisp, clean, magnificent NATO 1986 defensive strategy (this opponent, like me, was a tank crewman in Europe in the 80s, although he was in M60s which are decidedly not the same tanker experience as the M1s and M1A1s on which I served). It's probably more reflective of how Germany retreated in the AGS area from Kursk to summer 44.
The defense is:
Double-stacked front line of units from Kalinin to Dnepopetrovsk, with each stack having a unit from 2 different Armies. Massed around them are a sprinkling of divisions, with a lot of cav, on reserve. 75% of the time I'm seeing reserves committed, and after 3 turns of it, which generated a HUGE amount of Held results. I'm starting to win a lot more, but there won't be enough time to make up the distance. This is in a game where I did NOT double-up on rail lines, which is a failing no German player can ever make. And the reason the current German supply system is working too effectively is that German players had (when the 5-hex bug was still working in our favor) figured out that the rail line increases the Buildup which is the only way you can stay in contact with the Soviet player with your infantry. Panzers clear terrain that infantry walks across at 1 MP.
It's effectiveness is so great, I think, that I may just do a Soviet game again (I've been meaning to) just to show what I'm talking about. But I can't start new games when I'm moody like I am. Plus, Skyrim is absolutely the best RPG ever made, and I'm playing a lot of it. You should really check it out if you're into RPGs.
But overall I found Jam's comments new to me, so I want to delve into them.
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
First, the "odd" recon you mention. It's not odd at all. Deep recon is crucial for creating any chance of interdiction of reserves moving from the rear. Given that you just received the XXXX Pz Korps, it is vital for CF to do the recon to try to find out where they're heading, as well as having any hope of his bombers shave off a few MPs and cause some casualties along the way.
By the way, "Working in a Coal Mine" is up on my iPod right now... And "Through Being Cool" is my favorite Devo song...
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
Now, to specific issues within the quoted post.
quote:
ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
He reconnected to the pocket at Kharkov again, which is bad. Something like 6 attacks and 5 ground strikes (sequentially) against the panzer division he moved. I’m on record as telling CF that I believe multiple ground attacks by small groups of air units is exploitive and I asked him to stop so we have a better game. It’s far too easy for the Soviet player to exhaust the small number of Axis fighters and then to grind down the bomber fleet. It’s bullshit, and the air war is still a wreck of colossal proportions, as is the Soviet C2 advantage. There is no competing with this full-scale hedgehog defense. It’s a NATO defensive scheme that wasn’t developed until the 1960s, but it’s fine according to the Soviet community.
You need to work on your flank security, and pocket reduction. Leaving leaky pockets in your rear is very dangerous unless you are really pushing forward. If you are not pushing far enough forward to minimize the chance of pocket relief, then you need to stomp those pockets the very next turn.
Well, the Kharkov pocket, if you look at turns 12 and 13, happened as a result of ME being isolated by CF on the first turn of it. 48.Panzer was making it's way toward D-town and he ruined that plan. So this issue is a factor of CF being smart.
I get what you're saying about pushing, and especially about making the Soviet pay for trying to save units. The problem with my no-city pocket (what started out as the massive pocket next to Kursk and is now two separate pockets) was that it was 57 divisions spread over a 25-hex range running NE to SW, and it happened to be in the worst area for supply between AGS and AGC (it got much better toward the south). There was nowhere East for me to push from Kursk that didn't over-extend my supply line, forcing it to go into the Kursk dead zone when it needed to be at Tula in the north and D-town in the south.
In thinking about it, 11.Army is having such a hard time on the Sea of Azov because 48.Panzer, which was coming their way, got forced into the mess it's currently in. This is more evidence of good play by CF, not any particular problem with the game mechanics seen in our game (although I'm REALLY going to be a banshee on the costs of re-assigning Soviet divisions. It should be the same for Germany as the Soviet, so either make it more expensive for the Soviet, or preferably much cheaper for the German, which would give them a lot of help they need with over-burdened armies and army groups. Is that so goddamn much to ask to better reflect operational agility as seen in the actual war? The Soviets get tons of divisions that are not in any HQ at all, including all the free divisions that 11 turns prior were assigned somewhere...; that's more than sufficient for play-balancing in their favor -the low AP cost creates double synergy effects).
48.Panzer, until this turn, did not have enough infantry support to move the units around it very far, because 6.Army and 17.Army were highly tied down dealing with the 2-to-4-hex distance between isolation and freedom that those 57 divisions were trying to cover. Remember, he came one hex away from reconnecting that entire pocket 2 turns after I formed it. That was tooth and nail, and required something like 9 divisions to be broken down into regiments at one point, just to cover the ZOCs.
And this as an aside back to my general poor morale right now:
The Kursk pocket was 600,000 men, Leningrad and the Valdai are another 20 divisions, or 200,000 men, and good, fully equipped divisions. If this does NOT make a difference in my blizzard survivability, then I don't see how a strategy of bludgeoning the Soviet can be effective. I sacrificed at least 20 armament points for those 800,000 men, and if it's not a tradeoff in Germany's advantage, then the game probably is borked beyond all repair by the macro-production game. But we can't know that yet.
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
That said, mastering 'moving pocket' battles is a vital part of learning how to play the Axis effectively.
I'm uncertain whether you're speaking generally to the need to master the concept, or speaking generally to a skill you see that is too poorly developed given my play, or something specific to the Kursk/Valdai/Kharkov pockets. The Valdai pocket reopened based on the odds-shift bonus, and it wasn't a big deal. Movement is arduous up there, and I'm actually a bit proud of my performance there. In both my games vs. CF, I've made him suffer in the Valdai hills area.
Kharkov, now that I've reassessed it, is simply one of the best things CF did in the period from turn 10 to now. He blunted 48.Panzer corps, which then had downstream effects on 11.Army's advance. Kudos to CF there. He still lost 57 divisions to one pocket :)
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
Simply put, you need to not worry so much about the potential for being cut off, so long as your second echelon is able to continue the work of reopening supplies to your own units, and carrying forward. Airdropped supplies to your spearheads should help with keeping the first echelon resupplied if they were temporarily cutoff during the Soviet player's turn. It really is a battle of nerves, and you just need to commit the necessary mass to win it.
Point taken; I have been very deliberate in not allowing my panzer divisions to be surrounded until really this turn, where my Ryazan salient got pocketed.
As for the air dropping of supplies, though, I think you have to credit the mastery CF has for the air war (which is very high given anyone else I've seen) and the problems with the air war.
Here is my fighter and Ju-52 fleet by fatigue. Look at the morale for transports and fatigue for fighters.
PICTURE MOVED TO NEXT POST
The Ju-52s I forgot to use last turn, so you're seeing their fatigue extra-ordinarily low, and their number of damaged planes low compared to the usual. I had a problem on 2 non-sequential turns earlier in not being able to use Ju-52s on certain turns because they were at an airbase where they could get no fighter escort. That aspect of the game is not something I'm clear about - when can fighters from one base support missions from another... Never found an explanation of the command structure to understand it (I'm not saying it's not my problem rather than Matrix's).
The fighters are generally lower on fatigue this turn than the last 2, because by the end of last turn, both Soviet and Axis ground support was either flying without fighters or not flying at all. The attrition may have caught up with him a little and evened things slightly in my favor this turn 15.
CF bombs my airfields every turn, probably 5 airfields per turn (1 attack per field, maximum by house rule). I stack them together, I divide aircraft, I have my air intercept settings set since I got advised here earlier in the AAR for the game, and I have interdiction for my side turned off (only for the last 2 or 3 turns as the lines have stabilized geographically). I don't have enough fighter groups to divide well enough that I can blunt the Red Air Force bombing campaign. It's gotten better since the Italians and Hungarians got a little more involved (Italians especially).
I believe if Soviet players interrogate CF, you'll find a template for maximizing Soviet air effectiveness that will again break the game (which might force Matrix to deal with that engine). But maybe I'm hugely inefficient.
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
With respect to the tactic of launching multiple small attacks to budge a unit, I say "bring it on!" I love it when a Soviet player tries to use these tactics. Why? Because they are counterproductive. On the air attacks, there may very well be a reason that so many 'small' attacks are made and that is that the Soviet air C&C sucks early game, and very few aircraft are committed each flight. The attacks could be from different air armies in range, and he is simply acting out of desperation trying to get anyone who can fly within range to do so. As far as the ground attacks go, like I said...counterproductive.
Most of my complaint about his dislodging of a single panzer division is sour grapes. CF said basically what you said regarding the multiple attacks were forced on him by the way Air HQs are organized.
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
When a player launches multiple 'soak-off' attacks in this game system, it does cause some small disruption and damage to the defender. However, it does not significantly reduce the defensive strength. This is due to a couple of reasons. First, there is a hard cap on the CV reduction to the defender's strength to prevent supply drainage having an exploitive effect during the enemy turn. IIRC, it is a 25% cap.
You're definitely more well versed in the combat mechanics than I; in fact this is the first I've ever heard of such a thing. I wonder if this is general knowledge that I missed, or specific knowledge to people who have played as long in the public and private sectors of the game as you have.
But that being said, a 25% drain is significant when you're getting a +1 odds column shift... It's the difference between 10 divisions being isolated and none being isolated. Otherwise, I generally agree with you that when the Soviets counterattack, it gives Germany good opportunities.
The rest of my frustration again gets back to 48.Panzer corps being pinned down at an inopportune time for what has turned in to about 3 turns of extraction work (counting the turn 15, which I'm about to play).
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
Secondly, and in my opinion, the more important effect is on the two sides morale. The failed attacks each will generally result in a morale loss for the attacker, and a morale gain for the defender. Depending on actual casualties caused, you may very well end up making the defender *stronger* with each failed attack. This is even more critical for the Soviets, since their Guards unit promotions are based on having more victories than defeats. Each defeat for these attacking units puts them that much further away from qualifying for Guard status.
I definitely have taken a great deal of care in only launching attacks that have succeeded. My success ratio is in the 80% range, which I think is pretty good. There IS a problem with morale in this game, that again favors the Soviet, but I'm not getting in to that right here - I think a few others have spoken to it elsewhere eloquently.
The exception for me has been Leningrad, where I've attacked to reduce forts in urban terrain or across rivers. That's what the heavy artillery is for, but yes, there's a problem in that it causes morale to go down. Right now, the probabilities for any roll where morale is being checked for an increase are always far worse for Germany's success, as are checks for most 80-plus morale German divisions going down.
(Again, my heated passions on the current state of the game are based on seeing multiple synergies working in favor of the Soviet and some that are working against Germany only.)
quote:
ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
quote:
ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
Now, it’s possible I’m as bad a player as I thought when I started out this AAR, but really, I’ve made small mistakes, but this is overall my best advance ever. And yet it’s still not enough that CF feels he has anything to worry about. He seems supremely confident that all is perfectly under control for him. I see that too. I’ve failed, because...(edit)
What's the vital semantic distinction between the two following sentences?
You failed because you got outplayed by a competent opponent.
You're failing because you're getting outplayed by a competent opponent.
That's right, a sense of the game being a foregone conclusion. That is, you've failed, because you already given up. You have lost the battle of wills. In my opinion, this is always the primary objective in playing a game against an opponent. Break his will, and you will win. Of course, doing that within the framework of the particular game, and the scenario at hand is where all the thought goes, the scheming takes place, etc. Don't think that such a 'cutthroat' approach to gaming can't exist in a friendly atmosphere. It can. It's just a 'friendly antagonism'.
Just remember you haven't lost until you give up. Like the Devo song goes, it takes a Triumph of the Will!*
* Also, some old Nazi propaganda film, but Devo is less inflammatory...
My first career was as a writer, so I write to vent. CF hasn't beaten me (but Matrix is doing its best to beat me regardless of what CF does, and that's what pisses me off so badly). When I stop and consider the 5 to 7 hexes of extra rail supply distance I have in this game due to the 5-hex bug, I'm less upset at my current position.
But when I think of the small number of armaments I have disabled, I can't help but wonder if I ever had a chance.
< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 11/17/2011 10:08:15 PM >
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