SigUp
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I think the blizzard needs a whole lot more fixing up than just removing the morale loss, but I agree that said loss is hardly necessary given everything else the blizzard accomplishes. At the very least this effect should probably not last past January. Letting it run for 3 whole months is a bit over the top. That works out to, what, 13-14 morale over the course of the blizzard? That's a huge hit and leaves aside any morale losses related to retreats.
Cutting that in half would be more reasonable and take the edge off the artificially inflated 1941 morale (and it is inflated by the end of the summer) without crippling the Wehrmacht. This would act as a proper reset.
The basic problem here of course is the entire morale mechanic where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's one of the basic game mechanics that I least like and nothing like it exists in any other game. Especially since morale benefits to CV are non linear. The whole model is dynamically unstable and extremely hard to balance.
I agree that it would be sufficient to set that morale loss for December and January only. A natural decline of around 8 points should offset the gains the German units make from June to November. Anything beyond that should be resolved by combat losses. This is perhaps another reason why German players generally run during blizzard. A natural decline of 14 points or so, combined with lost battles quickly approaches 20 points. A German infantry division starting at 75 in June ends up at something like 65 or even lower in March. For example in my game against the AI 223rd Infantry Division (a new arrival in autumn I think) was at 75 on the last November turn. Now on 19th March 42 after two losses and one victory it is at 60. With the changes of 1.07 I am curious to see what effect it will have on German morale in preparation for the summer offensive. I have a couple of battered infantry divisions I pulled out of the front on refit in Poland.
Another issue I have is the combination of German units' CV getting reduced by a lot, while the Soviets' CV increase at the same time. Right now, unless the German unit is in forts in favourable terrain the Red Army has not too big a challenge in just pushing the Germans back (I am specifically talking about the area from Tula to the South). Historically however, the Soviets still had to mass their forces. The frontline from Kursk to Taganrog, with the exception of the Soviet offensive at Izyum in early 1942, remained more or less the same until June-July 1942. Now, I do realize that you can't make a change here unless you make changes to the Summer campaign of 1941.
Last but not least the blizzard attrition is too high (though I know this is partly to offset the low German losses from June to November 1941) and combined with the high retreat losses the German casualties really explode. Historically the Germans lost 168.000 men (14.752 dead, 64.116 wounded, 4.594 missing, 90.907 sick or with frostbites) in December, 214.900 in January (87.182 dead, wounded or missing, 127.718 sick or with frostbites), 173.100 in February (88.014 dead, wounded, missing, 85.086 sick or with frostbites). In my game my losses column increased by 263.038 in December, 147.559 in January and 109.781 in February. Now, the total number from December through February is lower than historically, but one has to factor in that a) some of the sick soldiers were people with the flu or something like that, losses that I doubt are included in WITE b) my losses are skewed downwards due to the recovery of wounded soldiers reducing the wounded column c) I fought much less battles (the AI was strangely passive in the Moscow region).
Historically the German losses in the Winter of 41-42 were actually lower than in the Summer campaign. Here WITE really has its shortcomings in the combat engine. The Wehrmacht suffered 725.359 so-called bloody losses (dead, wounded, missing) from 22nd June until the end of November. An additional 200.892 men (no numbers for August and October, through interpolation about 100.000 men for both months) left the operational area due to sickness. The bloody losses the Wehrmacht suffered in August 1941 were far higher than in any Winter month of 41-42. 189.813 were wounded, dead or missing. In total during the intensive combat months of July, August and September, the Germans suffered 486.488 men casualties. This number is only about 70.000 lower than the total number (including sick and frostbites) from December through February. If one only looks at the combat casualties, the Summer losses blow the Winter losses right out of the water. My grievance with those high blizzard losses stems from the fact that fighting the AI on high morale levels, I already suffered more than 800.000 casualties after the last November turn, so my losses are rising above the historical level, despite doing better in the Winter. But it's the AI, so I am not complaining. 
< Message edited by SigUp -- 7/24/2013 11:46:40 AM >
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RE: Hell bent on Lebensraum III (no Kamil) - 
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