Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Tweedledumb

Play Balance via Reinforcement Scheduling - Some Ideas

Vic and Cameron, thank you for your ongoing support of this brilliant paradigm-breaking design.

My PBEM buddy and I bought this along with DC1 and 2 during the holiday sales. We decided to play DC1 first as it appeared the most approachable game in the series. What we discovered in Poland was that a reasonable human player could make a VERY challenging defense of Warsaw. My point is that a human player can defend much more competently than any AI (even Vic's excellent one). Nothing new there.

We've played portions of about 8 PBEM++ games using 1.01 over the last two weeks. In all the games we have discovered that the German side, as the manual warns, is more challenging as many things can go off the rails (pun intended). Also, the Soviet Central Front reinforcements lead to a veritable wall of divisions from Gomel to Polotsk and shut down AGC's advance to a crawl. AGN and AGS have "possibilities" for German strategic success and the Soviets are definitely stressed (particularly in the South). In the one set of two games (we always play German/Soviet at the same time to compare and contrast experiences) which went into September, the forests and swamps south of Leningrad were also wall-to-wall Soviets.

I'm not claiming that in two weeks we are expert German players, but a quick review of the forums here seems to confirm some of this experience. I applaud the experts like Michael T for testing out some of the best German possibilities! I think my buddy and I are more "average" players.

We have just started up a set of 1.02f games today and note that this version adjusts the Soviet Central Front reinforcements. This is great! We'll see how the games progress with this and the other changes (the adjusted AGN start and the Soviet "randomized" starting positions are great additions).

The other thing I noted in the forums, particularly Vic's posts, is that 95% of the people are playing against the AI only, and most of those are playing the German side. This makes sense to me. Then the light bulb popped on...

Why not provide the players with several Soviet reinforcement options?

Here's my logic for this:

Human (PBEM) players will be able to defend MUCH more competently and use the Soviet decsions far more effectively than any AI - agree? To "balance" the game and make it challenging for the majority of players (playing Germans against the AI) will not necessarily produced a "balanced" game between two expert human players - agree? So why not provide a series of reinforcement options for the Soviets as a "balancing" feature?

I throw out for discussion five possible reinforcement schedules:

1. Rapid Soviet mobilization (the hardest - for players who can beat the 1.01 AI easily)
2. Improved Soviet mobilization (harder - a challenge for players who have beat the 1.01 AI))
3. Standard Soviet mobilization (what you have in 1.01)
4. Slower Soviet mobilization (what you have in 1.02f - to avoid the wall syndrome above)
5. Poor Soviet mobilization (the ultimate challenge for the expert human Soviet player!)

Of course there could be a million variants on this and I would love to see more than 5, but you get the idea, I hope. The amount of programming to make these variants I presume would be minimal.

My suggestion, basically, is that rather than trying to "lock in" a one-size-fits-all Soviet reinforcement schedule, that you investigate using this mechanic as a play balance tool. My assertion is that a Soviet reinforcement schedule which works to balance an AI game will NOT be the same as one which balances a PBEM game.

I'll certainly report on how our 1.02f PBEM games progress as compared to our 1.01 experience. I think throwing out these reinforcement options to the public would give you A LOT of feedback on play balance both PBEM and against the AI.

Thanks again for this design, which I posted elsewhere that I thought was the BEST computer wargame of all time, and for considering this feedback.

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ORIGINAL: Drakken

I'd say at least revert the soviet reinforcement back to 1.01. The changes to Soviet cards' PP costs were fine, IMHO.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I think the reinforcement schedule in 1.01 is too accelerated, and in 1.02 is too slow.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The siege guns need some kind of constraints while allowing them to take out lesser value targets. Otherwise the German will be hung up with sieges all over the map, and that's not right, either. Riga and Odessa in particular can be a pain to clear. But I win cards on Leningrad and Moscow are silly, yes. These aren't tactical nukes for crying out loud.

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ORIGINAL: governato

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The siege guns need some kind of constraints while allowing them to take out lesser value targets. Otherwise the German will be hung up with sieges all over the map, and that's not right, either. Riga and Odessa in particular can be a pain to clear. But I win cards on Leningrad and Moscow are silly, yes. These aren't tactical nukes for crying out loud.

The funny thing is, neither Odessa nor Riga were taken using siege guns. The first was taken early in the campaign due to lack of a strong garrison (so maybe a C&C problem of the Red Army). Odessa cost the Rumanian army 100,000 casualties and fell October 19, 1941 after a 70 days siege, almost 20 turns in game terms! The only mention of `heavy' artillery I have seen says it was used in August, obviously to not great effect. Odessa, was WWI warfare.

What I am saying is : to my knowledge there is no historical reference to the use of siege guns to take any minor russian city in 1941. Sevastopol was taken in 1942 using siege guns because it had serious fortifications where it made sense to use them.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

I throw out for discussion five possible reinforcement schedules:

1. Rapid Soviet mobilization (the hardest - for players who can beat the 1.01 AI easily)
2. Improved Soviet mobilization (harder - a challenge for players who have beat the 1.01 AI))
3. Standard Soviet mobilization (what you have in 1.01)
4. Slower Soviet mobilization (what you have in 1.02f - to avoid the wall syndrome above)
5. Poor Soviet mobilization (the ultimate challenge for the expert human Soviet player!)

quote:

ORIGINAL: governato

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I think the reinforcement schedule in 1.01 is too accelerated, and in 1.02 is too slow.

But, shouldn't the armies arrive roughly when they actually arrived ? Is that the problem? That in 1.01 Stavka armies arrive earlier than what happened historically?
Then what you suggest is great. Also, finding when they first engaged in combat with their full(ish) OOB is easy to find.

Otherwise by arbitrarily altering the arrival of Red Army reinforcements you would not be improving the game, just twisting it to compensate for other perhaps less obvious shortcomings.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

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ORIGINAL: governato

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The siege guns need some kind of constraints while allowing them to take out lesser value targets. Otherwise the German will be hung up with sieges all over the map, and that's not right, either. Riga and Odessa in particular can be a pain to clear. But I win cards on Leningrad and Moscow are silly, yes. These aren't tactical nukes for crying out loud.

The funny thing is, neither Odessa nor Riga were taken using siege guns. The first was taken early in the campaign due to lack of a strong garrison (so maybe a C&C problem of the Red Army). Odessa cost the Rumanian army 100,000 casualties and fell October 19, 1941 after a 70 days siege, almost 20 turns in game terms! The only mention of `heavy' artillery I have seen says it was used in August, obviously to not great effect. Odessa, was WWI warfare.

What I am saying is : to my knowledge there is no historical reference to the use of siege guns to take any minor russian city in 1941. Sevastopol was taken in 1942 using siege guns because it had serious fortifications where it made sense to use them.

warspite1

Odessa wasn't really 'taken' at all. The Soviets abandoned the city by sea right under the Romanian and German noses....

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

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ORIGINAL: governato

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I think the reinforcement schedule in 1.01 is too accelerated, and in 1.02 is too slow.

But, shouldn't the armies arrive roughly when they actually arrived ? Is that the problem? That in 1.01 Stavka armies arrive earlier than what happened historically?
Then what you suggest is great. Also, finding when they first engaged in combat with their full(ish) OOB is easy to find.

Otherwise by arbitrarily altering the arrival of Red Army reinforcements you would not be improving the game, just twisting it to compensate for other perhaps less obvious shortcomings.

Dates of arrival here are very approximate regardless, as is their location of arrival.

I'm more interested in overall effect here than strict accuracy. This isn't that kind of game, and since armies are treated as generic blocs in this game, meh. If you want to get into the weeds here, you'd be doing it by division, the divisions themselves wouldn't be portrayed as they are in this game, you'd need a replacement system, blah blah blah.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If I want that kind of jazz, I'll fire up WITE. Some imprecision is not only allowable in a game like this, it's part of its charm.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

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ORIGINAL: governato

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The siege guns need some kind of constraints while allowing them to take out lesser value targets. Otherwise the German will be hung up with sieges all over the map, and that's not right, either. Riga and Odessa in particular can be a pain to clear. But I win cards on Leningrad and Moscow are silly, yes. These aren't tactical nukes for crying out loud.

The funny thing is, neither Odessa nor Riga were taken using siege guns. The first was taken early in the campaign due to lack of a strong garrison (so maybe a C&C problem of the Red Army). Odessa cost the Rumanian army 100,000 casualties and fell October 19, 1941 after a 70 days siege, almost 20 turns in game terms! The only mention of `heavy' artillery I have seen says it was used in August, obviously to not great effect. Odessa, was WWI warfare.

What I am saying is : to my knowledge there is no historical reference to the use of siege guns to take any minor russian city in 1941. Sevastopol was taken in 1942 using siege guns because it had serious fortifications where it made sense to use them.

warspite1

Odessa wasn't really 'taken' at all. The Soviets abandoned the city by sea right under the Romanian and German noses....

I'd love me some Black Sea Fleet cards as the Soviet to simulate this and other such things. Sovs need a little more love and chrome of this sort.

You're of course correct about this, Odessa was abandoned by the Sovs in order to reinforce Sevastopol.

The siege of Odessa was kind of a disaster for the Romanians, they lost a lot of troops here to no effect and the siege may have gone on for who knows how long but for developments on other parts of the front.

But in game terms I think the German side needs some kind of ability to simulate an effort dedicated to expediting these affairs, with constraints. Problem now is the lack of constraints.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805