Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

I agree. Not sure about the Fall Weiss campaign, but in the Vanilla game bombers, especially if massed, appears to be just too powerful. In particular the Luftwaffe, if properly nurtured and led, can overwhelm any defense. Just look at my AAR with KZ where the invincible Luftwaffe pretty much won the Game. In another game I am playing the Luftwaffe on one turn destroyed an Army in Portsmouth and on a subsequent turn destroyed a fully entrenched corps in Bristol.

I believe the solution is simple. Limit it so that a particular hex can only be bombed by two air units in a turn. Of course, I don't know if this would be simple to code or not.

quote:

ORIGINAL: crispy131313

Air units are indeed less powerful in Fall Weiss II (mod). I believe what you are facing is a bit of unhistorical strength of Britain in the North African campaign. This was purposely done to counter the tendency of players to stack the cards and send many more reinforcements to Libya then historical.

I would suggest in the Advanced Option screen (under scripts) to deselect the following "Unit" script" Strong Allied Air Presence Detected In Egypt. As a result you will not face a "hard mode" battle for the sky.

Similarly there is script another for ground forces, i think it has the title Mobile Units which you could also turn off if you find the North African campaign too hard. Mind you that the changes to the single player campaign were designed to be challenging in some parts.

Also just some tips in case this is causing issues as well. Fighters will not receive supply from HQ's unless they are attached (huge effect in North African campaign) and researching Anti-Air would help.

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ORIGINAL: James Taylor

I've again long professed that air units should have a reduced ability to cause strength reductions as the footprint(strength) of the attacked unit is diminished.

It only makes sense if there are less people and machines they should get harder to hit. At one strength most air attacks should be futile having only a small percentage of making the targeted unit "combat ineffective".

On the other hand, each player has virtually the same set of tools to apply and there always seems a counter to every situation, discovery being the key.

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Just look at my AAR with KZ where the invincible Luftwaffe pretty much won the Game.

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ORIGINAL: KorutZelva

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Just look at my AAR with KZ where the invincible Luftwaffe pretty much won the Game.

Being on the receiving end, that's certainly how it felt like.

I wonder the impact on the game if one where to give bombers 'artillery' stats, basically they'd destroy morale and readiness but would have to rely boots on the ground to do the heavy lifting.

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Then you may run the risk of recreating WW1 trench warfare tactics. Air power in it's current form levels supply and helps destroy units and is necessary to keep the flow of the game moving forward. I can think of only a few key cities in the European Theater that were fought for dearly and never taken, so we need the tools to destroy units quickly and move forward. Bombers do this job well.

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ORIGINAL: crispy131313

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ORIGINAL: KorutZelva

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Just look at my AAR with KZ where the invincible Luftwaffe pretty much won the Game.

Being on the receiving end, that's certainly how it felt like.

I wonder the impact on the game if one where to give bombers 'artillery' stats, basically they'd destroy morale and readiness but would have to rely boots on the ground to do the heavy lifting.

Then you may run the risk of recreating WW1 trench warfare tactics. Air power in it's current form levels supply and helps destroy units and is necessary to keep the flow of the game moving forward. I can think of only a few key cities in the European Theater that were fought for dearly and never taken, so we need the tools to destroy units quickly and move forward. Bombers do this job well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: crispy131313

Then you may run the risk of recreating WW1 trench warfare tactics. Air power in it's current form levels supply and helps destroy units and is necessary to keep the flow of the game moving forward. I can think of only a few key cities in the European Theater that were fought for dearly and never taken, so we need the tools to destroy units quickly and move forward. Bombers do this job well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater


I also ran a test where I had a fully entrenched Corps in Bristol, with AA Level-1 and attacked it with 7 Tactical bombers, all with 1 experience point, attached to an HQ with 2 experience points and all at supply 9, and a range of Ground Attack levels from 1 to 3 for the Tactical Bombers and at best I could knock the Corps down to strength 5, but more often than not it stayed in the range of 7 or 8 strength.

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

All I can say is that this is what happened to me in my game with Yeremenko (which I have now resigned). In fact, as I said it happened twice, first to a full strength Army in Portsmouth (which I think was only entrenched to level 1 or 2) and then to a full strength Corps in Bristol with maximum entrenchment. Admittedly I don't think either unit was attached to an HQ. But the unit in Portsmouth was defended by an AA in an adjacent hex and both Cities had their AA upgraded to level 1.

You say you attacked with 7 TAC, but in my game my opponent first attacked with 2 (or maybe even 3) Med Bombers to reduce the entrenchment and efficiency of the defending unit. Did you try that? The usual MO is to attack the enemy unit first with corps or Med Bombers to reduce the entrenchment, then finish it off with TAC.

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ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks for the feedback everyone and off hand it is a bit hard to say one way or the other if things are potentially askew as there are a lot of different examples listed above, and without the numbers, i.e. levels, experience, supply, HQ attachments, there are potentially just too many factors that could have played a part in some of the results.

For example, in the unescorted German Strategic Bomber example above facing off against a 10 str Lv 5 US fighter, I can get results anywhere from 1:7, 4:5 to 7:1 depending on what Level the German Strategic Bomber is, how much experience it has, who it is attached to, the supply level and so on and this would also change depending on the US fighter experience and who it is attached to as well.

I also ran a test where I had a fully entrenched Corps in Bristol, with AA Level-1 and attacked it with 7 Tactical bombers, all with 1 experience point, attached to an HQ with 2 experience points and all at supply 9, and a range of Ground Attack levels from 1 to 3 for the Tactical Bombers and at best I could knock the Corps down to strength 5, but more often than not it stayed in the range of 7 or 8 strength.

However, generally speaking, and let's say we are looking at Tactical Bombers, they are currently set where you can expect them to take 2-3 strength points between closely matched units, i.e. a Level-1 Tactical Bomber at 9 supply with no experience will inflict 1:3 on a supply 8 fully strength Corps that is out in the open.

Since increased Ground Attack levels will be cancelled out by increased AA applied to defenders, this ratio will tend to stay the same until supply levels, attachments, and experience become alternative factors. In this light, I'd argue that having an air unit being able to take 2-3 points of damage is not necessarily a bad thing as it does help to keep the flow of the game moving, especially for the Axis in the early years regarding Poland, France, Balkans and then Barbarossa, but beyond that I can see two main points of contention, possibly three:

1) Should air units inflict any strength point damage at all?
2) Should air units be allowed to mass together?
3) Should air units be allowed to destroy a unit?

For 1) I would still argue yes as otherwise the early parts of the game, especially the flow and timelines, would potentially suffer. Very early on, many air unit attacks are spread out so inflicting 2-3 points of damage is helpful and typically a ground unit is required to finish the unit off. Unless you start with ground units and then finish off with air after the fact, but essentially it is rarer that a grouping of air units is wiping out units all on their own. Later on this can happen as more air units are built and tactics possibly change with this in mind.

For 2) we have attempted to limit this with recent changes to how air units are linked to HQs, but if a player would still like to mass their air units, and they put in the effort to do so with the right number of HQs, then this is possible. Question really is here if this should be forcibly limited further from our end, or is it reasonable enough for a player to be rewarded if this is their strategy? Often there are pros and cons to this strategy and other areas may suffer and increased costs may be involved and at times the gains are short lived especially if another part of the war has suffered as a result. For example, the Axis may go all in for North Africa and it may feel overpowered there, but in the long run Barbarossa suffers and big picture wise the war may ultimately be lost despite the initial feelings of things being terribly unbalanced.

For 3) the bigger concern for me would be if air units are destroying ground units outright, i.e. from full strength, or was it a unit already severely weakened and on its last legs, or from a concentration of multiple attacks, and even possibly air attacks. If it is the former I think this would be a problem, but I suspect it is only the latter, which could be amended if it is indeed a deal breaker, but we'd have to be careful to not disrupt the flow of the game that is also quite important as well.

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ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Thanks KorutZelva, this is helpful as well and really any "solution" or adjustment just needs to ensure the game is not broken in another way due to cause and effect, which is why I am asking a lot of questions and running tests. This is something that needs to be thoroughly thought through as it potentially is not an insignificant change.

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This is most probably the greatest deviation of what happened in real life. To cut to the chase, the new rule of HQ attachment was a good start, but not far enough.

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ORIGINAL: Sugar

The opposite is true: the Germans massed their air units in Poland and France, with devastating effects. They failed to do so in NA, now you want the Axis player to repeat that failing?

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Beside the fact that conquering Malta would be nearly impossible