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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/8/2018 12:17:59 PM   
sPzAbt653


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From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		I'm still pretty far from the Rhine. Actually depressingly far, considering it is February and there are only 89 turns left. I know that the AG supply restrictions will be ending but I'm not sure when so I checked the briefing, but it doesn't really say. So I looked into the scenario dump and it says that Antwerp becomes 'fully operational 55 days after mine clearing begins'. The briefing does say that the AG supply restrictions end 'approximately' 25 days after that. So that means 60 more days until all AG's are available at the same time. That'll be the first week in April. For now, we continue to advance one AG at a time.

Koblenz on the Rhine is in the center of the Black Box, and you can kind of see on the map where the Rhine runs northwest from there into Holland, and south from there to the Swiss border. The Ruhr is in the Green Box and on the east side of the Rhine.




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Post #: 151
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/8/2018 1:07:03 PM   
MikeJ19


Posts: 3696
Joined: 1/29/2014
From: Ottawa, Canada
Status: offline 		Steve,

As I catch up with your game, wow. I really like how the supply situation is controlled in this scenario. Thanks for taking the time to explain things for us. I am seriously thinking of trying this game soon.

All the best,



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Post #: 152
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/8/2018 8:18:35 PM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		In previous TOAW versions the amount of supply received was capped, I think at 50, but for IV units can now receive all that they are eligible for. In this shot, the artillery unit ended its turn at 85 Supply, and started the next turn at 148.




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Post #: 153
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/8/2018 8:19:39 PM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		Devers' 6th Army Group was given Supply Priority for two weeks in order to secure the southern flank up against the Rhine, and the US 36th Inf Div gets the battle honor of being the first to cross the Rhine. Historically, the 36th fought in Operation Torch, then in Sicily, then in Italy, then in Operation Anvil, then advanced from southern France to near its current in-game position, and then into southern Germany.




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Post #: 154
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/9/2018 10:15:28 AM   
sPzAbt653


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From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		The 21st AG has lunged forward to the Rhine and the Br I Corps has captured the crossing at Duisberg and entered the Ruhr region!




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Post #: 155
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/9/2018 10:16:23 AM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		But the 21st AG is holding a long line and has no units available to continue the push into the Ruhr. Supply Priority has to be switched to the 12th AG so that it can take over some of the 21st AG's positions. Also, giving priority to the 12th AG will allow a lot of fresh US divisions to be brought in [the US currently has ten ID's and five AD's ready to be released]. This will provide some flexibility in operations.




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Post #: 156
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/9/2018 10:17:31 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Overview. Another month to go before all three AG's will be available at the same time. The US 12th AG has a huge area to take to reach the Rhine [Green Circle]. Maybe that will take a month, plus it will take some time to bring in a lot of US Div's and get them into the line. Then there can be a combined effort to take the rest of the Ruhr, and the scenario should end.




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Post #: 157
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/9/2018 7:16:31 PM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		The Supply Level is huge, Supply Priority will switch to the 12th AG next turn, I will take the 2nd AB Option at this time, and will start bringing in US units from the long list it has of units ready to deploy. The AB units can't be dropped for seven days and I have no real plan on how to use them, but I'm thinking that in seven days they can be used to reinforce/expand a US bridgehead over the Rhine, or to assist in getting one. It all depends on what Elmer has in the way.
The 21st AG has taken a little more of the Ruhr. It will go into Garrison and now will hold its positions. Elmer has been making some good attacks south of the Ruhr but hasn't done much in the Ruhr area itself.




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Post #: 158
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/10/2018 11:33:31 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		The best news we could have in this scenario [other than winning]. The Supply Level is down to 69 from 91 due to bringing in units, and I will mention that if you bring in too many units [like I did] they will sit around at their port of arrival waiting for sufficient Rail Capacity to move them to the front [there was only enough to Rail one AD or two ID's per turn]. With Antwerp at full capacity, the Rail Cap is increased to 13000. With the Supply Radius increased to 15 [from 2], supplies are pretty much no longer an issue.
There is also Air Cap this turn [from picking the Airborne Operation TO seven turns ago], so time to pick a target.




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Post #: 159
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/10/2018 11:36:27 AM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		The point of having to pick the Airborne TO's seven days before they are possible is to force us to do a little bit of planning. I'm going against that by picking a target now, but I think it's ok for us to do that. How the Allies picked and planned Market-Garden with only seven days warning seems incredible, but they had lots of practice as they canceled Airborne Operations about every week due to events outrunning the plans. By way of a little in-game compensation, I will drop the Para's before any other moves are made.
So I am looking at this area just south of the Ruhr. The US XIX Corp by coincidence has 'Remagen'd' the Ludendorff Bridge, and the US V Corp has reached the Rhine at Koblenz. Airdrops in the three highlighted areas probably have a good chance of sealing off the entire area and allowing US forces to build a strong bridgehead over the Rhine. From there they can move north to the Ruhr [although at this point the US is sufficiently far enough away to be out of the involvement in capturing the Ruhr].
If I understand the Supply Rules, all three AG's will be free of restrictions in twenty-five turns, and the last Supply Priority TO will happen in seven turns. That gives the US seven turns to make hay with the Airborne bridgehead, after which priority will shift back to the 21st AG, at which point I think they can finish off the Ruhr and win the game.




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Post #: 160
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/10/2018 11:37:09 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Airdrops completed.




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Post #: 161
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/10/2018 11:37:57 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Ground movement/combat completed.





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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/10/2018 11:38:40 AM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		Elmer's immediate reaction. Not much movement to the area, only one attack that pushed some Para's off a captured airfield.




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Post #: 163
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/11/2018 4:51:38 AM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		The Para operations worked very well, and there is now a huge bridgehead over the Rhine. There are traffic jams to deal with as US units stream north towards the Ruhr, which is just seven hexes beyond the northernmost Br Para unit at the top hex row of this shot. If the US troops can secure that seven hex gap, a large pocket of Germans will be in the bag.




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Post #: 164
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/11/2018 4:52:50 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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Status: offline 		There is something not quite right here, the Grey German units with the 'squad' symbol belong to the D-Day Reaction Force, and they withdraw when the breakout occurs [technically, they are disbanded by event which means they will not return]. They are replaced by the fieldgrey German units, like the one seen at the lower right. The fieldgrey units come in under strength and are partially filled out by the disbands, so this gives the Allied player the incentive to not let them survive to the disband point. So both type of units shouldn't be here at this point in the scenario. I'll have to do some investigating to see what the issue is. Meanwhile, resistance is a little stiffer than it normally would be.




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Post #: 165
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 6:27:49 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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Status: offline 		Been pushing hard north from Gummersbach toward Hagen but Elmer keeps thwarting me. He thinned out the line around Cologne to do so, and therefore the US units were able to push north thru that area toward Solingen. We are battling for every hex and waiting for all AG's to be released so that the full weight of the WAllies can be put into the attacks.




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Post #: 166
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 6:28:25 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Elmer probably can't hold on much longer. There are six more Ruhr Victory Locations that are still German held.




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Post #: 167
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 6:29:23 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		A turn later after capturing two of the six remaining Ruhr locations, I got this message and the scenario ended. I'd like to put a victory plaque in there instead of the stock one, but I don't think there is one. I mean, I think I could but it would be the same for both sides, which isn't appropriate.
I'm not too happy with the Victory Conditions. It should be that the scenario will end only when all of the Ruhr locations are captured by the Allies, and the Victory Level should depend on when that happens - May = Draw, April = Marginal, March = Significant, Feb = Overwhelming. I'd like it to be that way, so I'll have to look into changing it from the way it is now. Those 'Victory Level Boundaries' throw me off a bit as I'm not sure how they are calculated.




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Post #: 168
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 6:30:41 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Review:
The Victory Conditions and units returning that aren't supposed to are things that I'm sure I can straighten out. Other than those things there were very few changes that needed to be made as this scenario was played, such as a couple of spelling mistakes and removing some of the unnecessary rail lines.
The Coast Battery Suicide issue I can work on by setting up a test scenario and trying different settings. The False Supply Points and Double Turns are game engine things that I can't do anything about, so we'll have to wait for a patch to see if they get fixed.
I was concerned that Elmer wasn't blowing any bridges at all, then around turn 285 I noticed that he was. This is something that has been discussed in the past. There isn't anything the scenario designer's can do, it is up to the game engine to decide when conditions are right for blowing bridges. It could improve itself by not blowing bridges that put its own units out of supply, but I imagine that coding 'last one out blows the bridge' isn't a reasonable expectation.
Overall I have a lot of fun playing this scenario, and anyone who is into this sort of monster should also. It's a little different from most other scenarios due to all the Supply Rules. Even I can't remember all the specifics, but I know the general outline and can refer to the Briefing when necessary to clarify/verify things. With the above mentioned flaws it is still quite playable, and it will get better with a little more work.

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Post #: 169
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 9:46:49 AM   
MikeJ19


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Status: offline 		Steve,

Great job and I really enjoyed watching your approach. Thanks for much for sharing,

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Post #: 170
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/12/2018 8:38:58 PM   
Nicholas Bell

 

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From: Eagle River, Alaska
Status: offline 		Thanks for your detailed AAR, Steve. This should be stickied for future reference - the supply system is complicated!

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Post #: 171
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/13/2018 12:33:20 AM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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Status: offline 		Thanks guys.
I've deciphered the unit issue that is outlined in Post #165. It turned out to only affect two formations, the 2.Pz and 21.Pz div's, and in both cases it was an event boo-boo on my part. Also, it seems that the Supply Point bug mentioned in Post #36 can be manually avoided by editing them in the Editor. Working on that and will test it to make sure.

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Post #: 172
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/13/2018 11:32:56 AM   
gliz2

 

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Status: offline 		Blowing bridges is a tricky business especially at this scale (time- and mapscale).
I'm playing vs myself Overlord and I have noticed that in first turns playing Germans I was able to blow only 4 because otherwise I'd cut off my units or supply and counterattack routes.
I can imagine that poor Elmer must be completely lost.

Thanks for this very nice AAR. Will definitevely try this scenario.

All in all this falls short to John Tiller's PC:Normandy (I've played the 400 turns monster on this). The engine is not fit for the purpose. Seems the best is to stick to grand operations. Unfortunately I feel bit disappointed playing Overlord in TAOW.

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Post #: 173
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/13/2018 2:45:40 PM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
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Status: offline 		It is often easy to criticize Elmer, so before I do I like to think about how humans would behave in the same situation. You hit right on that in your assessment in that you did not want to blow bridges that would cut off your own units. However, there could be a situation where a human might want to leave a sacrificial rearguard on the wrong side of the river, and also if the human opponent knows that Elmer won't blow a bridge if his supply would be interrupted that might give the human an unfair advantage. As for counterattack concerns, the human player would have an appropriate engineer or river crossing unit available that would render the blown bridge a non issue.

Thanks for the comparison to Tiller's Normandy, feel free to go into more detail! I'd also be interested to hear comparisons to War in the West. I have neither. I understand your disappointment in Air and Naval Operations in TOAW and I won't defend them, especially not Amphibious Operations, but TOAW isn't designed for one specific thing as are other games, TOAW must try to cover everything. Therefore it is up to TOAW Scenario Designers to make things fit. This is not possible in every case though, but things were done in this scenario to alleviate some of the flaws.

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Post #: 174
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/14/2018 1:20:59 AM   
gliz2

 

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Status: offline 		Well as you said TAOW is aiming at covering everything which in the end means it fails at all.
If it would be periodic (like IIWW and around) it would probably be much better.
What it does good is the grand strategy like FITE2 where it shines. I have to say, personally I prefer TAOW to Gary Grigsby's any day (grand strategy).
But on operational scale John Tillers Panzer Campaigns most of the times beats TAOW hands down.
That difference in the scale playing Normandy or Market Garden makes such a difference. Hding up a bridge is more complex task and if the enemy is already on the other end you might simply fail to blow it.
In Overlord you have 2 turns per day which represents ****e. In Pz.Camp. you have 2 daylight turns and a night turn with specific rules. It makes a hell of a difference when you are moving German units or trying to attack during the night.

What is the biggest problem of TAOW is I have yet to see Elmer splitting the units and also most of Human players fail to do it. While it's fine on 1km scale on a 6-10km it's absurd. Becomes a parody of waregame where divisions or regiments are always moved as whole.
Furthermore both PC and TAOW suffer from godmod and perfect execution of orders.
For me perfect game would be combination of PC, TAOW and Combat Ops.

PS. You can give a try to Military Operations. Like the concept. Far from perfect but I find it both intriguing and challenging.

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Post #: 175
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/14/2018 1:49:31 PM   
sPzAbt653


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Status: offline 		Ok, well, I have to disagree with everything you say there, so no sense in continuing. Thanks for the comments though.

Updated v1.1 is now posted here:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4378627&mpage=1&key=�

Fixed the Supply Point and double units issues. Reworked the Victory Conditions, they work ok but I want them perfect and this will take a few run thru's to see if it's possible to get what I want. Meanwhile, it's quite playable, the Allies will still get a victory if they win.

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Post #: 176
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/14/2018 3:12:02 PM   
Curtis Lemay


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quote:

ORIGINAL: gliz2

In Overlord you have 2 turns per day which represents ****e. In Pz.Camp. you have 2 daylight turns and a night turn with specific rules. It makes a hell of a difference when you are moving German units or trying to attack during the night.


TOAW has specific rules for day and night.

quote:

Furthermore both PC and TAOW suffer from godmod and perfect execution of orders.


Except for units/formations that are reorganizing.

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Post #: 177
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/30/2018 7:16:26 AM   
CaptBeefheart


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Status: offline 		Great AAR! Thanks for doing this. I have decided to install this game based on this AAR (I bought it on sale a couple of months ago).

You had me fooled for a while, as I thought Elmer lived and breathed. It seems this would be tough for the allies if the German were human. Is it intended to be Allies vs. AI?

Cheers,
CB (ex-Commander Cody)



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Post #: 178
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/30/2018 12:02:35 PM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Ok, well, I have to disagree with everything you say there, so no sense in continuing. Thanks for the comments though.



Aye. Much has to do with how well a scenario designer uses what's there. Steve is one of the best and his scenarios are a great demo of how each scenario can almost be a different game in itself.

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Post #: 179
RE: D-Day to the Ruhr - 7/30/2018 3:08:40 PM   
sPzAbt653


Posts: 9511
Joined: 5/3/2007
From: east coast, usa
Status: offline 		Do you EVER say anything nice ?? Oh wait, you DID say something nice !! I am shocked, lol. Thanks very much.

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Post #: 180
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