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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> RE: Soviet Guards

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RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 12:10:32 PM

Speedysteve

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Looks like someone is being a massive douche

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Post #: 31

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 4:55:32 PM

tyronec

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quote:

@tyronec: My suggestion is a pragmatic one. I dont think that the devs will take extra time now to rebuild the guard system. AFAIK that would take too much time and has the possibility of messing up other things.

Increasing the number of wins needed from 9 to 11-12 while at the same time cutting down the percentage of units that can become guard will do the job. The percentage reductions will nerf the farming wins strategy.

If there are players that are not farming guards, especially during winter, then they need to start doing so. The current system is not optimal, true, but coming up with a better one and then implementing it is no easy task.

We are in agreement that getting the percentages of guards better is really going to resolve the issue. If that were done then the rest is less important.

However the wins system of promotion is just a poor aspect of the game, it rewards a form of play that is not quite right and that players have to adopt it to optimise their army seems to me to just be an acknowledgement that the system is wrong. I don't see much reason why it could not be replaced by something better and fairly simple. How about a very small percentage chance of one promotion every time a there is a battle which the Soviets win that is against the odds.

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Post #: 32

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 5:01:36 PM

HardLuckYetAgain

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I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

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Post #: 33

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 5:04:08 PM

Stamb

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If division is performing poorly - why would it get guard status?

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Post #: 34

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 5:18:27 PM

HardLuckYetAgain

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

If division is performing poorly - why would it get guard status?

If nothing is happening on the Western front why send the SS and/or other division at predetermined times per historical? Same principle.

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Post #: 35

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 5:45:25 PM

tyronec

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quote:

I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

That could work. Makes more sense than the present system.
Would need to look at how to deal with combined units, so if a guard corps was created historically how to relate that with players forming their own corps.

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Post #: 36

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 6:13:18 PM

Teemu1986

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

Who knows if the division will exist in the game? And will it be the same division if it has been destroyed and reconstituted?

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Post #: 37

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 6:53:33 PM

Stamb

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
...
Suggestion would be to:
1. Review the number of units eligible to become Guards over the course of the game.
2. Guards promotion occurs as a result of an exceptionally good combat result rather than primarily on a cumulative number of Wins.

I like second option.

And this is how i see it

In order to get a guard status you still need N victory points (maybe 8 as right now is too low, maybe it is too high).
If division wins a battle against:
1 regiment - it gets 1/3 of a point
2 regiments - 2/3 of a point
3 regiments/divisions - 1 point

Or something similar. Axis allies are 0.25 for the whole division! Exception is Finns. They count as normal German divisions.

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Post #: 38

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 7:20:27 PM

Stamb

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Holding/taking cities can also give some benefits towards guard promotion.

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Post #: 39

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/3/2022 10:27:59 PM

MechFO

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Guards unit cap, just as Axis NM, should IMO be determined by total losses.

Guards represent the benefit of accumulated experience from prior failed operations. Refuse to engage in operations and don't get the historical benefits either.

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Post #: 40

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 1:35:00 PM

AlbertN

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Truthfull how Guards are treated here is a pure Soviet Wet Fantasy.

I may say -historically-, and know of what I speak, but the fact is in front of everyone.

A Guard Unit gets promoted on the field. That does not mean that 'magically' the unit is 'better'. (The game treats National Morale as 'National Average Human Material & Training Quality')

There is the fundamental difference in how an Axis elite unit is (Factually created with criterias of human material selection pretty much).

Soviet Guards were veterans (yes that is covered by Experience at this stage and Unit Morale that can go above the 'national average human material & training quality' ahem ... National Morale').
So a Soviet unit wins battles, get some morale points, gets experience for its ground elements - there, Guard Unit.
That's in no less way the same behaviour your mundane German Division ought to have.

What should a realistic and historically coherent Guard Unit?
Larger TOE? Yes.
Prioritized reinforcements? Yes. You do that via REFIT! (As I am sure many Axis players keep on Refit the SS / Elite formations)
Superior Personnel by default? No.

It's in front of everyone - I repeat. A unit that wins some battles already gain morale / experience. To have a sudden oomph up ... is pure magic.
Soviet Guards then were oft used as spearheads / core units for relevant offensives, thus kept up a good 'training level' by getting their own troops to bleed and fight persistently.

If there is an admittance that 'it is a completely and fully ahistorical game mechanic for the sake of the game balance and the shifting of strategic initiative' this is a totally different matter.

Ideally Guards should lose their +10 NM, have expanded ToE, and their HQ should have a +1 Morale maybe (as SS HQs should get it) to represent a slight of added motivation / prestige of the unit / fanaticism.

Either that, or Germans should get their 'Veteran' promotions too! Win battles, *snaps finger* magically soldiers get ubermensh too!

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Post #: 41

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 1:46:28 PM

Jango32

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Guards get higher national morale simply because it's to help them perform better in combat due to how the mechanics work. Morale seems to have a higher share in unit performance than individual TOE element experience.

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Post #: 42

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 1:54:59 PM

AlbertN

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I agree with that statement. What I am saying is that it is a pure game mechanic. Simple as.

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Post #: 43

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 9:34:41 PM

colberki

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IMHO Soviet Guard Unit farming is a clear exploit of a game system weakness. I don't do it as Soviet player and I also seek agreement from my Soviet opponent to also "play" historically.

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Post #: 44

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 9:47:31 PM

RedJohn

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Guards farming is a necessity if you want to have a strong 42 as the Soviets. You get guards rifle corps immediately as soon as you can scrape together 2 guards. These will be your heaviest hitters for a long, long time.

I do think it's gamey but on the list of things the soviets can do to game the system, it's not a particularly big problem I think. It would be nice if guards promotions was more complex than simply "win battles", though.

Both sides can farm wins, however. Typically you'll see some axis players do it for Romanians to get above their atrocious national morale.

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Post #: 45

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/4/2022 9:57:29 PM

tyronec

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quote:

IMHO Soviet Guard Unit farming is a clear exploit of a game system weakness. I don't do it as Soviet player and I also seek agreement from my Soviet opponent to also "play" historically.

That is a perfectly reasonable position to start from, but how can you possibly implement in practice ?

It is normal play for the Soviets to gang up on weak Axis units to cause casualties with a good loss ratio and increase their own units morale and experience. Sometimes it goes wrong and costs the Soviets heavy losses. It is all a fine judgement and guesstimate of when an attack is worth it or not.

It also farms wins that produce guards units. That is going to be part of the assessment as to whether to make an attack or not. Is it possible to not take this into account knowing it has a major impact on the game, or to assess if your opponent is doing more attacks than can be justified - I wouldn't want to play a game under those sort of conditions.

The resolution has to be to take farming wins out of equation for creating guards.
The simple solution is to get the guards percentages more appropriate. How they are created doesn't need to be complicated, maybe even make it just one win and then all Soviets players would get similar amounts, as Axis do for elite units.

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Post #: 46

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/5/2022 12:45:19 AM

Lurberri

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec

It is normal play for the Soviets to gang up on weak Axis units to cause casualties with a good loss ratio and increase their own units morale and experience...

The resolution has to be to take farming wins out of equation for creating guards.
The simple solution is to get the guards percentages more appropriate. How they are created doesn't need to be complicated, maybe even make it just one win and then all Soviets players would get similar amounts, as Axis do for elite units.

In my opinion the Guard units are as "veteran" as any "normal" German unit with some time on the front...and I doubt they can be considered "elite" in the same sense of elite Wehrmacht units, probably yes at the level of replacements and weapons, but not at the level of human elite, they do not represent a selection of the most suitable.

Having said that, that would be ideal... but I don't know to what extent this mechanic, at the moment, is essential for the further Soviet advance (at least for the AI). Although what you propose seems to me the most coherent (and I would prefer it to be) I would like to know how the Soviet AI works without that extra spearhead with added steroids.

In any case, whatever treatment those units receive at the NM level, at least the most sensible thing would be for the Guard units to be numerically as close to the real amount as possible, after all, the German player also cannot have more SS units or "Grossdeutschlands" than the real ones.

< Message edited by Lurberri -- 2/5/2022 12:46:46 AM >

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Post #: 47

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/7/2022 5:18:59 AM

Hardradi

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If you Surrender a Soviet unit with Wins (destroy it), when it comes back does it still show those Wins?

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RE: Soviet Guards - 2/7/2022 9:35:38 AM

carlkay58

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No it has its Win/Loss counts cleared.

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Post #: 49

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/7/2022 8:04:03 PM

Hardradi

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Thanks carlkay58

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Post #: 50

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 8:28:44 AM

loki100

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something to bear in mind, if you merge a non-Gds brigade or division to create a corps it sheds its original win total, so while in WiTE1 (if I recall) this was retained and you could build on that total to eventually push the Corps to Gds status, in WiTE2 the corps is created with 0 wins - and needs to gain the wins for Gds status in its corps configuration (unless its created as Gds - if so it still has 0 wins but that doesn't really matter)

Confession

- not sure how this is handled if the corps breaks down/rebuilds - I *think* the sub units take the unit wins and bring back that plus their individual wins. I'm pretty sure about the break down/retain but really not sure about what happens to wins accrued while broken down

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Post #: 51

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 10:07:13 AM

tyronec

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quote:

something to bear in mind, if you merge a non-Gds brigade or division to create a corps it sheds its original win total, so while in WiTE1 (if I recall) this was retained and you could build on that total to eventually push the Corps to Gds status, in WiTE2 the corps is created with 0 wins - and needs to gain the wins for Gds status in its corps configuration (unless its created as Gds - if so it still has 0 wins but that doesn't really matter)

Confession - not sure how this is handled if the corps breaks down/rebuilds - I *think* the sub units take the unit wins and bring back that plus their individual wins. I'm pretty sure about the break down/retain but really not sure about what happens to wins accrued while broken down

Are you sure about this ?
I thought I had seen a rifle division in a rifle corps being promoted and then the corps being promoted without the corps having 9 wins in itself. But I may be mistaken.

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Post #: 52

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 1:58:09 PM

Denniss

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AFAIR in Rifle and Cav Corps the basic units retain their individuality and their victory count (just shown when split i believe).
So if you have built a non-guard corps with one guards div and later another div of the corps divs get promoted then the corps is force-update to guards as 2/3rd of their units have individual guards status.

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Post #: 53

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 4:36:29 PM

jubjub

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quote:

To exemplify my situation, again, in the game vs Loki....up to September 1943....I've 78 units (including SU) that have 9+ wins that are non-Guards....I'm not swimming in them....

You need to remove the HQ units for this table to have relevance since they don't get upgraded in the same way.

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Post #: 54

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 4:41:13 PM

Beethoven1

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Denniss

So if you have built a non-guard corps with one guards div and later another div of the corps divs get promoted then the corps is force-update to guards as 2/3rd of their units have individual guards status.

I can confirm, I had this happen in StB, where a non-Guards rifle corps upgraded to Guards after 2 of the 3 divisions in the Rifle Corps upgraded to Guards Divisions.

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Post #: 55

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 4:49:58 PM

Speedysteve

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@Jubjub - Has full relevance before as it does now as it was sorted that way then without HQ's...89 units now. Showing all units as I don't care if Loki sees them now:

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< Message edited by Speedysteve -- 2/8/2022 4:50:42 PM >

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RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 4:58:11 PM

xhoel

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nvm

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Post #: 57

RE: Soviet Guards - 2/8/2022 5:23:07 PM

jubjub

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quote:

@Jubjub - Has full relevance before as it does now as it was sorted that way then without HQ's...89 units now. Showing all units as I don't care if Loki sees them now:

Oh I misread the first table since I thought the HQ names were the unit names.

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Post #: 58