Boring Opening Moves?

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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neuromancer
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Boring Opening Moves?

Post by neuromancer »

In the AAR "The Anti Bolshevik Crusade - Tarhunnas vs Q-Ball" the topic of the giant Lvov pocket - and its predictability came up. Which made me think of the other predictable opening moves; the drive on Leningrad, the 2nd Pz.Gr. pushes east as fast as possible, the 'Riga Gambit;, and the Soviets form the 'carpet of ants', and so on.

In this AAR Q-ball was apparently using an older strategy.

Sabre 21 had this to say about that stratgey -
ORIGINAL: Sabre21
This was the common Soviet strategy when I began testing 2 1/2 years ago. [The Soviets] would fall back to some point, typically the Vyzama to Kharkov north south line, and entrench units in a carpet hoping they would be well dug in by the time the Germans could get there. Some of the guys refer to it as the Sir Robinsky strategy. The downside was the Germans moved unimpeded to that defensive line with little to no loss well before the Soviets could really dig in and easily break thru it.

I was exchanging email with an 'old' grognard I know, and we were talking about the typical strategy in East Front board games. What Sabre21 describes is pretty much the standard strategy of those games. Sort of.

"Using mostly regular rules, the only thing that keeps the Germans from over running the whole USSR in 1941 is their supply limits. When the Germans are in supply, the Soviets can't stop them in 41. Their only strategy is how much of their Army do they want to sacrifice to temporarily hold back the Germans at whatever river barrier they choose. Once the Germans break through, its flee!, run!, retreat! time for Uncle Joe's boys."

Of course movement in board games is far more predictable, plus entrenching is usually fairly easy and predictable. The standard theory for '41 Red Army always appears to be "delay them, and try to take some Fascists with you when you die for the Rodina!"

Not if, when.

As long as the Axis don't get too far before the mud and winter stops Axis operations for the year, its all good. Then the Soviet player rebuilds and starts some offensive operations in January of '42 which bloodies the nose of the German, mud comes, and then the Axis is back on the offensive. the '42 Red Army is typically stronger and more capable than the '41 Red Army (historically it was still rebuilding and re-thinking strategy in '42, so there was a mix of good and bad there), but the Wehrmacht is still in good shape, and that is when many consider the real fun to start, the '42 and '43 back and forth on the East front. In '42 the Axis should still be able to push forward, but not as quickly as in '41, and in '43 the balance starts to shift as the Red Army has really gotten its act together, and the Wehrmacht is starting to crack under the strain.

I know most old players probably know all this stuff, but I figured I'd recap for the less familiar.
Soviet strategy shifted then to the forward deployed use of the checkerboard followed by a series of linear defenses ending in a carpet around Moscow and other key objectives.

The checkerboard carpet (aka 'carpet of ants') gives me some concern as the Russian army of '41 wasn't really capable of anything particularly effective. Partly because they had units which were too cumbersome to organize in any kind of useful manner, partly because their actual equipment rarely included what they needed to do the job (when Lend-Lease started, the Americans shipped what they considered to be mostly obsolete junk to the Soviets, which the Soviets gladly took because it was often the difference between having something and nothing), partly because the majority of the army lacked any kind of useful training, but mostly because - thanks to Stalin - the majority of the army lacked any kind of coherent leadership at any level to organize something like a layered and checkerboard defense on that scale.

That isn't to say the Russians didn't perform any kind of defense against the Axis advance, just that they really didn't do any better than the Poles or the French (probably worse actually), they still made the Germans pay for ground, but they were following back rapidly, taking massively losses, and having whole armies captured.

So the evolved tactics that are in use for the Russians seem to be far more effective than they should be for what the Red Army was working with in '41.

At least the carpet of ants seems to be, several defensive lines behind rivers is more plausable, and an easier theory to impliment.

I suppose the way to measure this is simply this -

By the time the blizzards hit in December 1941, where should the Axis advance typically be? If its far short of the historical locations, then there is something wrong. If its far in advance of the historical locations, there is something wrong.

If however - all things being roughly equal - the Germans are in the right general area of historical locations, then we can probably say "close enough" and move on.

I'm not sure that the last is the case though, it seems to be that the Germans are typically coming up short (although I could be wrong on this, I'm sure this will come as a surprise, but I have actually been wrong before. A surprise I know, but true. [:D])

It can be argued that the Germans did historically nearly optimum and that the Soviets did very poorly. I would argue that this is probably inaccurate, and even if it is accurate, that it is irrelivant.

As has been said, this game is not about exactly recreating the events of the actual War in the East, because we all know how that turned out and can read a book about it. Nor is it about creating an environment where the Soviet player can avoid all the mistakes of history while the German is railroaded into certain activities by the limited necessity of his situation.

The giant Lvov pocket - for example - is a strategy the German player is largely forced to take (at least if he wants to have any chance of doing well). To not try for the Lvov pocket is to allow a lot of Soviet forces to escape and return to haunt the German player later, forces that generally shouldn't be escaping. As it seems very difficult to create the historical Kiev pocket (which resulted in at least 400,000 captured soldiers - for all practical purposes four Soviet field armies and 40 some divisions destroyed), the Axis player has to grab the Lvov pocket because he is unlikely to ever get the opportunity again.

The problem with creating large pockets in the game after turn 1 is that even with FOW the players have way too good of information, and the players will do everything they can to get troops out of those pockets before its too late. In reality it was usually too late to escape by the time they realized what had happened, and that is because their information was usually too narrow of scope, and larger scale data was out of date. Heck in those days you couldn't even be 100% sure where all your own units were, let alone where the enemy was!

Obviously that is the nature of the beast with this kind of game. It is almost impossible to create a true sense of the real Fog of War that existed for the General Staff in those days.

Anyway... I'm rambling.

I guess the point of this post is this.

1. Is the Soviet 'checkerboard carpet' or carpet of ants defense too effective, and thus slowing the Axis advance too effectively, too far from where they should be able to reach in '41? Or is the Axis player able to reach the December 5 line as they should, in which case while ahistorical, the checkerboard carpet is a difference that makes no difference, so who cares?

1.a. I suppose a sub question is whether it is even possible for the Axis player to exceed those objectives? Yes it should be hard, and it may require the Soviet player to screw up, but is it even possible without the Soviet player simply not playing?

2. Is there really no variation in the strategy for the players in the begining of the game? Is the Axis player forced into a certain path in order to reach said Dec. 5 objectives, while the Soviet player is similarly forced into a certain path in order to prevent the Axis from advancing too far and causing too much damage?

Notably, many War in the East games do have a pretty standard 1941 game. The question is merely how the dice land, and whether any minor variations allow either side to adjust the end of November positions to a small degree. It could be argued that the real game starts in '42 and that '41 is more about the manuevering to create the '42 situation.
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Klydon
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Klydon »

Unlike any other Russian theater game, the PG1 panzer/mech units that are frozen on turn 1 pretty much force the Germans to send at least some help to AGS from AGC on turn 1. Not to do so pretty much means the bulk of good Russian units escapes the initial onslaught. Not bagging this mess early means a huge uphill issue for the Germans, not only in the south, but in other locations as well. With no massive destruction in the south, that means re-enforcements can be rerouted to the center and north. The frozen panzer units make it tough to put a lot of variety in any German plans. I have discussed it in the past. They will never be available in the "standard version", but there are mods that make them available to give the Germans some help.

A lot of this is "stick and carrot" stuff. Leningrad simply offers a big bonus to the Germans if they can capture it during 1941. In addition to forcing major industrial centers to move, freeing up the Finns to more actively participate is also huge. No other objective on the board offers such tangible benefits to the Germans with perhaps the exception of Baku (oil) which is likely beyond the Germans reach in a normal game. Moscow offers no additional benefit to being captured other than the displacement of industry and pop centers getting knocked out. There is no moral reduction or anything else like that. (That should change in my opinion).

I also agree that between two players of pretty equal skill, the Germans are simply not going to get to the 1941 high water mark. They also will not inflict the losses the Russians historically took. In turn this means that while the Germans will be able to partially avoid the issues of the first winter, they are still going to get blasted by a stronger than historical Russian army that is likely run in a more efficient manor as well.

Good variations in the German campaign strategy will not take place until multiple spots give tangible benefits to the Germans for capturing them. Until then, the Germans are likely to continue to send units south from AGC (the only variation being how much) and Leningrad will likely remain a priority target.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by neuromancer »

That makes sense, with so few obviously valuable strategic objectives, of course they are going to do the same thing every time, to do anything else would just be silly.

<edit>

I was just looking at a map of where the German army was on Dec. 5, 1941, and they were a lot further than I had thought. I knew they were close to Moscow, and had largekly enveloped Leningrad, but hadn't know they had a bulge there that probably close to severing the ice road. In the south they were MUCH further along than I had thought, having enveloped Sevastapol, reached Rostov, Izyum, and Kharkov, plus in the center Kursk was over run.

While I won't claim to being a strategic genius, and I admit to still working on my game, I don't get anywhere close to these points even against the AI. Yeesh.

Either I suck - a lot (and I won't rule it out) - or there is a problem. Whether I suck that much or not (and frankly, I hope its just me!), if you need to be on the level of Guderian or Manstein to do well at this game as the Germans - especially against the AI - then there is a problem!
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by tigercub »

To me just putting the russian industry on rail and getting away, i think its far too easy for the Russians to do, its not a true repersentation of what the russian could do i feel as yet.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by heliodorus04 »

Neuromancer:

Nice post.
Starting toward the end, you're not as good a player as you need to be until you can beat the AI on normal in 1942.&nbsp; So in that respect, some of it is you, but don't worry, we all failed that our first time or three.&nbsp; I set my 'proficiency goal' of taking Leningrad/Moscow/Kharkov/Rostov before blizzard, and from there it works out pretty well for you (well, this was under 1.03).

We're certainly talking a lot about the 'brigade artificial mud defense' (I just named it that) elsewhere, and I do not want to rehash any of that here.&nbsp; Suffice it to say some people think that's a big problem (including me), even if we don't know how to fix it.

Klydon is right that Leningrad becomes the sine quo non focus of 1941 by virtue of the fact that it's the only geographic location that provides any tangible benefit.&nbsp; Unless something else becomes a reward for the German to own and hold, Leningrad is the only no-brainer of 1941.

I agree very much that the opening moves of 1941 are both necessary and boring.&nbsp; The whole first turn for the German is pretty dull, with (at least speaking for me) looking at someone else's AAR first-turn moves and replicating them, trying not to move one single panzer division into the wrong hex.

One of the reasons I gave up Rise and Fall of the Third Reich when I was like, 15 years old and swore never to play it again is because it was the exact same game every single time.&nbsp; You set up France a specific way and never deviate. You set up the Soviets the same way and never deviate. Yawn.&nbsp; And that game excited people, for some reason I never really understood.

Again, speaking for me, WitE is losing some of its luster because a properly played game by competent players of each side will see trench warfare develop in about 1943, with the Soviet looking at 100 turns of beating Germany with a slow, heavy club, and Germany trying to keep anything major from getting broken.&nbsp; I am starting to forecast a future in which games are only really fun until 1943 anyway, unless changes come along.&nbsp; Don't ask me what those changes should be.

There are some real problems in the absence of historical command and control limitations, I think.&nbsp; Both sides benefit greatly from hindsight of history, and from awareness beforehand of what is necessary to perform at peak efficiency.
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Micke II
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Micke II »

The only way to avoid such repetition and predictability of opening moves is to put in place a turn 0 where the players could set up their armies and units as they want on the map inside defined zones. Distribution of the soviet industry could also change between different games. The most predictable are the wheather conditions of winter 41/42. In the reality Germans have not anticipated such low temperatures. So why not have, between different games, random winter conditions making possible to have a mild 41/42 winter and a very harsh in 42/43 or 43/44 or the reverse.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Aussiematto »

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

I was just looking at a map of where the German army was on Dec. 5, 1941, and they were a lot further than I had thought. I knew they were close to Moscow, and had largekly enveloped Leningrad, but hadn't know they had a bulge there that probably close to severing the ice road. In the south they were MUCH further along than I had thought, having enveloped Sevastapol, reached Rostov, Izyum, and Kharkov, plus in the center Kursk was over run.

While I won't claim to being a strategic genius, and I admit to still working on my game, I don't get anywhere close to these points even against the AI. Yeesh.

I can assure you it's not the game when playing the AI. It is definitely possible to beat the AI, set on normal, and playing in 1.03, by the end of 1942. The problem is, usually, knowing when to STOP, not how do I get so far. Under 1.04.22 it could be a lot tougher I expect -- poorer HQ buildup for Germans, toughter defence while pocketed for the Russians, better partisan activity. My last game, under 1.04.16, I reached Tambov by the start of winter (a practice vs the AI to test a theory ... I had moscow, leningrad, Rostov, Sevastapol etc).


The way to do it is to read the AARs. I learned all I needed from the great ppl here -- PDH's Baltic railline strategy, the HQ buildup sneak (now gone, probably fair enough), the Riga gambit and so on. It's just about practice I guess.

But I don't find the opening boring so much as nerve wracking (because of the need to get everything right). Where the game becomes really not boring is on turn 2... I have just started two games and one pretty much the same thing on each first turn (well, not quite...I have two quite different AGS openings but they have ended up pretty much the same because of the russian reaction). BUT each game is going in a completely different direction already because the two Russian players have different approaches. One seems to be running to the Dnepr / Luga; the other is chequerboarding and forward defending Pskov. Brilliant! I have two completely different games now to play.

So, it's not about a turn zero, but about a turn 2 :) Turn 1 is already, effectively, Turn zero.

That said, A turn zero could be fun though it might need some limits...eg perhaps only some units could move and they would have to be in historically consistent positions and the Russians would not be able to do some completely ahistorical repositioning (I would favour APs as the way to limit moves... Germans have some units they can move up from the rear to the front lines, or be in different positions, but each change reduces APs in some way; Russians can change some units around into same positions maybe to put better defenders in some hexes?)


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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by saintsup »

ORIGINAL: Micke II

The only way to avoid such repetition and predictability of opening moves is to put in place a turn 0 where the players could set up their armies and units as they want on the map inside defined zones.

+1
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by tigercub »

ORIGINAL: saintsup

ORIGINAL: Micke II

The only way to avoid such repetition and predictability of opening moves is to put in place a turn 0 where the players could set up their armies and units as they want on the map inside defined zones.

+1
+2 for both sides with set zones.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves?

Post by Tarhunnas »

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

In the AAR "The Anti Bolshevik Crusade - Tarhunnas vs Q-Ball" the topic of the giant Lvov pocket - and its predictability came up.

So, I'm an example of the predictable and boring! [X(]. Should I take this as sign that I need to be more exciting? Hope my wife doesn't think the same...[;)]
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RE: Boring Opening Moves?

Post by Uxbridge »

ORIGINAL: neuromancer


The problem with creating large pockets in the game after turn 1 is that even with FOW the players have way too good of information, and the players will do everything they can to get troops out of those pockets before its too late. In reality it was usually too late to escape by the time they realized what had happened, and that is because their information was usually too narrow of scope, and larger scale data was out of date. Heck in those days you couldn't even be 100% sure where all your own units were, let alone where the enemy was!


Good post; valid observations Necromancer!

In my current PBEM Grand Campaign I'm constantly annoyed by the above problem. I break the front as the Germans and start to encircle the Russians. My opponent opts for the sir Robin tactic and moves away hell for leather. Next turn there's a new line 4-5 hexes away, while I have to stop and mop up the few units actually caught in the pockets. Then I have to advance into enemy territory at a much slower pace than my retreating enemy.

I wish that ground HQ's had to use ADM points to activate. If you wanted to have a HQ activated on game turn 2 you had to activate it in game turn 1. If the HQ is inactive during the present turn, the units fight and behave normally, but have drastically reduced movement capabilities. This way the player have to think ahead: where will his own offensives fall and where might the enemy attack. In the beginning of the game, the USSR player should be lacking in ADM.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by pat.casey »

ORIGINAL: tigercub

ORIGINAL: saintsup

ORIGINAL: Micke II

The only way to avoid such repetition and predictability of opening moves is to put in place a turn 0 where the players could set up their armies and units as they want on the map inside defined zones.

+1
+2 for both sides with set zones.

I like the idea, but I don't think such a move would be neutrally balanced. Initial soviet positions in '41 and '42 are pretty bonkers, giving them a free setup, even with constrains like "has to be within 10 hexes of the polish border" is going to tip game balance even further away from the axis.

To balance something like this you'd have to give the axis some offsetting advantage like more units or start the game with Rommania and Finland active.

Imho it'd work in a "what if" scenario, but not as part of the current "historical" scenario.

Mind you I'd probably enjoy a well done "what if" scenario more than umpteen repetitions of the historical model, but that's another issue :).
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Flaviusx »

A free setup for the Soviets is an autowin for them, more or less, and will allow them to minimize pockets on turn 1. Not a good idea.

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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Rafo35 »

If you don't want boring opening move, just don't make them.

Some think Leningrad is a no brainer in 41 ? Then make a credible feint toward it the first few turns (until Pskov is taken for instance) and then redirect PZG4 quickly on your true goal (forget about Riga -> it could be done in the world of Star Trek but not in WWII, plus it's a panzerkorps sent in the wrong place to begin with).

If you want to strike strongly in the south, then you could send the whole of PZG 2 there and look for a bigger fish than the T1 Lvov pocket. Or maybe it's the PZG 1 frozen unit that should move north ?
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Flaviusx »

For whatever it is worth, I recently saw Andy make a very interesting opener in AGS which strikes for Proskurov to cut all the rail lines leading into Lvov but does NOT pocket the area in turn 1. Rather, it sets up AGS for a pocket on turn 2, a bigger and more solidly held one. It also allowed him to maintain more pressure towards Kiev proper and my sense was the German infantry marched faster since it used turn 1 to gain positions to the east rather than to lock down a pocket.

So there's still some room for variations.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Aussiematto »

Like your style... and yes there ARE variations but, to be honest, most of the first turn has to be a certain way to achieve the 'pocket all the Russians possible' outcome (and you need that to then allow for the creativity in later turns).

I think what the threaders are saying (and I don't necessarily agree with them) is that they don't like the boring similarity of each individual divisional move.

For example in every game I play, i use a rear corps in 4th army with 2 divs to clear the frontier near Brest-Litovsk, then use the 3 divs to make exactly the same move each time down to blast through B-L (and yes, I know, you can very occasionally get a held result got one once vs the AI and dread it happening in a real game), and then those three units do exactly the same followup each time, etc etc.

But as I said, I think that IS the 'set up'; the variations come in T2 (as you rightly point out... the frozen popiscle panzers could rush north). There's got to be creative way of using the Pripyat marshes too, but I am too dumb think what it is.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by saintsup »

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

A free setup for the Soviets is an autowin for them, more or less, and will allow them to minimize pockets on turn 1. Not a good idea.


Nobody's talking about a free set-up.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Flaviusx »

Saintsup, doesn't have to be a completely free setup. Zones, sufficiently broadly defined, will be enough.

The plain fact of the matter is the Soviet setup is about as bad as it can be, and almost any change to it will improve their situation.
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by Farfarer61 »

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The plain fact of the matter is the Soviet setup is about as bad as it can be, and almost any change to it will improve their situation.

Well, you could make them have all the Mech Corps right on the borders west of Bialystok and Lvov, unfortified, ready to "attack" - that might be worse :)
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RE: Boring Opening Moves

Post by PeeDeeAitch »

For the record, while many of my openings have been similar, there are changes. I have experimented of late with other moves as well. The "same opening" is also in part because we as players are all about at the same point in our learning. I expect more interesting things in the future.

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