Economy out of whack

[robbersonr]

After finally playing through a major portion of the game until it crashed to the desktop (late 1944), I started realizing that there is no limit on countries to build units. This became very apparent with the Axis minors, who continued to build and build and build units. By the time the game crashed, all of the southern Balkans were covered with Hungarian and Rumanian units competing with the Italians to see who got Greece (comically, due to the gridlock imposed by 3 nations fighting Greece, none could bring enough force to bear on Athens; the Greeks continued to reinforce the unit there everyturn).

But this points out the fallacy of not limiting the minors on their military and industrial capacity. Historically Hungary and Rumania did not have the industrial or population base to pump out units as simulated in the game.

[Vypuero]

something like a manpower or unit limit may make sense... The historic information is available - a good source is here but I also use a book - but now I forget name I will edit it when I remember.  Anyway, divisions and even corps are readily available - though they do take some reviewing to see what the reality of their composition and strength was.  This is one site: 
http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/index_01.htm

[winky51]

John Ellis  "The World War 2 Databook" has everything, and I mean everything you want for statistics.  Its slightly lacks in ship armor description but thats about it.

OOBs, battles, production, resources, What units were on which front, and so on.  If you like WW2 stats thats the book to get.

But yea there should be an upper limit on # of units a country can build and for several reasons.

UK + US: Even though they had a massive economy they simply couldnt supply an infinite # of men and machinary overseas. Too much oil, too many merchants needed, also the ports wouldnt be able to keep up the loading and unloading of supplies for such a massive army. The US 1st thought of a 200 division army but came to the supply conclusion and dropped it to ~90.

USSR: Their problem was manpower. By late in the war Russia ran out of men literally. They had no young men left to put in the front lines. So they should have a limit based on that

Germany: Their problem was oil. While they had synthetic plants, their own crude, and Romania they couldn't supply infinite panzer groups and aircraft with fuel. Also they started having a manpower problem late in the war.

[Toby42]

3R had a limitation on counters available by country. I agree that there should be some limits on what any country can build.

[doomtrader]

Petroleum or manpower are solutions that we can exclude at the very beginning, not this kind of game.

We will think about some kind of solution which may prevent minors from building huge armies.

[winky51]

simple force pool allocation should be sufficient.  If you wish I can pull the data off of my sources and give you them to you.  Actually I already made up a force pool list for a board game I was creating from this book.  let me know if you are interested.

[doomtrader]

All data is welcome.
[:)]

[Vypuero]

Ellis' book was the one I was thinking of - and I agree without a manpower/oil system then I suggest some kind of counter limit.  It could even be done by naming them so that they have names already, which would be easier than having them all "new unit" as a default - I like having names but not so much that I want to do research and remember what units I have named what when every time I build something new.  Corps are kind of harder since they have divisions in them, but some compromise can be worked out - some limited number of divisions + corps, but not every one of the divisions - and when you upgrade the division goes back in the pool and a new corps unit is pulled out - that kind of thing.

[Alex Gilbert]

Regarding the minor country force issue, how about implementing economic exhaustion-- the mechanism and code for this already exists with the war economy percentage. For the smaller countries, the war economy could fall after a certain point. It would leave them with the ability to replace (some) losses, but put further unit development beyond their resources. There is even a real life rationale for this in that smaller less developed economies overheat faster than larger more modern economies. Thus, Hungary would not be able to maintain its wartime economy with higher military spending but Germany or the US would not suffer this drop off (at least during the timeframe of the game).

I was originally going to suggest this be applied to all countries, but for play balance decided not to. Still, for the smaller countries, it should not impact balance too much.

[winky51]

Its harder to implement that code.  I simple counter to units being produced is easier for the programmers.
 
I will work on getting this list together for you.  The OOBs of all european powers.  I will give # of divisions of each type and a corp = X divisions amount.
 
The only problem I forsee is Russia.  They had smaller divisions than the rest of the european powers so I might have to do some adlibbing.

[Twotribes]

Yes. lets all argue about not being historical THEN demand force pools.

[doomtrader]

Amount of troops in divisions is a thought one
Yugoslavian has got around 30k
 
Polish Cavallery brigades were almost as large as german cavallery division
 
So the whole issue is not so easy.
What about SS volounteers.
 
There are many issues that impact size of potential constripcts. So I'm afraid that just putting a number of max div for a country is not the best option, but it might be only one which can save us from micromanagement or only one that can be implemented in the code.

[Twotribes]

How about we leave it like it is? I mean it is not like the game is completely in line with history anyway.

A couple people complain and games get changed. I see it happen in every game.

[doomtrader]

Twotribes,
We are listening into all the complains and all feedback.
 
If somebody came with a proposition and it is reasonably argued, then devs are discussing about it. We always considering playability, thats why Malta has been and why there is PBEM and little more in 1.20
 
The game never be perfect for all of you. One will want something to be like that and other in another way. We will never satisfy all of you and thats the reason why we put as many as possible in csv files. If you don't agree with our point of view, go ahead, change the game.
 
So nothing has ben said in this case until now, but we see that might be a problem.

[winky51]

In any game of this size there is a function of balance compared to complexity.  The more complex you make a system the higher chance it has to fail or have failures.  In regard to manpower/oil a force pool is a simple rule that covers that.  CEAW had both and the system had problems. 
 
This is a wargame not a historical recreation.  The game pushes history to a border that comes together with a good wargame without making it dull and predictable, like World in Flames.  You must have  a balance of both and I think my ideas don't overwork the system.
 
If you made the game pure historical it would be boring and predictable.  Realistically the moment Germany declared war on Russia they lost the war.  At best case they could stalemate them.  Realistically if the German's did EVERYTHING right they still lose the war with the allies to the a-bomb at worst case.

[Twotribes]

The problem is not force limits, the problem would be economies. If force limits are put in I suggest it be a preference toggle.

[Erik Rutins]

Another option would be to add a scaling "upkeep" cost for a certain number of units, which would eventually limit the smaller economies in terms of how many units they could support.

[doomtrader]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Another option would be to add a scaling "upkeep" cost for a certain number of units, which would eventually limit the smaller economies in terms of how many units they could support.

And that's exactly where we are heading to, also with a suggestion made by Twotribes - preference button.
ATM I can't say nothing about, we need to take a look into the code

[Twotribes]

Actually if you do the scaling that would be addressing the real problem , rather then forcing hard unit limits.

[doomtrader]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

Actually if you do the scaling that would be addressing the real problem , rather then forcing hard unit limits.

Why do you think that?