Directive 21 playtesters thread

[sPzAbt653]

I think it's too early in the scenario at that point to expect Elmer to have that kind of success. We can argue that the historical Soviet '41 winter offensive pushed the Axis back, but when we play the Axis side in this scenario we don't end up in the same position as the Axis historically put themselves in in front of Leningrad and Moscow.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Does freeezing happen that far south?

I believe it does, when it gets cold enough. The Kerch straits would freeze, therefore any shallow hexes north of there would also freeze.

The Kerch Strait does freeze indeed..
Check out this passage in Soviet Documents on the Use of War Experience By Harold Steven Orenstein

http://books.google.com/books?id=gDvct4 ... &ct=result

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

I think it's too early in the scenario at that point to expect Elmer to have that kind of success. We can argue that the historical Soviet '41 winter offensive pushed the Axis back, but when we play the Axis side in this scenario we don't end up in the same position as the Axis historically put themselves in in front of Leningrad and Moscow.

Let me clarify: I wouldn't advance beyond the historical lines.

[sPzAbt653]

But I'm still not clear as to what you are saying. Is it that you want to see if Elmer can reproduce the Soviet success in the winter '41 offensive? If that's it, what I'm saying is, to be fair to Elmer, the Axis would have to be in the same position they were historically, low supply, low replacements, in unprepared positions and unable to move. No human would play in a way to put the Axis in that position. This isn't a Barbarossa simulation, this is a 'what could you have done different if you were in charge of the Axis' simulation. On the other hand, maybe I am completely missing what you are saying. [:(]

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

But I'm still not clear as to what you are saying. Is it that you want to see if Elmer can reproduce the Soviet success in the winter '41 offensive? If that's it, what I'm saying is, to be fair to Elmer, the Axis would have to be in the same position they were historically, low supply, low replacements, in unprepared positions and unable to move. No human would play in a way to put the Axis in that position. This isn't a Barbarossa simulation, this is a 'what could you have done different if you were in charge of the Axis' simulation. On the other hand, maybe I am completely missing what you are saying. [:(]

Well, not quite in those positions(low supply&replacements, unable to move). But I wouldn't caputre the important cities(Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, or anythign beyond historical advance) and leave the AI with plenty of production and units and see if it can use them to good effect(ie to any succees).

[fogger]

[font="times new roman"]I am currently on turn 83 which is a “Thaw turns roads to mud and hinders all operations”. I have found that when I move some air units they will not move directly to the new airfield if there is a hex which has reverted to soviet control in their path. The air units hit the soviet hex and stops. For example if I want to move from point A to D the unit will not directly go there. I have to go to B, C, D, H, J etc. This appears to be mainly in my deep rear areas where I have few or no units or where I do not have a solid front line. [/font]

[SMK-at-work]

Yeah I had the same in the 1st 10 turn mud-break - there's no offensive ops allowed, so air units are not allowed to transit over hexes you do not own such as river hexes you haven't converted, or sea hexes.

Another small point - I haven't seen any Soviet partisans at all in the 1st 46 turns.....I'm pretty sure htere were a couple of units already in FITE?

[sPzAbt653]

Air unit movement during cease-fire/mud turns.

During these turns no friendly unit can move thru enemy controlled hexes, so air units will not cross any major river or water hexes in enemy control. The major river hexes are easy to identify and convert, but the water hexes are not, as it's not readily apparent as to who 'owns' them. For anyone who wants to know, here's the short version of how the ownership of water hexes takes place. When a map is created, all hexes are owned by player 1 by default. Once the map is complete and units are placed, an 'auto-ownership' feature can be run in the editor, allowing the computer to convert hex ownership based on unit deployment. However, this does not affect water hexes, so they all remained 'Soviet owned'. We manually converted all the water hexes on the 'Axis side' of the map in order to reduce the effect on air units during cease turns, but there are still cases where the player will run into this. A friendly naval unit moving thru a water hex will convert it, but there are many areas on the map where this is not possible.

[sPzAbt653]

Soviet partisans.

In FitE, the way that I played the partisan game was to use security and mp units to surround them. Then I could leave them be and concentrate on the game. Occasionally one would attack and break out, and I'd have to spend the time moving my little units to chase around his little units until they were surrounded again. Destroying them does nothing as they only came back later.To me this was all a big waste of time. The only effect that partisans have is to tie up my security and mp units, while wasting my time. I think that every player has noticed that as the scenario progressed, you have to devote more and more of your units to 'fighting' partisans as more of them appeared. So for the original v653 I came up with a schedule for removing German security and mp units as the scenario progressed, while taking the Soviet partisan units out of the oob. To me, this had the same overall effect, but greatly increased the playability. This feature carried over to D21. I know some players are fans of the partisans and don't like this, but most players have been in agreement with the change. Also of importance was the fact that removing the partisans created several unit slots for the Soviet side, and these are definately needed whenever they can be found.

The partisans that arrive for the Soviet summer '44 offensive are still in, so if anybody makes it that far, watch your rear!

[sPzAbt653]

Cease fire turns.

I just remembered that the original files that were sent out didn't contain the manually converted water/sea hexes. This occurred on 11-15-08, so files dated prior to that will experience more of the 'air units not crossing water hexes' during the cease turns. If you are playing with one of the early files, a friendly naval unit can convert those sea hexes, although you can't visibly tell when they are converted.

Not just because of this issue, but under consideration is the elimination of the cease fire turns, replacing them with negative shock. I'm no fan of negative shock, but after my recent experience with 11 turns of 80% shock after the Typhoon offensive, I am leaning towards shock being a better model of the mud turns than the cease fires. I plan to take the Citadel TO, which comes up around turn 190, in order to experience prolonged negative shock again. The main consideration would be that during mud/cease fire turns, there is no chance of the enemy interfering with you, while you can move unrestricted thru friendly territory. During mud/negative shock turns, supply goes down, unit strengths are reduced, movement and combat are greatly restricted (but still possible in a limited capacity).

If anybody else has experience with or thoughts on extended (10 turns) heavy negative shock and its' effect on the scenario, we'd like to hear.

Thanks.

[SMK-at-work]

IIRC Buzz did -ve shock in the last version or 2 of his mod for hte mud turns & we played it up to T40 - seemed fine as I recall - but there was another bug after that...:/

I don't recall what value he had tho.

[fogger]

My file is dated 22 Oct 08 and I think the negative shock is a good idea.

[sPzAbt653]

Sorry about that Mr. Fogger. When the cease turns end, you can take one of your naval units and move him around the Baltic to convert those hexes for the next cease period. Can't do anything with the lake areas though, as no naval units can get there. [:@]

Except for Elmer, he can reconstitute naval units on the lakes. We have changed it so that fleet is ordered to withdraw when Leningrad falls. [:'(]

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

I don't recall what value he had tho.

Based on what I saw with a value of 80, I was thinking it could be a good bit less than that. A wise man has told me that 75 should be low enough. I haven't run any tests yet to see what might be best.

[fogger]

No problem. Just giving feedback and my Christian name is John.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Sorry about that Mr. Fogger. When the cease turns end, you can take one of your naval units and move him around the Baltic to convert those hexes for the next cease period. Can't do anything with the lake areas though, as no naval units can get there. [:@]

Except for Elmer, he can reconstitute naval units on the lakes. We have changed it so that fleet is ordered to withdraw when Leningrad falls. [:'(]

Darn, I thought I'd fixed that.[&:] I wonder what went wrong?

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Sorry about that Mr. Fogger. When the cease turns end, you can take one of your naval units and move him around the Baltic to convert those hexes for the next cease period. Can't do anything with the lake areas though, as no naval units can get there. [:@]

Except for Elmer, he can reconstitute naval units on the lakes. We have changed it so that fleet is ordered to withdraw when Leningrad falls. [:'(]

Darn, I thought I'd fixed that.[&:] I wonder what went wrong?

Elmer is crafty, he has ways around trickey blockades [;)]

[Pax25]

Hey you guys....I sent out the version I have ( which is the one Steve Sill sent to me to playtest without any changes ) to so many guys I decided to upload it on a server so you can just retrieve it yourselves without any intermediary. Steve says it's okay to do this. You can find Directive 21.zip at this url:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d47f ... b9a8902bda

enjoy.

When you get to the website just click on the Directive 21.zip name and you'll get another webpage to click on a button to start the download.

Thanks for posting this scenerio. I downloaded it last night and played Turn 1. It took me 2 1/2 hours to play the latter 50% of my turn. I didn't keep track of the first half, but it was probably about the same amount of time spent. This seems like a great scenerio (I have never played FITE PBEM so it should be interesting), but how do you guys find the time to complete these things? Any advice on faster play? I'm not sure I can spend 5 hours a night playing one turn.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Pax25
Thanks for posting this scenerio. I downloaded it last night and played Turn 1. It took me 2 1/2 hours to play the latter 50% of my turn. I didn't keep track of the first half, but it was probably about the same amount of time spent. This seems like a great scenerio (I have never played FITE PBEM so it should be interesting), but how do you guys find the time to complete these things?

For me it's a labor of love playing FITE and it's variants. I'm retired and don't have anything else to do all day but those of you who have a Real Life and have to work for a living etc., married, etc. must have really bad time constraints.

ORIGINAL: Pax25
Any advice on faster play?

I go through the order of battle when deciding where to move a unit to where and that way nobody gets skipped, but it must be faster to just start at the top of the map and start moving units until you get to the bottom of the map and there's nobody else to move. But you run into the problem of maybe having skipped moving somebody somehow.

ORIGINAL: Pax25
I'm not sure I can spend 5 hours a night playing one turn.

I've been known to save the turn from one day to the next, naming the file a different name from the last save so I don't run into the problem of "re-loading a turn". It usually takes me all day to do all 7 or 8 combat rounds of an Axis FITE turn. All day is defined as at least 8 hours maybe more. But then I usually concentrate on my PBEM moves more than I do on my playtesting moves ( "Directive 21" scenario ). Curt Chambers and I are playing FITE PBEM and are averaging about 0.9 turns per day so far. It's probably getting to be a chore for Curt since he works for a living maybe.....but I can get up at 02:00 and work until about 06:30 and save my moves. And go back to bed to take a nap. Then up about 10:30 or so and hit it again for a few hours. I find that it's important to have time to think about the situation before any rash moves take place.

[SMK-at-work]

Partisans - ah....so I can use all those security and Hungarian units in the front line then!!