Why so dead around here?

[gwgardner]

You're making a mistake not to get 1.6. It is like 100% better than 1.5.

[bo]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

You're making a mistake not to get 1.6. It is like 100% better than 1.5.

Hey GW I do not doubt for one second what you are saying and as soon as the official patch comes out I will, didn't I read that if you have a saved game and you download the new patch that the saved game won't work?

Bo

[H. Hoth]

ORIGINAL: Michael the Pole

ORIGINAL: H. Hoth

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Nah, for game purposes it doesn't matter much because you could just swap Vatutin and Zhukov's rating with those of Voroshilov and Budenny, and get the same basic result. I'm just irked by the sheer ahistoricity of the ratings themselves with the commanders in question. The gave the good ratings to civil war relics and Stalinist cronies and severely underrated most of the good new commanders of the second world war. (Except Rokossovsky, who is doubtfully Polish...)

From what I see in the game a commander who is 2-6 will give a div/corps a +1 advant. (in size of a unit)a commander with a number of 7-9 a +2 advant. When they gain exp, it goes even higher. Leaders are very important, and that is why I changed the numbers of most leaders.

Like everything else, opinions are subjective. Rather than blind denunciations, why don't ya'll publish your commander files on the modding board so we can actually evaluate what you think.

Or you could just play the game and see for yourself. Blind denunciations, wow thats good. Do you think before you write, or write then think. You seem one minded, dull and to wit, Ignorant.

[Anraz]

To discuss Russian commanders rating is like to open  a can of warm.

Some of those who lived behind the iron curtain, and I hope some who lived on the other side of it,   known how huge was  (and still is) difference between propaganda (which so common and unfortunately is perceived as "historic") image  and the truth (yeah, the real historic!) image of this isolated red realm.

For example if we consider a division led by Zhukov and average American, British or German leader I assure you no matter what task  is to perform Zhukov's division would fall as first, because there was no skill in his "genius" just blind human wave approach which led to monstrous losses among solders. Moreover most of other soviet generals were more or less of the same quality (probably Rokosvsky's skill is too high). So why should he have bigger skill then generals in other nations who can use subjected units and owned military resources in a better way? [Also it worth remembering we have the same kind of units on both side of front.]

Finally if anyone asked me what were are two biggest hoaxes connected with ww2 which still deceive people I would answer: myth of T-34 and Zhukov'v skills. Even though I'm not sure which one is bigger...

Most probably I will be too busy making the third project to participate actively if a discussion arise, so consider this post not only as developer's Sunday reflections, but as "official "words written in order to let you know the reasons for such ratings.

Anyway we have democracy (haven't we? ) and anyone can have his own view on the matter... so the game allows players to mod easily those ratings, so every gamer can set his own values. This the best way to satisfy everyone

[Flaviusx]

Anraz, even if you consider Zhukov's reputation overinflated, it's difficult to understand how he is worse than a Budenny or the especially egregious Voroshilov. (Who couldn't even manage to get anything out of human wave attacks, see Finland 1940.)
 
If Zhukov is a 3, they ought to be twos and ones. Not a 5 or 6.
 
Some of these guys contrived to get better results out of human wave attacks than others. Besides that, Zhukov perfectly understood the importance of maneuver and flanking schemes, as demonstrated in Kalhkin Gol in 1939, Moscow in 1941, and Stalingrad in 1942 (which he coauthored with Vasilevsky.) It is true that Zhukov, like virtually all Russian commanders, tended to fall back to mere mass with poor results as in Berlin 1945, and the Rzhev salient in 1942, but he ought to be judged on the entire record.
 
Rokossovsky's rating is perfectly fine, he was an excellent front commander. He was, indeed, among the relatively few Soviet commanders who didn't favor the mass approach and actually cared about his own casualties.
 
Nor would I rate the commanders in the game based on divisional leadership; I look at them as Army/Front commanders.  
 
But if the this is the developer's final stance on the matter, so be it. I will modify the ratings for myself based on the weight of historical opinion.
 
 

[Severian]

Flaviusx - soviet generals topic is very hard and unclear to understand. For nearly 70 years leaders like Zhukov or Vatutin are described as billiant generals comparable to Patton or Alexander. It's not true. Soviet strategic and tactical skills in World War 2 was poor. Really. Winter War against Finland was first stage of Red Army incompetence. Because of lack of leaders skills whole divisions were preparing frontal attacks against bunkers even without winter uniforms. It was complete disaster - over 120.000 dead soldiers, over 2200 destroyed tanks and 500 aircraft inf war with small country. You can say - and what? Later they were winning almoste everywhere but you know how cost of life? One day of soviet offensive took more than whole Overlord landing in Normandy. Every offensive when Overlord was only once. The main tactic of soviet generals was human wave - push as much soldier as we can and if they pass first line, send then tanks to make breaktrough deeper. So admired Zhukov lost over 2000 tanks when he was advancing to Berlin becuse he doesn't want to be second in the city. Soviet Union lost 12.500.000 dead soldiers. A half of total killed soldiers of every country involved in World War Two.

Why Voroshilov or Budenny were experienced in russian civil war when they had many big units under they command. Only one younger commander had comparable units in fight before WW2 - Zhukov in Khalkhyn Gol which isn't so clearly russian victory as we suppose. So only few soviet generals had enough experience to command fronts.

[Anraz]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Moscow in 1941, and Stalingrad in 1942

Are 100% you sure those two were pure Zhukov achievement not laurels stolen post factum form other soviet commanders?

[gwgardner]

H.Hoth

Or you could just play the game and see for yourself. Blind denunciations, wow thats good. Do you think before you write, or write then think. You seem one minded, dull and to wit, Ignorant.

... and Miss Congeniality strikes again.

[Flaviusx]

Well, the Stalingrad operation was planned by Zhukov and Vasilevsky, although Zhukov didn't execute it. At the time the Stalingrad offensive actually went down, Zhukov ran Operation Mars up north to clear out the Rzhev/Vyazma salient as a companion offensive. It was a total fiasco, not one of his finer moments. Nevertheless, he was clearly one of the minds behind the Stalingrad concept.
 
The Moscow counteroffensive was of course not solely a Zhukov show, but his Western front was the largest one involved.
 
Severian, the thing you need to understand about the Finnish War is: the theater was being run by Voroshilov when it started. This is the guy who the game considers better than Zhukov. He completely bungled the assignment and had to be replaced by Timoshenko. Nor did Voroshilov do any better running the Northwestern theater later on against the Germans in 1941. He was eventually replaced there by Zhukov, barely in time to stop the drive on Leningrad, but not before the city got cut off and blockaded.
 
By 1942 he was more or less kicked upstairs and removed from any further field commands. The guy was just a total incompetent and never managed to do anything right on the field, but was protected from his failures of command by his close ties to Stalin, which went back to the Civil War days. Much the same can be said about Budenny, although Budenny wasn't a total booby at least, and had once been a highly effective cavalry commander. But by the 1940s he was a fossil and ineffective.

[H. Hoth]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

H.Hoth

Or you could just play the game and see for yourself. Blind denunciations, wow thats good. Do you think before you write, or write then think. You seem one minded, dull and to wit, Ignorant.

... and Miss Congeniality strikes again.
Is that your best? You seem to be a one trick pony.

[Anraz]

Come on, should you have any issues just exchange some PM's...

[AH4Ever]

ORIGINAL: H. Hoth

Or you could just play the game and see for yourself. Blind denunciations, wow thats good. Do you think before you write, or write then think. You seem one minded, dull and to wit, Ignorant.

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

... and Miss Congeniality strikes again.

ORIGINAL: H. Hoth

Is that your best? You seem to be a one trick pony.

Talk about insubordination 36 post and he chooses insult over courtesy

Can you spell "delusions of grandeur"

Will the Matrix Reps please give him his money back and tell him to go away.

[Berkut]

Is there any ability to randomize leadership ratings?

[doomtrader]

@Berkut
You can change those manually

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

@Berkut
You can change those manually

Yeah, I saw that.

What I mean is that ability to randomize the leadership ratings in some sophisticated way.

Strict randomization is lame - since it means that one player can just get overly lucky and end up with great leader, or the opposite.

What would be better would be an algorithm that would randomize all the leadership ratings for a side (or all sides) so that you don't really know who Von Manstein is - you know you have one out there somewhere, but who knows who it really is?

Combine this with some kind of hidden leadership ratings, and it adds a lot of interest to the game - finding your good leaders becomes another problem to be solved.

[MilRevKo]

'myth of T-34 '

Ok what is the myth of the T-34 and how many T-34's have you been in?

[H. Hoth]

ORIGINAL: Anraz

To discuss Russian commanders rating is like to open  a can of warm.

Some of those who lived behind the iron curtain, and I hope some who lived on the other side of it,   known how huge was  (and still is) difference between propaganda (which so common and unfortunately is perceived as "historic") image  and the truth (yeah, the real historic!) image of this isolated red realm.

For example if we consider a division led by Zhukov and average American, British or German leader I assure you no matter what task  is to perform Zhukov's division would fall as first, because there was no skill in his "genius" just blind human wave approach which led to monstrous losses among solders. Moreover most of other soviet generals were more or less of the same quality (probably Rokosvsky's skill is too high). So why should he have bigger skill then generals in other nations who can use subjected units and owned military resources in a better way? [Also it worth remembering we have the same kind of units on both side of front.]

Finally if anyone asked me what were are two biggest hoaxes connected with ww2 which still deceive people I would answer: myth of T-34 and Zhukov'v skills. Even though I'm not sure which one is bigger...

Most probably I will be too busy making the third project to participate actively if a discussion arise, so consider this post not only as developer's Sunday reflections, but as "official "words written in order to let you know the reasons for such ratings.

Anyway we have democracy (haven't we? ) and anyone can have his own view on the matter... so the game allows players to mod easily those ratings, so every gamer can set his own values. This the best way to satisfy everyone

The T-34 was simple in design, easy to repair and cheap to mass produce. At the time Germany had no answer for it.

[MilRevKo]

The T-34 was an excellent reproduction of an American tank. To bad the USA did not adopt the Christy (sp) design. Imagine 3rd Army cutting across France in thousands of T-34's.

[H. Hoth]

ORIGINAL: MilRevKo

The T-34 was an excellent reproduction of an American tank. To bad the USA did not adopt the Christy (sp) design. Imagine 3rd Army cutting across France in thousands of T-34's.

It was the main battle tank until the kv-2, yes you are right, they chose speed over armour...i.e Sherman.

[H. Hoth]

ORIGINAL: AH4Ever

ORIGINAL: H. Hoth

Or you could just play the game and see for yourself. Blind denunciations, wow thats good. Do you think before you write, or write then think. You seem one minded, dull and to wit, Ignorant.

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

... and Miss Congeniality strikes again.

ORIGINAL: H. Hoth

Is that your best? You seem to be a one trick pony.

Talk about insubordination 36 post and he chooses insult over courtesy

Can you spell "delusions of grandeur"

Will the Matrix Reps please give him his money back and tell him to go away.

and with 30 posts telling me to go away, rich indeed