What are Admin Points anyway?

[squatter]

I like the Admin Point system as a general rule, but have a couple of issues.

Firstly, is it just me or does the 'tester's tip' of putting Soviet mobile units into static mode to generate large amounts of APs seem gamey?

It's like saying to Stalin:

ME: Comrade Stalin, I have fired your favourite army commander and replaced him with my man.

STALIN: You will be shot in the morning.

ME: Don't worry, I removed all the trucks from a motorised brigade in Bryansk.

STALIN: Oh, why didnt you say so? That's fine then, carry on.

What exactly do Admin points represent? The manual says something about "the ability to ammend the chain of command." How does me denying units trucks affect my political standing vis a vis my totalitarian ruler?

[ComradeP]

I guess you could AP's for placing units to static because it also costs points to reactivate them. There are plenty of gamey strategies possible with AP's. What Flavio suggested is possibly gamey in the sense that you're reactivating a different unit than you set to static, but taking the vehicles from a unit is in my opinion not gamey per se.

AP's are this game's equivalent of prestige points, political points, whatever you want to call them. Nobody really knows what they're supposed to represent, just that they're there as some sort of in-game currency necessary to limit the number of times the player can take certain actions.

[Flaviusx]

They are an abstracted in game mechanic representing limitations on resources, command and control, unit formation, etc. APs do a lot of things, particularly for the Sovs.

Because they are a resource chokepoint, players will naturally find ways to optimize their availability and use. But if you eliminate that chokepoint, then they won't have any restrictions at all.

[squatter]

Yeah, I hear you both. Most of it makes sense.
 
Apart from the motorised units.
 
Why should one get so many APs for entering static mode with a motorised unit? Is there any logic behind this? I mean, the primary purpose for using static mode is to free up trucks, not to enable upper echelon command and control changes. There is no correlation between the two as far as I can see.
 
I mean, presumably whoever decided that the SU would get xx Admin Points per turn didnt settle on xx thinking that yy number would be added in the early turns through de-motorisation. I would suggest that yy in this case is a distortion of the APs the SU was designed to receive. 

[Flaviusx]

Freeing up APs by setting units on static mode is a deliberate design choice. Not sure what the issue is here.

The Germans can take advantage of this as well. It's not just a Soviet thing.

[Davekhps]

Having played both an Axis CG and now into 1942 in my Soviet CG, I'm thinking the Admin Point situation is a bit unbalanced in the game.  Scratch that-- a LOT unbalanced.

The Soviets are constantly starved for AP, needing it for everything.  I like this-- it forces me to choose what I want to do, and teaches me that I can't do everything I want, at least not all at once.  That, when combined with the expected motor pool hit for the mid- to late-war Soviet player, is a welcome realism mechanic (well, "welcome" for the game's longevity on my hard drive-- it's NOT welcome when I'm trying in-game to manage the Soviet colossus!).

The Axis, however, face the exact opposite situation.  AP are a little scarce in 1941, but unlike with the Soviets, their command structure is nice and clean at the start, requiring only tweaking along the way (even the leaders are better, so you're not dealing with a need to do wholesale dismissals).  What's more, the Axis player won't have to deal with forming new SUs, units and HQs by the bucketload, nor merging units into rifle, tank and mechanized corps.  Finally, one winter's worth of changing over an Army Group or two to static leaves the Axis player with hundreds of AP, if not a max load of 500 AP, an effectively inexhaustible store of AP for the rest of the game. 

Basically, while the AP mechanic acts as a proper limitation on a Soviet player, they appear to me to be practically meaningless for an Axis player.

I know that players can adjust the numbers of AP if they so choose, so I'm not lobbying for any official change, but the imbalance strikes me as perhaps unnecessarily pronounced, even allowing for the (historical) fact that the Germans had a far more flexible command structure and thus shouldn't be penalized as much as  Soviet player.

Am I missing something here?  Or is this something even the veteran players notice?

[Flaviusx]

You are indeed starved for APs as the Soviet. But I'm pretty convinced that we've hit the sweet spot. There's just enough to do the job, and there's a few tricks available to squeeze out extra APs.

Note that Soviet per turn APs increase to 60 in 1942.

You'll get more efficient in your AP spending as you play more. If we added more APs to the game, it could tip things over for the veteran Soviet player and the Red Army would blow up.

[usecase]

Well, as someone who mostly plays Soviets, I've got more APs than I know what to do with by the end of '42. I think it's working well - the Red Army was disorganised and punching below its weight due to (amongst other things) poor command structures and organisations.

I think the poor Axis players have enough problems if they don't eviscerate the Sovs in the first twelve months. Once you can field a reasonable set of rifle corps, it's "Goodnight Lili Marlene" for the Krauts.

[karonagames]

they appear to me to be practically meaningless for an Axis player.

Wait until you play a 1943 campaign - you will be screaming for more APs, and resorting to Flavio's gamey techniques to squeeze more out of the game. The constant re-organisation you have to do, and the transfering of units between active and non-active sectors will burn up APs with no problems at all. If you decide on a Fortifed Zone-based defence to get you through the winters, then I can assure you that you will never-ever have enough APs.

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

You'll get more efficient in your AP spending as you play more. If we added more APs to the game, it could tip things over for the veteran Soviet player and the Red Army would blow up.

Oh, again, I *like* the Soviet AP limits in 1941, I'm having fun with that. It was the German AP limits that seemed out of line.

RE: what BigA said about the 1943 scenario, the difference there is you start out with a pre-set amount of AP not at all reflective of what a competent human Axis player beginning in 1941 would have amassed had they been playing through 1943-- again, all it takes is a single Army Group spending a couple seasons on static to amass a horde of APs, a situation that would have certainly occured prior to our 1943 scenario starting. Essentially, it seems to me that the Axis AP at the start of 1943 is artificially low, given how the game mechanic works in practice. That's fine with me, of course-- it makes things fun-- but it is noteworthy.

Bottom line: the AP system is very victory-dependent, i.e. if you're winning by 1942/1943, you won't have to worry about APs, but if you're losing, things are very different.

If you're having a bad war, you'll probably also be short of AP. If you're having a good war, you'll have more AP than you know what to do with. There's probably no easy way to balance that and still rely on the Admin Point mechanic to limit what a player can do.

(Why is this important? In real life, command and control doesn't magically become easier simply because you're *winning*. Sure, some things are made easier by the sweet taste of victory-- like dismissing leaders-- but if the point of the AP mechanic is to realistically represent the real-world limitations of a human commander trying, and failing, to do everything at once, that mechanic doesn't appear to survive past the 1941/1942 turns, at least against the A.I.)

Again, at least the Soviets have an additional limiting factor in play-- their motor pool troubles can act as a brake on their late-war success. A winning Axis player come 1942/1943, however, appears to me to have few, if any, limits to what they can get away with. Unlike with the Soviets, there just isn't enough things to *spend* AP on for an Axis player.

Anyway, thanks for the perspectives. I think that in any future human Axis vs. Soviet AI games I'll probably handicap myself more WRT the admin points just to keep it interesting. I'm sure when it comes to human players, however, it'll be a much different situation...

[squatter]

How about making Aps non cumulative? Same amount per turn, but spend them or lose them?

[Flaviusx]

Meh. Noncumulative APs would make the game a lot less interesting from a planning standpoint. Nor does it particularly make sense.

[squatter]

Not that I'm convinced its the right idea, but to see if it stands up any further:
 
What exactly makes 'sense' about the current rules for APs?
 
If they represent 'you as a commander's limited capacity to influence your Army structure given the limitations of time', then non cumulative makes total sense to me. That simulates there's-only-so-much-one-man-can-do-in-24hrs better than hording up points.

[Flaviusx]

Because it is more than just that, particularly for the Soviets. It's their production and conversion currency, and capping that on a weekly basis seems dubious to me.

[squatter]

What do you mean by production and conversion currency exactly? Is that a real world concept or a game concept?

[Jakerson]

As said on the manual AP are design choice with could be changed from the options to control amount of micromagement inside the game.

Those player who want to play more casual and faster games could set AP low so there is only limited number of micromanagement per turn and those players who want to play games with a lot of micromagement and optimization trough it could set a lot more AP per turn in their games.

I just love this design choice as I want to have some micromagement but not too much each turn and I can have control how much there is micromagement needed and can be done.

AP are abstract way to simulate the fact that HQ have time limits how much they can do in one week so players have to choose with areas they want their HQ to focus on each week but they could be also used to control number of micromanagement inside the game.

[Flaviusx]

I mean just that. They buy units and convert and upgrade units with APs. It's not immediately obvious to me why this should be capped on a weekly basis and the slate wiped clean from turn to turn.

It's not just about firing commanders and reassignments for the Soviets. The AP game is much deeper for them than the Germans, and they ought to be rewarded for planning and foresight and, yes, stockpiling if need be. Forcing them to spend their APs artificially each turn would be extremely unfun and take away a huge dimension of the game away from the Soviet standpoint. Managing APs is a big part of the game for the Red Army.

[pompack]

I think that APs are an elegant solution to a number of sticky problems. I like the way that it works.

As for the Germans, anyone who thinks that the Germans have too many APs has not tried to manually control SUs or move an Army from one Army Group to another while maintaining decent leaders (for Germans and Finns, maintaining not totally worthless leaders for the minors)

[squatter]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson

AP are abstract way to simulate the fact that HQ have time limits how much they can do in one week so players have to choose with areas they want their HQ to focus on each week but they could be also used to control number of micromanagement inside the game.

So presumably you agree it doesnt make sense to accrue APs over time?

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: squatter
So presumably you agree it doesnt make sense to accrue APs over time?

It's support operations that takes longer than two or more weeks to complete. Even if you use AP on week X to finish something dosent mean that HQ is not doing anything on those week that AP are not used. So it makes sence to stockpile points.