Be sure to garrison Constanta

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: Zort

This is sorta fun.  Soviets couldn't do massive landings but some are saying why not.  This is the problem of abstracting things in a game.  This is like saying the germans could have launched sealion and landed in scotland.  We have to remember there are different types of amphibious assaults.  The ones the soviets did were nowhere close to what the western allies did.
Oh yea don't forget that the germans evacuated sevastopol with little or no interference from the soviet navy.  They had more warships in the Black Sea but they were always worried that they might get caught by the luftwaffe.

Well, at least Abubullian got to win in a sneaky way. maybe some frozen fixed defenses on the Roumanian coast would be a good idea, though?

Lol, I did not get the 'win'. It was bwheatley that was the 'sneaky' sov player and lead us down this path to the bug(German armies disappearing) and not so robust game logic for minor allies surrender/side switching.


[;)]

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

It can be a problem that the smallest dot hex can theoretically force a country to surrender if captured by the Soviets, regardless of whether they're actually getting anywhere.

I do think that it's also fairly easy for the Axis to prevent it from happening, at least in the Hungarian case and in part for the Romanians too. With a large stack in the capital, I'm assuming that's supposed to represent an abstracted regime change, but there's no effect on combat effectiveness of the units of that nation, not even slightly. I'm not sure what the effect is when Romanian divisions switch sides, but from what I've read it doesn't seem too substantial.

I don't think the statement "it's also fairly easy for the Axis to prevent it from happening" is the proper way to address a issue in the actual game mechanics such as this. Yeah, it might be a band-aide to a more serious flaw, but in no means should be considered as the 'fix'.

Minor allies surrender should be handled a bit more sensible IMO. If the existing logic was a first attempt to handle this aspect, it now needs to be revisited. I hope changes in these rules will come later down the road.

Hmmm. I don't know. If 500 casualties to a Panzer division in a hasty attack is madness beyond imaging, then the complete disappearance of 6th and 11th and 1st Panzer armies must be just one of those things to be accepted with a philosohical shrug, I would think.

Yes, glad to see you're finally starting to agree with me. Thanks!

[Joel Billings]

My suggestion for those that don't think an invasion of Rumania was possible, is to have a house rule that no invasions are allowed along the Rumanian coast. It is very likely we will extend the no-invasion zone that currently exists south of Constanta so that covers all of the Rumanian coast (but this won't happen in the 1.03 beta3 patch that should come out this week).

[abulbulian]

Thanks Joel,

One thing I love about buying games from 2by3 is the direct access and feedback from developers. Not to mention you guys always make great games! I can't say that about Paradox, nor will I probably ever by any of their games again after the trauma they made me go through with the first HOI <cough.. really? RTS war game = FAIL>

[&o]

[steveh11Matrix]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

My suggestion for those that don't think an invasion of Rumania was possible, is to have a house rule that no invasions are allowed along the Rumanian coast. It is very likely we will extend the no-invasion zone that currently exists south of Constanta so that covers all of the Rumanian coast (but this won't happen in the 1.03 beta3 patch that should come out this week).

Would the Soviet AI carry out such an invasion? If so, how do you propose that we persuade it to obey the house rule?

Would the German AI garrison Constanta? If not, why not?

Steve.

[Joel Billings]

I'd be surprised if the AI tried an amphib invasion of Rumania. But until a rule is added to prevent it, you should garrison Constanta just in case.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: jaw

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Now that we've fixed amphibious landings, Axis players need to be sure to garrison Constanta (at least once the next beta is released). We had a Soviet player using this version execute an amphibious invasion of Constanta which was ungarrisoned. This creates a very high chance that Rumania will surrender.

There should be a prohibition against Soviet amphibious operations west of Sevastopol before October, 1941. The combination of Rumanian naval forces, minefields, coastal artillery and the Luftwaffe and Rumanian Air Force would have made such an operation suicidal.

The invasion was oct 42 before my winter offensive as a diversion...like someone else said the cav division should be awarded medals of the soviet union for forcing 3 german armys to surrender. Best diversionary attack ever.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Zort

Great, we don't allow the germans to be smart and dig in to mitigate the blizzard but we give the soviets the capability to amphibious assault div/corps when they never had that capability.  If you are going to model sea power then it is needed to not be abstracted so it becomes so outrageous it might break the game.  Sorry to harp on this but the soviet navy was the pits, they didn't have the materials to regun the battleship once the barrel liners were worn out.  They wouldn't sail their ships because they feared the axis airpower.  What they did was well within their means not landing normandy style assaults.  Sorry.... the first time a soviet invades romanian captures a city then lands max divs, takes out the entire southern flank is so far from history might as well give the germans ray guns....[:)] 

Yea the soviets had no navy in the black sea. It wasn't orders of magnitude better then the german and romanian navies. And the soviets didn't pull off an awesome dunkirk style evacuation of odessa. And it wasn't the black sea fleet that were the first to actively engage the germans within the first hours of barbarossa (source: Absolute war).

But yea the invasion was just 1 small cav division 3,000 people. Nothing wrong with that other then that city being taken before 44 by such a token force shouldn't cause the surrender.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Zort

No problem, I shouldn't get so excited.  I just hate seeing a good land game get messed up with a poor naval model.  I think there should be some capability but not so much that is messes up the game.  There is a lot that goes into amphibious ops, spent 20 years in the navy so have some experience with it.  I think the soviets should have limits like, inf divs can land/assault only in ports. They can only be supplied thru ports not off the beachs due to their size.  Brigade size inf can land anywhere but with no heavy equipment.  Limit the distance landings can be conducted from a qualifying port. 

The naval portion of the game shouldn't become a main focal point, a threat but not a major concern (a lot like the german paratroopers).

I would call it less a naval problem instead of not properly coding for edge cases. You should be allowed to invade romania. But the logic for surrender should be based on the # of CP in the area. a division shouldn't cause the surrender of the country. And it certainly shouldnt cause it before 44.

Proper code would resolve the problem.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

As long as they held Sevastopol, yes. After Sevastopol and Novorossiysk were captured by the Axis, maintenance standards and thus operational readiness plummeted. The domination was also for a great deal due to the lack of a close second. The Black Sea Fleet itself wasn't all that impressive, even though it had a large number of surface ships compared to the Romanian and Bulgarian navies, many of the ships were quite old. A total of 1 battleship and 5 cruisers for heavier naval support would never have been adequate for supporting a landing in Romania. The heavy ships would quickly be sunk by the Luftwaffe, the Romanian air force.

As an aside, I just noticed that Nikolaev doesn't have a port, nor is there a port in the direct area.

In the game i held sevastopol and landed 1 small cav division. It's funny seeing people cry foul without even knowing the circumstances of what happened.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: starbuck310

Historically it was the Soviets who dominated in the Black sea.

Yes. There's some interesting stories about how the Germans dismantled some subs and ships and transported them to a Rom Black Sea port for reassembly and launch. Although interesting, it didn't do much to budge the sov dominance of the naval supremacy in the Black Sea.

The Luftwaffe had best ability to hamper sov operations in the Black Sea. Although the Germans some what mismanaged this advantage to some extend and only had partial success. A period of the partial success was during the final siege of Sevastopol in spr 42 when extra Luftwaffe air groups were station to hamper Sov troop and supply movements to and from Sevastopol.

The larger issues is with the current rules for a chance of a Romanian surrender or side switching in 42 if Constanta is invaded for a 1 week or so. It was my game that this happened. Sequence,

- sov player invades Constanta
- axis player reacts and rails in part of a Pz Corps to contain it.
- next axis player turn Rom switches sides and some German armies disappear from map and go into manpower pool.
(German armies loss seems to be maybe edge case or just armies that had units stacked with Rom units. Not sure yet the cause).
- game over ..
[:(]

I firmly believe this is a serious flaw in the game mechanics and the reality of the Romanian state at that point in time. It would have taken a lot more for even a consideration for Rom surrender/side switching in 1942. I think Roman surrender (apply this logic in some fashion to other minor allies, exception Italy) should be based on these factors:

- sov unit strength in Rom
- German unit strength in Rom
- key cities under Sov control
- current year(/month?)
- current front line (key sov cities still under axis control)

Anything less of these considerations, IMO, is a hack job on the Romanian (minor allies) diplomatic game rules/mechanics.

I agree it should be based off those things. Just making you unable to land in constanta is a total hack job.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: starbuck310

Historically it was the Soviets who dominated in the Black sea.

Yes. There's some interesting stories about how the Germans dismantled some subs and ships and transported them to a Rom Black Sea port for reassembly and launch. Although interesting, it didn't do much to budge the sov dominance of the naval supremacy in the Black Sea.

The Luftwaffe had best ability to hamper sov operations in the Black Sea. Although the Germans some what mismanaged this advantage to some extend and only had partial success. A period of the partial success was during the final siege of Sevastopol in spr 42 when extra Luftwaffe air groups were station to hamper Sov troop and supply movements to and from Sevastopol.

The larger issues is with the current rules for a chance of a Romanian surrender or side switching in 42 if Constanta is invaded for a 1 week or so. It was my game that this happened. Sequence,

- sov player invades Constanta
- axis player reacts and rails in part of a Pz Corps to contain it.
- next axis player turn Rom switches sides and some German armies disappear from map and go into manpower pool.
(German armies loss seems to be maybe edge case or just armies that had units stacked with Rom units. Not sure yet the cause).
- game over ..
[:(]

I firmly believe this is a serious flaw in the game mechanics and the reality of the Romanian state at that point in time. It would have taken a lot more for even a consideration for Rom surrender/side switching in 1942. I think Roman surrender (apply this logic in some fashion to other minor allies, exception Italy) should be based on these factors:

- sov unit strength in Rom
- German unit strength in Rom
- key cities under Sov control
- current year(/month?)
- current front line (key sov cities still under axis control)

Anything less of these considerations, IMO, is a hack job on the Romanian (minor allies) diplomatic game rules/mechanics.

Brilliant! So you knocked Roumania out of the war and won the game?

I broke the game and won lol. Kinda bummed me out too i had my winter offensive for 42 ready to go. A shame i didn't get to launch it ;(

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: Zort

This is sorta fun.  Soviets couldn't do massive landings but some are saying why not.  This is the problem of abstracting things in a game.  This is like saying the germans could have launched sealion and landed in scotland.  We have to remember there are different types of amphibious assaults.  The ones the soviets did were nowhere close to what the western allies did.
Oh yea don't forget that the germans evacuated sevastopol with little or no interference from the soviet navy.  They had more warships in the Black Sea but they were always worried that they might get caught by the luftwaffe.

Well, at least Abubullian got to win in a sneaky way. maybe some frozen fixed defenses on the Roumanian coast would be a good idea, though?

I won but i wasn't being sneaky. I was trying to divert resources (which i did i had a panzer div pull off the line) for my winter offensive.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

It can be a problem that the smallest dot hex can theoretically force a country to surrender if captured by the Soviets, regardless of whether they're actually getting anywhere.

I do think that it's also fairly easy for the Axis to prevent it from happening, at least in the Hungarian case and in part for the Romanians too. With a large stack in the capital, I'm assuming that's supposed to represent an abstracted regime change, but there's no effect on combat effectiveness of the units of that nation, not even slightly. I'm not sure what the effect is when Romanian divisions switch sides, but from what I've read it doesn't seem too substantial.

Well not exactly:
- my sov opponent invaded Constanta
- next axis turn I sent part of a PZ corps to contain it
- logistic phase after axis turn, Rom switched sides as well as bug that removed 6th, 11th, and 1st Pz army units from the map.
- game over at t65
[:(]

Joel has our last PBEM server turns and was looking into the issues.

Does seem like a spectacular end to WWII. What a let down for the Italians, Finns, Vichy, Slovakia and Hungry though. And Japan.
And what happens in a case like that? Does Sweden intern the Nazis in toto or something? The legal costs alone would cripple a small Empire. The Portuguese or the Dutch.
I guess it would be nice for the millions sitting in concentration camps: hey, the war is over. We gave a genocide and nobody came.

And what about Dr. Pavlovic and the Pavolicchecks? Not a pretty thought.

And what would Rommel say? Zooming over the desert he learns he is to report to Tunisia for Internment. Not a happy event for him.

No way let down for me i never got to have my fun where i was stomping the german army. :'(

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

My suggestion for those that don't think an invasion of Rumania was possible, is to have a house rule that no invasions are allowed along the Rumanian coast. It is very likely we will extend the no-invasion zone that currently exists south of Constanta so that covers all of the Rumanian coast (but this won't happen in the 1.03 beta3 patch that should come out this week).

It would be sad to have a no-invasion zone. Players who don't like it could have a house rule. Anyone else who realizes the soviets had the power to project (even if they chose not to) it would be nice to have. And it would force the axis player to keep units back as garrisons.

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

ORIGINAL: MengJiao

ORIGINAL: Zort

This is sorta fun.  Soviets couldn't do massive landings but some are saying why not.  This is the problem of abstracting things in a game.  This is like saying the germans could have launched sealion and landed in scotland.  We have to remember there are different types of amphibious assaults.  The ones the soviets did were nowhere close to what the western allies did.
Oh yea don't forget that the germans evacuated sevastopol with little or no interference from the soviet navy.  They had more warships in the Black Sea but they were always worried that they might get caught by the luftwaffe.

Well, at least Abubullian got to win in a sneaky way. maybe some frozen fixed defenses on the Roumanian coast would be a good idea, though?

I won but i wasn't being sneaky. I was trying to divert resources (which i did i had a panzer div pull off the line) for my winter offensive.

Really, are we going to call that a win? I guess maybe next game I can hope for a bug to remove 1/4 of the sov army and then can claim a nice win too?

lol

[:)]

[Zort]

Well it's hard to say they had the power to project troops that distance and sustain them.&nbsp; Remember their assault in the Crimea was done on small commercial vessels with tugs pulling barges and not far from their port of deportation .&nbsp; Saying that the soviets could have landed a significant force in constanta is like saying the Germans could have invaded england by way of landing in scotland.&nbsp; Sorry to continue to be the lone dissenter here but pulling barges with tanks on them 100+ miles without detection is a significant feat.&nbsp; Supporting those units by sea is another major effort.&nbsp;&nbsp; I really don't like house rules but will be using them for this game feature.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

ORIGINAL: MengJiao




Well, at least Abubullian got to win in a sneaky way. maybe some frozen fixed defenses on the Roumanian coast would be a good idea, though?

I won but i wasn't being sneaky. I was trying to divert resources (which i did i had a panzer div pull off the line) for my winter offensive.

Really, are we going to call that a win? I guess maybe next game I can hope for a bug to remove 1/4 of the sov army and then can claim a nice win too?

lol

[:)]

Well, at least Abubullian got to win in a sneaky way. maybe some frozen fixed defenses on the Roumanian coast would be a good idea, though?

Yes of course it's a win. We knew this was going to be a win for the soviets after the winter was a little over done and that along with TOE bugs crippled you.

But that said a W is a W. j/k of course.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Zort

Well it's hard to say they had the power to project troops that distance and sustain them.  Remember their assault in the Crimea was done on small commercial vessels with tugs pulling barges and not far from their port of deportation .  Saying that the soviets could have landed a significant force in constanta is like saying the Germans could have invaded england by way of landing in scotland.  Sorry to continue to be the lone dissenter here but pulling barges with tanks on them 100+ miles without detection is a significant feat.  Supporting those units by sea is another major effort.   I really don't like house rules but will be using them for this game feature.

Or you can put a single unit in the city and watch them slaughter whatever the russians send at you.
This is the same argument (just the other side of the coin) with saying the germans need to be able to alter history and handle the blizzard better. The soviets need to be allowed to attempt to use their navy to project power. The black sea fleet was arguably the most professional group of the military on june 1942 in the soviet union. (source: absolute war)

But yea i agree that sea interdiction should take a much heavier toll on the forces during transit. IF there are planes around within range of course. They would have put a hurting on any attempt but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed to be attempted. It means the game should properly handle the interdiction losses.

[Skanvak]

I wonder if we should have a little better simulation of naval warfare in the black sea. Because at some point, Romanian coast would have been invadable by the Russian. Having Rumania surrender just because one invasion is irealist, but totally preventing Russia to invade Rumania is ab it as irrealistic.

Have russian unit in Rumania count for surrender only if they can trace a land path to a Russian Major City ot Moscow.