Patch 1.04.22 to much of a German nerf?

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

I think it is really a luck thing. If you get lucky or unlucky with the weather at a crucial turn, it can affect the whole campaign, for both sides. I am happy to play with random weather as the German, I have indeed done that in several campaigns, for example in my AAR tm.asp?m=2792361. In that campaign, random weather had no dramatic effects either way. However, I do think that random weather is a little too random. It would be very nice to have it a little less wild and crazy. For example, if there is to be mud in July or August, I think it should be some kind of "summer mud" with much less sever effects than the spring and autumn Rasputitsa.

Yes, a game with such a huge amount of work put into equipment and production, in the weather department resembles most basic board game. Just 4 weather zones with rigid borders, on a map spanning half continent. Just 4 weather types that differ a lot and nothing in between, having to cover rasputitsa and light mud with the same type. One die roll to determine them all...

I suggest (for WitE2 or new ETO game) introducing more weather types, separating ground conditions from sky conditions (haven't you seen snow gleaming in the sun? - it's not always cloudy and dark), so that sky conditions change faster (and affect mainly air units), while ground conditions change slower (and affect mainly ground units), requiring a few turns of rain before mud kicks in, of which player would be aware ("ok, it rains so there may be mud if it continues to do so for another week"), having dynamic weather instead of fixed zones, so that in the north you could have a blizzard while in the south there would be sunny...

[Peltonx]

Sabre21 The title of the thread is Patch 1.04.22 to much of a German nerf and not Patch 1.04 to much of a German nerf?

I been playing on-line games for 15yrs and have played in more then a few betas over the yrs so I have some clue whats going on behind the seens so to speak.

I am still tring to get someone to explain why HQ build-up has to happen 100 miles behind the front lines? When we do HQ build up a few 1000 trucks are sent to the units in question. Example V panzer corps has advanced 300 miles and can go another 100 with more fuel and supplies. So OKH sends 1000 trucks with extra fuel/ammo/supply.

What your saying with the current 1.04.22 is that the V corps has to retreat 100 miles.

Thats simply non-historical and not realistic at all. It was put in at the last sec and it shows.

I still haven't gotten an answer from anyone on this thread how thats historical or realistic. Just silance and talk of weather.

Just wanted to say thanks for the hard work, yes I have to agree many things in the past patchs have worked out to make the game more balanced ect. Thats what beta patchs are all about.


Pelton

[Mehring]

You do realise, don't you, that WitE railheads advance about twice as fast as the historical ones?

[Manstein63]

Admittedly we are not currently playing version 1.04.22 so I can't speak from experience but in my game against Ketza with me playing as the Soviets I fully expect to lose these cities before the mud turns  Lenningrad Bryansk Kharkov & Kursk (this also includes Kiev as well as the other cities on the Dnieper) I might be able to hold Stalino & Rostov only time will tell. Ketza has managed to advance to the gates of Lenningrad by Turn six & has crossed the Dnieper on Turn 7. This AFAIK he has managed to acomplish without or with minimum use of HQ buildup. So I would doubt that the current changes should make that great a difference. Anyway Tarhunnas & Q-Ball are starting a game with version 1.04.22 so I would be interested as to how they will adapt to the changes & if after playing to T18 that they think that HQ buildup will need to be looked at again.
Manstein63

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Sabre21 The title of the thread is Patch 1.04.22 to much of a German nerf and not Patch 1.04 to much of a German nerf?

I been playing on-line games for 15yrs and have played in more then a few betas over the yrs so I have some clue whats going on behind the seens so to speak.

I am still tring to get someone to explain why HQ build-up has to happen 100 miles behind the front lines? When we do HQ build up a few 1000 trucks are sent to the units in question. Example V panzer corps has advanced 300 miles and can go another 100 with more fuel and supplies. So OKH sends 1000 trucks with extra fuel/ammo/supply.

What your saying with the current 1.04.22 is that the V corps has to retreat 100 miles.

Thats simply non-historical and not realistic at all. It was put in at the last sec and it shows.

I still haven't gotten an answer from anyone on this thread how thats historical or realistic. Just silance and talk of weather.

Just wanted to say thanks for the hard work, yes I have to agree many things in the past patchs have worked out to make the game more balanced ect. Thats what beta patchs are all about.


Pelton

TBH, Joel or Pavel will need to provide the rational of the 20 mp thing, they were the ones that came up with that. I was pushing for an increase in ap's and truck cost to limit the number of times it could be used. Right now, with 50 ap's you can still perform 3 four-corp build-ups per turn at max range rather than four build-ups. If you do it near the rail head, then the cost is the same as before, so cost impact overall IMO is negligible.

More likely the 20 mp was a balance thing, plus again here saying they have to go a hundred miles to the rear isn't correct either. The units can still be 5 hexes forward of that, so considering this is a build-up for a major operation vs the normal weekly supply runs, I can understand the depots would be more concentrated placing greater strain on the road and rail networks and on the limited trucks available. Based on what I have seen so far in clear weather turns, the difference between 20mp's + 5 hexes vs 25 hexes is pretty minimal.

IMO the ability to use the build-up previous to this patch was very unrealistic and this patch made it much more reasonable and not a game breaking function. Not saying this is the final version of it, as there seems to be indications the long term solution may look different than what we see now.

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

You do realise, don't you, that WitE railheads advance about twice as fast as the historical ones?

I don't know about that, I was pretty sure the numbers were balanced out to mimick historical rates of advance. Where the real issue lies is that there is an unlimited amount of supplies that can traverse a single rail line..for both sides. There just wasn't enough rail stock on the German side to do what the game allows them to do.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Pelton
I am still tring to get someone to explain why HQ build-up has to happen 100 miles behind the front lines? When we do HQ build up a few 1000 trucks are sent to the units in question. Example V panzer corps has advanced 300 miles and can go another 100 with more fuel and supplies. So OKH sends 1000 trucks with extra fuel/ammo/supply.

I can give you some historical basis but of course the situation in game is rarely 'historical'. The figures below are rough - I'm not a logistician, though I'd imagine there are guys on this forum who've served in this area who are and could give exact figures with the historical data. So it's fast and loose and just ballpark.

Each Army Group started Barbarossa able to lift about 20k tons in supplies etc from the railhead with motorised supply columns. Attrition was pretty fierce for the motorised units, but let's ignore the impact. At 300 miles, that's roughly 3 1/2 days load/travel/unload time from railhead to your units with motorised supply columns. A round trip of 6 1/2 days.

But there's a couple of problems. One is that just for raw essentials a historically sized Army Group Centre needs roughly 13k tons delivered daily by train, but only around 10k tons are actually being delivered so you've got this significant shortfall in requirements for the whole Army Group building up and building up. Want to move an infantry division by train from the rear areas to the front line? Stop all deliveries of supplies to the railhead for 2 days. A panzer division doing the same thing means stopping them for 4.

How many tons of supplies etc are our panzer and motorised divisions going to need after a week's fighting? Bare minimum if they don't move, just to maintain existing supplies, is 210t per [s]week[/s]day per division. A week's heavy fighting could see that shoot up to 5k tons per week per division. You'll quickly see that the math isn't adding up. If you have 4 divisions all demanding 5k tons, that's 20k tons or 2 days worth of supply for the entire Army Group. Everyone else is going to take a hit if you prioritise them. At 300 miles range, that means not only that no-one else is going to get any motorised supply from the railhead for a week but that every other single unit in the Army Group is on barely more than half their basic minimum need of supplies etc even if it can be delivered. We've ignored attrition to the capability of the supply columns to do this too....

As a rare event, it's possible and plausible, for a rolling advance deep into the Soviet Union, it's absolute fantasy.

[Mehring]

I don't know about that, I was pretty sure the numbers were balanced out to mimick historical rates of advance.

I’m really not buying this, I’m afraid.

Even the primitive original WitE delineated a 1942 start Axis rail net which followed 3 or 4 main routes, none of which reached the frontline and with none of the sidelines converted. The impeccably researched OCS game ‘Case Blue’ has the following net converted by 12 May 1942 for its Kharkov scenario-

To just west of Belgorod.
Kharkov, and a line just to the south of Kharkov towards Lozovaya.
About half way between Krasnograd running SE to Lozovaya.
From SW to just SW of Lozovaya
One line running from the south, presumably from Gorlovka to Kramatorskaya and Artemovsk.

With a maximum OCS system conversion rate of 8 x 5km hexes per week, that’s 25 miles a week, 2.5 WitE hexes, right? That half hex of course creates a problem for WitE, if it were to agree with OCS values, but you can even convert 4 hexes in a good week, when terrain isn’t getting in the way and you don't have to move to your first conversion hex. That’s aside from the Baltic zone.

My current German opponent has left most of the OCS given historical railheads of May 1942 way behind by December 1941. Naturally, I’ve done the same.

The problem is three fold. As you point out, there is no distinction between single and double track. You could add the lack of distinction between port capacities to that. But also the FBDs just move too fast. On top of that, you have all the road building units working on rail track instead of doing their real job- maintaining, repairing and replacing the abysmal Russian roads which lamentably, didn’t make it onto the WitE map.

Add the state of the roads, ports and rail together and you have the closest point this game gets to being broken, in my view. It looks to me like constraints of one kind or another forced an unsatisfactory compromise on this aspect of the game. Not for the first time, I express my sincere hope that at some point, when more immediate problems are resolved, it be returned to and given the attention it deserves.

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

I don't know about that, I was pretty sure the numbers were balanced out to mimick historical rates of advance.

I’m really not buying this, I’m afraid.

Even the primitive original WitE delineated a 1942 start Axis rail net which followed 3 or 4 main routes, none of which reached the frontline and with none of the sidelines converted. The impeccably researched OCS game ‘Case Blue’ has the following net converted by 12 May 1942 for its Kharkov scenario-

To just west of Belgorod.
Kharkov, and a line just to the south of Kharkov towards Lozovaya.
About half way between Krasnograd running SE to Lozovaya.
From SW to just SW of Lozovaya
One line running from the south, presumably from Gorlovka to Kramatorskaya and Artemovsk.

With a maximum OCS system conversion rate of 8 x 5km hexes per week, that’s 25 miles a week, 2.5 WitE hexes, right? That half hex of course creates a problem for WitE, if it were to agree with OCS values, but you can even convert 4 hexes in a good week, when terrain isn’t getting in the way and you don't have to move to your first conversion hex. That’s aside from the Baltic zone.

My current German opponent has left most of the OCS given historical railheads of May 1942 way behind by December 1941. Naturally, I’ve done the same.

The problem is three fold. As you point out, there is no distinction between single and double track. You could add the lack of distinction between port capacities to that. But also the FBDs just move too fast. On top of that, you have all the road building units working on rail track instead of doing their real job- maintaining, repairing and replacing the abysmal Russian roads which lamentably, didn’t make it onto the WitE map.

Add the state of the roads, ports and rail together and you have the closest point this game gets to being broken, in my view. It looks to me like constraints of one kind or another forced an unsatisfactory compromise on this aspect of the game. Not for the first time, I express my sincere hope that at some point, when more immediate problems are resolved, it be returned to and given the attention it deserves.

Well it was looked at in detail as the game was created over the last few years. Not saying it is perfect, but I know a lot of attention was placed on it. Joel would be the best to respond here, maybe Pavel, because historical rates were taken into consideration.

[kswanson1]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

What Flavio said. There was no nerf. The area down south is pretty much unaffected due to the proximity of the Rumanian border and that supply base. Pieter and myself are currently playing a pbem with me as the Germans. We are on turn 3 so far. Pieter by the way is a very experienced Soviet player. I would rate him in the top 3 Soviet testers we have. None the less, and despite checkerboarding, on T3 I am 50 miles north of Pskov, at the river bend in the center, and sitting on the outskirts of Kiev and Odessa with Tarnopol, Proskurov and Vinnitsa in my possesion. I have yet to use Hq-build-up although I am in position with 6 different panzer corps, 2 in each army group capable of using it next turn if I choose to do so.

There was no nerf? Lol do you think we are that stupid to beleive that fairytale? 100% of the changes were 100% to nerf the GHC, thats the facts jack. EVERYTHING in this patch was to nerf the GHC, there was nothing in the patch to address a single SHC issue other then positives.

Yes yes your at them positions big deal any average GHC player can get to them, now you are stuck. Barely in reach of your supply heads that move 3 or 4 hexs a turn, in other words your out of options other then the boring small breakthoughs.

North: The normal right hook in the north is 100% not possible. It will take way to long to move railheads past the lake, which gives the SHC way to many turns to stop you. In other words your now stuck with the historical BORING seige of Leningrad.

Center: Your at the land bridge big deal again, your waiting on the railheads, PLUS the south is 100% not safe, there is noway the GHC can get close to the normal historical Nov 1941 lines. Which means you will be facing atleast 20+ more units. The normal Marsh incirclement is 100% not doable by turn 5-7 now. So in other words the center is now BORING, you got to wait on railheads or waste 100"s of tanks tring to pound out a few hexs a turn for very little space. The historical lines of Nov 1941 are clearly not doable vs a good SHC player.

South: Again your stuck doing gimp incirclements and waiting on railheads where u are now. The Nov 1941 lines are just not even close to doable vs a good SHC player. In other words Boring after turn 3-5.

You play tested to turn 3? I alrdy play tested vs myself to turn 7 now 2 times. I have a job 3 kids, their are no magic bullets for the SHC, its a basic defence, checher board and counter attack when possible.

The game needed some minor tweaks bro, but this is really way way over reaching.

Before the patch vs a good SHC player the South historical Nov 1941 lines were not doable to start with. Center was about right and the North, Leningrad was a good possiblity. So on balance the game was close to historical with a few what ifs, now its just a bore. There are no options after turn 4 other then very gimp pockets and grinding out a few hexs a turn, which will cause uber high losses, which will lead to a disaster for the average to beginner GHC player.

This patch will be a big turn off for many new comers to the game that want to play the GHC side.

Clearly this patch was not play tested at all, thats why your doing it after the fact. It was based more on politics of mismatchs and not what was needed to balance the game.

Pelton

I have to agree with your frustration. I want this game to be good – but it seems to be going all over the freakin’ place.

I think patches are coming to fast and furious for play testers to actually weed through impacts that rule changes and code changes are having upon actual head to head game play. This becomes extremely frustrating for the gamer who has invested hundreds of hours into a particular GC only to have a new patch suddenly skew ongoing play as a result of either coding errors or inadequately play tested rules changes.

I'm perfectly willing to except that some errors will occasionally slip through the cracks and make their way into a product. But some of the stuff we the gamers are getting schwacked with mid game have clearly not been adequately play tested. In a game of this scope -- and again with the time committment we the consumers are dedictating toward playing this thing -- we need to feel like what we are getting has been examined prior to its release.

Play testers need to be given sufficient time to look at code changes and rules changes in order to assess their impacts on ongoing games for both sides of this game.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: kswanson1

I have to agree with your frustration. I want this game to be good – but it seems to be going all over the freakin’ place.

You make it sound as if it was the end of the world. I have been playing since 28 december (vs humans that is) and I did not find any bug which breaks, stops the game [&:] I keep playing AND enjoying the game (and that's what matters) so... this is not the end of the world, sorry. You CAN perfectly play the game as it is.

That or I am an utter moron and haven't understood anything.

The only nuisance so far: the RR brigades that ran away to the Front HQs (already fixed by the way)... And still, I always try to be positive. I will need to spend APs again? Yes, so what? It is not the end of the world. Not to me [;)]

[rotfront1918]

I'm not sure what the effect of the new 20MP rule will be for game balance, but I see why some people dont like it. The cut-off point is really quite arbitrary and constrains the freedom of choice. Another idea would be to let AP and truck costs rise exponentially with distance/MPs to railhead. For huge distances, the costs should then be punishing/prohibitive, but players could still decide to do it and take the costs, if they really see benefits outweigh costs. Just my 2 cents...

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: rotfront

I'm not sure what the effect of the new 20MP rule will be for game balance, but I see why some people dont like it. The cut-off point is really quite arbitrary and constrains the freedom of choice. Another idea would be to let AP and truck costs rise exponentially with distance/MPs to railhead. For huge distances, the costs should then be punishing/prohibitive, but players could still decide to do it and take the costs, if they really see benefits outweigh costs. Just my 2 cents...

That's a bad counterproposal. There comes a point where due to physical limitations using trucks for supply becomes self defeating; they consume as much supply moving it to the front as they bring in. It literally becomes impossible to keep supply going once you stretch out far enough. So distance has to be taken into consideration with a hard cap. The hard cap we've settled on may be too low, I leave that as an exercise for the reader. But some kind of cap is necessary, you cannot just stretch out to infinity.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: rotfront

I'm not sure what the effect of the new 20MP rule will be for game balance, but I see why some people dont like it. The cut-off point is really quite arbitrary and constrains the freedom of choice. Another idea would be to let AP and truck costs rise exponentially with distance/MPs to railhead. For huge distances, the costs should then be punishing/prohibitive, but players could still decide to do it and take the costs, if they really see benefits outweigh costs. Just my 2 cents...

I agree, but think a better formula would be Given N MPs from railhead, AP Cost = [Sum(1+2+...+N)]/25 rounded down.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: rotfront

I'm not sure what the effect of the new 20MP rule will be for game balance, but I see why some people dont like it. The cut-off point is really quite arbitrary and constrains the freedom of choice. Another idea would be to let AP and truck costs rise exponentially with distance/MPs to railhead. For huge distances, the costs should then be punishing/prohibitive, but players could still decide to do it and take the costs, if they really see benefits outweigh costs. Just my 2 cents...

That's a bad counterproposal. There comes a point where due to physical limitations using trucks for supply becomes self defeating; they consume as much supply moving it to the front as they bring in. It literally becomes impossible to keep supply going once you stretch out far enough. So distance has to be taken into consideration with a hard cap. The hard cap we've settled on may be too low, I leave that as an exercise for the reader. But some kind of cap is necessary, you cannot just stretch out to infinity.

The restriction on AP accumulation will take care of those upper bound issues, given a proper formula.

[Flaviusx]

James, I can predict exactly what would happen if we carried this proposal through: German players would recklessly burn through their truck and totally ignore logistical constraints.

If they somehow failed to win the game in 41, they'd resign.

This is just bad design.

You cannot march ad infinitum away from a railhead, period. Trucks will only get you so far. Jacking up the costs, even exponentially, will merely lead to gamey gambles as desicribed above which shouldn't be possible in the first place.

[Ketza]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

James, I can predict exactly what would happen if we carried this proposal through: German players would recklessly burn through their truck and totally ignore logistical constraints.

If they somehow failed to win the game in 41, they'd resign.

This is just bad design.

You cannot march ad infinitum away from a railhead, period. Trucks will only get you so far. Jacking up the costs, even exponentially, will merely lead to gamey gambles as desicribed above which shouldn't be possible in the first place.

I agree with this. Although I play for the long game I am sure there would be some people who would burn through their logistics for the quick win if doing that could lead to a quick win.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

James, I can predict exactly what would happen if we carried this proposal through: German players would recklessly burn through their truck and totally ignore logistical constraints.

Let them do so, and accept the consequences, so long as the consequences are realistic, given the overall design of the game.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If they somehow failed to win the game in 41, they'd resign.

They already do so. Nothing to see here...move along...[:D]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

This is just bad design.

Then I hope they get things thought out better before we get to the North African Campaign, or WitW, since the rail nets were virtually non-existent, or thrashed beyond all usage in the periods of war being covered. The Redball Express is what carried the US Army across France, and there were no railways to speak of in NA.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
You cannot march ad infinitum away from a railhead, period. Trucks will only get you so far. Jacking up the costs, even exponentially, will merely lead to gamey gambles as desicribed above which shouldn't be possible in the first place.

Funny, Genghis Khan marched twice as far, without any railheads. Napoleon made it to Moscow without any railheads. Yeah, I'm being facetious, but merely countering your hyperbole of bringing infinity into a game where the scale, and game mechanics dealing with the issue at hand, are anything but infinite.

[Flaviusx]

Interestingly, I believe Dupuy showed that Gheghiz Khan has has the highest sustained march rates of any army in history (over long periods of time at least.) It's incredibly difficult to replicate his logistical achievements with industrial era military forces. Primitive logistics are surprisingly more robust in some cases.

(

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Interestingly, I believe Dupuy showed that Gheghiz Khan has has the highest sustained march rates of any army in history (over long periods of time at least.) It's incredibly difficult to replicate his logistical achievements with industrial era military forces. Primitive logistics are surprisingly more robust in some cases.

Yeah, he's one of my heroes. Well...except for the raping, murdering and pillaging bit. However, in the Art of War, he was uniquely...proficient.