Simple proposition for Moscow

[Rafo35]

I think Leningrad is way overrated in most Axis players strategy, but I also agree with most people saying that Moscow is not given its due.

I think there is a simple way too improve Moscow value, easy to implement :
- divide by 2 the Soviet rail capacity as long as Moscow is German or cut off ;
- substract 10 AP each turn that Moscow is German or cut off.

It takes into account Moscow historical role as the major hub of the Soviet economy and military activities.

[heliodorus04]

The problem with the AP issue is that it creates a negative feedback loop.
If you lose APs, you might be unable to do very important things like build new units.

A morale hit is often discussed, and rightly so.
I think the rate at which Generals get dismissed should increase when Moscow falls too.  Stalin would get desperate.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

The problem with the AP issue is that it creates a negative feedback loop.

That's the thing with losing your capital, it often does have a detrimental effect on the war effort.

I think this is a good Idea. So good that I have suggested it myself elsewhere. [8D]

[heliodorus04]

At a certain level, such mechanics can provide an "Iwin" button. I don't know that 10 APs would do that (but I think it would), but that's the risk.

So imagine all of AGC and AGS focusing only on Moscow in order to obtain that leverage. It COULD be a perverse incentive.
Once Moscow falls, then the German has a lot more leverage to do things he should have been doing all along.

What's the counter-balance? If you incentivize something to a high degree, shouldn't there be counter-balances?
What happens if you use all your AGS panzers in the pursuit of Smolensk/Rzhev/Moscow but you ignore Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk until you obtain the reward of a gamey tactic to force the opponent to lose 20% of his APs?

Does that point make sense?

[Q-Ball]

Despite losing Moscow myself, I think it should be more important.

The Rail Cap is too harsh, and at any rate, not that valid IMO. The Soviets showed time and time again a unique ingenuity in improvising when industrial points fell.

APs might work

The Morale Hit is valid

[vlcz]

The rail cap is arbitrary and the admin point losing especulative.

now you lose manpower and railyards, is there any proof that numbers are not right? any industry should be fixed in position?

Moscow was taken indeed a century earlier, by Napoleon , he thought that it should spell disaster for russians and we all know the results.

Adjusting national morale (for both sides) with casualties/terrain/evacuations, not directly dependant of the year as it is done, would be a very elegant way to represent "being winning".

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: vlcz

The rail cap is arbitrary and the admin point losing especulative.

now you lose manpower and railyards, is there any proof that numbers are not right? any industry should be fixed in position?

Moscow was taken indeed a century earlier, by Napoleon , he thought that it should spell disaster for russians and we all know the results.

Adjusting national morale (for both sides) with casualties/terrain/evacuations, not directly dependant of the year as it is done, would be a very elegant way to represent "being winning".

The Russians defeated Napoleon in spite of losing Moscow, it's not as if they didn't care.

I think it likely the Soviets would have defeated Germany even if they had lost Moscow, but as the OP pointed out, at present Leningrad is the big prize in the game, which is somewhat different from what the Germans thought at the time.

[Flaviusx]

The Soviets already lose a ton of rail cap when Moscow falls.

To put this in perspective: at the beginning of the game the Sovs have a bit under 150k rail cap. Q ball in his game is down to less than 90k.

Moscow also has much industry, particularly aircraft industry, and if that goes, it's going to hurt over the course of the war. I really think people are severely underestimating this.

[Rafo35]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
What's the counter-balance? If you incentivize something to a high degree, shouldn't there be counter-balances?
What happens if you use all your AGS panzers in the pursuit of Smolensk/Rzhev/Moscow but you ignore Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk until you obtain the reward of a gamey tactic to force the opponent to lose 20% of his APs?

Concentrating forces to take Moscow a gamey tactic ??? [X(]

In case it isn't clear : the AP and rail capacity losses would be there as long as Moscow is German (or cut off). So once this is done, the German have to keep it to enjoy the benefit.

What's the counter-balance ?
1/ It can fails ... and maybe the Soviet will have to fight soonner rather that later on the Moscow road, risking to suffer a lot lof losses in the process (if it sounds familiar, it's what happenned historically) ;
2/ You are weaker against Leningrad and/or in Ukraine if you want to have a go at Moscow before the mud, if you don't, it means you won't enjoy much of a benefit before facing the Soviet winter counter-offensive.

One of the reason why Moscow is not so important in the game is because of the infinite capacity of all the railway and raylway stations (note that the Germans take benefit of this a lot more than the Soviets by the way). The reality was of course different and the major transport hub couldn't be evacuated, unlike the government and major parts of the industry and the population.

One final note : I don't see the 10 AP losses per turn as a huge punition for losing Moscow. For instance, losing Moscow for 6 weeks, a Soviet nightmare IRL, would only cost them the equivalent of 1 turn of AP. This will hardly be noticed when 43 is reached. 10 AP, you can lose that much when you fail an AP check !

[Klydon]

For those that insist on comparing Moscow of 1812 vs Moscow of WW2, allow me to point a few things out please:

Moscow of 1812 is not the nerve center of the nation (St Petersburg was). Moscow of 1812 is not the center of the rail net in the country. Losing the Moscow of 1812 had much less effect on the army in the immediate area in terms of logistics. Armies of 1812 needed much less than "modern" armies of 1941 in terms of ammo, food, etc. There is also the sheer numbers difference involved as well. The Russians and Germans threw upwards of 1 million troops on each side into the battle. The Grand Army and the Imperial Russian army were in the neighborhood of 250k combined or so.

Napoleon sought to capture Moscow because he thought the Russians would defend it to the last man. He was wrong when they abandoned Moscow to the Grand Army.

The German general staff sought to capture Moscow because they thought the Russians would defend it to the last man. Every indication is they were correct, but getting a campaign underway at the end of September/first of October in Russia speaks of its own stupidity.

Moscow needs to have some additional tangible benefit in order to make it a priority target. Leningrad is the only location on the map (outside of Baku) in Russia that there is a good cause/effect, making it a priority for the Germans to capture and the Russians to try to hold. There have been a lot of good suggestions made. (National moral loss and/or AP loss, etc). Adding something like that in would give the Germans a reason to make Moscow a priority in game terms. Right now, the biggest intangible in capturing Moscow in a player vs player game is the moral hit the Russian PLAYER takes in losing his capital.

Should something be put in place for Moscow, then I think the three target areas will be fairly complete. Leningrad, freeing the Finns, Moscow with its moral loss and/or AP loss, and the Don Bas with all population in the area along with a huge amount of armaments in the area that at least faces downtime with relocation. The Germans will want to do well in all three areas, but probably can only afford to make one of the three a priority.

[gradenko2k]

Moscow already carries a large amount of industry and rail capacity. I think some kind of AP loss would be appropriate though - that's supposed to be the bottleneck for the Soviets anyway: The Germans can never run them out of men, but they can (should?) run them out of counters to fill men with.

[randallw]

The problem with decreasing the Soviet morale, from a loss of Moscow, is that the morale 'level' is being perceived in literal words, and not how the game designers use the morale level ( as some type of training standard ).

[Pawlock]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The Soviets already lose a ton of rail cap when Moscow falls.

To put this in perspective: at the beginning of the game the Sovs have a bit under 150k rail cap. Q ball in his game is down to less than 90k.

Moscow also has much industry, particularly aircraft industry, and if that goes, it's going to hurt over the course of the war. I really think people are severely underestimating this.

+1

Totally agree with Flaviusx, a lot of rail cap is lost at Moscow as well as 90+ manpower and so much more.
I tend to agree Moscow should be more of a focus however, but instead of yet another Soviet hamstring,perhaps look at it the other way and give Moscow extra perks whilst it is still in Soviet hands.

[cookie monster]

I honestly don't understand this idea of a morale penalty for losing Moscow.

If London was taken the English would be inspired to fight to regain the city.

When Coventry/London were bombed, they just went back and did it bigger and better.

Apologies German readers.

Russia is a very large country, losing Moscow would only have made the Russian Army fight very hard to regain the capital.

Morale loss, eh, more like a credible political motive for inspiring the troops.

[Ridgeway]

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

I honestly don't understand this idea of a morale penalty for losing Moscow.

If London was taken the English would be inspired to fight to regain the city.

When Coventry/London were bombed, they just went back and did it bigger and better.

Apologies German readers.

Russia is a very large country, losing Moscow would only have made the Russian Army fight very hard to regain the capital.

Morale loss, eh, more like a credible political motive for inspiring the troops.

I totally agree. Plus, as someone else mentioned, in WITE, morale <> "morale" in the conventional sense

I see two things that would have happened had Moscow fallen.

1) The government and STAVKA would have relocated far to the East. This would likely have had serious C&C impacts which should be simulated. I am not sure AP loss is the best way to sim this though.
2) The railnet would have been severely disrupted. I understand that Moscow currently contains significant railyards, but I do not think that reflects the fact that essentially all the main rail lines ran through Moscow. As it is, all rail lines are equal in WITE, so the Russian player can rail significant amounts of traffic over tracks that IRL could not have supported it. I accept that this is a given and will not be changed. However, it seems to me that a significant reduction in rail cap would be a reasonable reflection of the disruption that losing Moscow would have caused.

I would also argue that these changes should be reversible once the Russians recapture and hold Moscow for a certain period (and fix the rails etc.)

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

I honestly don't understand this idea of a morale penalty for losing Moscow.

If London was taken the English would be inspired to fight to regain the city.

When Coventry/London were bombed, they just went back and did it bigger and better.

Apologies German readers.

Russia is a very large country, losing Moscow would only have made the Russian Army fight very hard to regain the capital.

Morale loss, eh, more like a credible political motive for inspiring the troops.

At a certain point, we're all engaging in conjecture.

The loss of Paris was no morale boost for the French.
(You might argue they already knew they were beaten, but can't the same be said of the Soviet fighting man in week 14 of Barbarossa?)

The loss of Sicily did not inspire Italians.

The loss of Manila gave no resolve to US troops on the Philippines.

These things may inspire civilians to endure more hardships, as Dunkirk did the British, as Pearl Harbor did the Americans, and as Barbarossa did Soviets. But for the fighting man, who actually faces the trajectory of the MG-34, some cataclysms instill in him hopelessness, and hopelessness inspires self-preservation in the form of early retreat & surrender.

The 1941 Soviet rifleman was known more for retreat and surrender than resolve, wasn't he?

Since it didn't happen historically, we can't say for certain. I just think the game needs to be more rewarding to play and needs to incentivize terrain more.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Pawlock
another Soviet hamstring

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: Pawlock
another Soviet hamstring

I think what he means is yet another way for 1941 to become a fun-leach for the Soviet player.

[Scook_99]

I am kinda happy with the way it is, especially if you can bag any industry with the fall of Moscow. The rail and manpower hits are large, imo. I could go with a small morale hit, but we can speculate whether it should be up or down (depends on circumstances). I wouldn't change AP in the least though.

[Klydon]

I think something else being overlooked perhaps is that with the way things are right now, Leningrad is always going to be a serious target for the Germans simply because sufficient incentive has not been given to put other areas in play. It should be noted that even if other incentives are put in play, Leningrad may still remain target number 1 for many German players simply because of how the map lays out. (My own opinion is the Germans should have taken Leningrad first, then had as much of AGN advance to the SE as possible towards Moscow and go from there, but others will have different opinions and there is nothing wrong with that).

I think giving a bit more incentive with Moscow and as realization/education about the importance of the Don Bas comes out, then the German has more choices on what to stake their campaign on. Each area should have its advantages and drawbacks for both sides in a grand strategic sense.