Andrew: Solution for overland map movement limitations?

[LoBaron]

Not sure if this has been thought through before so I just give it a try.

We have a couple of locations where overland movement is too easy compared to
reality. The most recent debate came from GreyJoys AAR concerning the Owen Stanley Mountains
where it should not be possible to move a huge ammount of troops from Buna to PM or
vice versa.

I don´t know if such a modifaction is possible but if it is it may be relatively simple
to implement and can be adjusted to reflect historical limitations in certain hexes:

Create a dot base with size -3,-3, built up to size 0 (or if possible a base which cannot be
built up which would yield the same result). This way no airbase or port can be created but
you can assign attributes usually limited to bases.
As an example you could then mod the OS hex to a max troop limit of (insert number here)
and a supply limit/max supply pull of (insert number here).
That creates an artificial bottleneck preventing or severely hindering large troop movements
over the mountain path without other significant changes.

Is something similar as the above a way to handle such locations?

[jb1144]

Thats interesting as my dad said, that actually how they went from Port Morsbey to [font=arial]Finschaffen. they walked it, it.Took according to him, 30 day walking over the Owen Stanley range in WW2 to reach Finschaffen. He was  TSGT with the 81st depot repair squadron,of the 81st depot repair group.[/font]

[LargeSlowTarget]

Have done the same thing - almost. Have created a dot base (Kokoda) and added a supply cap. Did not think about max troop limit - good idea!

I'm dreaming of a "leave behind heavy weapons"-function when moving units into roadless mountain regions - i.e. if you order a unit to move into such a hex, it would automatically split-off a sub unit containig all the wheeled / tracked stuff and only the footsloggers with what can be carried by hand / pack mules (e.g. MGs, light mortars, mountain arty) would move into the difficult terrrain.

[Roger Neilson II]

That seems very very cunning! Well thought out sir!

Roger

[Roger Neilson II]

Now admittedly this is not a reference to the Kokoda trail area, but I was struck by this contemporaneous account of movement in Burma......

Some troops sat around for days till it was their turn to join the single file up the track.....

Reference is from: Forgotten Voices of Burma - Julian Thompson. Random House Books.

Troops can go anywhere (almost) but its the numbers, state and equipment/supply they can have with them that's the issue.

Roger

[Roger Neilson II]

Another great idea.

Roger

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II

Now admittedly this is not a reference to the Kokoda trail area, but I was struck by this contemporaneous account of movement in Burma......

Some troops sat around for days till it was their turn to join the single file up the track.....

Reference is from: Forgotten Voices of Burma - Julian Thompson. Random House Books.

Troops can go anywhere (almost) but its the numbers, state and equipment/supply they can have with them that's the issue.

Roger

Jack Masters (BM 111 Inf Bde)talks of climbing a hill, 1 step forward and slide 2 steps back.

[Dobey455]

Only problem I could see with an otherwise fantastic idea is that you would reduce the numbers of troops advancing overland in areas like NG or Burma (which is great).....but, unless you ALSO put troop number restrictions on the main bases (lets say places like PM, Buna, Akyab,etc) then those places will still be stacked with ludicrous numbers of troops which the now reduced over-land offesive has no hope of defeating.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Only problem I could see with an otherwise fantastic idea is that you would reduce the numbers of troops advancing overland in areas like NG or Burma (which is great).....but, unless you ALSO put troop number restrictions on the main bases (lets say places like PM, Buna, Akyab,etc) then those places will still be stacked with ludicrous numbers of troops which the now reduced over-land offesive has no hope of defeating.

good point

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Only problem I could see with an otherwise fantastic idea is that you would reduce the numbers of troops advancing overland in areas like NG or Burma (which is great).....but, unless you ALSO put troop number restrictions on the main bases (lets say places like PM, Buna, Akyab,etc) then those places will still be stacked with ludicrous numbers of troops which the now reduced over-land offesive has no hope of defeating.

good point

Good point.
But for this reason I wrote (insert number) instead of "3518". [;)]

The concept is to allow modability and balancing, which under current circumstances for non base hexes is only possible globally and not locally.
To which extent its modified is up to the one who does the mod.

The penalty for the marching army is higher fatigue, higher number of damaged units, therefore lower marching speed, and with troop limit it would
require a high ammount of supplies proportional to the size of the army you try to march across.

It should not be impossible, just very, very costly. In the optimal situation it should only be possible for the side which permanently controls the airspace/close naval
space for some time, as the player first has to ensure the edge in supplies and the time needed to prep for the trail itself. Then it could change into exactly the attrition
war which happened there.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Only problem I could see with an otherwise fantastic idea is that you would reduce the numbers of troops advancing overland in areas like NG or Burma (which is great).....but, unless you ALSO put troop number restrictions on the main bases (lets say places like PM, Buna, Akyab,etc) then those places will still be stacked with ludicrous numbers of troops which the now reduced over-land offesive has no hope of defeating.

Just from my perspective here, but if you were to march an army over the Owen Stanley Mtns, you'd really be limited to light infantry anyway. Not sure it is such a wise idea to try to attack a fortified base with light infantry only.

I think the idea of the OP is to discourage marching large armies over these historically very inhospitable terrains and allowing an over-whelming invasion in either direction. If you limit the defender too much, you have effectively wiped out any gains from making the march difficult. Remember, if you go with the OPs idea, both sides are prevented from doing the overland march to take PM or Buna, unless the opponant foolishly leaves these areas under defended.

All in all, the idea seems sound to me, but that is just my humble opinion.

[Nikademus]

you'd need to do it for the adjacent hexes too however otherwise LCU's will go around the hex

[Alfred]

LoBaron,

Nice idea but I don't think it will fly. Two basic reasons for my view.

1. Too easy to be circumvented.
2. Too subjective a decision.

Elaborating a bit on the above.

1. Circumvention

You have specified the Kokoda Track. Obviously the principle could be applied elsewhere (see comments next section). I will therefore limit myself to the specifics of the Kokoda Track here.

Firstly, the shortest distance between Buna and Port Moresby is two hexes. An army marching between the two bases can either travel via hex 98,129 or 99,130. There is no qualitative difference between the "northern" and "southern" routes. If only one of those hexes is modified as you suggest (assuming it is possible which I greatly doubt by the way), the marching army merely uses the alternative route. Hence you would need to modify both hexes.

Secondly, even with both direct route hexes so modified, nothing would stop an army marching out of Buna to still go around the created obstacle by taking the slightly longer route via hex 99,128. In terms of cost imposed on supply delivery and troop fatigue would still be far less than the benefits of marching a 140k army.

Thirdly, you assume that with your modification, the army would march out of Buna. It could just as easily set off from Terapo or Salamua. The additional hex travelled would not impose much of a handicap and would even be shorter than the possible alternative route out of Buna via hex 99,128.

Fourthly, the invading army could be dropped off at a non base hex and then march overland directly to its destination, thereby also bypassing your modified terrain.

Doubtless there would be other means to circumvent your scheme. For every proposal there is always a counter proposal.

2. Subjectivity

As seen from the preceding section, it is quite easy to circumvent your proposal. The obvious counter counter is to surround all of Port Moresby with your modified hexes. That however would be a very subjective decision. Why so treat Port Moresby and not elsewhere. The problem is not just applicable to the jungle of New Guinea. To nominate just a few other locations, tt also applies to the desert and oil producing regions of China, the India-Burma border, marching from Broome to Katherine/Darwin to Alice Springs. To be consistent we would end up with a honeycomb of so much modified terrain that there would scarcely be a hex left on the map without a "base" of some sort. I for one, would then immediately think that the entire AE terrain movement/supply/fortification (yes fortification too because even though no airfield or port could be built why would one not be able to build up forts) concept would be meaningless.

Then you would also have the rants from the usual crowd complaining that the devs are on purpose encouraging players to play unhistorically. Witness the recent thread on this sub-forum from el cid complaing that players are not being penalised by not using the Kokoda Track.

Summary

Sorry LoBaron, your suggestion is one which fundamentally aims to assist poor players. As such, as always it will ultimately fail as the better players will find a way around it. The only proper way of avoiding the perceived problem is to remove the ability of an opponent to march 140k over the Owen Stanleys.

Firstly, don't lose both China and India thereby dramatically increasing both the industrial capacity to fully equip such an expeditionary force. Don't forget the expeditionary force is backed up by overwhelming air and sea forces (again fully equipped by the industrial base), which if not present, the defender could ship in the necessary assets to hold Port Moresby and interdict the enemy before it left Port Moresby plus interdict the logistical chain linking Buna back to the depots.

Secondly, have enough pressure points elsewhere so that the additional resources made available after the loss of both China and India, can not be safely concentrated on a single point.

Alfred

[Roger Neilson II]

As I would always expect carefully reasoned and explained views, backed up by encyclopaedic knowledge of the game.

Whilst you may be entirely right that the proposed solution is not workable the alternative - which is almost like Risk (board game from way back) - of treating all terrain as pretty well operational areas is severely denting my love of the game. What it is doing is making the game play out in a very unhistorical manner - unless one adds volumes of house rules. Something needs to be done(don't know what) to at least represent the main land masses in the way they were for the combatants.

Yes I know what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander....... I know that a Japanese invasion of a mangrove swamp and turning it into a nice port is something that at a later stage the allies can also do, but its not the Pacific War!

Some critical issues for me in the land warfare.

1. The India/Burma border - where contemporary accounts suggest that it was nigh impassable to any large force except at key points.
2. The New Guinea highlands - where again its was a matter of very slow, tortuous progress as it was pretty well impossible to supply and move anything heavy around
3. China - where Japanese panzer divisions can roam at will with no gas problems at all - and later the Allies can do the same. (Thanks but I'll play an east front game if I want this.

AE has done a great job of sorting the islands out so that a strip of coral can no longer have men standing ten high on each others shoulders..... and where they actually need water to survive! Its also done a great job on imposing massive supply problems to over garrisoning. Sadly the land masses have not had anything like a solution.

So we can have a player doing a blitzkreig over huge land masses that frankly the greatest proponents of lighting war could have only dreamed of.

If the one suggested by LoBaron is not workable is there another method?

And sorry, for me ( I may be alone in this) simply playing it that way when its the Allies' turn is not what attracts me to the War - as I said at the start I'll play Risk if that's all its about.

[Alfred]

Roger Neilson II,

Oh I fully empathise with your concerns. As Dr Zachary Smith would have said; "The pain, oh the pain".

However I do believe you will always be disappointed if you base your view of AE on the basis of it being a true PTO simulation. Even with its slight imperfections (of course if the design had been left solely in my hands there would have been no imperfections at all[:D]) I think AE is an excellent game. But then I view it as it is, foremost a game. Players of AE are not being asked to refight the Pacific War exactly as it occurred between 1941 and 1945, but they are tasked with handling a conflict between team Red (the Japanese Empire) and team Green (the USA and its allies) using the tools available to the historical protagonists. This includes having to employ those assets within the framework constraints of that era, both technological and political, which impacted upon the scale and feasibility of operations available to the real historical protagonists. Even then just to make the game playable at all there is considerable abstraction in the game engine, and as an inevitable outcome there will always be unhistorical situations. This will be particularly apparent in games between players of widely different skill levels/play philosophies.

Given the game engine limitations and the lack of people who would be willing to put the considerable work to fully address your concerns, tweaking the following areas might alleviate to some degree your concerns.

1. I haven't downloaded Treespider's mod nor looked at it, but it's changes look promising. I'm not entirely certain that so many dot bases should have been created in China but his other structural changes seem to be very promising in terms of reproducing the technical constraints of the era. Certainly players such as witpqs think highly of the mod, so you might be attracted to the mod.

2. DaBabes Mod is another one which might suit you better.

3. In terms of stock AE a couple of areas could be reconsidered. Firstly, PDU ON is too generous. Considerations could be given to altering the PDU ON/OFF dynamic to the following.

(a) with PDU OFF, the player is given absolutely no option as to the available list of airframes for upgrading. Only the next airframe model would be made available for upgrading.
(b) currently with PDU ON, the player is presented (with only a few exceptions) with the entire inventory of airframe models of that type for upgrade purposes. It could be tweaked so that a player has only a restricted list of aircraft models to select from. So that instead of having the entire inventory to choose from, the player has only the historical upgrade plus one or two additional airframe options at most.

Alternatively, a tweak I believe to have great merit when PDU On is employed, is to allow the historical airframe upgrade model to be a free choice but upgrading to any other airframe model would cost PPs, the amount equivalent to changing the units HQ.

Secondly, I don't think the ill effects of not meeting the garrison requirements are adequate. They are certainly much better than they were when the game first shipped out but they can still be too easily disregarded. I once did the garrison requirements calculations and if I recall correctly, India alone needed a Japanese garrison of about 3700 AV. Properly garrisoning the requisite bases would go a long way towards soaking up the additional resources made available to amass a 140k army to march overland from Buna to Port Moresby. Some months ago I prepared a draft paper which touched on this issue in much greater detail but following some off forum feedback and an awareness that it probably could not be implemented using current dev resources, I decided not to post it on the forum.

Alfred

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

LoBaron,

Nice idea but I don't think it will fly. Two basic reasons for my view.

1. Too easy to be circumvented.
2. Too subjective a decision.

Elaborating a bit on the above.

1. Circumvention

You have specified the Kokoda Track. Obviously the principle could be applied elsewhere (see comments next section). I will therefore limit myself to the specifics of the Kokoda Track here.

Firstly, the shortest distance between Buna and Port Moresby is two hexes. An army marching between the two bases can either travel via hex 98,129 or 99,130. There is no qualitative difference between the "northern" and "southern" routes. If only one of those hexes is modified as you suggest (assuming it is possible which I greatly doubt by the way), the marching army merely uses the alternative route. Hence you would need to modify both hexes.

Secondly, even with both direct route hexes so modified, nothing would stop an army marching out of Buna to still go around the created obstacle by taking the slightly longer route via hex 99,128. In terms of cost imposed on supply delivery and troop fatigue would still be far less than the benefits of marching a 140k army.

Thirdly, you assume that with your modification, the army would march out of Buna. It could just as easily set off from Terapo or Salamua. The additional hex travelled would not impose much of a handicap and would even be shorter than the possible alternative route out of Buna via hex 99,128.

Fourthly, the invading army could be dropped off at a non base hex and then march overland directly to its destination, thereby also bypassing your modified terrain.

Doubtless there would be other means to circumvent your scheme. For every proposal there is always a counter proposal.

2. Subjectivity

As seen from the preceding section, it is quite easy to circumvent your proposal. The obvious counter counter is to surround all of Port Moresby with your modified hexes. That however would be a very subjective decision. Why so treat Port Moresby and not elsewhere. The problem is not just applicable to the jungle of New Guinea. To nominate just a few other locations, tt also applies to the desert and oil producing regions of China, the India-Burma border, marching from Broome to Katherine/Darwin to Alice Springs. To be consistent we would end up with a honeycomb of so much modified terrain that there would scarcely be a hex left on the map without a "base" of some sort. I for one, would then immediately think that the entire AE terrain movement/supply/fortification (yes fortification too because even though no airfield or port could be built why would one not be able to build up forts) concept would be meaningless.

Then you would also have the rants from the usual crowd complaining that the devs are on purpose encouraging players to play unhistorically. Witness the recent thread on this sub-forum from el cid complaing that players are not being penalised by not using the Kokoda Track.

Summary

Sorry LoBaron, your suggestion is one which fundamentally aims to assist poor players. As such, as always it will ultimately fail as the better players will find a way around it. The only proper way of avoiding the perceived problem is to remove the ability of an opponent to march 140k over the Owen Stanleys.

Firstly, don't lose both China and India thereby dramatically increasing both the industrial capacity to fully equip such an expeditionary force. Don't forget the expeditionary force is backed up by overwhelming air and sea forces (again fully equipped by the industrial base), which if not present, the defender could ship in the necessary assets to hold Port Moresby and interdict the enemy before it left Port Moresby plus interdict the logistical chain linking Buna back to the depots.

Secondly, have enough pressure points elsewhere so that the additional resources made available after the loss of both China and India, can not be safely concentrated on a single point.

Alfred

Alfred, your criticism is aprechiated.
I am not a modder, my limited time available for the game is reserved for actually playing.

The original intent of the idea was to complicate ahistorical gameplay in a specific area of the game, southern New Guinea:
Crossing the OS mountains in much less than a month with 7 divisions and heavy equipment - I should have known that guys like LST already tried something similar as the issue in this area
is so obvious.
Every other area may have to be treated different and there the points you make may, or may not, apply. I havent thought through a similar modifcation of Burma, China or the DEIs,
but believe that a simple solution for a local issue of noticable impact must not be perfect to improve - or needs to be a fix everything button for all tricky spots on the map.

My interest does not lie in assisting poor(?) players (at least in this case), rather I´d like to contribute to bringing the game closer to historical situations where applicable, where the
ammount of work required to reach that goal is low in proportion to the potential benefit, and where the impact on other game aspects is neglectable.

But I guess my motivation is not of much interest here anyway.

Let me adress your post in a bit more detail:

Circumvention:

Concerning your first, second and third point: Nik already mentioned it, a single hex might not achive the desired goal, so you a few add more.
I do not see much of a problem with this. At max I see 4 locations where the implementation would make sense: The two river hexes north of
Terago/Wau and the two hexes between PM and Buna. Its not like such a concentration of base hexes is unique on the map, the situation asking
for a solution because of the extremely short supply/movement paths might be though.

The intention is not to cover the whole map with dot bases (although, funny, I had this idea quite some
time ago though dismissed it as impractical with the way bases are implemented).
The relevant quesiton is whether the benefits outweight the drawbacks locally. Thats not up to me to decide.

The fourth point, well, it has been a very long time since I have seen a PBEM without the most basic HRs in WitP: no landings at non base hexes. [;)]

Subjectivity:

Surounding PM, or even to single it out is not neccesary, the coastline is not of interest but the Owen Stanleys. This topic and the one about other areas on the
map is covered above already. New Guinea is quite unique on the map, both in its geographical layout and in the short supply/movement paths working against the
conventional game mechanisms.

Since the primary goal is to make movement costly, and to limit the ammount of troops able to pass without a significant investement of supplies, this
also at least limits the argument against fort building ability. What speaks against this? It slows the op tempo further - but only to a small extent as keeping garrison
troops in the mountains would require supplies in ammounts comparable to small islands when overstacked.
This further increases realism in simulating the logistical nightmares faced on the ridge.


To sum things up:

Circumvention could easily be prevented by careful placement of the dot bases and the implementation of standard HR #1.

Subjectivity is obvious, the area concerned is subjectively chosen. But the result would be an objectively measurable convergence
to the historical situation in an important strategic area of the war that decides control over the northern passage along the Australian coast to
the DEIs, and represents the door to Rabaul, the Admiralties and Northeastern New Guinea.

I don´t think that it is the perfect solution for every map issue we got. But maybe interesting enough to try it out.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II

As I would always expect carefully reasoned and explained views, backed up by encyclopaedic knowledge of the game.

Whilst you may be entirely right that the proposed solution is not workable the alternative - which is almost like Risk (board game from way back) - of treating all terrain as pretty well operational areas is severely denting my love of the game. What it is doing is making the game play out in a very unhistorical manner - unless one adds volumes of house rules. Something needs to be done(don't know what) to at least represent the main land masses in the way they were for the combatants.

Yes I know what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander....... I know that a Japanese invasion of a mangrove swamp and turning it into a nice port is something that at a later stage the allies can also do, but its not the Pacific War!

Some critical issues for me in the land warfare.

1. The India/Burma border - where contemporary accounts suggest that it was nigh impassable to any large force except at key points.
2. The New Guinea highlands - where again its was a matter of very slow, tortuous progress as it was pretty well impossible to supply and move anything heavy around
3. China - where Japanese panzer divisions can roam at will with no gas problems at all - and later the Allies can do the same. (Thanks but I'll play an east front game if I want this.

AE has done a great job of sorting the islands out so that a strip of coral can no longer have men standing ten high on each others shoulders..... and where they actually need water to survive! Its also done a great job on imposing massive supply problems to over garrisoning. Sadly the land masses have not had anything like a solution.

So we can have a player doing a blitzkreig over huge land masses that frankly the greatest proponents of lighting war could have only dreamed of.

If the one suggested by LoBaron is not workable is there another method?

And sorry, for me ( I may be alone in this) simply playing it that way when its the Allies' turn is not what attracts me to the War - as I said at the start I'll play Risk if that's all its about.

There is a way to make terrain completely impassible, but it requires editing the PWHEX file. Without doing that, the terrain remains just as easily passable as it is currently, just with more supply nodes (IE dot bases) along the way.

By editing the PWHEX file, I was able to add in a japanese base on a 'land mass' at the very low left corner of the map to allow the Monsun U-boats to arrive 'from around the cape'. So yes, anything is possible, but it is practical?

[Andrew Brown]

My thinking on this is how to apply general restrictions, not just in one area (PNG). This issue affects other areas with poor transport networks as well, such as part of China, India and Burma, and Northern Australia, to name a few.

A while ago there was a partial "band aid" fix for this problem applied to Burma and Northern Australia (only) and tied in hard coding to the Monsoon season. I would have preferred a more general fix, along the same lines, and not tied to the monsoon so that it could be applied elsewhere. Also, such a fix should allow more supplies to flow along better lines of communication, such a railways.

Finally, any fix needs to be applied so that it does not impact games in progress or stock scenarios (unless it is generally agreed that to do that is a good idea). This can be achieved by using a code fix in conjunction with the use of the scenario data files.

I think it is still possible to come up with a fix, but I am still not sure exactly how it could be done. My thinking so far has been to use a value applied in the base data to use as a limit on how many supply points can be drawn from the base each day, and have the transfer of supplies from that base to a remote location be reduced proportionally, from that value, according to the supply cost of the supply path, so that the higher the supply path cost, the fewer supplies can be drawn.

Andrew

PS: Edited for clarity.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

My thinking on this is how to apply general restrictions, not just in one area (PNG). This issue affects other areas with poor transport networks as well, such as part of China, India and Burma, and Northern Australia, to name a few.

A while ago there was a partial "band aid" fix for this problem applied to Burma and Northern Australia (only) and tied in hard coding to the Monsoon season. I would have preferred a more general fix, along the same lines, and not tied to the monsoon so that it could be applied elsewhere. Also, such a fix should allow more supplies to flow along better lines of communication, such a railways.

Finally, any fix needs to be applied so that it does not impact games in progress or stock scenarios (unless it is generally agreed that to do that is a good idea). This can be achieved by using a code fix in conjunction with the use of the scenario data files.

I think it is still possible to come up with a fix, but I am still not sure exactly how it could be done. My thinking so far has been to use a value applied in the base data to use as a limit on how many supply points can be drawn from the base each day, and have the transfer of supplies from that base to a remote location be reduced proportionally, from that value, according to the supply cost of the supply path, so that the higher the supply path cost, the fewer supplies can be drawn.

Andrew

PS: Edited for clarity.

The immediate problem I see with your current thinking solution is that it doesn't really apply to a short distance route march.

Again to look at the specific Kokoda Track example which has kick started this thread, the 140k expeditionary force will have started its march with all units in full supply. Those LCUs could subsist on their intrinsic organic supply carried with them. Hence the amount of supply flow from the Buna depot is not a real issue for the purposes of the march. Your thinking would only really have an impact should the expeditionary force be held up at its destination (Port Moresby) and thus be forced to top up its intrinsic supply stores from the Buna depot.

However that is not the issue which really concerns LoBaron and Roger Neilson II who are essentially trying to prevent the overland march by a 140k expeditionary force from occurring in the first place. If the expeditionary force could be stopped at Port Moresby, then the Allied player in this instance would already have had the necessary assets in place and in play to use the existing game engine to demonstrate the short comings of the invasion. Any modified hexes discussion would then be quite moot.

Alfred

[witpqs]

I'm pretty sure the supply restrictions in Australia are not limited to the monsoon season.