Gamey Tactics which Drive Me Wild

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
The only times I've seen the Germans win is because the Soviet player screwed up badly.

Well, duh, what do you expect? That is the only way that the Germans could have won the war, is it not?

And I never said that the game is perfectly balanced--I agree that 1942 is too static in most AARs, but not all, and I don't really have an opinion on 1943 yet, although it seems like German strength falls off a cliff.

ORIGINAL: neuromancer
Define 'struggle'. From what I can see, the only struggle is psychological.

I would define losing Lgrad, Moscow, and the Donbas as struggling, and this happens pretty frequently. I think that if German players are not encircling enough Sov units in 1941, it is generally their fault for not employing the correct tactics (not to say that it is easy to do, but it is possible). My biggest problem with 1941 is that the Sovs really have no reason to care much about losing Moscow, particularly if the industry has been evacced. I think something significant should happen, or better yet, there should be some chance that something significant could happen, especially if Lgrad has already fallen.

[Jakerson]

German reach front of Leningrad 1-1.5 months earlier than they could reach historically. It is actually very rare to find AAR where Germans reach Leningrad in historical time table. We are not speaking 1-2 turn earlier than historically but something like 4-6 turns earlier. So it is fair to say with data that 4-6 turn earlier Leningrad is more a norm than rare case.

[misesfan]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

ORIGINAL: 76mm
It is very difficult for the Germans to win the war, but it has been done in several AARs.

The only times I've seen the Germans win is because the Soviet player screwed up badly. The German player has to put in a top notch performance, but even if he does its moot as long as the Soviet player doesn't completely screw himself.

My biggest example of this is Tarhunnas vs. Q-Ball. By the end of 1941 several people were telling Q-Ball that he was completely screwed and should concede. But then we see the summer of 1942 and find that in actual fact Q-Ball is just fine and that he can carry on offenses while Tarhunnas is stuck on the defensive already.

Now, Tarhunnas did push longer than he should have, and did take more damage than he should have (he should have started digging in sooner), which everyone seems to think is the problem. There are four problems with that theory however.

1. The Germans did push until Dec. 5, 1941, and only when the blizzard hit did they actually stop. Unlike us they didn't know they should stop in October and start to dig in and fortify for the brutal winter to come (some preparation did occur, but nothing like is necessary in the game).

2. The Germans did take significant losses to men and equipment in the winter of 1941 and 1942. They weren't in the greatest of shape come the spring, the Soviets pushing them back in several places - but the Soviets largely exhausted themselves in the process, using up the available supply, and many of their units needing to retire for refit. Although it is worth noting that the Germans didn't just crawl into holes during that period, they performed some counter offensives as well!

3. The Germans didn't take Leningrad and Moscow historically, but Tarhunnas did. Despite losing these two important locations, the worst that Q-Ball can say is "I lost some bomber factories, but its okay now, I'm back up to making 80 IL-2s a turn."

4. Historically the Germans and Soviets fought like mad over the summer of 1942, the lines moving about dramatically, in the center and north they ended up almost back where they started while in the South the Germans pushed all the way to Stalingrad.

So despite doing a dramatically better advance in 1941 which should have resulted in a Soviet army on the ropes thinking "oh crap! How do we keep them from going further?" we know that the game is done. Tarhunnas has no where to go but down, Q-Ball has no where to go but up, and while I think they are going to play it out I'm now wondering how Q-Ball could not take Berlin.

So the problem is that some people are more than happy to say how X or Y is historically accurate, but when the complete and utter reversal that occurs post Winter '41 arrives, these same people are suddenly silent.

After the end of 1941, the game's historical plausibility gets up and leaves. The Germans are too weak in 1942, the Russians too strong, and instead of the back and forth struggle that would make for an interesting 1942 and 1943, we get a reprise of the static trenches from 1915 to 1917.

That is the problem.

And the Sovs struggle in most AARs in 1941, althoughs sometimes more than others.

Define 'struggle'. From what I can see, the only struggle is psychological.

Oh sure, the Soviets lose 3/4 as many men as historical, they lose a bit more territory than historical, they lose a small fraction of as much industry as historical, they sing the woes about how screwed they are - and I'm sure they believe they are, logically they should be! But they aren't. They find instead that they have a massive front in 1942 that resembles 1915 France more than 1942 Russia, and an ineffective summer campaign season follows that the only way ends at the gates of Stalingrad is if the Soviet player decides to skip a few turns, or if the Germans had already been there in the first place.

And when the best German players out there are having this problem, its even pretty hard for the Soviet fanboys to say "lrn2play n00b". So instead they point to a handful of Soviet losses that only occurred because the player made one gross mistake or another in 1941 and deny that there is any problem at all.

+1
Nicely ranted, and I'm with you 100%

And actually the Germans didnt relinquish the initiative until after Kursk. The war may have been unwinnable, but they still had superior operational mobility well into 43.

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

There is not a single thread on this forum about what trade-offs the Soviet player must make in order to survive the German offensive.

Bullcrap. Read some AARs.

I've read plenty.

But a competent Soviet player doesn't appear to have to make any really tough decisions, no real trade-offs... at least not at the operational level. Oh, yeah, he may lose Leningrad. Not a game ender though... not even close.

And the reason for this, as I have stated before is because of the routing mechanic that the game uses. It is wildly, IMO, unrealistic, which therefore forces unrealistic play.

Okay, in AGN, if the German player goes for it he has a good chance of taking Leningrad, but he does so by striping forces from AGC. In the South, you can get a great big Lvov pocket, but that normally requires stripling forces from AGC... again.

So, essentially, what we see is that the German player takes AGC out of play and this allows the Soviet player to essentially, by historic standards, to stop AGS literally in its tracks. Thus, as I stated before, the Soviet player really doesn't have any REAL operational trade-offs to make as essentially his only real problem is slowing down AGS.

This happens because the German player is loathe to execute a general offensive in AGC and AGS because he is afraid that all the routers will escape pocketing because Soviet units rout too far away. In fact, the German player has to ensure he doesn't even comes close to a routed unit or it could end up as far as 10 to 12 hexes away from its original starting point of the move. That is totally ridiculous.

And because the German player cannot execute a general offensive during an operation he just pokes holes through the Soviet line and tries to encircle what is there. Is that dumb or what? So half the German and Soviet army are going to sit there looking each other in the eye without even throwing a rock at each other while they wait to see if the panzer divisions can encircle while everybody else is playing with their penises. [:)]

You call that Operational Warfare? [:D]

And if you do encircle and isolate, while your infantry has been spending a week wanking off, you then have lost both time and space which under normally operational conditions would have been spent pushing forward and beating up on units making them quite happy to surrender when they find they have been isolated.

Historical pockets occurred where they did because the German army as a whole was moving forward, not sitting around waiting to see what the tanks did first.

I repeat... Historical pockets occurred where they did because the German army as a whole was moving forward, not sitting around waiting to see what the tanks did first.

And because of this routing mechanism, which forces the German player to pocket the Soviets essentially on the border and not far deeper into Russia, as which really happened, the Soviet player has muuuuuuuuuuch more time to organize a defense in depth.

Its a fun game and I'm playing one now against the AI, but to be quite frank, it is still, IMO, a fairly poor operational simulation.

Cheers,

Ray (alias Lava)

[nedcorleone1]

Lava, interesting reply. I wonder what the effect of 'immediate supply checks' would be regarding pockets. So you're the Germans and you make those two huge pockets in turn 1. This would solve the 'German infantry sit around with their hands on their nether-regions waiting for the panzers... aka supply checks kicking in). How about the Russian units undergoing a supply check right then so when the Germans hit hard with their infantry the SU units would likely surrender rather than route? I'll be honest I haven't marinated on the idea long enough to think about its impacts on game balance. Just an 'off-the-cuff' idea. Its probably been presented before.

[misesfan]

In the board game East Front by Columbia, supply attrition does occur in the same phase when a unit becomes isolated. However, two different mechanics occur in the board game - first supply attrition eliminates 25% and greater losses on the unit and second supply in and of itself is enough to eliminate the unit if left unsullied long enough.

Translating these mechanics would require a Enemy supply check during the Friendly turn and losses occurring before the Enemy turn occurs.

I like the system as employed in the board game, since an immediate payoff for deep operations occur. I am still on the fence regarding WITE.

[*Lava*]

It is difficult for me to conceptualize a way to sort things out, but I believe that if you changed things so that a unit retreated one hex (as it does now) and routes 2 or 3 hexes this would change the game a lot, especially since now a routed unit cannot use the rails. Routed units should also have at least 50% of their movement stripped away as well. I personally don't think that a routed unit should re-rout if an opposition unit lands in an adjacent hex, but must be attacked (which would be a commitment of MPs and probably balance things out some in AGN) to force it to rout again. A unit that has previously routed should have a much greater probability of shattering if attacked a second time in force.

By doing the above, the Axis player would be able to conduct general offenses, pushing the Soviets backwards and then allowing encirclements far deeper into Russia because routed troops just aren't going to be able to move faster than tanks... duh.

By changing the system of routing from one of ... "I've got a free ticket to fight again" to one of "I may have been battered but I'm still a military organization and am not going to fly out of the battle unless you kick my arse," I think you will get rid of a lot of the gamey crap being used, allow better penetration by the Axis forces into Russia at the onset and force the Russian player to have to make some real difficult decisions as to where to draw the lines in the sand.

Drawing the lines in the sand should be the Soviet players challenge, which right now is not present.

Cheers,

Ray (alias Lava)

[nedcorleone1]

Lava, I do like the direction your ideas are heading from a conceptual standpoint. I think though that Germans having to 're-initiate combat' with a routed unit would severely slow down advancing potential the Germans (as we have mutually agreed) already lack. However, instead of 're-initiating combat with a routed unit, perhaps the system could work the way it already does... 'routed unit routes even further and takes a 'routing loss' IIRC. What COULD be done, however, is instead of a guaranteed 're-route', a modifier is put in place that allows for the possibility of shattering the unit (or surrendering) upon contact with a German unit. This eliminates the MP cost of having combat and keeps in place the system set forth by the game engine with a slight modification. Just another 'off-the-cuff' idea.

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: mr_flappypants

I think though that Germans having to 're-initiate combat' with a routed unit would severely slow down advancing potential the Germans (as we have mutually agreed) already lack.

Not necessarily.

It means that German infantry could press forward, a lot more than they can now. On the flip side, by having to attack the unit again, it does reduce the MP and keeps the German infantry from moving too fast. So it's good news, bad news for the infantry.

However, where re-initiating combat really comes into play is that the German player has an option, and should he choose to bypass the routed unit such as with Panzers moving to their rear, they won't automatically fly off to freedom because you were in the adjacent hex and the Panzers don't have to make incredibly stupid detours to avoid routed units while making its thrust to the rear... which also eats up loooooots of MPs, but at the Operational level.

The losses for the Soviets, I believe would be relatively the same, but the battle would be deeper and that would force the Soviet player to have to set priorities, and yes, most likely and historically accurate, have to make trade-offs as to where he wants to draw lines in the sand. Something they really don't have to do at the present.

Ray (alias Lava)