Future plans re a 1.05 version

[Joel Billings]

They can always move 1 hex to the rear and refit if they are wasting away.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

They can always move 1 hex to the rear and refit if they are wasting away.

Having tested this, it makes no difference. I'm sure I've pointed this out before, but static units can't be put into refit mode until they are activated (costing APs). Static units receive zero replacements whether they are in the front line or not.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: delatbabel
Having tested this, it makes no difference. I'm sure I've pointed this out before, but static units can't be put into refit mode until they are activated (costing APs). Static units receive zero replacements whether they are in the front line or not.

It is easy and fast to set static units get priority for replacements when ever you want from commanders report menu using maximum TOE percentages and filtering rules. Commanders report menu is a lot faster tool than individually clicking eath unit on and off refit mode.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson
It is easy and fast to set static units get priority for replacements when ever you want from commanders report menu using maximum TOE percentages and filtering rules. Commanders report menu is a lot faster tool than individually clicking eath unit on and off refit mode.

Have you actually tested that? Because in my testing it appears that static units get zero replacements even if they are 100% TOE setting and other units are down as low as 50% TOE setting. Now I don't have the source code in front of me to read through but having looked at a number of static units over a number of turns they aren't getting replacements, active units around them are, and there are plenty of squads/manpower/armaments in the pool.

The only way to get any replacements into a static unit is to set it active.

That may or may not be WAD but if it isn't then it would be nice to get it fixed at some point.

If it is WAD then Joel keeps saying "pull them back a hex and they will get replacements" when in fact they won't.

[Joel Billings]

ok, good point about them not being able to be put in refit mode. Will have to think on that one and figure out what can be done to help with this. It wasn't intended that they have to be taken out of static mode to let them keep from wasting away. Given interface limitations though, not sure what the answer will be.

[M60A3TTS]

Although I've only been playing the Soviets so far in my PBEM's it is good to see plans to help the Germans out in '42, especially regarding forts.  I've been somewhat skeptical of the current distances the civilian populations have been hauled to assist in that regard and the materials needed for more advanced fortifications would need time to be brought in and utilized, etc. etc.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
1) Changes to fort building that will reduce the number of very high fort levels and make it harder to build high level forts in the rear (fortified Zone/Region units will become more important for this). Refitting units will build slower. Increase the decay rates of low level forts, and further reduce fort building during mud.

+1.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
6) A few targeted changes in the air model to better reflect Soviet production issues with their aircraft and natural attrition of older aircraft for both sides due to reaching their life expectancy. Changes to the flak and CAP to reduce the effectiveness of airfield bombing missions.

I think that a fairly major change to the effectiveness of airfield bombing is required, not just minor changes to flak and CAP. If the changes to CAP are significant then that might be a good change -- basically your bombers are going to get murdered if they try to airfield attack a heavily defended airfield while unescorted. OTOH, airfield bombing was used (to a limited extent by the Germans in 1941 and to a greater extent by the US and CW in 1944/1945) by strike fighters to tempt enemy aircraft up so they could be easily found and shot down (because by that stage many airfields were camouflaged and could be hard to spot).

The ease by which the VVS can demolish the Luftwaffe by mid to late 1942 by repeated airfield bombing attacks needs to be addressed. I now refuse to perform airfield bombing because it's too easy.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
7) Some additional limitations on Soviet amphibious capacity in the Black Sea.

+1

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
8) Ability to prevent isolation through sufficient airlift of supplies to airbases inside a pocket.

I would, in general, reduce the rate at which isolated units in a pocket disintegrate. Even without airlifts (and the Luftwaffe airlift into Stalingrad was of some but limited value), pockets in the actual war survived much longer than is possible in this game.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Also improve the manpower levels and abilities of the armies through time to better reflect their capabilities. Of course, we don’t want to impact 41 too much and we would like to see the Germans be able to absorb a little more punishment later on, but we also want the Soviets to be able to develop an army that doesn’t just have to bash its way hex by hex all the way to Berlin.

The hex-by-hex stuff does get a bit boring. It's due to a deficiency in Soviet morale meaning that even the best of their armoured units can only hit 1 hex and advance one hex right until the end game. If the plan is to increase Soviet morale in 1943 and 1944 then that should partially redress that and make the cost to enter enemy hexes less prohibitive, correct?

Has anyone given any thought to re-balancing the 1942 and 1943 campaigns? I find that with the stock 1943 starting point the Soviets go nowhere until at least the first snows, whereas with the 1942 starting point I am still retreating and taking huge losses as late as January 1944 (and only at that point am I starting to get a stable line together), mostly due to massively increased attrition. That wasn't the case with 1.03.

[randallw]

ORIGINAL: Emir Agic

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Remember, morale as used here is not like morale in a Napoleonic game, it represents the training levels and doctrine capabilities of the countries more than reflecting the willingness of the soldiers to fight.

Joel, why don't you simply rename it to proficiency (like in TOAW)? I think it is more appropriate term.

That would just make people mad, since a lot of people here hate TOAW ( which makes me a bit sad ).

[buchand]

It is a shame if people hate TOAW. One of my Desert Island Games i.e. what would you choose if you could only take a small number of games to a desert island. Have always made sure its on my PC.
Still don't fully understand the mechanics - the same as WITE in that respect [;)]

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: delatbabel
I now refuse to perform airfield bombing because it's too easy.
[quote

While it is too easy, at least for me, it is the ONLY way I can inflict any air losses on the Germans, who suffer zero losses when intercepting my GS or interdiction missions, even if heavily outnumbered. I hope that this is also being looked into?

[Helpless]

Have you actually tested that? Because in my testing it appears that static units get zero replacements even if they are 100% TOE setting and other units are down as low as 50% TOE setting. Now I don't have the source code in front of me to read through but having looked at a number of static units over a number of turns they aren't getting replacements, active units around them are, and there are plenty of squads/manpower/armaments in the pool.

I've checked it and static units do get replacements in my tests. There is no restrictions for them in the code. You may check the manpower in active pool. It is usually the reason of no replacements for non-refit units.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
While it is too easy, at least for me, it is the ONLY way I can inflict any air losses on the Germans, who suffer zero losses when intercepting my GS or interdiction missions, even if heavily outnumbered. I hope that this is also being looked into?

Numbers dont actually mean that much in WW2 air war good quality pilots and doctrines had larger impact. Even small numbers of planes with good pilots did very much bad to enemy while large number of pilots with poor training could not do almoust anything in air war.

Soviet outnumbered Finnish air force 1:100 in air planes in winter war. Quality of Soviet planes was much better than what Finns had. Most of Finnish planes were outdated some even World war 1 types. Still finns scored one hundred air kills and did not lose many planes.

There is document in youtube covering air war over finland from winter war and continution war:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW9vFJ6qa8

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson
Numbers dont actually mean that much in WW2 air war good quality pilots and doctrines had larger impact. Even small numbers of planes with good pilots did very much bad to enemy while large number of pilots with poor training could not do almoust anything in air war.

Soviet outnumbered Finnish air force 1:100 in air planes in winter war. Quality of Soviet planes was much better than what Finns had. Most of Finnish planes were outdated some even World war 1 types. Still finns scored one hundred air kills and did not lose many planes.

This might be true in 1941, but at least in the game by 1942 my air units have decent planes, experience, and morale. I'm not saying they are as good as the Luftwaffe, but I would certainly expect them to be capable of getting a kill every now and then (not to mention flak for GS missions). I just don't see it happening. I've raised this several times, but have never seen any reaction from the devs as to whether things are working correctly in their opinion (other than general statements to the effect of "the airwar needs work...").

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Helpless
I've checked it and static units do get replacements in my tests. There is no restrictions for them in the code. You may check the manpower in active pool. It is usually the reason of no replacements for non-refit units.

OK, I'm going to take your word for it but it just doesn't seem to be working for me.

Active units, not on refit, get replacements. Static units in the same hex or in adjacent hexes aren't getting replacements.

I have 100K+ manpower in the pool. How do I tell how much of that is "active"?

Anyway, we're off topic. The thing I was asking about was for static units not to have to be activated to get (extra) reinforcements, and/or not to take additional attrition casualties, because otherwise the game becomes a world of micro-management moving units off the front line, activating them, moving others back and putting them into static mode (or else your static front line attritions to death after about 4-6 turns). Joel said he'd look at that, although it might take some doing given that "static" and "refit" are currently mutually exclusive in the code. I'd really like to see it fixed in 1.05 at some point.

[delatbabel]

I should add that I've only noticed this problem in the 1942 and 1943 campaigns. It doesn't appear to happen nearly as much in the 1941 GC and isn't quite as bad in the 1943 GC.

[Helpless]

I was using fresh 1942 GC and looked in the debugger. You may start a topic on tech forum with attached save files. I can check them to see if there is anything wrong.

Yes, currently static and refit are mutually exclusive, although it can be changed in the code to provide extra replacements to static units.

[DorianGray]

Wow! Learned something new.

[DorianGray]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Have you actually tested that? Because in my testing it appears that static units get zero replacements even if they are 100% TOE setting and other units are down as low as 50% TOE setting. Now I don't have the source code in front of me to read through but having looked at a number of static units over a number of turns they aren't getting replacements, active units around them are, and there are plenty of squads/manpower/armaments in the pool.

I've checked it and static units do get replacements in my tests. There is no restrictions for them in the code. You may check the manpower in active pool. It is usually the reason of no replacements for non-refit units.

I have been actively testing it was as well - by playing a player vs. player game (with myself playing both sides).

I have disengaged the German / Russian lines from each other and have simply ran through the turns with no combat to get a better feel of how replacements are getting distributed.

I have also put 2-3 GE Corps into STATIC mode.

After about 10 turns, it is becoming noticable that the GE STATIC troops are getting less replacements. At this point, most of the GE formations are at 95-103 TOE%, the STATIC formations are still hovering around 85 TOE%.

This may be a result of the STATIC formations not able to go into REFIT, as I have played around with having other GE formations going into and out of REFIT during the 10-15 turn test run.

Whereas there may have been no direct code to limit STATIC formation replacement rate, as a software engineer ( of 15 years ) I understand how functional behavior of an application can be implicitly impacted from sub-system mechanics that are not overtly appearant even in the code-base.

At this point, I would have to suggest you guys run your own in-house tests against how STATIC units are receiving replacements over a 10-15 test run and compare the results to other units.

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding.



BTW, the GE *is* accumulating and stockpiling manpower and armaments in this test-case scenario. So the GE STATIC units are not suffering from lack of access to manpower; but for whatever reason, they are not getting distributed to them.

[Commanderski]

Thanks for the update info!

[Helpless]

This may be a result of the STATIC formations not able to go into REFIT

This is the only reason you should get less replacement then unit on refit, but there is no limitation for the static units as such.