Smokindave vs. Sapper222 (No Sapper)

[Michael T]

Its all relative to player skill. Top Soviet players will trounce Top Axis players with stock 41 GC.

So yes in a game where players have relative equal skill the Axis need substancial help.

I am not in to charity or handicaps, if a player is going to better me I want it to be on his merits. Not due to a bias in the game or me being generous.

M60 your game has improved a lot since we played. I see you are having few difficulties with you latest opponent

[Michael T]

Flavius I don't blame you or anyone. Its a complex game. But I am not happy that the devs have closed up shop. But at least we players can try to make it a better game within our limited options i.e initial settings, VC and HR.

[Michael T]

I agree. Soviet morale in 41 should top out at 45. 50 is too much. If we could crank back Soviet morale by 5 for 41 only I think all would be ok. But the morale settings are for the whole game. And apparently too hard to change [8|]

[timmyab]

Yes, Soviet morale is too high.I think it was done as a reaction to all the German overruns back before the fuel exploits were stopped.I think 45 is about right for 1941 and 1942.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

MT, I still believe that capping morale at 45 in 41 is the sweet spot so far as that goes given current design. But the game is essentially finished and this is where it wound up at, along with many other imperfections.

If this morale bug had been caught much earlier I think the adjustment would have gone in, there would have been time to observe the effects of having much of the Red Army zoom to 50ish morale. And yeah, shame on me for not noticing this as a tester. It never occurred to me that morale wasn't rising quickly enough compared to the rules as written. It felt right the way it was before.

You know there was this player(Pelton) that posted several threads ( over 18 months ago) that tried his hardist to convince you and 2by3 that morale was not working.

You of all people bitched at me telling me I was full of **** ####

I even got banned for 2 weeks because I got so frustrated at how blind you people were. Pelton can't be right again he is a moron.

The game is not "right" because people were so damn pig headed about stuff that was clearly broken.

How some of the sht that got through testing is amazing to me.

I am hoping witw gets properly tested by some people that are not yes men.

[Flaviusx]

Well, Pelton, it was right for the Soviets, but wrong for the Germans. Now, it's the other way around. So it goes.

This may be the first time anybody has accused me of being a yes man. I think my personal sins lie in the opposite direction if anything.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Well, Pelton, it was right for the Soviets, but wrong for the Germans. Now, it's the other way around. So it goes.

This may be the first time anybody has accused me of being a yes man. I think my personal sins lie in the opposite direction if anything.

You know better.

I know your not a yes man and you know I know that.

[Peltonx]

Before they roll out witw it needs to be player tested by some out side the box people. So some of the easy exploits can be taken out before release.

Some of the stuff that got through wite testing was silly.

It would put witw 12 to 18 months a head of wite and avoid allot of wasted time between games.

[smokindave34]

Turn 5:

AGN:

I was hoping to make a bit more progress here but Sapper kept most of his units out of deliberate attack range of my infantry. I try to make the best of a poor situation and use my mobile forces to start to herd some of Sappers infantry into a pocket just north of Pskov. Hopefully over the course of the next two turns I can pocket of few of these divisions and start to eat this elephant one bite at a time. Sapper has a lot of units here so I continue to move XXIX Pz corps north east to try and force Sapper to defend a potential right hook - I don't intend to go for the right hook but want to keep as many Soviet forces as possible away from the approaches to Leningrad.

I moved my fighter bases close to the front and jacked up the interception rate to 300% - hopefully I'll start to shoot down a substantial amount of Red bombers.

[smokindave34]

The Finns attack. It seems that Sapper doesn't go for the standard blocking point to stop the Finns and has instead kept unit on the approaches to Leningrad. Maybe I can get something going here....

[smokindave34]

Double post

[smokindave34]

AGC:

2 of 3 attacks succeed at the landbridge hower the battle I wanted to win (against the stack of 3 infantry units fails when two reserve units join in) Now that the majority of 9th army has arrived hopefully I can make progress here next turn.

I manage to cross the Dnepr with elements of 2nd panzer - these are two of my best panzer divisions and hopefully they can hold off the anticipated counterattack. I put two units on reserve that couldn't get across the river - hopefully they will have enough MP to join in (I doubt it but it's worth a shot) when Sapper attacks here.

[smokindave34]

AGS

I find a weak spot on the Denpr and push the Soviet defenders back. I only have one mobile unit with enough MP to cross so I hold them back. It's a clear hex with no forts any longer and I will be able to attack from all three sides so it will be interesting to see how aggressively Sapper defends it. My plan is to rest most of my panzers next turn and then cross in force.

Hopefully I can put the "lightning" back in the "lightning war" down south. It appears that Sapper does not have that many troops here and has prioritzed defending Leningrad and Moscow.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I agree. Soviet morale in 41 should top out at 45. 50 is too much. If we could crank back Soviet morale by 5 for 41 only I think all would be ok. But the morale settings are for the whole game. And apparently too hard to change [8|]

Might be Soviet morale is growing too quickly now. Much depends on which tuning goal you have, where you personally want the balance to be. I think Somkindave is actually doing fairly well here and just experienced the break that occurred due to lack of infantry support, but else it seems fairly good. Sure, not the super advances that you show in your AARs, but something more able to create a "suspense of disbelief".

Soviet morale growth should be easy to change again for the devs via the national moral threshold I guess. In an ideal world, they'd have that one included as a setup parameter in the scenarios, but WitE isn't that modding friendly.

I am not sure that tuning it down goes the right direction, though. I begin to think something needs to be done to put more importance into the southern Soviet zone, that makes it more worth fighting for it. In the center and south, Sapper withdrew largely to chose the terrain of defense himself, so he was not exactly aggressive or forward committed, but also did not just flee straight. Just in the south...
Sapper is piling up units north, and even neglecting the little delay of a few MPs that Riga cost, is extremely strong there. Sure, I know, it is the poor defensive terrain south, the lack of combatants after Lvov relative to such a large area, and simply hindsight that the war is won or lost with AGN and AGC, but if the Soviet player had not been able to redirect so much reserves north, the going there would be less tough, and the fighting south be harder such as it probably should be like in the case of not abandoning the vast open grain region.

Maybe there should be limits placed on the redirection of forces north and the distribution of reserves generally? Or somehow more value to the southern sector that increases force needs there as well? With the Red Army stretched out across all 3 German AGs, instead of concentrating to stop two, the game will have a very different balance.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I agree. Soviet morale in 41 should top out at 45. 50 is too much. If we could crank back Soviet morale by 5 for 41 only I think all would be ok. But the morale settings are for the whole game. And apparently too hard to change [8|]

Might be Soviet morale is growing too quickly now. Much depends on which tuning goal you have, where you personally want the balance to be. I think Somkindave is actually doing fairly well here and just experienced the break that occurred due to lack of infantry support, but else it seems fairly good. Sure, not the super advances that you show in your AARs, but something more able to create a "suspense of disbelief".

Soviet morale growth should be easy to change again for the devs via the national moral threshold I guess. In an ideal world, they'd have that one included as a setup parameter in the scenarios, but WitE isn't that modding friendly.

I am not sure that tuning it down goes the right direction, though. I begin to think something needs to be done to put more importance into the southern Soviet zone, that makes it more worth fighting for it. In the center and south, Sapper withdrew largely to chose the terrain of defense himself, so he was not exactly aggressive or forward committed, but also did not just flee straight. Just in the south...
Sapper is piling up units north, and even neglecting the little delay of a few MPs that Riga cost, is extremely strong there. Sure, I know, it is the poor defensive terrain south, the lack of combatants after Lvov relative to such a large area, and simply hindsight that the war is won or lost with AGN and AGC, but if the Soviet player had not been able to redirect so much reserves north, the going there would be less tough, and the fighting south be harder such as it probably should be like in the case of not abandoning the vast open grain region.

Maybe there should be limits placed on the redirection of forces north and the distribution of reserves generally? Or somehow more value to the southern sector that increases force needs there as well? With the Red Army stretched out across all 3 German AGs, instead of concentrating to stop two, the game will have a very different balance.

That's why the prefect opening in the south is so important. SD missed 18 units in the south.

Like MT stated in his last 4 games the SHC dude did a major screw up on turn 2-3. None did the standard run in south and it cost them the game, because they had nothing to send north.

[OddBall2]

Mr Dave, Newbie question, Regarding AAR post AGS 6/19/13. How do you flip all the hexes between the Romanian tank unit on the rail line east of the Bug river and the German tank division just across the Sinyukha river. Do people run a tank division down one row of hexes for eight hexes and the curve over three rows and run back down another 8 hexes? Kind of painting the hexes green with zones of control?

[smokindave34]

ORIGINAL: OddBall2

Mr Dave, Newbie question, Regarding AAR post AGS 6/19/13. How do you flip all the hexes between the Romanian tank unit on the rail line east of the Bug river and the German tank division just across the Sinyukha river. Do people run a tank division down one row of hexes for eight hexes and the curve over three rows and run back down another 8 hexes? Kind of painting the hexes green with zones of control?

OddBall - Yes I just ran my mobile units in that area to flip hexes to allow my infantry a quicker approach next turn once the hexes were converted to my ZOC.

[juret]

i like aar. keep it up reading all your updates to my morning cofee
good luck

[smokindave34]

ORIGINAL: juret

i like aar. keep it up reading all your updates to my morning cofee
good luck

Thanks Juret - I wish I could write an AAR showing great axis victories but it doesn't appear it will be that way. This will be a challenging game for sure.

[smokindave34]

Turn 6 - Finns

Sapper pulls all his units from the northern bottleneck and the Finns advance unmolested. Sapper seems to have decided that his units are better off defending against the German approach to Leningrad as it will be a few weeks before the Finns threaten the ports to Leningrad. This is contrary to how most Soviets manage the Finns these days.