Offensive chits and Phoney War

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

The game isn't nuanced enough to register something like colony unrest for attacking a historic friend.

However, there is a pretty massive U.S. entry shift. I think it's something like -12 entry (so one chit lost automatically, and a 20% chance of losing a second), plus, you won't be getting the U.S. entry bonus for Germany declaring war on Belgium themselves, which I think is like 80% chance of a chit.


So it'll set back U.S. entry by about 2 turns. Other than that though, there are no direct penalties. (Well, besides the Belgians joining up with the Axis if you attack them, but Belgium is puny and will probably fall in an impulse or two of France attacking.)

[Numdydar]

Well historically the impact on US entry should be massive. A lot more that what the game allows if what you say is true (and I have no reason to doubt you [:)]). The Allies would not only break their non-agression treaty, but also their garrentee of independance. The entire world would be massively upset if that occured. It would even have had a major issue in the Pacific too. As I am sure Holland would have been much more willing to allow Japan to 'protect' them given what occured to their cousin country. So Japan could have gotten all the oil they wanted from the Dutch and so the US embaro (if there would even be one) would have had no effect.

So if the game is going to allow such ahistorical behavior on the Allies part, it should be able to model the worldwide repercussions of it. Having something like this delay the US entry by 2 turns (4 months) is absurd. If this occured in RL, and Japan was able to get there oil from the Dutch (i.e no embargo by the Dutch), then there would have been no Pearl Harbor, there would have been no US entry into the war at all, no lend lease to anyone, definately no DDs for bases, etc. Everyone was upset at the British for the French fleet attack and Madagastar invasion so I can only imagine the uproar on attacking Belgium.

So if the game cannot model Allies ahistorical behavor better than what you have described, then something is wrong. Does the WiF expansion, iirc Decision III (the one that allows a 1936 start) add a better model for play radically far off the historical path?

[bo]

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

The point of an Early Yugoslavia is that if you do it on your second impulse, you pre-empt the demand for Bessarabia. (Since the U.S.S.R can't declare war on anyone in the first allied impulse). It's a smidge of a risk, but then you DoW Yugoslavia and align Rumania, and maybe Hungary on your next impulse.

Then, the Soviets are locked giving you the extra resource, and more importantly, you can begin your eventual 41 attack with a bunch of ARM and LND3 in Chinesau.

Have you used that strategy? Is it worth extending France's survival to do so? I'm interested to hear more about this as I've never considered it, but because getting a strong position in Rumania in '41 has never been a problem otherwise it seems a unworthy trade.

Crussdaddy I am impressed with this post and the posts above and hope you stay positive and not negative because, you are showing, at least to me, your expertise in this game, and that expertise will be needed by all new players including me as we begin to understand this great game, deeply appreciated. No smileys for now.

Bo

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

You can't refuse to sign the MR pact, but you can break it, same as any other neutrality pact, if you have the 2:1 garrison ratio. Soviet defensive chits will be worth double in 1940, but you're drawing 2 to his 1, which gives you some leverage. As for the rest? Spam units. Mil are good, as are MTN and Mech. If you're playing with CBVs, so much the better, you'll get a few more bodies. And IIRC, if you aligned Hungary and Rumania, they have something like 11 garrison worth of units between them. Stuff the border enough, and you can declare war.

It is not the pact chits that are doubled, it is the Russian garrison value. So if RG is Russian Garrison and AG is axis garrison, DC is defensive chits and OC is offensive chits, then:

AG + 2 x OC must equal or exceed 2 x (2 x RG + DC) which is 4 x RG + 2 x DC

In other words, in 1940, every Russian garrison point is worth 4 Axis garrison points and the chits will cancel out on average.

As long as the Russians stuff the border they can make it impossible for the Axis to break the pact in 1940.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

huh, you're right about that. I had been playing that wrong for years. How about that.


Although I'm still not 100% sure about your conclusion; The Germans have an overwhelming starting advantage in troops, they get to call out their reserves first and use those, and they'll get access to some of their CBVS if you're playing with them, and you'll get to add in the free troops you get from aligning Hungary, Rumania, and possibly Bulgaria. They also will get more production in those critical first two turns of unit spamming, (If you're going for an attack in the first impulse of M/A 40 soviets can only really count on their first turn's and part of their second turn's production being in place, as Odessa is the only city along the border)and can build out their Mil pool, whereas the Soviets can't.


I haven't done the math myself, and of course, the Germans will have the need to leave troops on their western border, wheras the Soviets can just abandon the far east in the face of the Japanese attack, but I'm not 100% sure about your conclusion that the Soviets can "always" shut down a 1940 attack.

[paulderynck]

Do the math and you'll see even 1941 is difficult. Unless you assume an absolutely wide open western border will be ignored by France and the CW in 1940.

Even so, I've seen several games where the Russian builds were totally focused on garrison value (including just pilots for the planes in the Reserve Pool) and the Germans had absolutely everything they could muster on the border in 1941 (Occupied France garrisoned by Italians, all the minors activated) and they still could not break the garrison ratio.

The CBVs might be enough to make a difference but IMO they change it from a 95% chance Russia's garrison can't be broken to an 80% chance it cannot.

Hence - years of discussion on the yahoo forum about house rules or proposed rules for Germany to attack Russia in 1941.

[composer99]

pauldernyck, I did want to mention a slight error in your formula.

(It doesn't change your conclusion about the relative value of USSR defensive garrison.)

Because you can only double garrison value with pact markers, your formula should look more like:

AG + OC > 2 * ((2 * RG) + DC)

(more parentheses added because I like them)

[Numdydar]

So if the USSR can prevent a '41 attack, what happens? Russia attacks in '42? Germany runs amock in NA and Near East in '41?

[michaelbaldur]

in Mwif there are an option, that make it easy to break the pact in late 1941 ..

[Numdydar]

Well late '41 is not helping Germany very much [:(]. If it is past July/August then Germany is hosed in '41. Does anyone know how the game itself is going to address this? Can Germany attack Russia in the May/June turn or is that really hard to do or forbibben by the rules somehow?

Sorry for all the questions, but since I know nothing about how the game plays, I am trying to figure it all out [:)]. So thanks for being patience with me.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

Do the math and you'll see even 1941 is difficult. Unless you assume an absolutely wide open western border will be ignored by France and the CW in 1940.

Yeah, I did some quick calculations, and yeah, if the Soviets really concentrate on it, they can completely prevent a 40 barb. 41 stuffing I'm more familiar with, but I've always been a little leery of doing it myself, I had two very bad games, one where I got that small chance where it flubbed in S/O 41 and got my army wiped out, and a second time where I got caught trying to pull back in 42 with half my army at the border and half further back. (Who attacks the Soviets in the winter!?)


To Numdydar: Germany in a lot of ways drives the game. They really have the most strategic options, and a good chunk of Allied planning is "Stop whatever we think Germany is going to do."


So the usual plans are one of

1) The "Historic" plan. Knock out France, knock out your neighboring minors, try to attack the Soviets in 41. If the Soviets successfully prevent the DoW, you'll have to do it in 42. This in a lot of ways is where a successful stuffing of the border hurts the most, if you're not set up to react well, you're in a bit of trouble. You'll be behind on your schedule, although it's still possible to kill the Soviets if you're lucky. The soviets will only have about 15 production a turn throughout 41, and you should be managing something like 25-28, so you'll keep building a big hammer, and you can still hurt them quite badly.

2) Go west: Knock out poland, knock out the Low countries, destroy France, attack Spain, free Gibraltar, and then try the Sealion, ignoring the Soviets as much as possible, at least until Britain is conquered. If the Soviets are stuffing the border here, it mostly means you have to be careful about them attacking you, and interrupting your Sealion by charging into Poland or Rumania.


3) The 42 Barb. It usually combines half of the previous two plans. You knock out Poland and the low countries and France as usual, and then you go into Spain and secure Gibraltar. You send a second column eastwards from Libya, and take out Suez to secure the Med, and send in the necessary 4 corps up to pick up Persia and Iraq (or at the very least, force the Allies to attack them to prevent you from grabbing them) Ideally, you attack in 1942, with a charge coming up from Tabriz and trying to snatch Baku.

Stuffing the border won't really work against this, and to be honest, you really need to conquer Persia with the Soviets if it looks like the Germans are heading to that part of the world, you CANNOT afford to have them start a mere 2 Asian map hexes from 40% of your oil.



The thing is, up until the fall of France, Germany can pretty fluidly switch the plan and the builds necessary to support it from one of those above plans to the other. If I'm planning for a 41 barb, but I get the whiff that the Soviets are stuffing the border, I might very well switch to the Mediterranean/42 plan. A lot of it will depend on how perceptive and how flexible Germany is.


But the tl;dr version is that yes, if Germany can't get the DoW to work in 41, it'll have to be 42. You'll probably want to spend 1941 doing things in the Med and the middle east, and possibly Spain and Gibraltar if you have the time and the troop placement right.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

Adding in, here's how it works mechanically.


To declare war, Germany needs twice the "Garrison" value that the Soviets have at the border. (The Border is defined as 3 hexes away from the exact border line)

Your garrison value is equal to the printed value of special chits you draw at the end of the turn, plus an amount for the number of troops you have nearby. However it's only the troops that are within 3 hexes of the border that count, anything further back is meaningless for declaration of war purposes.

Generally, an airplane unit is worth one, most land units are worth one, but certain powerful units (armor, mechanized infantry, and mountain units) are worth two, and divisions and other specialized units like artillery are worth a half each.


So here's the thing; if the Soviets go all out building troops that have good garrison values relative to their cost, they're very possibly going to be able to delay the declaration of war. However, the units that they built will be some of their weaker ones, and they'll probably be very light on airplanes. Plus, if it doesn't work, your army is right on the border during the devastating surprise impulse. If you play the Barbarossa secnario when it comes out, you can see just how bad it is when the Soviets are caught with their pants down like that.


So while a good stuffing of the border can prevent or at least delay the declaration of war. However, if it doesn't work, you've put yourself in an enormously vulnerable position and you'll probably lose the game. It's a very polar strategy, and it's not universally adopted. If the Soviets adopt a setup where most of their army is say, out of stuka range from the border, the Germans will be able to attack more or less whenever they want.


Edit: Sorry for the double post.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

Well late '41 is not helping Germany very much [:(]. If it is past July/August then Germany is hosed in '41. Does anyone know how the game itself is going to address this? Can Germany attack Russia in the May/June turn or is that really hard to do or forbibben by the rules somehow?

Sorry for all the questions, but since I know nothing about how the game plays, I am trying to figure it all out [:)]. So thanks for being patience with me.

MWiF is addressing this as described by Michael in the post immediately above yours.

People who play the game a few times may decide that it is necessary to play with that option. Others may not.

There are still many, many possibilities. Sometimes the USSR can't get their stuff (hey - a pun!) back from the border in time and get massacred in 1942 anyway. Sometimes they don't even try this strategy and sit back and wait for Barb. Sometimes the Germans don't attack and wait and see how long it takes the USSR to break their garrison.

The reason the game got to be so popular is that no two games are alike and there is room to try many different strategies. If the Germans are not attacking Russia in '41, they are not hosed. They could be taking out Egypt and Gibraltar...

[Numdydar]

Thanks gents this is really cool stuff. Thanks so much for sharing.

My question still remains about what 'late 41' means. To me late means September or later. If that is true, then you sure don't want to attack Russia then right? Of course the winter attrition would be pretty mild since you are not going to be that far into Russia when it hits [:)]

[paulderynck]

IIRC it is still breaking the pact, just at a lower ratio, so very dependent on what is on the "common border" (i.e within 3 hexes of the border line). Also IIRC it can apply as early as JA41.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

There's no real "Winter attrition" or indeed, attrition of any sort in WiF. Units fight at full strength until they're knocked out of supply, at which point they're almost helpless. There's none of this gradual degradation of fighting capability you see in real life

I seem to recall the original game designer, Harry Rowland, saying somewhere that he wanted a "memory-less" game, one where you can tell what sort of status the unit is in just by looking at the board)


So there's not really "winter attrition". Bad weather that winter brings will make it a lot harder to move or stay in supply, and you have massive penalties to attacking, but if I poured the entire Wehrmacht into the Russian and Ukrainian plains, and leave them there over the winter, and nobody attacks while the snow flies, they'll come out of it in the same strength that they came into it.


The main reasons you don't want to fight the Soviets in the winter are a bit different.

1) Tactically, they're a lot less hampered by the bad weather than the Germans are. Fighting in the home country makes it easier to stay in supply, and the better Soviet units get bonuses in fighting if it's snowing out (Exact bonuses vary depending on what combat table you're playing with). They'll still slow down from it, but not as much as the Germans do.

2) If you're in an enemy's home country, or make attacks in the enemy home country, they get a large bonus to production. If the Soviets are running all of their factories, during 1941 if the Germans are not inside the USSR proper, the Soviets will produce 14.5 build points, which rounds up to 15. If they're in the country and attack a Soviet unit there, it jumps up to 29 a turn.


Now, the Germans will be killing Soviet units, and very likely overrunning Soviet factories and resources, or prompting the Soviets to pack up their factories and ship them to Siberia (which will put them out of commission for a little while), but the main reason you don't want to attack the Soviets in the winter has less to do with your army falling apart when it starts snowing, it's that you've just doubled the Soviet production, and if you don't keep killing a number of units to keep up, you've just made the enemy stronger.

2.5) There are a special type of unit called "militia". You can only build them when you're at war. To be honest, they're not great, they're slow and have mediocre combat factors, and none of the bonuses that armor or the like have. They are, however, dirt cheap and train very quickly, and the Soviets have 14 of them in the force pool if you play with the PoliF units. Declaring war allows the Soviets to start cranking them out, and again, giving cheap units to the enemy is not something I want to do.


So just about the worst thing you could do is to declare war in say, September, advance " a little bit" into Russia, and then sit until the weather clears. That's going to give the soviets all the breathing space they need to build something unbreakable in 42. Unless I see something very vulnerable at the front, I'd probably want to wait and just attack in 1942 when the weather clears up.


Hope this helps, and sorry I get so windy when I'm pontificating.

[Numdydar]

It does help. Thanks again for the insights [:)]

[Neilster]

Also, the Arctic weather zone encompasses pretty much all the Eastern Front, so it doesn't matter whether the Germans advance very far or not, they still get smashed by bad winter weather.

Cheers, Neilster

[Shannon V. OKeets]

As Michael mentioned earlier, I added an optional rule to make it slightly more difficult for the USSR to 'stuff' the border so that Germany cannot declare war on the USSR. This is optional, so it is up to the players whether they want to deny the USSR of "certain peace" through until 1942.

[chris3863]

I've done it but it means launching a winter attack on Russia in J/F 1940. Leave a dozen ground units and a couple of fighters in the west and stick every thing else in Poland including planes. The Russians start with 6 ground units in the west and 6 piloted planes. The have 3 ground units and Zhukov in the east. They can at most have 1 inf build arrive due to gearing. You on the other hand, can easily get your garrison value to 40 or more with chits.

So unless they somehow know for sure at set up your going to attack they probably will not be able to redeploy fast enough to stop you because they have to take combined impulses while neutral and N/D will likely be a short turn. After all in S/O how can they tell the difference between the normal concentrating on Poland strategy and setting up for an attack. It won't be until N/D when you don't redeploy units that it will become obvious and as I said that will most likely be a short turn.

If all else fails and they somehow read your mind and thwart you its no loss, just redeploy for a spring attack against France.