"deep" amphibious landings too easy

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: ogre

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

It's one thing against a good human player and another against the AI. At the moment, people looking to play against the AI and have a more competitive game should consider using a house rule where they don't invade more than 30 hexes away from an Allied airfield. In the first patch coming later this week, we've made Italian surrender in July and August less likely, but we have not yet looked at the issue of shipping losses when invading through enemy controlled sea hexes. It's possible this will need to be tweaked some, but I'm betting against us being able to get something into the first patch for this as it will take some additional analysis and testing and we just don't have the time before the Matrix holiday shutdown.

I have a long term recommendation, if ya'll haven't already considered it:

Ever thought about implementing a variable order of battle (OBs), to include locations? This would be a player option starting a game. Then the computer would choose from several OBs unknown to the player.

One problem with historical "starting points" is we have so much knowledge related to enemy dispositions. We didn't have that in real life. Granted, there is the fog of war when it comes to units...but we still have a general idea of dispositions.

With the variable OB, the player will need to do a better job at recon, and be careful on the bold moves. A weakly defended beach in historical OB context could be heavily defended in one of the variable OBs, and vice versa.

If you want the above then you would love World in Flames [:)] In every game the OOB for all side is randomized. Plus when you build a plane/Inf/etc, one is randomly chosen from the available pool. So if you have a 7-4 and a 3-1 Inf available, you have a 50/50 chance of getting either one [:)]

Then your production pools are randomly generated for each year. So no two games are ever the same. Sometimes the Allies start out weaker/stronger, sometimes the Axis.

So if you want real randomness, this is the only game I know of that does this.

[Dereck]

If I remember right I believe Salerno was picked for invasion because it was still within range of Allied land fighter cover. Have to remember the fighters probably weren't coming from North Africa but from forward bases in Sicily.

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Carterjon

I wonder if more German troops might have been released by High Command from other theaters if there had been an Allied landing in the North of Italy, rather than the meager historical reinforcements in response to Avalanche/Salerno? I seem to remember that the Avalon Hill Anzio game had conditional reinforcements if the Allies landed North of Rome, or perhaps I am mistaken. It has been 40 years since I last played it. Damned good game.

Believe it or not I still HAVE that game in my back closet somewhere with about 30-40 other Avalon Hill and other company's board war games.

[Numdydar]

Anzio is still being played at the World Board Gaming championship convention [:)]

I too loved that game and still have it. I played it a lot simply because it was the first game I played that used step reduction versus all or nothing elimination, except exchanges [:(]. Always hated that system where everything lives or dies based on a single die roll [:@]

[marion61]

[:(]I miss boardgames sometimes. Stale beer, snacks, and watching your opponent sweat out your moves! Internet made it impersonal.

[MisterBoats]

In the '43-'45 campaign, I've just taken the "boot heel" of Italy. Taranto is still occupied by the Germans, but Brindisi fell after a stout defense by a FJ regiment. The temptation of the ports and the airfields was too much to resist. Also, I'm not hemmed in by mountains in every direction. With Sicily about to sink from the weight of the air squadrons on it, I was able to maintain strong interdiction coverage over the southern third of the mainland.

Now, I am seriously considering a June '44 invasion of the north Brittany coast. It may be a bit out of range for the fighters, but the benefits are tantalizing. Chiefly: no hedgerows for the first few weeks.

I think that Montgomery invaded the boot heel in September (as have I), and Patton ordered several "on the fly" amphibious invasions (very small scale) west of Messina. I wouldn't consider a Po valley invasion, nor one at the Pas de Calais, but ones that are slightly different than history are perfectly feasible. I love this game!

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: MisterBoats

In the '43-'45 campaign, I've just taken the "boot heel" of Italy. Taranto is still occupied by the Germans, but Brindisi fell after a stout defense by a FJ regiment. The temptation of the ports and the airfields was too much to resist. Also, I'm not hemmed in by mountains in every direction. With Sicily about to sink from the weight of the air squadrons on it, I was able to maintain strong interdiction coverage over the southern third of the mainland.

Now, I am seriously considering a June '44 invasion of the north Brittany coast. It may be a bit out of range for the fighters, but the benefits are tantalizing. Chiefly: no hedgerows for the first few weeks.

I think that Montgomery invaded the boot heel in September (as have I), and Patton ordered several "on the fly" amphibious invasions (very small scale) west of Messina. I wouldn't consider a Po valley invasion, nor one at the Pas de Calais, but ones that are slightly different than history are perfectly feasible. I love this game!

One thing to consider is that the hedgerows can help you hold on to your beaches while you build up.

[ogre]

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

That sounds great in theory but do you have any idea how long producing a playable scenario takes? Adding randomness or multiple starting options would make the task nigh on impossible to complete in a reasonable timescale. There is also a group of people who see any deviation from history in a scenario setup as a failure on the part of the designer.

I guess playable production depends on how much of the AI is scripted and how much is computed. As a scenario designer, you would know.

As for deviation from historical scenario, my suggestion was an "option" not a default. The default is historical. The "option" would put the player in the proverbial "guessing" position...bolstered perhaps with some intel...or requiring the gathering of intel.

For example, historically our Overlord deception was successful...Hitler was convinced it was Pas de Calais. What if, unbeknownst to the player, Hitler didn't fall for it...or didn't fall for it for so long?

[ratprince]

Mister Boats

I did a May invasion of the Brittany coast also. I had 16 infantry divisions land followed by 8 armored and all the cav groups and airborne. Without the terrain as a defense, I rolled through the Germans and captured paris undefended on Late May. The normandy invasion is foolish unless you only have a few divs landing. If you can mass an invasion, just hit the open terrain. I was in Freiburg Germany by middle June

[Smirfy]

If that's the case it's logistics that is broken not the terrain.

[ratprince]

What does that statement mean Smirf?

[MisterBoats]

I'm encouraged by your success, Mike. I don't see much of a downside, logistically, in supplying from Brest rather than Cherbourg. I think the key is to keep a narrow front and focus on one axis of attack, rather than three or four.

[marion61]

I prefer to invade anywhere but Normandy. I look for an area that is easily exploitable by armored units and the bocage is not. The other thing I tend to do is spread my invasions out more, and find ports that I can easily isolate with paratroopers. If you've planned properly, you can land where ever you want within air cover range and since there aren't that many combat units that can attack you on the turn after your landing, and if your air cover has been doing it's job, there won't be many attacks on anyone beach. Just make sure those follow on forces, especially armor, are sitting out at sea waiting to move a hex and then land. Axis doesn't have enough decent divisions to have a good line everywhere when you spread them out. Just my two cents.

[mariandavid]

I have carefully read all the comments and, in all honesty, have not changed my mind. The trouble is that although the Bay of Biscay is an obvious landing target it was never taken seriously by the planners for the most obvious of reasons - supply. Sending transports to a landing point(for example north of Bordeaux), one from which fighters could not fly without continuous gasoline supply, open to attacks from everywhere from Brest to Bayonne would - in the real world - be exceedingly risky.

I am not saying that the game should prohibit attacks outside fighter cover (though I cannot think of a major landing that was not) but that the penalty should be severe, very severe, in terms of losses inflicted through naval attrition. It might make the game more challenging also against the AI.

[Panzeh]

I don't think we know how bad it would have been. The Allies were rather risk-averse in their amphibious operations, but that was not inevitable, in my opinion.

[marion61]

I didn't mean I invaded outside of air cover. That would be a disaster in the making if the axis has enough planes. I'm just saying that with the proper planning, and you have air cover, you can land from Brest to The Netherlands and be reasonably sure of success. Invasions are your most potent tool to win, and if you take a big risk like no air cover and it doesn't work, then you probably just lost the game. The WA's can't really afford to mess up too badly on an invasion or they get too far behind. The good thing about this game is that you can do what you want, ever after listening to all our opinions [;)].

And I believe they are looking into the effectiveness of naval interdiction when ships pass thru the hexes. It does seem a bit light, even when you pass thru heavily contested hexes.

[Gorforlin]

Your talking vs AI not a person.

1. A most ports will be garrisoned and have tons of supplies. Not an easy nut to crack = Messina
2. A good German player will have whatever lvl bombers and some fighters in south center France to hit whatever your tring to land.
3. Germans only need 6 good divisions to drop a small invasion, if it does not have a port in 2 or 3 turns. Divisions require engineers and HQ's heavy artillery and rockets. Army HQ/AG HQ and OKH withen 5 hexes.
4. May 44 Germans have 20 more divisions then turn 20, 5 more panzer divisions and 9 brigades.

If you don't take that port withen 2 turns your invasion will be toast without air cover and from my game airborne
unit are not a sure thing. -35 VP's if you lose it and they are easy to lose.

AI will get better, but test your theory's vs people, much more interesting.

All good stuff. I hope to start playing allies soon, tring to master German side of things seems more of challenge.