ultradave(WA) vs scout1(Ger), '43-'45 Campaign (Turn 88, Mar 3, '45)

[scout1]

I believe that is all she wrote ........ Uncle Joe is smoking cigars at the Brandenburg Gate ......

[ultradave]

Nothing happened on my end. Game saved and uploaded. After Scott reported game over.

[marion61]

I have admired your sig. for awhile now, but I have a better one.

Paul S.
"When paratroopers go to sleep, they check the closet for combat controllers first!"

[ultradave]

Yeah, without those guys we'd never know when to jump! I jumped one time - door man, very low clouds - VERY low. Jump master looked out, came back in said "I can't see $h1t sir!" Then the green light came on. He just shrugged and said "StandInTheDoorGO!" I went.

That was the one time above all that I hoped everyone from the pilots to the CCT knew what the hell they were doing. Because I sure didn't. I just went. Turned out ok.

[marion61]

Don't worry Dave, even if they didn't know what they were doing they would act like they did, as you auger into the ground.[8D]

[Q-Ball]

It's too bad, because this game was probably trashed once Scout moved all Panzers to the West. It's really a "Decisive Soviet Victory", because the Iron Curtain is now on the Rhine.

Welcome to the People's Republic of Belgium, Comrades!

The only takeaway here is "don't abuse the EF Box"

[ultradave]

The entire WA armies became a diversion to occupy the Germans to that Russia could roll. They did not get to Berlin much ahead of schedule, however, there isn't much to stop them from rolling to the Rhine, as you say.

[Joel Billings]

Thanks for finishing the game. It went fast at the end, and I'm glad to see that the game ended early. That's before the changes we've made, so it should end even earlier if this was run again. There was a 539 early end bonus for the Allies for having ended 7 weeks early. This may have been asked before, but why did the Allies get 4000 garrison points? Did the German player intentionally ignore the garrison rules, or was he unaware of the rule, or was this before some of the changes that made it harder to be surprised by a sudden garrison change? If he intentionally ignored the rules, then he clearly lost. We considered adding in a rule that the German player would be sacked and lose if the score ever got too large. We never got around to doing that, but it would have ended this game early as an Allied victory due to German player getting relieved.

[scout1]

The Axis player was just learning first game relative to garrison rules .... and doing badly .....

[scout1]

Flip side is we have a game going w/o EF on .... for some strange reason I have 7000pts (Allied) and other than garrison, I have no idea why .... Garrison pts starting to seem way too aggressive

[LiquidSky]

Garrison points are supposed to be aggressive. You must obey them. They aren't really aren't supposed to impact the score...

It is to avoid 'fixing' units on the map. This way you can trade out different units and still hold a garrison.

I would almost argue that the garrison is somewhat pointless as the Germans have to defend a rather large area anyways..but it is a good way for them to pick up a few vp's if the allies are turtling too long.

[Joel Billings]

Exactly right, you really must follow the garrison rules. This is why we fixed the issues brought up where the garrison values changed suddenly and in a way that the German player could not react in time to avoid a big penalty. You shouldn't be surprised by the requirements as they change over time and you have to account for them.

[scout1]

I think I've phrased my concern poorly ..... Let me try again ....

My (potential) concern is the amount of VP's which accumulate relative to not meeting the garrison requirement. If you use this particular AAR game as an example. Was Dave's and my first attempt and as you know I shameless stole from the EF ....... basically shutting down any progress for Dave (Allies). I did struggle early on relative to the garrison requirement mostly out of ignorance ...... But finally recovered once I understood how ...... From a VP standpoint which provided Dave a Decisive victory (and I'm not concerned about losing .... done it before), a HUGE share of the final VP total is directly attributable to the Garrison VP's .....

We have a second game w/o EF and this time I'm the Allies ..... Is Apr 1944 and the VP total is over 7000 pts ..... Again, a huge portion of the VP's are attributable to the garrison portion of the roll up ......

Just seems to be a HUGE VP swinger in the overall VP total ......

[marion61]

It's meant to be harsh so people will keep their garrisons in line. If you pull every unit on the map to use in Italy, the allies won't make much progress, but then they won't need to since they're piling up garrison points. Plus the garrisons help you to prepare for the future invasions. If you pull all units to Italy to fight, then you won't have much left if he decides to invade somewhere else. Another thing the garrisons do is to help you with units manpower later on. If your throwing all your units into combat in 43, then your manpower crunch will hit way early.

Honestly it's just better for you as the axis to manage your garrisons so you don't get bit. There's really only three times when you have a garrison crisis and you should prepare for them. One is in Sept 43 when new garrison values change, and another at the end of Oct 43, start of Nov 43 when the TOE's change. The last time is in the spring as your garrison cities change. Garrisons are like a small EF box until the main invasion hits France.

[carlkay58]

The current problem with the EF Box is that, while it is the largest garrison in the game for the Axis, it has the least visible or immediate garrison penalties of any of the garrisons. It is so easy to pull units from the EF Box and send them West to crush the Western Allies without an apparent or readily visible penalty that both the Axis and Allied players see no penalty at all. But let the Axis player take a single unit from another garrison and WHAM! huge amounts of VPs are awarded to the Western Allies immediately.

[Joel Billings]

The impact should be greater now when units are pulled off the east front, although it's still a long term impact and not VPs right away that would get you fired if we had that built into the game. Having required garrisons in the west is as much about trying to offset 20/20 hindsight re things the Germans just didn't know during the war (like exactly what the amphib capabilities and limitations were for the Allies). So we believe we needed to impose some garrison restrictions from above as the Germans don't gain as much benefit by keeping them static building forts, etc. as moving them to stuff the Med. This is what the big VP penalties for not complying are all about.

[ultradave]

I think I've figured out my big mistake in the other game. I had not looked at the garrisons for some time. I knew that Bordeaux was 1 combat point short and had moved a unit there to fix that but then forgot to get off the train.

But the big problem was Belgium, where I had garrisoned Brussels. Only I didn't. I moved them to Antwerp by accident. I thought the end of turn messages were about Bordeaux and kept forgetting to fix that or clicked no and then said "oops". But the Belgian partisans may have been wreaking havoc while I was not paying attention and not realizing it would entail such a penalty. I have the units scattered around to account for garrisons, but have dorked up the implementation. Totally my fault, and lesson learned, as my first campaign as the German player, to pay more attention to garrison requirements.