I'd like to clarify how WIR simulates the act of stockpiling/training/organising for an offensive. To me you would have ensure that the units are in a HQ that has a good leader, this would simulate the training for the offensive and increasing the readiness. Also as long as you set the replacement level high for that HQ it should recreate the stockpiling effect.
For preparing for an offensive, is it better to take good experienced units from the front line (depleting the line of valuable troops) and train them up to be better prepared in a rear area, or use units that were shattered and coming back into the line?
If you keep an inexperienced unit in a HQ for training to build up it's experience, what determines how fast the experience of a unit gains and also by how much does it gain experience each turn? Reading through the manual it says that it's the Leader's rating that affects this, or by combat. But since these units aren't in combat, I'm rather curious.
Is it a good thing to asault enemy units dug in along rivers or in cities with units that have a mixture of armour/infantry due to the attacking formulas given in the manual (that makes armour attacks more than 2/3's less effective in these situations) or use entirely infantry formations backed with the necessary independent anti-tank/artillery units?
Also how quick does rail get converted from been damaged back to normal. Is done faster depending how many OP the nearest HQ has or is it a preset rebuilding limit. My observation would be that a HQ that has many OP's and is on the offensive that the rail network in it's 5 hex radius of influence should be converted to normal alot more quickly. This would simulate building temporary bridges that allow supplies to cross rivers, etc.
Also how good do people rate the AI in WIR?
The reason I've asked these questions is because of observations and also I was playing as Russian in the '41 campaign, AXIS getting MAX help, in my last game.
Here's a synopsis of my last game against the AI.
I stopped the Axis offensive along the rough line of Pskov, Smolensk, Bryansk, Kursk, Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk (early October) before the '41 winter blizzards. I let most of my units dig in during the blizzards, whilst operating two pincer offensives one north of Smolensk, driving South-West to just shy of Mogilev and the other pincer West of Kursk to just east of Gomel, whilst keeping my line stationary around Smolensk and Bryansk. Elsewhere, I just probed to push the Axis line back in the Poltava region. This result of this was a nice salient in the line for me to take in the center.
Having been not on the offensive all along the line it enabled me to pull some unit's meant to garrison Leningrad and Moscow into offensive operations, mixed in with some reforming divisions from the RVGK. However, after the blizzards the Germans are starting to gear up for their Spring/Summer general offensive I'd thought I'd strike early March to mess up their preparations.
As I struck in one encounter around Gomel, the AI reinforced an inf korps with 3 Pz Divs, one of these I know had been used to reinforce in a failed AXIS offensive action North of Pskov in the AXIS phase before. I got the feeling the AI was cheating. :rolleyes: How many times can a unit be used to reinforce in turns straight after each other?
Only in the south did I let the line fall back slowly by design to stretch the AXIS units and also due to me taking tank units (over a period of time) from that area into the reserves preparing to be used when the tank armies came available in July. The line remained fairly static, the salient remained largely intact. Only in the North of Pskov area did AXIS forces make any headaway, but the second defensive line, before Leningrad, line held.
By July, my tank Armies were nicely prepared, and I struck at the salient (Surprise surprise!). Due to me making limited attacks in this area for most of the year upto now, I'd been able to bog down about 3/4's of the Panzer Korps. The rest in the North.
My tank armies struck in early July '42, after about 6 weeks heavy fighting the salient was removed by a movement from the South, and a nice pocket of Germans that would surrender was formed. I love these Tank Armies.
From that point on, the game decended into fairly one way traffic towards Berlin.
In my next game I'm going to deliberately not take Moscow & Leningrad but burn out the AXIS forces to see how well I can cope with the AI Soviet Juggernaut from '41 Winter. In my first game as AXIS I lasted till end of '42 due to me making silly mistakes and not understanding the game system.
Any way here are somethings that I'd like any updates of the game to include. Are any of these ideas have potential?
1) If an enemy unit shatters and was surrounded, you should be able to reuse the captured equipment against the former employers. This actually happened. Just imagine, Panthers v Panthers
2) I would love to see the games Western Front and WIR be joined together to make an interesting strategy game, covering West/East Europe and North Africa. It could be worked from the '41 period as Barbarossa was starting, and the 1st El Alamein battle in North Africa when Rommel was attacking Eygpt.
3) Also HQ's should be able to stockpile, locally before an offensive, equipment & squads to be used when needed. In doing so, the units gaining these replacements so not be penalised for (experience/readiness) as much as when these replacement come from the general pool.
A way of letting the opposition slightly aware that there's a build up of enemy forces in a certain HQ is to make a random intelligence notice appear on screen. But this intelligence notice could be true, vaguely true or false. This would replicate the Allied build up to D-Day, the German's knew about it, but they didn't know where they would strike. Another example, is Kursk. The Russians knew in advance that it was coming, and made the relevant defence preparations and counter-attack plans.