V1.08.05 Public Beta is Available

[malyhin1517]

Yes, the turn made in 1.08.05

[morvael]

But drop in morale does not explain drop in experience.

[GI_Tom]

A big thank you for the continued support.

[VigaBrand]

One question.
You reduce the german movement speed with the logistical changes. Did you change the price for rolling soviet industry, too?
I read in some threads, that the well prepared soviet player now only losses 20 HI and 20 Arm, which is not that much.
Is this WAD?
In other patches I see the intention, that the soviets must fight to evacuate there industry and the intention that the soviets will be penalised for withdrawing without fighting by lossing much indusrty and some strinking power in the long run.
Did I'm completly wrong?

[chaos45]

Viga- yes and no....With lvov most of the historical soviet forces that fought/blunted German advances in the south dont exist anyway.

Also Pelton still seems to think a stong German push in the south is worthwhile from playtesting this patch.

A quick German push should catch at least historical industry losses to the soviets most of the time. If you look at historical losses by comparing scenarios the Soviets didnt lose much.

I think the original 1.08+ patches spoiled German players some with lightning fast super powerful offensive capabilities all of 1941 and 1942. Hopefully the newest patches reinged in German mobility just enough, but not to much to make the game overbalanced to the soviets.

People/German players seem to forget the original German attacks pretty much exceeded all German initial planning estimates. So the historical result is actual an astonishing success. Cracks me up all the German players wanting Germany to have even better results than historical when historical was about as good as could possibly be hoped for by german high command.

Where the German staff failed was they had no idea the Soviets could/would effectively rebuild an entire army by fall/winter after the entire Soviet frontier army was wiped out. You read German generals books and they often talk about how amazed they were at quickly the soviets raised and organized new formations for combat. Especially when compared to very low/non-existent German replacements/new units being sent the front.

Its one of the issues I have with the current debate about balance and how fair the game is...the Germans are just auto assumed to get historical results and thus good German play should result in exceptionally about historical results....when the historical results were already exceptional.

While the Soviets in effect fought a horrible game in the war and continued to play a horrible game of war pretty much all the way up to stalingrad.

In the current versions of the game if the soviets lose anything like near historical units loses or make near as many mistakes as historical soviet high command did they will lose the game period against a decent German player. So the game is already IMO highly balanced in favour of the Germans and has been since 1.08+

Soviet replacements are flat out anemic compared to historical rates, soviet unit building capability also anemic.......German players cant argue for more soviet death, more soviet units destruction and at the same time keep getting the benefit of the system horribly underrating the soviet replacement and unit building system which put more men and units into combat in a shorter time frame than pretty much any other army in history.

If anything good Soviet play against good German play should result in a 1944 German loss if you want straight historical results with competent leadership on both sides.

Even with horrible leadership the historical result/hypothesis is that the Soviets could have been in Berlin in late 1944 if they really wanted to be. Politics and cautiousness delayed it though......

Just like in Peltons current LW game- effectively he says ignore Romania/Hungary and all Germans to Poland.....well in real life no Romania/Hungary = no fuel for the German army and thus no panzers/truck movements...and no aircraft flying....which is why historically the Germans put alot of effort into holding those areas. Which even with those fuel sources by 1944 the German army was becoming very short of fuel........Basically from early 1942 on German tank/motorized units shouldnt have 50 MP anymore as they never had enough fuel to be that fully capable again...not to mention unlike in the game the Germans were horribly short of trucks for the rest of the war after the winter of 1941/1942.....

[morvael]

Evacuation is delayed by one turn. Unit load costs are increased.

[morvael]

Agree with final part of chaos45's post. The problem is to actually find real life numbers for everything the game needs, for both sides, and for entire war. Some numbers are IMO made up, to let the engine run. Then there are limitations of the engine itself. Not everything is modeled as well, even if there would be numbers for that. So with such limitations it's always a game presenting designer's vision, not a simulator in a sense one can be made for a single plane or tank. Too little real physics and psychology, too much abstractions. And then something that occurred in real life and had major impact can't be modeled at all by the game.

[chaos45]

ahh thought I noticed my rail capacity not going near as far anymore......

As I have been relocating units in me and Peltons current game and noticing vastly reduced rail capacity........Where before I could shift several armies by rail if I wanted to, it is no longer possible to do such---again a benefit to the Germans since Rail for unit movement is virtually not used or rarely used...mainly to bring troops from europe to the front.

Seems you roughly doubled the cost of moving units by rail??? at least so it seems. Never really paid attention before but I do know I cant move nearly as many units now as I could before, before rail cap was exhausted.

Also if you want true history with low soviet rail capacity early in the war........

The Soviet rail capacity should increase throughout the game. Lend lease shipped tons of locamotives and rail cars to the Soviet union.......

You know just to be clear, Im not saying the Germans shouldnt have some fun and be able to do some damage....however in all reality short of a 1941 win or a miraculous/really badly played Soviet 1942 the Germans basically have/had no chance of winning the war at all after that.

I have played the Germans in many games and if I keep playing this system will probably give them a spin again at some point if I have the time to commit to additional 6+ month games.

The Germans in this system require very good/strong play, which again is historical they were effectively the underdog in this fight all war long. You play the underdog expect it to be a very tough road.

So im not fighting to make the Germans unplayable but incessant nerfing of the Soviets seems to be abit much...esp when history shows the German army was basically trashed after the winter of 1941/1942 but in this game the German army comes out of the winter in almost perfect shape and quickly goes on to add .5-1M additional soldiers above and beyond what they could have ever put in the field.

If we are playing complete fantasy WW2 fine, but if its supposed to be close to a historical situation for both players think the objective should be to stick close to historical capabilities is my point.

[karmad]

ORIGINAL: chaos45


You know just to be clear, Im not saying the Germans shouldnt have some fun and be able to do some damage....however in all reality short of a 1941 win or a miraculous/really badly played Soviet 1942 the Germans basically have/had no chance of winning the war at all after that.

Are you saying a German player should only be able to win in 1941 if they can pull off a miracle (definition: a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.) or face a really bad Soviet player ? [&:]

Doesn't sound much fun at all imo.

[chaos45]

Pretty much yes....because that was the case.

Study the war reading something besides German Generals books- who make alot of if/then/blame games for why they lost the war.

Many of the German Generals books are good reads but you have to remember the perspective of the person writing them. Also back then the Soviets were the red menace so Western military quickly grabbed on to anything to discredit the Soviet army.

The Winter of 41/42 was a catastrophe for the German Army, especially when coupled with the losses they had already suffered over the summer and fall of that campaign----some things to keep in mind----most casualties are infantrymen, tens of thousands of your trucks are civilian or captured stock = not durable and hard to get parts for.

So once winter hits....a good chunk of your experience infantrymen and probably even more importantly company level infantry leadership- are dead/wounded/out of action- a massive hit to actual combat efficiency----thus combining the rear using mechanics, cooks, admin as infantrymen starting that winter----believe me logistics personal arent near as capable in combat as actual trained infantrymen.

Trucks......ya this was a real disaster/mess....most were broke before winter even hit.....the rest broke during the winter....in effect de-motorizing most of the German army after that first winter. To motorize at 80% truck levels AGS for operation blue they stole almost all of the trucks from AGN/AGC effectively putting both those entire AG in static mode to get one AG to 80%......tells you abit about how bad the truck situation was.

Horses- which the German army relied even more on----pretty much as bad most sick or dead after that winter....massive horse losses that the German army again effectively didnt replace making them static.

[karmad]

Yes I'm aware of the historical evidence. In fact I'd argue that once Germany attacked they had zero chance of winning (outside Harry Turtledove time traveling back with a nuke). But neither position makes a particular fun or engaging game.

... Because that’s the ultimate expression of what wargaming is all about. After you’ve immersed yourself in historical minutiae, and played through all sorts of plausible historical courses in games, you start wanting to push the envelope. If Col. Albert Seaton says that the German could have secured a line 150 miles east of Moscow if they had really wanted to, what if they had not spent the winter in Russia at all?

Wargames are, like all games, ultimately about our imaginations. The ahistorical outcomes in most wargames arise from avoiding known historical mistakes. But creating rules to restrict these outcomes eventually leads to games which do nothing but pantomime history, which limits the extent of imagination. A good wargame lets players play, and in order to do that it has to be somewhat elastic. When gamers stretch that elastic, weird things can happen. But that’s the difference between, for example, a historical wargame and a historical sports replay game. The latter is set up to have a predetermined outcome. The closer it comes to this outcome, the better a game it is. A wargame with a predetermined outcome is a re-enactment, not a game.

-Bruce Geryk and his excellent game diary on WiTE.

[dot]wargamespace[dot][com]/2014/05/05/reckoning-in-the-east/

[Denniss]

Just for the record as this post is not stickied - 1.08.07 hotfix (game executable only):
tm.asp?m=3958052

[chaos45]

I dont disagree about being able to change things....but its seems more and more of the tinkering is going into effects of making the Soviets worse and Axis better for no real reason is my point.

The Germans took a slight nerf to supply to slow movement some because they were fairly overpowered in 1942 meaning a better than historical 1941 game them an even better 1942 than could be expected.

However, they also snuck in a whole bunch of Soviet nerfs this patch.....so what Im saying is why when you changed things to balance the Germans back did the testers feel a need to further nerf Soviets that for the most part were having a rough time in .04?

Evac delay, higher cost to move things by rail, removed cav corps morale after first winter, 3-4 dead per disabled for soviet attacks now so less replacements......these are all nerfs to the soviet side.

The only benefit was the NM being put back to where it was before .04......because at 40 NM the soviet infantry divisions were in effect worthless in open terrain, and even dug-in in terrain German infantry divisions could easily push entire soviet infantry stacks......all they ended up being was MP reductions to German panzer units. Honestly aside from a slightly more restrictive german supply system the soviets got virtually nothing but nerfs and it doesnt make much sense to me.

An to be honest the 45 NM is really a very small CV increase for the soviets when coupled with Cav corps reduction, and rifle BDEs no longer being 50 morale. So its pretty much a wash as far as squeezing CV into the soviet army.

I know in past versions of the game the soviets were apparently swimming in manpower but in this edition of the game not so much. I finished this last turn with just over 8M men and less than 100k men in the pool...which at the rate things are going I will be net 0 replacements in the pool in 2 more weeks. Especially now that summer is almost here as op tempo from attacks and counterattacks will increase drastically.

Examples- average soviet attrition losses 50-60k per turn/ only replacing 85k per turn.....thats with no combat....and then they nerf soviet disabled returns? is the Soviet army supposed to shrink from mid 1943 on is my question??? is that the intent?

Thats why im posting some complaints on it.....the nerfs are going abit to far. German movement was reduced to fix them being overpowered to in turn put additional nerfs on the soviets will just keep the situation exactly the same in the current patches as it was in .04 if not worse if Soviets go negative in replacements even sooner due to the disabled change.

[karmad]

Your points may very well be valid, but it's hard to accept that it's 'to far' if your ideal conditions is Germany loses 99.9% of the time (sans an act of god and/or inept Soviet player). While perfectly reasonable in a historical sense, it's makes for a terrible game.

[chaos45]

IDK in a long term game....

My take on playing Germany is try to win in the early game if not.....success is staving off defeat as long as possible if not longer than historical.

If Germany can hold the allies back longer than historical chalk it up a win.

Thats my take on playing German because if you dont win in 1941- which is an extreme long shot your just trying to make the decline take as long as possible.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: malyhin1517

Let's check

I think this is a new "nearly major" bug, and one that was in WitE for a very long time to boot. Basically, some (don't know the exact criteria yet, but perhaps this affects only SUs sent by HQs to assist in combat) German units during attack will suffer the same kind of "First Turn Disruption" effect that only Soviet units are supposed to suffer on June 22nd turn (see 23.3.4), and this resets their experience to around build level. I can notify Joel about this but I think it may not fit into next beta patch.

Good catch, malyhin1517!

[VigaBrand]

ORIGINAL: karmad

Your points may very well be valid, but it's hard to accept that it's 'to far' if your ideal conditions is Germany loses 99.9% of the time (sans an act of god and/or inept Soviet player). While perfectly reasonable in a historical sense, it's makes for a terrible game.

That is the question.
Historical that is the truth. I accept all of chaos arguments and yes, the germans perfomed better than expected.
The question for the game is, will you made a game, where booth side had a (fair) chance to win or did you want a historcial based game (where the soviet win rate should be very high).
If you decide for the historical based version, you should maybe switch the victory conditions, because than a draw is a german victory.
(like chaos suggested that).

[mktours]

I hope the Manual could be updated. The change log is quite confusing.

[Dreamslayer]

After last changes now possible to see morale of air groups and their miles flown at enemy air bases. Is it correct?

[morvael]

At some level of detection group info is shown, and it happens that now it contains morale info...