Balance Issue

[AlbertN]

Greetings,

This post is mainly with multiplayer forecast issue than vs the AI.

Issue: Norway:
By the looks the "script" to invade Norway has been unchanged since the previous titles of the serie. Though the "size" of the map here is much, much larger. And Axis does not have the cash nor the resources to protect something as large as Norway. There were also an amount of reasons for which the UK pulled back from Narvik alongside France.
First of all - German reinforcements and supply would arrive to Oslo non hindered (Germany mined heavily the Skaggerat and the Luftwaffe litterally dominated the air in that time - in fact most of the strategy games block the access to the "Baltic" at the western side of Denmark) and next they'd not have the manpower for a loooooong time to do that against easily tenable territory as Norway (accounting Germans as tenacious defenders).
Second - which is another problem in general, is that the airforce does not "scare away" ships sufficiently. (Especially in the Mediterranean. There were reasons if Italy dominated the central mediterranean and kept regular shipping, albeit with losses by subimarines, to Libya).

Solution: Change the "Script" - upgrade the Oslo unit in an Army, the other Garrisons in Corps, and add a bunch of Garrisons in various towns. Add some Coastal Guns as well. Add 1 HQ named Dietl in the production queue that pops around June '41 for Barbarossa. Yes it's beefing up Germans, which it is badly needed in Multiplayer by the looks.

Italy too weak.
As it stands, Italy is way, way too weak. Italy had a large but not exactly efficient army. An amount of troops, mix of corps and garrisons should be added here and there. At 3 to 5 strength. Currently Italy it is pratically ripe to get invaded in '41 as soon as Barbarossa is launched.
Italy also needs a larger airforce (They actually had a pretty large airforce at the war start) - including 2 maritime bombers to help them fend off a premature invasion.
Because a human player can easily make a stand in El Alamein and then once Barbarossa start invade directly Italy. Or even just jump at Tobruk and Tripoli.
Land based planes are what kept the Royal Navy honest in the central mediterranean until the Allies got their own fighters in range (Early '43).
Some Italian units can have "upgrades" which are not normally at avail. (An Alpini Corp starting with 1 of Infantry Weapons; and the Littorio class BBs coming with 1 of Naval Warfare).

Naval Warfare & Production.
Not a true balance issue, but I feel a ship should not get Naval Warfare upgrades but be built with them from scratch. No ship got a massive inter-war overhaul of their main guns and naval armaments (Anti-Air yes but that is another tale).
About anti-air though, it has been proved in many occasions that air fights air; the anti air is more a deterrent than what would harm airforces (at least in the amount we see in this game)

Experience.
Experience hardly works at the present.
German troops going through the campaign of Poland and France arrive with no experience at Barbarossa. How? Why? Because of how replacements work. They drain a too large chunk of experience (or simply too little experience is earned).
On the other hand, the moment you switch on the defensive vs the AI - that at least in Russia they seem to try to ram in your units in almost suicidal attacks ... then yes you start to get experience. You are entrenched, they're not, they suffer losses, you suffer 0 or 1 and you start to gain experience.
Elite Replacements are too slow - one should buy more at once than just 1 per turn.

Barbarossa / Supply
That is what came out as most obvious to me in my first campaign.
I am not new to Strategic Command at all - and the supply system has once again revealed its issues where panzers spearhead in depth into enemy territory. Barbarossa was a whack-the-next-town-in-line experience; where you were the gray tidal wave that hardly achieved historical results simply because in Summer, each Soviet town had a Soviet corp waiting. And you can't just run past it because you'd be out of supply of worth to operate.
The Germans never made it close to Leningrad, got stuck at Smolensk and barely got past Kiev.
In '42 there was no "Blitzkieg" at all, more a sluggish war of attrition where the German units slowly (against the limits of an AI, I underline) made relevant advances here and there; and had to give grounds there and elsewhere. (Forfeitted Moscow attack to take Rostov and Kharkov, established possession of Tula and reached Leningrad. Conquered Sebastopol)
All in all I'd not complain - if it was not this was vs a regular (no modifiers) AI. What Germany will achieve vs a competent human?
Also - adding - France was pratically empty of troops except few garrisons and 2 corps and 2 fighters.
To me it's also obvious the Axis force pool needs expanded limits and they need a better economy. (I even got a suggestion for expert axis players to weaken their economy, which I avoided)

Now with the game in the current state the Supply / Logistical model won't be changed. But Germany needs to be able to pour more units - garrisons and corps if needs to be but their production needs to be upped. (Or Allied production lowered).

The Afrikan Legions
I understand some gameplay in Afrika is desired. I felt very odd that in Lybia there are more Axis troops than a while Army Group on the Soviet Front (Counting the units).
The W.Allies also seemed to pour over time countless of corps and armies (which the AI allowed in grand part to be smashed. The AI boggled and kept attacking and attacking without making a breach and I was simply "picking" on their most exposed units and withdrawing behind my entrenched line. That for a year whole).
Long in short - like Russian '42 - in Afrika too the pure mass of troops present transformed the battle into a trench war of attrition (Whereas the W.Allies would win due to economical power)
Though I admit the AI at least try (not always) to focus on 1 unit, attacking it multiple times in the hope to destroy it. That is good - but they did not with planes (odd!), a main reason for their failure I believe.
Anyhow - just too many troops in Afrika, W.Allies had too many. Italy had to send more once Greece fell.
(This links to the problem of "Fortify in El Alamein and use the seas to invade around - probably a better use of that massive force. Something which presently Regia Marina cannot stop - but it would have in '40 '41 and early '42 with the help of the Luftwaffe. Crete was a grand lesson for the Royal Navy.)

All in all - to me the game seems very "Pro-Allies" and far from being balanced for the Multiplayer purpose.
Probably the beta-testers checks for bugs and that things work - but very few games get "power-gamers" to beta test for balance (a good name I have in mind is Pelton from WITE - the kind of player that plays to win, using anything the game allows you to.)

[OxfordGuy3]

I think I would agree with most, but not all, of this, especially the comments about Experience - I prefered how this worked in CEAW-GS where you didn't lose experience when reinforcing from 8 or more (I think), only for reinforcing from lower values. Also Italy sould have more coastal garrisons

[The Land]

In Barbarossa, did you use HQs to mitigate supply problems you faced?

Playing as Allies I found the AI made more progress against Russia played by me than you are reporting taking the Germans. So I suggest it is possible for a German player to do better

[sPzAbt653]

I prefered how this worked in CEAW-GS where you didn't lose experience when reinforcing from 8 or more (I think),

I can't remember if this is true or not, but it seems like a great idea.

Probably the beta-testers checks for bugs and that things work - but very few games get "power-gamers" to beta test for balance

To be fair, Multi-Player wasn't available until the very end of beta [:)]

[James Taylor]

A lot of presumptuous statements. Better to wait for multi-player and then we can revisit these concerns,

One fix for experience is the ability to not lose any if you reinforce 1 strength point per turn. Would take longer to build a badly depleted unit back to combat strength which simulates the training, introduction of the replacements to the unit's culture, ie esprit de corps.

[sPzAbt653]

One fix for experience is the ability to not lose any if you reinforce 1 strength point per turn.

This also sounds like a great idea.

[Yogol]

Or have an option to pay like... 50% more for reinforcements, but then don't lose XP.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

One fix for experience is the ability to not lose any if you reinforce 1 strength point per turn.

This also sounds like a great idea.

I can see the idea here, but would need to be automated - a system where players manually select each unit each turn and click +1 for every unit would be, well, rubbish.

[macroeconomics]

Land combat right now in SC3 is attritional in nature. Kill off enemy units until they cant defend everything and then advance. The sort of deep penetration breakthrough/exploitation attacks are rare. As the OP pointed out, the defensive/blocking capability of a single full strength infantry corps in a city/town is immense. The other problem is that the movement (AP) points allocated to ground units is too low. Both of those factors push the attacker towards a "kill first" rather than an "advance first" strategy.

You can adjust the combat data to make it easier to attack. But you can't do anything about the movement rate of ground units. It's too bad there isn't a global movement/AP parameter. I'd increase it by 2 and then increase the cost to enter a ZOC by 1. That would make it a little easier to get your units in position to assault that next town which always seems to be ahead.

The big long term solution I think is to decrease the miles/kilometers of territory each hex represents. Bumping down each hex in central Europe from 20 miles to about 15 would open up the map and allow more room for maneuver. There are plenty of extra hexes in the northern part of the map that can be expropriated for this purpose as those hexes are grotesquely overblown (<10 miles per hex in northern Finland). Of course this would have to be combined with an increase in movement/range allowances.

[currycook]

Fun game, but does seem unbalanced in favor of the Allies.

[Klydon]

Some observations I have had playing as the Axis so far. I have played the Allies through to a win in the past. I am playing default, except no fog of war and with the Allies having a 10% penalty on production.

It is April 1941. The Germans went for a France then Med strategy prior to being ready to invade Russia as soon as we get good weather. Spain has entered the war on the Axis side and Gibraltar has fallen. Malta has also fallen. The Africa Korps has been reinforced with an extra army, tank, and fighter unit. Yugoslavia and Greece have been conquered and German forces are in the process of redeployment for Barbarossa.

The CW has been careless with their carriers and 4 of them have been sunk. The only survivor of the Med fleet is a sub unit. The home fleet remains strong and other than sending a destroyer out on occasion (which gets sunk) it has been content to watch the Germans across the North Sea. (Note, the AI needs to be more careful with the CW carriers). Losing the CW carriers and the presence of the Luftwaffe in the Med is the reason the CW eventually lost the Med fleet.

My issue is the huge unrealistic army the CW has built up. In England proper, they have the following ground forces; 11 Corps (1 each Polish and Canadian) and 4 armies. They also have 1 fighter, 1 tac and 1 strategic bomber. In the desert, they have 4 corps and 1 army along with a tank and a engineer. With all that, the CW are absolutely a threat to invade if not in 1941, then in 1942 for sure. That doesn't even count what American forces would be available in 1942.

Germany currently has 18 corps (2 in production), 5 armies, 5 tank units (1 in production), 1 mech, 2 tac, 3 bomber, 1 artillery, 1 special forces, 1 AA, 2 para and 6 garrison. These totals do not include the Africa corps (but do include extra German troops I sent) or the garrison of Norway (no extra units there) and it doesn't include Spain or Axis minors. France has a force of 3 fighters, 4 corps, 2 armies, AA and 6 garrison (one of the corps is Spanish).

Right now, I am looking at invading Russia with 11 corps, 3 armies, 4-5 tanks, 4 HQ 1 mech, 1 para, 2 tac, 2 bomber plus whatever Axis minor forces I can spare.

The Russians have also been busy. They currently have 11 armies and 15 corps along with a fighter and they have 3 more armies and 2 tanks in production that will arrive before the end of 1941.

Play issues:

1. My point with this is there is no way the Germans can commit a lot of troops to the invasion of Russia with the CW having so many land forces available. Historically, the CW should be fairly limited on what they can build land force wise because of manpower issues, etc. I think placing limits on ground troops especially early would be beneficial. Open them a bit in 1943 and more in 1944. but to force the Germans to guard against that type of force in 1941 is just flat wrong.

2. The Germans don't really enjoy a clear qualitative advantage over the Russians. The Russians picked up infantry weapons 1 and the Germans just got infantry weapons 2. I should be able to upgrade my invasion force, but it will preclude getting more troops. The Germans do enjoy advantages in aircraft and tanks, but far less when it comes to infantry. Early Russian research needs to be tinkered with a bit.

3. The German force invading Russia is often inadequate. I would consider adding a special script event for "Barbarossa" giving the Germans a fair number of ground troops to deploy in the east at a fairly hefty cost over a period of turns (no later than Jan 42). This will help the Germans in the initial invasion, but having to "pay" for those troops also means the Germans won't be able to replace losses as easily during the initial campaign along with what goes on in the desert (also historical and giving a feel that seems more "right" to the game). This would be a bigger version of the Africa Korps event. Most of the units should be ground troops along with a HQ or two. Not much air should be included. The Germans need numbers on the ground.

Overall, I am enjoying the game, but there are a few things that drive me a bit crazy at the moment.

[James Taylor]

Come on, really?

I had the USSR declare war on me. I never felt threatened, some anxious moments during WA strategic bombing campaign where they had stealth level 5 bombers.

I'm nearing the end, notified there are 9 more turns, have researched everything as Germans, produced everything as Germans, nursed the Italians along conquering Tunisia, Greece, Yugo., Syria, Vichy, Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland and Algeria, who did I miss?

Let the Germans take USSR. Actually they surrendered automatically!

I can take London at anytime, just nursing this thing along to the end, all the minors have been upgraded, full mobility.

More MPPs than I know what to do with and this wasn't on the easy settings. I think the Axis have a huge advantage! Let's wait till multi-player before jumping to conclusions.

[The Land]

Klydon, have you destroyed any UK land units?

I'm at roughly the same point as Axis and have destroyed 3-4 British Corps, 1 Armies, one tank and 2 HQs. In the next few turns I will likely overrun Alexandria as they have no line units left in Egypt.

[Klydon]

@The Land: I wacked the BEF army and that has been about it vs UK for dead land units. I came close on one of the other corps, but both bailed out of France in a hurry. In the desert, the Italians have stood on the defensive until I could get the Germans there and get set up. The CW has repeatedly attacked the Italian tanks without much success, taking some losses. They rotate units, but it hasn't done them a lot of good. The engineer has been busy putting down fortifications like crazy back by El-Alamein. One of the things I am going to try to do is suddenly strike and kill as many CW units as I can so he can't really fall back and have enough to sufficiently man the fortifications or so that is the plan anyway.

@James Taylor: Well grats for you. I am not sure how much you have read through this thread or looked at the AARs, etc. Some of what I have mentioned (low numbers vs Russia, very strong UK ground forces in 1941) has been a common theme. Just because you can cope with it doesn't mean it isn't an overall issue. You could be extremely experienced with this series of game or just a great game player in general; that doesn't mean there still isn't an issue in general. Most of what I have mentioned is more of a "feel of the game" type thing and the puny force most Germans must invade with doesn't sound right, the fact the Russians are not far behind in tech isn't right, and the UK landing a huge ground force in 1942 in France or wherever isn't right either.

[James Taylor]

Nope! Sorry Klydon, this was not an attentive play through. Like I said, the USSR declared war on Axis. I blundered my way along, no hurry to do anything, no pre-invasion deployments.

No Battle of the Atlantic, didn't challenge the Allied fleet, didn't intercept any convoy routes.

There is no, let me repeat, no Allied advantage, if anything the usual momentum that the Axis build in experience and technology is the advantage at least against the AI.

[freeboy]

well, I tried to dumb down the ai, turned off negative scripts and even changed to green, Its embarrissing how strng the Sovs are, I could not go into egypt as I have and try the quick game, and I saw an aar where this happened, but man the reds have a HUGE army and seemingly no end in sight for their production units...
I will do a new game, several so far 39's some 40s and one or two 41 and 42 starts....
This time Ill do a no axis attacks in egypt and ill see if I can hack the brits so they are neutered.. easy to save cheat load as other side etc.. and see how I can do throuwing everything at reds... I may be doing something wrong, spending too much on research? My corps are all built but not enough armies to challenge.... hummmmm
well I dont see a lot of the old gaurd guys here claiming this is balanced but man I must be missing something vital... have plenty of HQs.. just not sure where the flaw lies if it my play... which it easily could be....

[Steely Glint]

It seems like for every game that Matrix publishes there is someone posting here who thinks it's unbalanced. I played the 1939 scenario through on both sides and I agree with the beta testers that it seems balanced. If someone is having trouble, they can change the difficulty settings or use the editor. No one will care.

But making changes to the game based on one guy's complaints seems really stupid to me. If there are real balance issues, they will become quite apparent in multiplayer and can be fixed then. In the meantime, play the game, dial the difficulty down if you need to, and edit at will.

[AlbertN]

That is the point - Multiplayer - that I am trying to bring across.

Klydon already realized the issues themselves. The forces UK has in UK by the time Barbarossa should be launched simply mean that the UK player in '41 can rule in Afrika AND land anywhere he wants in Europe without having much opposition unless the Germans pull back from Barbarossa.
I am playing of player vs player, so no easy fleet baiting or grand mistakes assuming both players are competent.

[freeboy]

ok... seems there must be something obvious I am missing and how the sovs at green ai can have dozens of ectra behing the front units.. ok.. playing 42 and holding Lybia, moscow attacked south in Stalingrad over run... So whatever it is I am doing fin in rock paper sissors.. ok.. time for the daily grind and than you to all who have done so much.. this is a HUGE step forward with FOW and all.. bravo.. and two player and then you simple do two games will tell the tale for evenly matched players.. ie one side will prevail in both games..
cheers

[Patrat]

I'm all for waiting till a lot of player vs player games have been played and a consensus has been reached before mucking around with the game balance.

As far as single player goes, I can kick the AI'S butt playing either side on hardest setting without gaming the game, well except for subs. lol

That being said I gotta mention that currently the AI on the hardest setting with me playing only Soviets is kicking my butt. But I feel confident that I will triumph in the end.