2by3+

[thedoctorking]

As far as airplanes are concerned, since we don't have an air commander maybe each front commander can control the front aviation armies and the Supremo can control the long-range air units.

[Neogodhobo]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

As far as airplanes are concerned, since we don't have an air commander maybe each front commander can control the front aviation armies and the Supremo can control the long-range air units.

The Supreme Commander cannot control the air Force as per the rules of the game that we collectively made. If I remember correctly Im not even allowed to move anything on the map but I could be wrong on that one.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: Neogodhobo

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

As far as airplanes are concerned, since we don't have an air commander maybe each front commander can control the front aviation armies and the Supremo can control the long-range air units.

The Supreme Commander cannot control the air Force as per the rules of the game that we collectively made. If I remember correctly Im not even allowed to move anything on the map but I could be wrong on that one.

Maybe we can give you two jobs? I think it's reasonable for the Supreme Commander to control troops who are arriving as reinforcements but haven't made it to the lines yet. I'd allow the Supreme Commander to move all units attached to Stavka. Maybe we can go back to the Axis and see if they agree.

[WingedIncubus]

I am fine with any Corps or Army under STAVKA being moved only with explicit permission of the Supreme Commander, who decides where to plug the holes. If I want an Army under my control, permission is to be asked to STAVKA and the AP will be spent to reassign it to my Front.

As for the Airforce, are you sure about that? I thought Hortlund in the other 4x4 games had full control of the airforce for the Axis as Supreme Commander, but I might be wrong.

Airbases will have to move back again and again and again as the Germans approach. However, I am all for that the Supreme Commander controls air attacks, since airplanes are not restricted by Front when they fly. I wouldn't want to use up all the airforce of the Northern or Southern Fronts to hammer the Germans panzers in my Sector.

[thedoctorking]

What we really need is an air force commander. Since we don't have one, I was for leaving control of the air units in the front(s) that we control under the land commanders. It's true that the system allows planes to rebase automatically in order to fly a mission in another sector if called for, but presumably the planes we would have in those front airbases would be relatively short-ranged ones, IL-2's, fighters, SB-2's and the like. They couldn't go far even if they do rebase. At least, in the solo games I've played, when you go to bomb a target you get a few tactical bombers from your own area plus the option to call in the heavies from the long-range (VVS) air bases.

General rules question: what is the actual effective range of those tactical bombers? I see that they have a "radius" of 11 or 15 or whatever, is that the actual range or should they be closer to be effective? I was keeping my airbases 10 hexes behind the front line in my solo game and I noticed that they were rarely participating, so I moved them in to three or four hexes and presto! Except that now they risk being overrun by a quick armor breakthrough.

Maybe we could say you can't use more that 33% of the capability of an air unit that comes from outside your sector without permission?

[Neogodhobo]

- 1 Supreme Commander: decides the allocations to each of the other commanders (e.g. units, points, rail cap, manpower, leaders etc.) and their responsibilities (e.g. boundary maps, objectives). This can include protocols on how different players can use the same units during the same turn (e.g. air groups, SUs), strategy many turns ahead etc. The supreme commander could also undertake strategic aspects of warfare (air missions, industry etc.) but should not be another ground commander. Anything relevant to only the responsibilities of one commander should be left to that commander. As well as aiming to win the game, the Supreme commander is also responsible for ensuring all their team players have the substantial game they expect.
- North, Centre/West, South and (optionally) other ground commanders: they cannot also be the Supreme Commander and are responsible for "pushing the units" for all ground forces in contact with the enemy as well as any other roles the team decides
- Others (optionally): if the team agrees and other roles can be found. Suggestions have included air commanders, deputy ground commanders and even ministers of production and propaganda!

Alright so I guess I could fly air mission if I wanted to, but it dont make much sense as I wouldnt be able to know exactly what you guys need.

As supreme commander, I chose that we separate the air force to the 3 front. 25% to the North, 25% to the South, and 50% to the Center. How do you guys feel about that ?
I want to make sure the Center has more aircraft, and if need be he can diverged them to either south or north for emergencies.

Everyone okay with that ? As for the industries, I just dont know how to do it, Iv never done it. Anyone knows about industries that could take the job ?

[thedoctorking]

The industry moving thing goes first in the turn (can go anywhere, but you should know how much rail capacity you will have at the end). You click on the town, then on the name of the town in the upper-right corner while in rail move mode. It will open up a window with how much mobile industrial cap is there with arrows to allow you to move how much of it you want. Whatever you don't move gets torn down (I think) so I generally move everything out of a town that is going to fall soon. If you are out of rail cap, I think the suggestion is to move at least 50% of whatever is there so it will rebuild. The factory is out of production for a certain amount of time (20 turns maybe?) and then starts to come back. I can do it if you want though in other fronts people will have to tell me which towns they are going to lose in the coming turn.

As far as air movement is concerned, there is an air transfer mode that allows you to shift air regiments back and forth from airfield to airfield. I have hardly used it. Instead, I send air regiments that are low on morale/experience/fatigue back to national reserve and then allocate them in future turns to airbases that are low. Plenty of airbases are going to have no planes at all in the early going and it might be worth it just to disband them since building new ones only costs 1 AP. On the other hand, you can only build a certain number of new air bases a turn so maybe save the ones you can.

Another thing you have to do is build new air regiments using the "build new unit" mode, clicking on any random city behind the lines and spending 1 AP (I think) per unit. Again, there is only a certain number you can build a turn. I feel like you should put all but a few hundred of each type of aircraft into regiments as soon as possible but the big limit is the number of AP you have. Then, the new regiments have to spend some time in national reserve training up before they are any use at the front.

And you have to watch your regiments deployed to airbases to see if their morale/training/fatigue levels are getting bad.

[thedoctorking]

Moving industry starts on turn 4 (? could be 3) so we'll have time to talk it over.

[thedoctorking]

Transferring a corps or army from STAVKA to a front command doesn't cost any AP. Transferring it back can cost 16 or so, I think.

Notice also that a front can only have a certain number of units in it before becoming overloaded. I think that as the Germans advance we will get more fronts converted from regional military commands. I got Leningrad, Bryansk, and Orel, I think that maybe North Caucasus, Trans-Caucasus, Moscow, and Urals (if they get that far) will fill out our list. Plus we get Volkhov Front as a reinforcement. It is a restriction on our effectiveness, though.

Another decision that STAVKA will have to make is assigning leaders, at least at the front level. Our front commanders at the beginning are pretty lame. We have some good leaders but assigning a new front commander can cost a dozen AP. Even at the army level it can cost 8 or so. Depends on the political level of the commander to be replaced. I'm not clear about how important higher-level commanders are; army commanders appear to make the biggest difference and the front (or STAVKA) commander only has influence if the army commander is overwhelmed with too many units.

[Neogodhobo]

I guess I could take control of Air Forces, but how will I know if you guys want to bomb a certain unit or whatnot ? Seems like a lot of complication for nothing. Wouldnt it be better if everyone has their own dedicated air force units and use them as they please ?

I suggest we dont change too much leaders at the start, since anyway, they will most likely get surrounded and kill. Maybe we should change them once we start to hold good defensive position.

[thedoctorking]

No, my suggestion was that air base units that are attached to fronts are under the control of the player who has those fronts. The Supreme Commander controls the air bases that are assigned to STAVKA. The Supreme commander also controls which air regiments (i.e., actual air units with planes in them) are assigned to each air base. We can send air regiments back to national reserve and can ask each turn for new air regiments to be sent to us.

Also, the Supreme Commander would be responsible for allocating some AP to himself to build new air regiments each turn, which would go into national reserve and then he would allocate to whichever front he felt needed them most when their training/morale levels get high enough for them to be effective. The Supreme commander can also build new air base units and allocate them to fronts (and load them up with air regiments) when they are ready to go.

[Neogodhobo]

Oh I see, yeah sounds good to me for sure !

[thedoctorking]

When are we going to start? I'm ready to get my butt kicked...

Edit: I see where there's an Axis turn in the Dropbox. Does that mean it is our turn?
And if so, what order should we go in? Do we have our own Dropbox and if so can I get added to it?

[Neogodhobo]

Yeah the game definitly started. Im not sure if the axis made their turn yet, I dont understand ANYTHING, from that dropbox thing -_-

But so far as orders, We should probably do Center first, and then North/South. As a lot will be dependent on the Center. Everyone okay with that ?

And as far as battle orders, just do as we planned. Someone will have to explain me how to do the dropbox thing so that I can enter the game so that I can deal with the air force.

Who is responsible for the industry again ? If we need to move anything on turn 1, now would be the time to step up.

As for AP. north didnt need any on turn 1, so we will share 20/20 for center and South and I will keep 10 AP to myself. Everything okay with all this ?

In the first few turns, you guys can improvise, historically, Stalin didnt have much authority on what was going on, communication were cut off and everything.

I gave you guys the base plan of defense. Go as much as you can with that but dont be afraid of doing your own little things. This is valid until further notice. Basically, we just want to survive the assault until the winter.

[thedoctorking]

You can't move any industry until turn 3 or 4. So we will lose Minsk, Lvov, and Riga for sure. South can try to hold on to Odessa. Remember that you can't rail in or out of an enemy ZOC, so make sure that no Romanians get adjacent to Odessa.

We should have our own Dropbox folder and only upload the turn to the shared Dropbox when we're done with our turn. I think what you do is copy the game file from the Dropbox folder to the saved games file in your game folder. Then you can open it, run your moves, save it back to the Dropbox folder and inform the next player that it's their turn to go.

[thedoctorking]

So I just opened up what was in the Dropbox file and it is still at the beginning of the Axis turn. Presumably they are making their turn and will copy over when they get done.

But the mechanism was correct. You copy the file from the Dropbox folder to your save game folder (on my machine it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Gary Grigsby's War in the East\Dat\save). Then you can open it. It asked me for a password but when I clicked "X" it opened the file (presumably, they haven't chosen one and we shouldn't either, I guess). Then I was looking at the Axis position, which I refrained from inspecting too closely other than to note that they hadn't made any moves.

[WingedIncubus]

To encourage our troops in wait for the Fascist Horde

[;)]

[Neogodhobo]

yeah but WHERE is that dropbox ?!? How do I join it ??


And Drakken, nice video haha. I use to listen to the Red Army Choir ( I dont think that song on the video is part of the Red Army choir though ) every morning when I had a "slave" job. It would motivate me to go to work.

[WingedIncubus]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking
But the mechanism was correct. You copy the file from the Dropbox folder to your save game folder (on my machine it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Gary Grigsby's War in the East\Dat\save). Then you can open it. It asked me for a password but when I clicked "X" it opened the file (presumably, they haven't chosen one and we shouldn't either, I guess). Then I was looking at the Axis position, which I refrained from inspecting too closely other than to note that they hadn't made any moves.

Wait until their turn is done. I decided to set a password for this very reason, for security of information.

The Soviet player has to set the password for access when they end their turn and send us back the file. It was just sent by PM to you guys.

[WingedIncubus]

ORIGINAL: Neogodhobo

yeah but WHERE is that dropbox ?!? How do I join it ??


And Drakken, nice video haha. I use to listen to the Red Army Choir ( I dont think that song on the video is part of the Red Army choir though ) every morning when I had a "slave" job. It would motivate me to go to work.

What is your Dropbox account name? I will check to make sure you have access.

It comes from the 1985 Soviet movie "The Battle of Moscow". They are actors, but in voice-over it is sung by singers of Red Army Choir.

It is sure better for morale than blocking battalions in our backs. [:'(]