Mass Air Groups

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: crispy131313
To be fair there are 1000 MPP worth of HQ/supply/base parked in those mountains which simulate somewhat of air-basing.
What I have felt from Beta (2016) was that the Bombers were too strong, it was the first change I made in Fall Weiss II and I have never looked back or had a complaint (only compliments). The air force should support the Armies not the other way around. Having 2-3 ground units supporting an advancing air force is where we are going off the rails. I can not blame Sugar for doing this, but I can fault the game for creating the incentive to do it. The answer is to simply scale bombers back in their ground attack value, they should be softening up targets (lowering morale, entrenchment, doing damage) not nuking entire army groups.

exactly!

[KorutZelva]

ORIGINAL: crispy131313

To be fair there are 1000 MPP worth of HQ/supply/base parked in those mountains which simulate somewhat of air-basing.

I'd rather have an engineer there busy there for a while before this is possible. HQ are too mobile. Let's say 60 days build time for an airstrip that can house 2 air unit.

[Hubert Cater]

We are watching the thread and listening to all the feedback. Often the best thing for us to do before we jump in as it is usually ideal to hear all the different points of view.

That being said, many of the game rules have been in place for well over 10 years and can work just fine until players discover strategies that challenge the logic of existing rules and design decisions. Having in game flexibility to move air units around as shown above is one of them and in the past spending those MPPs to operate that many aircraft as well as placing the required HQs would simply mean a significant weakness in other areas of the map. Typically some strategies only work until the appropriate counter strategy is devised and then all is well again and no intervention is needed from our end at all.

Now in this case it could simply be that one player is very good at working within the rule set no matter what we do, or it could be that long term this strategy doesn't pan out as let's say those extra MPPs spent in the screen shot above eventually come to roost as it results in the Soviet player being able to survive in the USSR and eventually tipping the balance there. For example MPPs spent to move all that air to North Africa eventually needs to be spent to move it back if they are rapidly required elsewhere at some point.

Sometimes we just need to see how dozens of games pan out before making a change if the strategy above only relates to a short term victory and not a long term one.

From our end there are a lot of "developement what ifs" and it's just a matter of being careful of what you wish for as well. For example the game could be made much more realistic, which usually leads to more micro managing, which usually leads to less fun for most players.

It could be that Sugar's game play works only for him, or maybe for everyone, or maybe it is just short term and doesn't win in the long term but even still it found to be offensive to those that want realism no matter what. At the end of the day it is difficult to please everyone, that's simply a reality on our end, and that is something to consider as well.

* * *

Again, the game can always be adjusted, but from our end we've quickly discovered that for each change there can be unintended consequences and we have to be aware of that so that it doesn't turn into a game of whack a mole on our end of constantly changing rules to fix our fixes etc. Which is usually why we sometimes take a wait and see approach. Also, the game is getting older now and the tournament results so far indicate the game is within the realm of balance and we have to balance out any potential changes, time and effort, with also having the ability to move forward and focus on other projects. Unfortuantely in order to survive as a business we need to move our efforts forward at some point, again another simple reality on our end, and also one of the reasons we don't necessarily respond to each and every post as that takes a lot of time as well.

So all of the above bein said, there are a few options for us at the moment:

1) Wait and see if the massing of air fleets is a sure fire win strategy, despite the feeling of it being ahistorical. I suggest this only because the image above is not a free move and does cost MPPs, quite a few when considering the back and forth cost, and one of the big things players do seem to enjoy in game is having flexibility to try different strategies. Of course with the built in pro and con system of having to expend MPPs in order to do so and that those MPPs might cost them elsewhere if needed elsewhere.

2) Add further restrictions to the flexibility in order to achieve either game balance if needed, and/or to add more realism. Again this tends to lead to more micro managing and for some much less fun, but if that is the desire of the majority we will be open minded to that.

3) Change air unit statistics if needed, but even here it is likley to change the dynamic of the game and require careful and considerable adjustments as it will potentially hurt the Axis the most in the early years and the Allies the most in the later years. I'd almost suggest to those that would like to lower the effectiveness of bombers to to simply try this out with the default game, i.e. make just this one change, and see how it goes as my guess is it would require quite a few games to know what sort of long term effect this one change would have on overall game play and if it would solve the concerns outright. I realize from reading above that there are mods that have done this, but I am guessing the mods have other changes in place as well so a simple one element change to the default game would paint a better picture on our end of what else may or may not be needed.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[Rannug61]

Hi

A simple thing to do without risking unknown effects would be to have one less tactical bomber for all major nations. This would tone down the focus on airpower. It wouldn't hurt the Axis in early game and there is more then enough firepower for the Allies in late game anyway(if they are stil alive).

...and let the Russians have AT level 1 from the start of the game.

[KorutZelva]

Another example of mass air was in my AAR vs HarryBanana.


tm.asp?m=4403275&mpage=3&key=

That's my mass air vs his mass air. While this looks like a strong concentration of air force it was swept away rather easily. The fighting in the middle east was essentially an air war where huge air concentration did 90% of the work while the ground troops were the sideshow.

[Harun]

Sugar talks about how if your rail lines are connected you can ship units from Narvik to Egypt in one turn.

This got me thinking...operational movement costs / time should be based on distance and possibly other factors.

I think a time cost could be the most effective. Much as the sea transport boxes take several turns for units to show up, the same could be done for distances/zones of operational travel.

Want to move an entire armored corps from Leningrad to Spain? That will take 2-4 turns.

This would make strategies like sending massed air units to distant locales be more strategically costly, but also force the German player to perhaps keep some ground forces more closely located to France, etc.

[KorutZelva]

ORIGINAL: Harun

Sugar talks about how if your rail lines are connected you can ship units from Narvik to Egypt in one turn.

This got me thinking...operational movement costs / time should be based on distance and possibly other factors.

I think a time cost could be the most effective. Much as the sea transport boxes take several turns for units to show up, the same could be done for distances/zones of operational travel.

Want to move an entire armored corps from Leningrad to Spain? That will take 2-4 turns.

This would make strategies like sending massed air units to distant locales be more strategically costly, but also force the German player to perhaps keep some ground forces more closely located to France, etc.

Wouldn't mind that. Or a hard cap in number of operated units tied to the logistic tech.

[Hairog]

You can adjust the some of the perimeters of Operational Movement here.







Somewhere there is a way to adjust the cost as well but I can't remember off the top of my head. If someone knows please let us know.

As I recall you can make it very hard to move some units operationally by upping the cost dramatically.

[sPzAbt653]

I think its in the Campaign > Edit Movement Costs screen.

[BPINisBACK]

I am completely agree.
In each game there are a few of top players. Now it's Sugar, before was Terif and so on.
So, they "deserve" to rule the game. I think they have studied deeply the mechanism of the game and they enjoy playing "in the same way" game, after game. Futhermore, they are able to "focus" a lot in their games.
Not my case... i didn't studied the rules deeply, i usually make stupid mistakes, and i like to try different choices. And...i love the looong games. Not interested in win a game in 1941.
It's my case... Not the best way to win, of course.
So... Yes to "micro" changes to the game (Operational movement more expensive, to change the attack values of Stukas, etc. etc...)
But not a revolution right now...
Anyway, there will be always a few players who are "unbeatable" and they deserve it!
Just my opinion.

[ColSanders]

[Harun]

If operational movement is tied to rail, bombing rail lines into say, Spain, would be a way to keep German tanks and aircraft from being able to arrive in one turn from Russia.

[ColSanders]

Bombs away Dad

[Hairog]

I set the SB to zero damage for everything but resources and that made the AI bomb strategic targets like they should with very few Carpet Bombing attacks...as it should be.

[sPzAbt653]

We are watching the thread and listening to all the feedback. Often the best thing for us to do before we jump in as it is usually ideal to hear all the different points of view.

The start of Hubert's excellent Post #23. I agree with everything said there. As I don't pbem I thought it not proper to comment before, but now I will say that when I saw the posts/screen shots here of these massed air groups, they made me think of how to defend against them and the problems they create for the creator. Hubert covers it all [&o]

[xwormwood]

ORIGINAL: James Taylor

Ktonos brought up a very important point in his "pbem impressions" thread about the movement of aircraft(ferrying) from one local to another.

According to sources I've read, one being "A Fire in the Sky" and also John Elis' "Encyclopedia of WW II Facts and Figures" operational losses of aircraft were quite significant. That is losses from other factors excluding combat. Training, ferrying, take offs and landings, as well as cannibalization of semi-operational aircraft quickly diluted out the overall effectiveness of air units.

This means a fair representation of losses during an SC operational movement of aircraft should have some possibly major(25%) circumstances involved.

I believe that such a feature would be realistic especially when ferrying aircraft to remote regions where infrastructure was surely lacking.

There is even a case that just for rebasing a SC air unit could result in a 10% chance of suffering a loss.

Something to consider along with my suggested cap of 2/3 air units per SC HQ.

SeaMonkey, this is a very good suggestion, at least in my eyes.

[sPzAbt653]

I can probably agree with some loss to Air Units when being Operated. They do take a hit to Readiness, but I often feel weird when Operating a unit from USA to France, or Middle East to Russia, and the unit arrives with no losses. Perhaps anything over twice the units' current range could result in a 75% chance to lose one strength point, anything over three times the units' current range could result in a 75% chance to lose two strength points, or some such.

I don't agree with limiting HQ's to two or three air units attached. It may sound good for Africa or the Middle East, but not in France or England where I commonly have seven air units attached to an HQ. This allows the air units to be back from the front lines and still within close range of an 'Oberkommando Luftwaffe' or '8th Air Force' HQ. I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Harun]

There is a bit of a "teleporting" feel to operational movement.

It may be necessary for gameplay, though.

I still think you could do "zones" and have time delays for going through zones. Moscow to Morrocco would be longer than Poland to Belgium.

[ivanov]

I agree that first of all, moving operationally the air groups should hit significantly their readiness. Then, there could be hexes (like those in and around the cities ), from which the air groups could operate without any penalties, reflecting good infrastructure and logistics. Then, there could be some hexes ( like for example desert ), which would actually degrade the readiness of air groups that station there.

[Christolos]

ORIGINAL: ivanov

I agree that first of all, moving operationally the air groups should hit significantly their readiness. Then, there could be hexes (like those in and around the cities ), from which the air groups could operate without any penalties, reflecting good infrastructure and logistics. Then, there could be some hexes ( like for example desert ), which would actually degrade the readiness of air groups that station there.

I think that taking a readiness hit sounds like a reasonable approach to diminishing the 'teleporting' feel/aspect of operational movement, particularly as it pertains to air units. I also think the effect being proportional to the type of terrain operated to, would add some realism and be a nice/interesting touch.

C