Balance discussion

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[Stelteck]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: morvael

At lest until Blizzard hits in all four weather zones

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa......... No seriously

Is it random weather or fixed weather ? [:D]

[GoodbyeBluesky]

So people mentioned Port Supply a bunch of times now. How does one exactly utilize it? The port is after all damaged when you take it and needs a lot of time to repair

[thedoctorking]

A big port like Odessa or Riga will become operational as a supply source relatively quickly - say at 96% or 92% damage. So you capture Odessa as soon as possible, even diverting armor from AGS to go down there. Then, run your FBD's forward to Odessa while a corps or RHG HQ with a lot of construction units assigned to it repairs the rail hex in the port (and runs the rail line forward from Romania to Odesa). Once the port is repaired to the 90-some percent level - a couple of turns - and the rail hex in the port is repaired, you can start running your rail line forward from there. It gains you a couple of turns on pushing supply forward in the south.

Similarly, in the Baltic, Riga and (should the Germans take it) Leningrad offer a similar possibility. Capturing Leningrad turns out to be enormously important for preserving the ability of the Germans to supply themselves in the vast forests to the east of there.

It's also pretty much totally bogus from a historical standpoint. The Soviet navy in the Black Sea was a whole lot bigger than the Romanian, and could and did block Axis naval activity in the Black Sea. While Sevastopol was under German siege, the Soviet fleet had to rebase to the eastern Black Sea and then the Romanians were able to do some naval transport, but not in July 1941. The Axis have a very small naval transport capacity in the Black Sea in game terms until they actually get Odessa and Sevastopol fully repaired, but their ability to move supplies through those ports is clearly an exploit.

[morvael]

Automatic rail repair in port will be gone.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[GamesaurusRex]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

Beender, I concur with your balance thoughts...but a lot of things are already very much balanced in favor the Germans over historical. The Lvov/Super Lvov move being one that historically never happened and I would wager couldn't have happened as the thousands of Soviet tanks actually put up quite a fight historically. This move alone gives the Germans a massive edge over anything that happenend "historically"

As well German losses are much lower than historical which is allowing the panzer/motorized divisions to keep a very high CV and continue to be the leading edge of the spear turn after turn. Again a gamism and not based on historical results.

Next soviet replacement rates are much lower than hisorical making the Soviets have less men/units to deal with the above non-historical advantages the Germans have.

Then in addition to that you have a German logistics/supply rate that is obviously much better than historical when units often had to spend weeks waiting on supplies/fuel to continue the advance.

Then you also have that in real life/historical Soviet counter-attacks actually delayed and cost the Germans alot of losses---something the soviets cannot do in this game.

So alot of the Historical facts have already been manipulated to give the Germans a chance to win much greater than history.

I agree with you need both sides to have a chance, but at this point the Germans chance has been pushed to an almost absolute due to the changes of the last couple patches. You can look back before alot of artificial manipulation- which increased German supply and reduced Soviet CV even more....that skilled German players were still doing well and winning games prior to patch .07

I understand some system issues have been fixed since then but balance has also been heavily weighted in facor of an axis victory when they could already win in the hands of a skilled play prior to all the additional nerfs to Soviets and buffs to Germans in the last 3-4 Major patches.

I've played the Grand Campaign of this game primarily as the Russians since 2013 and I agree 100% with chaos45's overall comments...

but the real question is "WHAT KIND OF A GAME DO YOU WANT?"

IF YOUR AIM IS TO GET A "BALANCED" GAME: The thing that many players seem to miss is the fact that there are several pre-game adjustments that can be made in the initial setup screen. However, the problem that presents itself there is the fact that new players will not know how to tweak the settings to accomplish game balance between two particular players until they have played a few times to get a sense of what can and cannot be accomplished by each side.

IF YOUR AIM IS TO GET AN "HISTORICAL" GAME: Then you should be using both the "Extreme Blizzard" and "Russian +1" options and a House Rule that disallows the Lvov Pocket, since you want the simulation to impose conditions on the German side that will weaken them in the blizzard, facilitate a Russian counter attack in 41-42, and prevent them from crushing the Southern Front in two moves because they know the exact starting point of Russian units. (As for the problems of Leningrad's impossible defense or the outrageous German rail capacity... I have yet to even try to "adjust" that out of an "historical" game. I think WITE 2.0 will probably be out before I get there.)

These are two very different goals from a game simulation perspective, but thanks to the work of Morvael, Denniss and others, GGWITE has plenty of adjustment tweaks to satisfy almost anyone. You just have to play around with it to get what you want.

**********
Please note that these comments are in no way meant to dissuade Morvael and Denniss from continuing their heroic efforts to crush the "bugs" out of this excellent game. Their efforts are greatly appreciated and applauded !

[beender]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

I agree with you need both sides to have a chance, but at this point the Germans chance has been pushed to an almost absolute due to the changes of the last couple patches.

Probably we have different ideas about what is "win" or "victory", now that I come to think of it. I have been assuming without much reflection that Germany needs to have a chance to win a total victory, meaning taking every bit of hex on the map.

Soviet can certainly do that, given enough time. Yes scenario settings like maximum turns or victory points can stop you from obtaining a technical win but you will feel satisfied knowing Soviet has been saved and Berlin is at your mercy.

On the other hand, the only chance for Germany to push to the very end of the map lies in 41. You have to hurt Soviet very badly and then keep pushing come 42, of course, after successfully surviving the first winter. A minor mistake and bang, all you can hope now is to slow down the Soviet juggernaut and postpone the inevitable loss of Berlin. Not very appealing goals, are they?

Indeed, whether it is desirable to give Germany such a chance is an entire open question to debate. What I am trying to say is just that, if we would like to reserve a possibility for Axis total victory, then many aspects of the game might have to be balanced accordingly, sometimes very much against history. So perhaps there can an option of "fiction" or "ideal" or something, like in WITP and some other wargames.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: beender

ORIGINAL: chaos45

I agree with you need both sides to have a chance, but at this point the Germans chance has been pushed to an almost absolute due to the changes of the last couple patches.

Probably we have different ideas about what is "win" or "victory", now that I come to think of it. I have been assuming without much reflection that Germany needs to have a chance to win a total victory, meaning taking every bit of hex on the map.

Soviet can certainly do that, given enough time. Yes scenario settings like maximum turns or victory points can stop you from obtaining a technical win but you will feel satisfied knowing Soviet has been saved and Berlin is at your mercy.

On the other hand, the only chance for Germany to push to the very end of the map lies in 41. You have to hurt Soviet very badly and then keep pushing come 42, of course, after successfully surviving the first winter. A minor mistake and bang, all you can hope now is to slow down the Soviet juggernaut and postpone the inevitable loss of Berlin. Not very appealing goals, are they?

Indeed, whether it is desirable to give Germany such a chance is an entire open question to debate. What I am trying to say is just that, if we would like to reserve a possibility for Axis total victory, then many aspects of the game might have to be balanced accordingly, sometimes very much against history. So perhaps there can an option of "fiction" or "ideal" or something, like in WITP and some other wargames.

No they are not, and neither is playing a Soviet defensive game for about 75 turns where the only enemy tanks destroyed are captured T34s, your weapons fire pop corn, 26 turns to build up experience to max if the unit lasts that long, and the Nazis launch an all out offensive on the first clear turn of the season and crack open your line by advancing a panzer corp through 3 swamp hexes...and it takes me 4 -5 hours a Soviet turn, sometimes over multiple sessions ...and you realise you are only playing on in fairness to your opponent...

Still the game has to be fun for both players. IMO balancing may have to come from the House Rules you set up at the start

[beender]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I have always considered total victory by forcing a Soviet to surrender the game. Pretty easy to do as Germany if you know what you are doing. Not much the Soviets can do about it until they get unit density. You have been proving that pretty easily in your games, what more can you ask for balance wise on those odds?

Well don't get me wrong. I am not asking for more, just unsure as to whether less is still enough. Also, playing Germany is never easy, at least not for me. Actually, difficulty is where I think the fun is, and it requires a lot of effort and perhaps luck as well to achieve some success against experienced Soviet players.

[beender]

Lol it does sound quite depressing. Anyway, I suppose that's what the life is when you play Soviet starting from 41. If as Soviet you have fun in 41, what do you expect to happen in later years[:D]

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[EwaldvonKleist]

Loss ratios in my game vs. S-T looked good. Here is a battle where German losses were not only significant (in the context of the game), but also at a 1:1 ratio:


Loss ratios for counterattacks were in the 1:2 to 1:5 range, which I consider to be fine, especially because we were still in the phase with Soviet extra losses.
In the 8MP game, I also regularly see 1:2 to 1:1 ratios for counterattacks, and conditions there are far from optimal.

Of course, you get much different loss ratios when a low mrl/exp division is attacked in the open without protection from terrain or fortifications, but this is how it should be.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[EwaldvonKleist]

It is by design that the attacker takes more losses. I find this plausible in the historical context.
First another screenshot from another game under 1.11.01 (before the latest increase in Axis losses) where the Axis side takes significant losses and where loss ratios are fine. Note this is a clear hexagons with lvl 1 fort only.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Data from game under 1.11.01 (before the latest increse in Axis losses), T17

[EwaldvonKleist]

Data from partially played Axis T8 (only army group North), ignore Soviet attacks here as Axis resigned T8 and they were "just for fun battles".
Again from Soviet point of view I have no problems with those results, especially because I know they will only become better once the extra loss rule falls T11 (or T12, I support this rule) and when morale/experience have grown.