Balance discussion

[EwaldvonKleist]

Data from Soviet counterattacks before T8, unfortunately all screenshots I have from this game, but results are congruent with my memory.

[Stelteck]

In WW2 unlike WW1 (especially in the beginning), the defender often take more looses than the attacker, because a well planned attack will have overhelming numbers and firepower, all defending position will be destroyed by artillery at range (or bypassed) and the defender will have to conduct a difficult retreat under fire or be surrounded and destroyed.

Usually in WW2 the attacker take looses when its attack is counter attacked by reserve forces.

[chaos45]

One thing I notice from your reports is almost every soviet division is at least 2 CV...which means these are all fully trained soviet units.

Also you can see from your posts in the pictures that ST slams right into your best units turn after turn in the north. So these are more or less best case scenario battles for the soviets in 1941. You have several almost 3 CV divisions in those combat reports....I found in my last game under V11.03 3 CV soviet units were very rare outside of my tank/mech/motor div due to super Lvov....I also noticed ST did not do the super Lvov against you so you have more/better units available early in the game.

Its one reason I have mainly advocated for fixing the Soviet exp gain so you can actually have more CV 2 units by September, and doing some slight scenario mods to limit the super Lvov move as they are to damaging to the soviets in the early game. As well limiting Super Lvov has no impact on average/intermediate level german play at all---and its a super easy fix with scenario mod...just need to move some units and add some strength to Odessa to represent the black sea fleet units that aren't currently represented in the game.

Another note is you have the very best soviet commanders facing not the best German commanders, so this is influencing the battles. If the german player uses the 9 politic german leaders to just do swaps for 2 AP they can very quickly get among the best german commanders to their corps. Another recommendation I made to have changed was a minimum cost of 5 AP for german corps command changes as thats about half what a soviet army commander takes to change--usually a minimum of 9-10 to change a soviet army commander.

More or less exploits are part of the problem right now, and limiting those would help alot.

[EwaldvonKleist]

@Stelteck: Do you talk of absolute losses or of losses relative to the committed force by each side? I have looked at the Kursk data set from War by Numbers by the dupuy institute and it confirms that ratios of absolute losses favour the defender. Edit: The data from Kursk contradicts your claim, their data from Italy slightly contradicts it, and the data from the Ardennes supports it. I am interested in educating myself here, do you have sources or do you knwo a good analysis on this you can link/name?
It is important to divide between losses inflicted on the tactical/low operational level, which would be a fight over a hexagon, and losses at the operational level due to surrender or overruns. (losses due to surrender/overrun on low levels to be included in the low level losses).

@chaos45:
1) Super Lvov kills two, maybe 3 more infantry divisions compared to S-Ts opening in the south. The third one which is bagged depending on herding technique usually is of poor quality. The attacks shown here mostly involved rifle divisions.
2) You are right that S-T is slugging through the best Soviet formations in good terrain. The combat systems rewards the defender in this case. But the same way it should punish a player who sends his green Soviet divisions in open terrain without fortifications against Axis formations. He also should be punished when attacking with untrained units with bad leaders. Also note that I paid much attention to morale management for the units to get the divisions to NM ASAP.
3) I agree about the experience gain, 2 points per turn on average instead of 1 seem good to me.
4)

Another note is you have the very best soviet commanders facing not the best German commanders

That is because S-T concentrated his best commanders for the attacks on my defence, the data you can get from the tables. Many attacks were led by Manstein and Model.
5) Remember that swapping a leader on the Axis side improves the C&C for up to 4 divisions, for a Soviet army for up to 12 divisions. Also, the Soviets have a much reduced cost for swapping units of any size (1AP vs. 2-4) between corps, and do not need to spend on HQBUs. Historically, the German command system was very flexible and relied on Auftragstaktik, while the Soviet system lagged behind in this regard.

[beender]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

But all of this still does not fix the Germans not taking any losses on their PZ Divisions and Moto Divisions. Those SUPERMEN

Actually I have been quite confused as to the issue of adjusting combat loss, as if it were something adjustable with particular respect to one side, or even one type of units? Of course technically it is surely possible but I doubt that currently there is any special buff to make German loss smaller in a combat. I assume the combat calculation takes into account everything relevant, except the nationality of the troop. In other words, if you swap the nationalities of the antagonist troops in a certain battle, almost exactly reverse result should be obtained. German panzers lose little not because they are German panzers, but because they are very good and strong units.

If this is the case, then making German panzers lose more necessarily means lower the weight of exp/morale/etc. play in the calculation formula, so that good and bad troops do not suffer casualties with so much difference. Whether it is a desirable change I sincerely don't know, but it is a bigger change than you might have wanted to ask for.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Some more data, this time from 8MP game, T49, Axis major offensive, on clear ground. Soviet positions have fortifications from 0 to level 2.

[chaos45]

Command and control...actually a soviet army commander can only command 9 divisions unless you later want to pay AP to remove divisions thus increasing overall AP usage.

So Soviets paying 9 at the cheapest to replace 18 CP worth of command....while germans can currently replace 2x corps commanders for 16 CP of command for only 4 CP...this to me is a pretty unfair advantage esp when german commanders on the whole are prolly twice as good as soviet at the start.

Also pretty sure Germans go to 9 CP on corps at some point maybe 43? While soviets go from 24 to 21 to 18 so to conserve AP use on the soviets its best to only go 18 CP per army. As well they aren't staffed with support squads to support more than 18 CP is my understanding from Morveal in past conversations.

Make it 4 AP per german commander replace so its 8 CP for 2 corps commanders would be close enough...2 AP is just to cheap right now. Make the German commanders make a hard choice on AP use. Soviet commanders have a lot of choices they have to make with AP use, no reason Germans shouldn't have the same issue.

[EwaldvonKleist]

@chaos:
1) For good leaders I usually use the full CPs the army can offer. It costs a few APs but the German side often helps me reducing the overload It also makes support unit use more efficient.
2) Rifle divisions are mostly self-supporting, therefore spreading the army support thing is not that tragic. It is a different matter with motorized/arm units.
3) I am not sure where you get your information with cheap German corp commands from. Here is a screenshot of how much it costs to replace Reinhard in the GC1941, at min 9+1AP. Of course there are also corps where this is very cheap (but at the beginning they are not the important ones), the minimum cost under perfect conditions is 2. I think the formula is in "how supply works" in the library.
You can replace corp commanders for cheap, but need to spend APs at the army level for this if you want to do this for all armies, so the overall average cost is not as low as you describe it. Having to pay 4AP per Axis corps commander would be close to a buff in my eyes. The same way the Axis can save APs on Axis corps changes by switching Army leaders is open for the Soviets as well with armies and the STAVKA.

[chaos45]

If you replace any German corps commander with a 9 politics corps commander its only 2 CP. The Soviets can do the same with Army commanders but the it costs 9 due to being an army.

So T1 you can put in a 9 Political leader to replace a bad corps leader....then next turn use that same commander on another junk corps commander for only 2 AP....the AI then selections usually one of the best German commanders to replace the 9 Plotical leader you just moved.

Its a super cheap way for the Germans to replace most of their bad corps commanders very early on for low AP costs.

As I said more an issue of exploiting the system, but something that should be fixed IMO.

[mrblonde1]

Aren’t these balance issues can be solved by setting right options in the game options menu? I would like to see a game between two good players with morale, fort, admin and logistics set for 90 for germans and 110 – 115 for soviets. And no Lvov pocket. Would it be a good test to check players propositions?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: mrblonde1
Aren’t these balance issues can be solved by setting right options in the game options menu? I would like to see a game between two good players with morale, fort, admin and logistics set for 90 for germans and 110 – 115 for soviets. And no Lvov pocket. Would it be a good test to check players propositions?

Three cheers mrblonde1 - what I have said for a long time balance discussions should be about which options players chose, not imposing the same set on everyone.

A bit of the history as I have had it told to me on versions changes - for a long time a very well known player was very vocal on these forums about buffing the Axis side. And that is what happened. Now there are very vocal proponents the other way.

This is not to denigrate any of the individuals here as they are wonderful contributors to the forums. But the reality is the game balance has fluctuated by a very few voices shouting loudly and the developers have followed. This is simply no way to design a game.

I have advocated doing a proper user survey so that at least the quiet majority - who find the Axis by far the most difficult side to do well with - at least get heard. This could be done at close to zero cost and however imperfect the responses would be it would be many times the accuracy of any other feedback that has been had so far. And I shudder when I hear the developers are again going to make changes on the basis of the comments of few on this forum.

Given that the problem of balance is different for different skill levels every balance will be wrong for many by definition. The developers should not be trying to get the correct "balance" for everybody - they should be enabling us to have the correct balances for each level. That to me sounds like using the options, or if, as some have said, there are problems with them - then that is what should be fixed. Not the "balance" which simply is not a meaningful concept for the whole player community together.

[chaos45]

I know telemecus I guess you fear 2 CV soviet divisions by September.....

IDK what changes Morveal is doing as far as overall changes but the fixes to the soviets Experience/digging in is a fix to something that has not been working right for awhile now.

In all honesty fixing exploits, and bugs and some slight changes to starting 1941 scenario to prevent the extreme Super lvov move is the only thing I have fully advocated for in this patch.

I do feel German supply is much to good, especially compared to historical, but with real units the soviets might be able to put resistance to this. You can watch any historical WW2 show, or listen to any WW2 professor on Youtube and see how oversupplied the Germans are compared to what they could actually accomplish in the real campaign.

I guess the point is how good should the 1941 German campaign be? should the Germans be able to take leningrad, moscow, and stalino or more in the south every 1941 campaign reliably? I would vote no...2 of the 3 by overconcentration of forces compared to historical in that area maybe and would actually equal a good overall campaign game going into 1942.

In all honesty I think any German player than manages their supply and rail network with some decent care can easily accomplish 2 of the 3 right now...no real skill required. To get all 3 requires alittle more skill with supply manipulation but easily doable in the current version of the game and soviet player cannot stop it as they simply do not have the CV due the lack of unit experience gain and lack of manpower to fill up units as the campaign goes on.

I dont even think you need Super lvov to get better than historical results this version of the game....a very average opening should easily net German players better than historical results.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: chaos45
In all honesty I think any German player than manages their supply and rail network with some decent care can easily accomplish 2 of the 3 right now...no real skill required.

I think this is the crux of the issue. 90+% of games never achieve 2 of the 3 - most barely 1.

This is rather like saying with care we can play chess like Gary Kasparov and get our doctorates in maths - no real skill required. The point is the skill IS in managing supply and the rail network. And 90+% of games played in WitE are by players who do not have that level of skill.

You simply cannot dismiss what so many find so hard as no skill.

[morvael]

Only WitE2 will fully solve the supply problem. Currently you can place four panzer groups in a single area and they will be all supplied as well as one would be. This is not realistic.

[EwaldvonKleist]

In all honesty I think any German player than manages their supply and rail network with some decent care can easily accomplish 2 of the 3 right now...no real skill required.

When did you last play Axis chaos?

I sit a little (but not much longer) on my Soviet moves than on my Axis ones on average, but feel the mistake tolerance is much lower under Germans, requiring more concentration.
Also, managing supply is not as trivial as you make it sound on its own, it takes 5 densely written pages to describe what is only a part of it (see the library). Some make tests and some read advice and some play 20 games to get an intuitive feeling, but it is not trivial.

As already stated before, I am fine with a small Soviet buff leaving everything else equal, like quicker exp gain and maybe 5k extra manpower in 1941. If you don't like the Super Lvov, simply include a house rule. Same about the quicker rail repair in the South.

@HLYA: I do not understand the fixaction on Axis panzers. Why trying to inflict decisive losses on them when 1941 is about preserving the army and holding terrain. Also, why attack Panzers if you can attack infantry, I usually think of manpower, not AFVs as the key stat. You can still attack the panzers with tac air assuming the flak gets scaled back a bit.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: 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]

I don't know about others but I get bored when it is a one-sided show. So the intensity is what draws me of the early years. The later years bore me to death. And the Soviet game of slow rolling attacks every turn with no break through is monotonous and drives me to tears.

I don't know if it is depressing but it sure is tiring and definitely not fun with most of the German losses happening during attrition, which you do not see.

HYLA - totally agree, the challenge for the Soviets is surviving 1941, thats a thrill (or not)

[galex]

One mistake in 1941 will lead to Soviet total destruction.(Probably is historical?[:D]) Anyone who played Soviet side facing an experienced opponent will understand the stress.