Balance Thread

[michaelCLARADY]

ORIGINAL: battlevonwar

Lascar, trying to find balance though not really interested in history...Soviets didn't have a great command structure after the invasion of '41 until late '42...i.e. half sized divisons(they didn't have the leaders for such a large army)

We need to make the game we have easily and thoroughly even on both sides with skill levels even. We got to work with what we have as huge variation and desire of history is not going to make players able to fight more evenly on both sides.

Gotta ask- how many 'mirror' Games do you have where both yourself and the opponent had very disproportionate wins the same side- axis or allies doesn't matter.

[AlvaroSousa]

@Numdydar - I have to appeal to the most customers since making games is also for profit for me. There are some very hard core wargamers who would love nothing more than a full scale Europe at 10 miles per hex. But this is not the majority of players. It is also incredibly difficult to test as a game would take forever. WitP they had to come out with a 2nd version.

10m per hex is a massive undertaking also. I am surprised 2x3 Games hasn't done one. They have the data and the maps pretty much. It might not be cost effective for them or profitable.

So back to Russians. So the idea of converting the corps to armies is a good one. Makes the game simpler so you don't have to disband and rebuilt. I have to see how I can implement that.

Currently I made changes to the map as a fix. I remember early on there were too much defensive terrain and river lines and I had to remove some. But now that we got the play in hand and a feel for how the game runs I put some back to rebalance the Russian front. The largest issue with the Germans before was manpower running out in 1943. With some of the changes on manpower loss with air power this seems to have been resolved. I'll let you know at the end of my games.

So come Monday I will upload a new beta scenario set with the changes on the Russian front.

As for the Western Allies..... From my own games I hit them hard with subs and keep them busy. I don't do an all out 1941 Barb. Eventually yes they do land but I time it defensively pulling back giving ground trying to delay beyond historical time lines. Even as early as mid 1942 I go on the defensive vs the Western Allies. Like in the current game with Hadros it is October 1942 and I am pulling back from Africa and letting him slowly push forward saving my army. I am trying to gain as much VP as possible. The Allies have about 800 land strength in total. My largest problem in the game is the 1942 Barb which got stuffed and I went in with a large force too.

More balancing.

[AlvaroSousa]

Map Changes based on terrain. I put extra river lines where some smaller ones met up.

Add some more terrain in spots making it slightly denser.

[Lascar]

ORIGINAL: Marco70

It is not true that most of the USA resources went to the pacific. During the war, it was more like 25% and 75% for the war in europe, following the europe first strategy established at the arcadia conference in december 1941.
As late as december 1943, the proportions between the pacific and europe were very even, approx. 1.8 million soldiers each, 7,800 to 8,800 aircraft and 700 to 500 ships. At the end of the war, 47 divisions were in action in europe, while in the pacific, there were only 21 plus 6 marine divisions. It was certainly only in the naval sector that most capital ships were deployed in the pacific.

In general, the americans had undertaken an enormous buildup from the start of the war. They managed to reduce the construction time of an aircraft carrier from 42 months in 41 to 32 months in 44. this also shows that most carriers were laid down in 42 in order to be available in 44. I'm looking forward to seeing how this is implemented in warplan pacific.

To your previous question about an invasion of north africa. Such a large-scale invasion took a long time to plan. It took the allies a year for normandy. The americans simply had not yet produced enough landing ships, equipment, or soldiers. Most of the equipment was provided by the british. Therefore, they were not ready until november 42.

By the way, i think warplan is the best WW2 game of its scale so far. You are doing a great job and the discussion is just about nuances on a very good developed game.

In July of 1945 the US army had 62 divisions deployed in Europe out of the 90 divisions raised in total.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Marco70


To your previous question about an invasion of north africa. Such a large-scale invasion took a long time to plan. It took the allies a year for normandy. The americans simply had not yet produced enough landing ships, equipment, or soldiers. Most of the equipment was provided by the british. Therefore, they were not ready until november 42.

The decision to go for landings in west and north Africa (GYMNAST/TORCH) was only made 10 weeks before it took place. See the timeline in my earlier post on page 1. I am not aware of any evidence that it could not have been undertaken earlier if it had been approved earlier.

[Flaviusx]

A much improved map. Not only does this help the Soviets early on, but also the Germans in the late war when falling back. It should slow things down a bit in the eastern front overall.

[AlvaroSousa]

This is what I mean by an organic solution. Flows with the game, adds to it, doesn't create new rules.

I am adding code to do an auto-convert Corps -> Armies which is an elegant add on for the Soviets.
Each turn after at war a corps will have a 33% chance to convert to an Army. Technically they only started doing this after the Winter offensive. But we can't have a whole army magically convert in 1 month.

[Flaviusx]

Small armies, I hope. Not the big ones.

[AlvaroSousa]

What I will do is make any corps <= 18 strength a small army and more than 18 strength a large one

[Flaviusx]

But they are all 20 at full strength and by the time Barbarossa starts they will be at 20. I wonder if this is a little too good for the Soviets. You can literally build one such corps every turn for two years.

That's a lot of armies. You wouldn't even have to build more of them. Just set production to reinforcements.

I think it would be better if they converted to small armies regardless, and force the Soviet to merge them into full armies.

[AlvaroSousa]

As for the 1942 Barbarossa I have put a lot of thought into this. I believe the solution is in the mech/armor operation points.

Historically they didn't form mechanized corps till late 1942. In the game they start improving in March 1942.

March 1942 -> October 1942 (7 opts)
September 1942 -> March 1943 (9 opts)

The largest issue with a 1942 Barbarossa is the Soviet armor blasting it's way through the Germans.

[sillyflower]

I think it was 'new- model' tank corps (as opposed to the '41 tank/mech xxx with 3 divs) in the spring of '42 and mech xxx in the autumn. That said, there is no reason to think that the new formations would have been created in peacetime.

[MagicMissile]

Interesting changes. Will be a whole new game.
5 op mech the whole 42 will be tough but might be offset by the other changes.

/MM

[Flaviusx]

Soviets began forming tank corps in spring of 42. Indeed, they began forming their first tank armies by mid year. It's true that mech corps came in the fall.

You could split the difference here and delay the mech corps mp increase, but imo tank corps should be coming online as they currently do. Tank corps are much more scarce in practice. So this will limit their mobile counterattacking ability in 42, without eliminating it entirely.

Imo, you are not going to get a good 42 Barbarossa regardless. The bottom line here is the Soviets get much more out of an extra year of peace than the Germans do, even with these tweaks. 1941 was the best year to strike and caught the Soviets very unprepared.

[sillyflower]

'43 was also the year that German inf xx and xxx got smaller (and again in '44) but I suppose that's too much to hope for...............

[ncc1701e]

Looking forward to play these changes. And nobody for Siberians coming with Winterized specialty to ease a local counter attack end of 1941? Now, it would be a little too much in favor of USSR.

Is it a new scenario only or is it coming in a new beta version?
--> Nevermind, this is a new beta version. Cool

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

3. Reserve armies should enter the game at the current tech. A 39 assault army with 30% experience is really quite helpless in the open. The panzers just chew them up. I also wish they came in as AT rather than assault tech.

+1 the reserve armies should come at whatever tech level the USSR is.

[malkarma]

Agree with you. Soviets small corps should transform in small armies. I think that the 2 manpower loss in the process is a small price for the flexibility that will be obtained for the red army.

[malkarma]

ORIGINAL: Marco70

It is not true that most of the USA resources went to the pacific.

What I wanted to say is that at the beginning of the war they have to invest a lot of resources in order to build the pacific fleet. I game terms, this means that if the USA have twice the production in Warplan global tha it have in vanilla Warplan (around 800 in 1942), one of every two turnn will be spent to build a carrier (960 PP with '41 tech)...and you will also need smaller ships, landing crafts, planes, expensive units (marines are 100 PP)... you know what I mean.


ps: edited to fix typos.

[Harrybanana]

With respect to everyone who has posted here, I personally think it is a bit early to make any changes until more games have been played with the latest version. From what little I have seen so far the game is either balanced or very close to it.