Balance Thread

[ncc1701e]

Oh absolutely, I have absolutely no issue with this. My only issue is the UK production that is too high.

But, have a look in the Production screen:
1. A 1939 Patrol Grp, meaning a DD group, costs 300 PP. The building duration is 210 days.
2. An escort, only assigned to convoy lanes, costs 40 PP. The building duration is 210 days.

You see the difference. 300 PP vs 40 PP.

The UK production is too high. Just increase the cost of the escort ships to 80 PP or to 120 PP and now we are talking.
Too many times I have seen the strategy for the UK to go 'all in' in France and invest there to boost their armies.

With Netherlands, Belgium, a strong France, the west wall will become a wall imo.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Another question, what are you planning for "the Western Allies are too strong in 1943"?

Quite honestly, the UK has too much production too early. This plus the fact that now Germany has to face Netherlands, Belgium, France at the same time.
The United Kingdom starts with 158 PP, it is bigger than the USSR with 135 PP.

Understood UK needs to buy ships but they are not suffering enough from U-Boats. In John Ellis' book (page 280), UK had invested in:
1939: 22 destroyers, 5 escorts
1940: 27 destroyers, 109 escorts
1941: 39 destroyers, 87 escorts
1942: 73 destroyers, 71 escorts
1943: 37 destroyers, 79 escorts
1944: 31 destroyers, 55 escorts
1945: 13 destroyers, 7 escorts

Who honestly is buying DD groups to pursue the U-Boats? Me, as Allies player, never.

And, I have plenty to buy tanks, mechanized, airborne units in 1941..
UK production is too strong too early imo.

I agree with Oxfordguy's comments above. The UK and the US have already been considerably nerfed with the last few patches. Or more correctly, the nerfing of the CVs ability to sink subs has considerably increased the effectiveness of the U-Boats. If you have read MM's recent AARs you would know that from mid 1940 on almost all of the UKs (and Canada's) production is being spent on escorts and MMs. In my current game against MM where I am the Allies it is now September 27 1940. Canada has used 95% of its production on escorts. The UK did build some army units along with escorts and MM. I have not has any spare production to build new air units; which of course historically the UK did. I anticipate that most of the UKs production over the next couple years will be spent on escorts and MM.

IMHO this has gone too far. The Western Allies in 1943 should be very strong. Historically, by the summer of 1943 they had way more ships, planes, men and tanks in Western Europe than the Axis. So much so that the US wanted to invade France in 43 and they very nearly won this argument. But i don't think that will be the case in future games.

I agree with your post that in the game the UK does not build nearly as many combat ships as it did historically. But this is also true of the Axis. The next game where I see the Tirpitz sailing the high seas will be my first. Part of the problem with this is that they are just too damn expensive; especially compared to the bang you can get for your buck spending the production elsewhere. I agree with Oxfordguy that the cost of building an escort group represents the construction of both destroyers and frigates. I believe patrol groups area actually primarily light cruisers. I would like to see it where a each nation receives certain levels of production in each of the areas of army, naval, and air. In other words, instead of, for example, Germany starting with 200 production that it can spend on anything; it would receive 120 production to spend on army type builds (which would include supply trucks), 30 to spend on naval units and 50 to spend on air units. Meanwhile the UK's production would be split 50% naval, 30% army and 20% air. But if you did this then you would have to be able to spend on building units in stages. So if an armour costs 400 and takes 15 turns to build than you would spend 27 production per turn to build it. Players could also invest production to increase their capacity in each area (lie building shipyards).

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Oh absolutely, I have absolutely no issue with this. My only issue is the UK production that is too high.

But, have a look in the Production screen:
1. A 1939 Patrol Grp, meaning a DD group, costs 300 PP. The building duration is 210 days.
2. An escort, only assigned to convoy lanes, costs 40 PP. The building duration is 210 days.

You see the difference. 300 PP vs 40 PP.

The UK production is too high. Just increase the cost of the escort ships to 80 PP or to 120 PP and now we are talking.
Too many times I have seen the strategy for the UK to go 'all in' in France and invest there to boost their armies.

With Netherlands, Belgium, a strong France, the west wall will become a wall imo.

As I said above, I believe patrol groups are primarily light cruiser; though the Manual does say that they also represent destroyer patrols. But if a patrol group does represent 10 destroyers, how many frigates does an escort represent? Well the patrol group gets 5 Hit Points and an escort only gets 1. So I am guessing that an escort only represents the equivalent of 2 destroyers. So it should cost no more than 1/5th of a patrol group (60) and take 1/5th as long to build, so 40 days. I would gladly pay the extra 20 production to get my escort quicker. But again the problem is that sunk escorts can't be repaired. If in a particular convoy battle the U-Boats sink 1 escort and the escorts get 1 U-Boat hit; then it will cost the Allies 40 production and 15 turns to repair the damage, it will cost the Axis 10 production and 1 turn. Not fair.

Again I disagree that UK production is too high. If anything, comparted to other nations it is too low. The problem is that if the Axis do not engage in an active U-Boat campaign the UK can use all of its historical shipyard production to instead build tanks. Also the cost of most naval units is prohibitively high.

[Flaviusx]

Modest proposal: each additional shipyard past a certain number reduces the cost of naval units, amphibious point, merchants and escorts by 1%. (I would pick 40 here, which is what the USA starts with.) Cap this at 50%, so 80 or more shipyards is as good as it gets. Represents efficiencies in mass naval production.

The UK would immediately start with a 25% discount on all such unit costs. The USA would have good reason to buy lots and lots of shipyards. I suppose even Germany might be tempted to give the Z plan a go here.

UK production is fine and was too low before. Leave it alone. In the initial release it was equal to France, and this made no sense.

[battlevonwar]

Balance is this Western Allies have too much Armor and Mech. That's the simple factor you have to reduce their Morale till 1943 or 1944..AND NOT early in 1943 PLEASE?(this is from a guy that played Axis more in PBEM than any other human, so I have seen what Allies can do a lot?) Can this be done easily? Representing a lack of understanding of combined arms warfare till the period and limiting their offensive scope.

Look Alvaro, the Brits don't need to be doing gamey stuff in France and N.Africa in 1940-1941. Holding is fine and this leaves other strategies as possible. If the Brits bought 10 Tanks and Mechs that all had say 25% Experience or less Mobility then they would just sit on them till the right time? But they aren't, they're adding in 5-10 Americans and steamrolling the Axis the same way the Axis are steamrolling the Russians?

SO, if my suggestion is an easy solution and works try it out?

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

Adding small armies is a big task. Also you can buy a full army and split it.

Allies 1943 not sure yet. I am still evaluating this situation. Is it over commitment in Russia, under commitment to the BotA, or over commitment to everything else?

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Oh absolutely, I have absolutely no issue with this. My only issue is the UK production that is too high.

But, have a look in the Production screen:
1. A 1939 Patrol Grp, meaning a DD group, costs 300 PP. The building duration is 210 days.
2. An escort, only assigned to convoy lanes, costs 40 PP. The building duration is 210 days.

You see the difference. 300 PP vs 40 PP.

The UK production is too high. Just increase the cost of the escort ships to 80 PP or to 120 PP and now we are talking.
Too many times I have seen the strategy for the UK to go 'all in' in France and invest there to boost their armies.

With Netherlands, Belgium, a strong France, the west wall will become a wall imo.

I've never built a warship other than escorts and I don't plan on changing that. A patrol group is pretty much the same investment as a tank xxx, which is a bit of a no-brainer for an allied player wanting to win.

I haven't heard of the UK sending PPs to France. I do send oil to keep French navy and AF functional. However, investing in the french army seems a bit silly (with a small 's') because it is better to spend the money on identical british units that have 25% higher morale and therefore 25% more combat power. They also don't disappear when France surrenders, mon ami........

[Flaviusx]

If you reduce British morale France will be even easier than it is now, and the Axis might steamroll Egypt to boot. Also, what gamey stuff in 1940-1? What I have found is the BoA soaks up so much production that the UK is definitely on hold until the Americans come in.

[malkarma]

In one of my current games, with 6 subs I managed to sunk 160 MM. Now the british only have 190 approx and also he is low on escorts so this can escalate. Those few MM's means that URSS LL will be scarce, and also he will be in the verge of starting to lose production.
As true as the allies need to make the german bleed in fFrance is that the german needs to put UK against the ropes in terms of production.
Obviously as soon as the USA joins the war, those starting 350+ PP will shif the balance.

ps: The air units targeting convoys also help, maybe its only 1 MM per turn at moment, but everything counts in order to cripple the allied merchant marine.

[battlevonwar]

Flavius, 15-20 Mechs and Armor are insane! You have to do something... Come up with something better? Or resign the Axis against any competent Allied opponent every Winter of '43

As Axis you cannot build that many armor and Mechs and you start with 4!
Now Russia has the same number by late '43 ... Just too much!

Somethings gotta give! Somewhere!

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If you reduce British morale France will be even easier than it is now, and the Axis might steamroll Egypt to boot. Also, what gamey stuff in 1940-1? What I have found is the BoA soaks up so much production that the UK is definitely on hold until the Americans come in.

[battlevonwar]

Not sure what Subs do now but I put 6 out in my last game and the entire Kriegsmarine and Sveint sunk them all! Bad luck? I hope not but I fear that the Atlantic War just is a bit too difficult... Axis can't bite that off and build enough armor and air/infantry to handle the rest of things!

ORIGINAL: malkarma

In one of my current games, with 6 subs I managed to sunk 160 MM. Now the british only have 190 approx and also he is low on escorts so this can escalate. Those few MM's means that URSS LL will be scarce, and also he will be in the verge of starting to lose production.
As true as the allies need to make the german bleed in fFrance is that the german needs to put UK against the ropes in terms of production.
Obviously as soon as the USA joins the war, those starting 350+ PP will shif the balance.

ps: The air units targeting convoys also help, maybe its only 1 MM per turn at moment, but everything counts in order to cripple the allied merchant marine.

[Flaviusx]

The allies have no real ability to make the Germans bleed in France.

If you are very lucky and the German overtextends you might snipe one mech corps or somesuch thing. That's really not much. In the air the Luftwaffe is more dominant now than ever before.

I wish people would stop advising allied players to throw away the British military in France. It doesn't work. The most you can realistically hope for is to draw it out until early August. You will certainly not bleed the Germans in France.

If the German is foolish, he can bleed himself by extending operations in the latter half of 1940. But that is beyond the allied player's control. If the German is wise and limits himself after France and builds up you cannot stop this.

[battlevonwar]

Flaviusx, people got really good at France cause it's a quick and continuous campaign. Plus patches have weakened the French. I use to lose 400 Manpower there and 150 Air. French use to be so thick you were stuck!

I used French and British Armor and had it used against me trying to get the bloody Surrender to kill nearly every Axis Armor in France.

Now what I do is go slowwwwwwww... People that know how to do it will do it easy. There is about 5-6 Less French Infantry Corp and now people know how to pump in 2 or 3 more German Armor. Simple solution is give the French a Heavy Armor! See if that helps?

[Flaviusx]

Taking the NA colonials away from France definitely helped. But I honestly never found France hard even before then. France is easy.

[battlevonwar]

Use Truck Supply on the RAF ... Disband the French Air after the first few hits on them. Disband the French Bomber immediately. Focus on Interceptors(tech is key)

You retreat too soon, Make the guy bang his head on the entrenched units that can retreat, then retreat them. Wear 'em out. Sometimes taking losses is okay.

French Defense is much weaker now then before! But no Yugoslavia so that is -1000 Production ... even trade?

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Taking the NA colonials away from France definitely helped. But I honestly never found France hard even before then. France is easy.

[Flaviusx]

I think France is fine as is. It's not what I'm looking at. It just irritates me when people say "fight harder in France" in order to balance the Germans. Um. No.

France is easy and ought to be easy.

These expedients you recommend will not make a lick of difference.

[ncc1701e]

Easy for you but looks like I am definitely bad (for now). Also, as Allies, if we can avoid the micromanagement of swifting the 50% experience unit of the Maginot line with the others at 40%.
The French army in Belgium was not as bad as the guys from the Maginot Line. Put everything at 40%.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Another question, what are you planning for "the Western Allies are too strong in 1943"?

Quite honestly, the UK has too much production too early. This plus the fact that now Germany has to face Netherlands, Belgium, France at the same time.
The United Kingdom starts with 158 PP, it is bigger than the USSR with 135 PP.

Understood UK needs to buy ships but they are not suffering enough from U-Boats. In John Ellis' book (page 280), UK had invested in:
1939: 22 destroyers, 5 escorts
1940: 27 destroyers, 109 escorts
1941: 39 destroyers, 87 escorts
1942: 73 destroyers, 71 escorts
1943: 37 destroyers, 79 escorts
1944: 31 destroyers, 55 escorts
1945: 13 destroyers, 7 escorts

Who honestly is buying DD groups to pursue the U-Boats? Me, as Allies player, never.

And, I have plenty to buy tanks, mechanized, airborne units in 1941..
UK production is too strong too early imo.

I agree with Oxfordguy's comments above. The UK and the US have already been considerably nerfed with the last few patches. Or more correctly, the nerfing of the CVs ability to sink subs has considerably increased the effectiveness of the U-Boats. If you have read MM's recent AARs you would know that from mid 1940 on almost all of the UKs (and Canada's) production is being spent on escorts and MMs. In my current game against MM where I am the Allies it is now September 27 1940. Canada has used 95% of its production on escorts. The UK did build some army units along with escorts and MM. I have not has any spare production to build new air units; which of course historically the UK did. I anticipate that most of the UKs production over the next couple years will be spent on escorts and MM.

IMHO this has gone too far. The Western Allies in 1943 should be very strong. Historically, by the summer of 1943 they had way more ships, planes, men and tanks in Western Europe than the Axis. So much so that the US wanted to invade France in 43 and they very nearly won this argument. But i don't think that will be the case in future games.

I agree with your post that in the game the UK does not build nearly as many combat ships as it did historically. But this is also true of the Axis. The next game where I see the Tirpitz sailing the high seas will be my first. Part of the problem with this is that they are just too damn expensive; especially compared to the bang you can get for your buck spending the production elsewhere. I agree with Oxfordguy that the cost of building an escort group represents the construction of both destroyers and frigates. I believe patrol groups area actually primarily light cruisers. I would like to see it where a each nation receives certain levels of production in each of the areas of army, naval, and air. In other words, instead of, for example, Germany starting with 200 production that it can spend on anything; it would receive 120 production to spend on army type builds (which would include supply trucks), 30 to spend on naval units and 50 to spend on air units. Meanwhile the UK's production would be split 50% naval, 30% army and 20% air. But if you did this then you would have to be able to spend on building units in stages. So if an armour costs 400 and takes 15 turns to build than you would spend 27 production per turn to build it. Players could also invest production to increase their capacity in each area (lie building shipyards).

In your game versus MM, I don't see you investing heavily in Merchants or in Escorts using UK production. Only Canadian are building escorts:
fb.asp?m=4928467

[AlvaroSousa]

Right now the changes are what I have said.

Mech/Armor does seems to be the main driver of action here on all fronts. While the Axis are limited the Allies generally are not. But we have to see with the new oil adjustments with 1.00.09 for the Allies. I know I now have to manage oil a little as the UK until the USA can give me some. As the US I am building more MM, ES, SY, LC, TR

[malkarma]

If the present mechanics of BoA makes that the UK will be so busy securing the convoy lanes that wil be unable to launch a big invasion in 1942, then they are working as intended. Obviously, as soon as the USA enters the war the western allies production will skyrocket and will be ready to operate in 1943. Seems fine to me. What is was nonsensical was the UK launching an Overlord size invasion 2 years before the historic data and without needing the US support.

Now, we need to wait to the Beta with the changes to the Eastern Front and see how things develop.

ps: Regarding balance we need to realize that excepcional players are going to be killing machines no matter what Alvaro modifies. However, there are lot more of mid level players (including myself) should be the target of the balance changes. No offence intended here, but we can't make continuous changes because players like Battlevonwar, MagicMissile or Flaviusx crush any kind of iteration of the URSS defence. They are going to do it no matter what because they are elite players. However we need to check how the average grognard is doing there. But this is only my opinion, and opinions are like arses...everbody have one [:D][:D][:D]

[AlvaroSousa]

I got some bugs I am working on buy Friday morning there should be a new beta up.