The Wehrmacht macht

[sveint]

A final note on air units: they consume much less manpower (important for Germany).

[Nirosi]

Raw CV is used to calculate odds against an old fashioned CRT. But the results can be skewed in ways not reflected by raw CV.

Well in that case yes, probably diminish returns. However is it really like that? [insert no idea emoticon here]

And frankly, if it is, I would would kind of be glad, as it would be simple (well relatively) to grasp somethings and I would stop trying to guess if it is or not.

My personal feeling (a felling of course) was almost opposite. From page 73 I assumed that CV odds are not used to determine losses (no real 3vs1 table for example), but that each steps will fire their artilleries (inflicting loses), then survivors defenders fire their guns, next the survivors fire their tanks etc. etc.

I kind of assume from observations and words here and there in the manual that odds are still used but only to determine retreats, chance to shatter etc. But again: [insert no idea emoticon here]

Some more info on the principle behind would be nice. I agree with Alvaro with not giving the whole maths etc. But at least the guiding principles I would kind of like.

[Nirosi]

A final note on air units: they consume much less manpower (important for Germany).

There might (I insist on might; could not check it out properly for sure) be a bug about that by the way. I posted it today.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx


Imo, if you want flying artillery, buy lots of ground support. Ground support is pretty powerful in this role.

Er, no its not. Helpful yes, but "pretty powerful", not by a long shot. Attacking an enemy unit with a single infantry corps is almost always going to reduce its strength by more than being bombed by a ground attack air unit and by far more than a TAC bomber. You know what is "pretty powerful"? Shore bombardment. So why is "floating artillery" so much more powerful than "flying artillery"? There is absolutely no justification for this.

A 20% bump in airpower effectiveness is just bringing tac and to a lesser degree fighter bombers within range of what actual ground support planes can do. They are strong. Their main shortcoming is their range, but for their particular role that is not a big issue. (Plus the allies get some compensation for this, their ground support has +2 range.)

Like I said, we will have to agree to disagree. Ground Attack aircraft are not "strong"; certainly no where near as strong as they were historically. At best they are mediocre.

It's probably true that as the war goes on airpower does relatively go down in its effectiveness. It doesn't increase in power at the same rate that ground units do. Arguably the tech tree could be jiggered here so they can keep better pace with the ground advancements. It also seems to me that air units have a harder time gaining and keeping experience than ground units. A veteran air unit is typically flying at base experience whereas a combat hardened ground unit, even after taking replacements, has an easier time climbing up over base experience. So you could play with that some.

Well at least we agree on something.

[Flaviusx]

Be careful what you wish for here in terms of game balance, Harry.

It's not the allies who will benefit from this. The Germans can do plenty already with airpower as is and the Axis has a very big edge on this until basically the end of 42.

I'm old enough to remember the days when the Luftwaffe could blow up anything and do ezmode Sea Lions. So, you will understand my lack of enthusiasm at making any big changes here. Anything you do here, it will be the Axis who can leverage it and the Allies who have to ride it out for 3 years until they can match that airpower.

Right now I think the game is close to being balanced except for perhaps the Russian front (the jury is still out on the garrison change and I am still unhappy with what Alvaro did to the Soviet armor.)

This, too, is why I am not very disturbed by the Allies ace in the hole in terms of seapower. They badly need that ace.

[Nirosi]

Well, I am actually genuinely glad to see that Sveint's game with me is the source of many discussions [:)]

[Harrybanana]

Flavius, I agree with you that increasing the TAC strength of air units will, at least initially, benefit the Axis more than the Allies. But in the long run it will benefit the Allies, especially if the mid to late war TAC increases are greater than they are so that they can technologically keep up with the ground units. And of course decreasing the effectiveness of shore bombardment will definitely help the Axis. I further agree that this may require some further modifications to balance the game. This could probably be accomplished by simply increasing the Russian starting experience back up to 35%. Or for that matter allowing all Allied nations to rise to a maximum 60% experience rather than just 50%.

If the fear is that this will increase the odds of a successful Sealion, well what is wrong with that? At the moment the odds of a successful Sealion seem to be pretty slim, especially with the new garrison rule. I have no problem with these odds being bumped a bit. I mean how many people are even trying a Sealion these days? As you pointed out almost everyone is doing a 41 Barbarossa. I would love it if a Sealion was at least an option.

I would also love it if building the historically sized Allied air forces was an option. But at the moment it is not. Sure the British and the Americans will build 2 or 3 Ground Attack air units each along with a couple more Fighters each. But this is a pittance compared to what they built historically. Nobody who knows what they are doing is going to build the USAF and the RAF up to 20+ air units each. Instead they are going to spend all of that production on ground units where they get far more bang for their buck.

In any event, I think I have made it clear that I prefer war games that are as historical as possible and at the moment this game is so very very close to being just about perfect. The only major flaw being somewhat nerfed air power. But it seems most people just don't care.