Balancing the Game by depot control

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: guctony


Next time I will try to control truck demand by limiting supply requirement from Army and Corps. but I dont think it will make a big difference.

It makes a "HUGE" difference.

Respectfully I think It will not make too much difference in my above attached Screen shot. I have already out of my supply boundary distance and there is no way to bring rail line more forward in turn 6/7. to reach Smolensk in turn 6/7 required combination of 2 FBD and remaining RAD units under a Corp HQ.

And not to mention if I had drop the supply priority below 4 for advancing armies I could have not keep up the assault moving on.

Regardless I think I should not complain to much as I was able to keep attacking and moving forward for 12 consecutive turns. Some of the failure is more because of my inept Leadership in managing my Attacks.

But its not logical for any Army General to send 20.000 trucks to death ride just because of utilizing super depot at the far end of the supply chain. I mean if voluntarily done no issues.

Anyway I have to work on my learning curves regarding supply.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: guctony

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: guctony


Next time I will try to control truck demand by limiting supply requirement from Army and Corps. but I dont think it will make a big difference.

It makes a "HUGE" difference.

Respectfully I think It will not make too much difference in my above attached Screen shot. I have already out of my supply boundary distance and there is no way to bring rail line more forward in turn 6/7. to reach Smolensk in turn 6/7 required combination of 2 FBD and remaining RAD units under a Corp HQ.

And not to mention if I had drop the supply priority below 4 for advancing armies I could have not keep up the assault moving on.

Regardless I think I should not complain to much as I was able to keep attacking and moving forward for 12 consecutive turns. Some of the failure is more because of my inept Leadership in managing my Attacks.

But its not logical for any Army General to send 20.000 trucks to death ride just because of utilizing super depot at the far end of the supply chain. I mean if voluntarily done no issues.

Anyway I have to work on my learning curves regarding supply.

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: guctony

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain




It makes a "HUGE" difference.

Respectfully I think It will not make too much difference in my above attached Screen shot. I have already out of my supply boundary distance and there is no way to bring rail line more forward in turn 6/7. to reach Smolensk in turn 6/7 required combination of 2 FBD and remaining RAD units under a Corp HQ.

And not to mention if I had drop the supply priority below 4 for advancing armies I could have not keep up the assault moving on.

Regardless I think I should not complain to much as I was able to keep attacking and moving forward for 12 consecutive turns. Some of the failure is more because of my inept Leadership in managing my Attacks.

But its not logical for any Army General to send 20.000 trucks to death ride just because of utilizing super depot at the far end of the supply chain. I mean if voluntarily done no issues.

Anyway I have to work on my learning curves regarding supply.

[&o]

[guctony]

By the way I would like to make another analogy.

Consider Ardennes operation. To my knowledge there was more supply and fuel on the eastern side of the Rhine River than west site. If my long time ago historical readings correct there was limitation by high command to transfer more fuel to west side. I am to be corrected.

Now its completely a different case but probably there is way to create this situation in a fictional Ardennes scenario other than lowering supply demand by armies or lowering priorities of depots on west side of river.

Now let me say Come on how come any corps or Army commander can lower their supply requirement in such a case including the front line depots. Only logical or illogical way in essence is to drop supply export priority levels on depots on the East side of the river. this will clearly mimic High Command intervention. Any maybe in any far future update this supply priority levels should be Hard coded to scenario data to mimic historical realities better.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: guctony

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: guctony





I Beg to say it is not complete control. Its the basic control you should have over your Supply command. I mean ability store supply where ever you want. Can german high command could not order any depot not to distribute supply.

Sorry - wires crossed I think maybe. What I was getting at was trying to work out what your 'ideal' supply goals were in order to try and make suggestions about how you could try and achieve that using the current system.

As above in terms of depot -> unit supply I think the system looks at it from the other way round to what you are saying. So rather than telling a depot how much supply to distribute you are telling HQs how much supply to seek. That's what I was talking about in my previous post - if you want to reduce/stop the flow of supply from depots to units (for example because the distance is too great and you want to preserve trucks) the solution is to reduce the HQ supply priority.

[Edit - the rail line to that northeasternmost depot is going through V-L and not Smolensk isn't it.]

Thank you for the suggestion it will be very useful in my next game and I will try to implement in my current game. But kindly do consider that my view on this system of controlling supply flow between front line depots and reserve depots is more like tweaking the game engine rather than managing the supply situation. I mean By essence is it really different in methodology from WITE forced supply order to HQ's.

I get it I can achieve what I need by lowering supply priorities of Armies and tweaking depot supply priorities. But the same exact result can be achieved by just having one extra control over Supply depot. Like giving priority over how much supply to receive is it not logical to control how much supply a depot can distribute.

I don't think the net result will be different and it will not give Germans any additional ability to move forward faster or refill German panzer units faster. It will control the wastage of trucks and supply. it will minimize micro-control requirements etc.

The question is . Will German Army group commanders individually dictate their supply requirements of each army and corp or they control the flow of supply from the source '' Depots''

And once again I am not criticizing anything regarding the current game decisions. I waited this game for so long. I will play whichever the case but at the same time some simple life improvement can make it more enjoyable for intermediate players.

My personal view is that setting the HQ supply priorities really doesn't involve a lot of micro management. Remember that when you set a priority for a HQ that priority is set for all its subordinate HQs. So in your example, to essentially 'switch off' Smolensk all you would need to do would be to set the priorities for AGC and PG4 to [1]. So just 2 actions. If you wanted you could then go down to a Corps level and set higher priorities for any HQs that were closer to the depot.

[Edit - will come back to some of the subsequent posts - just nipping out for a bit]

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: guctony

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: guctony

And Turn 8 Super depot kicked in and BOOM here goes the truck reserves.

...

well yes, you have 30+ MP supply traces and haven't bothered to hook in the rail net east of Staraya Russa and are supplying what looks like 2 Pzr As 15+ hexes from what I guess is Smolensk.

So that is suicidal and its not what myself or Carlkay are describing.

remember you have tools to control demand too, its your choice how much freight those distant HQs go looking for.

I now set all the infantry corps to pri #1 and the Pzrs to #2 precisely to control this.

And no, there is no hard limit but if you go wandering off east of Lake Ilmen in late August this game will punish you, especially if you haven't nailed down the supporting infrastructure. The old WiTE1 fantasy move of driving down the east of the Volkhov really isn't a good idea

Well I do get what you mean and truly respect the amount of explanation and stress you put in the proper way of handling the supply situation.

And I accept that there is intricate law of physics sewed inside the current supply system so not to repeat cases of WITE flying Panzer armies.

But please Hear me out.

First of all if we prefer to play against a Human opponent its a distinct choice. The idea is not to repeat WWII version two. It is to be competitive against another sentinel being in terms of strategic decision making and coping with his strategies. In do respect if my opponent is above average or pro it is even more important to give him different strategic game play so both sides enjoy and develop their game and come up with a new understanding. I might loose the game but at least I can try to be creative and improve my game play.

Having said that currently what I believe or testing is to find a way to cope with a orderly retreating Soviet opponent. And my first experimental strategy is the Rommel way. Like his sufferings in logistics and overall strategic understanding I am trying to push forward as much as possible.

Now the issue is Soviets has the means of sustained orderly retreat But Germans have limited forward supply capacity beyond their supply system limitations to disorganize Soviet orderly retreat. If this is the case how can we be competitive against this case.

It seems All we can do is just play along and wait for the winter slugfest.
Having said all above I do better understand what my real question is....

The Question: is there only one way to handle supply situation and limit the forward movement by supply limitations. Or is there a way to Play Rommel by intricately damaging supply situation everywhere but to create a continues forward push juggernaut reaching Moscow vicinity before Rain.

If there is non it meant the war is already lost and there is no player balance to a orderly retreating Soviet player. Once again I am not arguing and feeling discomfort against such a Soviet player for doing the logical strategical thinking.

In terms of the game design as regards the victory system I think the answer to that question is that a Soviet player who retreats quickly is protecting themselves against the risk of a 1941 sudden death loss at the cost of giving up enough time bonuses that they are at a greater risk of losing via a late 1942 victory check or by failing to meet the victory check at the end of 1944. So a decision that looks good in the short term has negative consequences in the long term. A Soviet player who wants to win on the game's terms (as opposed to hoping for a Axis resignation when they haven't won the game in 1941) can't afford to give up too much ground too quickly.

Disclaimer #1 - I'm not sure where the game balance is in reality in terms of making the above valid. My suspicion is that the recent balance has been maybe a bit too punishing on all but the best Axis players and that it's a little too easy for a 'retreating' Soviet player to build up a big enough army that they can cause enough carnage over the 41/42 winter to make the rest of the game irrelevant. I do think that the changes to Assault Fronts and to the combat model (which in my limited experience seems to have made the German Panzer Divs a bit more resilient defensively and a bit more potent offensively) will help with that. I agree with what HLYA has been saying about there being a lot of 'spare' potential in the Axis forces that will be better used as Axis players become more experienced. Time will tell on those points.

Disclaimer #2 - as above the current victory design is such that if players are roughly equal the game will reach the end of 42 at least and will often go on till 1944. I think it is fair to say that there is a demographic of players who don't want to play such an extended campaign and would prefer a more 'volatile' victory system that is more geared towards the outcome of the Barbarossa offensive and the subsequent Soviet winter counter offensive. In time I think it may be worth offering a campaign with lower sudden victory/sudden loss thresholds in 1941 so that that initial 6-7 months is on more of a knife-edge and you get much more early outcomes either way. I've not gone into the editor at all - are those adjustments to the VP system possible in the editor or are they 'hard-coded' and requiring a new campaign from the Devs?

[GibsonPete]

guctony;

"Anyway I have to work on my learning curves regarding supply."

You and I both. I hope that you will continue to experiment and share the results. I am not a deep thinker but I am capable of adapting. If you find a better way of getting to Moscow I will thank you and steal it for my game. The Axis learning curve is high compared to the Soviet and that is what I like about this game.

Q:"Will (would) German Army group commanders individually dictate their supply requirements of each army and corps or they control the flow of supply from the source '' Depots'"

I can relate from my personal experience with the U.S. Army that at the Army and Corps command level the bosses rarely concerned themselves with trying to control freight delivery or transport. It is amazing what does not get reported to the public. Roll on roll off ships breaking down with a regiments worth of equipment, tank transporters blowing out tires because the sun came up, rations spoiling because a lack of proper storage, wrong ammunition being delivered because it looked right, or training anti tank missiles found in a units basic issue. When it comes to logistics it is not only the game that gets it wrong.

I hope that you come up with your Rommel in the East solution. I know it is out there. Perhaps the departure of non productive units that consume supplies, or a new method of rail repair/routes or depot build up and release or something the community has not considered. Good luck.

[DeletedUser44]

ORIGINAL: RedJohn

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Axis players need to learn the supply net completely in 41 to get a strong start in the war. The Soviets can ramp up during 42 to prepare for 43 and beyond. That is one of the 'anti-Axis' bias in the game - that the Axis need to be up to speed on ALL facets of the game to have a good 41 while the Soviets can learn as they go. Very historical as the Axis had two years of campaigning to learn the system prior to Operation Barbarossa while the Soviets had the Winter War to show them how little they knew or understood the system.

This is what I believe, too. The Soviets can freely run away in 41 with little loss so long as the preserve the Red Army...

This is a little bit off topic, but oh well....

One of the things that was removed from WiTE2 involved the destruction of Soviet factories if overrun.

This is fully automated. Only those factories that were historically moved can move, they will
evacuate at the historical date or earlier at a cost in productivity if the player decides to do
this manually. If the Axis player captures a city with a factory that can be evacuated it will be
automatically moved (at a cost of more damage and delay in returning it to production).

In contrast, in WiTE, I believe they were outright destroyed.

I would not want to outright lose a factory and would stand and doggedly fight to buy more time to get them relocated. But if all I have to worry about is auto-relocation and 'some delay' in them coming back online. That is nothing to really worry over.

IMO, this removed one of the incentives for the Soviet to stand and fight. (... as well as having to carefully manage their rail usage... or risk the permanent loss of a factory)

[AlbertN]

I sung that song since a while but in general I've been told that 'it's forcing the Soviets to play the way the Axis player wants'.

Good thing on the 'Soviets have no reason to stay and fight' (Til they've Moscow at their back) I am not anymore the only (or one of the few) voices.

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: guctony

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive



Sorry - wires crossed I think maybe. What I was getting at was trying to work out what your 'ideal' supply goals were in order to try and make suggestions about how you could try and achieve that using the current system.

As above in terms of depot -> unit supply I think the system looks at it from the other way round to what you are saying. So rather than telling a depot how much supply to distribute you are telling HQs how much supply to seek. That's what I was talking about in my previous post - if you want to reduce/stop the flow of supply from depots to units (for example because the distance is too great and you want to preserve trucks) the solution is to reduce the HQ supply priority.

[Edit - the rail line to that northeasternmost depot is going through V-L and not Smolensk isn't it.]

Thank you for the suggestion it will be very useful in my next game and I will try to implement in my current game. But kindly do consider that my view on this system of controlling supply flow between front line depots and reserve depots is more like tweaking the game engine rather than managing the supply situation. I mean By essence is it really different in methodology from WITE forced supply order to HQ's.

I get it I can achieve what I need by lowering supply priorities of Armies and tweaking depot supply priorities. But the same exact result can be achieved by just having one extra control over Supply depot. Like giving priority over how much supply to receive is it not logical to control how much supply a depot can distribute.

I don't think the net result will be different and it will not give Germans any additional ability to move forward faster or refill German panzer units faster. It will control the wastage of trucks and supply. it will minimize micro-control requirements etc.

The question is . Will German Army group commanders individually dictate their supply requirements of each army and corp or they control the flow of supply from the source '' Depots''

And once again I am not criticizing anything regarding the current game decisions. I waited this game for so long. I will play whichever the case but at the same time some simple life improvement can make it more enjoyable for intermediate players.

My personal view is that setting the HQ supply priorities really doesn't involve a lot of micro management. Remember that when you set a priority for a HQ that priority is set for all its subordinate HQs. So in your example, to essentially 'switch off' Smolensk all you would need to do would be to set the priorities for AGC and PG4 to [1]. So just 2 actions. If you wanted you could then go down to a Corps level and set higher priorities for any HQs that were closer to the depot.

[Edit - will come back to some of the subsequent posts - just nipping out for a bit]

Well probably you are right. But the end does not justify the means. Lets call my mad Dash forward as Rommel run. and it is imperative to keep forward impulse active all the time that means keeping forward elements at 4 priority all the time to be able to keep Rommel running.

My problem is Case specific. See the attached image above. I have overrun the available supply line and depended on super depot for keep pushing forward where it suddenly abused truck delivery system to unexpected levels. The problem is at this stage dropping supply priorities from forward units is really a consistent method to do it regularly?.

I mean will it always give the same result. Or let me put in another way lets say I have active super depot and it has received 20000 tons of ferry and I want to deliver around 6500 tons and keep the rest in depot. How will I know drooping the supply request levels from 4 to 3 or 2 will make sure the specific amount of supply will be withheld. Currently its like a gamble. There is no means to calculate. Maybe playing long enough and making some excel chart will make it more predictable. Maybe such a chart will make life easier. But the thing is If there is supply distribution control on depots its no longer and best estimate case. and that's what I am trying to advocate. Just a quality of life upgrade.

By the way by dropping delivery level of supply is to enable a more controlled destruction of Truck reserves not to control flow of supply. Currently my problem is that our game is a server game so I have no possibility to test it again and again the same case to come up with what is the optimum set up. But regardless I feel I cannot drop supply demand priorities of units that will kill my offensive push. I am just looking for a away for extended destruction period of the Truck reserve. Its totally reasonable to pay a price for Rommel Run in terms of Truck losses. That's a trade of for Rommel Run.

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: GibsonPete

guctony;

"Anyway I have to work on my learning curves regarding supply."

You and I both. I hope that you will continue to experiment and share the results. I am not a deep thinker but I am capable of adapting. If you find a better way of getting to Moscow I will thank you and steal it for my game. The Axis learning curve is high compared to the Soviet and that is what I like about this game.

Q:"Will (would) German Army group commanders individually dictate their supply requirements of each army and corps or they control the flow of supply from the source '' Depots'"

I can relate from my personal experience with the U.S. Army that at the Army and Corps command level the bosses rarely concerned themselves with trying to control freight delivery or transport. It is amazing what does not get reported to the public. Roll on roll off ships breaking down with a regiments worth of equipment, tank transporters blowing out tires because the sun came up, rations spoiling because a lack of proper storage, wrong ammunition being delivered because it looked right, or training anti tank missiles found in a units basic issue. When it comes to logistics it is not only the game that gets it wrong.

I hope that you come up with your Rommel in the East solution. I know it is out there. Perhaps the departure of non productive units that consume supplies, or a new method of rail repair/routes or depot build up and release or something the community has not considered. Good luck.

Well I am trying Hard to find a Rommel Run. I am far from it but I will keep trying. Luckily I have a very good Soviet opponent who is not shy and kind enough to give me good slaps in the face to improve my game play and resolution. Recently I received 1941 Stalingrad around Don area. Rommel Run has the risk of getting counter attack's more destructively.

I am half there one steps is to send most twin engine Bombers to reserve or to other TB to extract more units from them. Bombers really eat a lot of supply. When I get enough experience on Running Supply system upside down then I will be able achive more.

[guctony]

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II

ORIGINAL: RedJohn

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Axis players need to learn the supply net completely in 41 to get a strong start in the war. The Soviets can ramp up during 42 to prepare for 43 and beyond. That is one of the 'anti-Axis' bias in the game - that the Axis need to be up to speed on ALL facets of the game to have a good 41 while the Soviets can learn as they go. Very historical as the Axis had two years of campaigning to learn the system prior to Operation Barbarossa while the Soviets had the Winter War to show them how little they knew or understood the system.

This is what I believe, too. The Soviets can freely run away in 41 with little loss so long as the preserve the Red Army...

This is a little bit off topic, but oh well....

One of the things that was removed from WiTE2 involved the destruction of Soviet factories if overrun.

This is fully automated. Only those factories that were historically moved can move, they will
evacuate at the historical date or earlier at a cost in productivity if the player decides to do
this manually. If the Axis player captures a city with a factory that can be evacuated it will be
automatically moved (at a cost of more damage and delay in returning it to production).

In contrast, in WiTE, I believe they were outright destroyed.

I would not want to outright lose a factory and would stand and doggedly fight to buy more time to get them relocated. But if all I have to worry about is auto-relocation and 'some delay' in them coming back online. That is nothing to really worry over.

IMO, this removed one of the incentives for the Soviet to stand and fight. (... as well as having to carefully manage their rail usage... or risk the permanent loss of a factory)

You may be right But I do like and prefer factory and partisan war is now more abstract it simplify the game extensively. And also Factory card for Germans is open to abuse as unlike real life German player always can know which factory to kill as the dates or transfer is easy to follow. I dont assume it was the case in Real war.

And also we need to take the Red pill. I mean as German players and in general we just cant assume that Soviets needs to play the way with a certain script so we can destroy them piece meal.

For me the interesting question is what to do when Soviet players are doing the logical strategic option of an orderly retreat. Its was the problem with Napoleon and almost for all Soviet invaders Historically. Borodino didn't sort out the problems for French.

[malyhin1517]

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II

ORIGINAL: RedJohn

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Axis players need to learn the supply net completely in 41 to get a strong start in the war. The Soviets can ramp up during 42 to prepare for 43 and beyond. That is one of the 'anti-Axis' bias in the game - that the Axis need to be up to speed on ALL facets of the game to have a good 41 while the Soviets can learn as they go. Very historical as the Axis had two years of campaigning to learn the system prior to Operation Barbarossa while the Soviets had the Winter War to show them how little they knew or understood the system.

This is what I believe, too. The Soviets can freely run away in 41 with little loss so long as the preserve the Red Army...

This is a little bit off topic, but oh well....

One of the things that was removed from WiTE2 involved the destruction of Soviet factories if overrun.

This is fully automated. Only those factories that were historically moved can move, they will
evacuate at the historical date or earlier at a cost in productivity if the player decides to do
this manually. If the Axis player captures a city with a factory that can be evacuated it will be
automatically moved (at a cost of more damage and delay in returning it to production).

In contrast, in WiTE, I believe they were outright destroyed.

I would not want to outright lose a factory and would stand and doggedly fight to buy more time to get them relocated. But if all I have to worry about is auto-relocation and 'some delay' in them coming back online. That is nothing to really worry over.

IMO, this removed one of the incentives for the Soviet to stand and fight. (... as well as having to carefully manage their rail usage... or risk the permanent loss of a factory)

I am also very sorry that the old factory evacuation system was removed from the game. In fact, it was a game within a game. Indeed, this forced the Russian player to hold the defense in order to have time to evacuate the factories. I think this was done to simplify the game and reduce micromanagement, but it would be better to have the old version of the game as an additional option.