Yet another balance thread (1.11)

[Marcinos1985]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
I wonder what the big difference is?

There are several, but the most important one - in my honest opinion - is a 2nd front in USSR. In WiE you won't be attacked by Japan. In WaW - probably as soon as JP DOWs USA. Against all-in attack Russians need plenty of units, and they already lack them against Germany.
2nd difference - map scale. In WiE, although there are more turns across the year, you have to get through a lot of hexes. In WaW not that much, and with 6AP Panzers you will get to Perm from Moscow in ca.3-4 turns.

SC:WaW IS generally well balanced. But if you take a very good Axis player, then he will win majority of games against similarly skilled Allied player. Simply by leveraging early game advantages. There are plenty of AAR's in these forums between good players, Axis wins in almost all of them. Fortunately (?), there are not that many that good Axis players, this requires a lot of skill.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
I wonder what the big difference is?

There are several, but the most important one - in my honest opinion - is a 2nd front in USSR. In WiE you won't be attacked by Japan. In WaW - probably as soon as JP DOWs USA. Against all-in attack Russians need plenty of units, and they already lack them against Germany.
2nd difference - map scale. In WiE, although there are more turns across the year, you have to get through a lot of hexes. In WaW not that much, and with 6AP Panzers you will get to Perm from Moscow in ca.3-4 turns.

SC:WaW IS generally well balanced. But if you take a very good Axis player, then he will win majority of games against similarly skilled Allied player. Simply by leveraging early game advantages. There are plenty of AAR's in these forums between good players, Axis wins in almost all of them. Fortunately (?), there are not that many that good Axis players, this requires a lot of skill.

Agreed. Having Japan to apply pressure in other areas really helps. And also agreed a really good Axis player has a chance to win but it requires a lot of skill and not everyone can do it...

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: pjg100
GE has beaten the USSR and the US has beaten or is well on the way to beating JA. Seems to me that under these conditions the long game should still favor the Allies

I wondered this as well. People keep saying the Axis auto wins if they beat Russia, but Japan is often dead or about to die in such cases. Especially if the Allies committed to taking Japan out early. I would say either Japan and Italy are doomed if the Allied human player decides to focus them. Time limits and victory conditions matter a lot in such cases.

[redrum68]

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
In case of France, at least for me, I'd like to see attacking Low Countries very early - like 11 or 12.1939 - to come with sort of tradeoff. People on the forums probably know better, but I assume that GER wasn't that ready to strike Holland and Belgium that early, Polish campaign wasn't that easy for them and they had to refit for some time. Just food for thought.

+1, I just experienced this for the first time as a new player and having Belgium invaded in Nov 1939 and then France getting pressured that quickly seems a bit much. There should to be more drawbacks to Germany invading that early something like higher increases in mobilization for USSR/USA.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
In case of France, at least for me, I'd like to see attacking Low Countries very early - like 11 or 12.1939 - to come with sort of tradeoff. People on the forums probably know better, but I assume that GER wasn't that ready to strike Holland and Belgium that early, Polish campaign wasn't that easy for them and they had to refit for some time. Just food for thought.

+1, I just experienced this for the first time as a new player and having Belgium invaded in Nov 1939 and then France getting pressured that quickly seems a bit much. There should to be more drawbacks to Germany invading that early something like higher increases in mobilization for USSR/USA.

Would Murder like to meet Elvis on the field of battle, we can go mirrored.

[DavidDailey]

Could the designers of this game please explain to me why we must have long, dragged out debates before changes are made in the scenario to address balance issues? If the scenario works well as it exists for AI games then why not leave as it is for beginners and those who like to waste their time competing against the artificial intelligence (stupidity). And then place the same scenario in the game and label it for multiplayer play only. That way whenever a change is proposed the designers won't have to go into convulsions about how a balance issue change affects the AI.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
In case of France, at least for me, I'd like to see attacking Low Countries very early - like 11 or 12.1939 - to come with sort of tradeoff. People on the forums probably know better, but I assume that GER wasn't that ready to strike Holland and Belgium that early, Polish campaign wasn't that easy for them and they had to refit for some time. Just food for thought.

+1, I just experienced this for the first time as a new player and having Belgium invaded in Nov 1939 and then France getting pressured that quickly seems a bit much. There should to be more drawbacks to Germany invading that early something like higher increases in mobilization for USSR/USA.

Some changes were introduced in WWII: War in Europe to help increase France's starting strength, reducing her income slightly to compensate, but there's not been any feedback as to whether or not that was a worthwhile change so I have hesitated to invest the time in making that change here too.

Mobilization penalties for an early invasion are rather artificial so I'd rather avoid them if we can, unless they can be rationalised in a realistic way, e.g. how to explain that an invasion carried out at one date carries a larger diplomatic penalty than one carried out a turn or two later?

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: DavidDailey

Could the designers of this game please explain to me why we must have long, dragged out debates before changes are made in the scenario to address balance issues? If the scenario works well as it exists for AI games then why not leave as it is for beginners and those who like to waste their time competing against the artificial intelligence (stupidity). And then place the same scenario in the game and label it for multiplayer play only. That way whenever a change is proposed the designers won't have to go into convulsions about how a balance issue change affects the AI.

Hi David

The Race to Victory campaigns were designed with PBEM in mind, due to their different Victory Conditions, but most players default to playing the top campaign, so unless we change the set up to look/work differently (which might be a good idea for us to consider) as things stand at the moment, the top campaign has to be made to work for both human and AI.

Bill

[vonRocko]

ORIGINAL: DavidDailey

Could the designers of this game please explain to me why we must have long, dragged out debates before changes are made in the scenario to address balance issues? If the scenario works well as it exists for AI games then why not leave as it is for beginners and those who like to waste their time competing against the artificial intelligence (stupidity). And then place the same scenario in the game and label it for multiplayer play only. That way whenever a change is proposed the designers won't have to go into convulsions about how a balance issue change affects the AI.

Speaking as someone who likes to "waste their time", UP YOURS JERK.[:)]

[redrum68]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre
Some changes were introduced in WWII: War in Europe to help increase France's starting strength, reducing her income slightly to compensate, but there's not been any feedback as to whether or not that was a worthwhile change so I have hesitated to invest the time in making that change here too.

Mobilization penalties for an early invasion are rather artificial so I'd rather avoid them if we can, unless they can be rationalised in a realistic way, e.g. how to explain that an invasion carried out at one date carries a larger diplomatic penalty than one carried out a turn or two later?

I do think the starting strength and reduced income would be a good change in WaW so France has a better chance to hold out a bit longer especially against 1939 invasion.

Sorry, let me provide more details on the increased mobilization of USSR/USA idea as I generally agree the penalty shouldn't differ depending on when Germany invades Belgium. What I was thinking is just increase the mobilization event percentage for USSR/USA when Axis DoW on Belgium which I believe currently is 2-4% for each USA/USSR to something like 10-15% and to compensate for this have the starting mobilization for USSR/USA be a bit lower (say like 5-10% lower). Compared to the current game, this would mean USSR/USA have slightly less income before the invasion of Belgium and say slightly more income after the invasion of Belgium. In turn, this would give Germany more reason to consider delaying the invasion of Belgium to the Spring to avoid giving USSR/USA more income during the 1939-1940 winter months. Historically, I think this is a reasonable change as the invading neutral Belgium had significant diplomatic consequences and 2-4% USA/USSR mobilization based on that event seems low.

Now I think there could be some arguments to having higher USA/USSR mobilization penalty (or some other penalty) when Germany invades Belgium before they invade Denmark/Norway. Historically, I think the Germans didn't invade Belgium in 1939 because 1. They weren't yet prepared, 2. They didn't want to start the invasion during winter, and 3. They were planning the invasions of Denmark and Norway as well. Could consider something like the Denmark/Norway events only fire if Germany hasn't invaded Belgium (or cost more) since arguably the Germans would have lost some element of surprise and Allies would have expected those invasions and potentially at least for Norway prepared more.

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: DavidDailey

Could the designers of this game please explain to me why we must have long, dragged out debates before changes are made in the scenario to address balance issues? If the scenario works well as it exists for AI games then why not leave as it is for beginners and those who like to waste their time competing against the artificial intelligence (stupidity). And then place the same scenario in the game and label it for multiplayer play only. That way whenever a change is proposed the designers won't have to go into convulsions about how a balance issue change affects the AI.

Just to add, and generally speaking from our end, if the campaign is balanced for Multiplayer, it will/should be balanced for AI players as well. The reason for this is that we can ensure balance for AI players, and at different difficulty levels, with different mechanisms and approaches than what we do for multiplayer games, e.g. AI bonuses that are tailored specifically for AI players.

We just ask from our end if players are coming to their concerns from playing against the AI, or from playing in Multiplayer, as it will weigh in on our approach, and sometimes the debates and time it takes to consider changes are necessary as even in Multiplayer, players are coming from different experience and playing levels.

We also need to weigh out what ifs, versus game breaking strategies that may or may not be an exploit and if there are counter balancing approaches players can adopt. New strategies are sometimes revealed and thrown into the mix and we have to account for those as well, e.g. is there a counter, is this just another reasonable what if, and so on.

Some things are obvious from the get go (fix needed) once it comes to our attention, sometimes it is not always the case and we feel it can be worthwhile to have some discussion and let players vocalize their own feelings and pros and cons to any concerns.

Essentially it can be the case that one player's must needed 'fix', is another players 'valid strategy' and we have to navigate this and work things out the best we can.

Hope this helps to paint a better picture of what goes on behind the scenes on our end.
Hubert

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Short Answer:

"The AI doesn't count" --- quote from Jon_J_Rambo in 2001.

Now don't take that the wrong way. I'm not Dave Chappell with a Netflix contract to cancel.
I understand you guys wanna kick ass. That's called the life experience. Playing the AI for training purposes, I get that. Don't want to wait forever to get a turn/day, certainly understand that.

Anyone wanna game? It's taking ages to get turns back.

-Legend

[Zeckke]

The AI cheats; thats why i play against the AI; tell me if am wrong but on Multyplayer(humam-human) there cant no space to cheat

for example, in some of my games as axis, i always see new units of ships (egal the type) that is docked and at the same time upgrading

THIS AI cheats everywhere, fantastic, the best game¡¡¡

[Marcinos1985]

1. They weren't yet prepared, 2. They didn't want to start the invasion during winter, and 3. They were planning the invasions of Denmark and Norway as well.

Spot on. In SC:WaW GER may teleport via rail straight to Belgium border, so pt 1 is not simulated. What is more, losses after Polish campaign are nonexistent, contrary to what happened IRL - at least in material terms.
When it comes to point 2, it was mentioned several times on forums that penalties in bad weather are insufficient. In mud your AP is reduced, but land units fight at full effectiveness, quite strange. Frozen weather is harsher, but if Belgian troops start at zero supply, this frozen weather won't save them. So point 2 is not well simulated in French campaign either. Not to mention, that until winter (so late December, 4 Axis turns) weather is really good in Belgium/France. Was it the case in 1939, I don't know.

Changing the weather is a huge undertaking though, I don't think it could be changed in current iteration of the game. Still weather zones could be adjusted a bit, there was already a meaningful change for Russia last patch.
3rd point is interesting. Making NOR/DEN invasions more expensive/impossible if Belgium is gone would change situation a lot. A food for thought indeed.

Personally, I would like to see those changes introduced to WiE transferred to WaW, just to see if these are enough to make France less suspectible to early rushes. These modifications seem very reasonable.

Still, one must be very wary with changes to France. Making them too strong will derail axis game completely. It's probably impossible to take France on historical date if GER attacks in April, so they are nearly forced to go all-in earlier. With recent changes to Soviets, help for France may be even not welcome.

[redrum68]

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
Spot on. In SC:WaW GER may teleport via rail straight to Belgium border, so pt 1 is not simulated. What is more, losses after Polish campaign are nonexistent, contrary to what happened IRL - at least in material terms.
When it comes to point 2, it was mentioned several times on forums that penalties in bad weather are insufficient. In mud your AP is reduced, but land units fight at full effectiveness, quite strange. Frozen weather is harsher, but if Belgian troops start at zero supply, this frozen weather won't save them. So point 2 is not well simulated in French campaign either. Not to mention, that until winter (so late December, 4 Axis turns) weather is really good in Belgium/France. Was it the case in 1939, I don't know.

Changing the weather is a huge undertaking though, I don't think it could be changed in current iteration of the game. Still weather zones could be adjusted a bit, there was already a meaningful change for Russia last patch.
3rd point is interesting. Making NOR/DEN invasions more expensive/impossible if Belgium is gone would change situation a lot. A food for thought indeed.

Personally, I would like to see those changes introduced to WiE transferred to WaW, just to see if these are enough to make France less suspectible to early rushes. These modifications seem very reasonable.

Still, one must be very wary with changes to France. Making them too strong will derail axis game completely. It's probably impossible to take France on historical date if GER attacks in April, so they are nearly forced to go all-in earlier. With recent changes to Soviets, help for France may be even not welcome.

Yeah, my general thought is addressing point 1 and 2 are pretty difficult given the current way the game works. Maybe you could buff Poland a bit to make it a bit harder for Germany to quickly turn around and declare war on Belgium but weather really needs an overhaul IMO and not much can really be done easily in regards to the 1939 invasion of Belgium. That's kind of what led me to thinking about:
1. Trying to increase the mobilization penalties for USA/USSR to make invading Belgium have more drawbacks and more benefits of delaying it
2. Changing Italy's mobilization to be tied to approaching Paris rather than the surrender of Belgium as having Italy invade France in Feb when the Germans aren't even next to Paris yet seems silly as they were very hesitant historically.
3. Looking at related events like the invasion of Denmark/Norway which started before the invasion of Belgium historically and trying to tie those better to promote a historical timeline.

I do agree we don't want France to become much stronger than it is and arguably at lower/intermediate levels of gameplay when players usually wait til Spring to invade its fairly balanced and surrenders sometime in the summer. The issue really only relates to higher level players who realized they can optimize german movements to quickly invade Belgium in Nov/Dec 1939 and have France crumble very quickly which leaves the Germans most of 1940 to go for Africa or massive preparations for Barbarossa. It also forces ELO games to include the house rule of no declaring war on USSR until 1941 where as if France survived consistently a bit longer it would be much harder for Germany to declare war in 1940 on the USSR and potentially we wouldn't even need that house rule.

[EarlyDoors]

Maybe the Allies, and i'm thinking UK here could get a DE fire in Jan 1940 that checks whether Belgium is neutral

and if not (it has been invaded / conquered) then they could be rewarded with eg.


Polish /Czech under strength fighter unit in England


something that could represent a trade off

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: Zeckke

The AI cheats; thats why i play against the AI; tell me if am wrong but on Multyplayer(humam-human) there cant no space to cheat

for example, in some of my games as axis, i always see new units of ships (egal the type) that is docked and at the same time upgrading

THIS AI cheats everywhere, fantastic, the best game¡¡¡

Hi Zeckke,

The AI plays by the same rules as a human player, other than the known bonuses that can be applied to the AI via the OPTIONS screen.

If you feel the AI is doing something incorrectly, this is then likely a bug (if it is not a misunderstanding), please don't hesitate to send me a saved turn so I can take a look.

Thanks,
Hubert

[redrum68]

ORIGINAL: EarlyDoors

Maybe the Allies, and i'm thinking UK here could get a DE fire in Jan 1940 that checks whether Belgium is neutral

and if not (it has been invaded / conquered) then they could be rewarded with eg.

Polish /Czech under strength fighter unit in England

something that could represent a trade off

Its not a bad idea but I would probably try to avoid tying it to a random date that doesn't have any historical backing. In this case, if you create a DE that only fires on Jan 1940 if Belgium has been invaded then it could just push Germany to declare war right after that check which doesn't really address the issue just pushes it a bit and doesn't really have any historical reasoning for UK to say receive the unit if Germany had invaded in Dec 1939 but not receive if it they invaded a month later.

[Zeckke]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

ORIGINAL: Zeckke

The AI cheats; thats why i play against the AI; tell me if am wrong but on Multyplayer(humam-human) there cant no space to cheat

for example, in some of my games as axis, i always see new units of ships (egal the type) that is docked and at the same time upgrading

THIS AI cheats everywhere, fantastic, the best game¡¡¡

Hi Zeckke,

The AI plays by the same rules as a human player, other than the known bonuses that can be applied to the AI via the OPTIONS screen.

If you feel the AI is doing something incorrectly, this is then likely a bug (if it is not a misunderstanding), please don't hesitate to send me a saved turn so I can take a look.

Thanks,
Hubert

Thanks¡ Hubert; am going to send you my actually game as axis

tell me if you see something wrong, the bug is that Russia is always now PREPARE FOR WAR on 1940, let me know whats going on with the AI

and for sure play this save game; its getting interesting; the AI

the game now is on 1942-08

sending by wetransfer

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: Zeckke

Thanks¡ Hubert; am going to send you my actually game as axis

tell me if you see something wrong, the bug is that Russia is always now PREPARE FOR WAR on 1940, let me know whats going on with the AI

and for sure play this save game; its getting interesting; the AI

the game now is on 1942-08

sending by wetransfer

Thanks for the file, unfortunately as it is dated already all the way to 1942, I won't be able to tell you in any definitive manner why the USSR prepared for war in 1940, but typically this is due to either not enough units in the East along the border with the Soviet Union, or too much. There may be other factors as well such as how many declarations of war you have committed, and I believe capturing the Suez prior to Soviet entry is also a factor.

Two things I would suggest:

1) Update to the latest version of the game, this saved game is from v1.00, and the game is currently at v1.12.01. There have been quite a few updates, fixes and improvements since the original release, including a information button you can toggle to hide and show map info such as how many units you need to keep along the Soviet border to help minimize Soviet interest in mobilizing for war.

2) Review the Strategy Guides, and in this case specifically the section labelled 'Axis Units Required in the East' as this should really help here.

Hope this helps,
Hubert