bugs in WiR 3.0

[silkworm]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:
Don't understand you here. As far as I can tell, CAPs protect only the HQ where the planes are, plus the ground units assigned to that HQ. We decided it was unrealistic for bomber air groups to fly only one mission, so they now fly in one player directed mission AND ground support in the combat phase.

That's why I'm saying. Only one HQ will intercept. It's useless to have a bunch of HQ's close together; it doesn't enhance your control of the air at all. This is unrealistic, and further encourages concentrating air power in just a few HQ's, rather than giving every HQ a proper air arm.

Its true though that the game defaulting to "Escort" no longer makes much sense, it should default to "CAP" instead (you had this problem with the original WiR too). I'm going to ask Arnaud to consider having fighter units that are still usable (not "used") to automatically switch to CAP at the end of the turn, just before combat.

The Escort option is completely useless. Just combine CAP and Escort into one mission type.

Well, I loaded Campaign '41, went to the soviet turn, and gave special supply to one of the units near Moscow, attached to the Moscow front. I then reassigned the unit to STAVKA and tried to give it special supply, but it failed, saying the unit had already received supply. This is the change Arnaud made to make the "switch to another HQ for more special supply" cheat useless, units can only get special supply once per turn now.

As far as I can tell, its working. Do you have an example of a unit getting special supply more than once in a turn? We already know about the change-korps-name cheat to get around this, but if you've got something else, send me or RickyB a save game file that demonstrates the loophole.

It's not a question of getting more than one supply per turn. The real problem is that if you can change HQ's any number of types in a turn, you can save Operation Points in a few HQ's and use them exclusively for combat duty, and they can control a huge number of units. It's beneficial to do this because you benefit from air power concentration and superior leadership. One way to do away with this tactic is to disable Change HQ after special supply. That way the same HQ for special supply has to be used for combat, and HQ's will be able to support a realistically smaller number of units.

Also, airgroups should probably take a bigger mission readiness hit from flying missions. The point is, the player should NOT be able to get more sorties from his planes by concentrating them. One idea is to take the total number of sorties available to an HQ per turn, and proportionally support each attack, with a player set reserve for defensive air cover and unexpected attacks. At it stands now, I'm pretty sure you get more sorties from your air force by bunching your planes together.

[Mist]

Rostov,Saratov,Stalingrad,Gorki,Grozny,Baku and Tbilisi give germans additional manpower when captured. Is it ok?
I've just finished my first game(GRRRRREEAT!!), but victory message did not appear despite of I captured all possible objectives. I waited even until 1950 and it had very strange effects(Germany heavy industry boost). I think I could even wait until 2000. BTW Is WiR protected from y2k error?

[RickyB]

Originally posted by Mist:
Rostov,Saratov,Stalingrad,Gorki,Grozny,Baku and Tbilisi give germans additional manpower when captured. Is it ok?
I've just finished my first game(GRRRRREEAT!!), but victory message did not appear despite of I captured all possible objectives. I waited even until 1950 and it had very strange effects(Germany heavy industry boost). I think I could even wait until 2000. BTW Is WiR protected from y2k error?

Hi Mist,

If you have one, could you send me a save game showing the cities like Stalingrad giving infantry replacements to the Axis? Also, was this from the 1941 campaign? I haven't had this happen with that one, but some of the other scenarios did it at one time until they were fixed. If you are getting it, maybe it is a data corruption issue or something. Anyway, the only Soviet cities that should contribute to the Axis are the Baltic states, and they are quite small so they shouldn't effect much.

As old as it is, WIR is probably one big Y2K program.
Thanks for the report.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by silkworm:
That's why I'm saying. Only one HQ will intercept. It's useless to have a bunch of HQ's close together; it doesn't enhance your control of the air at all. This is unrealistic, and further encourages concentrating air power in just a few HQ's,
rather than giving every HQ a proper air arm.

This is a deliberate design feature by Gary, he mentions this in the manual. You can mass HQs for offensive missions, but putting a large number of air groups in one HQ means you can have huge losses to successful airfield attacks. Normally, your HQs are too far away to help one another, and there is always the problem of air units flying missions you don't want them to fly. If they do this, then there are problems. Imagine a Panzer Group HQ's air units flying to the defense of infantry korps assigned to another army. Those air units may lose readiness making them unavailable for ground combat support for the Panzer korps, which is a hell of a lot more important than defending the infantry HQs airfields. So I don't want air units to fly CAP for other HQs, and I bet Gary came to same conclusion for the same reason.

The Escort option is completely useless. Just combine CAP and Escort into one mission type.

If you combine them, then some air units might fly Escort missions for bomber groups when you really want them to wait for the ground combat phaase so they can fly CAP missions. Remember air groups have their own "readiness" like ground units even though they aren't visible to the player. Sometimes, you don't want a unit to lose readiness doing something else that is less important. When playing the Soviets I often put one or more of the largest fighter groups on CAP, and leave the rest for Escort, instead of all fighters doing both things, resulting in the fighters showing up in fewer numbers.

It's not a question of getting more than one supply per turn. The real problem is that if you can change HQ's any number of types in a turn, you can save Operation Points in a few HQ's and use them exclusively for combat duty, and they can control a huge number of units. It's beneficial to do this because you benefit from air power concentration and superior leadership. One way to do away with
this tactic is to disable Change HQ after special supply. That way the same HQ for special supply has to be used for combat, and HQ's will be able to support a realistically smaller number of units.

Good idea, I'll pass this on to Arnaud

Also, airgroups should probably take a bigger mission readiness hit from flying missions. The point is, the player should NOT be able to get more sorties from his planes by concentrating them. One idea is to take the total number of sorties available to an HQ per turn, and proportionally support each attack, with a player set reserve for defensive air cover and unexpected attacks. At it stands now, I'm pretty sure you get more sorties from your air force by bunching your planes together.

I don't agree. The air group's internal readiness level determines how many missions it flies in one turn, not whether there are other air groups flying with them. I give Panzer Group HQs more bombers because they fly more often since the Panzer korps move more and therefore are in combat more often. That's not a cheat. Often I see air groups not flying for every round of ground combat support because they lose too much readiness. You can concentrate air groups to one HQ if you want to, that's "legal", as long as you're willing to take the risk of enemy airfield attacks destroying a lot of aircraft.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by RickyB:
As old as it is, WIR is probably one big Y2K program.

I don't see how, Ricky. I can't imagine the game using the current date anywhere in its calculations. I'm pretty sure the game doesn't give a darn about what the current date is.

[silkworm]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:
This is a deliberate design feature by Gary, he mentions this in the manual. You can mass HQs for offensive missions, but putting a large number of air groups in one HQ means you can have huge losses to successful airfield attacks. Normally, your HQs are too far away to help one another, and there is always the problem of air units flying missions you don't want them to fly. If they do this, then there are problems. Imagine a Panzer Group HQ's air units flying to the defense of infantry korps assigned to another army. Those air units may lose readiness making them unavailable for ground combat support for the Panzer korps, which is a hell of a lot more important than defending the infantry HQs airfields. So I don't want air units to fly CAP for other HQs, and I bet Gary came to same conclusion for the same reason.

Yes. This is exactly the part of the original design that is broken right now. Say you have 3 fighter groups, do you put each in a different HQ, with the HQ's close together for mutual CAP support? Or do you put them all in one HQ? Gary says in the manual the first method is preferrable as a way to disperse against airfield attacks. The problem now is that HQ's don't give each other CAP support. So you end up getting better protection putting 3 groups in one HQ.

If you combine them, then some air units might fly Escort missions for bomber groups when you really want them to wait for the ground combat phaase so they can fly CAP missions. Remember air groups have their own "readiness" like ground units even though they aren't visible to the player. Sometimes, you don't want a unit to lose readiness doing something else that is less important. When playing the Soviets I often put one or more of the largest fighter groups on CAP, and leave the rest for Escort, instead of all fighters doing both things, resulting in the fighters showing up in fewer numbers.

As it stands now, it's almost always preferrable to use your air groups twice, because you get more sorties and bring more total firepower against enemy planes. Put it another way, the planes you don't kill or damage on an escort mission will just show up during ground combat anyway. So it's better to put all your planes on escort and change back to CAP.

I don't agree. The air group's internal readiness level determines how many missions it flies in one turn, not whether there are other air groups flying with them. I give Panzer Group HQs more bombers because they fly more often since the Panzer korps move more and therefore are in combat more often. That's not a cheat. Often I see air groups not flying for every round of ground combat support because they lose too much readiness. You can concentrate air groups to one HQ if you want to, that's "legal", as long as you're willing to take the risk of enemy airfield attacks destroying a lot of aircraft.

But your planes end up flying more total sorties, whatever the formula you use to readiness loss. Say I'm doing two rounds of combat during some turn. If I split them into two HQ's and give each 100 planes, I get a total of 200 sorties. If I use just one HQ and give it 200 planes, I get 200 for the first combat and 200 * (1 - readiness loss) for the second combat. So I get more than 200 sorties.

[silkworm]

Put it another way. If you disperse your fighters while I concentrate them, I will always gain air superiority.

[Ed Cogburn]

Yes. This is exactly the part of the original design that is broken right now. Say you have 3 fighter groups, do you put each in a different HQ, with the HQ's close together for mutual CAP support? Or do you put them all in one HQ? Gary says in the manual the first method is preferrable as a way to disperse against airfield attacks. The problem now is that HQ's don't give each other CAP support. So you end up getting better protection putting 3 groups in one HQ.

The game has never allowed air groups of one HQ to fly defense for another nearby HQ. It has always had air groups flying support only for the HQ the air groups are assigned to.

As it stands now, it's almost always preferrable to use your air groups
twice, because you get more sorties and bring more total firepower against enemy planes. Put it another way, the planes you don't kill or damage on an escort mission will just show up during ground combat anyway. So it's better to put all your planes on escort and change back to CAP.

Thats exactly it. Now that we allow an air group to fly a player directed mission, and then fly ground support for at least a couple of sorties, setting fighters back to CAP, if they still have enough readiness to fly (they haven't been marked 'u') is what you should do.

But your planes end up flying more total sorties, whatever the formula you use to readiness loss. Say I'm doing two rounds of combat during some turn. If I split them into two HQ's and give each 100 planes, I get a total of 200 sorties. If I use just one HQ and give it 200 planes, I get 200 for the first combat and 200 * (1 - readiness loss) for the second combat. So I get more than 200 sorties.

If you split a fighter group, assuming the game let us do that, then you'd be using smaller groups that may not be able to handle the enemy groups if they are larger, ie, your fighter group is only 100 planes and the enemy air groups are over 100. That's a valid risk the the player must decide on. I don't think you understand, there is readiness loss for the first player directed sortie too, not just ground combat, you can see the drop in ready aircraft in a fighter group after they've flown a player directed mission. You're not getting anything for free. Deciding when to mass air groups and when *not* to is part of the challenge the players must deal with.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by silkworm:
Put it another way. If you disperse your fighters while I concentrate them, I will always gain air superiority.

You'll only get air superiorty over the HQ that has all the air groups or one of the corps attached to that HQ. If you attach a lot of units and air groups to one HQ, the enemy will recognize this and could do the same thing. They could concentrate their air groups in an HQ facing your air group heavy HQ.

[silkworm]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

You'll only get air superiorty over the HQ that has all the air groups or one of the corps attached to that HQ. If you attach a lot of units and air groups to one HQ, the enemy will recognize this and could do the same thing. They could concentrate their air groups in an HQ facing your air group heavy HQ.

Ed, this is what I've been saying.... For rational players, the game always ends up being played in this way, which does not reflect historical patterns for air power use. It feels very silly to have 2/3 or your Army HQ's doing nothing but supply duty. I feel like I'm making on insult on history.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by silkworm:
Ed, this is what I've been saying.... For rational players, the game always ends up being played in this way, which does not reflect historical patterns for air power use. It feels very silly to have 2/3 or your Army HQ's doing nothing but supply duty. I feel like I'm making on insult on history.

Then don't do it.

Personally I have never played it that way because I know its totally unrealistic, and the last time I checked I was still rational. If you're playing with another human, agree beforehand to ban the obvious cheats and illogical tactics.

This "problem" isn't going to go away anytime soon, it is clearly beyond the scope of the WiR project, as what you're asking requires a really basic redesign of the game's core, and I'm still not sure this is something that is really bad. If you mass air groups in one place, you leave other areas of the front lightly defended, and you put your air groups in a dangerous situation. If just one 150+ bomber group gets through with an airfield attack, your losses could be horrific. You can't assume your fighters will stop all of them because sometimes, especially in bad weather, the bombers can get past your fighters. And I still don't see how this "using 2/3 of HQs for supply" still makes any sense now that korps are limited to just one shot of special supply, and the cost of that supply has gone up.

Don't do it Silk, if you know its unrealistic just don't do it. For me, these kinds of cheats ruin the game, I get no satisfaction out of beating the idiotic computer AI with ahistorical, bizzare tactics which exploit flaws in the game. For that matter I would get no satisfaction out of beating another human by using these cheats.

[PMCN]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

Don't do it Silk, if you know its unrealistic just don't do it. For me, these kinds of cheats ruin the game, I get no satisfaction out of beating the idiotic computer AI with ahistorical, bizzare tactics which exploit flaws in the game. For that matter I would get no satisfaction out of beating another human by using these cheats.

I have to agree with Ed completely. Why use what you know to be a cheat? To me that spoils the game, the idea is to see if you can do better than historically not to make some sort of "blue" vrs "red" battle. The one PBEM game I tried realy got to me that way, as the person involved was doing all sorts of these bizzare almost cheats. Switching over the entire russian aircraft production to one fighter type for example. I don't even know what else...since I have no interest in knowing how to get around the restrictions on the rules I have no idea what other things could have been going on.

If you want to concentrate your air power go ahead...but you will find that the troops attached to HQs without airpower will suffer higher casulties and loose battles more often. Plus against a human you will find yourself facing the enemy air as well, such a traget it impossible to resist. And eventually they will break in and your airfields will get whacked but good.

[ollittm]

Here are some bugs I didn't see other people posting -

1.
Russians (at least) always lose 1 extra plane during one intercept phase. If I have 6 groups of planes, they suffer 6 losses out of each of their air groups just by intercepting, on top of any losses. So 4 groups of planes intercepting 6 groups would get minimum of 4x6=24 losses.

2.
Incredible regenerating Russians?
I bombed ****e out of a single russian corps in an effort to blunt -41 blizzard advance and it seemed to me that they just kept of getting arbitary boost after each sortie. Every group of planes was doing maybe 30-60 squads of damage and wiping out 6-10 tanks so the corps should've been severely depleted. They were not.

3.
Blizzard weather cripples France and Afrika korps! Also, corps near black sea get equal blizzard penalty as people holding the line east of St. Petersburg. Come on!

4.
Many small groups of planes are much better intercepting than few big ones. With equal equipment + training 30 plane group will intercept about the same amount of fighters as 60 plane group, which is nonsense.

5.
I haven't seen PzJg I production being converted to Marder II by 5/1942

6. If russian counterattack severes railway line to Kharkov, corps near Sevastopol are cut off from OKH railroad replacements. The southern railroad line remains unbroken, however. Supply level is OK, but no transferring troops from west.

7.
Mannerheim will not use any Heer reinforcement divisions assigned to Finnish HQ.

[Mist]

My German units do not obey plotted orders if they are located in the hex (71,62). It is near Baku, so it is slightly important. But I think that it should be fixed since it is VP for Germans. Strange thing indeed, because I can move them where I want to, but still can't plot anywhere!

[Optha]

Ive conquered noth Italia. But after the Allies close up ( and move to Austria), the railroad near Milan dosnt supply my units any longer.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Optha:
Ive conquered noth Italia. But after the Allies close up ( and move to Austria), the railroad near Milan dosnt supply my units any longer.

I don't understand what you mean. Once the Allies get to "Austria" from Italy, all of the Italian peninsula, and its cites and rail lines are out of Axis control. Axis supply comes only from Berlin and one other German city in the West that I can't remember right now. The rail squares still show a supply level of 6, but they are no longer accessible to the Germans (plot movement into these conquered squares is not allowed).

[Optha]

Sorry,

Ive played the soviet side. The allies captured soviet territory and dont supply my units.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Optha:
Sorry,

Ive played the soviet side. The allies captured soviet territory and dont supply my units.

Doh! I should have asked. Yes, I also remember a problem in one game where Soviet units got caught in this area "taken" by the Western Allies. Soviet players should not move forces into Italy, just stop at Trieste and concentrate on Germany.

[7thDiv]

Hi,
I finished Barbarossa due to some strange behaviour of the game (Version 3.0, Human vs. AI). In the situation of winter 1941 the game crashed suddenly and after reloading and continuing with a save, my German Tank Divisions suddenly were equipped with King Tiger and Panther. It was not possible to change the production in the cities to these types. Ok., the result was the same like in a cheat and it happened only once.
Nevertheless, the game is great, especially version 3.0. Congratulations!

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by 7thDiv:
(Version 3.0, Human vs. AI). In the situation of winter 1941 the game crashed suddenly and after reloading and continuing with a save, my German Tank Divisions suddenly were equipped with King Tiger and Panther.

Does the save game already have those new tanks, or do they show up after you load the game? Send me that save file if you still have it.