Evasion Exploit Biggest Problem with the Game

[dapamdg]

It depends on the differences in tech levels. For example, when Germany invaded Poland the Mark III was the MBT. However, Mark IIs were present in great numbers and even the Mark I was still in service, though already obsolete against other tanks (too big a difference in tech levels!). By 1942, the Mark III (which once had been the MBT) was no longer a front line tank (except in Africa, but that is a different story), having been replaced by the Mark IV. The Mark II, which had still been a useful tank in 1939, could no longer take the field (except for some use as a scouting vehicle in recon units) against enemy armor (again, the advances in armor research had made earlier tanks obsolete). By 1944, the Mark III had gone the way of the Mark II (relegated to recon units, while the Mark II was out of service), as it had been made obsolete by advances in armor design. Here we see how tanks which had been quite useful in 1939 were hopeless in 1944. The game represents this well. Do no research in tanks and you are still fighting with 1939 models and will have no chance against upgraded armor. Research just a little and you might have 1942 versions that might hold up a little while against fully research armor. Research a lot and you have tanks that will dominate lesser armor. All very historical.

The question of upgrading existing units to the new standard is already calculated into the research costs. If you want to see the impact of these costs in a very tangible way, start a game as the WA. Look at the cost to upgrade evasion for armor (you have no armor units at start). Then look at the cost to upgrade evasion for transports. The huge difference in the costs represent the cost of upgrading all existing units to the new standard. Refitting of units is factored into the cost of development and the new "model" is not available until *all* of the existing equipment has been upgraded to the new "model."

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: dapamdg

I believe that the starting Russian armor tech levels represent the T-34, since it was the best tank in the world in 1939 (hence the evasion rating higher than anyone else's). By 1942, the T-34 was still an acceptable platform (no evasion research done), but needed a better gun, which it got in the T-34/85 (the Russians researched armor ground attack, if you will).

As far as i know, the T-34 was the best tank in the world in 1941 (did they even exist in 39, except as prototypes?), and I would claim even in 42 and 43 it was the best tank to be produced in anything close to corps level numbers, if you count strength per construction cost. (The later models had upgraded guns, of course).

[CharonJr]

I think tanks are a very good example for the importance of tech.

Basically the early tanks were unable to penetrate the armor of their late war sloped armored brothers.

Found a table I have been looking for concerning penetration ranges, but for Panther vs. Churchill:

Panther 7.5 Kw.K. penetrates Churchill up to:
2000m (Front Turret)
2000m (Mantlet)
1700m (Glacis)
1700m (Nose)
2000m (Side Turret)
3000m (Super)
3000m (Side Hull)
2800m (Rear Turret)
3500m+ (Rear Hull)

Churchill 75mm M3 penetrates Panther up to:
0 m (Front Turret)
0 m (Mantlet)
0 m (Glacis)
0 m (Nose)
1500m (Side Turret)
400m (Super)
2600m (Side Hull)
1500m (Rear Turret)
1500m (Rear Hull)

Basically in a frontal slugfest a Churchill will not be able to kill a Panther. And the Panther is just 6t heavier (46t) than the Churchill, but was build about 2 years later.

My main problem with tech is the armor rating of WA bombers (as have been discussed in another thread) which will basically mean the the Axis will not be able to stop them when the WAs invest heavily into evasion even while the Axis is researching Air Attack as fast as possible.

And a bomber being able to withstand/deflect 30mm rounds in the 1940s would likely be too heavy to carry any bombs or get of the ground at all

CharonJr

[hakon]

I think armor vs armo is not that bad. My problem with armos is that they are just better than any other ground unit in every way.

IRL, AT artillery was just as dangerous for armor as other armor were, and a lot cheaper. And even a 1940 stuka would be more than capable of killing the heaviest tanks (and later stukas armed with guns even more so). Most tanks were _not_ killed by tanks.....

The advantage of armor is their mobility, shock value and a ability to exploit a breakthrough, a lot more than their firepower and durability. (In fact, they tended to take very high losses). Vs disorganized troops (militia) they should be pretty safe from harm, but vs an estblished defence, armor should take big losses.

Looks like the tech of armor is being balanced in the next patch, though.

[CharonJr]

I think the first T34s appeared in mid 1940 and yes, the T34 was a great design due to its sloped armor it was able to deflect most shots fired at it by the German tanks many of whom were fairly undergunned at the beginning of the war. Great armor, a decent gun and good reliability.

I tend to agree that the T34 was the best tank design till the Panther appreared on the field of battle.

CharonJr

[aletoledo]

at first I loved teching up my units and thought it was cool. next I had it happen against me, obviously I hated it and thought it should be nerfed. Now I think its just fine.

Perhaps the only way some people will be happy with tech is if its removed from the game entirely. perhaps they want everything to be historical in its progression, but they don't want players to devote things as they see fit and end up surprising their opponent.

as many people have already stated, this is a game and not a simulation. after at least a dozen PBEM games, I've seen a lot of different perspectives with tech, the principle lesson is don't neglect research. however you shouldn't neglect units and you shouldn't neglect supply either.

it appears that myself and everyone else initialy didn't appreciate the 'strategy' parts to this game. neglect one of those three areas (research, unit, supply) and you'll lose the game. as the original poster gave an example about "not having supply to move ships", this is neglecting supply. losing against tech'd up tanks is obviously losing to research. next someone is probably going to post a complaint that they lost because the other player had more units than him!

I've tested and played against more than a single player, defense against high tech subs and bombers. in a current game, I've tech'd up my AA to level 10 and his 20 heavy bombers with a 7 evasion don't even attempt to attack anymore.

same happens with sub warfare. I've never seen anyone ever tech up evasion past 4 for subs and I can't imagine them spending that much. teching ASW to 3, together with higher numbers can easily fight off subs.

therefore the only problem with tech I clearly see is a lack of planning. allies should always plan on researching ASW every turn until they see no threat from subs. germany should always research AA, until they see no threat from bombers. its playing catch-up that people here complain about, but when the playing field is level nobody seems to mind the system. therefore plan a strategy to keep the playing field level, instead of playing catch-up.

[ratprince]

Aletoledo;

You said it!

I wholeheartedly agree!

The game has nuances within nuances. To let slip one is to lose the game! That is the greatness and profound simplicity of WAW!

Later

Mike

[Barthheart]

Aletoledo,

Far better said than I've been trying to for a while now.[&o]

[SeaMonkey]

I like the idea of tweaking the WS somewhat, but I feel a better solution is to enter some alternative strategy to "high teching". If the game can be balanced to the ebb and flow of tech and counter-tech scenarios so prominent in WW2 then I believe we could take a page out of the SC book and allow tech catchup strategies.

It is simply a realistic simulation of actual events that captured equipment presented the captors with the ability to reverse engineer the technical aspects of weaponry.

If a player decides to tech up and gets to far ahead of his opponent then eventually his opponent's scientists will imploy his tech upgrades through captured equipment with much less investment of resources.

Simply ,in the tech application screen allow a player to make lesser investments to get to the next level in ratio with the level of his opponent's advantage.

Example: Let's say the evasion for the next level of tanks costs equal level opponents 7 PP. One of the players get and advancement, making the other behind. Immediately in the next turn for the behind player, the investment to attain the same level as his opponent, will now be reduced to say 5 PP investment instead of 7. If the advanced player techs up to two levels above his opponent, then his opponent's PP investment to gain the next level will go down to 3 PPs and so on and so forth.

What this will do is introduce another strategic level to the tech game and does a good job of simulating advancements made by capturing your opponents hardware.

[Delphinium]

This counter tech is key, my view is that if you ever get 2 ahead, it should be possible say for minimal reseach to leap to one behind, but not level - make that cost a bit more. This has to some degree to apply to counter tech. You can ignore tech, but you will spend a few turns always slightly behind, but you will catch up quickly - so that teching up forces you to use it decisively at once before the edge goes. This is a good solution for the tech problem IMHO

[dembe73]

Some background on the battle being displayed:
In the game we are talking about Rodent actually has the numbers behind him: the strenght of the Allied is the production capacity, the Axis the advantage of the first strike and freedom of movement before 1943. We are playing without an end date, so in the long run the Axis should lose because of being outproduced, unless they pull a stunt and manage to use their specific advantages to create a victory before that happens.

My plan was to attack India via Africa/Persia, but in round 1 or 2 Rodent used all his navy to take the Med. He burned huge amounts of supply, but succeeding in reaching that goal: one of my transports got damaged and ended up in Vichy, unable to move (sucks), the rest of my navy also took damage and had to retreat. So much for that plan..

My backup plan was to pull off Sealion using additional transports, parachutes and with risk of losing the naval forces from Kiel,effectively losing any control of the waters.

To destroy the strenghth of the main Allied advantage, the production capacity I upped my submarine fleet to disrupt transport routes and used advanced bombers to prepare the invasion. At some point I managed to take Schotland and later England,effectively capturing 5 efficient factories near the front line (from a WA perspective that is, they are almost useless to the Axis because they are difficult to hold).

Next thing is Russia: I think if both invest in tank tech the Germans are slightly up till the 9/9 model, after that the cost of research is just terrible, if you have the numbers that mean anything on the front, so Russia can get even again in tech for a number of turns, also having the 9/9. Question is what to do after that: continue to invest, or create more tanks as they will hold out against all types of units, except other tanks.

Rodent bought a few tanks earlier and he is using those to destroy the Japs that were busy conquering parts of Russia before I attacked with the Germans. My idea there was to just wear him out and destroy some resources until I could redeploy the Germans, but Sealion took longer to complete than I thought and he is now driving the Japs back completely, mainly due to Japan lacking anything to match his tanks.

When Japan entered the war he retreated most of his border forces. I didnt know that he would be able to redeploy them also in the Western side, I though they could only be moved to the East or had to stay where they are.

He only kept one large border garison in Khiev, which was a lot bigger than anything I could muster (Sealion is pretty expensive), but his stack contained mostly artillery (will be destroyed by my airforce), infantery (for my tanks) and 3 tanks with 7 attack, 9 evasion (they will absorb a number of hits).

I think in the start of the Russian battle Germany HAS to win terrain to destroy Russian production or destroy more units than Russia can spare and just threaten to advance, because in a few turns a two front war starts with the immense production of the USA.

I choose for destroying units now to make sure he has to bring back his tanks from the East front to stop the German tank driven advance My poor Japanese infantery is currently getting slaughtered by the dozen. Only using tanks and airplanes was the most efficient way, because his huge stack of artillery would completely destroy any infantery I would bring in the batte. I understand this is a bit frustrating for him, but I also think I have looked at the whole game as a game of strategy and not just looked at easy exploits to get the victory. Both sides just have to use their specific qualities to reach their specific goals. At the moment he still produces 50 percent more than me, but I have the offensive. I dont know if I can win or that he will stall me and be able to turn the tide or even completely crush me with the Americans.

Winning a battle is one thing, winning the war something else.

Dembe

[pyrhic]

good thread, so many points...

on T-34: arguably, the best tank of the war. The panther was based on it..

on armor superiority: tank armor/penetrating power helps protect a tank. All tanks were destructible, even by inferior tanks. Often quoted, it took 5 shermans to take out a tiger. The WA in particular had problems fielding a tank that was on par with the best germany had, however by throwing in numbers and cutting off supply, they did the job. It's very difficult to do this in game...unless you surround and cut off a tank formation, superior numbers of inferior troops cannot kill armor....don't forget, even today's best tanks can be destroyed/rendered inoperative by rather simple weapons by infantry (particularly in urban settings)

Ale: heh, you talking about me? You're right, i try to avoid sending my fragile, defenseless, bombers into your 6 stack, teched up, AA guns. But i always use them....

You made the perfect point about balance though. There's a lot of punch/counterpunch to this game and that's what makes it good. You have to be aware of what your opponent is doing and start preparing your response knowing that it'll be 4 turns before your production/research goal is completed...

[Grotius]

Why does lend lease have to begin only once Germany invades the USSR?

Well, there was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, by which Germany and the USSR were allies of sorts. Note that the game reflects this relationship by requiring Russian resource aid to Germany til war breaks out.

As for tech, I too hope for a bit of tweaking. But in general, the answer is to keep pace in the tech war. So far I've found that I can keep the enemy "within reach" if I anticipate his tech moves and watch his research every turn.

[hakon]

Dembe73:

Attacking russia with Japan before you do so with Germany, is a _huge_ strategic blunder, and should usually cost you the game. Russia can at any time strategically redeploy forces into our out of politically frozen territory. By moving out of, and later into, he can redeploy freely. Usually, russia will loose very big forces an a lot of territory on the first turn of a barbarossa, and if you really want japan to be a pain in the a$s for russia, attack on the same turn. (Which is too effective, to the point that the Russian OOB on japanese front should be changed significantly.)

With no time limit, it is of course impossible for you to win the game, espcially if you dont play with the 70-point rule. From 43, american production is simply too huge for that. (The US alone can produce for 72 points per turn). I think the only way to actually win the war as the axis, is to take control of more than half of the resources on the map (africa, india and the pacific islands would probably do), or at least permanently win the naval war, else the western allies will have almost 100 production by themselves from about Wi43.

Without teching beyond 9-9 armor you will also be crushed eventually. It is better to keep the number reasonably low (below 20) untill you have about 12-12 tech. Evasion is way more important than attack, especially as long as russia has little that can hurt you. (He has 7 attack means 6-36 damage vs tanks, with an average of 21. With 9 evasion, your defence is 27 meaning that he has to be lucky to score a hit. With a defence of 30, hits become very unlikely, but if you remain at 7, and he increses to 8 attack, that is 24.5 avergage vs 27, which makes hits much more likely)

If you attack every turn, the russian army will dwindle, but as long as the allies make sure to keep japan small, you can hardly hit 70 production, even if you manage to take vladivostok (which is very unlikely).

My guesstimate is that you are dead sometime in 47 or 48, sooner if you start mass-producing armor instead of continuing to tech.

I am sure you both have learned a lot from this game, but before the next game, i suggest reading the manual [:-] It is actually very good, and a very neccessary read. Especially the detailed parts combat resolution, retreat priorities, frozen areas and production multiples.

[dembe73]

Hakon, as for reading the manual, section 3.2.6 suggests that he should not be allowed to move units WITHIN the frozen zone? I remembered reading something like this when I attacked and didnt really care because I thought my Sealion was over soon. If he could make a front with his Western troops and hold Japan: still no problem because I destroyed some resources and he needs to burn supply to restore them. The only thing that bugged me was the fact that he seemed to be able to move within the zone, making a tactical retreat possible and reorganizing all his forces to withstand the German threat, otherwise I would have destroyed 20-30 units on the first turn of war and completely beat Russian defence.

Now that I re-read that line it is probably misleading: its says it may move non-factory units strategegically into and out of the Frozen zones, but may not move them tactically within the frozen zones. I thought this also meant not being able to move them strategically WITHIN the frozen zone (as opposed to moving them into or out of Frozen zones)

Loosing 2 times in combat in a row in both Scotland and England made the early Japanese raid a painfull mistake indeed. As for it being impossible to win: dont forget I wiped out most of his transport fleet to slow down WA entry and have the edge over Russia right now. Also the only resources the WA collect are from the US, everything else except India and Australia are already captured or not within transport links. If I can capture Russia it should be victory for Axis imo.

[Grifman]

ORIGINAL: RodentDung
Some BB's had pretty good AA outfits like the Prince of Wales & Repulse almost held their own and the Musashi even fired gigantic shotgun shells at planes from its 18 inch guns. Does it cause problems in games?

No insult intended but I think it's ironic that you list as your examples of good AA defense three ships sunk entirely from the air And the Musashi didn't hit a damn thing with those "behive" charges

I think a better example would be US Iowa class BBs if you're looking a AA defense . . .

[RodentDung]

ORIGINAL: Grifman

ORIGINAL: RodentDung
Some BB's had pretty good AA outfits like the Prince of Wales & Repulse almost held their own and the Musashi even fired gigantic shotgun shells at planes from its 18 inch guns. Does it cause problems in games?

No insult intended but I think it's ironic that you list as your examples of good AA defense three ships sunk entirely from the air And the Musashi didn't hit a damn thing with those "behive" charges

I think a better example would be US Iowa class BBs if you're looking a AA defense . . .

Well, I read books on each of these ships as well as the Tirpitz sinking. The Musashi was one of the hardest ships to sink by air and took hundreds of sorties to put it away repeated over and over. Scores of planes were shot up in the process, though mostly damaged rather than shot down. But damaged is still hit.

The Japanese had a real tough time taking out the Prince and Repulse cause they had expert crews and hundreds of machine guns added on. Again, many bombing and torpedo runs which almost seemed they were going to fail. Not many planes were shot down but dozens were converted to swiss cheese which would be represented as 'damaged' in the game. Lots of planes went back to factories after that one.

The Tirpitz had the best record for AA defense of any ship in history. Many planes were shot down over the year or so of repeated bombing runs which were mostly a disasterous waste of reasources for the British. They resorted to a frogmen assault in minisubs placing charges on the hull cause the bombers had no luck but this also failed despite good effort by the frogs. Out of options, they had to design and construct huge armor penetrating bombs of which a Lancaster could carry only one and then pray they hit in order to achieve success. These were delivered in a very accurate bombing run and finally sunk the stubborn ship.

This is just to give proper credit to these ships defenses; however, I can go with Uncle Joe's advice if BB's AA can be researched up to score kills with each shot. I haven't seen this yet ingame so I don't know the effect. It could give the USA an unfair advantage over the Japanese if the hits are guaranteed every time.

[RodentDung]

ORIGINAL: dembe73

Loosing 2 times in combat in a row in both Scotland and England made the early Japanese raid a painfull mistake indeed. As for it being impossible to win: dont forget I wiped out most of his transport fleet to slow down WA entry and have the edge over Russia right now. Also the only resources the WA collect are from the US, everything else except India and Australia are already captured or not within transport links. If I can capture Russia it should be victory for Axis imo.

The whole problem is tech, not resources or available units. The allied side on our game radically outnumber the axis in units. As for transports, I preserved and hid almost all of the UK transports from around Africa, India and in the Atlantic and they were being sent half to the Atlantic and half to the Pacific to add to the dozen or so I had produced. So I had an overkill amount of transports with capacity also going up next turn with cruiser and carrier air ASW teched-up.

The big problem that killed the game was the German tanks were absolutely unhittable. Obviously were you exploiting this by attacking with your tanks against huge outposts of Russians and repeating it until no Russians were left cause you knew I couldn't hit you. I had a northern mass of units as well so no doubt you'd move up your tanks and do repeated assaults on them too with no hits to yourself in the process. You'd pick up the territory after all the Russians were dead. These are gamey tactics designed to subvert strategy so I lost interest. I just don't think that is an intelligent way to force an opponent to resign. Unfortunately it forces the Russians to spend all tech on tanks and only build tanks cause nothing else can hit German tanks. There goes variety and strategy and reduces the game to a tech race, first ASW vs sub evade, then tank tech. Its good the developers are looking into it.

[Uncle_Joe]

A note for all of the 'research is fine' folks:

The problem is NOT that you cant 'counter-research' and make something that can kill an opposing unit. The problem is that once you do so, OTHER units become obsolete? In the example of the 10 tech AA, is it really worth building Fighters anymore? I doubt it.

How about once Tanks hit 11-11 or even 10-10. Do you bother with those 8-8 Infantry anymore? If so, why? The same goes for bombers. Once you have teched up the Heavies a bit, there is no point in building Tac unless you want to waste money on redundant tech.

So, as you can see, there IS a problem with research and that problem is that it pays too many dividends to specialize. I'm sure Germany would have loved to have built nothing but Panthers by '44. Unfortunately, the world doesnt work that way (although the game will allow it). So, the change to the WS for Armor makes it so that they cant so easily outclass the other unit types in the game. Ditto for Heavy Bombers and their Durability. Again, an alert opponent can definately make something to counter them, but unfortunately, those units will then tend to be the vast majority of units built for the rest of game.

Does that make sense?

[Beatrix Kiddo]

I hear what you are saying, but I don't agree.

Let's say I build 2 8-8 Inf for every 1 10-10 Arm you build.

In combat, I'll get one shot at 7*3.5 (24.5 attack) vs your 10*3 (30 defense). Then I'll get a follow up shot at 7*3.5 (24.5 attack) vs your 9*3 (27 defense).

Your armor gets one shot at 10*3.5 (35 attack) vs my [8*4 (32 defense) OR {if my first shot damaged you} 9 *4 (36 defense)]

I think the most likely outcome is you get a hit and I get maybe half of a hit. But here's the rub: You lose half of 2 PP's and I lose 1 PP in the exchange. I'm loving this match up because you can't take ground from me with a 1:2 ratio.

Infantry *isn't* made obselete by 10-10 Armor. 11-11 Armor does make 8-8 Infantry pretty unappealing, but maybe I have 3 Infantry for every Armor you have then. And that means I win every single battle we have because you can never take a territory from me and you can never hold a territory either. Even if you kill one and I miss with 3 - I still have a 2:1 ratio and you must retreat.