Quick Questions Thread

[loki100]

as to the volume of losses, your report is T2 so I'd assume the reserve has most of the stuff hammered in T1 that you've been clearing out? if so most will be exp<NM and I suspect far more than normal, once the reserve settles down to a smaller size then I think the losses drop radically, afaik its a pro-rata number to the number of training missions triggered

[M60A3TTS]

yes the malus lifts at the start of April but I tend to find it takes a few turns for this to show, not least there is usually a backlog (check the army freight chart).

Is there somewhere that explains what the malus is?

[loki100]

aye its this pair of constraints:

These rules apply in any turns from June 1941 up to the end of March 1942 but will have particular effect during the winter turns.

Resupply. When carrying freight, Axis vehicles pay double the normal weather movement costs. They also pay an additional 8 MPs for each Blizzard hex entered.
Rail System. When Axis trains are moving freight by rail, the MP cost for each hex is increased by 10 plus the snow level in Blizzard hexes. In non-blizzard hexes if the snow level in a hex is over 5, then the MP cost per hex will be increased by the snow level/2

in 8.6.1 but I think also repeated in the rail and road supply sections later on

[M60A3TTS]

aye its this pair of constraints:

These rules apply in any turns from June 1941 up to the end of March 1942 but will have particular effect during the winter turns.

Resupply. When carrying freight, Axis vehicles pay double the normal weather movement costs. They also pay an additional 8 MPs for each Blizzard hex entered.
Rail System. When Axis trains are moving freight by rail, the MP cost for each hex is increased by 10 plus the snow level in Blizzard hexes. In non-blizzard hexes if the snow level in a hex is over 5, then the MP cost per hex will be increased by the snow level/2

in 8.6.1 but I think also repeated in the rail and road supply sections later on

Yes, 25.4.6

So any reduction in the malus as winter progresses is really just a function of fewer possible blizzard turns that would reduce the number of highest penalty of 10 for SMPs. There is nothing else that changes from Dec>Jan>Feb>Mar.

[loki100]

yes, its keying off the actual weather, so if the winter doesn't generate sustained blizzards then the Axis player gets off lightly. In my current game, if I recall, my opponent only got 3 or 4 blizzard turns in December and Jan and more in Feb-March (at which stage the combat malus has started to drop away)

[Teo41_ITA]

Ok, time for another question:

in the context of a friendly airfield hex pop-up, what does the "Det" number indicate? I looked into both WITE and WITE2 manuals but I could not find the answer. Is that detection? It would not make sense to indicate it for a friendly airbase and not for a hostile one.

Thank you!

[loki100]

really not sure, but my best guess is detection with '1' used in a binary sense (ie owned) rather than keyed to the detection ranges.

I get this for Axis:



this for a Soviet base where I have recon:



And this for a Soviet base with no recon:

[Teo41_ITA]

Thanks for checking Loki.

I am still not sure about it as, for instance, in the 1941 scenario, the Mielec airbase has a "Det 3".

Anyway, thanks for replying! I will skip this detail in my tutorial video!

[loki100]

worked it out ..

did a LH-RH test and its the detection value the enemy has on that base, so 1 - nil etc.

So it tells you what they know about your allocation

amazing what you learn about this game

[Teo41_ITA]

Wooooow! Thank you Loki! I would have never imagined that!

[Veterin]

What is the TB threshold % to start having the chance to receive VP/AP? Is it 110% or 120%?

[loki100]

What is the TB threshold % to start having the chance to receive VP/AP? Is it 110% or 120%?

its anything over (or under) 100% but the chance scales with the gap, so a 1% over is very unlikely to trigger an allocation (but can sometimes)

[Veterin]

What is the TB threshold % to start having the chance to receive VP/AP? Is it 110% or 120%?

its anything over (or under) 100% but the chance scales with the gap, so a 1% over is very unlikely to trigger an allocation (but can sometimes)

Thanks. Do you know what the max amount it scales or the formula of how it scales?

[FortTell]

Do you know what the max amount it scales or the formula of how it scales?

For the penalty:
Your ground troops % is compared against 1d100 (a roll of a 100-sided die) every turn. If the roll is greater, you lose 1 AP and VP.

For the bonus:
You roll 1d(ground troops %) and compare it against a fixed value of 100. If the roll is greater, you gain 1 AP and VP. But, to stop the players from farming those points, the positive events are not guaranteed to happen. When the event fires and you get the bonus, the event will have a 10-25% chance (depending on the exact TB) to reactivate on each new turn.

[Veterin]

Amazing thank you! Last question on TBs.

Is there any disadvantage from putting units or aircraft (training, filling toe etc) from the Reserve to the Transcaucus TB?

Both are 1 turn away from the map and my understanding is morale/experience gain is the same as there is no combat activity there.

[aMaschina]

How to take Sevastopol?

The year is 1942, i have the city isolated by land and by sea, isolation marker is red. There are 100k soviets inside the fortress. I have heavy artillery and pioneers but i can only attack from 3 hexes. I have fast forwarded a lot of turns but the city wont drop in supply. Why and how can I further help my troops? Is it normal that it takes months to conquer Sevastopol?

[loki100]

a) TB vs Reserve. Assuming you haven't locked the TB then I think there remains a small training bonus in the reserve. So if building up low exp air groups is your goal (& it usually is with the Soviets) then best in the reserve. More generally, if you feel you have spare air groups, then think of disbanding if they have decent pilots. Those are then available for on map usage and may keep your front line air groups in action despite losses as they don't pick up low experience untrained replacements

edit: the other advantage to reserve over theatre is you can control the planes they pick up, so if you want to put them on I-series junk so as to push better planes to the map that is what you can do

b) Sevastopol

Sounds like you've done everything right. One issue is this sort of set-piece major assault is one of those times where displayed cv is often misleading (the other is if one side is numerically very weaker). What may happen if you attack is your artillery take out a lot of elements early on (watch the battle at speed 4 for this), so not only do they not add to the final cv, they don't do any more damage in the battle. Its feasible your pioneers and artillery may take out a fort level (which is a huge drop in the cv multiplier for the end of the battle). Finally, its feasible the Soviets are low on supply and may miss in-battle supply rolls (so again unit cv weakens).

Put that together and it can be quite a hit on the defender's strength.

A few patches back, this sort of attack if it failed often left the attacker with depleted units. That doesn't happen now, so a failed attack will cost you but its not going to force 2-3 turns of refit.

Also, as an isolated force, the Soviet defenders will pick up extra fatigue as they clear disruptions and will recover few if any damaged elements.

In effect, they can't recover even from a successful defense, you can.

Or in other words, get stuck in and take the chance ...

[aMaschina]

a) TB vs Reserve. Assuming you haven't locked the TB then I think there remains a small training bonus in the reserve. So if building up low exp air groups is your goal (& it usually is with the Soviets) then best in the reserve. More generally, if you feel you have spare air groups, then think of disbanding if they have decent pilots. Those are then available for on map usage and may keep your front line air groups in action despite losses as they don't pick up low experience untrained replacements

edit: the other advantage to reserve over theatre is you can control the planes they pick up, so if you want to put them on I-series junk so as to push better planes to the map that is what you can do

b) Sevastopol

Sounds like you've done everything right. One issue is this sort of set-piece major assault is one of those times where displayed cv is often misleading (the other is if one side is numerically very weaker). What may happen if you attack is your artillery take out a lot of elements early on (watch the battle at speed 4 for this), so not only do they not add to the final cv, they don't do any more damage in the battle. Its feasible your pioneers and artillery may take out a fort level (which is a huge drop in the cv multiplier for the end of the battle). Finally, its feasible the Soviets are low on supply and may miss in-battle supply rolls (so again unit cv weakens).

Put that together and it can be quite a hit on the defender's strength.

A few patches back, this sort of attack if it failed often left the attacker with depleted units. That doesn't happen now, so a failed attack will cost you but its not going to force 2-3 turns of refit.

Also, as an isolated force, the Soviet defenders will pick up extra fatigue as they clear disruptions and will recover few if any damaged elements.

In effect, they can't recover even from a successful defense, you can.

Or in other words, get stuck in and take the chance ...

Numbers are about even, 100k vs 100k. Fort level starts with 5 and gets grinded down eventually, together with the defender's cv that starts roughly at 4000 in the battle screen and drops to a couple hundred after a few weeks of fighting. I think my force is battle worn and consists to a good chunk of romanians, i will bring some proper german infantry divisions and start to rotate. I know Sevastopol put up a fight IRL so im not mad. However what bothers me is the 100k soviets not running out of supply. Shouldnt they consume huge stockpiles of supply only sitting there, not even fighting? Can the Luftwaffe assist? Is there a supply ground attack order? Is ground support advised in urban combat?

[loki100]

yeah, the Rumanians are no help, they just get themselves killed so best to swap them all out for Geman formations

Bombing the port or railyard does 2 things - it reduces depot capacity and also destroys some freight in the location. it also makes the defender fire AA. If you have a couple of AOG of He-111, Do-217 and the He-177 they can all carry very large bombs and thats ideal for this sort of mission. Set altitude around 18k.

I'm never quite sure this pays off but in my current game I did that to a bypassed Tula for a couple of turns and it seemed to pay off.

if you are playing the AI, you can always run a turn routine solitaire and have a look at the depot - could be informative. But feasibly, its a big port so that is a lot of freight stored there

GS, so so, not least there is probably a lot of AA and the defenders are well protected so the typical lighter bombs associated with GS may not pay off

[aMaschina]

Thanks, great help as always. You are the true living manual sir. o7