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I am leaning towards reconstructing them...btw. has anyone looked at the panzer war to any detail? I mean as I've said before right now the losses are pretty much equal in any battle. The german tanks lack the hitting power they had.

IMO all units should be reconstructable at the choice of the player....something for ToaW V perhaps!

Hey Buzz! What's the latest on shock levels? What levels are you using and how are they working out? Also, how is 'no cease fire' working out?

1. For shock I have the soviet shock at 95 till after the winter offensive then 98 for 1942 then 100+ for the remainder of the game. Now how it is working depends on who the german player is. In one game that is using this mod I was told the soviets had basically stopped the germans west of smolensk. Not an aggressive german player I guess. In my game I have been stopped in the south by stalino but took tula just before mud. I have cut all rr's to leningrad and am threatening Kalinn.
So I think I will need to bump it up to 98 for 41 and 42. 95 till turn 13 then 98. Will wait to see how the 98 works out.
Now against a good to excellent german player the sovs will be toast I think. Concentrating on a limited number of fronts with heavy arty will blast into Moscow early. Also at 95 there are still a lot of sov armies freezing in place (or SMK is just teasing me by letting me kill them).
2. Haven't had the opportunity to test out the shock as a replacement for the cease fires. One game that has this mod is just starting so I will have to wait to see if this works.

Pictures, we wanna see some pictures.

I know this wasn't the kind of picture you were looking for, but it's kinda neat. The map you provided now has little red x's where the production cities are. Maybe it helps some in not having to scroll all over searching.

Why doesn't Archangel have an X?  Isn't there some kinda % for the Germans capturing Archangel?

I went back thru the briefing and didn't see anything about Archangel. The x's are only for production cities (not supply), these are the ones marked on the actual game map [i.e. 'Kiev (5%)]but I did notice that Stalingrad is marked as a 10% city but it is not listed in the briefing. I will add an x for Stalingrad but won't repost it, to save space here. If anybody wants it, I will e-mail it to you. And if anybody notices there are any other production cities not listed in the briefing, please let me know. Thanks!

ORIGINAL: Zort

1. Also at 95 there are still a lot of sov armies freezing in place (or SMK is just teasing me by letting me kill them).

I wish!!

No - if a unit or group appears to ahve frozen in the headlight's it's 'cos it's gone into reorg - I can't tell whether this is due to shock or casualties or whatever, but often it's a whole army so I'm pretty sure that means shock - it happens as THE most inopportune moments some times!!

IIRC capturing Archangel lowers Soviet supply rather than production.

To anyone who is playing my mod 5 or 6, seems once I learned how withdraws worked I forgot to change the german Kav div's color. So when it withdraws all the german inf HQ's in the game go with it. Dang, sorry bout that. Oh yea it happens on turn 39. SMK wanted me to reduce the german art anyhow.

I will correct this and send a new mod out if you want it. I am sorry for this mistake, just forgot to apply what I learn sometimes.

ORIGINAL: Zort
. . . once I learned how withdraws worked I forgot to change the german Kav div's color. So when it withdraws all the german inf HQ's in the game go with it. Dang . . .

I know a better word than "dang".

Would like to see withdraw changed to act on formations rather than army "colors". Or, in order not to damage existing scenarios, add "withdraw formation" as a new event effect while retaining the existing withdraw army event. There is already a withdraw option for individual units so hopefully this would not be a difficult addition.

Regards, RhinoBones

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: Zort
. . . once I learned how withdraws worked I forgot to change the german Kav div's color. So when it withdraws all the german inf HQ's in the game go with it. Dang . . .

I know a better word than "dang".

Would like to see withdraw changed to act on formations rather than army "colors". Or, in order not to damage existing scenarios, add "withdraw formation" as a new event effect while retaining the existing withdraw army event. There is already a withdraw option for individual units so hopefully this would not be a difficult addition.

Regards, RhinoBones

Yeah, it's been suggested. Would be nice.

More talk about revamping, or modding, FITE has been taking place in the AAR section.  Some "complaints" that I have heard or said:
1. To easy for the Germans/Soviets to win/lose (knowledge of game mechanics)
2. Small units are too hard to kill (game mechanics)
3. Production is to much, not enough (mostly player driven but needs to be improved)
4. Soviet air is too strong (scenario design)
5. Limited to 2000 units per side, soviets can't break down. (game mechanics)
 
It is hard to get a balanced game this large/long with the editor being the way it. 
 
Small units is a "easy" fix, do away with them.  For the soviet thats the MP units and recon.  For the Germans that means the Pz Divs will lose their small recon guys.  Do away with partizans, germans lose mp, sec divs will have to stay in but not be active until later in the game.
 
Production, should it be historical or something playable?
 
Soviet air, I believe a fix is no replacements for the first 15 turns (?).  Then production clicks in.
 
I also like the idea of the theater options of Sweden and Turkey but they can be done away with or if kept in then there needs to be a change in the production units to reflect those countries.  Also the axis increase of 5% production should be taken out.
 
Since I don't really like a lot of house rules, Finland comes to mind.  Lots of attention is given to that front.  Either beaf up the Finns so they aren't a cakewalk to kill or do away with that theater by freezing all units on both sides of the border (the soviet army that was historically there). 
 
Should the soviet early war tanks be tuned down in combat ability?
 
Should the Germans go to divisions vice regts?  Now the german can decide to break down units.
 
Do away with all ships.
 
Some ideas.  Hope to get some input.

Another possibility is to move up in scale.  Moving up to 25km hexes and 1 week turns allows a lot more flexibility to both the OOBs as well as events. 
 
 

1. It's difficult to balance something with such historical swings in superiority from 41-42 to 43-45. I wouldn't attempt to do it. A superior player should do better than an inferior one, mostly.

2. Yes, no ant units at this scale.

3. Production. I have a simple yet advanced production model that I am in the process of getting a patent on so I unfortunately can't discuss it. Ha! Just kidding. I have no idea what to say about production other than the original designers did an excellent job.

4. Soviet air - Could changing the shock have the desired effect? Currently the Soviet air shock reaches 100 at turn 10 (July 20). Even though the Germans have positive shock thru '42, the Soviets have 'recovered' by turn 10. Maybe their shock should be negative for a longer period. (Much longer [:D]).

5. I really don't like the whole aspect of units breaking down. It does, however, come in quite handy sometimes. I have never played the Soviet side but I can imagine it could be frustrating not being able to. On the other hand, one could argue that the Soviet army was not flexible at all, and the idea of not being able to break down units helps to reproduce that fact in the scenario environment.

Sweden and Turkey can both be ignored when up against the PO. I don't know how much effect they have on pbem games.

I always think Finland should be left out. Historically nothing was going to happen up there. When it comes to design features I often think of not just what Adolf would have done or wanted to do, but what the High Command wanted done, as this would then put it in the realm of possibilty. Nobody anywhere had any great plans for large scale operations up there. The Finns were established in there position of not being active allies of the Germans, they were just there to protect their interests. Finland was also encouraged by the west to not help the germans take Leningrad, and Stalin was strongly discouraged not to threaten Finlands' sovereignty. Want to add some flavor to the scenario and increase playabilty? Remove Finland and Norway from the map and add a theatre option for the Germans to evacuate the 20th Mountain Army, and then add it to the oob. (Sorry, I just love making the Germans stronger!).

Soviet early tank ability. I have thought that the early Soviet Mech forces should have much lower proficiency than the current 60% most of them have. Maybe as low as 40%. Or using bio-ed to modify the tanks would work.

Um, from where I sit, German divisions are much better than regiments.

Ships can go, this a land battle. The Soviets used most of their naval ranks as infantry. German capital ships were never put at risk.

That's what I think, for the moment.

"Small units is a "easy" fix, do away with them. For the soviet thats the MP units and recon. For the Germans that means the Pz Divs will lose their small recon guys. Do away with partizans, germans lose mp, sec divs will have to stay in but not be active until later in the game."

I would say combine the german recon elements into one regiment sized unit. Maybe throw in the panzer divisions AT or stug battalions to make it pretty strong.

For the soviets do the same thing, combining their motorcycle units.

I agree get rid of partisans and mp units.


"Production, should it be historical or something playable? "
I don't know if historic production would overwhelm germans are not, but I think production should be made less dependent on the capture of cities.

"Soviet air, I believe a fix is no replacements for the first 15 turns (?). Then production clicks in."
I think lower soviet air shock might do the trick. Or maybe lower proficiency for their units.



"Since I don't really like a lot of house rules, Finland comes to mind. Lots of attention is given to that front. Either beaf up the Finns so they aren't a cakewalk to kill or do away with that theater by freezing all units on both sides of the border (the soviet army that was historically there)."

Well if you got rid of FInland, Turkey and Sweden that would be a lot more space for units on both sides, and I don't think it would subtract from the game.

"Should the soviet early war tanks be tuned down in combat ability?"
Hard to say, soviet bt5, bt7, and t26 tanks were all absolute crap because they had only 15mm of armor and bad crews.
T34 and especially kv1 were better but soviet tactics and crews were still very bad.
Maybe you could lower the proficiency of tank units. Also you could put soviet tank brigades on internal support to make them less effective while attacking. I find armor units act strangely in TOAW. You can have a tank battle between 300 tanks and 300 infantry squads on each side. Many infantry will die, but only 5 or so tanks. From what I have read and seen from historical tank battles tanks often die as fast as anything else, especially if they are soviet tanks.

One thing you could try is to make tank units 100% tanks and then lower the armor/defense values for the tanks. I would have to do some testing but I think if the unit is all tank the tanks are more likely to be hit.

"Should the Germans go to divisions vice regts? Now the german can decide to break down units."
I don't know, doesn't splitting a unit lower its proficieny 20% or 15%? This seems like it would be a big penalty.

"Do away with all ships. "
I think this is a good idea, or just combine all ships into 1 fleet.

One thing I was thinking about is getting rid of all the soviet fortress regions units. I believe there is 45 or so of these. Replace them with rifle divisions. Give the division 1/0 of some heavy piece of equipment so they start off with a movement of 1, but when they recostruct they are normal rifle divisions.

If you got rid of MP units (40)
Changed fortress units to RD's (45)
Got rid of soviet forces in finland and turkish border (40?)
Pared down the number of AA and AT regiments (80 to 40?)
And combine some motrocycle regiments (20?)
Got ride of ships (10?)
You could have nearly 200 more units for soviets.

IMO having hte Russian front without partizans is like havinghte Battle of Britain without Defiants...sure they didn't affect thefront line battle, but they're serious colour and interst - leave them!

Pz/Mot divisoin recce could be merged into a single unit per divisoin, but IMO the Soviet army-level recce units are fine - they only get 1 per army & they can seriously use some decent recce troops.

You can only get rid of the ships if you substitute for them with fixed defences IMO - for Krondstadt that's not much of a problem - you can probably convert the single impassable hex into some kind of fortress and make it the Baltic fleet an immobile.  The Arctic fleet doesnt' matter much, but hte Black Sea fleet is reasonably important - I did suggest to Zort that it could be formed into just 1 or 2 units instead of the 4 or 5 it is - based around a BB each IIRC.

Soviet AA & AT can't be reduced IMO - it's already at a regimental level and fairly minimal in terms of "real" units.

Soviet air shock can be reasonably reduced to something like 80 for 1941, 90 for 1942 IMO.

Finland is fun.....but Zort is thinking of doing away with it north of the Arctic Circle and "freezing" it's initial positions as being those the Finns advanced to, and the Soviet garrisons opposite them.

Turkey and Sweden can be discarded without any 2nd thought IMO, but not the Soviet units facing Turkey, since they will be called to fight if the Axis gets that far.

Iran - the Soviets used the 44th, 47th and 53rd armies ot invade Iran and didn't withdraw until 1946, but I dont' know if htis means those armies remained there - I doubt it, but some troops obviously did although only in hte far north - Iran was essentially turned into a client state rather than fully occupied.

The Fortified regions are fine as is IMO - they represent real units that existed right up to the end of the war - many were still active in 1945 occupying less active areas of the front - replacing them with Rifle divisions is unjustified - some may have been converted, but by no means all.

The "Real" answer isn't reducing units to try to fit things into hte current system...it's TOAW 4 with a 100,000 unit limit![8D][&o]

Yes, the 44th, 46th and 47th Armies moved back from the Turk/Iran frontier to protect the Caucasus passes when the Germans approached them. The 45th Army was left behind, I'm not sure about the 53rd Army, I don't have that one in any of my stuff.

The motorcycle battalions were disbanded at the end of '41 for being ineffective in their role. That's why in the game they do not reconstitute. Combining them with the recce/aufklar battalions won't be a nice thing to do, but their equipment could be added to the auf's without changing the authorized level. Then they would eventually be disbanded on their own.

I agree to leave the fort regions as is.

A divisions proficiency reduces 15% when subdivided. I don't believe this has any adverse affect on the scenario. All of the German infantry units start at 80% proficiency, which is detrimentally high in many instances. And as it is easily raised to a scary 90% or more, when it becomes necessary to divide a unit, it will rarely go low enough to matter. On the Soviet side, if a division could subdivide, it's scattered pieces could have a proficiency as low as 45%. Neat.

Does anybody know what the actual role of the Soviet mp regiments was? It seems a shame to delete them, and it is probably disrespectful to do so. Could their equipment be thrown into some Hq units, freeing up their unit slots while still having them represented?

Soviet recon regiments are very 'ant'y on their own. They could be combined with cavalry divisions or tank brigades from the same army.

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The "Real" answer isn't reducing units to try to fit things into hte current system...it's TOAW 4 with a 100,000 unit limit!

Plus increasing the map size so that it can be extended to the Pacific. Then the Japanese can join in on the fun.