patch update

[Marshall Art]

Regarding air targeting -

since the transports represent actual fleets or groups of ships, that IMO adds to my point that just by sending two air units against two fleet units you should not have a guarantee to actually target both of them, thus sinking ALL ships in both fleets. You should have to send two strikes, or more than 2 units to "assure" significant destruction. Attacks often came in waves, so leaving a chance that one wave misses its assigned target (e.g. because it was already sunk shortly before) should remain IMO. I know that all attackers like the one-on-one distribution but it still appears non-realistic to me.

Since the BBs, DDs and even CVs also are considered to be groups of ships I would maintain that while of course some re-direction during battle was possible there should not be a full one-on-one assignment. No air squadron would intentionally attack trannies or DDs if they knew BBs or CVs were still around? They rather would due to miscommunication, missighting, misidentification or simply because they ran out of fuel and did not want to waste good bombs. This could well lead to a couple of units not getting attacked at all, those would mostly be Transport and DDs.

[SGT Rice]

I tend to agree with Art that this is an option the Axis are unlikely to use ... if I'm reading it correctly it requires 30 supply points to bring one of these resources online. That means the resource will have to stay in production for six turns just to pay for itself. This seems to require that the resources be very safe ... the Axis have run the table in Africa & India, while the Russians are too weak to threaten the Middle East from the Caucasus. In such a situation the Axis are probably on their way to an AV anyway. Seems to me that in a competitive game the Axis are extremely unlikely to have 30 supplies to burn to bring a remote, at-risk resource online.

I would suggest that the missing element in the simulation is the uniqueness of oil as a strategic resource. It's not some generic supply that can be obtained anywhere, but that's the way it's treated in AWD - there's no functional difference between your undeveloped oilfields in Iraq and the mines in Kiev; except that all 3 of those mines can brought online for the same cost as one of the oil wells. Aside from that, they all generate the same generic supply points

Unless you're able to create a second category of supplies (fuel) that are required in order to move ships/tanks/aircraft, then it would be very difficult to represent the strategic importance of oil in a meaningful fashion. I know that the game engine keeps track of where things come from (those little country flags are even displayed on supply points). Would it be possible to 'flag' supply points from designated factories (refineries), restrict the resources that can be shipped to those factories/refineries, and then require the resulting 'fuel' points in order to move ships/tanks/aircraft?

Sorry, just daydreaming.

[christian brown]

The air targeting issue, my 2 cents:

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

But if you send in both air units but one air unit at a time, you hit both transports.

The results are counter intuitive

The results are counter intuitive

That's the crux, isn't it?
I think it highly important to remember that MANY fleets are damaged, representing not damaged vessels, rather damaged fleets. Perhaps the singleness of the icon is beclouding our judgement; a damaged fleet is after all basically half a fleet, albeit one very disorganized and in need of physical/moral repair.
I do not agree at all with the notion that it's unrealistic to expect a commander to divvy their air resources like this: "squadron/wing/airfleet X against the heavies, squadron/wing/airfleet Y versus the troopships, squadron/wing/airfleet Z versus escorts, etc."
IMO, there is still enough random chance in the combat system (autohits, vet/elite gains, the die rolls themselves) to fairly realistically simulate the sometimes unbelievably successful as well as abysmally useless air versus fleet attacks.
The true bottom line for me is that the game should always at least attempt to model results that reward actions based on tried and true principles; in this case the intuitive use of overwhelming force in one place (many air units against a group of fleets.) The game should not reward the player who commits his forces in penny packets.
Simply said, my vote is to keep the targeting weights the same as they are.......with the addition suggested above to parcel out the airstrikes so that doubling (or tripling, etc.) occurs less frequently.

[Marshall Art]

ORIGINAL: christian brown

The true bottom line for me is that the game should always at least attempt to model results that reward actions based on tried and true principles; in this case the intuitive use of overwhelming force in one place (many air units against a group of fleets.) The game should not reward the player who commits his forces in penny packets.

I do agree with that. However the way you want the change made you would still end up doing the single packets in a lot of cases. Namely to prevent half of your air forces attacking unimportant targets.

If 5 CAGs attack a fleet composed of 3 CVs one DD and a Trannie please don't tell me a commander would want to have the DD and trannie attacked rather then all forces at the CVs??

The way you want it a battle result might look like: 1 CV sunk, one damaged, one DD and Trannie sunk. There would not be a "attacked before" modifier applies here.

INSTEAD of: 2 CVs sunk, one damaged, no CAG cared about the DDs and trannies. Note that one of the CVs might have been attacked by 2 CAGs, where the first one did damage but the second actually sunk the CV, since the second attack is more effective due to modifiers.

What makes more sense?

One more point which leads into a new suggestion: Whenever a force attacks out of which not all units fire (can be an air fleet, a surface fleet), it used to be that the units who did not fire could move and attack again (at least that was true for surface fleets). Why not making this an option again? This way you have your chance to have all air attack but you do not construct a situation where unwanted/unimportant targets must be attacked by rule.

It think if you are so concerned about double-teaming or non-firing of some air units it is a valid point to ask that the same will not be permitted for surface fleets, and also for land units. My experience is that in many cases there is still a target out there (maybe damaged) but some units just do not get a shot. In surface fleet engagements sometimes I get [:@] because three enemy fleets hurt three of mine, while my fleets concentrate on one or two only. How just is that?

[BoerWar]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

[*] modify Russian militia mobilization, so that it won't occur if Russia attacks Germany before Germany attacks Russia.

I hope by "Russia attacks Germany" you mean that they actually move forces into Germany controlled territory as opposed to automatically cancelling these units when the war counter says Russia may attack. Otherwise a new German strategy to keep all of those militia off the board will be to build until the war counter maxs out and then strike. You may lose the one suprise attack, but it might be worth it.

[MrQuiet]

ORIGINAL: BoerWar

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

[*] modify Russian militia mobilization, so that it won't occur if Russia attacks Germany before Germany attacks Russia.

I hope by "Russia attacks Germany" you mean that they actually move forces into Germany controlled territory as opposed to automatically cancelling these units when the war counter says Russia may attack. Otherwise a new German strategy to keep all of those militia off the board will be to build until the war counter maxs out and then strike. You may lose the one suprise attack, but it might be worth it.

What he means is Russia actually initiates combat vs Germany, not nessesarily moving forces into German Lands.
And not just DOW vs Germany.
Could be air or Naval attack in the Baltic for example.
I wonder how long the standoff could realisticly go before SU would 'have to attack' if they want to win the war?

[BoerWar]

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

ORIGINAL: BoerWar

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

[*] modify Russian militia mobilization, so that it won't occur if Russia attacks Germany before Germany attacks Russia.

I hope by "Russia attacks Germany" you mean that they actually move forces into Germany controlled territory as opposed to automatically cancelling these units when the war counter says Russia may attack. Otherwise a new German strategy to keep all of those militia off the board will be to build until the war counter maxs out and then strike. You may lose the one suprise attack, but it might be worth it.

What he means is Russia actually initiates combat vs Germany, not nessesarily moving forces into German Lands.
And not just DOW vs Germany.
Could be air or Naval attack in the Baltic for example.
I wonder how long the standoff could realisticly go before SU would 'have to attack' if they want to win the war?

OK, that makes sense, just would hate to see a gamey situation develop where just becasue the war counter ran up to the point where Russia could declare war it wouldn't get it's militia even though Germany attacked the next turn.

[Lebatron]

If the Axis are close to AV and could protect their investment in the Middle East for at least one turn, why wouldn't they exploit these resources? You guys say to be worth it the resource would have to be online for several turns. Not if it gives you AV or the lesser Axis victory shift. If a game was balanced then yes these resources would probably never be exploited because Germany would never reach the Middle East. It's all about cost vs payoff, and if the right balance between cost and delay to exploit is found, then this new addition to the game gives us all more strategic options to explore. How in any way is that a bad thing?

[Lebatron]

All this talk about air sorties and such seems misplaced to me. This is a grand strategy game not a tactical one. For instance, when one tac air strikes a transport fleet I don't see that as one attack. And when a second is sent out to get a second transport, I don't see that as attack number two. At the grand strategy level, sending an offensive unit into battle represents projecting force into that area. If a player chooses to send only one tac air into a sea zone to attack 2 or more transports and finishes the attack, then decides to send a second tac air, that would in the grand strategy sense be the same as saying 2 tac air were committed that season to patrolling that sea zone. Not 2 attacks or sorties as was described in earlier posts. Given that logic, I would like the system to be intuitive. As HW pointed out, the sytem would be better if 2 air attacking at the same time against 2 transports was as effective as sending them in separately.

I don't think the change HW is proposing is going to radically screw things up. It's going to make things more intuitive and place greater emphasis on CAG's strenth over other tac air when it comes to sea battles. However I do see a problem with air % priorities thanks to MA's example. I think the % weights might need to be even higher for CV's and HF's. It's clear that CAG's could sometimes overlook capital ships and target transports in some cases when unique targetting is used.

Lets say a fleet has 1 CV and 6 trannies and 2 CAG's attack. Both CAG's could miss the 40% weights and strike the trannies instead. So maybe capital ships should be weighted even more so well trained CAG pilots rarely pass up good targets.

While thinking about this, it occured to me that I'm not really sure how these weights are calculated by the game. 40 for CV's doesn't mean 40% does it? If a CV, HF, and TF were attacked by a single CAG what % chance is there that the CV will be targetted? Or the HF and TF?

[MrQuiet]

ORIGINAL: Lebatron


While thinking about this, it occured to me that I'm not really sure how these weights are calculated by the game. 40 for CV's doesn't mean 40% does it? If a CV, HF, and TF were attacked by a single CAG what % chance is there that the CV will be targetted? Or the HF and TF?

Well if CV weighted at 40 and tranny weigted at 1 that means 40x more chance of targeting cv.
I think HF is at 4 so 10x more chance to target cv over hf etc..

I have no strong opinion on this subject except I would like to see carriers not be forced to stack up with other carriers in order to avoid gang bang attacks from a thousand miles away.
If the double up priority was removed then I think that would help us be able to assign carriers with screening fleets to different theaters/objectives. It would also help make the frozen US carriers stationed in California less vulnerable to opening JP move.


-MrQ

[Lebatron]

I agree, it would be nice to see half the US CV's in the South Pacific and the other half near Midway. As I was saying, increasing the weight on Capital ships, specifically HF's would help provide the screening you refer to. Perhaps HF's should be weighted at 10 or more instead of 4 and LF's given a boost too. Afterall CAG pilots would rarely select transports unless there were so many CAG's that all the good juicy targets were already selected.

These values might gives us good results
CV 50, HF 10, LF 3-4, TF 1, SF 1
Vs old
CV 40, HF 4, LF 2, TF 1, SF 1


I kind of figured 40x to 1x meant just that. But it's a lot harder to get a general % chance of CV selection when say 2 CV, 4 HF, 4LF, 3 TF, and 1 sub are in the mix. Maybe HW can tell us the equation to plug these ships into.

[MrQuiet]

Who is this HW person you keep refering to? Head-a-Wondering? JK

My thoughts also.

I agree, it would be nice to see half the US CV's in the South Pacific and the other half near Midway. As I was saying, increasing the weight on Capital ships, specifically HF's would help provide the screening you refer to. Perhaps HF's should be weighted at 10 or more instead of 4 and LF's given a boost too.

These values might gives us good results
CV 50, HF 10, LF 3-4, TF 1, SF 1
Vs old
CV 40, HF 4, LF 2, TF 1, SF 1

Those numbers look good.
I would make sub fleets the same as Light Fleets.
This way they can be mixed into the task force and divert some of the air attack (usualy airpower week vs subs) as a viable asset assignment strategy.

But even just removing the auto CAG double-up vs Carrier will make Carriers much more survivable and will lead to more damaged Carreir Fleets than destroyed which I think would be better. Its that second Cag attack vs Carrier with reduced evasion and possible damage that dooms them most of the time. Meanwhile there are other fleets in the group not even getting targeted. Realistic, probably. Good for cool global strategy game? I would prefer to see high value assets more distributed in the theater/s.

[Lebatron]

Actually I was thinking about boosting the sub number to 2 ,but didn't because when I thought about German bombers attacking into a sea zone with one sub and one transport and the German bombers preferring the sub which they probably can't hit, I decided I didn't like the idea. Afterall, in real life what target do you think them German bombers would want to sink. Transports for sure. In the game however with one transport and one sub in the sea zone the German bomber has only a 50% chance to get lucky enough to target the transport. To weight the subs even more would in effect protect Allied transports from German air strikes even more. Since the Germans rarely invest in ASW, placing subs into transport fleets gives them a form of unrealistic immunity. 

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

ORIGINAL: BoerWar

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

[*] modify Russian militia mobilization, so that it won't occur if Russia attacks Germany before Germany attacks Russia.

I hope by "Russia attacks Germany" you mean that they actually move forces into Germany controlled territory as opposed to automatically cancelling these units when the war counter says Russia may attack. Otherwise a new German strategy to keep all of those militia off the board will be to build until the war counter maxs out and then strike. You may lose the one suprise attack, but it might be worth it.

What he means is Russia actually initiates combat vs Germany, not nessesarily moving forces into German Lands.
And not just DOW vs Germany.
Could be air or Naval attack in the Baltic for example.
I wonder how long the standoff could realisticly go before SU would 'have to attack' if they want to win the war?

That's correct. By "attack" I meant initiates "combat with".

[WanderingHead]

Currently only CAGs emphasize capital ships. I don't think non-CAGs should be added to this.

BTW - sometimes I actually prefer to go after trannies (with weaker anti-ship air), a better chance of eliminating 2 population.

How the odds work for CAGs: take the weighting of each fleet, sum them all. Then divide the weight of each indivisual ship by the total and multiply by 100%, and that is the percentage chance it is targeted.

Lebatron's point that this is a grand strategy game is well made. This combat is abstract. I'd like unique targeting because it is consistent with all other non-suppression fire targeting, hence better for gameplay. I'd like to reduce the double team on CVs by CAGs because I think it makes them too vulnerable, which tends to make carrier warfare a stalemate while the WA sit back and wait for complete dominance.

It's also been pointed out that the heavy emphasis on CVs doesn't really fit in an abstract game with 3 month turns. Much would depend on luck, and targets of opportunity found in the big wide ocean.

The precise CAG target weighting, I don't feel too strongly about. I'm inclined to leave it unchanged for the sake of leaving it unchanged (no need to obsolete that aspect of the manual).

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice
I tend to agree with Art that this is an option the Axis are unlikely to use ... if I'm reading it correctly it requires 30 supply points to bring one of these resources online.

You've sort of misread it. If you look at post #14, I described the code implementation. The code implementation allows for resources to start with "undevelopment" levels up to 4. If it starts at undevelopment level 4, and if a 1 upgrade per turn limit were imposed, then it would indeed take 30 supplies and 5 turns to bring the resources online.

But these things are modable, and that is not how I would expect it to be used in GG or in UV. I would envision something more like starting some resources at undeveloped level 2. I am undecided on whether the per-turn development limit is better as 1 level/turn or 2 level/turn. Assume 1 level/turn, then it would take 3 turns and 20 supplies to bring a level 2 undeveloped resource online.

This would progress as follows:

turn 0: resource starts at 2 levels undeveloped
turn 1: expend 5 supply, ends at 1 level undeveloped.
turn 2: expend 5 supply, ends at 0 level undeveloped, promoted to double damaged after production
turn 3: expend 10 supply to repair double damaged (as normal)
turn 4: the resource is producing for you!

total to develop: 20 supplies and 3 turns

but it could also easily be set to be 20 supplies in 2 turns or 15 supplies in 2 turns.

In addition to having some resources start two levels undeveloped, some could start 1 level undeveloped. That's what I have now, a mix.

If the WA only very rarely develop Iraq, I'd wouldn't be bothered at all. It is however a worthwhile goal for the Germans, particularly with FM=3 in 1942 so that the Germans can start using those resources even if not at war with SU.

ORIGINAL: SGT Rice

Unless you're able to create a second category of supplies (fuel) that are required in order to move ships/tanks/aircraft, then it would be very difficult to represent the strategic importance of oil in a meaningful fashion. I know that the game engine keeps track of where things come from (those little country flags are even displayed on supply points). Would it be possible to 'flag' supply points from designated factories (refineries), restrict the resources that can be shipped to those factories/refineries, and then require the resulting 'fuel' points in order to move ships/tanks/aircraft?

IMO, it can work well enough. Or well enough to be interesting. But better would be to break both resources and supplies into "materials" and "energy" classes. But that would clearly be a new game.

[Marshall Art]

With resources half-developed this feature is much more appealing to me. If I am playing Axis and need a few more resources online to gain AV probably the easier way would be to invade a few neutrals or take that last Allied territories needed instead of going defensive and waiting until the resources are developed. Sounds like an interesting alternative though.

[Marshall Art]

One thing that keeps bothering me is the way the Combined Arms modifier can be activated by simply putting one single Tank, Arty or Tac. Bomber into the mix (in most cases there is no shortage in Infantry). Example: Japan building their single-armour or more general the big land-unit stacks with just one air unit. I wonder why 55 Infantry, 25 Artillery can gain sudden boost because of only one tank and/or one Tac. air in reality. Should't there be a limit on the number of units that actually can gain the modifier?

For example: take the type of unit required for the CAM that has the least number of units in combat and give only say twice as many units of all types the CAM? Out of 10 Inf, 5 Arty, 2 Tanks and 1 Tac. air only 2 each of the Inf, Arty, and both Tanks and the Tac.air would get the CAM.

I also feel that simply having more tanks than the attacker should not prevent the attacker from gaining CAM (besides having all required units present). Historically, The Germans had less tanks than both France/UK in 1940 and Russia thoughout but still succeeded.

Any thoughts?

[MrQuiet]

Marshall Art I think the CAM feature design was intended 'kiss' i.e. not getting to complex for us average folks.
Your idea of limiting cam to a group of units based on a multiple of the least available arm in the combined arms is definately interesting though and quite original. I could see that actually working in game.

But, I like that you have to have more armor units to achieve cam because it forces SU to build armor instead of just artillary.
I sort of look at the game more like complex chess on a world map than a war simulation though as that is what more interests me.

Other opinions will no doubt vary.

-MrQ

[Lucky1]

Although I am only now beginning to appreciate all the subtleties involving CAM, I think Marshall Art's idea has significant merit (I am probably not alone in having done the token Japanese tank thing). Certainly, it would spur more diversified builds....