ORIGINAL: alfonso
but you said previuosly: "...early in the game the Soviet player can shift too many of his units too fast and too far while at the same time evacuating industries..."
Do you see that if savings for shorter distances are implemented, more units could be shifted? Perhaps you have two contradictory complains.
Implementing movement distance impact per unit move does not mean NOT adapting - meaning reducing - the already abstracted strat movement point pool. Do one thing is good, do both even better (and absolutely necessary because calculating travelled cargo-miles into pool use cost would require finding a new balance for total cargo capacity of course).
ORIGINAL: alfonso
From a point of view of weekly turns, the time difference between 100 miles and 800 miles by train is not so relevant. I understand that railpoints are an abstraction not for distance, but for capacity, staffwork, train schedules,... I have no idea of the time lapses necessary to load 80 T-34s in a train (and unloading them from the train), provide a logistic network at the point of arrival, and re-establishing the chain of command, recognizing the terrain, searching housing for the troops, etc...but I like to imagine that they are together more relevant that the physical duration of the railtrip. Therefore all units can be thought of as if they were moving a long distance.
I admit you half convinced me here. But if you are consequent, then you remove any remaining movement points of every strat transported unit at the end of the move. If getting organized for and after a train trip is responsible for the pool cost, and if this makes travelled miles irrelevant, then you have to remove remaining MP after every rail trip, not only the longer ones. Thus taking away the chance to move short-trainhopping troops into a nearby swamp for example. If you give the unit MP after a shorter train trip then you have to give back part of the strat movement cost to the pool.
In the end for pbem-balance it's important that not dozens of units can be beamed behind a breakthrough-region via rail. I haven't seen any AAR yet in which even an experienced Axis player had a remote chance to beat checkerboard tactics, and checkerboarding in combination with overproportionned strat movement capacities (allowing forming solid fortified fallback positions) obviously can't be beaten at the moment, leading to lesser losses, higher exp and OOB-gains for Soviet units. That's why we see this many Axis players hitting a wall in pbem way before they should.
ORIGINAL: alfonso
As a matter of fact a train at 40 miles/hour travels 960 miles/day, 6720 miles/week. But in the game it is not possible, because there is some degree of abstraction, averaging, etc...Maybe in the future even coal consume and train-driver fatigue is modeled, but that will be another game...
I am no expert in which condition the Soviet railway system was in WWII. I think I remember reading that most tracks back then could be used in one way only, and that because of the soft ground many tracks had to be built on and because of the harsh climate tracks were in quite poor condition, not allowing maximum train speeds.
How long does the Transsiberian express from Moscow to Vladivostok take to travel nowadays? 10 days? How much longer would it have been in WWII with poorer tracks and rolling stock? 6720 miles per week may be possible with today's rail technology, no way 70 years ago in Russia...
I have to come back to my request to implement lower strat pool costs for shorter trips and a higher cost for max range trips.
The biggest threat for mankind is ignorance.
