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Russian production seems to high or German to low in 42. Factorys and manpower come on line
way way way to fast.

The penalty for losing Mocsow is way way way to small.

If there were moral hits for lossing Moscow or Leningrad that would help.

The only way to balance stuff out more is to tweak production and moral levels.

Dump the 1v1 = 2v1 rule at some pt in 42 or Jan 43

Pelton

Pelton, I am not sure how such a post helps out here. As has been stated elsewhere the 1v1 to 2v1 rule is presently undergoing the process of modification.

ORIGINAL: Mehring

Another method to reduce Russian combat effectiveness might be to reduce the at start effectiveness of their leaders and give more scope for gaining experience. As is, by autumn 1941 there's little excuse for having infantry commanded by less than '5' rated generals, armour by less than '4'. Initiative is pretty good by then too, and minimum Admin '6' is easy to obtain in all Front commands.

Historically, the Red Army didn't get its organisational act together until the end of 1942. Ditto for leadership skills. It takes about four years of serious experience to make an expert.

I would add that the game mechanic of soviet forces not routing like they do in 41 drops you into a stale mate as well. I think that if soviet units would rout instead of retreat similarly to 41 then you have a chance to see mobile operations again and you do not need to adjust much. The last is an assumption on my part not knowing what creates the routing of the units in the game engine.

There are probably a package of smaller solutions, not one huge thing. I would consider a combination of the following:

1. GERMAN MORALE: Eliminate Blizzard Morale hit for being in open

2. GERMAN PRODUCTION: Increase starting Armament Pool, so Germans don't run out in 1941/42. Increase Manpower production rate in 1941/42 only.

3. FORTS: Decrease range that Soveits get Urban Fort help to 2 or 3 hexes. Forts should disappear quickly if they are not occupied. Level 3 harder to attain.

Even with changes, as Germans we shouldn't expect big breakouts in 1942 for the most part, because Soviet players won't make stupid mistakes. This should make it a bit more even though.

The National morale idea has merit, as does dealing with the fortifications

The 2 v 1 rule is essential to give the Soviets something to counter attack with in '41, probably still needed in '42 but certainly not needed by the time the artillery arrives.

However, if you change the 2 v 1, then you have to lower the Soviet casualties to compensate, and thats problematic.

Lets be realistic here, just how many German players are going to be dumb enough to drive for the Oil and Stalingrad?

Tweak by all means, but make sure there is lots and lots and lots of testing done first

I'm not certain what needs to be done, but I do know that the game definitely needs a German 42 offensive.If 1942 ends up as trench warfare then something has gone wrong somewhere.It's not so much to me whether or not it's historical, it's more that the game will be too boring to play to a finish if there isn't one, for both sides.
I think that the Soviet units are generally too strong in 41 and 42.
One possible solution would be to have leadership ratings play a far more important part in determining the effectiveness of combat units, after all, lack of good leadership played a major part in the Soviet defeats of 41 and 42.So that appointing a commander would have an immediate and obvious effect on a unit's strength.An average infantry division with a cv of 2 or 3 under Vatutin would become an ant under a weak commander.This could be done by having a leader's rating directly effect the unit's morale, fatigue, ability to resupply, construction value, MP allowance etc.Make decent Soviet leaders very scarce until the end of 1942 so that resistance is patchy.This would also solve the problem of the Soviet blizzard offensive being too broad.
I think that Soviet production capacity could be reduced in 42 as well.
Would also be nice if something could be done to reduce the extent of Soviet carpets.Fewer operational units perhaps or maybe some weaker corps arriving already formed in 41 42.

Yet no one complains that Leningrad falls in every game. Players behave differently than history.

The argument that the Axis should be able to do as "well" as in history against a human Soviet player is tired and I hope will be ignored by the developers.

However the argument that trench warfare in 1942 is boring certainly does have merit.

I'm basically ok with the Leningrad thing.

It could have happened. It was a near run thing. If the German makes fewer mistakes and commits more forces to it, then we shouldn't be surprised they can change history here.

What does annoy me is the seeming ubiquity of choices being made. It's not at all obvious to me that Leningrad is as important as most players think it is -- I tend to believe the south is more important. Yet AAR after AAR we see very large scale Axis commitments to Leningrad, well in excess of historical. (And in many of these AARs the price is being paid elsewhere, namely in the south, in terms of advances.)

Not sure why this strategic bias is so common. Yeah, I get that it's nice to have the Finns and stuff, but still. One notable exception here: Pelton, who goes for the manpower and industry down south in most of his games. If Leningrad falls, cool, but it's not his major priority. He's doing well with this, and yet virtually nobody else favors the southern option.

Maybe it is just a fad, I dunno.

Faviusx,

To take it a step further how is the player influencing the dynamic in 42 vs game play mechanics and how do you tell them apart? You just made me realize I am guilty to some extent of playing the known scenarios because that is how I was able to learn the game. As PDH said in another thread good players have achieved local superiority in 42 but they stumble when teir units can't achieve break throughs. Dang I guess I am just going to have to keep paying more WiTE to figure this out.

The southern push actually has kind of the same problem as a push to Leningrad: there's basically nothing else of any real significant to capture after you get Leningrad or the Donbas cities+Rostov. Pelton can only do what he does due to what would normally be suicidal charges and being "creative" with the flaws of the supply system. His pushes have very little do with what was historically possible.

Well, the question is probably what you want to have, a balanced Game or a historically exact Game. All the East Front Board Games i Know have some balancing built into them sacrifycing historical Reality for playability to make the german side interesting to play. Of course, people play Japan in witp-ae although they will most certainly loose. Historically there was no auto-victory. In the game it exists to give the japanese player a reward for performing well.
The germans never really stood a chance of winning the war in the east. Guess 1942 the Way it is now represents that. I think it is ok. Fall blau was a flawed offensive anyhow.
Either you Kick the russian off balance in 1941, or you loose. And that should Be very difficult to achieve.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm basically ok with the Leningrad thing.

It could have happened. It was a near run thing. If the German makes fewer mistakes and commits more forces to it, then we shouldn't be surprised they can change history here.

What does annoy me is the seeming ubiquity of choices being made. It's not at all obvious to me that Leningrad is as important as most players think it is -- I tend to believe the south is more important. Yet AAR after AAR we see very large scale Axis commitments to Leningrad, well in excess of historical. (And in many of these AARs the price is being paid elsewhere, namely in the south, in terms of advances.)

Not sure why this strategic bias is so common. Yeah, I get that it's nice to have the Finns and stuff, but still. One notable exception here: Pelton, who goes for the manpower and industry down south in most of his games. If Leningrad falls, cool, but it's not his major priority. He's doing well with this, and yet virtually nobody else favors the southern option.

Maybe it is just a fad, I dunno.

My experience in teaching is that the students very quickly figure out the reward scheme. Ditto here. If you want a realistic 1941 campaign plan, you need appropriate payoffs.

What's the payoff for Leningrad? The Finns and a strategic dead end. Leningrad doesn't lead to anything, and the north becomes a complete sideshow. It's not even a good killing ground for trying to grind the Red Army.

My own view is that Leningrad became popular early on because of the blizzard, which has since been ratcheted back. The Finnish army was supposed to save the Wehrmacht from the blizzard or somesuch thing. In the long run, it's the Germans who have to save the Finns up there.

The students might want to pay attention to that fellow in the back of the class running rampant through the Ukraine and trashing Soviet manpower and industry. There's the real payoff. And the south is the best place to break the Red Army.

I really like the idea of tying National Morale (for both sides) to current VP count or perhaps the VP count at the end of each month. Combine that with VP awards for individual cities/industrial areas instead of a global system based upon size and there are real possibilities for both a more interesting 42 campaign as well as incentives to take/hold specific locations.

There's the real payoff.

...which is only possible through simply rampaging with HQ build-up without any real attention paid to the flanks and with spearheads being cut off over and over. Capturing Leningrad was a possibility historically, what Pelton is doing just shows that this is a game and not reality.

The Germans also got to Rostov historically, getting there isn't anything special and it's a strategic dead end even though it might look like it offers all kind of options. Capturing Leningrad shortens AGN's flank and makes it more difficult for the Soviets to win. Leningrad is also a lot easier to defend than any part of the Ukraine.

The south might be good for damaging the Soviets due to the clear terrain which should theoretically favour mobile operations, but with the current unfavourable casualty rates and defending being rather easy for the Soviets in 1942, you're still not really going to get anywhere. I do prefer to fight in the center and south over fighting in the north, but that's purely due to the terrain.

ORIGINAL: sveint

Yet no one complains that Leningrad falls in every game. Players behave differently than history.

The argument that the Axis should be able to do as "well" as in history against a human Soviet player is tired and I hope will be ignored by the developers.

However the argument that trench warfare in 1942 is boring certainly does have merit.

To be fair, most of the people coontributing to this thread (perhaps even all of them), are NOT wanting the Germans to do well just because they are Germans.

Leningrad is a bit of a red herring because, in 1941, things look about right in terms of both history and balance. So, yes, Leningrad can fall: it's not a relevant analogy. (Watch out my next opponents, maybe I will ignore Leningrad completely ).

But +1 to the comment about boring. It's not the game play, per se, that's boring. It's the feeling of inevitability which the Axis play gets when they get to about August 1942 and they've moved the front a few hexes and maybe encircled a few 100,000 Russians, at high cost. They end up with an indefensible salient with little fortifications and begin the slow retreat . Competent players on both sides = very high likelihood of German defeat. Not sure I mind that, but it takes a bloody long time to get there. So, what's needed is something which makes 1942 as balanced as 1941. No doubt when we achieve that, we can argue about balance in 1943 .

At base, what comes into play in this game is the asymmetry - Germans are strictly historical in force structure; Russians are not. This is actually quite interesting as a game approach compared to most games which tend to be more even-handed (either both historical, or both can deviate). It certainly makes playing each side very different experiences. However, getting balance is much trickier. Not sure I have an answer but (given the asymmetry at the heart of the game), if the Germans are going to have units withdrawn at the crucial moment because historically they did, then units which were high morale in 1942 should still be high morale!

FWIW, the fact that we are getting decent games in WITE is a tribute to the designers already -- I pretty much think they have done a great job of getting most of the way towards an historical, playable, enjoyable AND balanced eastern front game. That's an enormous achievement given the complexity of it.

Initially I was in the Leningrad at all costs camp as Axis but as the game has evolved other strategies are starting to become tempting.

Emir recently made a post showing the different Industry and pop numbers for different "zones" and it got me rethinking a few things.

It is comforting to have the Finns and have a sort of "Anchor" on your left flank but what do you give up for that? Are the Finns actually a liability after thier inevitable morale erosion? Would 4th PZ be better used driving towards Moscow? Once again I am a firm believer that players need options and the more options you put in front of them the better the game will be in the long run.

As far as 1942 problems some things that could be done that have been mentioned:

1) Brigades are too strong solo in forts.

2) 1-1 2-1 shift for Soviets. Its fine in 41 but I believe its one of the underlying issues that plague the game in 42 onwards.

3) Forts Forts. The dead horse....

From the AARs there is the constant worry of Axis players that they haven't put enough X million virtual Soviet dudes into the casualty pile; this challenge, plus the option of human Soviet players to not be as wasteful as Stalin was with the ( late 1941 to early 1942 ) blizzard offensives he demanded, allows more and larger Soviet ants going into spring 1942.  Maybe this is the reason why Axis players are unable to make their huge land grab?  Maybe the fort building isn't the problem but something else that should be adjusted?

I could also just be wet about all of this. [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
What does annoy me is the seeming ubiquity of choices being made. It's not at all obvious to me that Leningrad is as important as most players think it is -- I tend to believe the south is more important. Yet AAR after AAR we see very large scale Axis commitments to Leningrad, well in excess of historical. (And in many of these AARs the price is being paid elsewhere, namely in the south, in terms of advances.)

Not sure why this strategic bias is so common.

I think psychology has a lot to do with it. Taking out the Kharkov tank factory and other Armaments in the south is a massive coup for the Germans, but the effects are so long-term as to be almost intangible, whereas "liberating" the Finns for the winter campaign rewards you with units you can grasp and hold and use