Over rated Russian rail system.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If we wanted to be realistic about this, we would also want to reflect the inability of the German converted rail lines to maintain supply at the front -- which was not merely a function of how far advanced the railhead was. The traffic borne by these lines in 1941 wasn't enough to meet requirements. So units had to sit tight and accumulate supplies even if they were within reach of the railheads in game terms.

Just saying.

Do we really want to open up this can of worms? The game logistics are, if anything, extremely forgiving of the side on the offensive. (This will equally be true for the Sovs later on in the war.)

This.
Plus, RR bridge building over major rivers is to fast in WitE. This, again goes for both sides.

Regards

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If we wanted to be realistic about this, we would also want to reflect the inability of the German converted rail lines to maintain supply at the front -- which was not merely a function of how far advanced the railhead was. The traffic borne by these lines in 1941 wasn't enough to meet requirements. So units had to sit tight and accumulate supplies even if they were within reach of the railheads in game terms.

Just saying.

Do we really want to open up this can of worms? The game logistics are, if anything, extremely forgiving of the side on the offensive. (This will equally be true for the Sovs later on in the war.)

This.
Plus, RR bridge building over major rivers is to fast in WitE. This, again goes for both sides.

Regards

[Mehring]

A Person who says that he or she wants an "open minded" discussion about a subject but pose a question or topic (here the subject or headline) as an (incontrovertible) factum (here: „Over rated Russian rail system“) is in my experience unteachable or interested in other details or opinions.

And what means “Russian fanboyism”?
Sound like a good phrase to silence other which not share that statement “Over rated Russian rail system“. Because when you says or give facts which not confirm than it is “Russian fanboyism”.

Reminds me on phrases which are used in totalitarian countries. Especially Soviet union. Like the word “counter-revolution”. Everybody who has not the opinion of the government is a counter-revolutionist.

So the appeal to open mindedness conceals a closed mind? What if the ubiquitous condemnation of counterrevolution concealed.... counterrevolution?

Yes Flaviousx, let the can of worms be opened!

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

The point is about production thats being railed as over rated.

Based on what?

Certainly not on historical record.

[Aurelian]

I can see it now. A new requirement of WiTE.

Ownership of Railroad Tycoon is required.

[Stoat]

Whoo, wake up late to find we've got a bit of a convo-sation going on this one! In the words of the immortal song,

"'Cause we got a great big convo'
Rockin' through the night
Yeah, we got a great big convo',
Ain't she a beautiful sight?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrdQnJR7tDw

Good times. [:D] Thanks to Pelton for promoting my musings to the bigtime & getting the ball rolling, & sorry again for taking his AAR off-topic.

Anyhoo, sittin' here drinkin' me coffee, yet again watching Pelton get gang-tackled by nine guys. Provided a few good lulz as always, & in particular props to Brandle - bazinga! [;)] Felt a bit giddy to have provoked such an overwhelming response (err, counterattack?) but know in fact it was the towering persona of Pelton that did so, not me.

The whole circus strikes me as archetypally representative of the Ostfront: one sick n' tired but still proudly defiant Landser, a veteran of countless campaigns, manning a vast problem space (err, frontage) alone, beset upon all sides by a Thick Brown Line, marching forward with arms linked, hurtling forth lusty salvos of "Urras" in his general direction.

Well, I hate to see a fellow getting mobbed before brunch (dang but you guys are up n' at it right early!), [;)] so even if my aim is not as true as his, & my words are not backed by the weight of many battles, as his are, at least let me stand with my Stammgenosse, feed his MG-42, & provide a bit of moral support.

I'm happy to do so, because I feel it is quite reasonable to advocate for game balance, and it is a good thing to work, even to struggle, to make the Best Wargame in the History of Mankind even better, rather than a base & dastardly thing.

Without trying to abstract the broad philosophical differences between this gun crew and, erm, the "Loyal Opposition"... wait a minute (quick head count)... oh, I guess _we're_ the "Loyal Opposition"... rats! Wutevz. Anyway, without going for the Grand Unified Theory at this juncture, to summarise the points since my last, there was some good info provided on the Soviet rail system (& thanks for taking the trouble to do this, interesting & appreciated), many trout-slaps o' Pelton upside the head (again, appreciated & some good lulz), [:D] but what I saw none of was any real comparison of Axis to Soviet rail capacity.

Now, I've failed to do this myself & have only asked the question, "is it right"? Hard to put a number on it - we should be clear that even if we have good numbers on capacity, the game only represents Rail Cap as certain uses of the rail net (namely the movement of formed units & of factories) and abstracts away all other very significant uses. Because of this, putting a fair number on rail caps must be very much more an art than a science.

I think what we can do is ask questions like, "when where the two rail nets stressed", "when did one or the other fail to perform adequately", and "do the current rail caps of the two sides model this reasonably well"? As to whether it is worthwhile to discuss rail cap, certainly those who are not interested in doing so need not. It may not be worthwhile discussing game changes that are so far-reaching, and so difficult to implement, that they never will be. But rail cap is something that has a significant impact on the early game, those Golden Weeks of which so strongly impact all that is to follow, and it is something that can be changed easily, by changing numerical values.

So, glad to see we're up n' at it, & away we go. [:)]

[heliodorus04]

Game Design: That's what I claim to understand. I'm not a historian.

I think what Pelton is drawing attention to is an oversight of game design in the context of what Soviet-side players know that Stalin and Stavka did not.

Now, before I get into what I see in terms of gameplay balance issues, I want to ask the War in the Pacific players how that title handled the sensitive subject that there's nothing the Japanese could have done historically that remotely kept them in contention with the United States (let alone China, the UK, etc.). I may not be a historian, but I think it's a foregone conclusion that all but the most contrarian temperament accepts: the Japanese had no chance at knocking the US out of the Pacific theater, ever.

Somehow people really enjoy playing the Japanese despite this, so what gameplay decisions were made that, despite their deviations from "HISTORY!" make the game an enjoyable endeavor for people who play the Empire of Japan.

Now on to gameplay in WitE:

The problem with the evacuation of rail is not in and of itself that Soviet rail capacity is too high, or necessarily that stuff costs too little to move. The problem is that hindsight shows Soviet players that all they need to worry about moving are the armament point factories.

(I've heard theory-craft that maybe letting all that heavy will have a negative consequence later, and we shall see, but I trust Soviet players who are now saying that Armament Points are the only imperative when in doubt).

Pelton has rightly (IMO) pointed out this problem with the production aspect of the game.

This is a problem with the game because if you reach a game situation where, no matter how well the Axis player plays, he's not able to unbalance the Red Army enough to slow its rate of growth (and that growth must be slowed such that in 1942-43, Soviet strength is not enough to start Bagration-like offensives before 1944), then you end up with German players who aren't enjoying the game because despite their best efforts (and Pelton has some great efforts out there), their achievements have no appreciable effect at obtaining them the 1945 victory.

I don't know if we're at the point where the production choke is so easily managed by the Soviet that it's pointless to play Germany, but if it reaches a point where it's pointless to play Germany, the only people left here will be the die-hards.

If GAMEPLAY is not well-balanced (I did not say 'easily' or 'equally') then one side does not have access to equal fun potential that the other side has; a game where both sides do not have equal fun potential is a game that many people are going to abandon.

There comes a point in game design where you have to be flexible with some history so that challenge and excitement remain in the game.

My attitude toward Pelton's entreaty is that he's identifying where challenge and excitement is too constricted around the Soviet production system. I don't think his proposed solutions are workable in this context, but I do see the need to make this part of the game more challenging and exciting in the game.

The game has already encoded gameplay changes geared toward adding challenge, including:
Not being able to put units in static in 1941 (arbitrary, no real basis in history, but good for the game)

Forts assuaging German blizzard casualties (limited basis in history, but not true to the general history of 1941, yet no restrictions in game to doing this theater-wide)

SEC brigades having an auto-disband check function added

These are little gameplay changes that were added to limit the ability to exploit things that PLAYERS know, but historical commanders would have thought were insane.

Right now in WitE, Soviet Players know the armaments chokepoint issue and are exploiting it. Whether their exploitation rises to the level that there's little to nothing (outside of insane raids and HQ buildup abuse) the German player can do to put a constraint on the Soviet production (i.e., the rate of growth of the Soviet army) remains in some doubt until sufficient data are gathered.

If it turns out to be the case that well-managed Soviet play means no constrictions regarding production (whether via armaments or heavy industry), will anyone think that it needs to be addressed?

[ComradeP]

Whether you feel the Soviets should face serious restrictions depend on whether you view the Soviet Union as, mostly, Eastern Europe+a large chunk of European Russia, or if you view it as the Soviet Union in its entirety.

Whether you feel the Axis logistics are overrated or underrated probably depends on whether you see the problems the logistics historically faced as organisational problems or actual problems of insufficient logistics.

Both sides face difficult problems, and we've seen in the last 10 months that fixing on thing is likely to break something else or at least screw up a particular balance.

With the removal of the odds modifier, we're seeing that players that did suffer serious losses as the Soviets are less capable of launching counterattacks in 1942-1943, which is good. The Soviet OOB numbers can still balloon in size, but German numbers can also increase rather seriously due to Hiwi's, at least until the maximum Hiwi percentages in support/labour squads are reached (this should be kept in mind: there's only room for an X amount of Hiwi's in the game, regardless of how many you have).

Logistics in the game are heavily abstracted, so you could ask for more detail, but for starters (to borrow an earlier statement) this isn't Railroad Tycoon (or 18 Wheels of Steel, for that matter) so there's both a limit to the amount of detail that can be added now, or can be added in general.

Also: we can't estimate or accurately predict what would've happened to Soviet morale or production if X or Y would've happened, we can only guestimate. It is impossible to have a factual discussion about whether X or Y would've done Z to the Axis or Soviet logistics for the rest of the war.

[KenchiSulla]

Base production of arms, vehicles and supplies on swiftness of advance in 1941 and be done with it...

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Game Design: That's what I claim to understand. I'm not a historian.

I think what Pelton is drawing attention to is an oversight of game design in the context of what Soviet-side players know that Stalin and Stavka did not.

Now, before I get into what I see in terms of gameplay balance issues, I want to ask the War in the Pacific players how that title handled the sensitive subject that there's nothing the Japanese could have done historically that remotely kept them in contention with the United States (let alone China, the UK, etc.). I may not be a historian, but I think it's a foregone conclusion that all but the most contrarian temperament accepts: the Japanese had no chance at knocking the US out of the Pacific theater, ever.

Somehow people really enjoy playing the Japanese despite this, so what gameplay decisions were made that, despite their deviations from "HISTORY!" make the game an enjoyable endeavor for people who play the Empire of Japan.

There is not a single gameplay mechanic that will safe a good Japanese player from defeat vs an average Allied player.. the player has some lattitude to play with (hindsight, managing forms of production and pilot training programs) but ultimately cannot decide to build more carriers no matter the resources available to him..

In my opinion this should not be any different for WitE..

[Lieste]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

Thus, during the first three months of the Kursk campaign (March to July 1943), three major rail lines averaged about 2,800 cars with military cargo per day, reaching a daily peak of 3,249 in May.

This could be read two ways - and the difference could be significant:

3 lines, each averaging 2800 cars per day.

3 lines, totalling an average per day of 2800 cars.

So which is it?

[Wild]

I think we just need to get the value of cities right. Heavy Industry should be the most important industry, the importance of vehicles could be increased as well. Having the effect of fixing Peltons overrated rail system because people will be trying to evacuate other factories. Also should railyards be able to be bombed to lower the amount of railcap in the next turn.

[Stoat]

Some very good recent posts, even those against the view that rail cap should be reconsidered. I would raise one more broad point in favour, one that can be considered in abstract terms without heading to the archives.

The argument is economic: in this Greatest of Struggles, both sides were labouring mightily to achieve various things that would help achieve victory. The two railway systems were certainly among these things, and they were huge, costly & significant endeavours.

In the context of the situation both sides endured, when both endured great privations and never enough of so many things, why would both sides choose to pour huge amounts of assets, labour and expertise into the greater enterprise such that the system would have far, far more capacity than needed, and such that the system, even under its time of greatest stress, i.e. at the beginning of the greatest military campaign in history, should not be stressed, but rather should operate with such a great amount of slack capacity.

For this is what we observe in our games & in our AAR's. Does it really make sense, that in the years & decades leading up to war, also times of great hardship, Depression, political upheaval, Five-Year Plans, even in the death of millions of newly-Soviet citizens, that both sides should have allocated such an embarrassment of riches to their respective rail networks, at the expense of all things that were needed, such that they would not only enjoy astounding overcapacity during peacetime, but even huge overcapacity at the Worst of Times?

Some, in other threads on other subjects, have contented themselves with various status quo representations of history, criticising specific production decisions & specific asset allocations as bad or sub-optimal, and in many cases it is fair & correct to do so. I also fully accept the points of those who stress the need for a certain level of abstraction to maintain playability, in particular the posts of Heliodorus (properly heliodorus04, but I already feel "there's only one Heliodorus" in our books), [;)] ComradeP & Mehring.

So again restating the case in game terms, I would say not that we need discuss a new game mechanic to represent rail capacity, but only that it is reasonable to consider whether the current levels of rail capacity best model the phenomenon in which we interest ourselves.

The current levels are far too high. It just doesn't make economic sense.

[vinnie71]

Maybe somehow, factory evacuation should be made to depend on the level of danger these factories are in being overrun. Ex factories should only be able to evacuate if the Germans are within 10 hexes. I mean, what's the point of evacuating a factory if there is no danger? Currently a Soviet player can easily start a rolling programme of evacuations which has no relation to the movements in the frontline. The only downside is that ammo doesn't get delivered to Soviet front line units, which is not such a sacrifice for a soviet player because few soviet units hold their ground anyway.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder

Maybe somehow, factory evacuation should be made to depend on the level of danger these factories are in being overrun. Ex factories should only be able to evacuate if the Germans are within 10 hexes. I mean, what's the point of evacuating a factory if there is no danger? Currently a Soviet player can easily start a rolling programme of evacuations which has no relation to the movements in the frontline. The only downside is that ammo doesn't get delivered to Soviet front line units, which is not such a sacrifice for a soviet player because few soviet units hold their ground anyway.

And if they don't do that, a German player abusing buildups will trash an incredible amount of industry. And cripple the Soviet for the rest of the war with the new multiplier.

This thread really isn't about the railroad capacity per se. It's about finding a way to enable this ridiculous factory raiding strategy. I think there are better ways to play the game than this on the German side. Why not try something else instead?

[Stoat]

To correct FlaviusX, which I do in a friendly way, acknowledging him as a senior board member held in high regard by all, who has done much for the game, and also adding that he is one of my favourite posters to read, whose analysis I often greatly enjoy, and whose reasoning I respect, even if I do not always agree with his conclusions:

Actually, I think we were discussing rail capacity, weren't we? "This ridiculous factory raiding strategy", or to paraphrase in more neutral terms, "Axis forces attempting to inflict economic damage upon the Soviet Union" only got inserted into this thread in the last two posts, didn't it?

In fact, there are numerous other threads about, as you say, "raiding". Haven't counted, but pretty sure every other thread in this forum seems to come down to "raiding", at some point. Per se. [;)]

[Flaviusx]

Stoat, the concern here about rail capacity is basically motivated by a desire to catch factories in place. That's the subtext here, don't kid yourself on this score -- as are related suggestions to disallow factory evacuations until they are within 10 hexes of the enemy, which would be seriously open to abuse since a German can contrive to advance just out of that range, do a buildup, and lock down the factory sites and prevent them from getting away. (The Soviet didn't wait to do evacs until the enemy was within 100 miles, either.)

If people were really worried about rail capacity, then they'd be bringing up other issues with regards to rail, namely, logistical ones. There's a couple of folks here who are actually genuinely concerned about that (hi, Mehring) but I'm doubting that Pelton is greatly concerned about that particular aspect of the railroad game.

[Peltonx]

1. No one can dispute that HVY is 100% broke and needs to be fixed. This alone is an exploit that all Russian players are gaming. We know (AAR's) that russian players are exploiting the crap out this issue.
This is a fact none can refute.

2. I had seen the number of 40% of Russian production was destroyed or captured by the Germans. This article from the BBC claims that 66% was destoryed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ ... n_01.shtml
or if you really want some fun numbers buy and read this bad boy. http://www.jstor.org/pss/151494

Ok we look at both numbers I only look at the arm production in the areas of German advances and we will call it 50% captured.

Thats 114 arm pts and I am not including Leningrad so from 45 arm pts to 74 arm pts or 67 arm pts at 50% destoryed.

We will not bother counting HVY becuse it 100% broken, as the German you can never take out enough Hvy to get below resources. Total lack of thinking that out on someones part.

In all the current 1.05 AAR's does anyone know of anyone getting close to historical levels?

I can advance far faster then historical in the north, center and south
tm.asp?m=2920420&mpage=2

I am at Stalino turn 7 and I still have only bagged 28 arm pts. The advance is so fast because of the general running to east tactics russians now employe. Because they are exploiting the over rated rail sytem and the fact that HVY means NOTHING.

The evacuation of factorys is much much faster then historical.

These are the plain old simple facts backed up by data.

Its amazing how many fish one can catch with one worm.

Pelton

[Peltonx]

This thread is about the over rated rail system.

If you like to start one on HQ build up feel free

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Stoat, the concern here about rail capacity is basically motivated by a desire to catch factories in place. That's the subtext here, don't kid yourself on this score -- as are related suggestions to disallow factory evacuations until they are within 10 hexes of the enemy, which would be seriously open to abuse since a German can contrive to advance just out of that range, do a buildup, and lock down the factory sites and prevent them from getting away. (The Soviet didn't wait to do evacs until the enemy was within 100 miles, either.)

If people were really worried about rail capacity, then they'd be bringing up other issues with regards to rail, namely, logistical ones. There's a couple of folks here who are actually genuinely concerned about that (hi, Mehring) but I'm doubting that Pelton is greatly concerned about that particular aspect of the railroad game.

This is 100% untrue.

All Russian players see that HVY is broken and are now exploiting the crap out of the rules. This is not something thats being hidden, its out in the open. You are doing it yourself. You evac arm only leaving hvy behind and withdraw to east avoiding and major battles from Tula south.

Its the flavor of the month Russian tactic gaming the rules. Your one of the main testers and your even doing it [X(]


Pelton