Defense too strong

[Uxbridge]

Returning to the statemant of the OP, I would like to add my two cents. I have two suggestions. The strength of the defender is something that has buggered me too, all the way since WitE. It somewhat takes away the fluidity of battle. On the other hand, the ability to ’dig in again’ gives the game the natural effect that the attacker have to stop from time to time and decide for a point to start a new offensive, rather than pushing unnaturally all along the line. So any change in the abilities of the defender has to be a carefully calculated one.

I agree with the above speakers pointing the finger at the great advantage of reserve actions by the defender. Since the attacker must better the number of units thrown into battle in order to reach at least twice the force encountered by defending reserve formations to get at 2-1, the defence have a clear advantage, probably stemming more from the game engine than from historical autenticity.

Perhaps the term ’reserve’ should be split into two – ’reserve’ and ’follow-up’ – with the former being an action chosen by the defender while being in the active phase, and ’follow-up’ chosen by the attacker going for a specific assault. When battle starts, ’reserve’ should have a certain chance of sending supporting units as now, while ’follow-up’ should suffer a certain risk of not sending units; i.e. in most cases, ’follow-up’ is more likely to add to the combat resolution than 'reserve'. Before ending the phase, the active player can change any ’follow-up’ units to ’reserve’, making them eligible for action in the opponents turn.

My second suggestion regards the 2-1 rule. Once the calculation reaches the final odds, as it is now, the outcome is decided. This is where I think a further calculation should kick in – the determination of retreat. Instead of having the fixed value 2-1 as an ’always’, I’d like to see that a 1-1 gave a 5 % chance of retreat, a 1,7-1 a 10 % chance, with the now fixed 2-1 giving perhaps 80 % chance of success, 3-1 giving 90 %, 4-1 giving 95 % and so on, up to the level where any chance of holding ground would be ludicrous. Likewise, even results less than 1-1 should have a very rare chance of throwing the defender back.

As it is now, one sometimes feel that the 2-1 inevitability is not like facing a very high wall, but a wall that stretches to a ceiling, locking the attacker into a closed room. Now I don’t say the above percentages has to be the exact numbers, it’s just a crude example, but loosening the 2-1 rule a bit could go a some way of alleviating the problem with too strong a defence.

I know, mixing with the reserve system the way I suggest, is probably not doable without a massive effort in programming, but wouldn't the addition of a more random retreat system be possible?

[Dereck]

In the old Second Front game from the 90s, I was routinely able to get victories as early as in November of 1944.

I did that by strategic bombing of just Oil targets as well as attritioning the Germans through air attacks and the bombardment attacks that game had. Eventually they couldn't replace what they lost and they collapsed.

With this new War in the West Strategic Bombing won't work for the simple reason that, if one looks in the game Editor, the Germans also have National Supply Sources. You can't collapse their economy when they have cities which automatically give them 250,000 supplies and 25,000 fuel from each source. They don't get their supplies from converting resources they receive from cities into fuel/supplies. Bombing the city for resource, oil, etc. has no effect when it should since those two items seems to be the key according to the industry chart in the manual.

THERE IS NO GERMANY ECONOMY TO COLLAPSE.

In order for the Germans to HAVE an economy they would need to get their oil and resources from cities which they would then have to convert in factories into supplies and fuel. They don't. Like the Allies, they get the same amount of supplies and fuel each turn.

My question and (somewhat of a) challenge to the forum is: Since collapsing the German economy is a major reason for strategic bombing does the forum think it would be possible to REMOVE (actually drastically reduce) the automatic supplies and fuel the Germans receive and replace with increasing their OIL and RESOURCE locations? That way they would have a direct effect on what the Germans can do.

The caveat to the above is that I do believe (if I remember right) that even with the Allied Strategic bombing that the Germans still had some industry. That may mean instead of totally eliminating the auto supplies/fuel they get to drastically reduce it maybe to a mere maintenance level. Another possible question to the forum.

Thanks for letting me rant on this. Next rant I may have is the nerfing of allied tactical air.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: dereck

With this new War in the West Strategic Bombing won't work for the simple reason that, if one looks in the game Editor, the Germans also have National Supply Sources. You can't collapse their economy when they have cities which automatically give them 250,000 supplies and 25,000 fuel from each source. They don't get their supplies from converting resources they receive from cities into fuel/supplies. Bombing the city for resource, oil, etc. has no effect when it should since those two items seems to be the key according to the industry chart in the manual.

I think you misunderstand what a national supply source does.

National supply sources have unlimited freight.
They have unlimited access to whatever is in any of the pools.
Everything in the pools must be produced somewhere.
If all of the pools are exhausted then the national supply source has nothing.