Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: MSAG

Hi,
I am the reason of the Albert's post. In our game he is trashing me mightily (we are at T9).

Most soviet player air war strategies that I observed are: (1) stop using air force (perhaps with exception of some naval/air transport) or (2) use GS or interdict GA (taking massive losses). In my humble opinion both strategies do not bring material benefits at all or do it at prohibitive losses cost.

I was looking for alternatives -(after short trial we agreed with Albert not to use GA(unit) for now) I tried railway / railyard bombing day/night and day interdiction and airfield bombing as well. I also played with fighter fight settings (mainly by trying to make the fighters use the optimal altitude for their fights). I lost 2000+ LBs already paying for the lessons learned.

My night attacks were aimed at railyards. Frankly due to FOW I am not sure about the results. Most reports I was getting were showing manpower hits. Railyard hits were reported in maybe 25% of the cases. Aircraft losses vary. Typically 10-20% of planes. Flak moves it up. When Albert's fighters scrambled and intercepted the losses were close to 100%.

I think that if the effects are as erratic as reports suggest than no HR is necessary.

However, I would hate to adversely affect the playability for my opponent so I am open to accept any limitations he may deem needed.

BR
MSAG

ORIGINAL: MSAG

Reading the whole conversation I would like to make one comment please.

In my opinion WITE2 is the most complex, amazingly rich and detailed WW2 strategic simulation ever created. It does great job in recreating the challenges, constraints and strategic decision dilemmas of both sides.

Full recreation of history is rather difficult to achieve in the game - humans use hindsight (German players practice 22 June opening and get ready for the harsh winter while Soviet players KNOW Germans cannot be stopped in the summer '41 and play accordingly).

The players also experiment with the simulation at times - to check what works and what does not (that is one the advantages of the system imho).

In some rare cases historically controversial results are achieved. That happens. In some cases these are bugs, in some the system works as designed while certain outcomes were not fully understood. Bugs will be fixed and the system can be finetuned.

In both cases the GG games have great history of designer follow up, patching and development.


This game is emphatically NOT broken. And I do not believe it is biased (although it poses different sets of challenges to soviet and axis players).


In short - it is a great game. And it is fun to play. Especially against human opponent.

BR
MSAG

Hardluckyetagain

The people that are posting still are the ones that LOVE the game. Of those people you have two groups, The Soviet Side & the German Side. These are the people that love the game so dearly that post threads will be brought to the forfront in hopes of making this game even better with these posts. See that is the Crux. Some believe these posts are trying to destroy the game into something else when in reality, if we just stop to listen and understand these players, it is the LOVE of this game that makes us want to contribute.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Looking at the results of your test, they aren't far off from what we'd like to see (especially given this is bombing of a size 1 airfield that is full - it matters how many a/c are on the base and what kind of base it is). The interesting thing is how the flak losses decline as the missions go on. Thus less attacking a/c destroyed with each mission, but more importantly a much higher number of a/c on the ground are lost. If you looked at just the first two missions I'd say this was a Soviet defeat. Can you get these results fairly consistently when you rerun? If you add missions on the other days, does it continue the trend? Gary and I are wondering if our routines that can rearm the airfield with ammo may not be sufficient. Given this is a turn 1 test and the airfield is likely very near depots, it should be able to get more ammo. If you've got your save and can run more tests, it would be useful. If you get this consistent reduction in flak losses with each mission, please attach the save.

Although based on this test alone, we're not convinced that night bombing is ultimately a winning tactic (certainly doesn't seem decisive), but we're willing to make tweaks if it appears the results are too good. The player that reported losing 2000 a/c trying offensive missions seems to be arguing against it being an impactful strategy. Gary says his understanding was that the Soviets also tried some early night bombing and didn't do well and gave up on it for some time. He said in 1943 the Soviets did some major night bombing of the railyards/depot at Orel and that for this reason the Germans shifted some night fighters east, but that was the only time they did that (I see them in the reinforcement schedule). I think there was a reason we locked the units in the west, but I don't remember why we did that. I doubt it would be a big deal if we unlocked a few of the units since there is a cost to transferring them east and I don't see how they could be abused.