Soviet Guards

[Stamb]

Losses are irrelevant. Only victories are important.

[Speedysteve]

Also it’s very important to remember just because a unit has 8 wins it doesn’t automatically and immediately become Guards. It’s a random chance

[tyronec]

As requested here are the Guards infantry units in my StB game with Rosencrantus. June '43.
50 Guards Rifle Corps plus a few bits and pieces. There are another 6 Mountain and Airborne Guards divisions.
This is June '43, would have been much the same in May '43.
Also worth noting that this is StB, in the '41 Campaign the Soviets are going to be able to fill up their Guards quota earlier.

There are two aspects to this that are not right.
1. The quota for Guards is too high, I have no real historical knowledge of when Guards Corps were created historically but this looks over the top.
2. The criteria for guards creation is not the best, as it has been since WITE1. A unit gets a Win regardless of the type of battle, so a division heroically holding off a Panzer division generates 1 win while several stacks of units trashing a Romanian infantry regiment could generate 6, 12 or even 18 wins. This insentivises the Soviet player to fight battles to generate guards units which becomes no minor part of the game, as I acknowledge I have done. Further the player who micro manages this, which I have not done, gains a further advantage. Have certainly seen a player highlighting units near to guards promotion in WITE1.

Suggestion would be to:
1. Review the number of units eligible to become Guards over the course of the game.
2. Guards promotion occurs as a result of an exceptionally good combat result rather than primarily on a cumulative number of Wins.

[xhoel]

@tyronec: Fully agree. I think the easiest thing to do for now is to reduce the number of units that can reach guards status while increasing the number of wins needed.

Your second suggestion is a good one but I think will be very hard to implement.

[Speedysteve]

All I can re-iterate is what I said in my one of my earlier posts. My 41 GC with Loki...I'm not swimming in Guards Units

[baloo7777]

Thanks guys. My first PBEM as Soviets. My opponent had played WiTE1 but not WiTE2 and he's kicking my butt. He only needs 2 cities to sudden death win, and being desperate for better morale infantry I was hoping that I could get some Guards RD to use. Don't know about the historical Guards. Happy to get a few in summer '42 at least.

[tyronec]

@tyronec: Fully agree. I think the easiest thing to do for now is to reduce the number of units that can reach guards status while increasing the number of wins needed.

Your second suggestion is a good one but I think will be very hard to implement.

Increasing the number of wins needed would make the situation worse.
At present it takes about 9 wins for a promotion. Suppose that were increased to 18.
The players who are not farming wins would be significantly disadvantaged.
The players who are harvesting wins would simply do it better and would only be mildly disadvantaged.
Leading to a greater gap between the the styles of play and making micro management more of an advantage.

The system is poor, what is needed is to come up with a better parameter for guards promotion. I don't know what the answer is but am sure there are a variety of systems that would be an improvement on what we have now.

[xhoel]

@tyronec: My suggestion is a pragmatic one. I dont think that the devs will take extra time now to rebuild the guard system. AFAIK that would take too much time and has the possibility of messing up other things.

Increasing the number of wins needed from 9 to 11-12 while at the same time cutting down the percentage of units that can become guard will do the job. The percentage reductions will nerf the farming wins strategy.

If there are players that are not farming guards, especially during winter, then they need to start doing so. The current system is not optimal, true, but coming up with a better one and then implementing it is no easy task.

[Speedysteve]

To exemplify my situation, again, in the game vs Loki....up to September 1943....I've 78 units (including SU) that have 9+ wins that are non-Guards....I'm not swimming in them....

[loki100]

looks like someone has been reducing their TOEs ... [;)]

[Speedysteve]

Looks like someone is being a massive douche[:'(]

[tyronec]

@tyronec: My suggestion is a pragmatic one. I dont think that the devs will take extra time now to rebuild the guard system. AFAIK that would take too much time and has the possibility of messing up other things.

Increasing the number of wins needed from 9 to 11-12 while at the same time cutting down the percentage of units that can become guard will do the job. The percentage reductions will nerf the farming wins strategy.

If there are players that are not farming guards, especially during winter, then they need to start doing so. The current system is not optimal, true, but coming up with a better one and then implementing it is no easy task.

We are in agreement that getting the percentages of guards better is really going to resolve the issue. If that were done then the rest is less important.

However the wins system of promotion is just a poor aspect of the game, it rewards a form of play that is not quite right and that players have to adopt it to optimise their army seems to me to just be an acknowledgement that the system is wrong. I don't see much reason why it could not be replaced by something better and fairly simple. How about a very small percentage chance of one promotion every time a there is a battle which the Soviets win that is against the odds.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

[Stamb]

If division is performing poorly - why would it get guard status?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Stamb

If division is performing poorly - why would it get guard status?

If nothing is happening on the Western front why send the SS and/or other division at predetermined times per historical? Same principle.

[tyronec]

I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

That could work. Makes more sense than the present system.
Would need to look at how to deal with combined units, so if a guard corps was created historically how to relate that with players forming their own corps.

[Teemu1986]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I know, how about just do it historically. A great many other triggers are done by historical dates, why not just follow that same timeline for the Soviet Guard promotion for sh*ts & giggles. I mean you have SS & other formations that are triggered to go West for no apparent reason in a game other than historical then I feel the Guard creation should be the same. But that is just me thinking out loud on this.

Who knows if the division will exist in the game? And will it be the same division if it has been destroyed and reconstituted?

[Stamb]

ORIGINAL: tyronec
...
Suggestion would be to:
1. Review the number of units eligible to become Guards over the course of the game.
2. Guards promotion occurs as a result of an exceptionally good combat result rather than primarily on a cumulative number of Wins.

I like second option.

And this is how i see it

In order to get a guard status you still need N victory points (maybe 8 as right now is too low, maybe it is too high).
If division wins a battle against:
1 regiment - it gets 1/3 of a point
2 regiments - 2/3 of a point
3 regiments/divisions - 1 point

Or something similar. Axis allies are 0.25 for the whole division! Exception is Finns. They count as normal German divisions.

[Stamb]

Holding/taking cities can also give some benefits towards guard promotion.

[MechFO]

Guards unit cap, just as Axis NM, should IMO be determined by total losses.

Guards represent the benefit of accumulated experience from prior failed operations. Refuse to engage in operations and don't get the historical benefits either.