Finish Theater Box Termination?

[RedBunny]

This?

What I quoted from you, that it's a problem that the game's historical rail repair rate might not match the game's.

[chuckfourth]

Oh I see sorry I did not take in the quote.

Because German supply is dependent on the length of the railways. If the Germans cant lengthen them (repair them) at the historical rate, well to me that would be a purposeful supply nerf designed to disadvantage the German player. This game is meant to be historically accurate right?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

While I have your attention can the German player reach the historical rail repair locations in the game like in reality? you ignore the question, no doubt because he can't.

Yes you can.

Re. the Finnish TB, I think the issue is that IIRC the original game design only had the default victory conditions and so an axis player in Hans position would have won an auto victory some time ago. At the request of the player base the no early end campaign was added, with the consequence that you can get some wonky outcomes if you keep pushing long after the game is won.

As an additional example, in a year and a half Hans may be shocked to see that despite smashing the soviets back into the Urals he still loses the war when the Western Allies take Berlin. A game like HOI4 would allow you to play out the what if scenario where the Germans strip the Eastern Front and send almost everything back West. But that is a different game design to that of WITE.

[chuckfourth]

Ok Very good Sammy5IsAlive thank you for your reply,

I have another question for you if you have the time,

when the game applies attrition what ratio is it, vis a vie Germans versus russians? perhaps 1:1?

[HansBolter]

I'm currently running at 236% in Italy and 177% in Western Europe. It's April of '44 and the Allies are stuck south of Rome.

I've had several events delayed messages for Western Europe already. I'm playing it out at this point mostly to see what happens in the other theaters.

I'm at the gates of Sverdlosk now and have no doubt that I will take the last Soviet factories at Omsk before the end of the game.

I'm getting anxious to see just how delayed the invasion of France is.

I'm testing this design to see of the Germans have a loss forced on them in spite of winning. I'm testing to see if enough troops shifted from the Eastern front to other theaters will win the war in those theaters.

[Jango32]

You would just man the border again with NKVD regiments and FZs, and Finland couldn't do anything about it. Again. With Soviet mobility and lack of Finnish counters & manpower you could probably flip Finland in 1942 with cavalry.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

when the game applies attrition what ratio is it, vis a vie Germans versus russians? perhaps 1:1?

There isn't a set ratio - the amount of attrition a unit suffers is affected by different factors. For example a unit that is low in supply and CPP will suffer more attrition than one that is well supplied and high in CPP.

Just to give you a rough idea of how it works out in practice - in my current game I'm in mid December and Soviet attrition casualties are 75k whilst the figure for the Axis is 19k.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I'm currently running at 236% in Italy and 177% in Western Europe. It's April of '44 and the Allies are stuck south of Rome.

I've had several events delayed messages for Western Europe already. I'm playing it out at this point mostly to see what happens in the other theaters.

I'm at the gates of Sverdlosk now and have no doubt that I will take the last Soviet factories at Omsk before the end of the game.

I'm getting anxious to see just how delayed the invasion of France is.

I'm testing this design to see of the Germans have a loss forced on them in spite of winning. I'm testing to see if enough troops shifted from the Eastern front to other theaters will win the war in those theaters.

Rome wasn't liberated IRL until June 1944 so it is a little uncharitable to their e-commanders to class them as being stuck !

In terms of 'winning' the war your best hope is to delay things so that by the end of the game in August 1945 the Allies haven't taken Berlin. No matter how much you put in a TB you can't reverse the progress of the events. So for example once the Allies are in W. Europe you can't push them back into the sea. Similarly there aren't different 'event tracks' to reflect differing levels of Axis success.

K62 did a good analysis of how different levels of TB over/under stacking effects the chances of advance/delay events in this thread https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=388992

So in your game if you held the same level of surplus for the next year you would expect to see the W. Europe campaign delayed by a further 10 weeks and the Italy campaign to be delayed by a further 1-2 weeks.

I suspect you would get more enjoyment and/or insight into the game by starting a new campaign and turning the difficulty up. But you do you !

[chuckfourth]

Thanks again Sammy5IsAlive but not quite right, To be clear I am talking about the attrition that is allocated in the logistics phase.

There -is- a set ratio, that set ratio is then, as you say "affected" by "differnt factors"
Its a logic thing, you cant "affect" nothing. There -has- to be a starting value and is it the same for the Russ as the German? if it is then that gives an initial attrition value ratio of 1:1.


I would dearly like to know what the set attrition ratio is before it is adjusted by the various factors.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Thanks again Sammy5IsAlive but not quite right, To be clear I am talking about the attrition that is allocated in the logistics phase.

There -is- a set ratio, that set ratio is then, as you say "affected" by "differnt factors"
Its a logic thing, you cant "affect" nothing. There -has- to be a starting value and is it the same for the Russ as the German? if it is then that gives an initial attrition value ratio of 1:1.


I would dearly like to know what the set attrition ratio is before it is adjusted by the various factors.

You would need one of the Devs to confirm the nuts and bolts - the information I've given is what is provided in the manual.

I suspect that the baseline chance is the same for Axis and Soviet. The reason I would think this way is that for Aircraft and AFV specifically the individual planes/vehicles have their own reliability value. As the rest of the element types do not have this value defined I would suspect it is the same for both sides.

[chuckfourth]

Dev Dev Dev are you there? please answer this question for me. What is the baseline ratio for attrition?

It is an important question, If you read "numbers predictions & war" by Colonel T.N. Dupuy you will find that the German army casualties were virtually always less than their opponents irrespective of posture. On the Russian front because the Germans were at the top of their game and the Russians Staff had just been purged this could be as high as 1:5.

So having the baseline attrition rate set to 1:1 severely disadvantages the German because he needs to hoard his quality troops while these losses don't affect the Russians at all.

I suspect it is 1:1 probably because as you say "At the request of the player base" I am a bit unsure devs should pay any attention to the player base, they may well be the same people that were legendry trolls in the WITE 1 forum, all of it aimed at anyone trying to remove the various nerfs against German units. Speaking of which were is the apology Zovs?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Dev Dev Dev are you there? please answer this question for me. What is the baseline ratio for attrition?

It is an important question, If you read "numbers predictions & war" by Colonel T.N. Dupuy you will find that the German army casualties were virtually always less than their opponents irrespective of posture. On the Russian front because the Germans were at the top of their game and the Russians Staff had just been purged this could be as high as 1:5.

So having the baseline attrition rate set to 1:1 severely disadvantages the German because he needs to hoard his quality troops while these losses don't affect the Russians at all.

I suspect it is 1:1 probably because as you say "At the request of the player base" I am a bit unsure devs should pay any attention to the player base, they may well be the same people that were legendry trolls in the WITE 1 forum, all of it aimed at anyone trying to remove the various nerfs against German units. Speaking of which were is the apology Zovs?

Hi Chuck, I'm only doing one more post on this as it is not really relevant to Hans' original post.

Just to add to the figures I gave from my own game. Total losses to date are 3906k Soviet losses and 454k Axis losses. So the attrition losses (which as above were 4:1 in the Axis' favour - broadly comparable to the figure you cite from Dupuy) comprise 2% of the Soviet losses and 4% of the Axis losses. So my conclusion from those numbers would be that a) in 1941 at least the Soviet side suffers a significant higher loss rate from attrition and b) that whilst attrition losses will accumulate over the course of a campaign they will not make a significant difference in comparison to combat losses.

Re the bit in bold, historically each man lost was more damaging to the Axis than to the Soviets. The Wehrmacht started the campaign in the East as an experienced and well trained force. The moment they started losing soldiers they were replacing them with less experienced men. As the war wore on the replacements also started to be less well trained and in worse physical condition (in terms of age/fitness). In contrast, by and large, especially in the first couple of years of the campaign, when the Soviets were replacing a loss they were replacing the lost soldier with a replacement of equivalent (low) experience and training. I may have misunderstood your point but it sounds like you are suggesting that 'baseline' attrition should be set to counteract this historical Axis disadvantage. Which seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Can I just add, as I've only just noticed it, that if deliberate the thread title is *chefs kiss

[HansBolter]

I'm currently running at 236% in Italy and 177% in Western Europe. It's April of '44 and the Allies are stuck south of Rome.

I've had several events delayed messages for Western Europe already. I'm playing it out at this point mostly to see what happens in the other theaters.

I'm at the gates of Sverdlosk now and have no doubt that I will take the last Soviet factories at Omsk before the end of the game.

I'm getting anxious to see just how delayed the invasion of France is.

I'm testing this design to see of the Germans have a loss forced on them in spite of winning. I'm testing to see if enough troops shifted from the Eastern front to other theaters will win the war in those theaters.

Rome wasn't liberated IRL until June 1944 so it is a little uncharitable to their e-commanders to class them as being stuck !

In terms of 'winning' the war your best hope is to delay things so that by the end of the game in August 1945 the Allies haven't taken Berlin. No matter how much you put in a TB you can't reverse the progress of the events. So for example once the Allies are in W. Europe you can't push them back into the sea. Similarly there aren't different 'event tracks' to reflect differing levels of Axis success.

K62 did a good analysis of how different levels of TB over/under stacking effects the chances of advance/delay events in this thread https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=388992

So in your game if you held the same level of surplus for the next year you would expect to see the W. Europe campaign delayed by a further 10 weeks and the Italy campaign to be delayed by a further 1-2 weeks.

I suspect you would get more enjoyment and/or insight into the game by starting a new campaign and turning the difficulty up. But you do you !

I'm not certain you are correct. The Anzio invasion event fired some time ago. At present the Axis are still in control of Anzio. While the event may have fired, the invasion was apparently not a success.

I'll have over 200% in the Western Europe theater box by the time the invasion of Normandy event occurs. Even if the invasion is successful, any breakout from the beachhead may be delayed as well.

And how do the Western Allies take Berlin when they are relegated to a theater box and Berlin is on the map?

It appears this game is historically limited to only allowing for the conquest of Berlin by the Soviets.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I'm currently running at 236% in Italy and 177% in Western Europe. It's April of '44 and the Allies are stuck south of Rome.

I've had several events delayed messages for Western Europe already. I'm playing it out at this point mostly to see what happens in the other theaters.

I'm at the gates of Sverdlosk now and have no doubt that I will take the last Soviet factories at Omsk before the end of the game.

I'm getting anxious to see just how delayed the invasion of France is.

I'm testing this design to see of the Germans have a loss forced on them in spite of winning. I'm testing to see if enough troops shifted from the Eastern front to other theaters will win the war in those theaters.

Rome wasn't liberated IRL until June 1944 so it is a little uncharitable to their e-commanders to class them as being stuck !

In terms of 'winning' the war your best hope is to delay things so that by the end of the game in August 1945 the Allies haven't taken Berlin. No matter how much you put in a TB you can't reverse the progress of the events. So for example once the Allies are in W. Europe you can't push them back into the sea. Similarly there aren't different 'event tracks' to reflect differing levels of Axis success.

K62 did a good analysis of how different levels of TB over/under stacking effects the chances of advance/delay events in this thread https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=388992

So in your game if you held the same level of surplus for the next year you would expect to see the W. Europe campaign delayed by a further 10 weeks and the Italy campaign to be delayed by a further 1-2 weeks.

I suspect you would get more enjoyment and/or insight into the game by starting a new campaign and turning the difficulty up. But you do you !

And how do the Western Allies take Berlin when they are relegated to a theater box and Berlin is on the map?

It appears this game is historically limited to only allowing for the conquest of Berlin by the Soviets.

When you get into 1945 you'll start to see areas of the map swap to western allied control and become non playable.

[HansBolter]

Or not, if enough commitment to the TB can slow events.

I'm getting Events Set Back messages for both Italy and Western Europe almost every turn now.
It's June 11th and no Normandy invasion yet.

As I close in on the last remaining Soviet factory cities and the Soviet army is almost non existent, I'll soon be freeing up two more infantry armies for transfer to the TBs.

I can foresee reaching 250% in both Italy and Western Europe before the end of '44.

It is at least interesting to play it out and see what happens.

[HansBolter]

On turn 164, August 6th, 1944, the D-Day Event occurred.

As can be seen, on turn 165 Events were delayed in Italy and NW Europe.

I'm nearing 250% in NW Europe and 300% in Italy.

The soviets have one base with a defender left on the south east coast of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk.
I've taken Omsk and every last air base the Soviet Air Force could have used.

I have only one Panzer Army and Two Infantry Armies left in the Soviet Union.
Every thing else has been moved to a Reserve or a TB.

[HansBolter]

On Turn 165, August 13th, the turn after the D-Day event there is no sign of Allied presence in France.

[Erik Rutins]

There was absolutely nothing uncivil about my comments.
Calling a spade a spade in not an uncivil act.
I swear this species is growing more and more thin skinned by the day.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
If one can't stand up in the face of heated criticism and defend one's actions one is already lost.
ps...There is no objective definition for the term "civil". Civility is an entirely subjective concept.
Obviously, our subjective definitions of what constitutes "civil" vary greatly.

Nice try. The forum rules you agree to when you join the forum define what's acceptable "in the kitchen", since this is our kitchen and not yours. Civility is not entirely subjective.

I think you know darn well that you could have used a word other than "idiotic" and you're too smart not to realize that calling a decision "idiotic" means it was made by an idiot or someone would have to be an idiot to make it.

This is a warning, keep it up and we'll move on to a ban.

[Joel Billings]

On Turn 165, August 13th, the turn after the D-Day event there is no sign of Allied presence in France.

That's because the system can only flip an entire region, not individual hexes. In about 3 weeks you would normally see the Cherbourg event, and then another 6 weeks after that you'd see Lower Normandy flip to Allied control. Given your huge garrison it will probably be near the end of 1944 before you see that happen. If you maintain the large garrison, I'd expect the Allies won't set foot in Germany before the game ends in August 1945.

Although No Early End allows you to continue playing the game even when it is unwinnable for the Allies, the game's systems (victory conditions and events) were designed with the idea that a situation like the one you show is going to be a German victory.