Combat uses supply over and above this. It has to be present in the hex (or drawn into the hex over a supply line)
Recovery and replacement supply has to be in the hex (or drawn into the hex over a supply line)
Just to be asolutely clear, you are saying that at the instant supply is needed for this purpose, if it is not present in the hex, it will be drawn from some other supply source that is in range. Is this correct?
Correct. Ever notice that when as Japan you move to Changsha and start a major battle the supply in bases nearby drops?
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
your post cleared some things and the system sounds logical to me. However there seem to be some problems coming with it regarding game balance (and reality):
(1) The victory point system of the game that only counts destroyed squads. This makes it possible for someone who attacks (that is, early in Scen. 15/16, the Japanese) to aquire lots of victory points without really paying for it (he pays "only" supplies).
(2) The winner of a battle has not even to produce new squads (by spending manpower and armament points) because he looses no (or not many) squads. In the end it allows the "winner" to get stronger and stronger because his units get XP by the combats and simply "repair" disabled squads. History tells us that even the "winners" of battles or campaigns had problems when winning (e.g. British manpower problems in 1944/45; the British certainly had enough supplies and were on the move then).
Ever notice that when as Japan you move to Changsha and start a major battle the supply in bases nearby drops?
I'm not attacking in China. I'm just clearing the railroad.[;)] But I have seen this at Singapore and Manila, I just didn't think about the mechanics of what was going on.
So anything over attempts to replace/undisable? Is there a limit to how fast? Meaning if I dumped 100k next to 50/100 units I could expect them to go to 100/100 in a day, a week, or a month. What are the other factors, malaria, HQ, etc?
Hi, Yes after you capture all of Luzon and move the units to Manila and have supply over required (over 20k) the units get back to 100/100 in a few weeks.
It is like repairing damaged aircraft. supply, leader etc I don't think it happens overnight but watch a unit that is damaged in a hex with surplus supply and in range of HQ they recover a little every day.
If you don't own the hex you are fighting in then the supply is coming from outside. If you own the hex but the base is in the red then the supply comes from outside.
In China (and Burma) often the defender is in a red base connected to red bases. In combat he fights out of supply.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
your post cleared some things and the system sounds logical to me. However there seem to be some problems coming with it regarding game balance (and reality):
(1) The victory point system of the game that only counts destroyed squads. This makes it possible for someone who attacks (that is, early in Scen. 15/16, the Japanese) to aquire lots of victory points without really paying for it (he pays "only" supplies).
(2) The winner of a battle has not even to produce new squads (by spending manpower and armament points) because he looses no (or not many) squads. In the end it allows the "winner" to get stronger and stronger because his units get XP by the combats and simply "repair" disabled squads. History tells us that even the "winners" of battles or campaigns had problems when winning (e.g. British manpower problems in 1944/45; the British certainly had enough supplies and were on the move then).
K
Hi, Yes I agree. Because of this it appears the Japanese are not losing anything. If possible the system should track supply used to repair and award VP for every 6 so used.
Then we would have a better picture of the cost.
Where the winner fought a battle in which he overwhelmed the defender he does gain experiance and low cost.
The point is to not fight battles as defender where the enemy can overwhelm you. In the SRA you have no choice. Outside there is little excuse.
I have been stressing supply without fully understanding that people did not understand that combat consumes supply before anything else. You units only start losing material when the supply is not there to be consumed instead. Ans in these cases the attacker does gain alot for a little because we are not charging him for the supply. (In The SRA and China the Allies do not consume a lot of this type supply. They just don't have it. So they lose material instead and the Japanese get these VP)
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Mogami,
I was writing while you were posting......
Ok..so if we look at the the production screen and see what we have in the way of replacement squads.....then run a combat.....then look at the screen again we will see a reduction in squads avaliable? <In effect the replacements will have been sent and deducted from the total?>
Ok...supply is used to reactivate disabled squads...not issue new squads as replacements!! Didn't realize this aspect.
I'm going to start checking this every turn I've 2 pbems going and alot of ground combat in Malaya,Burma,Pi and DEI....so there will be plenty of test cases.
Lets assume you are correct.......losses are being replaced virtually instantly with units in proper supply. Then we need to have ..."no replacements allowed in enemy zone of control implemented". That will atleast force you to pull back to recieve replacements....and also might be able to be implemented.
Guys, if you play a round of AI vs AI, towards the end of the turn, you will see a whole pile of messages scrolling by as *every* unit in the game draws supply. You will clearly see that the supply does not always come from the base the unit happens to be in. It may help in your understanding of how supply flows.
Hi, No you still don't understand.
Repacement squads from the pool only get used to replace squads actually fully destroyed.
Supply repairs damaged squads.
What is a damaged infantry squad? The rifles are broken. No it has lost men. It can't fight but it is not destroyed. They are being repaired using supply and no VP are awarded.
It does not matter that this repair is not instant. The unit just sits for a few days and repairs and regians combat effectivenss to damaged squads. This is fine. If the player has the supply and takes the time to rest his units they stay healthy. It is meant to be like this.
However players are sending units againt this that are not able to do the same and are being slaughtered as a result. This is intended. It means don't fight when your not able to sustain the battle. If it was only a question of moving units into contact the game would not need us the player for anything. If you plan supply and base combat on what your supply can maintain then you will not be overwhelmed. (outside the SRA)
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Hi, Read my post again. I think the attacker is losing men. I don't think it is being recorded. The loss is in supply used to replace the men killed. So if the attacker does have a supply surplus then this represents his also having a large replacement pool. These replacements are being issued but the VP are not.
If this is correct it may help to explain things. I have a "feeling" that either no supply is being used to rebuild disabled squads or that the amount used is very small campared to what it takes to replace squads. Its impossible for me to know because supply is difficult to track from day to day. But I have not seen my supply levels drop unless I actually start taking kills.
VP's should then be given for disabled squads. Maybe more or (some?) supply should be required to recover squads.
I understand that this is an operational game and I am quite willing to accept a level of abstraction as you describe. It simply does not seem to me be working correctly at present. I believe that this problem has severe operational level implications. In fact I believe that solving this issue will largly fix land combat in the game.
I look forward to future test results that shed light on this issue.
Hi, When I get time.
Set up Island with 2 bases with rail hex connecting. 1 base each side.
Have attacker in enemy base.
Have supply in attackers base but no units.
Track movement and use of supply from base per turn.
Track status of attacking units.
Defenders in test 1 have surplus supply
In test 2 base in red.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Hi, No you still don't understand.
Repacement squads from the pool only get used to replace squads actually fully destroyed.
Supply repairs damaged squads.
What is a damaged infantry squad? The rifles are broken. No it has lost men. It can't fight but it is not destroyed. They are being repaired using supply and no VP are awarded.
It does not matter that this repair is not instant. The unit just sits for a few days and repairs and regians combat effectivenss to damaged squads. This is fine. If the player has the supply and takes the time to rest his units they stay healthy. It is meant to be like this.
However players are sending units againt this that are not able to do the same and are being slaughtered as a result. This is intended. It means don't fight when your not able to sustain the battle. If it was only a question of moving units into contact the game would not need us the player for anything. If you plan supply and base combat on what your supply can maintain then you will not be overwhelmed. (outside the SRA)
I hear you now......and understand its all supply related. Is there a way to stop a unit/units in enemy ZOC from drawing supply to reactivate disabled squads? Or only reactivating a % of the disabled squads per turn?
I hear you now......and understand its all supply related. Is there a way to stop a unit/units in enemy ZOC from drawing supply to reactivate disabled squads? Or only reactivating a % of the disabled squads per turn?
No, if you want to cut the supply, you need to establish a ZoC between the unit and where it is drawing supply from. Alternatively, bomb the base behind the base you are attacking to soak up supply there. Think of a chain of dominos, it really doesn't matter which one you knock over.
Mike Scholl: Then we agree on the big picture. The post by Nikademus shows that there is something there to what I've been saying and at least someone is looking at it.
The reason I don't like the term loophole or exploit is that it plays into the cop out that you describe. It allows people to say that if people would just play fair or play historically then everything would be fine. "Its all the players fault for doing things in ways their not supposed to." or " If people do non-historical things then they have no right to complain when the results are silly"
The problem is the things I am describing are just attacks. You can't play the game without moving a stack into an enemy stack and attacking. If you retreat the enemy thats not a loophole thats a normal game result and its messed up.
Still now that I know that someone is looking at this mathematically I have some confidance that adjustments will be made to fix it.
Is it possible that what you or your opponent is doing, is always shock attacking? Because just in my mind a retreat from a shock attack ought to have more calamity for the defender, therefore a worse drubbing than you would expect the next time around. From what little I've seen of Chinese conflicts, it appears to me that it's consistent to say that the only hope of a retreating unit, particularly for those having undergone a shock attack, is that they find a good base or very supple supply vein. Just looking at the JA side of things there are lots of spots where retreating back one hex is all but disasterous just because there are so many dry supply spots. Even should they reach the next base safely I can imagine it might take them 5-6 days just to recover morale. And if my Nell bombers having lost a good deal of morale at a good base and not recovering it for quite a long time is any indication then those retreating troops aren't recoering morale anytime soon. I'm not sure many of us understand just what a large impact the loss of morale may be playing in this game, particularly as I can see from my Nell examples they don't recover it just because they have overflowing supply.
I hear you now......and understand its all supply related. Is there a way to stop a unit/units in enemy ZOC from drawing supply to reactivate disabled squads? Or only reactivating a % of the disabled squads per turn?
No, if you want to cut the supply, you need to establish a ZoC between the unit and where it is drawing supply from. Alternatively, bomb the base behind the base you are attacking to soak up supply there. Think of a chain of dominos, it really doesn't matter which one you knock over.
I thought you were saying earlier that the supply in question....might not be coming from the nearest base supplying the cmbat units? I took that tho mean the Fron HQ unit then....so you need to hit a supply base with potentially 20K+ supplies and hope to reduce it so it can't issue supply/replacements to the combat units in question?
Fine..........is it the sector HQ....or nearest supplybase.......or my sister's closet that is issuing the supply to reactivate the disabled squads in question?
Sidenote.....looking at your avatar there Frag...and i feel it baby.....smacking eachother on the head with mallets!
However players are sending units againt this that are not able to do the same and are being slaughtered as a result. This is intended. It means don't fight when your not able to sustain the battle.
But you should be able to do this. Give me a 1 division and you can have 6 and see how long it takes and how many of your men get killed trying to advance across 60 miles of road/woods terrain IRL. In the game you move into hex on turn one, turn two deliberate attack and battle over. My guys take 25-30% kills, you take nothing.
So you're options as the defender are to defend forward and get slautered or retreat to where you can get a favorable force ratio.
Now if you were a Chinese commander IRL you could fight a corp against a Japanese offensive for a week or two. Japan concentrates on your corp and defeats it after a couple weeks but takes casualties and wears itself out. Now Japan still has 71 other Corps to deal with. In other words it should not be really needed to win a lot of battles as China. Just make sure that every time Japan attacks somewhere they lose a bunch of guys, burn supply, waste a couple weeks and in the end they say "I win" but now there's the other 97% of the Chinese army to deal with. And by the way while I was taking town A the Chinese have taken town B and besieged town C and D.
You don't get that in the game because the ratio of losses in any retreat battle is skewed too far in favor of the attacker.
I thought you were saying earlier that the supply in question....might not be coming from the nearest base supplying the cmbat units? I took that tho mean the Fron HQ unit then....so you need to hit a supply base with potentially 20K+ supplies and hope to reduce it so it can't issue supply/replacements to the combat units in question?
You might have to hit multiple bases, consider it interdiction missions (something like 80% of all missions flown). You are effectively hitting the rear area bases to slow the supply of goods to the front line. Fairly common concept in war. If you stop it from getting to the front, your boys at the front have a much easier time.
The problem occurs with any retreat. Keep in mind that as Mogami says "this is an operational level game." I think that a retreat at this level need not always be a rout.
A retreat should in most cases be thought of as the attacker has taken a key position which compells the defender to pull back to the next appropriate defence position. The defender pulls back in an organized manner over a period of days with minimal loss of equipment/supplies. Certainly there were many instances where a rout was literally what happened. But where large formations are concerned the most reasonable way to view a retreat is as I have stated above.
Maybe a morale check could be used to decide if a unit routs or simply pulls back. Should be based on morale and size of unit. (a small unit in 60 miles of space can be more easily flanked or bypassed then 5 Divisions)
Allow me to clarify my point since participants here tend to focus on the attacker so much. The 'issue' in question involves both the attacker and defender. Unless the situation involves a retreat, the defender appears to come out better than the attacker thus far from what i have seen. In my test, recall that the defender, after fighting off an entire enemy division for a week suffered no actual losses in either squads or equipment. Only the IJA division suffered actual losses (amid a swatch of disablements)
We also need to have to set realistic expectations here. Yes, I am running some tests, but this does not mean that there will be any changes made to the game. MikeW has been graciously volunteering his time to mainly fix bugs in the game yet has also found time to make some tweaks and even add a couple more new features. The focus at this point remains however, bug fixes.
Testers have never had access to formula, code or a direct hotline to Gary Grigsby. (Mike W has at times taken time out of his busy schedule to answer coding questions) but I can stab a guess at what Gary was trying to achieve with the LCU model. The challenge he faced was trying to come up with a system that adequately simulated extended land campaigns over time but fit into a 24 hour turn framework that only allowed very generalistic options to the players (Delib or Shock attack) If casualties were too bloody, the result would be a very quick, unrealistic and gamey experience where whole armies are wiped off the map without needing any other factors such as ZOC or being cut off with no retreat option physically possible.
One must recall that even in the bloody Japanese campaign against Imphal, where 3 Japanese divisions, stripped of most of their heavy weapons and equipment (due to the terrain traveled to get there), took six months and countless large, medium and small attacks, counterattacks, and defending actions to spend the bulk of their strength against modernized enemy defensive bulkwarks and formations. By the end of the campaign the 3 divisions were down to nearly battalion strength, exaserbated by the fact that the wounded could not be evacuated or treated properly. (another factor…..disease and wounds untreated or ill treated killed more than actually done in by tank, gun or bullet)
Players tend to expect casualties (i.e. “kills”) that are much higher than what actually happened in most cases based on looking over the firepower at their disposal. (yes there are always exceptions) This is certainly the case with air combat. Acutal air losses in real life were much lower than those often seen in WitP but a lot of players don’t bat an eye at them. Myself, I’ve always been surprised to a degree when reading up on some bloody battle or campaign only to find in the end that the “actual” number of men killed were a lot lower than I’d expect given the description. Usually the majority of the “casualties” will be in wounded…which can cover anything from losing a limb to being knicked by a bullet in the face. Japanese casualties tended to be higher in alot of cases, particularily if conducting Banzai attacks against fixed defences such as Lunga but this was not always the case and another factor that must be weighed in is that the large numbers of Japanese dead were exaserbated by the refusal in most cases to surrender + the inadequacy of the Japanese medical support aparatus where treatment of wounded was concerned.
The biggest factor though, as Mogami related to (if somewhat verbosely) [;)] is that we also have to keep the big picture in mind. Even with what may appear a minor tweak in how the system generates casualties could have far reaching consequences on how the game plays. There is the economic question, if kill totals are increased, will squad and equipment production require rebalancing? Will such a tweak return the game to the previous hyper state of pace? What about air attacks? Lots of complaints about that one…..would increasing the kills result in air units being able to obliterate even fortified LCU’s without any intervention by ground troops? All these factors need to be carefully weighed and measured and frankly, we are a little far into the game’s development history to be doing that.
Overall, despite what I’m finding, and despite my agreement that we are seeing some oddities here, I don’t consider the LCU model to be broken. In my current PBEM game the pace and results that I am achieveing I believe would be considered by most to be “acceptably historical” (whatever that really means). As of 2/42, the Allies still hold Clark and Bataan, the Japanese are 60 miles away from Singapore and Java is still in Allied hands. In Burma, I’ve taken 85% of the country but my offensives have stalled at Akyab, Lashio and Mytk. In China I’ve had success, taken ground and 3 of four nearby towns/cities, but at the same time the Chinese have preserved the bulk of their forces and suffered low incidents of “retreats” which destroy supply and create the circumstances for permanent losses. By no means have I had it easy there.
Correct me if I am wrong moses but does this not sound like exactly what you want:
Attack
Shock
Bombard
Defend
Withdraw
Withdraw is a new option that allows unit to retreat orderly in a planned manner reducing losses and leaving a fairly intact unit able to continue the fight.
Defend now adopts a slightly different meaning ... hold at all costs.
Not saying it can be done, but is that not the root of your whole arguement?
