Defending Mother Russia Saper vs Harrybanana (No Saper)

[Harrybanana]

The panzer's bloody nose

[Harrybanana]

The 3 lucky attacks to liberate my trapped divisions. Of course they are doomed anyway.

[Harrybanana]

OOB, Losses and Production. If you compare this with my post of a few turns ago you will see that I have put some hurt on Saper, especially to his tank numbers. But I'm still not "banking" any manpower myself. I did have about 450,000 Armaments prior to this turns "squad reorganization" drain.

[randallw]

The German side can't afford such hefty losses to the panzer divs.

[Peltonx]

Yes because game balance is so far off HB will be on offensive by November 42 or sooner.

Dispite sappers better then historical 1941 game is sadly still way out of balance and will end mid to late 44

SHC has no manpower or armaments issues dispite hvy fighting in 42 and 43. Both pools grow every turn.

Game is not close to balanced / playable, unless SHC is just screwing up building the wrong stuff.

All things being equal GHC is better of retreating before blizzard and digging in at rivers, you get the same result or better.

[timmyab]

Saper is totally fried in this game.And this is one of the strongest Axis players out there.
1942 is completely out of whack.If the Axis can't make significant gains in 42 then the game becomes boring for both players.Six months of fun followed by three years of WW I style warfare, and we all know how popular WW I games are.
The blizzard needs taming for a start.
I'd also lower the Soviet leader ratings across the board in 41 and 42 by one point for each category and make it more difficult to swap out bad leaders.Maybe only allow leaders to be swapped out after they've reached a certain number of loss results and only allow promotion after they've got a minimum number of win results.
Well done by the way Harry, you must be a strong player to hold Saper comfortably like this.

[mmarquo]

Maybe, just maybe it is not the game, but the players have not mastered the intricacies? Not casting aspersions, but ii is an alternate hypothesis.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

Maybe, just maybe it is not the game, but the players have not mastered the intricacies? Not casting aspersions, but ii is an alternate hypothesis.

As I stated months and months ago when .13 was released.

1. SHC simply has to move 20 or so units to north and defend north to south.
2. Everything can easly be railed out, NP
3. Leningrad is being held 50% of the time and moscow is not possible to take unless SHC is a total newbie vs very exped GHC.
4. average to good SHC can easly keep loses under 3 million, I did first game as SHC 2.8 very easy to do.
5. Blizzard is a disaster for GHC because they fase 5 million man SHC, my first blizzard I pocketed 20 division and almost got a full army group.
6. By summer GHC infantry morale is in the dumps.
7. SHC has a 7 million man army by June in game after game.
8. By August 42 GHC has to go over to defensive and is getting driven west during 42/43 winter in game after game
9. Game over set match by mid to late 44.

We have more then a dozen games now and its all the same song and dance as I predicted long ago. The best GHC players are being beaten easly, even when they have a better then historical 1941.

You can stick your head in the sand and ignore the data, but it doesn't change whats going on.

tm.asp?m=3267634

[gingerbread]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

...I'm still not "banking" any manpower myself. I did have about 450,000 Armaments prior to this turns "squad reorganization" drain.

I can't see the point of having manpower in the pool - in your case it's due to that they are in the units, a much more effective use of them, or? [;)]

It shows that you:
1) have enough units to receive the men and that in turn shows that you are not subject to an AP squeeze (yet, at least) and
2) that you have (had) enough ARM to equip the men.

1) will most likely hold true if you continue to show the quality of play seen thus far, but 2) will most likely change for the worse since there are many more Rifle Squads that will upgrade and the weakest link in the chain in your case is the ARM factory number. So don't plan on building any Rocket Divisions in '42 (and probably not in '43 either). They are expensive (easy to check with a napkin calculation)!

Your army is many sigmas of the mean, but fortunately there is the non-attrition period as a counterweight to the clamouring from the gallery.

[M60A3TTS]

It's still early summer, and I wouldn't bury Saper yet.

[Seminole]

The best GHC players are being beaten easly, even when they have a better then historical 1941.

This is why I was disappointed to not see the return game between you and MT.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

The best GHC players are being beaten easly, even when they have a better then historical 1941.

This is why I was disappointed to not see the return game between you and MT.

M60 has far more exp then me I am a newbie as far as SHC goes 1 game. M60 should not have any problem at all. His not to hot at blizzard O as SHC, but he doen't need to have a 20 + division winter to win.

Its is easy to play SHC, just run in south defend Moscow with a 70 mile thick fort belt. Build up forses and drive west ect ect.

[Harrybanana]

With respect to this particular game I offer the following comments to all of the above:

1. I agree with M60A3TTS that this game is not decided yet. I may have the upperhand at the moment, but this game has gone back and forth with respect to who is "winning" several times already. Maybe Saper has little experience beyond 1941, but then again so do I. It is a long way to Berlin.

2. If I do go on to win this game I do not think my Blizzard Offensive will even be close to being the main reason why I won or even why Saper is, so far, unable to make too much headway in Summer 42. Actually I don't think my Blizzard Offensive was particularly effective. I didn't even liberate Stalino.

3. The main reasons I would cite for my success to date in the summer of 42 are:

a) Preserving the Soviet Army in the summer of 41 even though it cost me ground and factories.

b) Lucky random weather rolls, which gave me mud in each zone when I needed it most.

c) Halting my Blizzard Offensive in time to allow me to dig in and rebuild the Soviet Army.

d) Saper not remiaing in contact with my army during the Spring mud turns thus limiting my attrition losses. True it also limited his attrition losses, but I believe the Russians lose far more than the Germans, especially if he stayed in contact with just regiments.

e) No attacks made by Saper during the February (in the South) and March snow turns.

f) Saper spreading out his 42 Offensive.

g) Saper not using airsupply to refuel his mobile forces in 42 like he did in 41. If he had a few more fueled up units each turn it would make me a little more nervous about defending forward like I am; and of course,

h) My brilliant play:)

With respect to game balance in general I agree that it favors the Soviets. As both MT and Pelton have repeatedly pointed out so long as the Soviet player carefully preserves his army in 1941 he will probably win most games (well actually I think Pelton and MT woudl say every game). This is normally accomplished by running whenever threatend by encirclement. However, achieving this against a player of Saper's ability is not easy. If we were playing a non-random weather game (or even if I hadn't gotten so lucky with the Random weather) I doubt I would be "winning" this game at the moment. And don't forget that Saper has developed some new Strategy with which he has won or is winning 3 more games since ours started.

But even though the game is unbalanced I am not in favour of balancing it by further handicapping the Russian Blizzard Offensive. Historically the Russians did make huge advances, particularly in the South. But even if the Blizzard Offensive is a "fantasy" I would not be in favour of modifying it unless all the pro-German "fantasies" were modified too. Such as the Lvov Opening (or at least the Extended Lvov Opening) and the too low Russian Manpower numbers.

I personally think the main reason the game is unbalanced is because competent Russian players are unlikely to make the same glaring errors as their historical counterparts. Put another way, if we were to search heaven and hell and force all the major participants of the War in the East (Generals all the way up to Hitler and Stalin resepectively) to refight the War (with full knowledge of the real war and the abilty to change their historical decisions) what do you think the result would be? Myself I think that the Russians would be marching into Berlin before the end of 44. The fact that the Germans are generally not going on a rampage in 42 like they did historically just proves to me that the Designers got it right. Just because it happened that way historically does not mean that it was the "probable result". To bad we can't examine the results in 100 different alternate universes to determine what the probable result actually is (Hmmm... maybe Pelton is right about this "fantasy" thing).

So for me if you want to restore game balance just change the Victory Conditions. However, I recognize that this would not be popular with most players. Who would want to play the Germans if they don't always (or at least almost always)get to be in full Offensive mode in the summer of 42? So I would accept as an alternative the establishment of victory conditions for players holding certain locations throughout the game. Don't like it, but I would accept it.

[mmarquo]

"The best GHC players are being beaten easly, even when they have a better then historical 1941. You can stick your head in the sand and ignore the data, but it doesn't change whats going on."

Maybe some of those who think they are the best are not any where close to being as good as they think. Maybe others should pull their heads own out of the sand. [;)]

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
I personally think the main reason the game is unbalanced is because competent Russian players are unlikely to make the same glaring errors as their historical counterparts. Put another way, if we were to search heaven and hell and force all the major participants of the War in the East (Generals all the way up to Hitler and Stalin resepectively) to refight the War (with full knowledge of the real war and the abilty to change their historical decisions) what do you think the result would be? Myself I think that the Russians would be marching into Berlin before the end of 44.

This is precisely correct which is why I've said from the start that the early war incompetence of the Soviet leadership has to be programed into the game.If it isn't then what you get is what we've got now between equal players.The Axis invade, have a great time for six months and then go 'Oh no this was such a bad idea' and go home, i.e. give up.
It might be a good simulation of what would have happened had the Soviet leadership been up to scratch in 41/42 but most Axis players aren't going to hang around long enough for you to find out.

Edit.I'll answer this response from Jahn here to avoid clogging up this AAR too much.

ORIGINAL: janh
Catch 22 is that then justly the Soviet players will also ask to be allowed their "improvement" for 43-45, if in 41-42 they have to follow their mistakes. Their improvement would also be strongly based on Axis mistakes, so Feste Plätze and Stalingrad like "no withdrawls" would have to be a part of that? Would you want that, or prefer to pick an opponent who would be happy to agree to play along historical doctrine and guidelines, as far as this doesn't break the game (like Axis not slowly withdrawing at least a bit in the open areas during blizzard, while the Russian site exploits this; or the Axis sides exploiting the lack of Soviet historical reinforcements in 41 while the Soviet player tries to repeat historical mistakes, and fights for pretty much every yard and counterattacks foolishly). It rather think that would be for house-rules, since there is only so much you can do to try go negate hindsight. And you might easily turn a game into a "recreation movie" of history, which is probably better left for Hollywood?

I don't want to recreate specific mistakes that either side made, but I do want to simulate the institutional weakness within the Red Army leadership during 41 and 42 that was (in my opinion) the main reason for the early disasters.I'm certain that Hitler sensed this weakness, which was possibly why he risked invading at all.
Exactly how you simulate weak leadership in a game is one for the experts I suspect.
I'll say again, if you don't allow for a meaningful 42 Axis offensive then the game becomes dull for both sides and will put a lot of Axis players off playing at all, either that or they'll play through Barbarossa and then disappear.

[Peltonx]

The combat ratio is not historical.

That has little to do with Stalin or Hitler.

1942 and again in 1943 the Russians lost more men then in 1941.

The losses were simply because of straight up combat and not the massive pockets of 1941.

SHC can simply walk into Berlin because of unhistorical combat ratios in wite.

Sure throw out Lvov, make taking out pockets harder, give the russians more manpower ect ect ect ect ect.

But atleast make the game reflect history when it comes to the men on the ground. The Germans were simply 3 to 5 times better then the russians. Because of trianing, command and control at the company lvl and being on the defesive ect ect. Sure the russians were brave ect ect, but the facts are the facts. The game should be based on history and not PC bs.

The combat losses are 75% based on who retreats, thats just plain ******. The attacker almost always takes hvyer loses when they win in WW2.

The combat engine is more reflective of WW 1 and not mordern warfare.

The combat engine ***** thats why the game is screwed up no matter what they tweak end of story.

2by3 has been screwing around for 2 yrs and the game still ***** from 42 to 45. Granted 1942 is better, but still no wheres near right.

They plan on using the same engine in witw? Based on who retreats? Thats simply not how it works.

The russians and some times the germans took 3 to 1, 5 to1 8 to 1 loses and won battles. The attacker almost always lost more men even on the Western front.

The current combat engine, the attacker almost always loses less, from Dec 41 - 45.

That is simply not the historical case.

So the game will never be "playable" until the combat engine reflects WW2 combat and not I win the CV battle you retreat and take more loses.

[Harrybanana]

I agree with most of what you say Pelton. If the Attacker's combat losses were increased along with the Soviet's it would slow down both the initial German invasion, the Blizzard and the Soviet Offensive from 42 or 43 on. Still the best WWII strategy gaem ever.

[mmarquo]

So Pelton: why do you still play the game? Just curious.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

So Pelton: why do you still play the game? Just curious.

Still best Eastern front game out there and with a few simple tweaks it be close to perfect.

Most of the wasted time tring to tweak the game in first plase was because of fuel exploits, things that were not by design.

Finally after 1.5 years the logistic system as far as fuel goes is right.

Now things can be tweaked based what I beleive they hoped to be designing in the first plase.

They are putting allot of time into logistics and the air war for witw/wite2, but the combat engine is the central issue and has always been the centeral design issue of wite.

witp historically was based around logistics and the game reflects that, but the war in Europe was about the Germans taking so much with so little, with so few, in so little time with mostly out classed equipeent. Germany was able to attack when out numbered/out gunned and yet easly win while taking less loses.

While the allies needed more equipment/men/time and took far more losses to take back what was lost.

Blah blah blah we all know they lost.

The combat engine needs to reflect history and not be about PC.

I think the Russians should have the 150-200 missing divisions, but the combat engine is so far off and Russians so over rated the game can't handle the historical data.

Thats why the game just plain doesn't feel right to so many players.

witp feels right and the players are super loyal to the game, because it reflects history and feels right. Not because it is PC, but because it is reflective of the historical data.

The combat engine needs to reflect the massive losses that russia was taking during 42/43/44. Not because of pockets but because of the straight up combat. It simply doesn't thats why the game simply doesn't feel/play right and many poeple feel it is so far out of balance.

wite is a massive game and simply was not play tested enough to work out the massive number of exploits. 2by3 had to spend 1.5 yrs removing them and now is finally looking at whats right or wrong with the game.

At the center is the combat lose ratio of each battle, which has never been right from the start.

One thing that was patched in to slow down Germans was to make them take much heavyer loses from movement. 2by3 had no idea of all the fuel exploits being used so to stop whatever was going on upped GHC equipemt losses when moving.

Why has this not been tweaked back to where it was?

GHC forses historically recovered vechiles better then anyone. If russian tanks broke down they simply left it behind in many cases, because they did not have the logistical support.

Does the game reflect that part of the logistics picture?

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
With respect to this particular game I offer the following comments to all of the above:

1. I agree with M60A3TTS that this game is not decided yet. I may have the upperhand at the moment, but this game has gone back and forth with respect to who is "winning" several times already. Maybe Saper has little experience beyond 1941, but then again so do I. It is a long way to Berlin.

2. If I do go on to win this game I do not think my Blizzard Offensive will even be close to being the main reason why I won or even why Saper is, so far, unable to make too much headway in Summer 42. Actually I don't think my Blizzard Offensive was particularly effective. I didn't even liberate Stalino.

3. The main reasons I would cite for my success to date in the summer of 42 are:

a) Preserving the Soviet Army in the summer of 41 even though it cost me ground and factories.

b) Lucky random weather rolls, which gave me mud in each zone when I needed it most.

c) Halting my Blizzard Offensive in time to allow me to dig in and rebuild the Soviet Army.

d) Saper not remiaing in contact with my army during the Spring mud turns thus limiting my attrition losses. True it also limited his attrition losses, but I believe the Russians lose far more than the Germans, especially if he stayed in contact with just regiments.

e) No attacks made by Saper during the February (in the South) and March snow turns.

f) Saper spreading out his 42 Offensive.

g) Saper not using airsupply to refuel his mobile forces in 42 like he did in 41. If he had a few more fueled up units each turn it would make me a little more nervous about defending forward like I am; and of course,

h) My brilliant play:)

With respect to game balance in general I agree that it favors the Soviets. As both MT and Pelton have repeatedly pointed out so long as the Soviet player carefully preserves his army in 1941 he will probably win most games (well actually I think Pelton and MT woudl say every game). This is normally accomplished by running whenever threatend by encirclement. However, achieving this against a player of Saper's ability is not easy. If we were playing a non-random weather game (or even if I hadn't gotten so lucky with the Random weather) I doubt I would be "winning" this game at the moment. And don't forget that Saper has developed some new Strategy with which he has won or is winning 3 more games since ours started.

But even though the game is unbalanced I am not in favour of balancing it by further handicapping the Russian Blizzard Offensive. Historically the Russians did make huge advances, particularly in the South. But even if the Blizzard Offensive is a "fantasy" I would not be in favour of modifying it unless all the pro-German "fantasies" were modified too. Such as the Lvov Opening (or at least the Extended Lvov Opening) and the too low Russian Manpower numbers.

I personally think the main reason the game is unbalanced is because competent Russian players are unlikely to make the same glaring errors as their historical counterparts. Put another way, if we were to search heaven and hell and force all the major participants of the War in the East (Generals all the way up to Hitler and Stalin resepectively) to refight the War (with full knowledge of the real war and the abilty to change their historical decisions) what do you think the result would be? Myself I think that the Russians would be marching into Berlin before the end of 44. The fact that the Germans are generally not going on a rampage in 42 like they did historically just proves to me that the Designers got it right. Just because it happened that way historically does not mean that it was the "probable result". To bad we can't examine the results in 100 different alternate universes to determine what the probable result actually is (Hmmm... maybe Pelton is right about this "fantasy" thing).

So for me if you want to restore game balance just change the Victory Conditions. However, I recognize that this would not be popular with most players. Who would want to play the Germans if they don't always (or at least almost always)get to be in full Offensive mode in the summer of 42? So I would accept as an alternative the establishment of victory conditions for players holding certain locations throughout the game. Don't like it, but I would accept it.

+1
Fully agree. Very nicely argued!

The game is "not balanced", but this is not supposed to be chess. If one wants a fair contest, this struggle is surely not the one of choice. The question ought to be more whether the game is "sufficiently unbalanced" versus "exaggeratedly unbalanced".

I hope for WitE2, the blizzard penalties will make way for combat and supply modifiers based on true logistic management and weather effects, i.e. a random blizzard turn in Novemer should be the same as the first one in December etc. That then also requires to adjust the other points you mentioned to more realistic accuracy, aka the chances of the Lvov (or the lacks of the passive I-Go-U-Go phasing, defensive reactions), and the Soviet manpower issue that seems to have been tuned down a little too much by now.

Lastly, it seems judging the balance depends much on judging the skill of players, and that I find (near) impossible to do reliably. At least I wouldn't bet on any outcome anymore. See how Sapper suddenly struggles, how Pelton ran into issues and how Terje turned around a game that looked like it would end in May 1944 in Berlin, but now likely ends in May 1944 in Gorky... Clearly it helps a lot to use hindsight, but for both sides. Don't repeat the Russians mistakes, and you logically must do better -- else something would be out of whack. Don't repeat the German mistakes, save your Army at SG, and implement the lessons learned from history, and also that should improve chances. If both sides do so, which one profits more? Which side made the bigger mistakes?

Perhaps more important: Random effects -- they have a strong impact in this game, and can favor both sides, like the weather, or the attrition of tanks etc, which is seen to vary widely in the games if you take note of it. It is hard to establish "a balance judgement" from so few data points with so widely varying parameters and random effects. It is much easier to compare raw numbers and add up what the Russian reinforcements are here, and what contemporary documents put them at, errors or not.

Perhaps one needs to differentiate a bit more, i.e. look at the two critical game phases, the opening until say blizzard, and the major Soviet offensive phase starting by mid-43 plus minus some. It won't help if the overall balance of the game is strongly in Soviet favor for the 4 year period, if in 1941 the "local" balance is so strongly in Axis favor, that his survival depends more on Axis player mistakes than his own skill. The overall balance is probably meaningless since there are victory criteria considered at various phases/times in game, and the dynamics of the game changes to much between these phases. After all, I assume no one wants a "likely 41 Axis wins" card and only few games make it to an interesting Russian offensive phase that leads anywhere closer to Berlin but boredom? Nor does one want a game in which the 41/42 successes of Axis isn't reflected by the Red Army... Tricky thing!?

I think they need to take a look at the reinforcement and withdrawal as well as German production mechanisms, which could help to create a dynamic that would be both more plausible, and more dynamic/interesting for both players. Presently, Russian units are returning and costing numbers that are derived from the typical historical 1941 scenario, and German withdrawals/reinforcements, or production rates/allocations are based on that same thing. Makes sense for an game that would be designed to always play out very closely to history, but not here. Naturally, a Soviet Army that runs and follows Napoleons or Clausewitz lessons and simple military principles, preserves its forces, will still get reinforcements as if "averagely slaughtered". I'd rather have Russian mobilization be slower if losses are lower, and thus, "apparent need" be less. Same way I'd increase their # of free shells or AP points if the losses were worse. And same for the German side, if the struggle is getting easy for 42 because 41 was really good, there should be more withdrawals and production could be slower in expanding. Fixing one part, while the other varies widely, can only cause issues.