Matrix Games Forums

Sorry, but mobile reserve does not mean, that the guys are standing on the street, waiting for the order to run to the fights.

I am quite sure, that units in reserve will have their own foxhole to seek cover. It will just be some km behind the frontlines. [;)]

Mobile reserve means that force is concentrated near roads/highways so it can quickly deploy, it can hide in woods if there is any. They are not dug in and spread because that increases response time.

They usually sit in some kind of barracks and it can be rotated with units on front lines for them to recuperate.

If you let your forces sit in muddy and cold trenches for more than few weeks half of them will be sick and you will loose more soldiers of sickness than of bullets.

ORIGINAL: goran007

Mobile reserve means that force is concentrated near roads/highways so it can quickly deploy, it can hide in woods if there is any. They are not dug in and spread because that increases response time.

They usually sit in some kind of barracks and it can be rotated with units on front lines for them to recuperate.

If you let your forces sit in muddy and cold trenches for more than few weeks half of them will be sick and you will loose more soldiers of sickness than of bullets.

Maybe this is true in Europe, but in the jungles of Southeast Asia, or New Britain it's not. "Mobile reserve" as you describe was just not an option. Reserve units were also dug in a few km back, perhaps located on avenues of approach or advance, but in the jungle that might mean located near a foot trail. And yes, a lot of reserve units were in the mud, too.

What you seem to be describing with your "barracks" comment are what are closer to strategic reserve units in the Pacific. By that I mean those fifty or more miles back in "safe" bases where such facilities could be maintained and secured. Generally, they were preparing for the next offensive somewhere. But, when enemy action was expected, units were very much in the mud. If they were a few miles back, then perhaps they had the luxury of a GP medium tent. But, having lived in one of those off and on for a year or so in the region, it's just covered mud, but mud or cracked earth soon to become mud nevertheless.

ORIGINAL: jomni
Oh my.  People complain... we get a patch... and now other people complain.
It's an endless circle. When will everyone be happy? [:(]

No, that's not what happens. It's actually a much more constructive sequence.

An amazingly complex and well-tested game was released; so complex that there was no way that testers could cover everything mutliple times.

After release, lots of "new testers" begin playing the game. They reported things that didn't seem right. Developers looked into those complaints that they thought might have merit. It turned out that some did and some didn't.

Sometimes, multiple tweaks have been made each way to nuance a tough situation.

As you can tell from reading this thread, alot of players think the artillery situation is much better than it was when the game was released.

Reporting bugs or apparent bugs is important in the process of improving the game. Sometimes the process is a bit unpleasant, but it gets done.

I think another issue that comes to mind is that people tend to view AE and WiTP as tactical games. They want weapons to perform with the deep granularity of a good company/battalion level game. Problem is that they are not tactical games; they are strategic games. In a strategic game things at the lower levels of operation are abstracted. In truth at the level AE is meant to be, you should not even see the artillery. It should be represented as part of the organic strength of the battalions, regiments, and divisions that are involved.

That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

ORIGINAL: goran007

In using Falise, you also cite the example of fleeing and defeated troops on the move through a narrow corridor faced with the sort of massive firepower that no other combatants in the war could have delivered. I fail to see how that applies to the game. Anytime a unit retreat after combat in the game, losses are heavy and for the Chinese sometimes brutal. I think this more mirrors your Falise Gap example than an in hex artillery duel between dug in opponents.

I am not saying that artillery alone would win the wars but i am saying that there were certain players who managed Chinese forces by stacking them together and putting them to one hex. That was irrational behavior that no General would do, they were asking for kind of losses they saw.

Artillery like it was a year ago penalized stacking and it should. I expect that if Matrix didnt make a change to artillery, today we would see partisan style of play of Chinese what they actually did in war. Same goes for capturing of Japan by US forces in 1945-46.

Yes, you are mostly correct but the problem is that there is nothing to prevent the Japanese player from using massive stacks either, and a year ago only Japan could produce the amazing casualties that you are referring to. Thus the only counter is to mass as well, and the obscene results that could be otained by the "Japanese" side totally unbalanced the game. I know this is not perfect but the designers of the game decided to abstract land combat and focus on more on the naval and air functions. I don't blame them for this. There is only so much you can do with a game this massive. They could spend months and years revising and refining the ground combat alone (not to mention some needed other aspects) However, although you can expect Matrix to continue to support and improve the game, you cannot expect any major reworkings. The next game, if there ever is a next one will probably be a new design for newer computers and perhaps completely different code, and we all might be a lot older by then. I know what you are saying but you are wishing for a level of detail that is just not going to happen in this game. Best to not worry so much about it and just deal with the game we were given...

Icedawg

You wrote it very well ....
The effect of the bombing is really weird.
I stopped using it in practice, I also have the Japanese side greater losses.

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I think another issue that comes to mind is that people tend to view AE and WiTP as tactical games. They want weapons to perform with the deep granularity of a good company/battalion level game. Problem is that they are not tactical games; they are strategic games. In a strategic game things at the lower levels of operation are abstracted. In truth at the level AE is meant to be, you should not even see the artillery. It should be represented as part of the organic strength of the battalions, regiments, and divisions that are involved.

+1

If everything was under the hood, a lot these wouldn't even be brought out since they can't see what's happening and things seem right.
But people love WITP for the little details.

Some say WITP is a confused monster trying to be both tactical and strategic at the same time.

ORIGINAL: Icedawg
But when the other side has no artillery (or practically none), how is it possible that the counterfire will cause more casualties than the attacker's fire does? This is the part that I find ridiculous - the side with the bombarding artillery almost always takes more casualties than the defender. Even if the defender is a decimated engineer unit with a single aviation support squad and the attacker has 5 heavy artillery regiments, the attacker takes more casualties. What are the defenders doing in this case, throwing wrenches and hammers 5+ km and taking out the crews of the bombarding guns?

+1 here. IMHO artillery is quite ineffective now and "counterfire" needs to be toned down.

Bye.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
No, that's not what happens. It's actually a much more constructive sequence.

An amazingly complex and well-tested game was released; so complex that there was no way that testers could cover everything mutliple times.

After release, lots of "new testers" begin playing the game. They reported things that didn't seem right. Developers looked into those complaints that they thought might have merit. It turned out that some did and some didn't.

Sometimes, multiple tweaks have been made each way to nuance a tough situation.

As you can tell from reading this thread, alot of players think the artillery situation is much better than it was when the game was released.

Reporting bugs or apparent bugs is important in the process of improving the game. Sometimes the process is a bit unpleasant, but it gets done.

+1
I am not complaining at all. I have no problem in altering some aspects of the game for game balance. Artillery was too effective at the beginning of the game. But now it's quite useless, it often results in more casualities to my troops than enemy's ones.
My 2 cents.

ORIGINAL: jomni

Oh my.  People complain... we get a patch... and now other people complain.
It's an endless circle. When will everyone be happy? [:(]

Well, I am happy to say that I am happy most all of the time [:)]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

Don't get me started. It should be automated. You should have the option of devoting resources to it but you should not be involved with individual pilots' training like you are in AE. It is beyond the scope (or at least should be)

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

Don't get me started. It should be automated. You should have the option of devoting resources to it but you should not be involved with individual pilots' training like you are in AE. It is beyond the scope (or at least should be)

TOTAL AGREEMENT! The current AE system is a rediculously time intensive exercise in minutia far removed from the scope of a Theater Commander.

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

Don't get me started. It should be automated. You should have the option of devoting resources to it but you should not be involved with individual pilots' training like you are in AE. It is beyond the scope (or at least should be)

TOTAL AGREEMENT! The current AE system is a rediculously time intensive exercise in minutia far removed from the scope of a Theater Commander.

Just add the good old training squads without any advantages, just for the draw pilots button and put pilots back to the pool button and training would require much less clicks.

And in general the artillery system like everything else in the game is an abstraction. There are different levels of it, some more accurate and some less. Artillery overall is quite acceptable and noone needs the artillery death star back. It is a compromise to achieve an acceptable simulation.

ORIGINAL: beppi

And in general the artillery system like everything else in the game is an abstraction. There are different levels of it, some more accurate and some less. Artillery overall is quite acceptable and noone needs the artillery death star back. It is a compromise to achieve an acceptable simulation.

Completely agree. Of course, it is rather strange that counter-battery can inflict higher casualties than normal bombardment even if the defender has few guns, but that is the only problem. Artillery is still very useful to support both attack and defence.

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

Don't get me started. It should be automated. You should have the option of devoting resources to it but you should not be involved with individual pilots' training like you are in AE. It is beyond the scope (or at least should be)

TOTAL AGREEMENT! The current AE system is a rediculously time intensive exercise in minutia far removed from the scope of a Theater Commander.

it´s something most ppl back in WITP days were asking for so I can´t complain about the game being what most ppl wanted it to be (not exluding me).

ORIGINAL: castor troy

it´s something most ppl back in WITP days were asking for so I can´t complain about the game being what most ppl wanted it to be (not exluding me).

Is it really "what they wanted"..., or is it just all they were being offered? As Commander of the Pacific Theater of Operations, I certainly didn't want to have to get to know every pilot in the Theater by name. [8|]

I tend to view my pilots in a Stalin-esque fashion. I need not know their names.....only that they die for me at the appropriate moment. I am a busy dictator.
[:)]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
That's a good point, Vettim (and where does that leave pilot training...[X(])

It's a matter of scope and scale. This is a game about the Pacific War, where the majority of the action revolved around the Naval and Naval Air aspects of the conflict.

The hex sizes are 40nm across (2025 square miles), and so must accommodate both Naval and Land deployment imperetives. Air Groups are relatively small in number, and also small in Device count, but are highly significant in several aspects of "Game Combat Performance". So it is neither unusual nor undesirable that they have several game vectors that are able to improve their performance. We are looking at a performance vector, vs specific density, vs scale thing here.

When you get to Land combat, scale becomes the limiting factor. One may deploy 500 or 500,000 troops in a hex, from a company echelon to an Army Group. Necessarily, the land combat algorithm is a bit more abstract than the Nav/Air. The enhancement vectors available to the Nav/Air sectors are simply not available to the Land sector because of scale.

Nobody (in scale) gives a rat's patoot about how skilled Sgt. Smith is with a BAR; but it is quite relevant how skilled WO Takahashi is with a bomb.

You're slipping JWE, when I opened the thread I was hoping to read another gem like "officious fewmets" boy, did the brother in law and I laugh at that over the weekend. [:)][8D]

I'm an air training fan boy although I'd love to see a toggle for the training since some find it cumbersome but I believe training is great as it stands and just to contribute to the thread, I just finished up Touched with Fire , while reading it I really got the remember thinking that artillery as currently modelled is pretty darn good.