Axis Players Think Tank

[comsolut]

uote:

ORIGINAL: comsolut

I am just beginning to see some possible insights into the German play. Will need to test them out.

In order of importance:

6) Is there a way to have the Luftwaffe destroy/cause more Russian casualties



I do not know if you are talking about airfield attacks or ground unit attacks.

My perception of the Luftwaffe is that the air crews were high quality ( at least until they were really ground down ), but the size was not especially good ( under four thousand machines ) for the size of the country they were invading. Also the bombers did not have high carrying capacity.

I am not trying to change the game as it is - per the original request, but try to better the Axis player's game. I have been pleased with how well the game actually simulates what occurred during the Russian campaign. As such I am trying to find ways to make the Luftwaffe more effective. Reading the history of Barbarossa, the Luftwaffe was like flying artillery and wherever they appeared on the battlefield in 1941, the Russian struggled to defend, attack, or reinforce. So far I am investigating several air doctrines:

1) ALWAYS recon a unit (combat or Airbase) before attacking it. I believe I read the attacker takes fewer casualties and the defender takes more. I know when I first started playing I just let the AI do recon, but I am getting better combat results when I recon the defender before I attack.

2) I only use level bombers to attack air bases and cities and save the tactical bombers for ground support. Trying to adjust ground support air doctrine to magnify the air power effect.

3) Trying to adjust the air interdiction doctrine to hinder movement of soviet units (this was a big problem for the Russians in the campaign). The rules say the interdiction can cause MP loss and morale loss which in turn affects CV.

4) Working with the Turn 1 German airbase attacks to use, as said, only level bombers and cascading down the fly percentage. I was pretty much able to decimate the Soviet air forces in range but it often took multiple attacks. One attack would only destroy 10 planes the next identical attack 80 some planes. So I am not sure I really trust the AI to do the best job. I am not bashing the AI BUT I am saying that with the uphill battle the German player has - he/she may need to be a little more hands on and detailed in their turns.

Just some of my thoughts.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Grouchy

Endured several AI and one PBEM blizzard as axis. The axis player has to endure those blizzard penalties.....even if he starts to dig in and prepare for winter in august 1941.

To make things worse the lansers that you loose during the blizzard and go back to the pool are trained and experienced combat veterans. However if i look at the spring/summer 1942 TOE's of my division i have the feeling that those same lansers t.r.i.c.k.l.e. back in as replacements as 'green' troops that somehow forgot their months of training and combat experience.

A very importent point I think. I traded several posts earlier with Joel about the "disabled" return rate and he pointed out that I was confusing "disabled" with "damaged" since the "damaged" infantry returned quite quickly to account for lightly wounded/sick returning to their same unit when healed.

It could be as simple a thing as treating the First Winter attrition casualties as "damaged" instead of "disabled; this would allow the units to recover more quickly in the Spring AND retain the high experience levels of the returning troops

[Belphegor]

I unfortunately have made too many mistakes this game to be counted. It's going to be a rough winter.  And I'm definitely partly to blame.

1. Rail repair.  partisans hit me on a critical line before the mud, and I forgot to go back and fix.  That stopped one of my major drives early, and I relied on the AI contstruction battalions to fix.  Bad mistake.  In the end I had to go back and fix it, disrupting not only that drive, but also railhead and deployment.  Not surprisingly I'm suffering there already.

2. Planning for winter.  I only had my experience against the AI to guage.  I knew a human would be different, but I planned ambivalently and far too late based on my lack of late summer decisions and the bad rail repair decisions.  I can't stress dealing with rail repair right away, especially before your net is set up well.

3. Lack of direction. We'll come back to this later.

This is not to discount my opponent. Had I done all this correctly, or better, he may still give me a good drubbing this winter.  I don't know how it will turn out; but I'm not ready to comment that the play is unbalanced. We'll see. What I've found so far is that it isn't necessarily how far back I'm pushed, it's the forts the soviets make between the end of blizzard and the start of any offensive on my part.  If I don't push them out in snow, by the end of mud they're going to take a lot to get moving again

[mmarquo]

OTOH -
 
Patience, grasshoppers. I am very pleased at what I am experiencing. The real question is not what happens in 1941 compared to history, rather what happens in 1945.
 
Please do not change anything until the game has been played through to the bitter end 10 - 20 times. My fun with this game will not so much be as the Axis invader of Russia, rather as the eventual defender of Berlin.
 
Marquo [:)]

[Belphegor]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

OTOH -

Patience, grasshoppers. I am very pleased at what I am experiencing. The real question is not what happens in 1941 compared to history, rather what happens in 1945.

Please do not change anything until the game has been played through to the bitter end 10 - 20 times. My fun with this game will not so much be as the Axis invader of Russia, rather as the eventual defender of Berlin.

Marquo [:)]

This.

[Capt Cliff]

The 41' Blizzard is hammering my German unit's, real bad!! I am waiting until it turns to snow in late February to see if it's hopeless and the Soviet just keeps grinding me up. I have to wait and see. Some infantry divisions are a 50 squads and Panzer Div's at 11 to 20 tanks, phew!! It's a firing squad. Since the Soviet don't seem affected by the blizzard even when it stops they will be massivily superior in man and material. Again I'll have to wait.

Big A, you might want to start a Soviet thread. I am playing a Soviet game as well. Some funny things have happened. Some of my units got by-passed and the AI sent a Panzer Corp back to deal with them. A bit wonky.

[kfmiller41]

I happen to be playing Belphegor and if anyone is following our AAR then you know the situation, at least from the Russian side. I will hold my comments till we get farther on so i can be fair about it. Others are right, lets see how well the Germans recover before we say something is broke.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

OTOH -

Patience, grasshoppers. I am very pleased at what I am experiencing. The real question is not what happens in 1941 compared to history, rather what happens in 1945.

Please do not change anything until the game has been played through to the bitter end 10 - 20 times. My fun with this game will not so much be as the Axis invader of Russia, rather as the eventual defender of Berlin.

Marquo

Quoted for truth. [&o]

[joliverlay]

I have to say that after investing weeks of careful play of the campaign game (German against AI, challenging) I am so disappointed (with the overpowered blizzards) I don't know I can restart again and invest another 200 hours just to quite in disgust again.

I stopped all offensives on the first turn of mud and rested/fortified my troops within a few hexes of rail lines and prepared for 6 weeks for the coming winter. I then suffered blizzard conditions that would have made more sense if I had made no preparations for winter whatsoever. The only thing I can think of to do is to withdraw back into the area where x<54 in November and start the offensive again in 1942. I will still kill 2M Russians before winter but avoid losing 1M of my own men to non combat weather effects. In stead of preparing for 4-6 weeks, I'll just withdraw!

I feel like no matter how carefully I play, I will end up with a weaker army than I would have by just starting the 1942 scenario, even thought that scenario occurs after a German winter disaster. If I avoid the mistakes of the Germans that winter I will still end up with a weaker army. Am I missing something?

[Muzrub]

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

I have to say that after investing weeks of careful play of the campaign game (German against AI, challenging) I am so disappointed (with the overpowered blizzards) I don't know I can restart again and invest another 200 hours just to quite in disgust again.

I stopped all offensives on the first turn of mud and rested/fortified my troops within a few hexes of rail lines and prepared for 6 weeks for the coming winter. I then suffered blizzard conditions that would have made more sense if I had made no preparations for winter whatsoever. The only thing I can think of to do is to withdraw back into the area where x<54 in November and start the offensive again in 1942. I will still kill 2M Russians before winter but avoid losing 1M of my own men to non combat weather effects. In stead of preparing for 4-6 weeks, I'll just withdraw!

I feel like no matter how carefully I play, I will end up with a weaker army than I would have by just starting the 1942 scenario, even thought that scenario occurs after a German winter disaster. If I avoid the mistakes of the Germans that winter I will still end up with a weaker army. Am I missing something?

I hear you- the chances of the Axis player matching, or coming anywhere near the 1942 kick off line is slim to none.

Its as if the Axis player plays under a historical worse case scenario, while the Soviet player plays best case. And there is nothing you can do about...

[hmatilai]

I feel that the blizzard effects feel quite ok and right, but maybe it lasts too long.

If I read my history right, the original Moscow counteroffensive lasted from early December till early January, after which Soviet forces were forced to stop the general offensive since they also run out of reserves, and simply couldn't continue as the Germans defended more bitterly and defenses stiffened a lot. Also the organization of Russian armies didn't support continuation of huge strategic offensives everywhere due to the purging of officer corps and the lack of trained personnel killed or captured by the Germans during operation Barbarossa.

In other parts of the front (other than Moscow) there were some offensives, but they weren't as huge as in front of Moscow. At least the general maps from the winter 1941-42 show the front really moving greatly in front of Moscow (100 - 250km), but only a little elsewhere. Just near Tikhvin -> Volkhov, generating of Izyum bulge in the south and large attacks over the Kerch on Crimea. Elsewhere front was pretty static, as there were not enough forces to go about. And till the end of February fighting had simply petered out everywhere.

In my games it seems the casualty figures for Russians would be about ok, or just bit too low. The offensive also happens along the entire front instead of specific place, and is "less violent" than historical, as the front is not pushed back in large steps along this specific point of attack, but happens bit by bit along the entire front. In books I've read the general picture of these offensives is that it's a mad dash, instead of the slow advance it's now.

Losses for Germans would also feel ok to me, at least during this early December / early January, after which casualties start to mount maybe too much, at least according to my gut feeling. This in turn allows Russians to continue their offensive along the whole front for longer. I think there was a pause in fighting (meaning just huge strategic offensives) along the from from end of February 1942 till beginning of May. Mostly fighting had died out since January along the Moscow axis and continued in smaller scale in the south.

[alfonso]

I am not going into the debate of Blizzard being too harsh (or not) at the moment. However, what amazes me is that is that every German player claims that he understands nothing, because his well entrenched units are been decimated after months of preparations. But if we read the Manual it says nothing of entrenched units receiving any special bonus. It only mentions town and city bonus, and regarding attrition and morale reductions only, not CV. Has anyone tried to defense, not an entrenched line, but isolated towns, with some mountain units in between? Is that better? Worse? Put it another way, has anyone used the strategy that according to the manual seems more promising, instead of using the one that in his (subjective?) historical opinion should be better?

[hmatilai]

ORIGINAL: alfonso
Put it another way, has anyone used the strategy that according to the manual seems more promising, instead of using the one that in his (subjective?) historical opinion should be better?

Units sitting in towns are better off than units in forests or clear. During the Moscow counteroffensive in the terrible cold I think Germans were using cities, towns and individual houses as fortresses to deny them from the Russians, as they also suffered terribly from the cold. At least I remember reading about German units escaping from encircled town, as the Russians surrounding them had simply frozen to death during the night.

In the game I think this strategy could be tried, but on the other hand might also lead to mass unit surrenders on German side as units could be easily surrounded and will surrender on the next turn.

I like the current blizzard system, but I feel it might last tad bit too long. Soviets should be able to mount 1-2 large offensives during the blizzard, and things should start to peter out already during early January. Initial soviet push should be more devastating than it it currently, and Germans should be able to counter it better during January. On the other hand this might be hard to implement, so I'm anyways happy as things are now. The game has already offered me countless hours of sleep deprivation. Fortunately wife and kids are still with me though...

Of course I hate when my grunts are getting mauled to dust and there's not much I can do about it though

[von Beanie]

My opponent is an outstanding Axis&nbsp;player. I'm putting up the best possible Soviet defense I know how to create and he's formed some major pockets. The problem as I see it is the repeated use of the HQ Buildup procedure in an unrealistic manner. In 1941 it happened twice--in preparation for the Battle of Kiev and then again prior to the Battle of Vyazma. In both cases it took at least two weeks for the&nbsp;necessary supplies to accumulate.&nbsp;In my game it has happened at least four times already and twice during the month of September! Each time&nbsp;it happens I lose more than&nbsp;20 divisions in a pocket (and sometimes much more). Generally, I have been retreating 3 or 4 hexes in front of his panzers each turn and creating defense&nbsp;lines that are 30 or 40 miles wide.&nbsp;Nothing works. Next time I'm seriously thinking about trying the old SPI War in the East defense...that is,&nbsp;have all of my reinforcements&nbsp;from turn 1&nbsp;start building a defense line just beyond the German&nbsp;maximum supply line (essentially Voronezh to Rostov). There's still time to evacuate all factories west of that line and there's no real penalty for surrendering the region. At least I'd still have an army at the end of it all.
&nbsp;
One thing I'd really like to see are&nbsp;serious limitations if either side tries to use the HQ build-up option&nbsp;more than twice in any year. In my opinion&nbsp;it should take at least two weeks for a HQ to build-up the requisite supplies,&nbsp;or the AP cost of doing it should double each time it is used in a year, or the percentage increase in supplies should be susceptible to decreasing returns each time it is used in a year. I know there are motor pool&nbsp;and other penalties for using it already, but when the German player can invoke it several times in the summer of 1941 the Soviet losses can become massive. Alternatively, if&nbsp;pocketed troops&nbsp;that can trace a&nbsp;communications line to a large city would have normal defense for at least one turn&nbsp;then the Germans would at least be forced to try attacking the cities first while&nbsp;in the process of reducing big pockets.&nbsp;
&nbsp;[/align]On a different topic, in the&nbsp;old wargame Drive on Stalingrad, one design aspect that I really liked was "Hitler Directives." A player would be&nbsp;randomly ordered to hold or take&nbsp;such an objective by turn x, and forfeited victory points for each turn they failed. As I recall, the other side would not be aware of the&nbsp;opponent's directive.&nbsp;Such&nbsp;directives could be invoked&nbsp;for both sides by the computer to&nbsp;represent the political costs of surrendering major chunks of territory, or not&nbsp;taking an objective demanded&nbsp;by&nbsp;your leader. I believe such an option would help eliminate some of the unrealistic&nbsp;actions that are occurring with the 20/20 hindsight of history (and it wouldn't be that&nbsp;hard to&nbsp;program).&nbsp;[/align]&nbsp;[/align]&nbsp;[/align]

[randallw]

Using HQ buildup multiple times must be hurting him in some way.

[jomni]

ORIGINAL: von Beanie
On a different topic, in the old wargame Drive on Stalingrad, one design aspect that I really liked was "Hitler Directives." A player would be randomly ordered to hold or take such an objective by turn x, and forfeited victory points for each turn they failed. As I recall, the other side would not be aware of the opponent's directive. Such directives could be invoked for both sides by the computer to represent the political costs of surrendering major chunks of territory, or not taking an objective demanded by your leader. I believe such an option would help eliminate some of the unrealistic actions that are occurring with the 20/20 hindsight of history (and it wouldn't be that hard to program). 

This suggestion adds a lot of flavor. I like this.

[karonagames]

My fun with this game will not so much be as the Axis invader of Russia, rather as the eventual defender of Berlin.

That's why I think more people should be playing the 43 campaign - it is just so much fun- 2 mechanised armies attacking, counter-attacking and counter-counter attacking.

[karonagames]

Others are right, lets see how well the Germans recover before we say something is broke.

Yep, still nothing posted in the "request for data" thread. We have 2 tester campaigns in their very early stages so we are some way off getting numbers internally.

If we don't see some numbers, we have nothing to work with.

[*Lava*]

If you want to talk about the "average guy" I think it is way too early to be making any sort of evaluations about axis player skill.

For me, it has been a very steep learning curve and even then it is a difficult chore to play the Axis. But having said that, the more I learn from playing, the better I get.

But it is still going to take some time before I feel confident enough against the AI before I even think about trying PBEM.

I do believe the developers should be very wary about changing the game in any sort of significant fashion at this point because there just hasn't been enough time for Axis players as a whole to gain enough experience to be able to exploit the German forces to the maximum extent possible.

It seems fairly difficult to me playing the Axis, which is what I would expect. I'm getting better, but I need to get a whole lot better and that will take time.

[karonagames]

My opponent is an outstanding Axis player. I'm putting up the best possible Soviet defense I know how to create and he's formed some major pockets. The problem as I see it is the repeated use of the HQ Buildup procedure in an unrealistic manner. In 1941 it happened twice--in preparation for the Battle of Kiev and then again prior to the Battle of Vyazma. In both cases it took at least two weeks for the necessary supplies to accumulate. In my game it has happened at least four times already and twice during the month of September! Each time it happens I lose more than 20 divisions in a pocket (and sometimes much more). Generally, I have been retreating 3 or 4 hexes in front of his panzers each turn and creating defense lines that are 30 or 40 miles wide. Nothing works. Next time I'm seriously thinking about trying the old SPI War in the East defense...that is, have all of my reinforcements from turn 1 start building a defense line just beyond the German maximum supply line (essentially Voronezh to Rostov). There's still time to evacuate all factories west of that line and there's no real penalty for surrendering the region. At least I'd still have an army at the end of it all.

One thing I'd really like to see are serious limitations if either side tries to use the HQ build-up option more than twice in any year. In my opinion it should take at least two weeks for a HQ to build-up the requisite supplies, or the AP cost of doing it should double each time it is used in a year, or the percentage increase in supplies should be susceptible to decreasing returns each time it is used in a year. I know there are motor pool and other penalties for using it already, but when the German player can invoke it several times in the summer of 1941 the Soviet losses can become massive. Alternatively, if pocketed troops that can trace a communications line to a large city would have normal defense for at least one turn then the Germans would at least be forced to try attacking the cities first while in the process of reducing big pockets. 

I was hoping to see more posts like this. If a Soviet player wants HQ build ups restricted then isn't this a clue as to some of the possible reasons for Axis performance being what it is.

Personally,I do no think HQ build up should have any restrictions, as it self regulates itself. If the Axis player uses it too much in 1941 he could find his vehicle pool crippled in 1942 and prevent him supporting the advance to the Volga. I actually lobbied to have the vehicle pool numbers reduced because I thought HQ build up could be used too much. Joel did take 50k vehicles out of the pool, but I think there may be a case for giving a few back.