Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.
The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).
My idea was that level 4 and 5 fortifications could only be built where the player purchases and places fortified zones/regions.
Trey
ORIGINAL: Sabre21
ORIGINAL: redmarkus4
ORIGINAL: PyleDriver
Someone made a suggestion, not sure where its posted, that level 4 & 5 forts should cost admin points to build up, I like the idea...Concreate is not cheap...One for level 4, two for level 5...
I think that might have been me. If you think Maginot Line / Atlantic Wall / Stalin Line, these were all big projects with top-level backing and required the diversion of huge resources from the economy. They weren't built by the troops on the front line or even by their combat engineering units.
The thing is level 4 and 5 forts aren't supposed to be those Maginot type fortifications. There was talk of making a level 6 fort just for Sevastopol that starts the game with that level of fortification, but it never happened. Regardless though, an ap cost does sound like a good idea for at least level 5.
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WiTE Scenario Designer
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WitE 2.0 Scenario Designer
The thing is level 4 and 5 forts aren't supposed to be those Maginot type fortifications. There was talk of making a level 6 fort just for Sevastopol that starts the game with that level of fortification, but it never happened. Regardless though, an ap cost does sound like a good idea for at least level 5.
I like the idea that Level 4 forts can only be constructed on a hex containing a Fortification unit\Fortified Zones. That might actually give this unit class a raison d'être.
I might actually extend the argument to both Level 3 and Level 4 forts and that level 5 forts are impossible to build. Make Sevastapol and Kronstadt level 5 forts. But I would also temper this with a lower early 1941 cost associated with the Russians building these things. I think it costs them 8 or 10 APs for the Russians to build fortification units until something like November of 1941. If it were required to have a fortification unit in a hex in order to go to Level 3 and level 4 fort, than it might be warranted to reduce the cost of constructing a fortification unit back to 4-APs for the Russians for pre-November 1941 turns.
I just started another PBEM about two weeks ago – my second as the Reds. It’s all been played under the v1.04 plus each of the successive v1.04 patches.
I am definitely seeing a slow down in my Red infantry’s entrenching speed. Which is tough in 1941 as it’s such a crucial element to your defensive scheme for first 17-turns.
The problem is once the fronts stabilize in any location for 2 or 3 turns, than you start seeing multiple layers of level 2 and 3 forts. Give the Russians 4 or 6 turns of uninterrupted digging and the level 4 forts are in depth. These are a pretty tough nuts to crack for the Axis player when he is also at the end of his supply tether and most of his units have been heavily attrited from combat and marching for 13 or 14 turns.
In terms of Game play, entrenching\forts is -- IMHO -- a very delicate thing to tweak as it’s such a critical balancing element. The rate\speed of entrenching is very important for the Russians in 1941. Conversely, if the 1941 Germans have to let off on the pressure for a couple turns in a particular sector they’ll be faced with a real challenge if or when they have to make a push in this sector again.
What do the fortifications at Sevastopol, Brest Litovsk, Kronstadt, represent within the current Fort System Rules? In reality, these were built over the course of years and required huge amounts of concrete or masonry, and steel. Work backwards from there? Is a string of foxholes and weapons pits a level 0 positional improvement? Level 1 -- Interconnection of Foxholes and weapons pits with communications trenches – laying communication wire between positions – pre-registration of defensive artillery fires? Level-2 more trenching --- dugouts\overhead protection – barbedwire entanglements minefields? What’s level-3 – still more digging -- deeper dugouts? What level of forts would something like the Hindenburg line represent – or the Siegfried Line? How long did it take to construct the Hindenburg Line – how long did it take to build the Siegfried Line?
...The problem is how quickly 1 Soviet division can dig to a level 3 fort, and the fact that forts are interchangeable in terms of the omni-directional defensive bonus and the fact that a level 3 fort offers the same protection to several divisions even when only 1 division builds it. Because they do not scale, its advantageous for the Soviet to do linear defenses in depth and when you need to switch from linear to hedgehog (primary example of this need is Leningrad's area) the Soviet has a plethora of level 2 and level 3 forts to choose from in which to place stacked defenses.
Agree completely regarding the issue with omni-directional aspect of fortifications. I'd extrpolate this to the omni-directional aspect of combat units in general. Application of maximum combat power is highly directional -- even in 1941 -- even in 2011.
There is zero sense for a combat unit flanks or rear areas. Within this game system and games of similar ilk, all units apply maximum combat power regardless of the direction from which an attack might come. Why not break this omnipresent theme in wargames of omni-directional and equal combat power. Give indivdual combat units a front and flank aspect -- unit facing. Do the same for entrenchments. Entrechments occur along hexsides rather than the hex as a whole.
I think you have a good point. Reading about how things were in42-43 the Germans were able to crack any line at just about any point of their choosing. The problem was follow through...they simply didn't have the reserves to match the Russians once the Ruskies identified the danger spots. This was the argument used at kursk. It was believed a skillful German attack would be able to cope with the prepared defense. This is the same problem in the other eastern front monster FITE. Russia builds 1000's of miles of Maginot line like defenses in a couple of weeks under a sky with absolute Luftwaffe air superiority.
Damn. theres just to many smart people playing this game. It is a good club. We have tried and tried to get this right. I dont have an answer thats a Gary, Joel or Pavel question. I will say I really like how smart you all are. I get weary going out the door each day and have to talk to whats out there...
In spite of a large degree of apparent overlap, surely within the five levels of fort, do we not have, in fact, two fundamentally different things best treated differently and somewhat seperately?
Not knowing precisely what each is supposed to represent, what about treating level 1-3 forts differently and independently from levels 4-5? So, fort level 3 becomes the highest to which a fort will grow without a player's deliberate intervention. A level 4-5 fort location, then, needs to be designated well in advance (ball park six months?) and arms points expended to do so.
Why? Such forts as I suppose these represent weren't an organic progression from lower level entrenchments. They used reinforced concrete, large calibre ordnance and consumed other industrial products. Such installations as these represent required designing and planning, apart from their labour and construction time, and that of the humble earthworks around and connecting them.
What I'm suggesting is that these two fort types exist independently of each other, build and degrade at different rates, but to function at their best co-exist in a hex. Concrete bunkers aren't much use without interconnecting trenches and anti-tank ditches etc.
With regard to fort degrading, littering the map with low level entrenchments seems a trifle unrealistic. If a front shifted forward and back, what's the chance of a side reoccupying foxholes it, and not necessarily the same unit, had abandoned previously on a map this scale? Surely they would dig new ones.
To effect this, I'd suggest that any level 1 forts be removed from the map if they end a turn unoccupied. Level 2 and 3 should also degrade much quicker. Level 4-5 would degrade much more slowly. Geez, anyone been around former Nazi occupied Europe, and I don't just mean the Atlantic Wall? They're still there! But the level 1-3 earthworks in a level 4-5 fort hex should still degrade at the normal rate.
So in this scheme of things in stead of level 1-5 fort, it would perhaps be better to speak of level 1-3 entrenchment and level 1-2 fort.
“Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.”
-Leon Trotsky
Does the construction value used for fortification take into account unit fatigue? Are Fortifications built after movement and combat? It seems to me if a unit has 50% fatigue it should have its construction value cut in half.
I certainly think as more games reach the latter war years, and as blizzard rules have been adjusted to give more value to forts, you've seen this gripe decline - Soviets can survive without quick forts, the Germans from the blizzard on absolutely cannot.
