Hell bent on Lebensraum III (no Kamil)

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

It would just get cut off and wiped out. I don't beleive I need to take any great risks in the blizzard. Baring some disaster he should bleed out in 42. His losses in MP and ARM should cripple him.

It will still be harder then you think.

The major mistakeSapper and Bomazz have made is spreading out panzers.

You need a panzer ball, as 42 red army can hit hard. Junk 1 hex wide brakethrougghs can easly be cut off.

You need 30 mile wide holes.

[Michael T]

LOL 42 Red Army can it hard, yes but damn 41 Red Army can hit hard with this borked morale situation. My only real concern is that 2by3 will nerf the NM rule and in the process take away the German ability to recover their morale in 42 after I have suffered super Soviet morale all summer. But still if the NM rules are tweaked it should affect the Reds in 42 as well.

I know I will still have to work in 42. But it should be a win by KO if I play it right.

Pelton you should post your morale settings in all your games so people can compare apples with apples. 105/95 Sounds good to me. But make it public on your AAR. But problem is what happens if 2by3 do a patch that adjusts morale mid game? I guess you could just not patch up.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

LOL 42 Red Army can it hard, yes but damn 41 Red Army can hit hard with this borked morale situation. My only real concern is that 2by3 will nerf the NM rule and in the process take away the German ability to recover their morale in 42 after I have suffered super Soviet morale all summer. But still if the NM rules are tweaked it should affect the Reds in 42 as well.

I know I will still have to work in 42. But it should be a win by KO if I play it right.

Pelton you should post your morale settings in all your games so people can compare apples with apples. 105/95 Sounds good to me. But make it public on your AAR. But problem is what happens if 2by3 do a patch that adjusts morale mid game? I guess you could just not patch up.

The game was posted on the server so if someone doesn't read it, thats not my issue.

Its kinda funny seeing games posted as 120 GHC morale vs 80 shc morale and people accept it hehehe

or better yet 90 GHC to 110 SHC

People might want to read the fine print

[Michael T]

Don't misunderstand me Pelton. I agree its buyer beware. I only make the reference for those following the AAR's. So they can see what games are stock and what games have HR or morale settings that are not 100/100.

[Michael T]

T23 and we have managed to take Kolomna along with its 2 Arm and 2 H/Ind. Total Arm taken now 108. Lots of Soviets chewed up around Moscow. A couple more ID surrounded. Total Soviet Casualties 2.81 million. Will provide maps and data end T25.

[Michael T]

T25 has come and gone. No time to do the AAR for T25. But I survived it, mostly because I just ran back 2 hexes everywhere. T26 may see a halt to the retreat in front of Moscow. I will make time for the screenies this time.

[Michael T]

End German T26 (11th Dec 1941) Blizzard

As can be seen from the map the Axis forces are withdrawing right across the front except directly in front of Moscow.

I intend to give away territory freely in most area's right through December except for Moscow, Rostov and Tambov. But if things turn sour in any area I will have no hesitation in running.

I transferred both Mtn XX to the Moscow area to stiffen the defences. I expect I will loose hexes and troops but hopefully not entire units. Any losses will be bought at a high cost to the Reds I hope. They can ill afford large losses in MP or Arm. If I can hold in this area till January I hope to then transfer the Mtn XX to the Tambov-Voronezh area where they can possibly do some attacks against probing Cavalry units.

I am trying to avoid having to make any counter attacks in December. Our chances improve in January.

No units have been sent to Germany.

Will try to update again at end T28.

[Flaviusx]

I applaud your decision to not send units back to Germany. My own view is that this stripping of the front is part of the reason so many Axis players have problems with the blizzard, leaving aside the clear design issues of the blizzard.

Somewhere along the line it became accepted conventional wisdom that that Germans could send the equivalent of an army and then some back to the homeland for Christmas vacation and letting the Soviets run rampant and do more damage than they might otherwise. This never made sense to me.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I applaud your decision to not send units back to Germany. My own view is that this stripping of the front is part of the reason so many Axis players have problems with the blizzard, leaving aside the clear design issues of the blizzard.

Somewhere along the line it became accepted conventional wisdom that that Germans could send the equivalent of an army and then some back to the homeland for Christmas vacation and letting the Soviets run rampant and do more damage than they might otherwise. This never made sense to me.

It became standard because of the old blizzard rules and NM not working at all.

I have PMed MT about the possiblitys of holding the line around Moscow, now that NM is working and the Blizzard has been nerfed some.

I am very interesting in MT's results.

Also now that I can get morale higher then in the past by allot even with 100 to 100 settings losing the 16 pts is not a game killer as it was in the past. You need these guys to storm across the Moskva river then Moscow.

I will still with draw my 12 best infantry units as getting 99 morale will be next to impossible in 1942, but still very possible on the MoT/Mech and panzer divisions.

Grats on being the first to test it out MT [&o]

You with drawing pioneers or arty SU's?

Bombers ect?

[Michael T]

No sense to me either. Personally I think if they simply removed the automatic 1 morale loss that occurs every turn during the first blizzard then it would be quite ok. I don't mind fighting and losing morale due to lost battles. Its that auto morale loss that is the killer.

[Michael T]

I have only withdrawn the bombers, as they are useless in blizzard except for fuel drops. But I have enough transports for fuel now. Some fighters have gone home. But everyone else stays to fight.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

No sense to me either. Personally I think if they simply removed the automatic 1 morale loss that occurs every turn during the first blizzard then it would be quite ok. I don't mind fighting and losing morale due to lost battles. Its that auto morale loss that is the killer.

I think Katza got around that by attacking with the MT regiment and 2 high morale infantry divisions or move vs high fatigue SHC stacks.

So he was able to keep morale up on and Army. So by January it was a solid wall, what I was considering doing using 18th armys 99 morale divisions.

I think I could keep them in the 90's so by spring SHC would be in trouble. I have yet to try it out Hopefully one of the 2 guys I am playing stick it out that long.

Good luck.

[Flaviusx]

I think the blizzard needs a whole lot more fixing up than just removing the morale loss, but I agree that said loss is hardly necessary given everything else the blizzard accomplishes. At the very least this effect should probably not last past January. Letting it run for 3 whole months is a bit over the top. That works out to, what, 13-14 morale over the course of the blizzard? That's a huge hit and leaves aside any morale losses related to retreats.

Cutting that in half would be more reasonable and take the edge off the artificially inflated 1941 morale (and it is inflated by the end of the summer) without crippling the Wehrmacht. This would act as a proper reset.

The basic problem here of course is the entire morale mechanic where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's one of the basic game mechanics that I least like and nothing like it exists in any other game. Especially since morale benefits to CV are non linear. The whole model is dynamically unstable and extremely hard to balance.

[Michael T]

Pelton, Ketza's game with Bigbaba ( I am assuming that is the game you are refering too) was played with 110 Axis morale settings. No sensible comparison can be made from that to this game, which is standard 100 morale settings.

For the record. I now think that any game that uses morale settings above 100 is totally unfair to the other side and should be void.

I don't know what effect reducing morale below 100 has. Perhaps it is equally as bad as raising it is good.

[Michael T]

Flavius my suggestions at fixes are almost always taking in to consideration what could easily be done so that the Devs might consider doing it, that is with minimal effort.

But if you ask me what needs to happen in WITE 2.0, that is another matter entirely. But at least we are on the same page.

[Flaviusx]

Just use the default settings in PBEM. Really.

Monkeying around with them in a PBEM context leads to infinite confusion and charges of bad faith. In the end, nobody is happy.

They are best left as a brute force device to make up for the AI's shortcomings in solo play.

These settings won't fix the game's design problems.

[Michael T]

Could not agree more. Those settings were looked at as the fix for the Soviet 41 morale problems.

They only serve to wreck the game in HTH play.

[Saper2229]

Morale is not main in this game. Only industry and skill level of players. Change morale set level - only change level game for one player (normal, hard, easy). Game is balanced, only player can learn to play it.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I think the blizzard needs a whole lot more fixing up than just removing the morale loss, but I agree that said loss is hardly necessary given everything else the blizzard accomplishes. At the very least this effect should probably not last past January. Letting it run for 3 whole months is a bit over the top. That works out to, what, 13-14 morale over the course of the blizzard? That's a huge hit and leaves aside any morale losses related to retreats.

Cutting that in half would be more reasonable and take the edge off the artificially inflated 1941 morale (and it is inflated by the end of the summer) without crippling the Wehrmacht. This would act as a proper reset.

The basic problem here of course is the entire morale mechanic where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's one of the basic game mechanics that I least like and nothing like it exists in any other game. Especially since morale benefits to CV are non linear. The whole model is dynamically unstable and extremely hard to balance.

I agree that it would be sufficient to set that morale loss for December and January only. A natural decline of around 8 points should offset the gains the German units make from June to November. Anything beyond that should be resolved by combat losses. This is perhaps another reason why German players generally run during blizzard. A natural decline of 14 points or so, combined with lost battles quickly approaches 20 points. A German infantry division starting at 75 in June ends up at something like 65 or even lower in March. For example in my game against the AI 223rd Infantry Division (a new arrival in autumn I think) was at 75 on the last November turn. Now on 19th March 42 after two losses and one victory it is at 60. With the changes of 1.07 I am curious to see what effect it will have on German morale in preparation for the summer offensive. I have a couple of battered infantry divisions I pulled out of the front on refit in Poland.

Another issue I have is the combination of German units' CV getting reduced by a lot, while the Soviets' CV increase at the same time. Right now, unless the German unit is in forts in favourable terrain the Red Army has not too big a challenge in just pushing the Germans back (I am specifically talking about the area from Tula to the South). Historically however, the Soviets still had to mass their forces. The frontline from Kursk to Taganrog, with the exception of the Soviet offensive at Izyum in early 1942, remained more or less the same until June-July 1942. Now, I do realize that you can't make a change here unless you make changes to the Summer campaign of 1941.

Last but not least the blizzard attrition is too high (though I know this is partly to offset the low German losses from June to November 1941) and combined with the high retreat losses the German casualties really explode. Historically the Germans lost 168.000 men (14.752 dead, 64.116 wounded, 4.594 missing, 90.907 sick or with frostbites) in December, 214.900 in January (87.182 dead, wounded or missing, 127.718 sick or with frostbites), 173.100 in February (88.014 dead, wounded, missing, 85.086 sick or with frostbites). In my game my losses column increased by 263.038 in December, 147.559 in January and 109.781 in February. Now, the total number from December through February is lower than historically, but one has to factor in that a) some of the sick soldiers were people with the flu or something like that, losses that I doubt are included in WITE b) my losses are skewed downwards due to the recovery of wounded soldiers reducing the wounded column c) I fought much less battles (the AI was strangely passive in the Moscow region).

Historically the German losses in the Winter of 41-42 were actually lower than in the Summer campaign. Here WITE really has its shortcomings in the combat engine. The Wehrmacht suffered 725.359 so-called bloody losses (dead, wounded, missing) from 22nd June until the end of November. An additional 200.892 men (no numbers for August and October, through interpolation about 100.000 men for both months) left the operational area due to sickness. The bloody losses the Wehrmacht suffered in August 1941 were far higher than in any Winter month of 41-42. 189.813 were wounded, dead or missing. In total during the intensive combat months of July, August and September, the Germans suffered 486.488 men casualties. This number is only about 70.000 lower than the total number (including sick and frostbites) from December through February. If one only looks at the combat casualties, the Summer losses blow the Winter losses right out of the water. My grievance with those high blizzard losses stems from the fact that fighting the AI on high morale levels, I already suffered more than 800.000 casualties after the last November turn, so my losses are rising above the historical level, despite doing better in the Winter. But it's the AI, so I am not complaining. [;)]

[Michael T]

December has come and gone. No time to do the map last turn so I will post screenies and data at end T29, promise. So far so good, only 1 Reg has marched east as POW's. January is upon us, one can almost smell spring in the air. The pundits may note I have not wasted a single AP or soldier on those things called forts. They are for the defeatists.