The Soviet Union has no playability now

[GibsonPete]

I disagree, the Soviet Union is very playable. The Soviet Union will take Berlin. The Soviet Union will occupy the homelands of the axis allies. It is a matter of when not if. The snapshots provided are not enough to sway me on the subject. It is simply not enough evidence to justify the conclusion. I detect bias. If artillery is an 'issue' it is minor, and the developers will tweak it.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: GibsonPete

I disagree, the Soviet Union is very playable. The Soviet Union will take Berlin. The Soviet Union will occupy the homelands of the axis allies. It is a matter of when not if. The snapshots provided are not enough to sway me on the subject. It is simply not enough evidence to justify the conclusion. I detect bias. If artillery is an 'issue' it is minor, and the developers will tweak it.

yep agree, the game had unintentionally slipped to being far too hard for an axis player to get anywhere near the historical achievements, early evidence is this plus that Assault Front changes has really unblocked the early game - far better all round

[IDGBIA]

how is artillery a minor issue? you can load up the old patch and test the beta changes turn holds into routs, entire soviet divisions get suppressed by artillery you have to bring 30k men to any battle just to stand a chance to fire a shot back at all if Germany has more than 3 arty support groups join its why german casualties are so low soviets dont even shoot back with how arty is they just hide and then rout taking 80% casualties to any deliberate

[Sir.Arnold]

ORIGINAL: GibsonPete

I disagree, the Soviet Union is very playable. The Soviet Union will take Berlin. The Soviet Union will occupy the homelands of the axis allies. It is a matter of when not if. The snapshots provided are not enough to sway me on the subject. It is simply not enough evidence to justify the conclusion. I detect bias. If artillery is an 'issue' it is minor, and the developers will tweak it.

Artillery is not a small problem. This is not bias

If you don't believe it, you choose the Soviet army and I choose the German army to play GC41.

This is clearly the game level of German players

GC41 Trun 11 human vs human

There are only 2 million Soviet troops left on the map. In the next Trun, the Soviet troops will be reduced to less than 1.9 million. This guy is definitely not going to survive 1942

[IDGBIA]

I think the main problem with artilery is that it invalidates some ways you think the game ought to work. like terrain and rivers, with the artillery change terrain and rivers don't really do anything since if germany deliberates you and passes the initiative check you're getting your cvs droped to 4 regardless of if its a swamp, clear, light or heavy Forrest so alot of ideas about defensive terrain sort of become invalidated and the main thing that matters isnt terrain but getting enough elements in a tile that you wont get 90% of everything there disrupted

[IDGBIA]

the only advantage terrain offers is that at least Germany cant deliberate you twice if he has to cross a river in-between

[Sir.Arnold]

ORIGINAL: IDGBIA

I think the main problem with artilery is that it invalidates some ways you think the game ought to work. like terrain and rivers, with the artillery change terrain and rivers don't really do anything since if germany deliberates you and passes the initiative check you're getting your cvs droped to 4 regardless of if its a swamp, clear, light or heavy Forrest so alot of ideas about defensive terrain sort of become invalidated and the main thing that matters isnt terrain but getting enough elements in a tile that you wont get 90% of everything there disrupted

This is the truth

[Thogode]

ORIGINAL: Sir.Arnold

ORIGINAL: IDGBIA

I think the main problem with artilery is that it invalidates some ways you think the game ought to work. like terrain and rivers, with the artillery change terrain and rivers don't really do anything since if germany deliberates you and passes the initiative check you're getting your cvs droped to 4 regardless of if its a swamp, clear, light or heavy Forrest so alot of ideas about defensive terrain sort of become invalidated and the main thing that matters isnt terrain but getting enough elements in a tile that you wont get 90% of everything there disrupted

This is the truth

Sorry if my question looks dull to you.
But could you please elaborate your point of view for a rookie like me?
Does terrain matter or not?
Thanks.

[IDGBIA]

oversimplifying a bit but what terrain does is modify the cvs of both sides so dense terrain gives the defender a cv multiplier and lowers the cv of attackers, normally for AFVs attacking into forests or whatever however because of artilery disruption being as high as it is you can often have your cvs lowered so much as a defender that the terrain in effect doesnt help you and you rout and lose a load of men because of the combat odds

[IDGBIA]

kind of like this, now this is an silly example and no I don't think soviets should hold this but it would be nice to not have the entire division suppressed by 9 arty elements joining and losing 80% of it on a rout

[IDGBIA]

heres another maybe more reasonable example, notice how the starting soviet cv is higher than the german but because of arty it goes all the way down to almost nothing and retreats barely even firing back. this is just swamp but I've had many similar battles on heavy forest and light forest, and before anyone says "ah hah you don't have any forts" I'd say the same thing about forts, below level 3 they dont stop arty disruption so again they give you some nice looking base CV but it still ends up going all the way down if germany passes his initiative rolls and gets 3 or more arty elements to join

[Zovs]

I don’t see anything wrong with that last example, it’s 8/41, the Germans have a 2-1 in division advantage (not even mentioning better morale, experience and leadership) and 5 (from that screen shot) artillery battalions against an unsupported Soviet Rifle division (most likely with poor leadership, bad morale and low experience).

There has been a lot of posts and I think they are taking things out of context and there is a lot of Miss understanding of all the various variables and factors involved in each battle.

This game is not an old board war game where you calculate an odds and roll a six sided die and add or sub track 1 or 2 and an entire division is removed from the map and placed in the dead pool.

[IDGBIA]

they have 50 morale 49xp the general is 8 morale 7 inf 6 initiative and the front commander is 6 inf 7 morale 7 initiative, and they're the 41a rifle div still, these are quite simply some of the best circumstances for a soviet divison in 41 and they're on a swamp and when attacked they kill 6 men... I dont think soviet should win this battle but 6 men? this is what im saying the change means you have to totally rethink how to even hold tiles, you go from thinking about hmm maybe I can kill or damage some Germans here and wear them down to "hopefully I don't lose my whole division when I rout" you dont even use up german supplies because arty uses very little ammo compared to the effect

[GibsonPete]

"There has been a lot of posts and I think they are taking things out of context and there is a lot of misunderstanding of all the various variables and factors involved in each battle."

Zovs +1 on your post.

[IDGBIA]

How is this out of context, these are screenshots showing the exact complaint that soviet units simply don't behave how you'd expect them too in the current patch and inflict close to no losses on German units even in supposedly good terrain. zovs is ignoring context within the screenshot itself, saying its an unsupported rifle division when it has 4 support elements present and claiming the German leadership is better in this case when Wiktorin is 4 morale 6 inf 5 initiative giving him only a slight advantage due to soviet command maluses and lack of corp level. you ignore the context that this is a battle soviets should at least do some damage in and not totally disintegrate with only a single plucky rifle squad managing to hit anything at all. You say there are factors involved in battle that are being overlooked but that seems to simply not be the case, the only factor that matters right now is how much German artillery joins the battle and how many soviet elements are present to maybe stand a chance of not being 90% disrupted everything else only impacts not if you'll lose but how much. the Soviet union is unintuitive and frustrating to play and to appeal to history for a moment, German infantry was significantly weakened clearing pockets during Barbarossa, while currently in game they assaults soviets in harsh terrain with close to no losses or damage, the disruption means German combat power simply doesn't degrade or slow down walking forward and deliberating turn after turn routing soviet units aslong as the artillery joins.

[thedoctorking]

I think the second combat example is kind of a problem; the Soviets are outnumbered 2:1 in men and guns, but they are in superior defensive terrain, they are supported by three artillery regiments, which should be doing some damage to the attacking Germans, and yet their forces just wilt away without inflicting any damage whatsoever on the attackers. The Germans might win this fight, but it should cost them.

[Stamb]

IMHO, on the second screenshot german losses are to low. 6 man when attacking a swamp? Even with GS they lost only 6 man...

Also 16:1 is way too much. If soviets had enough toe and ammo it should be retreat at maximum.

On the other hand i am playing as an axis vs AI I am not able to route soviets. Maximum retreats.

[AlbertN]

Frankly one sees just the 'destroyed' pieces. But an amount of casualties are in fact 'damage'.
Like an Infantry Squad is 10 soldiers. If the Infantry Squad is elimited it's 10 dead. If it is 1-9 deads it is just damaged I assume.

That is why many have distorted view of 'German victories' as of now.

As I am sure after one combat of that type these 2 German divisions dropped their nominal CV by an amount - part of it due to fatigue, but part of it due to an amount of Ground Elements simply damaged.

[IDGBIA]

in the example of that second screenshot the 6 dead is because the only destroyed element was an infantry gun and its crew the damaged elements for Germany were only 12 total, 7 rifle squads and a few various mortars guns, fatigue is still a factor ofc but seems to have little impact on the ability of artillery to disrupt masses of soviets, soviets lose entire formations(beyond just the losses that formation suffered enough damage that if it fought again it would stop existing on a rout) and all the Germans lose is some ammo and get a bit tired

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: IDGBIA
How is this out of context, these are screenshots showing the exact complaint that soviet units simply don't behave how you'd expect them too in the current patch and inflict close to no losses on German units even in supposedly good terrain. zovs is ignoring context within the screenshot itself, saying its an unsupported rifle division when it has 4 support elements present and claiming the German leadership is better in this case when Wiktorin is 4 morale 6 inf 5 initiative giving him only a slight advantage due to soviet command maluses and lack of corp level. you ignore the context that this is a battle soviets should at least do some damage in and not totally disintegrate with only a single plucky rifle squad managing to hit anything at all. You say there are factors involved in battle that are being overlooked but that seems to simply not be the case, the only factor that matters right now is how much German artillery joins the battle and how many soviet elements are present to maybe stand a chance of not being 90% disrupted everything else only impacts not if you'll lose but how much. the Soviet union is unintuitive and frustrating to play and to appeal to history for a moment, German infantry was significantly weakened clearing pockets during Barbarossa, while currently in game they assaults soviets in harsh terrain with close to no losses or damage, the disruption means German combat power simply doesn't degrade or slow down walking forward and deliberating turn after turn routing soviet units aslong as the artillery joins.

The question I would as is the following: Is the battle you showed entirely historically plausible for August 1941? Yes, I'd say it is, though every battle result should not be the same as that. The WITE2 system has always been designed to show the entire breadth of possible results, so picking one battle and showing it is not really useful unless you start seeing that for all battles. Watching many battles over the course of a campaign and seeing how that compares to history (and to the types of results seen in WITE) is much more helpful.

Every change to the game requires a ton of supporting data to help guide it and a ton more to test it, to make sure that the end result both at the micro and macro level is realistic. It's a very complex system designed by people who do know military history and have decades of experience trying to bring the Eastern Front to life in a wargame. We'll keep listening and tweaking as needed, but we're looking at much more than just individual battles in order to do that.

Regards,

- Erik