Stock FitE Karri vs Larry

[Zort]

I'll send it to you. On it's way.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the minimap moves movie from turns 79 thru 83: Note how the Soviets are in a massive retreat even though the Axis isn't attacking. LOL

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: LLv34_Snefens

If you prefer a overview of what will/can happen each turn, you can download this excel-file: http://www.ac-smolf.dk/fite/Timeline+events.xls

Does anybody have this in .pdf or .doc? I don't have an .xls application that I know of.

Mr. Fulkerson, why such a massive withdrawal on turn 82? Because of the fort and militia units you lost?

If it makes that much of a difference in the game, I think there should be notification at least one or two turns ahead. I may be wrong but it seems like these withdrawals were done in order to model the fact that those units were all absorbed into the 'regular' army over time. Also, the naval brigades do the same thing on turn 186 (I think) so look out Mr. Fulkerson, you will loose more units! The Germans never loose anything like 80 units in a turn, but they do loose some formations at different times, like 9th, 10th and 11th panzer divisions, and some SS units go out to 'refit' and return later.

[SMK-at-work]

A better move might be to make them non-ressurectable at that time then, rather than disbanding them?
 
Fortress Regions were still around at the fall of Berlin according to Zaloga's work on Soviet army formations (the name of which escapes me), and were commonly used to "protect" gaps between armies - a few FR's are apparently listed among formations that liberated Soviet cities.  If they could not be reconstructed then the smaller numbers of them that make it to 1945 would be sufficient.
 
also when htey are withdrawn do their constituent squads & equipments get returned to the pool?  There's a post on a previous page that losses in HRS's increase when this happens, which strongly implies not.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
Mr. Fulkerson, why such a massive withdrawal on turn 82? Because of the fort and militia units you lost?

Yep. I lost almost 100 units in that withdrawl. Some of those forts were on the front lines and held important positions ( murmansk, archangel, etc. ) so I felt like the time to pull back had come.

I've saved that XLS file as a text file and posted it here....anybody can download it and peruse it's contents now. The YEAR column didn't print out right but the other columns look cool.

[Karri]

From turn 60 to 83:



If you look carefully, or well look at the map, you can see 'columns' in the Stalingrad area. Actually a bit west of it. That's where I was planning my major pus for 1942 to happen. But Larry did the evil thing and abandoned the whole area.

My original plan was to attack there and surround all the units in Stalingrad area. Then I would have moved the main punching force to Orel and conduct another offensive there. Since I would have surrounded several hundred unit in the Stalingrad area I would have had easy time punching another hole there, surrounding even more units. The third offensive would come in Leningrad, this time with some real hitting power...the offensive that I now conducted there was a limited one and the main aim was to tie down Soviet reserves and to make Larry think I was gonna concentrate everything there.
Now I was pretty sure this plan would have worked since the first offensive would have faced only engineer and MP units(this are saw abslutely no action during the winter) as well as a few fortress units and an insignificant amount of rifle divisions. I was planning to attack on a 30 hex front there, hoping to shatter the whole line in a turn or two.


The forces I was going to use there were significant I had about everything there except a few reserve units and some units in Leningrad. I had concentrated them ever since Caucasus was doomed and the turks joined...now I need to make a whole new plan.

[Zort]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
A better move might be to make them non-ressurectable at that time then, rather than disbanding them?

I don't think you have an option in the events to make a unit not reconstructable. So they either are or aren't. It will be easy to address the issue of having all these guys disappear on one turn as long as they aren't in the same formation. Just change the event dates so they leave on different turns.
I think adding a news item stating that "High Command has ordered the withdraw of XX unit" would be nice. But now you take up more events, what 10 or 20 with the German units. What would be nice if an event could have a news item attached to it, or in other words a sub event. The event process is cumbersome at best. Nice to have though.

[sPzAbt653]

I don't mind more events (did I mention I was up to around 670?). Would be better if formations withdrew by name, instead of color. The Soviet has plenty of room for more formations, not so many colors left.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got my boys in the Leningrad area busy as beavers digging entrenchments everywhere. The thought is that they will be falling back defending every inch of the way from the front lines to the city.

[larryfulkerson]

The number of Rifle Squads assigned went up....I guess the equipment is being assigned to the squads or maybe it's the new units being introduced as reconstituted units or something.

[Slayer_of_kings]

You guys may appreciate this summation of the Eastern Front, it's unabashedly pro-Soviet but what the Hell, it may whet your appetites for deep-mobile operations; click on 'Start Presenation':
 
http://english.pobediteli.ru/
 
 

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the production / units in play situation in turn 85

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Slayer_of_kings
You guys may appreciate this summation of the Eastern Front, it's unabashedly pro-Soviet but what the Hell, it may whet your appetites for deep-mobile operations; click on 'Start Presenation':
http://english.pobediteli.ru/

Yes....I've seen this before and I think it's great. Thanks.

I've got my boys digging trenches all over the Leningrad area and I've shipped some fresh meat in there to help out in the defensive operations.

[larryfulkerson]

Karri has brought some serious artillery up to the Leningrad area. He must be set on the conquest of the Soviet army starting in the Leningrad area.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the production figures so far: If I'm making almost 1100 rifle squads per turn and only have just over 100 on hand I must assume that the rifle squads are ending up out in the assigned units somewhere, which means my units are becomming stronger.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet minimap moves movie from turns 82 throu 86:

[Zort]

Guys I have been trying to determine the events that causes the russian withdraws on turn 82. I have found event 473 which withdraws the 4th Fort Region. But I can not find any event that withdraws all the Militia or the machine gun units. I have searched the dumped file and the event listings in the edit engine. If anyone could help me find these events I would appreciate it. I might just be getting old and can't see well but dang they should be easy to find.

Also does anyone know why for the withdraws of the panzer divisions each unit must be identified to be withdrawn? Since each pzd is a separate formation shouldn't just having the formation withdraw suffice like it does for the withdraw of the soviet formations?

Thanks.

[larryfulkerson]

Sorry Buzz: I don't know from events. I'll grab a scenario dump and search for withdrawl and see what gives.

I took a look around and didn't find any event that called for the forts to go bye bye etc.
I have no idea why the game acts that way. Maybe the scenario designers can lend a hand in this reguard.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the production figures for turn 87:

[sPzAbt653]

event 473, turn 82 - fort regions and militia withdraw. Fort Regions and Militia units are the same color, as formation withdraws are done by color, this means all units with the same color scheme will go.

Naval Rifle Brigades are withdrawn Spring '43, original event 465, turn 186 - 64th Naval RB withdraw.

Some German units are withdrawn by individual unit name so as to avoid using all the colors. So just to clarify, 'formations' are withdrawn by color, 'units' are withdrawn by name. Buzz, that's one reason why there are so many events in v653, I made all the colors uniform so the game looks good and is eyeball friendly, and I made all withdrawals by unit. I also put in a news event to warn of these things ahead, to prevent unpleasant surprises.

This color issue is why the Luftwaffe units are so many colors, the designers did a great job of determining how to handle the comings and goings of so many units, and the upgrading to newer planes. To me this was at the expense of the look of the game. Certainly this is just my opinion, but for me better to use 80 events once than to have multi-colored Luftwaffe (and baby blue, ugghhh).

And yes, 'formation' withdraw should withdraw a formation, but it doesn't, it withdraws all units with the same exact color scheme as the unit named to withdraw. Maybe for TOAW IV this can be changed, along with more 'place names' available, more exclusion zones, more than 400 formations, and rail repair that really does 'tend to occur near deployed Railroad Repair units'.