Please fix Soviet morale in 1941, its broken.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: janh
Though I was initially inclined to agree with the request to link the morale gaining instead of a fixed 50 threshold to NM, following this discussion for a while, as well as the MichaelT vs Kamil and SmokingDave's AAR, I ain't quite sure anymore.

If there be such a fix as linking it to NM in order to lower the threshold for this morale recovery mechanism, then one needs to consider the consequences for later turns. Not so much the Soviets as their national morale only grows little and slowly, but the Germans.

If NM is 75, but you loose encircled divisions during blizzard or later, they will respawn but would train up extremely quickly to their NM. Sort of getting newly instated divisions to combat proficiency "veteran" in matter of weeks without ever having seen real combat. Maybe keeping a fixed threshold separate from NM may be better?

[rmonical]

, they will respawn but would train up extremely quickly to their NM

They train up very quickly to 50. Much slower to 70.

[rmonical]

We should also keep in mind that the new morale rule gives a big bonus to the GHC in 1942.

It depends. All the new rule does it make it a little easier for German units with morale below NM to get back to NM without attacking. If the Germans are attacking and winning, the attacking divisions very quickly get back to NM.

This rule has some impact on destroyed divisions coming back. IIRC, there is a 15% chance the rule will kick in each turn - so whilst it is frozen, a returning German division is likely to see the rule applied once for an average morale boost of 3-4. This is nothing like the rapid move to the high 40s Soviet units see.

[morvael]

Really, morale is not that much of a problem. For sure it helps to define who is on top at given moment of the game, but it's a brute force approach. There are problems with the combat system that favours side with large numbers of low quality elements (guess who's that), which will be fixed in future games. Also, I find the game too easy for the defender, even though you all say the logistics model is too forgiving for the attacker. That is true to a degree, but I think it's more important to be able to stage and achieve breakthrough effect, like the German '42 offensive to the Caucasus and the Soviet '44 Bagration operation and several others. I find that once the '41 attack runs out of steam, the game becomes a pushing contest. It's too hard to make a big gap in enemy lines, it's too easy to seal it off and there is no effect of strategic breakthrough that would make the enemy retreating in neighbouring sectors to save his life, creating '41-like flux on the front.

[Flaviusx]

The combat system favors the attacker, Morvael. Doesn't matter who that is. And, yeah, logistics are incredibly forgiving in this game when you consider the ease of air supply, the infinite capacity railroads, and the extreme range units can operate from railheads at or near full efficiency. Oh yeah: HQ buildups. Silly mechanic. Press a button for instant supply!

Morale is a problem insofar as the higher your morale is, the less probability of routs. A Red Army clocking in at 50+ simply does not rout. The Germans never rout, period, aside perhaps from units that just came back from the deadpile. Low morale directly contributes to making the game more fluid because retreating defenders fly in all sorts of directions and are hors de combat. This is the real morale problem the game is having, not so much the CVs. And routing units take extra damage, too. If the attacker cannot rout the defender, the game gets much stickier. The combat system from an attritional standpoint will still favor the attacker, but it does tend to become more of a pushing contest without routs.

I actually think rout possibility needs to go up. It would help introduce more fluidity to the game. As things presently stand, routing is a mechanic that applies only to the Red Army, and only until 1943. I think the formulas need to loosen up a bit -- make it possible to see relatively high morale units rout, extend the range of rout possibility all the way up to, say, 85 morale. That would make only a handful of elite units totally immune to it.

[morvael]

The system favours the side with more elements, you can test it by making a scenario creating 3 sets of battles where in all situations units have the same CV but different number of elements: 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1 (CV made equal by lower morale for units with more elements, for example 60 to 43). Then run 30 battles in each situation and count the number of times you won on 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1. The ratios will be around 0%, 20% and 90%. That's how I made 2by3 recognize the problem and correct it

Perhaps it also favours the attacker, but for sure it favours the side with more elements when CVs are equal.

Yes, units should rout, shatter and become unready (and this should affect nearby units as well as their flanks suddenly become unprotected and they have to reorient themselves) after a beating to make situation more fluid.

[Flaviusx]

The attacker can usually contrive to be the person with the most elements, Morvael. And attacker losses are rather low in this game, particularly for very high morale units -- from the attritional standpoint the system very much favors the attacker. In order to hurt the other side, you have to attack. Holds aren't terribly punishing early on. In 1941 you can see this time and again where an attacking German gets a hold result and nevertheless takes fewer losses than the Soviet defender.

Attacking corps sized units from 43 onwards does tend to become very expensive, however, even if you win. And routs go away. That's when the game truly does become a pushing contest with the Axis gradually giving ground until the Wehrmacht shrinks down to a certain size and is simply overwhelmed. The Red Army, of course, is no more slowed down by supply issues at this stage than the Wehrmacht was in 41, so can keep pounding away without pause except for mud.

[morvael]

I can't agree, a 43a Panzer Division at 100% TOE has 1366 elements (and should have around 18-19 CV), whereas two 42d Rifle Corps will have 6858 elements (and 14-15 CV). Such battle will most often end in favour of the Rifle Corps. If the Germans win, they will win with heavy casualties.

edit: of course when the attacker will want to win and brings up 3:1-4:1 advantage in CV, he will win regardless of element counts. But my experience in late war is that the Germans need to gather 3:1-4:1 to win, whereas for the Soviets 1.5:1-2.5:1 is enough to win most of the time (because of the invisible bonus their more numerous units give them).

In 41-42 the CV difference is really in favour of the Germans and the element counts will be comparable because there are no corps. Once the corps come into play it's the element count that really make the game "a pushing contest" as you say.

For sure if the combat system would result in more decisive breakthroughs with entire armies or fronts going AWOL during a turn or two, this would highlight the problems with logistics that you mention. However for now the stopper in late game is undecisive combat system which at the same time is skewed in favour of mass low-quality armies.

[Flaviusx]

A 42d rifle corps is for all practical purposes a 1943 unit. But I concede that these rifle corps (and all their successors) are game changers and nearly impossible to attack at reasonable cost. They don't rout, and even when you can force them to retreat the butcher's bill is no joke for an attacking German. Once Red Army 2.0 is fully deployed, the Axis can only defend or occasionally counterattack an overextended Soviet thrust. The Soviet can then just batter away. He can't rout the German, either, but can grind him to powder. It's not very exciting gameplay for either side, really.

[SigUp]

For WITE2 the combat engine has to be reworked. The Germans suffer too few casualties in their Summer campaign (unless one plays the AI at high morale levels, my German units suffer rather heavy casualties in their assaults on Soviet units, in October 41 the average rifle squad strength in divisions is down to something like 70%, total Axis casualties amount to 625.000). If WITE manages halfway realistic casualty rates for the Germans, as well as more punishing supply rules, the effect would be great on the game. That way the unrealistic blizzard can also be toned down.

Another big problem out of this system, is as Flav said the time from 43 onwards when Red Army 2.0 appears. During successful attacks Red Army casualties are ridiculously low, while the retreat losses for the Germans are prohibitively high. It is not uncommon during a successful attack for the Soviet side to suffer only 1-2% casualties, while the German side loses 10-20% of their strength. The Soviet side can take these kind of retreat losses in 41, the German side not, due to inability to pull out divisions for refit, as well as lack of resources. This really forces the German side to take all kinds of measures, to turn the front into WWI, using massive reserve activations (speaking of reserve activations, this also has to be somewhat reworked in my opinion). If the front gets moving like historically in the South after Kursk, the Wehrmacht whittles down in no time, while being unable to inflict significant losses on the Soviets. Furthermore, due to the strength of the Rifle Corps, the generosity of the supply system and the lack of losses, the Germans can't really counterattack, unless they can catch Soviet units that have come forward too much and encircle them.

[loki100]

going back to the original question, rather than the problem being Soviet morale moving up to 50 in the summer/autumn 1941 and tackling that, why not look at it from the perspective of the 10 hex rule. If that was set at 15 or 20, then it becomes a real choice to effectively pull a unit out of the line (akin to Stalin's decision to starve the front line armies in Oct-Nov while creating a strategic reserve).

I think a comment earlier is valid, 10 hexes is in effect where you would be building a third line of defense in any case.

This way, yes you can generate relatively powerful Soviet units, but they are operationally useless while being built up?

[rmonical]

Somewhat off topic. IMHO, WITE is a victim of its own success. Given equal German and Soviet players, the German should do worse than historical in 1941 and the Soviet should do better than historical. So to get to historical results, some design decisions were made. Now we see games where the Germans send Pz Korps from AGC north and south on turn one and still achieve historical results in the center.

So, from a reasonably sound game engine, we have special rules that warp the engine to achieve historical results when the players, especially the Soviets, are not going to play historically. I wish a little more effort had been focused on tweaking in the game engine. My personal issue is the Soviets gain combat effectiveness whilst avoiding combat. This is because morale is so much more important than experience. I suspect the same issue is going to show up in WITW play testing. Low US morale trumps low US experience which corrects itself over time (though still not great because of the way the US managed replacements).

My issue is less the max morale and more the fact that it can be achieved whilst sitting idle near Moscow drinking Vodka (with inexperienced staff officers).

[Toidi]

I think that something must be done with the Soviet morale and/or the way the morale is gained. As it is now, the balance of '41 is totally off the mark. Soviets were a bit strong already before the patch (I had little fun destroying enemies in '41 when playing SU), now it is insane. Initial 3-4 turns are ok, but around turn 8 one face a whole front of high (orange) morale units - that makes advancement even through not dug in units very tough as those do not rout even after multiple attacks...

Unfortunately, the balance of the game is incredibly fragile due to the fact that a single variable - morale - affects almost everything. Also, the game is very sensitive to small changes to that variable (as the CV changes non-linearly and drastically with morale changes). That is especially true at the low end of the morale curve, between 40 and 55 as additional game mechanics is linked to those relatively low morale values (like rout and reinforcement mechanics and the amount of mp required to pass through the enemy hexes). As such, fixing the issue will be tough (unless a broad change to morale is made, and it is nuanced into several factors that can be tinkered with separately). Additional long-standing issues with game engine and shown CV vs final CV definitely not help with balancing the game (to illustrate - image attached - lucky German attack on an isolated Soviet unit with relatively high morale on turn 9, Soviet cv gets quintupled for some reason, despite them being outnumbered at least 2:1 in all factors and having no air support)

Anyway, as it stands, I would say that '41 is almost unplayable.

[Aurelian]

Didn't help them much, being that they lost 2436 men vs 15. And retreated.

[SigUp]

The 15 to 2436 men losses speaks volumes about the problems of the current combat engine.

[Toidi]

I just wanted to show some things which are common. For example, I attacked the same Soviet unit again (after retreat). Surely, they will be weaker now? Nope... Those events are not rare, and yes, my units are well supplied, with ammo, etc...

[morvael]

This is to be expected from this system. There is too much random element giving very large standard deviation to unit final CV (and the median is also higher than initial or on-counter CV). This is not something you can be used to from playing paper board games about WW2 (namely a division may be worth less than a battalion if the randomizer will be cruel in given combat). I think some of my arguments were accepted by 2by3 and in WitW and WitE 2.0 you won't see such situations again.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Toidi



Anyway, as it stands, I would say that '41 is almost unplayable.

I disagree.

vs the handful of very good GHC players you will generally lose as SHC or get a draw at best.

very very few players play the hole package as GHC even close to very good.

Sure vs average GHC players you will easly win as SHC. I (+ Bomass, sapper, smokendave, terja439, mike and MT) have played allot of SHC players that were undefeated as SHC players and had the standard historical + 1941 as GHC 1941. Defeating or easly getting draws depending on play style.

Getting a draw now as GHC is really easy.

The blizzard is key to getting a draw even if the GHC has a horrible 1941.

Just because you defeating average to low skilled GHC players does not mean 1941 is broken.

the learning curve for SHC is flat, but the learning curve for GHC very steep.

[mmarquo]

"The 15 to 2436 men losses speaks volumes about the problems of the current combat engine."

This is the root of much confusion, and everytime I try to sort it out, my head just plain hurts. IIRC, this not the real number of losses - you have to check the losses report and OOB to get a real feel for the losses. There are permanent losses and those to be recycled....


Marquo

[Toidi]

Pelton,

Before the morale change, I would agree 100% with what you say... I guess an expert Axis would have very good chances defeating me. After the morale change, I think even very good players will have issues winning, even if I am not a great SU player. That is because you around turn 5 suddenly have around 50 - 100 units which are actually usable and do not have to sit behind the lines for refit...

To defeat Soviets you have to capture quite some industry in '41. Unless you do the new opening in the south, things are much tougher now than they used to be... I would say that Leningrad can be defended now vs many players, Moscow can usually be defended, and getting to Rostov (unless you manage huge pockets in the south before turn 8) is tougher than before. To be honest, you play this game long enough to be well aware of all those...

Anyway, good luck with optimising your Axis strategy...

T.