Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Getting an opponent to agree to disorganize his units, when they are organized isn't easy.

If you agree to play and to implement Option 47 as best you can, and then your opponent won't dis-org the units he should, then you need to find another opponent.

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Getting an opponent to agree to disorganize his units, when they are organized isn't easy.

If you agree to play and to implement Option 47 as best you can, and then your opponent won't dis-org the units he should, then you need to find another opponent.

Exactly why I'm not playing the game yet Paul, I appreciate the response. I don't know anyone who wants to track supply.

The amount of errata that needs to be tracked for option 47 can be less than obvious in certain cases, such as with Japan in China, while using the overseas step in supply. Weather effects such as snow or rain complicate the situation as they both have different supply lengths.

And, yes, I've had game plans hinge on option 47.

One of the last face to face games I played went into 1945. The situation was that in 1944 Japan had been beaten back, having been too overconfident, lost their marines in a counter-invasion, and was fighting the Soviets, China, and the USA.

The US carrier fleet had hung back a while due to Japanese early victories, but showed up in strength in 1944. During a super-combined activity, the US swatted what I call a Mini-KB pocket carrier fleet I had covering supply to the Philippines. Seeing the writing on the wall for my picket fleet, they aborted after taking moderate damage, and I decided not to commit any of my available planes to support the Mini-KB. Meanwhile, the US Carrier fleet swept in, invaded with 10 units in the Philippines including all three marines, some divisions and a few infantry on amphibious ships, with the support of the entire American navy. I lost everything but Manila in one impulse, and was in a bad situation to be sure. However, I had saved all of my land based aircraft for the next impulse. The Japanese sortied their entire fleet to meet the Americans, and flew out every good land based air they had. Luck was with me, and I got quite a few surprise points. I used several surprise points to decrease the value of the enemy fighters, and managed to clear about 5 planes through, as well as clearing the sky of planes to a significant degree where I had gained superiority. I selected my best two CVP's as kamikaze's and hit the carriers with about 12 points of air to sea, with two bombers getting destroyed by AA fire. While that doesn't seem like much getting through, it really is when there are over 100 targets. Because of surprise I chose the first three targets, and managed to damage two of fleet carriers with aircraft aborted on them. I also aborted a good carrier, and the ghost was up, I had taken the skies in a convincing way. The Americans were now fearing for their amphibs and transports, and potentially in a situation to lose the rest of their air-cover. The US aborted their entire fleet to safety, and I had cut the supply to the Philippines for the entire turn for all purposes, but had no ability to strike back any further. There were a huge number of out-of-supply units, and all of the invasion force was non-oil dependent landing type troops. Some land units were disrupted by terrain, combat, and the US had re-based and aborted many aircraft to the Philippines during the naval combat which were all out of supply.

To say the least my opponent was annoyed, and my spirits had been lifted a bit by the delaying action.

The game of course went badly for the Japanese the very next turn, losing the sea zone, but by putting the Philippines out of supply, I gained an entire turn delay, because the marines were still disrupted at the beginning of the the next turn. It was a big gamble near the end of the game, and part of my plan.

Currently if that happened to me now, it is simply part of the rules that the non-oil dependent units will re-organize. I would not have the incentive to make such a play.

The problem is, if Steve moves on to fix net-play next, it will be firmly ingrained in the online community that 'this is how' supply is supposed to work. Worse yet, I get to continue to wait, because solitaire online is laborious.

I'm sure I can continue to come up with reasons why this rule needs to be used if you are playing the 'advanced' version of WIF. For all of those out there learning the game, and using the 1d10 table, or prefer supply the way it is, will continue to enjoy their product. I'm a bit stuck, like many other people. Perhaps I'm simply not the type of person to plow past bugs, but supply is the most critical part of every strategic war-game I've played in my past, and perhaps I simply can't get past this issue with the electronic version of the game. Debug mode is a workaround to force your units to be disrupted, but I am not good at tracing supply except in the most obvious cases. I need the program to help with supply. Supply has to be the most difficult part of the game for me personally. Again, this is why I can't play Vassal any longer. The games are riddled with mistakes, sometimes big ones.

What I'm left with is hope. Guess I'll take a serving of it, instead of some sour pessimism.

Aloha!

This rule stung me recently, and my opponent is cool with it cause 'this is part of the rules'.

I cut a bunch of units out of supply, but they handily re-organized without being able to trace a supply path, I was out rolled on initiative twice with a +1, and the unrealistic happened.

This game was ruined in Jul/Aug '40. I am abandoning this game until supply works in a reasonable way. Way too much stress, too competitive, and if supply doesn't work, what hell have I been doing. This makes two games in a row that I've had to abandon because supply doesn't work right.

Yes, I'm an idiot. I don't know when I'm licked. Shoot me already. Hopes and dreams dashed again. I'm pretty tired of these rocky shores. Uninstalling.

It's only an optional rule which isn't in place. One can differ on opinions whether to use it or not.

Besides: what can an out of supply unit do? If they move, they get disorganised, and while they are disorganised, you can easily kill them.

If you look how long Stalingrad was surrounded and out of supply, before the USSR took it, one could say this optional rule should not be used at all...

OTOH the Germans probably managed the equivalent of at least one air resupply during that time.

I've never seen anyone play without Option 47 which is why I think I had it as #1 on my list of options that should be added to the program.

But not having it doesn't make the game unplayable for me.

Well - to answer Centuur, OOS units still have a fully functional ZOC, and at times it is quite annoying when the turn ends, you have pocketed units and they suddenly flip - and you have to invest resources to disrupt them again.

This is more of a pov thing. Just because a unit is disrupted and isolated doesn't mean it is completely isolated especially when it's under mere ZoC.

Forces can still rally and scavenge. IMO, the game plays fine without it.

The more I think about option 47, the less I like it.

Consider Bordeaux, Calais, and Rabaul: the Axis forces in those places were out of supply and isolated for months, (Rabaul for years), but maintained their cohesion. Rabaul did so in the face of continuous bombing raids.

Take a look at my AAR, where the Germans are cut off in Spain, but own almost the whole country; it is arguable that he units there should still be in supply; certainly, option 47 would feel very, very wrong.

I have generally not played with option 47, and don't think I ever will want to.

Well... it is extremely artificial that once an isolated force has indeed lost cohesion, it will suddenly gain it back because the calendar changed from an even numbered to an odd numbered month.

White print units do perfectly well simulating your examples, disorganized or not.

I agree there are situations where unit would be able to re-organize at the end of turn. For example the Italians in Ethiopia had enough stocks of ammos and supplies to keep fighting for a good while.

The situation I refer to is more about "small pockets" that your forces have encircled during an advance, that are constrained in a small area (few hexes eventually, no cities, etc). That is where the issue lay.
It would be good to have a function to manually disrupt the units at the start of the turn.

Boy I just don't get it, again I have never played a game of WIF or a real game with MWIF, I have read pros and cons on rule 47, I agree when a unit is surrounded it would be nice to see them out of supply, it makes sense, my question might be if it seems so critical to some of our posters why did WIF and Harry Rowland put it in as an optional rule?

My real problem is if Steve puts this rule into effect with coding, have we not seen multiple problems when he changes something in supply. Not a dig just going by past experience. To me supply is the biggest drawback to this game being completed properly. I would rather have no optional 47 in the game then a new screwed up supply system.

After all it is an optional rule right, not part of the standard game rules right. I say live with it,[:@] [it seems to me you have to live with it [:(]] until the rest of the game gets corrected whenever that might be. And even then I would hate to see the implantation of this rule cause more havoc for the programmer.

Bo

Steve did try to code it, but had difficulties because the path to be allowed to re-org is "unlimited". We already have extraordinary supply situations being resolved, but taking many, many machine cycles to do so. Before Steve worked on optimizing those routines, we had a lot of complaints about how long supply took to calculate when units - especially HQs - were moved.

At the same time, the program seems to handle the fact that disrupted oil dependent units can or cannot trace an unlimited path to Oil (as well as supply) in order to re-org, so there's an expectation that it is do-able.

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

Steve did try to code it, but had difficulties because the path to be allowed to re-org is "unlimited". We already have extraordinary supply situations being resolved, but taking many, many machine cycles to do so. Before Steve worked on optimizing those routines, we had a lot of complaints about how long supply took to calculate when units - especially HQs - were moved.

At the same time, the program seems to handle the fact that disrupted oil dependent units can or cannot trace an unlimited path to Oil (as well as supply) in order to re-org, so there's an expectation that it is do-able.

Thank you paul, I just do not want to go back to supply screwing the game up, but my question really was about why didn't Harry Rowland put this into the main rules and not have it as an optional rule, I know you cannot answer for Harry but he must have had a reason.

This, at least to me has nothing to do with whether Steve can do this or not programming wise, but the nature of the rule, it makes perfect sense rule 47, if you are surrounded you should be out of supply. Implementing it, that's another story.

Bo

ORIGINAL: Centuur

It's only an optional rule which isn't in place. One can differ on opinions whether to use it or not.

Besides: what can an out of supply unit do? If they move, they get disorganised, and while they are disorganised, you can easily kill them.

If you look how long Stalingrad was surrounded and out of supply, before the USSR took it, one could say this optional rule should not be used at all...

Agreed centuur but to keep them contained and out of supply you will need units to keep them that way, and those units might be needed elsewhere.

Bo

Bo, the problem is not the supply situation, but the fact that they get reorganised at the end of the turn. Some think that should not happen and others think that this should happen.

Option 47 says that you can only reorganise units which can trace a supply path of unlimited length to a primary supply source at the end of the turn. If you play without it, the units always will be reorganised (exception: oil units).

Personally, I believe that this option is too rigid in the way it has been written. If a unit isn't under attack (not adjacent to enemy positions), why should it not be reorganised while out of "unlimited" supply? If a unit is in such a position, it has the peace to get things back into order, hasn't it? The men can prepare defensive positions and can get ready for combat again. Now, if such a unit is adjacent to enemy land units, things are different, so than it shouldn't be reorganised. But that's a house rule I liked a lot in the past...

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Bo, the problem is not the supply situation, but the fact that they get reorganised at the end of the turn. Some think that should not happen and others think that this should happen.

Option 47 says that you can only reorganise units which can trace a supply path of unlimited length to a primary supply source at the end of the turn. If you play without it, the units always will be reorganised (exception: oil units).

Personally, I believe that this option is too rigid in the way it has been written. If a unit isn't under attack (not adjacent to enemy positions), why should it not be reorganised while out of "unlimited" supply? If a unit is in such a position, it has the peace to get things back into order, hasn't it? The men can prepare defensive positions and can get ready for combat again. Now, if such a unit is adjacent to enemy land units, things are different, so than it shouldn't be reorganised. But that's a house rule I liked a lot in the past...

It should not happen period. When you are disorganized in real combat reality and MWIF reality, of course we are trying to keep the game realistic I assume, to reorganize in real combat you need supplies ammo food etc. To me it does not matter if a unit is next to you, it can be a full hex away or 2 hexes away as long as it is blocking all supply routes.

Any unit that is disorganized with no supply path should not be reorganized at the start of the next turn. This rule IMO should not even be optional.

But again my question is why do you think Harry and ADG made it an optional rule? If a unit is cut off from supply from all sources it should be disorganized and not reorganized again until a supply route is opened, and to be reorganized at the next turn is plain wrong. That should not be an optional rule, it should be a steadfast rule, part of the game.

I probably should not have posted as I am weak on this part of the game, because of no experience of actually playing the game and the brain is getting scrambled by all of this [:(]

Bo

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Bo, the problem is not the supply situation, but the fact that they get reorganised at the end of the turn. Some think that should not happen and others think that this should happen.

Option 47 says that you can only reorganise units which can trace a supply path of unlimited length to a primary supply source at the end of the turn. If you play without it, the units always will be reorganised (exception: oil units).

Personally, I believe that this option is too rigid in the way it has been written. If a unit isn't under attack (not adjacent to enemy positions), why should it not be reorganised while out of "unlimited" supply? If a unit is in such a position, it has the peace to get things back into order, hasn't it? The men can prepare defensive positions and can get ready for combat again. Now, if such a unit is adjacent to enemy land units, things are different, so than it shouldn't be reorganised. But that's a house rule I liked a lot in the past...

I disagree with you centuur and agree [respectively of course[;)]] when you are disorganized in real combat reality and MWIF reality, of course we are trying to keep the game realistic I assume, to reorganize in real combat you need supplies ammo food etc. To me it does not matter if a unit is next to you, it can be a full hex away or 2 hexes away as long as it is blocking all supply routes.

Any unit that is disorganized with no supply path should not be reorganized at the start of the next turn.

But again my question is why do you think Harry and ADG made it an optional rule? If a unit is cut off from supply from all sources it should be disorganized and not reorganized again until a supply route is opened, and to be reorganized at the next turn is plain wrong. That should not be an optional rule, it should be a steadfast rule, part of the game.

I probably should not have posted as I am weak on this part of the game, because of no experience of actually playing the game and the brain is getting scrambled by all of this [:(]

Bo

warspite1

I do not remember "Option 47" being available in 5th Edition. I've just downloaded the 5th Edition rules (great to see that again!) and sure enough - at the Final Reorganisation Phase all face-down units were turned face up.

I guess I am lucky that when I played WIF, this was the norm - thus I do not miss the optional rule as some do.

As to the rights and wrongs and why ADG chose to go down the path they did? Who knows? Ease of play perhaps? I am sure that a case can be found for either, from a realism point of view, but Option 47 does appear more realistic and is what I would play if available.

I am not questioning the right or wrong aspect of it. ADG seems to be pretty good at the way they handle their games. I agree warspite "ease of play"[;)] In my opinion Steve should make it as convenient as he can for "ease of programming" or just leave it be for now. [:(]

Bo

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Bo, the problem is not the supply situation, but the fact that they get reorganised at the end of the turn. Some think that should not happen and others think that this should happen.

Option 47 says that you can only reorganise units which can trace a supply path of unlimited length to a primary supply source at the end of the turn. If you play without it, the units always will be reorganised (exception: oil units).

Personally, I believe that this option is too rigid in the way it has been written. If a unit isn't under attack (not adjacent to enemy positions), why should it not be reorganised while out of "unlimited" supply? If a unit is in such a position, it has the peace to get things back into order, hasn't it? The men can prepare defensive positions and can get ready for combat again. Now, if such a unit is adjacent to enemy land units, things are different, so than it shouldn't be reorganised. But that's a house rule I liked a lot in the past...

It should not happen period. When you are disorganized in real combat reality and MWIF reality, of course we are trying to keep the game realistic I assume, to reorganize in real combat you need supplies ammo food etc. To me it does not matter if a unit is next to you, it can be a full hex away or 2 hexes away as long as it is blocking all supply routes.

Any unit that is disorganized with no supply path should not be reorganized at the start of the next turn. This rule IMO should not even be optional.

But again my question is why do you think Harry and ADG made it an optional rule? If a unit is cut off from supply from all sources it should be disorganized and not reorganized again until a supply route is opened, and to be reorganized at the next turn is plain wrong. That should not be an optional rule, it should be a steadfast rule, part of the game.

I probably should not have posted as I am weak on this part of the game, because of no experience of actually playing the game and the brain is getting scrambled by all of this [:(]

Bo

Let me put it this way. The Italians had huge stockpiles of weapons, food and ammo stored in Addis Abeba. With no CW units within 1.000 miles with a closed Suez Canal they are out of supply and will not be reorganised if they Italians moves... That's ridiculous, IMHO...

Now, if one looks at a pocket like Stalingrad, surrounded with enemy troops, you are right...

This is the problem with option 47...

ORIGINAL: Centuur

ORIGINAL: bo

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Bo, the problem is not the supply situation, but the fact that they get reorganised at the end of the turn. Some think that should not happen and others think that this should happen.

Option 47 says that you can only reorganise units which can trace a supply path of unlimited length to a primary supply source at the end of the turn. If you play without it, the units always will be reorganised (exception: oil units).

Personally, I believe that this option is too rigid in the way it has been written. If a unit isn't under attack (not adjacent to enemy positions), why should it not be reorganised while out of "unlimited" supply? If a unit is in such a position, it has the peace to get things back into order, hasn't it? The men can prepare defensive positions and can get ready for combat again. Now, if such a unit is adjacent to enemy land units, things are different, so than it shouldn't be reorganised. But that's a house rule I liked a lot in the past...

It should not happen period. When you are disorganized in real combat reality and MWIF reality, of course we are trying to keep the game realistic I assume, to reorganize in real combat you need supplies ammo food etc. To me it does not matter if a unit is next to you, it can be a full hex away or 2 hexes away as long as it is blocking all supply routes.

Any unit that is disorganized with no supply path should not be reorganized at the start of the next turn. This rule IMO should not even be optional.

But again my question is why do you think Harry and ADG made it an optional rule? If a unit is cut off from supply from all sources it should be disorganized and not reorganized again until a supply route is opened, and to be reorganized at the next turn is plain wrong. That should not be an optional rule, it should be a steadfast rule, part of the game.

I probably should not have posted as I am weak on this part of the game, because of no experience of actually playing the game and the brain is getting scrambled by all of this [:(]

Bo

Let me put it this way. The Italians had huge stockpiles of weapons, food and ammo stored in Addis Abeba. With no CW units within 1.000 miles with a closed Suez Canal they are out of supply and will not be reorganised if they Italians moves... That's ridiculous, IMHO...

Now, if one looks at a pocket like Stalingrad, surrounded with enemy troops, you are right...

This is the problem with option 47...

I hear you, I should have stayed out of it just do not like it as an optional rule. It should be part of the main game not optional.

Bo