Frustrated with tech

[Scott_WAR]

10/10 fighters WILL smack down 8/8 fighters pretty badly. I know that from having suffered through it early on, learning just how over-important tech is. The problem may not be exaclty that tech is too strong, so much as it is that superior numbers dont overcome it, as they should. THAT is why I say tech is too strong. Probably just fixing that, will fix the problem I am talking about.

[Agema]

Look, what I'm saying is tech should be crucial.

Let's assume that the Allies have 7-7 tanks, having done barely any research. The Germans have 9-9. To put that into a rough translation of history, we're probably talking 1941 Crusader II tanks (2pdr gun & 30mm armour) versus Tigers and Panthers, with barely increased tactical doctrine for the British as well. During Operation Goodwood in 1944 using Shermans and Cromwells (6 and 17pdr guns, 70-80ish mm armour) plus all that tactical experience from North Africa and Italy, the British lost 500 tanks to the Germans' 100. What do you think it would have been like if they'd been using Crusader IIs and 1941 tactics?

I'm sure the Germans would still have lost *some* tanks. But then, in game mechanics, 9 evasion gives 36 defence (down to 32 after the first shot), 7 attack a potential 'hit' score of 42. So, the Germans will still take *some* losses in the game from numbers.

Or to take subs, check the casualty rates in 1939-1942. The British were losing over a quarter of their shipping for much of this period. The monthly losses were about 40 merchant ships for a handful of uboats. It was only late in 1942 that the uboats started to take heavy - and unreplaceable - casualties.

Next, when you look about the HUGE importance of codebreaking, radar, sonar, and so on in the war, then if you think that tech shouldn't be that important, I despair. It was a vital part of the war. There was a massive explosion of advanced technology in WW2, much of it crucial to the war effort.

[Scott_WAR]

I dont think that it should not be important, but I dont think it should be hands down the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the game.

[James Ward]

WA asw is not that difficult.

Just for giggles I got my WA transports up to 3 asw. Took a while but it helped out a little. Perhaps increasing the transport asw starting level would help balance things out in the long run.

[Svend Karlson]

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Actually Svend a handful of 10/10 fighters will devastate a "normal" group of fighters. The "normal" fighters wont get any hits at all, while the 10/10 ones will eat through them. So, if you have NO way of slowing down those fighters, within a few turns your air force will be destroyed by them unless you move them completely out of range, and then what good are they?

To be explicit Scott, using the same quantity of production points, you could have either a handful of 10/10 fighters OR you could have larger number of fighters+bombers (for instance).

Having 2-3 'undefeatable' air units in a province does not help very much when that province is raided by an allied air-armada that can easily absorb 2-3 losses and continue to damage or destroy the entire industry based in that province. It is a tactical victory for the super-fighters but a strategic defeat for Germany.

For the record, I think you are overstating the importance of tech. I'd be willing to put money on the outcome of a game where the Axis did nothing but increase tech (and repair units) and the Allies did nothing but produce units.

I'm a user of high teched armour myself, and the most effective defensive counter-strategy I have ever encountered from a Russian player is the wholesale deployment of militia. My armour achieved stunning tactical victories pretty much every season, but still could not advance beyond Kiev until Fall 1943 after a Fall 41 invasion, purely due to not being able to achieve the requisite criteria for controlling a province. In retrospect, this was a strategic failing of mine.

I think Scott, that at least part of what you are rallying against is the very fact that you have to choose to spend production points on research OR production in the first place. This is of course a fantastical abstraction which bears no resemblance to reality. That choice simply did not exist in any meaningful sense. If you are familiar with Hearts of Iron I & II, you can see that the research or production economic system used in the first game was replaced in the second game, following numerous comments.

Again for the record, I think that GG WaW game-balance is very impressive indeed. It's the closest thing to chess-like balance I've seen in a war game in quite some time (and even chess gives an advantage to the white player [;)])

[Battlebyte]

Scott_WAR:

So when a 2 tech level difference= invulnerability that means that the tactics/ weapons etc of the higher teched unit are so advanced over their enemy, that their really isnt any chance of their enemy to hurt them at all. Tanks against cavemen. At no point in world war 2, or any war EVER for that matter, was one side able to just walk all over the ther side with NO RISK WHATSEVER. Yet its a common occurence in this game. THAT is the PROBLEM.

Possible solutions:
1) Support your cavemen with heavy anti-tank artillery. Sure some cavemen will get run over, but the tank-destroyers will make it cost the enemy much more than it costs you.
2) Redeploy your cavemen to a critical theater of operations somewhere overseas. Now to meet that threat, he must ship his supertanks using weak and vulnerable transports...which fall prey to your submarines, fleets, and/or aircraft.
3) While his supertanks are overrunning your cavemen, your strategic bombers blast their fuel depots and your paratroops drop in to cut the rails behind the enemy advance. Elsewhere your tac-bombers take out the few militia that he stationed on occupation duty, freeing the native partisans to smash his factories. Regardless of their tech, tanks that can't move, attack, or defend effectively are just large, expensive decorative sculptures.

If the enemy focuses too much on making one thing invulnerable, that is a weakness, not a strength. Exploit it. If you're attempting nothing but straight-up attrition of equivalent units, using no strategy, that is a problem.

On another note, if all values relating to naval combat were simultaneously raised to be more like those regarding land and air combat, there would be more granularity and therefore a single level would be less extreme. (2 vs 3 is a 50% difference, but 6 vs 7 is only a 16.7% difference). That would require thorough rebalancing.

I still haven't gotten the hang of naval combat (I'm unsure what it takes to defeat a given force), so I'm not sure that's a good idea. Perhaps it was designed this way for a reason.

[aletoledo]

I only have a nickel, so I'll need change for my two cents:

I've played probably three dozen games since release, against at least a dozen different people. 90% have been as axis. I've been on both sides of the tech issue. in the end though its rarely been an issue of tech thats won or lost a game, but rather strategy and tactics. being out-tech'd is frustrating, but I can usually point to where I negleted some area (usually to feed another area).

specific to sub tech, its hard for the axis to compete in this area, because with the durability of subs at only 3, every increase in evasion bring only 3, where-as ASW increases brings 3.5 for each point. couple this with the -1 drop in evasion and its only necessary for the allies to get something up to a ASW of 3 to kick butt. because of their range, airplanes are the most deadly ASW units.

[Grifman]

ORIGINAL: Svend Karlson

I think Scott, that at least part of what you are rallying against is the very fact that you have to choose to spend production points on research OR production in the first place. This is of course a fantastical abstraction which bears no resemblance to reality. That choice simply did not exist in any meaningful sense.

I would disagree with that last statement. The US spent a tremendous amount of effort into developing technology and infrastructure for the atomic bomb before one was even built. The Germans did the same for the V wweapons, spending resources heavily before they entered production. The same could be said of the Allied heavy bomber development and the German Uboat program, I think.

[Svend Karlson]

ORIGINAL: Grifman

ORIGINAL: Svend Karlson
I think Scott, that at least part of what you are rallying against is the very fact that you have to choose to spend production points on research OR production in the first place. This is of course a fantastical abstraction which bears no resemblance to reality. That choice simply did not exist in any meaningful sense.

I would disagree with that last statement. The US spent a tremendous amount of effort into developing technology and infrastructure for the atomic bomb before one was even built. The Germans did the same for the V wweapons, spending resources heavily before they entered production. The same could be said of the Allied heavy bomber development and the German Uboat program, I think.

Yes, but they could not directly substitute research scientists like Heisenburg & von Braun for guns & butter production facilities, or vice versa, which is the choice you have in-game. The Axis & Allies all had scientists, they all had production facilties, but you cannot turn lead into gold. The governments could to varying extents influence what the focus of industry or academia was with contracts & funding, but only the truly foolhardy would tell Einstein to pick up a rifle & march (and yes of course there are some examples of this)

So to make it explicit, yes the US spent tremendous amounts on Manhatten, but they could not for example with any ease have used the same resources to produce more tanks or chocolates. In-game that is the choice you have. Research OR units OR supplies.

[Grifman]

ORIGINAL: Svend Karlson

ORIGINAL: Grifman

ORIGINAL: Svend Karlson
I think Scott, that at least part of what you are rallying against is the very fact that you have to choose to spend production points on research OR production in the first place. This is of course a fantastical abstraction which bears no resemblance to reality. That choice simply did not exist in any meaningful sense.

I would disagree with that last statement. The US spent a tremendous amount of effort into developing technology and infrastructure for the atomic bomb before one was even built. The Germans did the same for the V wweapons, spending resources heavily before they entered production. The same could be said of the Allied heavy bomber development and the German Uboat program, I think.

Yes, but they could not directly substitute research scientists like Heisenburg & von Braun for guns & butter production facilities, or vice versa, which is the choice you have in-game. The Axis & Allies all had scientists, they all had production facilties, but you cannot turn lead into gold. The governments could to varying extents influence what the focus of industry or academia was with contracts & funding, but only the truly foolhardy would tell Einstein to pick up a rifle & march (and yes of course there are some examples of this)

So to make it explicit, yes the US spent tremendous amounts on Manhatten, but they could not for example with any ease have used the same resources to produce more tanks or chocolates. In-game that is the choice you have. Research OR units OR supplies.

I think you don't understand me. I'm not talking about sending scientist to the front - they would have represented only a small part of total cost of "research". We're really talking about all the money put into facilities for prototypes, testing, etc. And you are wrong when you say the resources of the Manhatten Project couldn't have been used to produce more tanks. Sure they could have! Instead of spending the money to turn Oak Ridge into a A bomb factory, you take the steel and concrete and thousands of people and build a tank factory. It's a matter of money, raw materials and people - very simple really. I'm not certain why you don't think the resources couldn't have been redeployed otherwise.

[Svend Karlson]

ORIGINAL: Grifman
Instead of spending the money to turn Oak Ridge into a A bomb factory, you take the steel and concrete and thousands of people and build a tank factory. It's a matter of money, raw materials and people - very simple really. I'm not certain why you don't think the resources couldn't have been redeployed otherwise.

We disagree on the transferability of the raw materials, plant & people. Whereas I agree the money is mostly transferable, I don't agree that the rest is to anywhere near the same degree. The UK provides an easy example. Whether the UK government wanted to or not, it could not replace it's research efforts with aircraft building. The two activites require a completely different set of finite skills, completely different resources, completely different facilities, it's not just a matter of money.

I contend that outside the SU, countries mostly made use of the industrial facilities & research faculties such as already existed. They did not bulldoze the old in order to create the new nor could they. No government had such control over their economy & population that they could simply order them to transfer their efforts from one thing to another either (again discounting the SU)

So choosing between aircraft & tanks? Or choosing between focus on rocketry research or nuclear power? Yes thats feasible. Choosing between research & production is not just about the money. Universities don't turn into factories & vice versa.

[aauminki]

We can discuss the transferability of funds from research to production until the cows come home [>:] - it's likely that at least for the democracies, there were some domestic steel resources not going into war materiel production, just as it would've likely been possible for both sides to buy more from neutral countries than was done. It's not like the real world had the same resource transferrance as is depicted in the game either.

The game is simply trying to turn a very complex issue into a simple production mechanism, if it had been two pools one with production and one with research the possible permutations of units and tech levels would be much lower and, I think, the game worse off for it.

[Scott_WAR]

Another example of how out of whack a 1 tech level advantage is.

8 heavy bombers with an ground attack of 5, attack 3 infantry with an evasion of 6. No hits at all.

Edit- I just looked at the game again. EVEN WORSE, is the fact that the infantry had no supplies for defense.

[Joel Billings]

As I posted in the other thread, your average hit result should have been 1.7 hits and so you had bad luck to get no hits. Some people don't even want aircraft to be able to hit ground units, but that's another story. If the infantry had no supplies in or adjacent to the area and were not already supplied, then you had horrible luck (I suspect they did get supplied). Without supply you should have hit 4.4 times. What did the analyzer say would happen?

[Scott_WAR]

showed 2.something, so I figured I had a bad roll. There were no supplies in that territory, nor in any territory adjacent to it. So it souldnt have been supplied (unless I am mistaken inmy understanding of where defensive supplies can come from).

I expected to not get great results, but I was shocked to get nothing.

I have come to accept tech as it is, since it isnt too difficult to keep up, (except for german subs), but I still feel as if a 1 tech advantage gives too much of an advantage in combat. I am starting to believe its not as bad as I initially thought, but it still seems too much.

I guess the easiest way to look at it s, I can spend 7 PP to increase a units tech and get HUGE results in combat. For the same PP I can buy 3.5 infantry or artillery, or 1 tank. NOT a fair trade off. The cost of tech, compared to the cost of units, and the difference in value for PP spent is staggeringly lopsided. Tech is either too strong, or too cheap, and that is why I see around half of production(sometimes more sometimes less) going into tech in nearly every PBEM game I play.

[Svend Karlson]

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR
Another example of how out of whack a 1 tech level advantage is.

8 heavy bombers with an ground attack of 5, attack 3 infantry with an evasion of 6. No hits at all.

Scott I'm sorry but at best you have presented an event with a small statistical probability. Enough people play the game enough times & it is bound to occur.

I very much doubt that your example would even show up as significant using the expected number of hits & a two-tailed reliability test at a 5% confidence interval. If it did, there is still the bonferroni effect!

[Scott_WAR]

I agree, it was a bad roll, in a small battle, but still, not really a realistic outcome no matter how you look at it.


However, the last point I made about the value of 7 PP being put into research, as opposed to creating units, to me, makes it obvious tech is too cheap for the advantage it gives.

[MrQuiet]

There were no supplies in that territory, nor in any territory adjacent to it. So it souldnt have been supplied (unless I am mistaken inmy understanding of where defensive supplies can come from).

If the units moved there tacticaly on there turn then they were supplied.

However, the last point I made about the value of 7 PP being put into research, as opposed to creating units, to me, makes it obvious tech is too cheap for the advantage it gives.

Yes, it is best to upgrade that one level, but to go up again will now cost at least 11 or 12 if you started at the world standard, for that price you could buy 6 of the common units. Now figure in your population limits and you have found the beauty of the game. All these options in a simplistic easy to manage system where logistics and economy actualy do more to win the game then moving armies.

-MrQuiet

[Scott_WAR]

I agree, its a good system. I just think that tech plays too large a part in the equation than it should. Research, logistics, economy, combat,..... all play their part, however "moving armies" should not be LESS important than research. But right now I believe that it is.

Also, some units are not 1 tech level below world standard, and can be raised more than 1 level before needing double for advancement.

[Uncle_Joe]

I agree, it was a bad roll, in a small battle, but still, not really a realistic outcome no matter how you look at it.

Well, the same could be said for Midway too. It wasnt a very 'realistic' outcome given the forces involved and whatnot. But some times sh#t happens. As long as it isnt happening repeatedly, I dont think its a problem.