Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Telumar
It wouldn't take events, btw, this could be something that can be regulated by the replacement system.

To do it right would require events. To have it just trickle in is what you can do, but that doesn't adequately explain why you've been getting foreign equipment when you haven't fought a battle with them in 6 months...To do it right, ti would have to be dependent on different things that could nto be handled alone by the replacements editor.

All in all i don't regard this as that important, it would ne a nice extra gift but nothing ultimatively neccessary.

Personally, I'd love to see soem form of it implemented.

ORIGINAL: Veers

ORIGINAL: Telumar
It wouldn't take events, btw, this could be something that can be regulated by the replacement system.

To do it right would require events. To have it just trickle in is what you can do, but that doesn't adequately explain why you've been getting foreign equipment when you haven't fought a battle with them in 6 months...To do it right, ti would have to be dependent on different things that could nto be handled alone by the replacements editor.

I meant not with the current replacement system.

Once again as an example: East front campaign a la FitE. The scenario designer sets a unit (let's say xy Sicherheits-Regiment) to 'receive captured equipment', picks the 75mm Light Gun and enters as an alternative one or two enemy pieces of equipment (let's say a soviet infantry gun and soviet 120mm or whatever mortars).
During the game 10.Panzer Div overruns a Soviet Infantry Division. Let's say 20 captured infantry guns (among other items) go to the replacement pool. Later in game xy Sicherheits-Regiment gets low on infantry guns and the pool for the standard german IG is low, too. So xy Sicherheits-Regiment will receive some captured guns as replacement instead of the standard german ones which will be issued to other units.
Something along these lines.

That would be nice.

It's easy to think of other ways of doign it too - or ways that might be used in parallel.

Say setting up alternative weapons globally, and then doing total equipment swaps at a certain unit leval and/or fraction so that units only have 1 type - eg FitE German regimental 75mm artillery might be set to swap at regiment scale for Soviet 76mm infantry guns, while divisional artillery might be set to swap 105's for 122mm howitzers at 1/3rd a time representing replacing 1 regiment

Starts to get complicated of course....

ORIGINAL: Telumar

ORIGINAL: Veers

ORIGINAL: Telumar
It wouldn't take events, btw, this could be something that can be regulated by the replacement system.

To do it right would require events. To have it just trickle in is what you can do, but that doesn't adequately explain why you've been getting foreign equipment when you haven't fought a battle with them in 6 months...To do it right, ti would have to be dependent on different things that could nto be handled alone by the replacements editor.

I meant not with the current replacement system.

Gotcha.

Perhaps it has been mentioned before, but there could be better ways of dealing with replacements.

- I don´t understand why replacements can get to units far away faster that actual units
- I wish the player con select which units would have proirities for replacements, not the deisgner

I understand that then one would have to differentiate between repaired equipment (that damaged during combat) and new equipment coming out of training camps or factories).

The repaired equipment would be inmediately available to the unit, and it would normally be directly assigned to the unit that initially belonged to.

The new equipment would come from replacement points (like supply points) and it could be asigned by the player to the units he desired. And there would be some time before reaching the unit depending on the distance and comunication paths.

Perhpas this could add extra complexity to the game, and probably it would be made optional.

ORIGINAL: el cid
[...] The repaired equipment would be inmediately available to the unit, and it would normally be directly assigned to the unit that initially belonged to. [...]

... also why not add an editor option which allows flagging some units for enhanced equipment recovery, as some units were quite good at it

of course, this would make things even more complicated...

[:D]Complicated is good. T3 wouldn't be the great game it is if it wasn't complicated.
Besides, the complication you just suggested, M5000, would only be a complication in the Designing phase. That's so complicated already that another small complication (which is more tedious than challenging) won't really affect it.

ORIGINAL: Veers

[:D]Complicated is good. T3 wouldn't be the great game it is if it wasn't complicated.
Besides, the complication you just suggested, M5000, would only be a complication in the Designing phase. That's so complicated already that another small complication (which is more tedious than challenging) won't really affect it.

That's going to make you really popular with the scenario designing crowd...[;)]

ORIGINAL: el cid

Perhaps it has been mentioned before, but there could be better ways of dealing with replacements.

- I don´t understand why replacements can get to units far away faster that actual units
- I wish the player con select which units would have proirities for replacements, not the deisgner

I understand that then one would have to differentiate between repaired equipment (that damaged during combat) and new equipment coming out of training camps or factories).

The repaired equipment would be inmediately available to the unit, and it would normally be directly assigned to the unit that initially belonged to.

The new equipment would come from replacement points (like supply points) and it could be asigned by the player to the units he desired. And there would be some time before reaching the unit depending on the distance and comunication paths.

Perhpas this could add extra complexity to the game, and probably it would be made optional.

This is already somewhat modeled by evaporation => reconstitution. Evaporation often represents units just losing cohesion. As such, they really should reform near where they lost that cohesion, rather than far away at the other end of the map. The fact that they instead do reform far away and then have to march all the way to the front tends to model the movement of new replacements. You just have to be sure that you evaporate your enemy's units, not just decimate them. Conversely, the ability of decimated units to rebuild quickly without need for movement of replacements models the reforming of scattered/straggling troops rather than the delivery of new replacements.

Let me open another front: Mechanical Attrition

What's that?! We all know the force pestilence level event effect:

The Force Pestilence Level
This value represents a force’s vulnerability to disease losses, and is limited to the range 0 to 50. It sets a percentage of equipment lost by every unit in the force on every turn. Infantry, horse transport and cavalry equipment is lost at this rate, while all other types of equipment are lost at half the rate.

Now if we had something similar that would just affect motorised equipment this could be usefull to simulate various conditions: Desert warfare (forces that are relatively unprepared for the conditions, sandstorms, heat, even vehicle columns dispersing dust), Mud (Russian 'Rasputitsa', or as another example Anzio (terrible ground conditions for vehicles off roads)), extreme cold (though this is already somehow covered by the pestilence level).

What do you think?

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Let me open another front: Mechanical Attrition

What's that?! We all know the force pestilence level event effect:

The Force Pestilence Level
This value represents a force’s vulnerability to disease losses, and is limited to the range 0 to 50. It sets a percentage of equipment lost by every unit in the force on every turn. Infantry, horse transport and cavalry equipment is lost at this rate, while all other types of equipment are lost at half the rate.

Now if we had something similar that would just affect motorised equipment this could be usefull to simulate various conditions: Desert warfare (forces that are relatively unprepared for the conditions, sandstorms, heat, even vehicle columns dispersing dust), Mud (Russian 'Rasputitsa', or as another example Anzio (terrible ground conditions for vehicles off roads)), extreme cold (though this is already somehow covered by the pestilence level).

What do you think?

I think it's a good idea, and something that I couldn't see why Norm left out in the first place. Of course, we need to make it adjustable over the course of the scenario with events while we're at it (along with most all the other unit/formation/force modifiers).

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM


I think it's a good idea, and something that I couldn't see why Norm left out in the first place. Of course, we need to make it adjustable over the course of the scenario with events while we're at it (along with most all the other unit/formation/force modifiers).

I already had the opportunity to talk about it (among other things) with Ralph in the GS chat and he was quite optimistic about it, but i don't know if he remembers. Too bad you couldn't be there. From my amateur's view it should be possible for a future TOAW 3 patch, but time being the problem..

For TOAW 4 - what do you think about editable terrain and/or movement, combat, supply modifiers etc. allocatable on an individual hex basis?

ORIGINAL: Telumar
For TOAW 4 - what do you think about editable terrain and/or movement, combat, supply modifiers etc. allocatable on an individual hex basis?

We'll see what we can pull off...if we are actually working on a TOAW IV, that is...[;)]

And if you could do that then I suspect it wouldn't be too much extra bother to have a dynamic hex movement capability/penalty system to make MP units actually useful too.....if you were working on ToaW IV of course.....[&o]

How about "Mechanical Attrition" on an "equipment type" basis? For example, the first German Tiger and Panther tanks were rushed into service and often suffered mechanical breakdowns before they could even entered a battle. Another example would be "old" model tanks that are "worn out" (over half of Soviet T-28 tanks broke down in first days of Barbarossa). Yes, I know that a certain amount of equipment is lost when any unit "moves" but it is a very low percentage and (to best of my knowledge) applied randomly to all equipment in the moving unit.

how about showing a unit's actual morale so that players can see it? according to the manual it is used in the calculations, it's a weighted average of proficiency, readiness and supply level, but it's not visible anywhere

it wouldn't be a big change since it wouldn't really change anything practically, but it'd be nice to know units' morale, if it was displayed somewhere, would make it feel more real, closer to actual combat

it's just one of the most important factors affecting the outcome of combat, it's difficult to find a military book or a film where it's not mentioned at least a couple of times, and yet in toaw you can't see it anywhere


it could be displayed as numbers, or in a different way e.g. high, good, low

ORIGINAL: saintsup

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

2/ The ability to allocate and transfer units between formations

... and at least two levels of formation

I'd say at least 3 levels of command with the ability to set command radius based on comms eqpt and proficiency. That way you could simulate: bde/div/corps HQ with bns as primary unit types, div/corps/army HQ with bdes as primary unit type or corps/army/army gp HQ with divs as primary unit type.

I'd like to have the ability to drop and drag units between different HQs in a "command structure" panel (This would also be used to set up the OOB in the scenario editor). Unit proficiency would increase the longer a unit remained under the same HQ and would take a minor hit whenever it was moved to a new HQ.

There should also be individual commanders with skill levels that can be switched between HQs (like War in the Pacific). That way you can really simulate some of the command changes that happen during conflicts - and have the opportunity for excellent commanders to be killed.

The command area to me is the one weakness in this otherwise great game.

ORIGINAL: hueglin

[...]The command area to me is the one weakness in this otherwise great game.

yes, among other things, in toaw it's possible to spread your formation as much as you like without any communication/control/command penalties at all... in barbarossa, e.g. you can send one formation regiment to Lenningrad, another one to Rostov, while your hq is sitting in Brest, and you still retain complete control, no penalties at all


this is obviously wrong but i think this flexibility results from the fact that you can't modify formations in toaw, detach or attach units, etc

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Let me open another front: Mechanical Attrition

What's that?! We all know the force pestilence level event effect:

The Force Pestilence Level
This value represents a force’s vulnerability to disease losses, and is limited to the range 0 to 50. It sets a percentage of equipment lost by every unit in the force on every turn. Infantry, horse transport and cavalry equipment is lost at this rate, while all other types of equipment are lost at half the rate.

Now if we had something similar that would just affect motorised equipment this could be usefull to simulate various conditions: Desert warfare (forces that are relatively unprepared for the conditions, sandstorms, heat, even vehicle columns dispersing dust), Mud (Russian 'Rasputitsa', or as another example Anzio (terrible ground conditions for vehicles off roads)), extreme cold (though this is already somehow covered by the pestilence level).

What do you think?

I think it's a good idea, and something that I couldn't see why Norm left out in the first place. Of course, we need to make it adjustable over the course of the scenario with events while we're at it (along with most all the other unit/formation/force modifiers).

..wot 'e said..

..in-game access to the above is almost-elephants...

Retreat Reaction Option.

I think that it is sometimes a bit too easy to surround an isolated unit in that the unit cannot react to the enemy as it undertakes to surround him by occupying all six adjacent hexes. I think that a programmed retreat reaction option would help fix this where the defending player could in his turn have designated two to three adjacent retreat  react hexes to his location (H1, H2, H3 with H1 being the highest priorty and H3 the lowest). The player could then specify a mobile defense posture with a threshold of 1 or 2. For the threshold of 2 if an enemy during his movement phase  occupies  two of the retreat hexes then the unit reacts and attempts to retreat to the clear retreat hex. If the threshold is set to 1 then if any one of the retreats hexes is occupied the defender retreats to the higer prrioty of the two unoccupied retreat hexes (say if H1 is occupied then the defender would choose H2 over H3). This would make it a bit harder to surround a unit in that the unit can retreat a hex when it's retreat is starting to be cut off. 

Also, (and perhaps optionally) a zone of control might count as a half a hex so that if a retreat threshold 1 is set and two (or all three) of the retreat hexes are occupied with enemy units/ZOC by a move then the defending unit would then attempt a react retreat into the highest priority retreat hex (with an enemy ZOC lowering the priority of the retreat hex by 1.5 ( the extra .5 so there will be no ties) such that a H1 retreat hex occupied by an enemy  ZOC would be treated as a H2.5 and thus would be lower priority than a H2 that has no enemy ZOC). Also, perhaps this option could be automateically invoked when the minimum loss option is seletcted for a defender with the three retreat hexes being defined to default by some algorithm (with the option of the player chaging the default selections).