(oh) For a Few Panzers More –loki100 vs smokindave34 (game over - Allied major victory)

[whoofe]

isn't the end game VPs worth quite a bit as well? so if you capture berlin quite early its a big bonus and capture berlin quite late its a big penalty?

[KWG]

ORIGINAL: whoofe

isn't the end game VPs worth quite a bit as well? so if you capture berlin quite early its a big bonus and capture berlin quite late its a big penalty?

Not sure onVps changes by year. Are there big LAST TURN bonuses?

[KWG]

I'm dubious of that, but presumably you could test that strategy against the AI pretty easily.

Did close to this in beta last year, never played it all the way. Getting over 10vp a turn a lot of times. Bomb only Vp targets.
Got real good with my Air Forces in the strategic war and wiping the Luftwaffe from the skys.


OOOOppps Sorry about the thread hijack[&o]

[loki100]

There is a bonus for ending the game early - whether its the Allies or the Soviets that grab Berlin. But if the Allies do this, you gain the VPs for the city as well.

About bombing VPs and victory. I'm not sure its feasible in PBEM? But I think you can do it vs the AI. In my current AI game I have enough strategic bombing VPs in the bank (and adding to them per term) that even in the usual fierce post invasion of France period, I'm pretty much keeping the VP situation neutral.

Would be a bit disappointing if an Allied player could win that way, land say in Normandy, build a safe perimeter and just play out the rest of the game. Seems pretty tedious.

[Seminole]

Did close to this in beta last year, never played it all the way. Getting over 10vp a turn a lot of times. Bomb only Vp targets.
Got real good with my Air Forces in the strategic war and wiping the Luftwaffe from the skys.

How far did you play it?
Reason I ask is because of the growing strategic bombing points divisor:

SBP Date adjustment divisor is as follows:
§§ 1943: 6
§§ Jan-Jun 1944: 9
§§ Jul-Dec 1944: 12
§§ 1945: 18

And by not invading beyond beachheads you'd forego the advantage of overrunning factories:

"If the Allied player captures cities in Germany (or for oil/fuel/synthetic fuel, cities in areas controlled by the Axis player at start), then SBPs will be scored as if the eligible factories in that city were at 100 percent damage. If the city is captured by the Soviets, no points will be scored for the factories."

Couple that with the demands of the U-boat and V-weapon campaigns it would be interesting to see if you could in fact maximize VP from the skies alone.

If I were the German player and decided this is what you were trying to do all engineers would be assigned my most valuable cities, flak would be concentrated, and I'd still press on the corners of whatever beachhead you tried to put in to deny you escaping losing at least some points still to combat.

[loki100]

Turn 55: 27 July – 4 August 1944

Turn opened with the fall of Cherbourg. Fortunately Rouen was made of sterner stuff



In the air I'm still inflicting decent losses but now I'm using untrained pilots for most fighter groups, my own losses are high.



East Front is still not under control. Think I've managed to set off a serious problem with neglecting it for so long.



VP score



Anyway to celebrate (not sure what), I actually managed to make an attack. Even bigger surprise was it worked.

[Q-Ball]

The Allied player can win a minor victory without leaving France. If you conduct a good strategic bombing campaign, and secure the 10 hex beachhead, you can't lose really, even if you are basically pinned against the French shore into 1945.

I am playing a PBEM as Germany where the Allies are stuck in Normandy and Brittany, it's Jan 1945, and it's trending to a 450+ VP Allied victory

[carlkay58]

Being the Allied player in the game vs Q-Ball I would say it probably won't be 450+ but it should still be a Minor Allied Victory. I made some major mistakes and then lost control of all of my air forces for four turns due to a data corruption that Helpless was able to correct. Unfortunately it happened during a major effort and I lost about 150 VPs in those four turns due to Allied Losses. Not to say that the lack of air forces were the only reason I lost those points, but I had to withdraw from a southern France invasion that I probably could have kept going with any type of air support.

Yes, the primary source of my VPs have been in Bombing VPs but I would not have the minor victory if the Germans had not fallen back into northern Italy. The amount of City VPs that were freed up in southern and central Italy are about 20% of the total City VPs in the game and have yielded more than 300 VPs during the game.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: loki100

There is a bonus for ending the game early - whether its the Allies or the Soviets that grab Berlin. But if the Allies do this, you gain the VPs for the city as well.

Playing with EF off there is a bonus if the Allies can capture Berlin early. But in my opinion with equal opponents that will never happen. In my current game with QBall I have advanced more or less historical, but unlike historical he did not waste his strength in December 44 with a Bulge type offensive. I will be lucky to capture even the Ruhr by Wars end. Playing with EF off I do not believe there is any penalty or bonus when the Russians capture Berlin on the first May turn.

About bombing VPs and victory. I'm not sure its feasible in PBEM? But I think you can do it vs the AI. In my current AI game I have enough strategic bombing VPs in the bank (and adding to them per term) that even in the usual fierce post invasion of France period, I'm pretty much keeping the VP situation neutral.

Would be a bit disappointing if an Allied player could win that way, land say in Normandy, build a safe perimeter and just play out the rest of the game. Seems pretty tedious.

We will have to stay tuned to Carlkay's game against QBall to see if the Allies can win that way. Though in fairness to Carlkay that was not his original intent.

[loki100]

in general I'm not convinced that the VP situation is wrong at the moment. Broadly you could argue the real war ended in either a draw or an allied marginal victory ... and that was with a number of significant German mistakes such as holding in Normandy too long and then the Ardennes Offensive. From the perspective of their leadership this made sense but if your goal was to minimise your 'defeat' then they are clearly things a player won't do.

[loki100]

Turn 56: 5-11 August 1944

Main event this turn was that the Polish army tried to take revenge for 1939. It managed to break through the German lines.



Problem with this is it reminded the German army of 1939 ...



As we will see in coming turns, being reminded of past glories is not always a good idea when you really need to pay attention to the present.

Elsewhere more bombing.

Anyway VP and EF situation:



Losses:

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: loki100

in general I'm not convinced that the VP situation is wrong at the moment. Broadly you could argue the real war ended in either a draw or an allied marginal victory ... and that was with a number of significant German mistakes such as holding in Normandy too long and then the Ardennes Offensive. From the perspective of their leadership this made sense but if your goal was to minimise your 'defeat' then they are clearly things a player won't do.

I agree with you to an extent. In particular I agree that the Western Allies High Command generally out performed the German High Command during the time period covered by this game. So I think it would be unfair if the game required the Western Allies Player to capture all of the geography/cities that they historically captured just to get a Draw. I agree with you that if the WA Player is able to achieve what the Western Allies did historically he is entitled to a Minor Victory. But I do not agree that the WA Player should be rewarded with a Minor Victory, or even a Draw, if he doesn't even capture Paris. At a minimum the WA Player should be required to capture all of France, Belgium and most of Italy to get a Draw.

[loki100]

since the debate on VP scoring etc is now over at least 3 threads I'll not respond directly.

What I'll do is to keep on posting losses/vp scores - not least as we are both making mistakes and the game is sort of close to the real front lines etc.

I think that is useful as a major problem in WiTE is very partial information being presented by a few players [1] who like to exploit the systems - the result is a risk the game gets balanced around them not the bulk of people who play these games for fun, or against the AI.

[1] - or one?

[loki100]

Turn 57: 12 – 18 August 1944

Careful readers will recall that last turn I was making a lot of self-congratulatory comments about re-enacting the glories of 1939. Unfortunately my opponent remembered it really is 1944:



It also seems as if his airforce came back from their summer holidays.



Even my old chums from 15 Air failed to cheer me up



Well I had to try?



Time to run I fear.

So onto the losses:



East Front disaster strikes again:

[loki100]

Turn 58: 19 – 25 August 1944

Not surprisingly the Allies manage to disrupt my front lines even if I managed to create enough friction to prevent a clean breakout.



At least they paid a substantial cost in terms of victory points for battle casualties





So I decided it was time to let the problems of Allied resupply work in my favour. A few selected cities are left with a garrison to slow up the pursuit but basically I'm pulling back into Belgium. Defending the La Chouffe factories in the Ardennes is a major objective.



I have a number of problems coming together. I've just lost 3 (probably irreplaceable) Pzr divisions, I've been sending 80% of my reinforcements to the east in a failing attempt to regain some stability over there and my remaining armour has suffered for all that interdiction.

So I have a pragmatic set of goals – hold Antwerp and Marseilles as long as possible (I've found these are the ports that make the real difference). Try to keep just out of reach of the main allied forces (my own experience is Dave will have to be pretty ruthless about supply allocation). Use this to try and hold the allies west of the Rhine for as long as possible.

As an experiment, I've also decided to try and hold onto a number of the larger Channel ports. We'll see if this is a useless diversion of units better used for defending the Reich or a further, valuable, gain in slowing the Allies ability to resupply. No idea if this is a good plan or not but want to test out if I can gain more by stressing the allies' supply lines than by building a strong defense.

[loki100]

Turn 59: 26 August – 1 September 1944

Not really that much to report for this turn. The Wehrmacht was ordered to practice running at high speed.



However, I decided to risk the Luftwaffe on a rare offensive. My logic was that allied fighter cover would be weak over their spearheads so this was a chance to use airpower to my advantage.



My fall back lines are partly prepared but I ideally need a few turns of re-organising and resting before combat operations restart in earnest again.

At least the Allies are paying for their victories.



And Uncle Joe seems to have settled down to a nap after his recent gains.



Overall my reserves of manpower and equipment are ok.

[loki100]

Turn 60: 2 – 8 September 1944

First stage of 'lets run as fast as we can' is over. I'm not going to hold this line for long but see no reason to give the Allies too much free gains.

Basically I want to hold the allies west of the Maas/Meuse/Moselle so that crossing that is their winter project, not crossing the Rhine.

I decided to try an experiment with stay behind garrisons. The AI does this and it can be a pain to deal with, but I've not seen it tried in other PBEMs. I'm also determined to hold Antwerp as long as I can and then deny the Allies clear movement on the Scheldt estuary.



In the air bomber command has cleary been taking lessons from 15 Air. has no one told them that U-boats are soooo 1943?



That was the only bit of light relief in the air. Since I've swapped most of the fighter squadrons from using trained pilots, my losses are horrendous. The only good thing is I have a lot of planes.



Uncle Joe slumbers, but I fear will wake up at any moment

[KWG]

I decided to try an experiment with stay behind garrisons. The AI does this and it can be a pain to deal with,

the AI is very good at that and it's like a tick.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: KWG

I decided to try an experiment with stay behind garrisons. The AI does this and it can be a pain to deal with,

the AI is very good at that and it's like a tick.

think this works very well as it really gains from the standard +10%/-10% shift on challenging, also it seems to be prepared to set up defensive stacks > 100.

I'm not sure about it in PBEM, but I may have made the mistake of setting up too many smaller garrisons and perhaps the same troop commitment to fewer ports might have been more effective.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: loki100

since the debate on VP scoring etc is now over at least 3 threads I'll not respond directly.

What I'll do is to keep on posting losses/vp scores - not least as we are both making mistakes and the game is sort of close to the real front lines etc.

I think that is useful as a major problem in WiTE is very partial information being presented by a few players [1] who like to exploit the systems - the result is a risk the game gets balanced around them not the bulk of people who play these games for fun, or against the AI.

[1] - or one?

Loki in my questioning of the VP System I am pointing out what I think are two separate problems with the System. The first is that it is possible for the WA Player to "Bomb for VPs" and thereby win at least a minor victory without capturing any German territory and perhaps without even capturing Rome or Paris. The second is that irrespective of the current VP Score (ie whether the WA Player is winning by 500 points or losing by 500 points) at some point in an EF Box Off game (I say around the summer or fall of 1944) the WA Player will gain more VPs (or perhaps lose fewer) by Turtling than he will by continuing to attack. Now some people think that even if either or both of these are true it is still not a problem. On that point we disagree.

With respect I don't think your game will be too helpful with respect to the first problem. This is because it does not appear, to me anyway, that SmokinDave was ever trying to Bomb for VPs. I mean as of September 2, 1944 he has scored only 169 SB VPs (an average of only about 3 per turn) which is less than the VPs he has lost to UBoats and VWpns. This suggests to me that either he was bombing non-VP targets (Vehicles, AFVs, Aircraft, etc), or he was letting the AI choose the size of his bombing missions (in my experience it is far more effective to have 10 missions of 50 bombers than the one mission of 500 bombers that the AI likes to do), or he wasn't doing much Strategic bombing at all. Of course, the other possibility is that you have utilized very effective counter-measures to Strategic bombing. I believe I am about to encounter those myself in my game with Liquidsky. So if that is the case would you be willing to post here what those counter measures were?

With respect to the problem of the WA player Turtling, I am unsure if your game will provide useful data or not. The reason is that you have the EF Box turned ON so if Dave turtles you could send more units East thus delaying the end of the game. However, I very much doubt that Dave will Turtle. So I am following this game with a lot of interest. In particular I am anxious to see if Dave gains or loses VPs between now and Games End. My guess is that if he keeps attacking he will lose a lot. But we will see.