Tweak to spying needed?

[GKar]

WH seems to be pretty busy with ironing out a few shortcomings of the engine - thanks once again! [:)]

I started thinking about one thing though: Do we need a tweak to spying? I might be mistaken, but it's my impression that spying tends to be overdone at the moment, and it seems to be too hard to defend against it. The intelligence battle is lost for Japan from the very beginning, and even Germany's inventions seem to be spread to the Allies faster than Adolf could say "Wunderwaffe". Of course this is somewhat historical - although most tech stealing was done thanks to captured equipment IIRC - but still, it might be too much overall.

What do you think?

[MrQuiet]

I think Japan should start with higher security.
15 or maybe even more since they tend to dissapear.

[christian brown]

I think that it is OK the way it is, intel is a really expensive buy for Russia and the WA in the beginning of the game while Germany usually has free supply coming out it's ears until Barb begins. If the German player really cares they CAN afford to increase their security substantially and even spy a bit on their own to boot. Japan and China are of course at a disadvantage from the beginning, which is OK by me. I love the fact that to steal tech upgrades you need at least one point in each attribute (if you are more than a full level behind) so again, there IS a cost.

[Lebatron]

I was also thinking along the same lines as MrQuiet. In Uncommon Valor 2.0 I already increased Japans security. I might even add another point or two for the next update. 

[Marshall Art]

I support increasing Japan's Anti-spying capability - or security as the game calls it. Japan should have a reasonable chance to protect its research secrets and cover its production at least in the first years of the game.

As far as I remember no other naval power knew exactly that the Yamato/Musashi BB's were being built, and the true capabilities of the Zero fighters and Naval Long Lance torpedoes, to name a few examples. This would go along with historical problems that the Allies had, before superior code breaking and recon made the Japanese plans clear, like during the battle of Midway.

Since Japan has very few resources to spare for security from the very beginning, it should start with significant higher ratings. This also would prevent the rather non-historic German tech-stealing from its so-called Ally. During the war, almost no co-operation occured on a tech level, besides German "wonderweapons" plans being given to Japan during the last months of the war as a payback for shipments of scarce raw materials from Japan to Germany.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Art
I support increasing Japan's Anti-spying capability

It seems like there is a very good consensus for this. I also think it good that it hinders the Germans spying on Japan.

Japanese security currently starts at 8. How about 15?

[GKar]

I definitely agree with increasing Japanese starting security.

Additionally I thought that maybe the security rolls should be adjusted to favour the defending side a little more. It's my impression that things get a little too easy for the attacker once the number of spies reaches high levels - even when the defender invests as well.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: GKar
Additionally I thought that maybe the security rolls should be adjusted to favour the defending side a little more.

I'd need more general support for that. I haven't really thought about it in detail myself.

[Petiloup]

Everyone will look at me like an heretic but I think the whole spying stuff should be dumped and have a complete overhaul.

Why?

Let's take Japan and it's weapons secrets in 1941... -0-, none, nothing, zip ,nada. They had a great fighter the Zero but totaly unarmored which did give him incredible range and amazing maneuverability to a price... blowing out of the sky faster than a fireworks. What gave Japan it's success? Amazing training, great experience over China and lack of defense from the Allied. Give it Midway or against Port Moresby with a real American presence and they didn't do so well. They had a great torpedo the "Long Lance" and the US a very bad one. They had great training for night fighting but no radar. They had no tanks of any value, no great infantry rifle like the US Garant or machine gun like the German MG42, no landing craft but unarmored barge, the carriers fuel lines were flawed and tended to blow when hit and fire was on board, no flexible chain of command but rigid battle plans which doomed them more than once,...

What they had is Yamamoto, some great infantry Generals like against Singapore/Malaya and a total contempt from the Great Western Nations. Then the surprise of the first shot.

By 1942 they did lost the Coral Sea battle, Midway and Guadalcanal. Were contained in Burma. This is a few months after the initial onslaught and from there it did go down all the way till the end.

They could still produce great planes and other weapons but not mass produce them at all.

Let's speak of Germany and it's wonderweapon. What are those in 1939? The Me-109? well not the plane as the Spitfire and the French Dewottine 520 were equals but again the pilots training in real combat situation over Spain and Poland. The Stuka? he was brought down in flames over England as being damn slow. The Heinkel 111? not as good as the British Wellington bomber. What about tanks? they had Panzer 1 armed with 2 machines guns, Panzer 2 armed with a 20mm gun, some Panzer 3 armed with a 37mm gun, a very few Panzer IV armed with a 75mm short barelled infantry gun and some T37 Tcheques tanks. Nothing great compared to the British Matilda that only an AA 88mm could knocked out or a Stuka, or the French Somua or B1-Bis heavily armored. What they had is the Blitzkried and high intensive training. Also some experience with Poland against a French army ready to fight in the WW1 spirit. Germany could combine Artillery, planes, and ground troops as they needed while the Allies were far from any combined arms doctrine. Even during the Desert War in North Africa the British were very slow to adapt. No mentionning that again Russia they had a huge problem when facing Russian tanks like the T34-75 and the Klementi Vorochilov KV1. Again there the first successes come from Blitzkrieg doctrine and combat experience with of course great leaders like Guderian, Von Manstein, Runstedt, etc...

All the great German wonderweapons including Jet Planes, rockets, missiles, supertanks, etc were developped in 1943 till the end the war when it was obvious for Hitler a quick victory was impossible and even so it didn't matter anymore compared to the huge industrial might of Russia and the US together.

Germany did produce about 10,000 Panzer IV, 1,500 Tigers and 6,000 Panthers while in the meantime Russia produced by 1945 57,000 T34, 10,000 KV and the US about 50,000 Shermans. We could review planes build, artilleries and so on with similar huge production differences.

Not talking that having good tanks and total air supremacy against them doomed Germany against the US while against Russia they had inferiority in numbers and at the end Russia did breached the gap in tactics mostly but not at a low unit level were German troops still excelled.

I really believe you should just give the same value to everyone in the game but with a bonus. A strong bonus to Germany in 1939 till 1941, then a weaker one in 1942, a minimum one in 1943 then nothing afterwards. Same for Japan till mid 1942 then a weakness as US planes and other weapons were technically far superior to anything Japan could come by.

Just look at the number of carriers the US did produced by end of 1945. It's amazing with something like 20 big carriers and 100 escort carriers. What can you do against that?

Make it a different bonus for airwarfare against ground battle or ships and even a variable one based on success if London falls or Moscow, etc... but by the end of the war Germany could come with anything besides the ABomb maybe and they would have still loose the war. Once they couldn't win it against Russia it was over for Hitler. Germany simply didn't have the industrial might to fight the world. Agreed they could have still put nasty surprises like the new line of XXI type submarines but it would just be a small setback before the Allies could devise a countermeasure.

When I see Russia investing in Spying in 1940 this is a joke as they had better tanks already and not bad planes but no training and no combined arms capabilities almost. Also no defensive strategy against such an attack.

In AWD Russia can declare war in 1942/1943 but they would have suffered a lot against a well trained German fighting machine just because of the lack of experience while in this game it's a walk in the park mostly.

Instead of Research you should emphatize on Combined Arm strategy and training/fighting experience with more levels I think.

Newly produced units: -2 for Raw recruits.
After a period of time: 0 with training or instead surviving 1 fight
Then like in AWD: Trained units if X% chances roll done, then Seasoned, then Veteran then Elite. So between an Elite and a Raw recruit you could go till +/- 8 on a roll. With heavy losses on the East Front Russia would slowly build it's trained units and demolish German ones and after a while get even and push deeper. That's what happened in North Africa against Rommel with the newly formed US units. Kasserine was a disaster and after that it went better but Sicily was not a piece of cake or Italy. Even D-Day was just an extended beachhead for months before Operation Cobra.

Of course this is only my point of view.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: Polonthi

Newly produced units: -2 for Raw recruits.
After a period of time: 0 with training or instead surviving 1 fight
Then like in AWD: Trained units if X% chances roll done, then Seasoned, then Veteran then Elite. So between an Elite and a Raw recruit you could go till +/- 8 on a roll. With heavy losses on the East Front Russia would slowly build it's trained units and demolish German ones and after a while get even and push deeper. That's what happened in North Africa against Rommel with the newly formed US units. Kasserine was a disaster and after that it went better but Sicily was not a piece of cake or Italy. Even D-Day was just an extended beachhead for months before Operation Cobra.

Actually I think this is a good idea. More "ranks" for the units would be realistic and give more flavour to the whole thing as well.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: GKar

ORIGINAL: Polonthi

Newly produced units: -2 for Raw recruits.
After a period of time: 0 with training or instead surviving 1 fight
Then like in AWD: Trained units if X% chances roll done, then Seasoned, then Veteran then Elite. So between an Elite and a Raw recruit you could go till +/- 8 on a roll. With heavy losses on the East Front Russia would slowly build it's trained units and demolish German ones and after a while get even and push deeper. That's what happened in North Africa against Rommel with the newly formed US units. Kasserine was a disaster and after that it went better but Sicily was not a piece of cake or Italy. Even D-Day was just an extended beachhead for months before Operation Cobra.

Actually I think this is a good idea. More "ranks" for the units would be realistic and give more flavour to the whole thing as well.

Way back when, I was initially very unexcited about this whole veteran/elite thing. But I've come over, it is cool and adding this greenhorn level would be neat.

The "after a period of time" thing is essentially impossible (too difficult to code and have appropriate UI, etc). I can see making it so that a green unit would become experienced (i.e. lose the penalty) simply by ending the player's turn supplied, whether that supply was used in an actual action or is simply supply expended to represent training.

The most difficult thing to change in this whole beast is graphics. Anything requiring UI, like a new icon to represent fresh recruits, is difficult.

[ArticFire]

All your points are valid but I think where your problem comes when relating to the game is abstract and time. For instance making the experience of troops is all well and good except for the fact that the games time line passes to quickly for anything in depth.

Most of your points seem to say that the game doesn't mirror history enough. Well frankly I'm glad it doesn't otherwise who in their right mind would play Axis that has 0 nada shot at pulling off a victory ever because as soon as 1943 rolls around they get walked over effortlessly.

One of my larger complaints about the sequel back in the beta days was that it forced the Axis player to do things a very specific way to have any hope of a victory. Things are a bit better now in the final version I see but to me it still stands that Axis are to bound to follow history as is. I don't think an extra layer of making sure the Axis life is total misery late game is really needed.

In short I think altering the spying system to much , especially for instance doubling japan's starting defense to it neuters options for Germany that is not needed.

A much better solution in my mind would simply be able to modify the cost of adjusting spying for each country to better reflect things. For instance making it more expensive for Russia to make spys , but cheaper for them to build anti-spying. Etc. You could even setup a system where the costs altered as time passed or if certain events took place to try and better mirror histroy without outright cutting off even more options for the given sides except to regurgitate a history book over and over every game.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: ArticFire

In short I think altering the spying system to much , especially for instance doubling japan's starting defense to it neuters options for Germany that is not needed.

A much better solution in my mind would simply be able to modify the cost of adjusting spying for each country to better reflect things. For instance making it more expensive for Russia to make spys , but cheaper for them to build anti-spying. Etc. You could even setup a system where the costs altered as time passed or if certain events took place to try and better mirror histroy without outright cutting off even more options for the given sides except to regurgitate a history book over and over every game.

Germany stealing (or getting) techs from Japan in 1939 is grossly ahistorical though, personally I don't like it at all when that happens.

I agree to the other suggestion though, tweaking the spy costs depending on the different nations could be a good thing.

[ArticFire]

ORIGINAL: GKar

ORIGINAL: ArticFire

In short I think altering the spying system to much , especially for instance doubling japan's starting defense to it neuters options for Germany that is not needed.

A much better solution in my mind would simply be able to modify the cost of adjusting spying for each country to better reflect things. For instance making it more expensive for Russia to make spys , but cheaper for them to build anti-spying. Etc. You could even setup a system where the costs altered as time passed or if certain events took place to try and better mirror histroy without outright cutting off even more options for the given sides except to regurgitate a history book over and over every game.

Germany stealing (or getting) techs from Japan in 1939 is grossly ahistorical though, personally I don't like it at all when that happens.

I agree to the other suggestion though, tweaking the spy costs depending on the different nations could be a good thing.

I don't think it's anymore ahistorical then Russia ripping off everyone around them in 1939.

Since the adjustable costs per country is likely too big a change code wise I would that spying should be far less effective. I think stealing tech in general should be far less effective. The real benefit of investing in 'intelligence' should be to get the production/research data etc in my opinion. In my view that would better reflect the roll of military intelligence.

I expect that overall the whole spying system could simply be revamped into 2 values , intelligence and counter intelligence. Then the results of the 'spy battles' could be weighted taking into account the time frame for more easily. So for instance in the beginning it might be more likely winning a spy battle clues you into Germany's production , or reviels to Germany some of SU's back FOG areas for a season etc. Then as the timeline progresses it would become more likely that you may snag a little tech help to reflect battle experince with the enemy , and less likely to see their production etc. Still all that is something requiring I suspect to much change for a simple patch.

If you don't like Germ stealing from Japan , I don't see how you can justify SU stealing from US. I don't know why allied countries can steal from each other period and never did understand what that was supposed to abstract as it just seems gamey. I'd definitly support simply leaving everything as is and making it so getting tech is far less likely then it is now , but doing so makes the purpose of buying spys non cost effective and so you basicly eliminate that.

Ideally we could just make it impossible to steal tech from an ally.

[christian brown]

All right, how about this, it ought to be easier to code than some of the other options:

Make it impossible to "keep up" with tech unless at a full level down, so my inf at 7 ev and your inf at 7 ev can gain no tech steal until one of us is at 8.
Make the "investment" price go up to 3 points to be eligible to "learn" from others instead of the 1 it is at now. This is a much more subtle change for now, why not see how that works to start? Perhaps raising Japan's starting security a few points would not be the end of the world either......

[Petiloup]

A simple solution would be to limit spying if the tech difference in every area of one unit type is 1 level or more lower not in a specific area.

For example Japan Fighter Speed is 2 because they did conceive their planes as light and unarmored to make them long range so they could have less evasion because being unarmored. Call it the price of a choice.

Germany therefore could not spy against Japan Fighter speed level to reach a level 2 themselves as their Air Attack value is the same than the one of the Japanese Fighters for example. They make a choice because Europe theater doesn't seem to need long range fighters.

Chinese could spy for planes technology against anyone but they can't afford it.

Allied submarines could be improved with spying as learning from fighting german ones but their planes would mostly be at least equal in one area so they will need to develop the rest themselves without spying unless falling behind everywhere.

[Forwarn45]

I would have to consider it more, but my short response is that I think security/spying/sigint works quite well as is - although I agree initial Japanese security should be somewhat higher. As has been pointed out, this helps and hurts the Axis as it (very reasonably, I think) makes it less possible for the Germans to steal Japanese secrets in the early game.

Other than that, the way things work I really think it is both balanced and adds some depth to gameplay (while also abstractly modeling the ability of one side that is behind in tech to catch up by seeing what the other side has done).

[WanderingHead]

Just to let everyone know where this stands now. I've changed Japanese starting security to 15. I could be convinced it should be smaller, but this seems like a number most people were happy to see. I don't expect to make any other changes.

[Marshall Art]

Polonthi made some valid points but I think you could argue that a weapon system that is superior in one decisive feature over its counterparts still can be called technologically advanced even it it has significant weaknesses that later opposing models expose. From that I still would call the Zero superior over the early war USN carrier fighters. Only after the Allied fighters were improved they actually could CATCH and hit the Zero. Only after the T-34 was introduced in massed formations it could provide significant success for the Red Army. Only after Heavy Russian tanks were used with the "right" tactical doctrine they could overwhelm the few Heavy German tanks standing in their way later in the war. Since there is no tech category called "tactics" in this game you could make the point that advanced tech includes the "how to use your big gun" knowledge.

The game pretty nicely shows that as the Japanese fall behind in tech they cannot overcome increasing Allied numbers AND tech combined. Even in 1943/44 they could hurt the US forces pretty badly. While the Panther (Pz V) was not built in high numbers compared to the T-34 I read somewhere that it had a kill ratio of nine T-34 to one PzV (9:1), which puts the 6000 Panthers in a different light vs. 57000 T-34's. I would imagine the ratio is quite similar when looking at the Sherman vs. Panthers or even Tigers. There are stories of one single Tiger crew mopping up about 2 dozens of US tanks in an ambush during the 1944 France campaign, or other cases where one single Jagdtiger held a whole Allied division at bay for a day until it got killed by Fighter-bomber rockets.

The whole point I want to make is that without some significant advantages in both tactics and tech the Axis would have lost the war much earlier, and this I find portrayed in the game. If the Axis powers, Germany in particular, fall behind in any weapons tech too early, they will have a hard time.

Also after great dislike in the beginning I kind of found that the spying system works quite well, although it may not be entirely realistic. Considering play balance I think too drastic changes are hard to sell, since the benefit would be small. After all spying is just one little sub-game within the big picture. I doubt anyone can say it has game-deciding influence, although the decisions players make of course can impact particularly the battles. I would prefer tweaking the existing system over a completely new one.

The idea to increase the minimum amount of RP that allow spying from 1 to 3 sounds interesting to me, also how about forbidding the spying nation to "steal" the final point that would be necessary to finish a research project? At least one would have to buy one RP at the end. It sounds strange that a nation can buy just one RP and than over the course of the game get the whole tech package for free.

Also I find that the amount of tech points spent on a given turn could be changed a llittle. To develop super weapons it takes up to 7-8 turns in the end, with 3 RPs max. at the higher levels and assuming about 10-15 units on the map. If nations were allowed to spend 3,4,5,6,7 etc. at the end, there would be more incentives to still continue investing in tech even in 1945 because a tech still would be within reasonable reach. Otherwise, if it is 1944, and I have Fighter Evasion of 9, I would never invest into it further since it would only become available in about 1946. By that time the opposing side has surely caught up already and my chances to stay ahead are zero. This would prevent the situation that the WA and sometimes also Germany stop researching in around 1944-45 for most of the unit types since the pay back would be small or zero. The most tech advances were made in the late war BECAUSE that was the only chance for German victory, and BECAUSE the Allies had to keep up with Germany to achieve final victory at reasonable casualty ratios.

I would not mind introducing even more elite unit levels: like brown/bronze for experienced (+-2), silver/blue for elite (+-4), gold for legendary (+-6 modifiers), to go with the olympic colors. That would allow gold units that are hit to still remain far superior over not experienced units. As it is now, I use elite units almost like all others since when they get hit they loose the significant part of their bonus, as silver units have only a very little advantage over not experienced units. The random auto hit assures that even a super unit can still be hit, so no unit will be invulnerable.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Art
Also I find that the amount of tech points spent on a given turn could be changed a llittle. To develop super weapons it takes up to 7-8 turns in the end, with 3 RPs max. at the higher levels and assuming about 10-15 units on the map. If nations were allowed to spend 3,4,5,6,7 etc. at the end, there would be more incentives to still continue investing in tech even in 1945 because a tech still would be within reasonable reach.

I've never liked the limit to 3 RPs spent once your well beyond world standard. You should be allowed to spend exhorbitantly and make progress in a reasonable time.

A better way would be to increase the cost. At WS+3, instead of making the cost 3x and limiting spending to 3RPs, why not make the cost 4x and limit spending to 9RPs?

Even just increasing the limit to 6RPs with no other change would be an improvement, IMO. Those final increments would take longer than prior increments, but not so long that they are useless. If you did this, then at WS+3 it would take 3/2x as long as normal (at max expenditure) to make progress, instead of 3x (which is essentially a full stop). And at WS+4 it would take 4/2x as long, instead of 4x.