Test Scenario: War in the East_Divisional Level

[Redmarkus5]

Hi. I'm basically a complete noob but I know quite a lot about the 1941-45 Russian war. I've put together a test scenario with a reasonably accurate AXIS OOB and an ok Soviet one. It now needs lots of community input on the supply, research, events and AI front.

The scenario is available at the Scenario Bank and the briefing notes provide details.

Thanks! All welcome

[Vorsteher]

Me, fails some events(Actions cards) in the original scenario 41.
Examples :

OKW give order "Panzergruppe Guderian" go to Kiew(August/Sept.) 41
Stalin give the hold orders : Stand and dead
Work Division to the front.(November 41)
1943 german heavy tanks coming
1944 Volkssturm
Second front June 1944

etc.

V.

[Redmarkus5]

Thanks - I'm just starting to figure out how the action card system works.

[Vic]

@redmarkus4,
 
i think you did not make it easier on your self to keep all those events in (without understanding them... yet!!! )
 
for starters i think tom made some events based on round number there and not on actual date. So by shortening the rounds to one week, but keeping the events made for the original 41 scenario you will get to early historical events.
 
myself i always build up events from the ground... it is usually harder to understand some-one elses code then your own.
 
i hope this feedback is not discouraging.
 
kind regards,
vic

[Redmarkus5]

Thanks Vic. Actually, I did go through the events and edit most of them to replace all the round numbers with dates. That much I had figured out. However, as a non-technical type whose focus is on playing games and not building them, I've come to the conclusion that editing scenarios in AT is too difficult for the average player.

I think I'll give up on this one and wait for some historically accurate scenarios to come from the community. I really like the game but random maps etc. are just not my thing

I'll be monitoring the forum for good news!

[PDiFolco]

I can try to make events/cards according to what you want to do redmarkus.
Note that things like "Stand and die orders" can't be really modelled, you cannot force a unit to have 100% losses retreat treshold..Same for Kiev pocket, what can only be done is to give additional VP for some locations of for kills, or additional att/def, readiness or morale  bonuses for some time.

About the scenario, the cities productions are off : Berlin 5000 and Bucarest 25000 ? [X(][:D] And globally  the reinforcements/replacement flow is way too large -ie in 1 week not many tanks can be produced, here with 50,000+ PP you can get 15 Mdm tank each turn !
Also, Germans shouldn't have units with morale 100, even 70-80 is very high.

To make things start, I've made an "improved" version, with changes in :
- research, it's easy to change, regimes can be given any field at start in the Regimes options, I've given HT and Med Tanks to both sides, plus Hvy Tanks to USSR, but removed Bazookas for both
- Events : Siberians are back (rewrote the events like they were, it works, at least I have no errors ...), but the units composition should be off now (check the predef Unit number 0 in the editor). Tell me what you want in your Siberians units.
- Soviet AF HQ had 500 staff, looks like a typo, gave them 50 instead. Plus they were defined as "german" SFTypes...

File is here :
http://pascal.difolco.free.fr/WiTE_Divi ... ST_PDF.pt2

[Redmarkus5]

that's excellent. I will play test and comment if you can keep helping with the 'technical' solutions. This approach sounds better [:D]

[Redmarkus5]

The zip file needs a password...?

[Vorsteher]

it is a good begin,but too many productions locations for russia ?

V.

[Redmarkus5]

We also need to increase the strength of the Soviet 2nd echelon and reserve armies: they fought the Axis around Smolensk for a full 2 months from 03 July to 03 September. However, we don't want those troops to rush to the front line as soon as the Axis attack begins on 22 June. How can we set that up?

There were 6 Soviet armies in the 2nd Echelon (that's 57 divisions) and another 4 armies in the reserve echelon (say 40 divisions).

[Redmarkus5]

I wanted to increase the soviet strength. By july 1941 some panzer divisions only had 10-20 tanks left. I was just kind of playing around with different production levels...

[Redmarkus5]

also, I found that with only 4 slots per location it's hard to produce the range of items you need. I was thinking that the smaller locations could produce 'rifle' and supply while the big ones produce suply + tank + artillery etc. Hard to manage though, I agree.

[Redmarkus5]

About the Siberians, I will do some research on what is needed. They should arrive in December 1941, around Gorky. Maybe a different people type and immune to winter effects?

The Axis should feel full winter effects and the rest of the soviet forces should feel some effects; they suffered a lot in Finland in the Winter War but had learned may lessons by 1941. However, they were not immune.

Some main events needed:

Sept/Oct and March/April each year = 'mud'
Start Dec to end Feb = 'winter'
First winter has severe effect on Axis supply and movement + morale
1944-45 Allied bombing reduces Axis supply
New troop type 'Militia'? A low grade infantry unit - is this possible?
Remove Axis paratroopers; they had decided not to use them again after Crete. However, Soviet paratroopers were very active.
Special troop type 'SS'? Higher ratings but expensive. Available from 1941 June.
Special soviet troop type 'Guards Rifle Infantry' and 'Guards Tank' available from December 1941. Also with higher default ratings and more expensive than basic types. Does this make sense?

[Vorsteher]

>>Plus they were defined as "german" SFTypes...
I found this weapon fail in the game on both sites.
1941 was this a very good weapon for the german inf. support.
1942/43 in a defend role against the russia tanks.
mmh,perhaps can Vic this modify in the new patch )

M.

[PDiFolco]

Redmarkus
The file has no password, it's a pt2 file, but those are detected as password-protected zips (that they maybe are).
Events :
- Winter is already in, it can occur in  Nov 50%, 100 % in Dec to feb , 50% in march, it puts snow on the map, and reduces movement to 50%. In Dec-Jan German combat effectiveness is only 50%. No event for mud, but it's easy to do (except graphics, I suck at it).
- New units - Militia, partisans (that could require no supply, that'll be cool), can be done easily - available at start and not upgradable. "Guard", "SS" should not be specific SFTypes imho, they had same basic equipment, already available, and superior training/morale/exp can be done via special "regimes" or by events (ie an action card).
- Removing paras to change them with SMG inf is easy ("Mutate" execs), when do you want this ? Start of '42 ?
- Strat Bombing on Germany : can be simulated through events - scripts comparing some abstract Allied airpower with german Fighters/flak and resulting in production decrease or damage in cities . I'd look at what tweber did in the Europe scenario.

- If you want to get rid of the production queue limit, it's possible to make all cities only produce PP and supplies, and give Action cards to buy the new units ! Problem is that the AI won't play them, unless some script makes it play automatically.

Vorsteher
I can't figure what you mean, I referred to an error/typo in redmarkus file, his russian Air Army staff was tagged "german" [&:]

[Redmarkus5]

Hi PD

Ok - I got it to open.

Let's put the mud effect in as I'm sure someone will be doing a graphic for that soon.

New units ideas sound great.

I would remove the German Paras from the start.

Re: production limits: I think there a lot of silent solo players out there, so let's not do something that the AI can't handle easily. Maybe a few more off-map centres will do the trick.

I'll play the new version tonight and let you know how it goes. Do you think we should make the turn lengths 14 days? To slow down the German advance?

Red

[Redmarkus5]

Also - is this the latest version? I will make some changes to the Motorised OOB and also the unit colours if it's the latest, and send these back to you.

[Redmarkus5]

Here is a screenshot of the end of turn 1, phase 1 (Axis). A large pocket has been created by AG Centre, as was the case historically. AG North is making good progress but AG South is facing stiff resistance and can expect armoured counter attacks during the soviet phase.

[Redmarkus5]

Note - the faint red lines indicate the approximate positions of 2nd Echelon forces.
 

[PDiFolco]

Yes I didn't change it since. Make your changes and repost it, I'll work on this next version.

Planned :
* Russian Militias  and Partisans (these last one won't consume *any* supply, I think this is the right way of simulatinfg guerillas) - but I need a couple pics. I'll also change the "partisans" event to get the new partisans, Militia will be a standard SFType, inferior infantry not upgradeable (cost 60, but fight -30% less well than infantry)
* Mud effects : when ? April-may, when the snow melt (don't recall the russian name..) ? And what'll be the effect ? 50% less movement, same than in snow To me 50% less in snow seems a bit high for foot, horses and tracked, but would be ok in mud, so I propose :
Snow = -25% for all land move except wheeled at -50%
Mud = -50% for all, except wheeled -60%
* Germans paras would be made non-buildable, that's the easiest way !

About production what I've told is that it's too high imo, but there's a ton of units also, I have to check how many prod is needed for just supply to see what is left to have additional units - the idea being you shouldn't have many in 1 week.