Matrix Games Forums

Its been a while since i had played any version of WIR.

I was recently playing the current download-able version 3.3 on the matrix site and tried playing as Russians.

I was suprised and unhappy with the way that readiness for units seems completely unpredictable.
I had a corp in Moscow that was sitting there since the beginning of the '41 campaign. With 3 inf divisions.
When the germans got close to Moscow i transferred 2 armored divisions in to beef up the defense.
About 2 or 3 turns later the germans actually attacked Moscow.
In the intervening 2 or 3 turns the corp did absolutely nothing, was not interdicted, was in supply level 6.
Imagine my suprise when I found that the readiness of the corp was on average about 14%.

I know that by putting that many units in one inf corp that I was over the disruption limit but come on!

I then experimented by firing up the '44 scenario, took a Russian Armor Corp, loaded it up with 3 armor and 5 inf divisions and sat it in Kiev for about 30 turns. It did nothing. Just sat there. Was not attacked.
I checked the readiness each turn and it was all over the place. In some turns div might gain 10 readiness while another lost 20. Some turns it would remain about the same. Over all it gradually degraded to less than 50 % at which point i could not transfer the divisions out if I wanted to!

Seems like I would be forced to check every one of my units every dang turn to make sure none of them are bleeding to death.

So 2 questions...

1. Is the penalty supposed to be so severe?
2. What is the last version that did not have this revamped readiness calculation and where can I get it?

The answer to Question 2 is probabily buried in this list of updates since ver. 2.0.
Hope the answer is in here somewhere. [:)]

Not sure of the answer to question 1, were the units attached to an HQ which was nearby, itself in good supply (on supplied rail with good OP level), were there any weather effects, etc.. [:)] [&:]

I did see in several places where there had been tweaks to readiness. I might have to pull out the old version 1.xx to see if it behaves the same way. Like I said, its been awhile since I had played.

i could not find any version on the web other than 3.3 and the 1.xx versions.

In the case of Moscow, the units were in Moscox at entrenchment level 9 and were 2 squares away from their HQ which was sitting on a railhead. I believe it was snowing. The corps in Moscow with 2 Armored divisions and 5 or 6 inf divisions put forward a staggering 100 squads in defence of the city.

In the case of the test using the 44 scenario, the corps was sitting in Kiev for umpteen turns. It was possibly out of command range from it's HQ. But it was just sitting there. not plotting, not moving, nothing. The sun shone, it rained, it snowed but they just stayed in their hotels and ate spam and read their mail. Maybe they lost the willingness to fight.

It seems like in the older version, if you had the crappiest leader and were overstacked, that as long as you were in supply level 5 or 6 and did not move and were not attacked, that your readiness would increase. It does not seem that this is the case anymore.

In fact, I did not mention it in the previous post, but in the '44 test environment I also monitored a seperate unit that was armored. They were sitting in supply level 5. I had them static attack every single turn. (e.g. 4s1s ) against adjacent German units. i even had them attack during rain. Overall their readiness level was comparable to the unit that had been sitting in Kiev the whole time!

I may have some of the old versions, but they may be on HDs I don't use now. I may have ver. 3.101 and ver. 3.2, it may take a little time to dig them out and I would need a PM with a e-mail, as the files would be too big to pass through the forum. [:)]

You are suffering from overstack penalty.  Assuming you were in an INF corp, 3 INF + 2 TANK Div = 9 pts.  MAX for SOV INF is 4 pts.  You're taking a huge org penalty for the over stack.  Either change unit to a tank corp or don't add the tanks to an inf corp.
 
Your intended help actually hurt you.  Managing corp size is really important.  It's there so you can't just run around with 20 uber-corp stacks.  you have to really plan your corp compositions and use your tank corps wisely.  You also have to plan where you will need them and when far enough in advance to get them there.
 
GER is even tougher as the limits are lower.

Oh, and the slight randomness is due to leader helping in [or not].  Game is working fine and it has been in since SF days.  earlier versions will not get you around this as it is a fundamental element of the game engine.
 
You do not have to check all units all the time, just those that are overstacked.  Those will need special supply each turn, which is $$$, but you can do it. for a couple of units.  Particularly as GER on attack you almost have to against a HUM SOV opponent.
 
Good luck.
 
PS, I actually think this is one area where Gary got it backwards.  SOV units WERE much larger in general than GER units.  [so he's right in that], but SOV C&C (Command & Control) was much worse.  So, SOV should be able to put more units in, but they should have a higher overall stacking penalty.  Meaning, if I am using a A+Mx equation:
 
Variable A:
SOV>GER
 
Variable M:
SOV<GER
&nbsp;
This would incent the SOV to have larger units [lower incremental penalty] but still have higher overall penalty.&nbsp; I think the reason that Gary did not do this in the day is that comp power was so much lower and they couldn't squeeze it in.