Just the facts ma'am

[willgamer]

These is a production summary from a grand campaign game where:
*Germany has conquered the usual suspects plus England, Yugo, Greece
*Germany has the usual allies plus Turkey, Persia
*USSR at peace until invaded (i.e not war with Finland)
*Germany invaded USSR on May 1, '41 (first not 100% cloud cover turn)
*now Aug 24, '41 (4 months of USSR at war)
*Germany's war economy, after a paltry 22 months of war, booming at: 151%

No criticism here... just sheer admiration for a country that can out mobilize and out produce Germany on it's best day...

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[Uxbridge]

Intersesting. Can you give the charts for production and upkeep as well; both for Germany and USSR?

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: Uxbridge

Intersesting. Can you give the charts for production and upkeep as well; both for Germany and USSR?

[willgamer]

USSR...

[willgamer]

Germany...

[Uxbridge]

Thank you. [:)]

[Mike Parker]

Honestly given the tech and doctrine advantage, that should be a pretty good fight!

[gwgardner]

how about an AAR on how things go?

[Flaviusx]

Is that a 1.6 or 1.5 game? Because I sure as heck can't get the Soviet economy anywhere near that big on 1.6 during peacetime.

The size of the Red Army doesn't seem particularly out of line to me, however. Lots of divisions, but not many corps, divide everything by 3 and you've got less than 100 infantry corps, 15 mech corps, and 16 armored corps. Compare that to the order of battle of the Barbarossa campaign in game...and surprisingly the Red Army has more armor in the Barbarossa scenario.

Looks like the money was spent on SMP. 48 SMP is serious overkill, and thousands of PPs worth of investment.

I rarely have more than 6 before 1941. I might gradually build that up to 20+ over the course of the war but have never gone beyond 30.

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Is that a 1.6 or 1.5 game? Because I sure as heck can't get the Soviet economy anywhere near that big on 1.6 during peacetime.

The size of the Red Army doesn't seem particularly out of line to me, however. Lots of divisions, but not many corps, divide everything by 3 and you've got less than 100 infantry corps, 15 mech corps, and 16 armored corps. Compare that to the order of battle of the Barbarossa campaign in game...and surprisingly the Red Army has more armor in the Barbarossa scenario.

Looks like the money was spent on SMP. 48 SMP is serious overkill, and thousands of PPs worth of investment.

I rarely have more than 6 before 1941. I might gradually build that up to 20+ over the course of the war but have never gone beyond 30.

This is with the 1.6 beta patch over a fresh install.

The econ at 271%, the basically no upkeep for USSR units, and the SMP at 48 are show stoppers for me; beyond my let's pretend tolerance. [:(]

[Flaviusx]

Something is definitely off with the AI, then, because these sorts of numbers simply do not happen when playing Sovs as a human. And I've done extensive 1.6 playtesting as a Sov.
 
I wonder if the Bolshevik Industrialization event is bugging out for the AI. (As in: being selected promiscuously by the AI, awarding the WE bonus, but not giving the AI a morale penalty to offset that.)
 
Amusingly, the extra cash is being spent so inefficiently by the AI that it winds up making it merely competitive. If all that money going into SMPs went into the Red Army, however...

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: Mike Parker

Honestly given the tech and doctrine advantage, that should be a pretty good fight!

You're right, it is!

Unfortunately, it's the not the right experience for a normal difficulty game where the Germans have rolled over Poland, France, England, Yugo, Greece, plus all of the Middle East. Then with Turkey, Persia et. al., as allies and invading in May '41, I'm thinking it should have been a walkover. The feeling is very jarring. I was expecting to finish up, then consider upping the difficulty in some way. But as it is, the USSR is giving me all I can handle. Just doesn't feel right, and the numbers don't add up.

Perhaps the point is mostly to illustrate the fantasy fun we can all have while we wait for SoP! [;)][:D][8D]

[gwgardner]

Hope the devs can take a look at this and give us a fix, whether it be in the events or elsewhere. Sure sounds like flaky events shooting up the war economy like that.

[Uxbridge]

Will, do you still have this saved? Can you also give us the production tableau for these two countries?

[Anraz]

~270 WE may look like a bug, may, but not necessary is a bug, every thing depends on overall situation on front. Show us some screens, show us were are your troops in Russia, show us the big picture not only parameters.  If it is really a bug we will deal with it. The most important is the big picture. Look at Chuck AAR he is plying the same game and easily win with USSR. So one players says it is too hard the other seems to have a walkover.

Unfortunately, it's the not the right experience for a normal difficulty game where the Germans have rolled over Poland, France, England, Yugo, Greece, plus all of the Middle East.

Fighting consecutively weaker countries it is not the same as fighting with USSR. Giving the ww2 history to expect a walkover through USSR... Would it be fun to win easily with USSR?

“Very easy” setting is for really easy games. Normal setting is meant to reflect as it was(of course it is extremely difficult to make perfect balance).


Another thing worth noticing:

SOV


GER



250 versus 400PP netto per turn? Well I might be wrong on this assumption, but it might mean that in your game at this precise moment (in 1941!) USSR gains less PP then Germany(?). German industry managed to  eliminated the gap between Soviet and German military production in 1944, but than the war was already lost, so maybe we should... help Soviets to have even higher WE? Seriously  I really need more information form the front.

And regarding high values of WE for Soviet Union - 3 shift every day (night production!, German factories work only in two shifts, so we have here almost +50% of efficiency  per factory), low of quality of production and  marginal production of non-military goods ( it caused abysmal level of supply for civilians in Soviet Union, while Germany produced a lot of civilians stuff till 43-44; in ToW we have only military production)  and we have reasons for such difference and high WE.

[Uxbridge]

Why not just raise USSR upkeep to almost the same level as the Germans? Then they will start to bleed too, once their strength gets to high. I think this is what I will do, in combination with lowering all nations 1939 WE-levels. I will then raise the effect of LWD (Land Warfare Doctrine) and give the Germans higher values throughout the war.

Thus the Soviets can't beat the Germans without high tech-levels in their units, which will cost more PPs and thus also lead to higher upkeep expenditures. At this point Germany can be beaten only as a combination of aggressive Soviet ground offensives, Allied strategic bombing and an early limitation of economic areas controlled by Germany.

Germany, on the other hand, will have problems achieving their goals early due to a combination of initial low production, the vastness of areas needed to be conquered, high upkeep for their advanced tech-leveled units and the sheer resistance of all countries laying in their path to glory.

My main concern, however, is that I think the production costs are a bit too low; that it will be to easy to replace losses. What do you say to that, Will, having played a number of months in Barbarossa. Does it feel as if you're always a number of PPs short?

[Flaviusx]

Anraz, thing is, most of this excess production by the Soviet AI is being spent badly. You wouldn't need anything like the massive WE the AI is getting if it wasn't throwing it away on SMP. 48 SMPs is pretty crazy. That this thousands of points of production wasted. I can get away with as few as 6 SMP in the same time period. I have, in fact, never built more than 30 SMP as a Soviet in any game I've ever played to victory.
 
I can build a similarly sized army as the Soviet AI does in this example with a far smaller economy by tightly focused spending. SMP just isn't that valuable on the defense, you're typically retreating back to your sources of supply and getting reinforcement to the front by direct production placed on nearby supply centers.
 
Later on in the war when you shift to offense, SMP becomes more useful as a means of shunting around a reserve across the front to feed the attack.
 
As a human Soviet in 1.6, I typically enter war in 1941 at around 150% WE. However, my morale is hovering somewhere near 50%, so my effective production rate is actually around 75%. The WE is as high as it is due to the Bolshevik Industrialization event, but cannot be pushed any further up due to the morale hit (there comes a point where selecting yes for the event actually reduces your net effective production.)
 
 

[Flaviusx]

Uxbridge, totally disagree with raising Soviet upkeep.
 
The Red Army is rightfully designed to be huge...and not very good early on. The game is correct on this score. I think the problem lies elsewhere.

[Anraz]

48 SMPs

I agree that this is weird and we will look at it.

Also we will look at the event mentioned above as it may happen too often.

[Uxbridge]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Uxbridge, totally disagree with raising Soviet upkeep.

The Red Army is rightfully designed to be huge...and not very good early on. The game is correct on this score. I think the problem lies elsewhere.

Yes, but if this huge army is very cheap, the Soviets can spend PPs elsewhere. Those will go on tech, and then the army isn't bad anymore, but superior. Low upkeep won't lead to huge army, but good one.

But I'm definately not sure about this yet.