Soltsky scenario analysis

[henri51]

I am not sure this is the best place to post this, but here goes anyway.Maybe it is a kind of AAR.

As described elsewhere, the Soltsky scenario is a small meeting engagement, where the Soviets were trying to delay or stop the Germans from reaching Leningrad. Initially it seemed obvious to me that the German strategy was to get as far ahead as possible along the main highway while causing as many casualties as they could to the Soviets while minimizing their own. Recon should be sent to either side to warn about any Russian attempt to slip behind German lines. This is clearly what would be in the German commander's mind, since his ultimate objective is to get to Leningrad with a force that can make a difference there. Well that is wrong!

I just love games where one can watch the computer play both sides, so I did it with this scenario to get an idea how the AI would handle both sides.The Germans split their force in two as they entered in the SE corner of the map, sending most of the armor up the main highway where there was a lot of good flat tank country, but also sent a sizeable force West to try to go up the secondary road that goes up the map edge. Dividing one's force is usually considered a mistake, unless there are compelling reasons to do so, but in this case if the German left flank can make it to the railroad going E-W across the center of the map, the two German forces could join up in the center, and the leftmost force could cause trouble to the Russian flank if the battle bogs down in the center when the two armies collide.

This went fairly well for the Germans, and they annihilated the weak Soviet units along the Southern part of the main highway, and destroyed or bypassed a few Russian units trying to infiltrate their left flank.

However as more and more Soviet units entered from the top of the map, they began to threaten to envelop the German right flank, so I expected the Germans to react to that. But instead the Germans held on to the main objective in the center of the map where the main highway and railroad crossed, and let the Soviets form a pocket there and to begin to cut off the Germans on the Western road too!

Soon the whole German army was surrounded in 3 pockets, holding on to the main objective in the middle and to another objective where the rail line crossed the western N-S highway, while the Soviets whitelled the out-of-supply German units down. To make thigs worse, the last German units to enter the map in the SW corner were artillery units, who were wiped out as they tried to make their way to the pocket.

The game ended with the Germans reduced to only a few units barely holing on, so I thought "Wow what a massacre, surely a decisive victory for the Soviets, who hardly took any casualties after the encirclement, and who had inflicted casualties of more than 2/1 against the Germans". But when the victory screen came up, the game was a DRAW!!! [X(]

The reason was that destroying enemy units is worth only one or two victory points, whereas most objectives are worth 70 points or more. So one victory objective is worth aver 20 destroyed units, which is most of the German army. The Germans had held on to 2 objectives as had the Soviets, and the Soviet victory points for destroying German units were worth much less than the victory locations.So despite losing most of their units, the Germans got more victory points than the Soviets!

Although this is not historically realistic (maintaining their forces and getting them to the main objective - Leningrad in this case) was more important for the Germans than holding on to a small objective at the cost of encirclement and heavy losses. But the AI read the scenario well and acted accordingly.

The lesson here is to look closely at the scenario victory conditions and to adjust on'e strategy in consequence. I am not sure how this translates to play in ATD2, because there are many objectives and their values change with time, and German units are worth a lot more victory points than in the Soltsky scenario. So I will assume that the victory objectives for that scenario correspond to the historical situation:ram through the Soviet defenses before they can solidify and be reinforced, and get to Smolensk as fast as possible while minimizing your losses and maximizing enemy losses, and get to Vyazma if you can.

Henri

[Carl Myers]

As I recall, the author of the scenario was not trying for a well balanced scenario but as an exercise in creating a scenario with the new game engine.

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

[font="Times New Roman"]From the above it sounds as if this the scenario is balanced in the gameplay sense, but not from a historical perspective. Perhaps the emphasis on holding the town is meant to reflect Hitlers' and Stalins' tendency to give scuicidal "stand or die" orders. [:D]

I did play through most of the scenario as the Soviets about a year ago (it froze up near the end so I wasn't able to finish it). I found it to be a tough defensive fight for the Soviet side in the early turns, but I was able to hold onto the town and would probably have begun pushing the Germans back if I'd been able to continue. I thought it was a fun little scenario, and a pretty good introduction to the game system, although it doesn't make use of all the games features[/font]