WIP Alternate German start

[Klydon]

I have been kicking around ideas for a version that would be intended to have the Germans be AI only, yet help them in various some what possible ways and also incorporate a few things I have observed about the start of the game.

Basically the changes I am looking to make are as follows:

1. "Fire in the East"ize the starting order of battle. By this I mean that the frozen 1st Panzer corps would be available from the start and be up closer to the front. Having just 4 panzer divisions (and a weak 4 at that) available for what needs to be done down south really bugs me from the standpoint that almost every player is going to grab at least part of Panzer group 2 and shove them south to help. Freeing up the 5 frozen units will make it far more likely that there is a more historical start.

2. While that may seem great for the German (and it is) there are some divisions that show as re-enforcements for FITE, but are available to move in WITE. This is mostly infantry and they would be frozen until available per FITE's OOB.

3. As soon as there is an update that comes out for the mod program, I will be looking to work on a new script for the German 1st turn. I have been working hard with the various scenarios and I think I have a pretty good first turn where it will hold up against a human Soviet player. Getting the Germans out of the gate in better shape than the current AI does would be very helpful and more of a challenge to a human Soviet player. The opening has been tested quite a bit by me (I open with the German attack and then play the Soviet side and do my best to try to break the various encirclements, etc). Regardless, I will hopefully post this opening at some point for the benefit of those who might be interested in it.

4. Work on the German economic and availability dates for various units, but try to keep it within reason. Historically, the Germans waited until November 41 to commission a study group to examine the T-34 tank and determine what about it was so revolutionary to tank design. The results of the group were pretty much a exercise in common sense. They found the sloped armor, overhanging gun and wide tracks/suspension system to be the big three reasons. The Germans then went on to start design work on what would become the Panther. Now, had the ball gotten rolling in say July of 41 after the Germans found out about T-34s the hard way, they would have had a bigger head start on Panther development and the tank would have been ready much sooner and in more quantity most likely. Also, the Germans could have started up-gunning panzer IV's much faster. They had already figured out they could not use a bigger gun than a 50mm on Pz-III's who were having issues in the desert against the Brit Matilda and Valentine tanks and had already started building Pz-III's with the long barrel 50 by the time the Russian campaign had started. Either way, Panzer IV up-gunning could have started earlier. Also, up-gunning the Stugs sooner was very possible as well.

Now, all this sort of flies in the face of what actually happen, but with a little thought, the Germans could have done it. Even if their campaign against Russia had been successful, they would have had good reason to up gun the tanks/Stugs for use against the Brits.

Something else I am looking at is working on ways to put the Germans on a more productive war footing earlier as well.

Now some folks would say just change the percent settings when you play a game to get a tougher game when playing the Russians. My issue with that is I don't want "super" Germans running around just dropping the hammer on my units just because they have better than historical logistics, moral, etc. The game doesn't have the right "feel" when that happens and this version would hopefully provide an alternative tougher game when you play the Soviets than with normal settings, etc.

Open to suggestions/comments, etc Nothing has been set in stone yet, but I am curious what the feelings/impressions are of the concepts.

Thanks.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Klydon
4. Work on the German economic and availability dates for various units, but try to keep it within reason. Historically, the Germans waited until November 41 to commission a study group to examine the T-34 tank and determine what about it was so revolutionary to tank design. The results of the group were pretty much a exercise in common sense. They found the sloped armor, overhanging gun and wide tracks/suspension system to be the big three reasons. The Germans then went on to start design work on what would become the Panther. Now, had the ball gotten rolling in say July of 41 after the Germans found out about T-34s the hard way, they would have had a bigger head start on Panther development and the tank would have been ready much sooner and in more quantity most likely. Also, the Germans could have started up-gunning panzer IV's much faster. They had already figured out they could not use a bigger gun than a 50mm on Pz-III's who were having issues in the desert against the Brit Matilda and Valentine tanks and had already started building Pz-III's with the long barrel 50 by the time the Russian campaign had started. Either way, Panzer IV up-gunning could have started earlier. Also, up-gunning the Stugs sooner was very possible as well.

Now, all this sort of flies in the face of what actually happen, but with a little thought, the Germans could have done it. Even if their campaign against Russia had been successful, they would have had good reason to up gun the tanks/Stugs for use against the Brits.

Something else I am looking at is working on ways to put the Germans on a more productive war footing earlier as well.

Those production related changes look to me pretty plausible and interesting. Would be interesting to be playing that on PBEM.

[alaric318]

best greetings, just my opinion, here, aside i have do it on my later scenario, what i cannot make public because i will need to make public the ToE/OB changes and each install only allow one ToE set, some players will have trouble with change files, i mean, and i have to avoid it, well, the thing i think hurts more to the german player (aside 1941 winter) is the units withdrawal schedule, i got rid of it all completely on my scenario, some work on it may help the german player to keep seasoned veterans on the russian front, and added in, as in any wargame with these unit withdraws scheme, not related only to Wite, i mean, is that i guess the AI opponent completely ignore the withdraws coming up usually in frontline units, if you really want to help the AI opponent remove some withdrawals, as you choose, maybe 1 of each 2 (i removed all the table, but it was my choice to do so), untill june 1944 the second front was not coming up, and these units do not go to afrika, so, i adress these withdraws as some "refit" out-of-the-front feature, or to garrison captured territory that is not coming to have fight untill the june 1944 allied landings, is just, again, my opinion, as i think, these withdraws may do heavy damage to an AI opponent, the other hand is that you may end with some "duplicate" divisions, specially the waffen SS, that have 2 or 3 versions, as closing note, my change is more drastic, as i make it overall for human or AI player, if you dont want a human player to have that advantage, just make a scenario just for use with an AI german opponent, and make advice about it, i make the post as i think seriously we have to give un-historical and un-realistic advantages if we want a german AI opponent to do some real damage to the soviets,
 
have my best regards,
 
Murat30.

[Klydon]

Since there is a good thread going about AGS starts, I decided to make a basic change to the campaign game that unfreezes the German armor/motorized infantry units in AGS and a few other things. I got all of it done, except I have one minor issue in that I can't get the HQ for XIV panzer to have movement on the first turn. I have posted in the bugs forum and will see what happens. At any rate, the changes are as follows:

16th motorized infantry is now attached to XXXXVIII Panzer corps.
25th motorized infantry is now attached to III Panzer corps.
Units of XIV Panzer corps have been moved up closer to the border.
16th Panzer division has been move up a bit closer to the border.

The whole point of this mod is make it far less necessary to divert panzer units from PG2 and having an extra 5 formations will certainly help the Germans.

*edit* I did not add any scripts for the units, so I am not sure what the AI will do. This is for primarly human vs human games. When they get the editor update done, I will be looking to do a lot of work on the scripts.

Screen shot of the changes below. I can either wait and see what happens with the bug forum on XIV Panzer HQ or post it as is. (All the Panzer and motorized infantry are good to go to move).

[Great_Ajax]

Klydon, why would a Soviet PBEM player agree to play this version over the stock campaign version? There is absolutely no incentive for a Soviet player (that I can tell) to choose this version as all of the changes seriously benefit the Germans. With this setup, the Germans can easily isolate the entire Lvov region netting 100k in prisoners on the first turn unless the Soviet player just likes being put at an even larger disadvantage at start.

Trey

[Klydon]

I don't disagree with you at all as far as a Soviet agreeing to play this or not in a PBEM since it obviously gives the German an advantage over the "standard" game.

I do have a couple of points in that regard:

1. This is the only east front game I am aware of that freezes or otherwise makes that many PG1 units unavailable from the start of the game or starts them that far from the border. I have checked a site or two and they make no mention that those units were not available for the first week of the campaign. In this regard, WITE seems to have elected to make it a "play balance" decision rather than something historical.

2. From what I have seen so far in most of the AAR's, the Germans can use some help from a balance stand point of view and I suspect this change won't even be close to getting the job done, but no question it will help.

3. This is the first step for me in implementing the FITE OOB/starting forces. I got it going early in response to the nice thread going about AGS opening strats. There are some German infantry units that are currently available to be moved on turn 1 in WITE that are re-enforcements for FITE. I will be freezing them, so there is a bit of a trade off. I make no bones that the FITE version changes will still favor the Germans simply because of the 1st PG changes make it worth it.

I should not have said this was meant as PBEM only. Obviously it can be played with the AI as well as something different. I don't consider it "finished" really because there is no script in place for the now free units of PG-1. Once they get the changes taken care of in the editor, I am going to do my best to rewrite a script for the German opening moves to give the Germans a better start in "normal" games.

Finally, this particular forum has not received much in the way of traffic or interest, so it appears there is little interest from the community for any mods right now, which is a shame.

[Great_Ajax]

The 1st Panzer Group units are not frozen for pay balance. For instance, Wiking was not combat ready until around 29 June so you could make the case that Wiking should actually be frozen for two turns instead of one. Liebstandarte was initially held back in reserve for the opening of the operation. I believe that the rest of the frozen units were still in transit or forming up for their attack. The decision to freeze was based on the historical situation of that unit. If there is proof otherwise, then we need to make a change. Unfreezing of those units and placing them closer to the border is going to lead to situations that should not have been possible. However, the editor is there for people to make whatever changes they want to make a scenario that floats their boat. I just wanted to make the point that those units were frozen as part of the historical situation.

Trey

[Helpless]

Trey, don't distract people from the scen making (although I agree with you)... It is much more productive than all those flame wars

[Zovs]

This is the first step for me in implementing the FITE OOB/starting forces.

Why would you want to implement twenty four year old data from GDW's (or more precisely GR/D) Fire in the East/Scorched Earth OOB, I mean back in the day (24 years ago) when that OOB came it was nice, but it has historical inaccuracies since all the new data has come to light or been released from the Soviet archives?

[Helpless]

Don't listen them.. keep doing it. They just jealous. [:)]

[Great_Ajax]

LOL Pavel. Don't you have some work to do?

Trey

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Don't listen them.. keep doing it. They just jealous. [:)]

[Klydon]

Point taken and I know you guys did your home work. I think there could be some conflicting info out there as I found it even when trying to figure out which division belonged to what corps. Wiking was fighting for Tarnopol on the 29th. Given game scale and everything else, that unfortunately suggests being available at start because most German attacks are going to involve Tarnopol on the first turn of the game, so then it is sort of catch 22 on which way to go in regards of freezing the unit so that it isn't into action until it was supposed to be or have it available to participate in what usually happens on turn 1. I can see in this case that having it in the back on turn 1 is warrented, but IMO, it should still be available and just be able to reach the Tarnopol area.

I see that on LSSAH in my quick research here. Sort of funny that it never saw combat until helping assault the ditch blocking the way to the Crimea. Somehow I don't think that is going to happen anytime in the game.

16 Motor mentions fighting in June in the southern sector of the Eastern Front.

25 Motor doesn't have much info on the site I am checking.

9 Panzer, I see different stuff that says it was in by 28 June, other stuff not until July.

The big thing for me is this is the first game I have ever seen that has frozen those units like that (or otherwise made them unavailable). To take 5 of the 9 mobile formations off line for PG1 just screws things up a lot and I don't know that I like the idea of so much of PG2 being diverted to the south to deal with all the units down there, but if the Germans do not do this, especially against a human player, then they are really missing the boat. A Russian human player is going to pull most of that mass of mech/tank divisions out of there and the Germans likely won't ever see them again. That has a huge impact on the motor vehicle pool and how many T34/KV1 tanks the Russians have in circulation not to mention the Russians will get a pile of command points out of it if they play their cards right. In the real campaign, the Russians counterattacked/tried to hold the ground and those divisions were pretty much wiped out. That isn't happening in this game and its not going to happen in 99% of the games. Bottom line is with this being the only game I have ever seen freeze those units, I wondered if something screwy was up.

I know other expedients were taken in the game. (Case in point, all German mountain, Jager, and non SS motorized infantry were 2 regiment divisions but in this game, they are 3. I understand why that is the case in terms of simplicity and programing and I don't really have an issue with it, but at the end of the day, it is a fudge. Another example; Jager units generally have better movement rates over regular infantry, especially in non clear terrain like swamps, forest, etc. It was what they were built for. In this game, we have basically a weak infantry unit that has no special movement bonuses in terrain or extra movement ability period.

Given all the above, I don't have an issue with kicking the PG1 units loose, although upon reflection when I release the final version, LSSAH will be frozen for at least 1 turn if not 2.

I don't have an ax to grind for one side or another. I don't even think this game needs to be "balanced" so the German wins 50% of the time and the Russians win 50% of the time. (In fact, I think it could be argued the Russians should have a better chance to win between players of equal skills and that is probably the way I lean on it).

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

This is the first step for me in implementing the FITE OOB/starting forces.

Why would you want to implement twenty four year old data from GDW's (or more precisely GR/D) Fire in the East/Scorched Earth OOB, I mean back in the day (24 years ago) when that OOB came it was nice, but it has historical inaccuracies since all the new data has come to light or been released from the Soviet archives?

Because a lot of us are fans of that game and sank a ton of hours into playing it. It is a measuring stick we hold other games by. This game is the closest thing to a computerized version of that game and without many of the issues that game had (like a battalion of Stugs putting a ton of Russian units hopelessly out of supply). Obviously being a computer game allows for a lot more stuff to be included (like fog of war, attrition, and logistics) than a board game could ever work in.

[Klydon]

Ok, here is the campaign game with these changes.

16th motorized infantry is now attached to XXXXVIII Panzer corps.
25th motorized infantry is now attached to III Panzer corps.
Units of XIV Panzer corps have been moved up closer to the border.
16th Panzer division has been move up a bit closer to the border.

All the above are available on turn 1 to move, etc.

LSSAH has been moved up closer to the border, but remains frozen for 1 turn.

As noted, this gives the Germans some help in the game by making these formations available. There is no AI script for them at this time, but I hope to incorporate that at some point after the editor is patched.

Given that the community has not shown much interest in any of these type of scenarios (I think the interest is very high for additional smaller historical scenarios), I doubt this gets much play, but for those interested, it is available.

I will likely continue the project mentioned in the first post in terms of playing with unit availability, etc as a way to give the Germans some plausible "what if" help. The players are limited on what they can do to make the AI tougher. From past experience in other games (including WiR) I personally find jacking up the "percent" adjustments we can make as players doesn't seem to be very satisfying, so hopefully this approach will provide a tougher AI opponent with a different feel. (Or to give an aspiring German player a different advantage should they choose to try the changes in a campaign against the Russians without having to wimp out the Russians with the traditional AI settings).

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Ok, here is the campaign game with these changes.

16th motorized infantry is now attached to XXXXVIII Panzer corps.
25th motorized infantry is now attached to III Panzer corps.
Units of XIV Panzer corps have been moved up closer to the border.
16th Panzer division has been move up a bit closer to the border.

All the above are available on turn 1 to move, etc.

LSSAH has been moved up closer to the border, but remains frozen for 1 turn.

As noted, this gives the Germans some help in the game by making these formations available. There is no AI script for them at this time, but I hope to incorporate that at some point after the editor is patched.

Given that the community has not shown much interest in any of these type of scenarios (I think the interest is very high for additional smaller historical scenarios), I doubt this gets much play, but for those interested, it is available.

I will likely continue the project mentioned in the first post in terms of playing with unit availability, etc as a way to give the Germans some plausible "what if" help. The players are limited on what they can do to make the AI tougher. From past experience in other games (including WiR) I personally find jacking up the "percent" adjustments we can make as players doesn't seem to be very satisfying, so hopefully this approach will provide a tougher AI opponent with a different feel. (Or to give an aspiring German player a different advantage should they choose to try the changes in a campaign against the Russians without having to wimp out the Russians with the traditional AI settings).

Seems interesting i'm going to throw a link to the scen on the wiki. If ara finds it he might just make me try to play it next game