Readiness

[Micha]

Have there been changes in the readiness formula in WiR 3.2?

I am about to give up on a 1943 campaign as Russian because blizzard doesn't have to have any effect on the Germans. My opponent reports readiness percentages of 90+ % after consecutive blizzard turns.
We played a game without house rules, so part of this willl be due to extra supply. But even those korps that did not get extra supply are still at about 75%, and that after six weeks of alternating rain and snow and then two weeks of blizzard.
I don't have any success with my attacks, on the contrary, the Germans mount successful counter-attacks - during blizzard conditions!

Is this normal???

[Preuss]

I've read on this board that the all of the original readiness formulas have been changed, so in that respect the manual is of no help. Trying to figure them out seems to be harder than chinese arithmetic. 71%-90% seems very high, though.
Historically, after the blizzard of 41-42, the Germans had learned some hard lessons, enabling them to cope better in harsh weather. You never hear/read of winter problems for the Germans in the later winters (42/43/44/45) like they had in 41/42...and in books you can see men bundled up in felt lined boots, parkas, and quilted coveralls in the later years.
The later problems were caused by damage to oil refineries and industry, massive manpower shortages causing new troops to be far inferior, strategic blunders causing the loss of many tanks and men (stalingrad, kursk, etc.), and the difficulties that come from fighting a 3 front war.
Gamewise, once the USAAF with escort starts to take heavy tolls
of the Luftwaffe, and the German refineries and heavy industry numbers start to fall, there should be a marked decrease in German readiness.
To give you some hope...in 1944, the Germans will really start to hurt from all of the attention they're receiving from both the air, and on Sud and West fronts. There is no way to stop the USAAF from getting through on many occasions, and as few as 34 of their bombers can cause HEAVY damage to any German facility (**** your eyes, creator of the Norden bombsight!). Not to mention that your air forces and divisions will be filled with better men.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Micha
Have there been changes in the readiness formula in WiR 3.2?

I am about to give up on a 1943 campaign as Russian because blizzard doesn't have to have any effect on the Germans.

Don't expect the 43-44 winter to affect the Germans like the 41-42 winter did. It won't happen. Also, 2 blizzard turns are not enough to really hurt the Germans. In 41-42, you should usually wait for the 3rd or 4th consecutive blizzard turn before making major attacks. Blizzard turns have a cumulative effect, the more the better.

[Micha]

Ed, I did a little test with three German korps' in hexes with SL 6, 5 and 4, respectively.

In the first part I took korps' with a readiness of about 40-50%, and in a blizzard turn they gained 6, 3 and 1% readiness.
In the second part I took korps' with 80-90% readiness, and there the change was 0, -1 and -5%.

So German units actually GAIN readiness in blizzard turns unless they already have very high readiness.
That means if the German line is near a railroad (and it will mostly be) there could be blizzard all winter and the German units won't weaken a bit. Even if they are attacked they don't seem to lose readiness if they hold.
I know the winters later in the war were not nearly as disastrous as the first, but I do believe there still should be at least SOME effect. As it is now, the Germans will only get into trouble when they start to run, but this will hardly happen if the Germans start the winter in a good defensive position. It seems quite possible for the Germans to avoid being pushed back even a single hex all winter, and that certainly is ridiculous.

[RickyB]

Micha,

Good test. Which winter was this in?

Thanks!

[Micha]

RickyB, I'm still speaking of that 1943 campaign, it was the winter 43/44.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Micha
RickyB, I'm still speaking of that 1943 campaign, it was the winter 43/44.

Well, I'm not at all surprised by that Micha, look back and read what I said. In '43-'44 there is no special penalty against the Germans as there is in '41-'42 winter. In a '41-'42 blizzard turn a German unit with about 50% readiness at SL6 that is stationary *loses* 4% readiness. I didn't check but a higher readiness probably would have fallen even more, and don't forget that there are also extra readiness penalties for *movement* on the Germans in the blizzard turns of the first two winters, plus the equipment losses imposed in the '41-'42 blizzard turns. As explained in the readme.txt somewhere, Arnaud changed the readiness system somewhat so any unit that doesn't move and is in good supply should gain readiness and reach 99% eventually. Note however that even in the original version the blizzard penalties against the Germans only applied to the first two winters. Of course the gains will be very small as you found out in blizzard turns after the '42-'43 winter, but a small readiness gain of 1% to 6% for post '42 blizzard turns makes sense to me if we're talking about a stationary, unattacked unit at SL5 or better.

[Micha]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ed Cogburn



Well, I'm not at all surprised by that Micha, look back and read what I said. In '43-'44 there is no special penalty against the Germans as there is in '41-'42 winter.


I did not say this was a bug.
My point is that it is ridiculous that a unit, especially a German unit, in open country (and also with low entrenchment) during blizzard can maintain a readiness of 90% or more as if it was clear weather.
The current rules make winter offensives against a strong defensive line almost impossible, because the attacker will suffer the movement penalties for the weather when positioning his units and plotting attacks. And unless you have air superiority there is no way to weaken the defender since being attacked does not seem to decrease the defender's readiness.
The result is that in 1943 the chances for a successful Russian offensive are even lower in winter than in summer. Is this what the rules intend??

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Micha

Is this what the rules intend??

No, you've got a point maybe. I'm going to check the older versions of the game and see what the readiness is like for Germans after the '42-'43 winter.

[Mark_BookGuy]

I've got to admit to being very frustrated in playing later versions of WIR because it seems noone knows where accurate info is available. It's pretty tough to play a game when you have only a marginal idea on how even the basic design is calculated.

Where is the updated manual???:mad:

On one hand, being very much in the dark is accurate, but flying blind is well.... I could get a Swiss air traffic controller to do that for me.

My loyal Ruskies need hope that they'll get to rape, pillage, and plunder, which means I need to be able to calculate some semblence of odds.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Mark_BookGuy
I've got to admit to being very frustrated in playing later versions of WIR because it seems noone knows where accurate info is available. It's pretty tough to play a game when you have only a marginal idea on how even the basic design is calculated.

Where is the updated manual???:mad:

Get in line. If this were an open source project we wouldn't have this problem, but unfortunately it isn't, thus we do. There is no plan for an updated manual because there is only one person who could write it, because there is only one person who knows the details of all the changes (only one person with access to the code). That would be Arnaud, but he's the programmer, not a doc writer, and writing new docs would mean no new updates to WIR for months. Like most programmers, he would rather write code than write documentation (he's better at the former than the latter) for all the things he's changed and tweaked. Get used to it. Sorry.