What is the point of HVY?

[Peltonx]

As I understand the system 1 pt resoure and 1 pt hvy make supplie.

HVY 236

Res 136

No one is even ecaving hvy any more so basicly you can easly takeout 84 hvy easly and another 21 between Leningrad and Moscow so 106 if your kicking butt.

BUT that means you have take atleast 56 res so you have 80 Res and 131 hvy pts left.

So basicly its impossible to have issue with HVY industry.

So you can have a RES crunch, but the german can really only hang onto 35 after winter.

I am not sure who thought up the hole HVY industry thing, but its kinda

Also the manpower issues are not really going to effect the size of the Russian army that much. Mybee 10,000 men per turn. So instead of 120,000 men a turn they get 110,000 a turn.

As of now any Russian with a little smarts will give away the front 30ish arm pts and all the hvy and be able to evac more then enough arm pts so his army is not impacted for the rest of the war.

Make hvy something other then window dressing or lower the russian rail system about 20% or just throw out the stupid HVY all together.

Pelton

[Ketza]

I have noticed as I focus on Soviet play lately the ease at getting out APs. Maybe make it so every point of AP taken from a city you need to take a point of HI.

[stone10]

I think that will encourage the German player going mad for industry rather than pocketing.

[carlkay58]

And what is wrong with that? The Axis army suffers from a limitation of objectives (just ask Pelton). Allowing them to target more than just the Soviet Army would open up more options for them and more reasons to attack after 1941.

[Peltonx]

Vs a good Russian player its next to impossible to pocket anything or get close to the historical 4 million dead ruusians.
Its not possible to come close to the historical Russian losses in industry.

Basicly at this point the Russian can with draw 10 hexes a turn in the south.
Moscow is not really takeable.
Leningrad is a hard nut to crack and basicly not worth bothering over unless the Russian player is handing it to you.

The only reason as the German player you bother going east is to gain space and see if you enemy is any good. If hes not that good you can trash him, if he is hes just going to run like a hill billy.

Right now there is now reason to fight as the Russian or that matter the German.

The Russians can out run and evac the German and the German cant get to anything so why bother moving east just diggin.



Pelton

[Wild]

Could not agree more.
Please make Heavy industry worth something. It should be one of the most important factors but instead it's worthless. I think it's a real travesty that industry,resources,oil and railcap have not been thought out better. Please Dev's give this some much needed attention!!!

Cities in general must become more important for the good of the game, otherwise it becomes rather one dimensional.

[JAMiAM]

I predict that the current (over?) emphasis on saving Armaments at the expense of vehicles and HI is going to prove to be a little short-sighted. As the late-war Soviet industry expands, and the number of tubes that need to be fed on a continual basis increases, not to mention the recently instituted supply cost for fortifications, and I think that supplies are going to be scarcer than expected.

I'm not saying that Armament Points are not the first major bottleneck to be encountered in the game for the Soviets. I believe that to be the case at the moment. However, as the game goes on, I'm expecting that manpower and supplies are going to be likely problems for the Soviets.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Pelton
Moscow is not really takeable.
Leningrad is a hard nut to crack and basicly not worth bothering over unless the Russian player is handing it to you.

Not sure how you can say that Moscow and Lgrad are hard to take; Lgrad fell regularly in prior patches, and should be even easier to take now with the fort nerf. Moscow has always been harder to take, but still falls pretty regularly as far as I can tell.

If in fact these cities are being taken less often now, I think the problem is that no one is trying very hard at this point because there is really not much (any?) reason to take them.

[KenchiSulla]

So because you can't damage it, it shouldn't be in the game? We should cut the map just east of Moscow....

[Flaviusx]

Leningrad is hardly a tough nut to crack. It falls in the vast majority of games -- even the best Soviet defense of the backdoor cannot stop a determined German assault across the Neva, or not forever. (James had to take 4 cracks at it in our recent game before succeeding, but he eventually got accross.)

Any German who knows what they are doing and wants it will take it. It's even easier to take now than before with fort changes.

As for Moscow not being takeable. I'm quite possibly going to lose it in my game with James.

[Klydon]

I agree that Leningrad is just as easy to take if not easier. The prime difference is the Germans are moving away from consistently making it the big target of 1941 like they have in past AAR's and instead seem to be concentrating more in the south where the armaments are at. Also, the Russians have evolved tactics that make getting the stuff out of Leningrad a priority, so it is not as valuble of a prize. IMO, this is a good start down the road to offering advantages/disadvantages to making the main offensive effort have some variety. In the past, it was pretty much a no brainer to make Leningrad the target because it offered the most tangible benefit to the Axis for its capture (release of the Finns and securing the left flank). Now there is a tangible benefit for the Axis to operate in the south to go after the armamants plants and the Axis must choose. Doing something to make Moscow a little more valuble would help as well to give both the Axis more choices and also the Russians more choices in terms of what to defend.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Doing something to make Moscow a little more valuble would help as well to give both the Axis more choices and also the Russians more choices in terms of what to defend.

Admittedly, in most of my Axis games, I have ended up changing strategic goals during the Summer and Fall to prioritize various 'non-Moscow' objectives. For example last minute dashes into the Donets basin, Crimea, Leningrad, elimination of Soviet forces, or just capturing real estate in the "great chewy center" between Kharkov and Tula. However, that is a product of me trying different things, and getting hopelessly distracted. That said, I have never just thought that Moscow wasn't valuable enough to attempt taking. Further, in order to make good progress anywhere else often hinges on how credible a threat you can manage to put Moscow under.

With all the industry, rail capacity, and manpower that is in Moscow, it is a big, juicy target. With the woods, and large number of size 4 towns surrounding it, it becomes a good wintering place for the Wehrmacht. I think that Moscow has a lot going for it as a primary target in the game, or at least a strong secondary. Even if the Axis player fails to take it, the threat of taking it can cause the Soviet player to evacuate the industry, leaving his production reduced during the period of time in which it takes to undergo the repairs.

In short, I think that there are already plenty of reasons, in the game, to try and take Moscow. I don't see the need to add any special rules, or hits to the Soviets should it fall.

[Q-Ball]

Moscow is kind of an all or nothing. If you fall short, you get nothing, because there is no industry at all short of Moscow. I do see the value in it, holding it really screws up the Soviet Railnet, in terms of capacity and lines, aside from all the industry.

Still prefer the south.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
...holding it really screws up the Soviet Railnet, in terms of capacity and lines, aside from all the industry.

But how important is screwing up the rail net at this point? By the time Moscow has fallen, the Sovs should have evacced all threatened factories, and the masses of reinforcements appearing in the Urals are no more.

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Make hvy something other then window dressing or lower the russian rail system about 20% or just throw out the stupid HVY all together.

Pelton

While I agree with Pelton's premise that HI should have a reason for existing, as one who prefers to play the Soviets, I found this comment amusing.

Soviet arms multiplier got slashed from 200 to 130 after 1941 in version 1.0.5. I have to get every arms factory out that is humanly possible. What other choice am I left with since once they are destroyed they are gone forever as apparently the game designers determined that it takes more than 3-4 years to build one from scratch in the Urals. [&:]

I can't afford to commit railcap to take out an HI that costs almost twice what an arms point does and given the Axis rate of advance through Russia. Never mind that the tank factories are evacuated at a mere fraction of what is in place and the vehicle factories have to be left for dead as well. But you'll throw me a bone by not forcing me to evacuate the HI factories which I wasn't planning on doing anyways as I have no real choice, if my railcap gets cut 20%.

The factory raiding strategy that is in vogue with certain Axis players makes me wonder how this might have played out in real life. I can see Der Fuhrer at one of his planning conferences just prior to the invasion.

No Halder, the Soviet Army is meaningless! I tell you that it is the factories of the Bolsheviks which must be targeted for destruction. Without arms and ammunition they cannot wage war. I now demand daily reports from the Abwehr on the state of every factory of the Soviet Union so as to benefit from our perfect intelligence. I will then direct each week where the armies are to be moved so that we eliminate these factories, and you must plan accordingly the movements and combat actions of over three million men and our allies; transmitting these orders to the field without delay. You must be prepared to do all of this in the course of a week, each and every week, until the industrial capacity of the USSR is crippled.

And what are the chances that this conversation would have happened in reality? [8|]

[heliodorus04]

The reason Armament Factories are in vogue is because casualties are a non-starter because running away from Poland and the Baltics is the strategy that is in vogue with the Soviets, and because game mechanics inflict no strategic consequence (of significance) for doing so.

What Soviet players aren't apparently realizing is that impossibility of reaching 4 to 5 million casualties, plus the unnecessary industry types (everything but armaments), plus the ease with which armaments can be evacuated is putting the strategic initiative in the Soviet player's hands.  The Soviet complete C&C/strategic rail allowances mean the Soviet can delay all but the best German players (and Pelton is unarguably top 5) from taking more than 35 or so armament points.

All strategic power is in the Soviet hands, and turns 1 through 25 are an exercise by the Axis player of delaying the rate of growth of the red army. 

That is ALL THIS GAME ALLOWS GERMANY TO DO!

[Flaviusx]

The reason armament factories are in vogue is because most Axis players haven't figured out the stuff that my opponent James has. When they do, they'll be lot more scary. He doesn't chase factories. He grinds the Red Army. And I mean grind, not pocket.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The reason armament factories are in vogue is because most Axis players haven't figured out the stuff that my opponent James has. When they do, they'll be lot more scary. He doesn't chase factories. He grinds the Red Army. And I mean grind, not pocket.

Is there an AAR?

[Flaviusx]

It's a tester game, so there's no public AAR. All I can say is: learn to cleave. There's some decent examples of cleaving in BG's game by Q-ball, though.

[M60A3TTS]

A couple things. First, I'm not sure if it's running away from the Baltics or being destroyed there.  The truth is somewhere in between.  Northwest Front loses between 30-40% of front line strength in the first two turns of the game as the pockets are formed and units forced to surrender.  About another third isn't really close to AG North.  So what remains is just enough to screen Pskov on turn two and go from there.  From there pretty much means establishing two lines of defense along the only naturally defensive terrain, first at Pskov, and then at the Luga River.  After that, we're at Leningrad.  So I'm not exactly loaded with a plethora of choices here.
 
Second, I would love to stick around and fight.  I really would, that's my nature- I don't want to be a 17 week punching bag.  But I must report "been there and done that" and must say only bad things happen. glvaca can tell you all about that, assuming he shows up on the forum again some day.
 
The Soviet mechanized forces, requiring 16 mp for a deliberate attack make them one-shot wonders at best.  After that, they're stuck in place and just waiting to be bypassed.  Soviet infantry attacks are simillarly suicidal for all the known reasons, poor morale, no experience, etc.  Typical deliberate attack result: Axis losses 212, Soviet losses 6,300.  Then afterwards, these same rifle units get pocketed and surrender the following week without fail.  Maybe one even becomes a partisan that will destroy a rail hex in 4 -6 months.  Something to eagerly look forward to [8|]. 
 
What I'm saying is that while we look at the same issues with different colored glasses, we do share the same dilemnas.  Namely, we are restricted to a few best options that we have to go with given the rules of the game.  Give me a chance to inflict some decent casualties during attacks on the Axis, with some prospect of survival and I'll stay and fight.  But commit suicide, I won't.