modded German AI Barbarossa

[gwgardner]

I've played out a Barbarrossa to late Oct '41, to test some mods that are either the same as or similar to what I expect in the first patch. I played the Russkies against the German AI.

No fog of war, so I had a big advantage there, but I wanted to observe the AI moves.

normal PPs for both sides

One house rule - no splitting of Russian units. Apparently some players have discovered a gamey technique, whereby high-level reinforcements from Siberia can be split and split and split to create a powerful Soviet force. That's gamey, so I didn't allow that.

The mods:

1)only 1 experience gain per combat (thus no super panzers),

2)revised production for German AI, less emphasis on research, allowing for earlier unit builds

3)a +1 to German infantry APs, for a perhaps controversial new event which may or may not make it into the patch, to reflect the increased mobility for the German force after its conquests and equipment gains early in the war.

For the Russians, I built almost exclusively infantry corps, which started to appear for deployment in mid Sept.

Results:

[gwgardner]

According to Doomtrader, he has looked at tweaking the AI, to help it avoid congregating around cities, as in this screenshot. Hopefully it will occupy the front better, in the patch.

[gwgardner]

Moscow front. Smolensk taken, but the AI has a very thin line here. I attempted to cut off the AI armored spearheads, to bleed them from supply, but they struck back and killed my flanking units.

AI still needs to do better in bringing up its infantry.

[gwgardner]

Ukraine:

German AI stuck against the first powerful Russian infantry defense, at Orel and Voronezh. Winter has hit, so this is possibly as far as the Germans can advance this season.

[gwgardner]

South:

Rostov is threatened, but the AI has made little effort against the Crimea.

[gwgardner]

My conclusion from this test is that the mods, or something similar, do help the AI do a better job. And, its my opinion that PP levels for both sides are too great. After the patch I'm going to do more tests, including one in which both sides play on the hardest difficulty level (minimal PPs).

[freeboy]

I waqs wonderingif the "too high" pp are a result of a historic lower losses, as u are using troop levels to judge pp.. just a thought..

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

I waqs wonderingif the "too high" pp are a result of a historic lower losses, as u are using troop levels to judge pp.. just a thought..

I haven't checked the overall typical losses to the historical figure. Would be a good thing to compare.

Could be both of those factors.

I would just like to see it work out 'generally' so that the endpoint of the '41 campaign resembles, in terms of strength on both sides, the beginning point of the '42 scenario.

[doomtrader]

IIRC, at it's peak, Soviet Army has got something around 700 divisions and Germans 250. Are you close to those numbers?

[gwgardner]

No way, but when was that?

Surely not by June '42.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

No way, but when was that?

Surely not by June '42.

Soviets had well over 400 rifle division equivalents alone by mid 42.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

IIRC, at it's peak, Soviet Army has got something around 700 divisions and Germans 250. Are you close to those numbers?

Be careful with "Division Counting" ... the Germans had an attempt to keep their divisions at something resembling full strength, theoretically around 12,000 for an Infantry division, but, in reality, usually closer to 7-8000 if they'd been in the field for any length of time.

The Russians were even worse, their Infantry Division TO&E's were lower, and most Russian Rifle Divisions were rarely at more than 50% strength along most of the Front. Typical strengths were evidently around 3-5000 men out of a nominal 8-10000.

Better to count men rather than Divisions as a result.

Phil

[rodney727]

Phil-
Is there a reliable source that counts for every Russian division in ww2?