What's the big deal with Admin Points?

[fbs]

Here's the main beef I have with admin points: if I take say the 28th Army and assign it to Northern Front, it will pretty much stay there forever, because it would cost me 50 admin points to reassign it to someone else - meanwhile it cost me 25 admin points to create a brand new one.

So there's no upside in reassigning an army! Similarly, between spending 50 points in transferring a PVO AA Rgt or spending 1 to create a new one, I'd rather create a new one. Or, between spending 1 admin point in assigning a support unit or spending it to build a new support unit, I'd rather build a new one.

The only cost that seems sensible to me is between spending 10 admin to create a division, or spending 1 to transfer it around. I'd say that cost to transfer = 1/10 of the cost to create seems to be a sensible thing. But cost to transfer = 50x cost to create, or 2x cost to create, or 1x cost to create... that doesn't make any sense!

I cannot put my mind at rest with the logic behind those humongous costs to transfer units around. I'd like to follow the historical assignments of armies to fronts, but these exorbitant prices are a huge let down for that.

[Blubel]

Well there is a difference. If you reassign an army it will keep the troops. If you create a new one, you will either have to assign it troops or build new one...
You are right about the SUs. There should be an additional cost for creating and assigning them.

[Flaviusx]

HQ transfers are overpriced and not cost effective. FBS is absolutely right about this. It is almost always better to transfer the individual units themselves between two HQs.

It's not clear to me that this should be the case. I think it would be easier to transfer the organization as a whole rather than the component parts. Or at least no more expensive. Corps and armies got swapped around quite frequently in real life. This just doesn't happen in the game due to the exorbitant costs compared to the components.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Blubel
Well there is a difference. If you reassign an army it will keep the troops. If you create a new one, you will either have to assign it troops or build new one...

Correct, but if I create a new army, now I have two armies for 25 admin points, and one of them is fully trained; meanwhile if I reassign, I have one fully trained army for 50 admin points.

I don't understand how ending with two armies can be less expensive than ending with one army...

You see, I don't have anything against reassignments costing something, provided it has some basis in reality or some game balance reason. An army reassignment should cost 5 admin points (or something else entirely, like cut morale by half), not 50. The 50 points don't do anything with game balance, as the player can just buy two new ones, as it's unrealistic too.

I think that the PVO AA Rgt is the best case of taking something in principle and then making it so extreme that turns it into something completely useless, unrealistic and un-historical. Who reassigns a PVO AA Rgt for 50 admin points in game? Who would say that if Stalin orders the 180th PVO AA Rgt out of Minsk, then the Red Army is now swamped in its administrative duties and can't do anything else useful for an entire week - so he thinks "jeez, should I move the 180th out of Minsk or should I create two new armies?".

I mean, c'mon, the 50 points for the PVO AA Rgt thing is in the same level as saying that Elves have +10 wisdom (which, by the way, is more logical than the 50 points, because the elves has -5 constitution and -5 strength, so that's well tied to game balance).

[Don77]

Elves, elves?

Where are the elves? I knew I was missing something in WiTE? (or should that be WoTR)

Don
(100 days elf-free and still proud)

[AFV]

Isn't the upside to reassigning an Army to a front that you get an extra leader check roll? (I'm asking, I am not sure).

I totally agree, should not cost so much to reassign an Army. It should be about 1/5 the current cost, instead of 50, should be 10.
That would seem reasonable to me.

Not sure about Elves. I think they are overpowered, its clearly a 2x3 conspiracy to make them the dominant sect.

[Aurelian]

Elves????? Orcs are where it's at.

[LiquidSky]

You need to watch out for those devious hobbits...members of the Hairyan race. Led by Adolf Baggins. Just read his book...Mein Hobbit.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

HQ transfers are overpriced and not cost effective. FBS is absolutely right about this. It is almost always better to transfer the individual units themselves between two HQs.

It's not clear to me that this should be the case. I think it would be easier to transfer the organization as a whole rather than the component parts. Or at least no more expensive. Corps and armies got swapped around quite frequently in real life. This just doesn't happen in the game due to the exorbitant costs compared to the components.

I think the whole AP thing needs a re-think.

In this case, there's no real life limit to how many HQs STAVKA or OKH could order in any given week - the hit should be to the 'efficiency' of the affected HQs and the leadership bonuses of their commanders: logistics, morale checks, training and CV should all be impacted to some extent. These values should drop immediately upon reassignment and then increase over time. The rate of increase should be affected by the distance between units and HQs and also by morale. APs are irrelevant in this example.

[PMCN]

The point to the cost is to keep you from doing whole scale re-organizations on the fly every week. To transfer an entire army from one front to another would take more than a week in real time. That would require more than a week in pre-planning just to account for the administrative details of what needs to go where and who reports now to who. Even the Germans didn't toss Korps around willy nilly they had that planned out weeks in advance. And who cares about admin points that much anyway after 41 you have hundreds of them spare and they refresh each turn so 50 AP to change an army from one front to another seems reasonable. The 25 AP to make a new HQ isn't relevent since it sits for 2 weeks frozen, plus it has a crap load of SU that are all newly raised compared to the trained formations I would have in swapping in an existing army. Plus there are a lot of other admin costs to the new army including possibly changing its leader, adding combat formations to it etc. I suspect swapping in an existing army would be cheaper than all of that. I know I have STAVKA assigned reserve armies ready to move up and I can assign one of those for 0 AP.

But the real point is to limit the players ability to "optimize" nothing more. If it works at that is another question.

The point to moving the AA unit is likely more to keep the German player from removing them then the soviet player. As the soviet I'd just make new ones.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely
But the real point is to limit the players ability to "optimize" nothing more. If it works at that is another question.

The point to moving the AA unit is likely more to keep the German player from removing them then the soviet player. As the soviet I'd just make new ones.

Correct, and none of us want armies changing hands every week. But the problem is that by using admin points both for organizational changes and for creation of new units, and then making one very expensive and the other very cheap, it defeats any purpose for that.

Consider this: 1 army with 6 veteran divisions. It will cost me 60 ap to change the HQ, but only 25 to buy a new HQ and then 12 to reassign the divisions one by one. So for about half the price I get the veteran divisions where I want plus one extra HQ (albeit it is green). I fail to see the logic of that.

I think the bottom line is this: there is no incentive for moving Armies around (other than allowing the player to correct a mistake of adding too many HQs to a front). So the player that wants a keep historical feel on his game is burdened with artificial costs

I'd rather see the reassigned HQ getting all elements returned to pool (meaning the support troops remain with the front, and I'm just moving a paper HQ to a new front), or having some morale penalty for units attached to that HQ. That should make more sense.

[PMCN]

The cost to build an HQ seems to be equal to the cost of building the 25 or so SUs in it. The "easy" fix would be just to double the cost of a new HQ...so you pay 25 AP for the new HQ and 25 AP for the 25 SU in it.

[Redmarkus5]

I like solutions that reflect real world thought processes as they are easier to comprehend.

So, let's say I am Stalin. Here is Zhukov standing beside me in the STAVKA. I say, "Zhukov, go and take over in Leningrad and make sure you hold the city." AP cost = zero.

Zhukov says, "Comrade Stalin, to do that I will need to shoot one officer in ten in the existing command structure." AP cost = 0, morale cost = -100.

Zhukov arrives in Leningrad and asks for more supplies and ammunition. Supply cost = whatever.

Zhukov takes time to get to know his new subordinates = Leadership modifier reduced by 25%

And so on...

All those things I can relate to as a player, but the same AP that's used for building a new division also counting towards sending one general and his core staff to take over in Leningrad? That I struggle with.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

HQ transfers are overpriced and not cost effective. FBS is absolutely right about this. It is almost always better to transfer the individual units themselves between two HQs.

It's not clear to me that this should be the case. I think it would be easier to transfer the organization as a whole rather than the component parts. Or at least no more expensive. Corps and armies got swapped around quite frequently in real life. This just doesn't happen in the game due to the exorbitant costs compared to the components.

Once again, this thread notes the administrative advantage that the Soviets get by virtue of 1 AP cost to move divisions (average) compared to Germany's 3.5 to 7 APs. This is to say nothing of the fact that the 1941 Red Army is essentially re-organized for free by virtue of all reinforcing divisions arriving at Stavka (by comparison, what would Germany be able to accomplish if every one of its divisions and SUs started the game attached to OKH?).

It will cost Germany a vast host of APs to move its SUs around according to prioritization needs, whereas Soviets can just create an SU in the exact right HQ for 1 AP, and has enough production assets that creating any type of SU is never a practical constraint on materials (and never spend any mental energy considering where it might be needed in the future - in the future you can just make more where they're needed).

This advantage to the Soviet army must end, because it creates an army that by November is better organized than Germany's is on turn 1. This flies in the face of history, which of course will not matter to the Sovie-o-phile type player.

This is why no one should play Germany against a human opponent, until such blatant hypocrisy in gameplay constriction is applied a-historically to Germany (anyone ever heard of a kampfgruppe comprised of local forces for an ad hoc mission? No such capability exists in game for German fire brigades), and removed from the Soviets (anyone remember what the Soviet literacy rate was, and how peculiar the NKVD and Kommisars were about doing things without high command approval - like say, retreat?).

This stuff is by design making the game uncompetitive, and I can only assume War in the West will be equally uncompetitive.

[Schmart]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
whereas Soviets can just create an SU in the exact right HQ for 1 AP, and has enough production assets that creating any type of SU is never a practical constraint on materials (and never spend any mental energy considering where it might be needed in the future - in the future you can just make more where they're needed).

I find it's better to build SUs in Stavka or rear area armies as putting a 35 morale 0% strength SU in a front line army A) doesn't provide a combat effective unit, and B) weak units like that tend to evaporate quickly. So it's better to train and build up the SU first before sending it to the front. In other words, this 'advantage' isn't quite as advatageous as one might think. Secondly, the Russians don't have unlimited resources, and building SPG, Art, AT, and AA SUs does take some management and planning as armaments and vehicles are limited.

Otherwise, I do agree that the whole AP concept could use some revision. Transfering units/formations shouldn't cost APs. It should cause some form of disruption to command and unit efficiency. Perhaps a fatigue or MP penalty.

And there is a simple solution to make the AP issue more or less restrictive/relevant: Change the AP setting before you start a game.

[Flaviusx]

Helio, I'm not seeing how the huge costs of HQ transfers favors the Soviets. It sucks equally for both sides, near as I can tell.

[randallw]

At minimum there should be some adjustment for Soviet Army HQ reassignment based on it's capacity changes.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

This is why no one should play Germany against a human opponent, until such blatant hypocrisy in gameplay constriction is applied a-historically to Germany (anyone ever heard of a kampfgruppe comprised of local forces for an ad hoc mission? No such capability exists in game for German fire brigades), and removed from the Soviets (anyone remember what the Soviet literacy rate was, and how peculiar the NKVD and Kommisars were about doing things without high command approval - like say, retreat?).

I concur, neither side should have costs to move SUs around.

I think the cost should be the same to both for moving combat units around (say 1 AP for brigades, 3 AP for divisions), and the same cost for moving armies around (say 10 AP for armies).

And it should cost nothing to assign generals. One would laugh at the idea of Hitler, fuming and steaming from the latest strategic retreat, being unable to fire Guderian one more time because he doesn't have the administrative points. That would give him an apoplectic attack.

[Redmarkus5]

[/quote]

And it should cost nothing to assign generals. One would laugh at the idea of Hitler, fuming and steaming from the latest strategic retreat, being unable to fire Guderian one more time because he doesn't have the administrative points. That would give him an apoplectic attack.

[/quote]

Exactly my thinking.

[Baron von Beer]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

And it should cost nothing to assign generals. One would laugh at the idea of Hitler, fuming and steaming from the latest strategic retreat, being unable to fire Guderian one more time because he doesn't have the administrative points. That would give him an apoplectic attack.

Exactly my thinking.

We could nearly use the original Downfall scene for the video. Keitel, Jodl, Krebs...[:D]