HQ units

[gwgardner]

Here's something I'm going to try, to create HQ units. Whenever I want to assign a leader to a front, it will have to be attached to a 1 SP mech unit. I'll use the split feature to create a 1 SP mech unit as needed.

Of course this is only going to work when the leader effect is properly extended to units within 3 APs of the HQ unit.

[Rasputitsa]

I have been using tech level 1 INF division units as Army HQ and level 1 MECH Div as PZ Group/Tank Army units. Enemy breakthrough becomes more significant when you have weaker HQ units behind the lines. It would be even better if the game could allow units to be assigned to specific commanders to qualify for the leader bonus, then a more realistic army organisation could be set up.

The reason for creating low tech units to act as HQ, irrespective of what tech level the nation may have achieved, is that if the HQ unit is attacked, the defence will come from a scratch force of rear area transport units, reserves, replacements waiting assignment, cooks, etc., they will not have the heavy equipment of regular units.

Using the split feature to provide a smaller HQ unit is a good idea, I have reduced the cost and time for splitting units in my game, because I think it a useful feature in a game without stacking and historically units were split and recombined quite quickly as Kampfe Gruppe, for the Germans, and Task Forces, for the Allies. [:)]

[gwgardner]

I actually dislike using leaders attached directly to a frontline unit. To me it seems like an arbitrary, unrealistic boost to unit strength. I do it at times, but it has the feeling of a cheat. With this new house rule I'm going to use, it will seem less a cheat, as the only leadership bonus will be indirect - for those units within 3 APs (2 for Russkies). I may even setup useless, eye-candy-only higher HQs farther from the frontline, all the way up to the Stavka/OKH/OKW level, just for some historical flavor.

The only time using a leader directly with a frontline unit feels right to me, is the defense of a city, as in high-command ordering an effective leader into a crucial city to organize a defense, tighten up discipline, moral, etc.

Ok, all of the above is just arbitrary on my part too, but I do like to 'role-play' a bit when I play the game.

One side-effect of using HQs as I've outlined above is that I'll probably maintain a more realistic organizational cohesion, as in keeping all armored units in a Panzer Army within range of the Army commander.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner
I actually dislike using leaders attached directly to a frontline unit. To me it seems like an arbitrary, unrealistic boost to unit strength. I do it at times, but it has the feeling of a cheat. With this new house rule I'm going to use, it will seem less a cheat, as the only leadership bonus will be indirect - for those units within 3 APs (2 for Russkies). I may even setup useless, eye-candy-only higher HQs farther from the frontline, all the way up to the Stavka/OKH/OKW level, just for some historical flavor.

The only time using a leader directly with a frontline unit feels right to me, is the defense of a city, as in high-command ordering an effective leader into a crucial city to organize a defense, tighten up discipline, moral, etc.

Ok, all of the above is just arbitrary on my part too, but I do like to 'role-play' a bit when I play the game.

One side-effect of using HQs as I've outlined above is that I'll probably maintain a more realistic organizational cohesion, as in keeping all armored units in a Panzer Army within range of the Army commander.

Agree with all of the above and I have been using such an organisation, naming units for the Armies to which they belong, allocating commanders in separate HQ units. You mentioned a house rule to enforce a continuous line for Barbarossa, well this does the job, with a rear area to defend (weaker HQ and air units) you need to maintain a line. Even the dumb AI is not so dumb that it will miss the chance to push an armoured unit through a gap and hit one of these weaker units, or close a rail line, this has happened to me several times.

There have been comments that the AI is too easy to beat, but the game allows you to shunt units anywhere, drop an invasion in with little preparation, but with some house rules that provide some realistic restrictions, you get a more historical and challenging game.[:)]

[Omnius]

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa

The reason for creating low tech units to act as HQ, irrespective of what tech level the nation may have achieved, is that if the HQ unit is attacked, the defence will come from a scratch force of rear area transport units, reserves, replacements waiting assignment, cooks, etc., they will not have the heavy equipment of regular units.

Rasputitsa,
I wonder if the French from the Fall of France campaign would agree with you as to what constitutes a "scratch force". Their armored units got decimated when attacking soft rear area created from scratch because those scratch units contained batteries of those dreaded 88mm antiaircraft guns that were so deadly against tanks. I think you're wrong about keeping them as low level, HQ units tended to have modern equipment that could bail many HQ units out of trouble.

I do agree that attaching higher level commanders to individual units is a tad unreal, but they do extend their leadership benefit to units around them so it does imitate higher level leadership benefits somewhat realistically. I do agree that it would be nice to have some kind of higher level army or army group command units that can be placed in the rear since so many of those high level commanders did lead from the rear. Then again there are exceptions like Guderian and Rommel who led from the front quite extensively. Of course just what the game needs is more units. [;)]
Omnius

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa

The reason for creating low tech units to act as HQ, irrespective of what tech level the nation may have achieved, is that if the HQ unit is attacked, the defence will come from a scratch force of rear area transport units, reserves, replacements waiting assignment, cooks, etc., they will not have the heavy equipment of regular units.

Rasputitsa,
I wonder if the French from the Fall of France campaign would agree with you as to what constitutes a "scratch force". Their armored units got decimated when attacking soft rear area created from scratch because those scratch units contained batteries of those dreaded 88mm antiaircraft guns that were so deadly against tanks. I think you're wrong about keeping them as low level, HQ units tended to have modern equipment that could bail many HQ units out of trouble.

I do agree that attaching higher level commanders to individual units is a tad unreal, but they do extend their leadership benefit to units around them so it does imitate higher level leadership benefits somewhat realistically. I do agree that it would be nice to have some kind of higher level army or army group command units that can be placed in the rear since so many of those high level commanders did lead from the rear. Then again there are exceptions like Guderian and Rommel who led from the front quite extensively. Of course just what the game needs is more units. [;)]
Omnius

Which allied attacks did you have in mind, the only ones I can think of were the counter attack by the British at Arras, which although in battalion, or brigade strength, was reported by Rommel as an attack by 5 divisions (so had quite an effect if only fleeting) and the French armoured attacks at Stonne during the Meuse breakout, which resulted in the village changing hands several times. The advances here can be measured in 1000s of yards, but in the game an advance of one hex is up to 30 miles, an advance measured in a few hexes becomes a breakthrough on an operational scale (the scale the game represents), not just a tactical incursion.

Neither of these events could be characterised as a breakthrough into the 'soft rear areas', so I see no relevance to the representation of possibly corps sized units breaking into the enemy rear areas, better characterised by early Barbarossa 1941, Cobra 1944 and the Blitzkrieg in France 1940.

The division sized units that I am using as HQ are no push-over (even at tech 1), but would be in danger if facing a significant attack, requiring more thought in maintaining a front, or in judging the capability of your enemy, even if it is the dumb AI.

The whole point is to provide the player with more of a challenge in solo play (or by agreement in PBEM), rather than an ahistorical romp across the map using unrealistic rail repair, short notice amphibious landings, etc., to defeat an already limited AI opponent, all of which can be moderated with house rules. [:)]

[Omnius]

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa

The whole point is to provide the player with more of a challenge in solo play (or by agreement in PBEM), rather than an ahistorical romp across the map using unrealistic rail repair, short notice amphibious landings, etc., to defeat an already limited AI opponent, all of which can be moderated with house rules. [:)]

Rasputitsa,
Yes I agree the rail repair is too easy, too quick. It's just too easy to advance too deep into Russia with the current rail repair parameters. One thing is that when the Axis capture Soviet rail hexes, and vice versa, the rail hexes should always break. That would better model the fact that European and Russian railroad track widths were different. Maybe instead of three turns it should be raised to four. Perhaps with certain breakage and a lesser percentage of a successful rail repair that would give us a more realistic rail repair in the USSR.

I take it you propose to add HQ's to human players instead of the AI controlled countries? One thing you should consider is that by adding HQ units you're kind of giving countries more units, perhaps messing up force balance. If you add HQ's then you ought to balance that addition with a subtraction of force as well to maintain balance. Personally I think house rules prove that soemthing is really messed up with a game.

There were many instances of rear area units trashing attackers, as well as many where the rear area HQ gets trashed. Plenty of French armored attacks got shot up by German 88's before the fall of France. Plenty of instances in Russia too.

The problem is that an HQ isn't necessarily just a very small contingent of clerical personnel, HQ's also controlled higher level reserves like artillery and such to bolster units like corps and armies. Maybe one could limit leaders to being placed into corps, not divisions. To be honest I think this concept of creating special HQ units is making much ado about nothing. Why create special HQ "divisions" when you already have divisions that you could use for that purpose? Heck you could just rename some divisons to be HQ units, give them high level army/army group names.

I played around with the AI a little to learn the ropes but once I figure stuff out then I just play every country. I have always contended that AI stands for Artificial Ignorance. Just too difficult to program an AI to last more than 10 to 20 turns of doing somewhat intelligent moves and strategies. To expect the AI to last for 450 turns is silly.
Omnius

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
Yes I agree the rail repair is too easy, too quick. It's just too easy to advance too deep into Russia with the current rail repair parameters. One thing is that when the Axis capture Soviet rail hexes, and vice versa, the rail hexes should always break. That would better model the fact that European and Russian railroad track widths were different. Maybe instead of three turns it should be raised to four. Perhaps with certain breakage and a lesser percentage of a successful rail repair that would give us a more realistic rail repair in the USSR.

It's not necessary that all rail lines become broken, although I agree that is what happened in Russia because of the need to change rail gauge, but it is enough to have few breaks which take longer to repair if you modify the const.ini file for the scenario you are using. I am not recommending that anyone should change files unless they are confident in the process and best to have another install of the game to experiment with.

However this is the entry I have using in my game, without much experience due to the delay in fixing the update

[Railroads]
MaxRepairTimeAfterOwnerChange = 5
RepairChanceForWeather = 60;25;35

I have no evidence to say that these are correct values, I am just trying to slow down rail repair, as you note in your last line. This becomes a global change, you cannot choose just Russia, but the destruction of rail happened on most fronts including France 1944, so I am happy to try it. [:)]

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
I played around with the AI a little to learn the ropes but once I figure stuff out then I just play every country. I have always contended that AI stands for Artificial Ignorance. Just too difficult to program an AI to last more than 10 to 20 turns of doing somewhat intelligent moves and strategies. To expect the AI to last for 450 turns is silly.
Omnius

The AI can never be as competent as a human player, but for those of us who have not got the time to commit to PBEM, there is still a good game to be had and can be improved by using some personal house rules, to achieve more realism and a more challenging game. I would normally play Axis for the early war period and Allies for scenarios in the later war years.

I have already proposed solo house rule for amphibious operations.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3175683

You cannot just throw a D-Day operation ashore without months of preparation and even against a dumb AI it becomes more of a challenge and requires much more planning, when delays are imposed. Can you risk the AI moving units into beaches you had to choose several turn previously, or do you do as the Allies did and build up so much power that it doesn't matter what the AI does, either way it make for a more realistic solo game.

History is full of commanders and leaders doing stupid things, so AI performance can still be historically realistic.

None of these rules apply to the AI, but it needs all the help it can get and its me who wants to enjoy the game not the AI.[:)]

[gwgardner]

With the new manpower/force limit implementation in the game, splitting off an HQ unit from a level 1 mech division isn't going to affect the OOB much. It's mostly just eye-candy/role playing. I don't intend to reinforce my HQ units up to full strength. I'll reinforce back up to 1SP.

My 1 SP HQs are not going to inflict damage on thrusts by the enemy. They're only hope for survival will be their high APs.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
Rasputitsa,
I take it you propose to add HQ's to human players instead of the AI controlled countries? One thing you should consider is that by adding HQ units you're kind of giving countries more units, perhaps messing up force balance. If you add HQ's then you ought to balance that addition with a subtraction of force as well to maintain balance. Personally I think house rules prove that soemthing is really messed up with a game.

There were many instances of rear area units trashing attackers, as well as many where the rear area HQ gets trashed. Plenty of French armored attacks got shot up by German 88's before the fall of France. Plenty of instances in Russia too.

The problem is that an HQ isn't necessarily just a very small contingent of clerical personnel, HQ's also controlled higher level reserves like artillery and such to bolster units like corps and armies. Maybe one could limit leaders to being placed into corps, not divisions. To be honest I think this concept of creating special HQ units is making much ado about nothing. Why create special HQ "divisions" when you already have divisions that you could use for that purpose? Heck you could just rename some divisons to be HQ units, give them high level army/army group names.
Omnius

As GWGardner has said, the use of HQ units is partially eye-candy and goes with the attempt to set up some form of realistic Army organisation, the game does not take this into account, so this is just to make me feel better. It does add something to the game if you have to maintain some sort of organisation and not just shunt any unit anywhere any time.

I was using division sized units named as HQ units with appropriate commanders, the commanders in the game can be researched for those who achieved Corps level command and those who got to Army command and higher, so you can still have commanders in individual Corps units and others for separate Army HQ (even Army Group if you want, but limited real value). PPs are expended to buy units, game balance is unaffected and changing game difficulty settings in favour of the AI would easily adjust any balance issues. F12 can be used to add, or deduct, PPs from any nation, even exchange PPs between nations, balance options are many.

I am not going to persist with the argument on what constitutes rear areas, as I believe that no Allied attacks during the French campaign got any where near the operational and strategic rear area, which is the scale on which the game works.

Nothing in this means that the game is messed up, but it does mean that the game is flexible enough to be different things to different people. You can do, or not do, any of this, it's your choice. I view the game almost as a kit that can be used to adjust most aspects to suit the game experience you want, which is what I am doing and enjoying immensely. [:)]

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

With the new manpower/force limit implementation in the game, splitting off an HQ unit from a level 1 mech division isn't going to affect the OOB much. It's mostly just eye-candy/role playing. I don't intend to reinforce my HQ units up to full strength. I'll reinforce back up to 1SP.

My 1 SP HQs are not going to inflict damage on thrusts by the enemy. They're only hope for survival will be their high APs.

Be interested to see how it works out, after all the whole excercise is role playing, it's the name of the game. [:)]

[Omnius]

Rasputitsa,
It's a shame that the other builds like transport points and amphibious points don't have a build time that requires a player to build these units several turns before they can become playable. I agree that with instant production that allows players to create instant amphibious forces. However I don't really see this as such a big problem since there really aren't that many amphibious operations. Besides the amphibious units have to wait until the next turn to invade once they reach the sea area where they want to do an invasion, plus they have to wait a whole turn loading up. Not quite so instant even when doing a short cross channel invasion which ends up taking three turns.

I disagree with the railroad breakage in the USSR, every rail hex should break to ensure that the probablility of rail repair is lessened. The less hexes that break the higher the chance that those that do break will repair quicker. Good that we can edit the repair probabilities to make it take longer.

I really think the business about HQ's is much ado about nothing. Just more of a distraction than modeling reality better. I think the simple solution for HQ's that the game gives us is just fine.

One thing about leaders gaining experience is that it works very well for ground unit leaders, maybe too well. However I don't see air unit leaders gaining experience despite lots of use. Are air unit leaders broken for gaining experience?
Omnius

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
I really think the business about HQ's is much ado about nothing. Just more of a distraction than modeling reality better. I think the simple solution for HQ's that the game gives us is just fine.

We are just sharing our experiences, if it is no interest to you, simply ignore it. [:)]

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
I disagree with the railroad breakage in the USSR, every rail hex should break to ensure that the probablility of rail repair is lessened. The less hexes that break the higher the chance that those that do break will repair quicker. Good that we can edit the repair probabilities to make it take longer.

It's not a matter of agreeing, or disagreeing, the game is the way it is and editing the scenario 'const ini' file is a fairly simple way of delaying rail repair in the few rail hexes which show damage. Not perfect, but is a step towards more realism. [:)]

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
It's a shame that the other builds like transport points and amphibious points don't have a build time that requires a player to build these units several turns before they can become playable. I agree that with instant production that allows players to create instant amphibious forces. However I don't really see this as such a big problem since there really aren't that many amphibious operations. Besides the amphibious units have to wait until the next turn to invade once they reach the sea area where they want to do an invasion, plus they have to wait a whole turn loading up. Not quite so instant even when doing a short cross channel invasion which ends up taking three turns.

There may not have to be many amphibious operations, but something like D-Day is the game for the Allies in 1943/44. If this cannot be more realistically portrayed, then you are missing much of the most important decision making process that this scenario has to offer. Launching any significant amphibious operation in 3 game weeks is, to me, totally unrealistic, but how you deal with it, or not, is up to each player. The discussion is merely to present possible options.

I have improved my playing of the game by using self imposed restrictions on launching amphibious operations of various sizes. Again not perfect, but a step towards more reality for me. [:)]

[MarkWayneClark]

I do think that an HQ unit to which the player could attach and re-assign at will other units would be a great addition to the game.

[Razz1]

ORIGINAL: Omnius


One thing about leaders gaining experience is that it works very well for ground unit leaders, maybe too well. However I don't see air unit leaders gaining experience despite lots of use. Are air unit leaders broken for gaining experience?
Omnius

No, not broken. Never could get a good answer on this one as to whether it is an engine problem, programming time problem or design decision problem.

Air commanders and Naval commanders do not gain experience. Only ground commanders can gain experience.

[Omnius]

Rasputitsa,
First you complain that amphibious operations are too easy and quick to plan and pull off, then you complain that it takes too long. Geez make up your mind. If you noticed they start the 1944 scenario many weeks before the actual June 6th D-Day historical invasion, so you have plenty of time to set up for historical D-Day. In the 1943 scenario you have plenty of time to pull off amphibious operations where you want to. Yeah it's tough having a three week period in which to load units, ship them to the proper sea zone and then finally make the actual amphibious assault. Yes it's rather a drawn out process for something like the cross Channel invasion but I think it's better than the alternative of allowing for instant one turn invasions where units load, move and invade in one turn.
Omnius

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Omnius
Rasputitsa,
First you complain that amphibious operations are too easy and quick to plan and pull off, then you complain that it takes too long. Geez make up your mind. If you noticed they start the 1944 scenario many weeks before the actual June 6th D-Day historical invasion, so you have plenty of time to set up for historical D-Day. In the 1943 scenario you have plenty of time to pull off amphibious operations where you want to. Yeah it's tough having a three week period in which to load units, ship them to the proper sea zone and then finally make the actual amphibious assault. Yes it's rather a drawn out process for something like the cross Channel invasion but I think it's better than the alternative of allowing for instant one turn invasions where units load, move and invade in one turn.
Omnius

You have missed the point, I am not complaining that 3 weeks is too long, but that it is unrealistically too short to prepare for a major amphibious operation. In fact I am not complaining at all, as I have my own house rules, which I can use to create a more realistic situation and a more challenging and interesting game.

I prefer to edit the Gotterdammerung scenario to start in Dec 43, so that a more historical time-scale is available for the preparation of major Allied amphibious operations and choice of landing areas, which, as I have said is perhaps the most critical decision that the Allies had to make at that stage of the war. [:)]