2nd question RE reserves

[sjohnson]

Hi Pavel - I started a new thread to skip the back and forth banter in the prior one.

If I understand correctly your response, then defensive reserves will activate if the odds are 10 to 1 or lower in favor of the defender.

This seems like an awfully low threshold for defensive reserves. Eg - basically a single rifle brigade can cause reserve activations when pitted against 2-3 divisions. Seems rather unlikely - I would think the same threshold of 4:1 that applies to the attacker would apply for the defender.

In practice, what I see is reserves reacting to pointless attacks - eg a single rifle division attacking a fortified point of 2 divisions. Said divisions and reserve shooting up all their ammo against a minimal attack (designed to do nothing more than get them to shoot all their ammo...).

Is there any sliding scale based on odds for commitment or is it just a plain check? Eg 1:10 is the threshold or is it more difficult for a unit to commit if the odds are 1:10 vs say 1:2.

Reserves are really the only defensive tool in the game to counter the inability of a defender to respond in a week long turns; so it is important that they be committed efficiently.

A further option would be to reduce the cost of reserve commitment - an infantry regiment 10 miles (1 hex) from a hex that was attacked say 8 times in a week could easily be engaged many times; but the game only really allows 2 commitments (maybe 3 if everything is perfect) in a single week from 10 miles away.

[Michael T]

You need to consider that air interdiction has no effect on reserve committment, even with almost total air supremacy. And one brigade against two or more dug in XX does not activate reserves at all.

[Peltonx]

vs 2 divisions in a fort your talking 40 cv atleast. So SHC would need at least a Corp and they get smoked, heavy loses for nothing.

I agree later in the war late 43 earlly 44 it is a tactic that could be used.

Its really a waste unless your tring to take some key hex.

I think MT is right over all, but I would like to see it lowered to 2 to 1 or atleast 4 to 1. 10 to 1 is silly, just to Middle Earth.

No one will call up reserves when you have 10000 guys in trenchs being attacked by 1000. He would be shot shortly after the battle for being a coward by Stalin and wasting gas by Hitler.

[sjohnson]

Actually I'm seeing reserve activation in these situations of single division attacking 2 dug in divisions. So, in practice, they do react. 10:1 is still too steep an odds; I can't see any real commander looking at an attack at those basic odds and thinking he should commit the reserves. In reality, most commanders were actually reluctant to commit reserves until they absolutely had to.

Your comment on air interdiction - I agree. Interdictions do not fly against reserve movement; they should.

However, here's a tip, you can 'interdict' reserves by flying ground strike missions against them in your turn prior to your attacks. These do not change the likelihood of the reserve unit committing it appears, but, air attacks chiefly cause disrupted squads thus the impact of the reserve unit on the combat is less.

Finally, those disrupted squads convert to fatigue at the start of the next turn causing two effects which are clearly measurable:
1) movement allowance is down next turn; making the reserve have lower available MPs for the follow on combat cycle (but not by much).
2) the most pronounced effect of fatigue is reduction of CV value - CV is calculated as:

- sum of base CV of all elements in the formation (see Appendix)
- multiply by experience/100
- multiply by morale/100
- multiply by (100-fatigue)/100

So air striking a regimental sized reserve and causing say 100 disrupted squads causes about a lower movement allowance in the follow up turn and also reduces CV in the follow on turn by in my experience about 10% for a good strike.

I think a lot folks get frustrated because they air strike and see no only a few reported casualties. The impact is 'under the hood' and I can vouch that these air strikes have probably dropped my reserve commitments by 25-33% over time. I know, as my opponent strikes my reserves constantly with air strikes, I probably shouldn't post here because I am sure he will read this and note that my reserve reactions measured over a month or two of this are going down...but, what the hell; good for him I suppose...bad for my guys on the front who got accustomed to looking over their shoulder for the cavalry...

[Michael T]

However, here's a tip, you can 'interdict' reserves by flying ground strike missions against them in your turn prior to your attacks. These do not change the likelihood of the reserve unit committing it appears,

I just starting doing this this turn.

[Peltonx]

One of the things I will do next time around.

Katza adise on GHC air power I never really fully followed.

I can see now by having a uber German fighter forse would have a huge impact through 1943 really as he normally does.

but you really have to take the time from the first turn to make it so it controls the air until late 43 very early 44.

Good for me MT is about as caring for air power as I am. We got use to winning out early so much I dont think we really put the time into the air game.

Thanks for advice again SJ. Got to go back and read up on Katza air war info.

[elmo3]

The devs are aware of the issue and are discussing it. We are close to releasing a new beta update so if there are any changes to reserves they might have to wait for a later update.

[Helpless]

Hi Pavel - I started a new thread to skip the back and forth banter in the prior one.

If I understand correctly your response, then defensive reserves will activate if the odds are 10 to 1 or lower in favor of the defender.

This seems like an awfully low threshold for defensive reserves. Eg - basically a single rifle brigade can cause reserve activations when pitted against 2-3 divisions. Seems rather unlikely - I would think the same threshold of 4:1 that applies to the attacker would apply for the defender.

In practice, what I see is reserves reacting to pointless attacks - eg a single rifle division attacking a fortified point of 2 divisions. Said divisions and reserve shooting up all their ammo against a minimal attack (designed to do nothing more than get them to shoot all their ammo...).

Is there any sliding scale based on odds for commitment or is it just a plain check? Eg 1:10 is the threshold or is it more difficult for a unit to commit if the odds are 1:10 vs say 1:2.

Reserves are really the only defensive tool in the game to counter the inability of a defender to respond in a week long turns; so it is important that they be committed efficiently.

A further option would be to reduce the cost of reserve commitment - an infantry regiment 10 miles (1 hex) from a hex that was attacked say 8 times in a week could easily be engaged many times; but the game only really allows 2 commitments (maybe 3 if everything is perfect) in a single week from 10 miles away.

Steve,

Odds estimation is just one of the factors. There are many others affecting reserve commitment - leaders rolls (initiative), HQ chain distance, range from the hex, state of the unit, etc. Also strength estimation is affected by the FOW. Usually enemy fowed CV is higher than the actual, so odd factor is really used to filter out situations when odds difference is large enough not to be affected by random factors, but still leaving some randomness.

So far I don't see reserve activation to be too excessive, but of cause there could be the cases when it goes over the top. You can always send a save with clear steps to reproduce it. We can always look at it.

Pavel

[sjohnson]

Thanks for the reply Helpless - I actually see it fairly commonly. Here is just one example of a reserve regiment reacting from 3 hexes away to support the defense of a fully dug in elite SS PzGren division (fort 3) being attacked by a single rifle division.

Seems like overkill to me? It almost feels like the reaction check of 1:10 does not include the adjustment for the fortifications.

[Peltonx]

Thats just way to Middle Earth.

Thats like exploit heaven for Russians.

Should we put our games on hold until that BS exploit is fixed Hapless?

The big problem with game is hardly anyone bothers playing past 1942, so I am sure there are allot of exploits that have yet to be found like this big fat one.

[Peltonx]

I know some guys are testting out lower logistics, but this bug completely trashes that fix.

Stuff like this is what will smoke the logistics system of witw. Figuring out a way to get the defenders to fire at nothing and then marching into the hex.

Hmm a hole new line of exploits has opened up

Does anyone really every test this stuff out?

Time after time we are told "it works like this" only to find out it works nothing like it was designed, players stumble onto it.

This is a MAJOR mid to late war exploit for RED Stream Roller when they already are way over powered because of insanely high GHC retreat loses.

This should be fixed in the new patch, thats a complete epic fail guys lol.

[Helpless]

...Seems like overkill to me?...

You have a choice not to set it to reserve mode. I see no issue in the example provided.

[sjohnson]

Hi Helpless - I'm confused by your response? Are you saying that this is working as designed - I was just pointing out that 1:10 clearly didn't apply in this case (raw CV was more like 1:25).

As far as choosing to not set a unit in reserve mode; I don't understand how that is helpful? So basically an attacker can choose to send single weak divisions against a well fortified hex with one of the strongest units in the game, suck off all the defender's ammo and all reserves and then attack at will because the defender has little to nothing to shoot back with (yes, after several such attacks the in hex units do not appear to cause any fire combat damage to the attacker).

[Helpless]

I'm confused by your response? Are you saying that this is working as designed

So far I see no evidence of opposite.

As far as choosing to not set a unit in reserve mode; I don't understand how that is helpful? So basically an attacker can choose to send single weak divisions against a well fortified hex with one of the strongest units in the game, suck off all the defender's ammo and all reserves and then attack at will because the defender has little to nothing to shoot back with (yes, after several such attacks the in hex units do not appear to cause any fire combat damage to the attacker).

That's part of the FOW. Ammo "fix" is on the way.

[Michael T]

Just Pelton and his team looking for a way out of defeat, thats all.

[sjohnson]

Thanks Helpless! Good to know on the ammo fix, looking forward to it!

@Michael - Frankly, I couldn't give a rip one way or the other whether you or Pelton win or lose your game. From someone who likes to play (1) the Soviet side early in the war and (2) the German side late in the war; I just like to see loopholes closed and find ways to counter game engine exploits to bring things more back to historical (so, I think the SU side is short manpower early in the war or really ability to deploy manpower on the map; the GE side has too easy a time of it with logistics (trucks are not as big an issue in my experience as they should be and thus do not drive anyone to drop the front to static as was done historically - people drop to Static mode to reduce attrition it seems, not re-apportion logistics), the Germans are unable to cause the types of losses they really did on the Soviet late in the war (ammo 'fix' needed). I happen to know a few techniques to counter soaking attacks which are obvious to anyone who has played enough of the late war. However, anyone can still push the game engine over the edge by simply launching more, smaller attacks.

By the way - I should add lest it seems like I am complaining that I still think WitE is the best operational-strategic Eastern front game out there. If you really take the time to analyze what's going on and take careful notes there are a lot of things working well under the hood. I have to imagine that it is hard for the dev team to deal with every issue players with 'near perfect' knowledge of historical mistakes, OOBs, etc can devise to 'win'.

[Flaviusx]

Pavel, I think people are wanting to know what this ammo fix is. The whole point of these lowball soak off attacks is to exhaust the ammunition of the defender. If you set the threshold for ammo expenditure at a certain level, then soak offs become much less attractive.

Even an ammo fix will still allow lowball soak off attacks designed to exhaust reserves. Although imo this is going to get very expensive for the attacker against a well organized defense. You could go through a lot of rifle divisions this way before the defense runs out of reserves. Every German mobile regiment, for example, has effectively 2 bites at the apple. An entire corps broken down this way offers up to 18 such reactions (assuming a 3 division corps.) Running that down will take the better part of a Front.

[sjohnson]

Hi Flavius - I agree. I also by the way think that some level of 'soak' off attacks or 'wave' attacks should be effective; at reducing ammo supply available to the defender (not eliminating it) and also increasing his disruption/fatigue. In the course of a week, the defender in a 10 mile hex is going to get some resupply. Eventually, reserves should run out, etc. - this is what really happened.

Reserves are actually the key to effective tactical (emphasis on that) defense in this game given the 1 week turns and alternating player turns. This is the way the game models 'elastic' tactical defense - in fact it is the only way it can be modeled at this scale (and support unit commitment).

[Michael T]

FWIW I do not, and have not done one single brigade or divisional attack in this entire game. All my attacks have been at least 3 XX and the vast majority 6 XX. How that can be called an expolit is beyomd me [8|]

[Flaviusx]

Nah, that's fair enough Michael. Bloody and expensive, but fair. You are certainly paying the butcher's bill doing it, it's not cheese.