It's not a Panzer Division, it's Superman !!

[boudi]

Look at this story, in North Africa. It's a multiplayer game, i'm playing Allies, v 1.02, we are in 1941.

February 1941. Supply is a key value in the desert war. That's why i check many times this data, and my HQ is near my units, never far away.



April 1941. The Panzer Division "Superman" attacks my armoured division. the resul was impresive, my division lost 8 points, Superman only 1... You can note that there were a defensive artillery unit just behind my tanks, for not a great effect.



Ok Superman is level 2. Ist it a sufficient explanation ? I think not.

it's not the end of the story.

i thought that be best unit against a tank unit was... An anti-tank unit ! Of course.

And what happened next ? This :

1)


2)


I know now that Superman can hit and destroy one unit per turn. I have two solutions :

Defend Egypt, and lost Egypt and all my units,
Or escape from Egypt, and lost Egypt, Palestin, Irak... and after ? Caucasus or India, my opponent's choice. Nothing will be able to stop Superman.

In Europe, it was the same story with all-powerfull german tanks : Yugoslavian and Greek armies were destroyed in one turn by tanks. I'm afraid that Barbarossa will be...

[amandkm]

I suggest capturing the key Kryptonite mines of Serbia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6584229.stm

[Bylandt11]

Many other factors involved. What are morale and readiness? Is your tank under control of an HQ? What are the command ratings of the two HQ's? Is it a moving or prepared attack? Did the artillery have shells left? Was there any entrenchment?
I suspect the answers to all those questions are negative for your tank, to have such extreme results. Even so, in my experience, results of +5 damage occur only against very weak or out of supply targets.

[boudi]

Moral and readiness were at the max possible, because the units (tanks and anti-tanks) were supplied at max possible, +/- 1 supply point. And tanks never fought before the screenshot.
Tank was under the control of the HQ,
Command rating of the HQs are given by the scenario. Of course it should be Rommel in german side, but even Rommel does'nt come from Krypton,
The units are not entrenched yes, but the attacker no more,
The artillery fired,
it was a moving attack, Superman come from the south west hex without road,

By the way i know all these parameters. No one, alone or combined, can reasonably explain these combat results (mostly against an anti-tank unit !). And don't forget that Superman suffer supply lack in desert too.

[amandkm]

I do have to say that I've never gotten good results with either side's Anti-tank units. At first I thought they just failed when they attacked on the move, and the best way to use them was to plop them down and channel the enemy to come up against them, but even that doesn't seem to improve their performance too much.

Can't speak about the Panzers though. I've had 1:3 results (and 3:1) sometimes, and I suppose if you double that for 2 attacks and factor the chance that the projected outcomes can vary by +/- 1 in each direction, you could get results ranging from 0-2 for German losses against 4-8 for allies if the panzers has a 1:3

As to the units in the Balkans, they almost certainly had low readiness and morale compared to the oncoming tanks.

[Searry]

I think tank vs tank combat is very weird in this game. In reality losses on both sides should be very high, real tank combat was usually tank vs infantry, anti-tank vs tank and artillery vs both. It doesn't make sense to use your armor against enemy armor where the result is diminished and equipment squandered. Both sides learned this very well in the desert campaign. I think the problem here is Rommel who is just ridiculous.

[Schokolokos]

ORIGINAL: boudi

Moral and readiness were at the max possible, because the units (tanks and anti-tanks) were supplied at max possible, +/- 1 supply point. And tanks never fought before the screenshot.
Tank was under the control of the HQ,
Command rating of the HQs are given by the scenario. Of course it should be Rommel in german side, but even Rommel does'nt come from Krypton,
The units are not entrenched yes, but the attacker no more,
The artillery fired,
it was a moving attack, Superman come from the south west hex without road,

By the way i know all these parameters. No one, alone or combined, can reasonably explain these combat results (mostly against an anti-tank unit !). And don't forget that Superman suffer supply lack in desert too.

re at the max possible, because the units (tanks and anti-tanks) were supplied at max possible, +/- 1 supply point. And tanks never fought before the screenshot.
Tank was under the control of the HQ,
Command rating of the HQs are given by the scenario. Of course it should be Rommel in german side, but even Rommel does'nt come from Krypton,
The units are not entrenched yes, but the at

since you know all the parameters, what was that tanks morale?

this is the most important value, if it had 1-10 morale and the german 100 + then a devastating result like this is normal.

Why put a tank without entrench in front of your weak NA units?

And Byland11 is right, there are many more factors for this. You have 1 HQ and many UK units, too many to attach all, this tank was most likely without HQ help too.

[EarlyDoors]

I would imagine that the Axis readiness would be about 120% and Allies readiness about 16% to produce an outcome like that.

[boudi]

Hi Schokolokos,

As you know it's impossible to open again an old file on a server game : the file is lost. So it's impossible to know the exact tank moral. Just can i say is what i said : the tank was well supplied as you can in North Africa, and was never engaged.

Yes you noticed that there are more than 5 brit units and only one HQ, but each turn i check which unit must be under command. Here, at least one fighter, and all units on the front line (except the pink unit, can't be attached to a brit HQ), so i choose the artillery unit.

Why i put a tank without entrench. I made a mistake, the tank was here since february (look at my first screen) : it must had a few level of entrenchement. But it's not the job of a tank, to be entrenched. The job of a tank is to attack. Here, the problem was it was attacked first.

[Pocus]

Forget anti-tanks, first. They are far far from being interesting, they lack punch, cost too much in tech to develop and their force pool is too low to justify investing into them. They would need a significant buff in stat (be better than a tank on defense e.g.), lower tech cost, and a force pool almost equivalent to the number of tanks each nation have.

As for your result, I'm not surprised, that's the norm within the parameters you mention. A successful Germany around 1941 will have units with 120% morale and a very very high readiness. On your side, you'll have approx half of that, perhaps a bit more. Units starting adjacent to each other gets a +25% damage bonus. All in all, this what I would expect. And yes, it is very depressing for the allies because you feel you can't do nothing against them.
You can mitigate a bit the impact of Panzers against your troops, at least with the UK by bombarding them with planes. But you have to expect losing almost one unit per turn against them. In time, with additional tech and concentrating several units against them, you can wear them down. Each point they lose is a victory in itself, because after a few turns, when they are down to 5-6, the German player will have to make them rest 1-2 turns.

Readiness is just the most important stat. If you can launch a counter-attack that will remove 2-3 points from a panzer (weakening greatly 2 of your units that will get very high losses), then you are good, this will make the tank more humble in its attacks.

If you can't afford that, then you have to accept that tactically, where there are tanks, you are for a bad time. It means you must think strategically, and use the 'dilute Germany' strategy, i.e you want to force Germany to be too spread, so that his troop density is preventing major operations as much as possible. I had quite some success with that by multiplying smaller landings and harassment. This is also very important because Russia needs all your help (you have cranked the UK to USSR convoy percentage to 40% right?)

Not sure you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel though, my PBEM as allies are generally stopped by the Axis player when he starts stopping winning and I start to bite back (3 in a row). So in effect you are his punching ball, and then he quits. That must be why I have stopped PBEM'ing [;)]

[boudi]

Pocus,

All what you wrote make sense.

Not sure you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel though, my PBEM as allies are generally stopped by the Axis player when he starts stopping winning and I start to bite back (3 in a row). So in effect you are his punching ball, and then he quits. That must be why I have stopped PBEM'ing

An Axis player stopped a game against me just because i sank (arf, irregular verb, not sinked [:D] ) one CV and one japanese CVL in 1942... [&:]

It would be a pleasure to play a game with you. [:)]

[amandkm]

I haven't had that experience yet, with the quits, but it might be an idea to arrange a paired challenge, where you play two games against the same person, one as each side, then add the results to get an overall winner.

Just a thought that just occurred to me, if nothing else, it may encourage people to play on when the 'fun' part ends.

[BillRunacre]

In terms of PBEM, can I mention the Race to Victory campaigns as they are designed to end in August 1945 and at that point, if the Allies haven't won by then the Axis will automatically get a victory of sorts. Which means that an Axis player who stops winning can switch to the defensive and still provide a good game if they are sporting, and still get a victory too!

They were specifically made with PBEM in mind, as the issue of players quitting was reported to me by players of previous games, and after discussions this seemed the best way to reduce the risk.


Boudi, I must admit that I've not experienced such divergent results as you've seen, and think they probably arise from some fairly rare circumstances.

If you do see anything like this again, screen prints showing all the stats at the bottom, including unit experience, will be very helpful. Knowing the difference in National Morale between the countries will also be good. [:)]

[Auchinleck]

Try playing on the easiest level. You'll get a better play balance that way, and the Allies will have a much more realistic chance to destroy Superman and Lex Luthor.

[Pocus]

ORIGINAL: boudi

Pocus,

All what you wrote make sense.

Not sure you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel though, my PBEM as allies are generally stopped by the Axis player when he starts stopping winning and I start to bite back (3 in a row). So in effect you are his punching ball, and then he quits. That must be why I have stopped PBEM'ing

An Axis player stopped a game against me just because i sank (arf, irregular verb, not sinked [:D] ) one CV and one japanese CVL in 1942... [&:]

It would be a pleasure to play a game with you. [:)]

Perhaps in a few weeks even months, it's a bit tense right now (Empires) and although I keep some leisure time, not enough for a correct PBEM, but thanks [:)]

[rob89]

EDIT

sorry,

I got the wrong topic

[Hubert Cater]

What could be the likely factor here is that at this time an Axis player, if they recently forced the surrender of Yugoslavia, and possibly Greece will have had the benefit of a morale boost for their units, while at the same time the UK would suffer from a temporary morale loss for its units. Timed with this in mind, and with other favourable stats, an Axis offensive immediately at that point could be much more effective that it otherwise normally would be.

This helps recreate a bit of that Blitz feeling in France after the Germans force the surrender of let's say the Low Countries, and gives the Japanese a bit of a temporary boost as well when they launch Operation Z offensives in the Pacific.