1940 Barb

[pjg100]

I think that one modification that could make the 1940 Barbarossa less of a perceived game-breaker would be to make the decision event for USSR to annex the Baltic states dependent on the GE advance in France rather than on a time trigger. FREX, if it is made dependent on the Axis taking one or more of the French border hexes (similar to the French NM event that drops NM by 1500 points), then an early GE advance in France would result in the USSR being able to annex the Baltic states much earlier. This would eliminate the option of GE waiting until May 1940 to DOW Lith and Latvia, and would force the Axis to commit to Barbr, with the resulting increase in USSR mobilzation, much earlier.

In addition, if GE DOWs Latvia or Estonia, the 25 MPP/turn from the USSR should cease.

[Aussiematto]

Yeah, I think this is a potential solution for a lot of the perceived issues - let me explain.

There is probably not enough interactivity in the game between the passage over time of a particular game and what happens in it, and the events. Moreover, the events are insufficiently random. A lot of events don't really give people a choice. So, for example, the Soviet choice whether or not to undertake the Winter War seems to me often to have little benefit to the Russians if it doesn't happen (and major benefits if it does happen, once you work out how to exploit the frozen, weak Finnish army on T1 of Barbarossa). The choice re the BEF in or out of France seems like no choice at all. Other choices, like attacking Norway or not for the Axis, are better - if you do it, you get the ports; if you don't you get much needed MMPs at the start. And, with the balance of Norway potentially moving into Axis anyway as a response to convoy interdiction by the Brits, this is now quite an interesting part of the game. You really have to decide whether to take Norway or not, and fit that choice into a longer strategy.

So, back to pjg100's idea - the benefit of this is that the game adapts on the fly more effectively to what is happening. Actions (attacking France early and getting somewhere) have consequences elsewhere or, perhaps, create new decision trees which mean the game remains more alive. Think, for example, of what happens when Japan invades Australia - there's no historical event (as would have occurred) where Australia's government demands return of Aussie troops and ships. I am not saying this should happen automatically but there should then be a choice forced on the Allies as to whether a) they commmit to defending Australia and retain benefits or b) suffer some loss while the diggers are maurading through Algeria or something. The effect could be tied to when it happens too - so that a late invasion doesn't affect things as much as , say, one in late 41 which would have really put the heat on the alliance (this is historical, by the way - Curtin's demand for return of troops from ME was material).

Moreover, things are either known absolutely (the Italians wilt and die and there's nothing you can do to fix it aside, perhaps, from being super effective in Russia and holding morale up for a while) so therefore one side knows ahead of time the likely outcome of one strategy or another (ie the Allies KNOW that invading Italy reduces morale, knows how exactly to do it), or there is a complete lack of consequence for something ahistorical which would have had a major impact.

So, while I am no designer, and am unsure if it is possible, my sense is that the game could benefit from a lot more randomness in the decisions / events and more of them, and more interactive events that respond to game conditions. This part of the game is where it really shines and allows for things that are not just 'this is the way history went'. The randomness could be timing (so +1 for the randomised Afrika Korps), outcome (maybe, say, taking Singapore results in a major boost in Japanese morale, OR a loss in Allied morale, OR triggers another event around, say, deployment of naval forces).


I might add - one of the big challenges in the game is that, well, it is a game. It ain't going to work "just so" because by the nature of games they have to balance between historical (where, frankly, there was never a chance of Axis victory as defined by the victory conditions) and the playable (as in keeping it interesting). I think my major beef with all massive WWII simulations is that the effort of playing and learning is very high and long vs the satisfaction of getting better and winning or losing in a fun way. I come and go on whether, in fact, it's possible to 'game' WWII without it being even more pushed towards ahistorical outcomes. More randomness (and therefore less known paths to victory), while also being tied to strategic choices by players, would mean more balance and longer-term interest.

Oh - another thing - maybe Axis has to nominate victory conditions at start of game (secretly) and then Allies have to work harder to guess strategy?

Some random thoughts as I ponder yet another brutal defeat by a better player than me (or should I say, several brutal defeats!)

[crispy131313]

ORIGINAL: Aussiematto

Yeah, I think this is a potential solution for a lot of the perceived issues - let me explain.

There is probably not enough interactivity in the game between the passage over time of a particular game and what happens in it, and the events. Moreover, the events are insufficiently random. A lot of events don't really give people a choice. So, for example, the Soviet choice whether or not to undertake the Winter War seems to me often to have little benefit to the Russians if it doesn't happen (and major benefits if it does happen, once you work out how to exploit the frozen, weak Finnish army on T1 of Barbarossa). The choice re the BEF in or out of France seems like no choice at all. Other choices, like attacking Norway or not for the Axis, are better - if you do it, you get the ports; if you don't you get much needed MMPs at the start. And, with the balance of Norway potentially moving into Axis anyway as a response to convoy interdiction by the Brits, this is now quite an interesting part of the game. You really have to decide whether to take Norway or not, and fit that choice into a longer strategy.

So, back to pjg100's idea - the benefit of this is that the game adapts on the fly more effectively to what is happening. Actions (attacking France early and getting somewhere) have consequences elsewhere or, perhaps, create new decision trees which mean the game remains more alive. Think, for example, of what happens when Japan invades Australia - there's no historical event (as would have occurred) where Australia's government demands return of Aussie troops and ships. I am not saying this should happen automatically but there should then be a choice forced on the Allies as to whether a) they commmit to defending Australia and retain benefits or b) suffer some loss while the diggers are maurading through Algeria or something. The effect could be tied to when it happens too - so that a late invasion doesn't affect things as much as , say, one in late 41 which would have really put the heat on the alliance (this is historical, by the way - Curtin's demand for return of troops from ME was material).

Moreover, things are either known absolutely (the Italians wilt and die and there's nothing you can do to fix it aside, perhaps, from being super effective in Russia and holding morale up for a while) so therefore one side knows ahead of time the likely outcome of one strategy or another (ie the Allies KNOW that invading Italy reduces morale, knows how exactly to do it), or there is a complete lack of consequence for something ahistorical which would have had a major impact.

So, while I am no designer, and am unsure if it is possible, my sense is that the game could benefit from a lot more randomness in the decisions / events and more of them, and more interactive events that respond to game conditions. This part of the game is where it really shines and allows for things that are not just 'this is the way history went'. The randomness could be timing (so +1 for the randomised Afrika Korps), outcome (maybe, say, taking Singapore results in a major boost in Japanese morale, OR a loss in Allied morale, OR triggers another event around, say, deployment of naval forces).


I might add - one of the big challenges in the game is that, well, it is a game. It ain't going to work "just so" because by the nature of games they have to balance between historical (where, frankly, there was never a chance of Axis victory as defined by the victory conditions) and the playable (as in keeping it interesting). I think my major beef with all massive WWII simulations is that the effort of playing and learning is very high and long vs the satisfaction of getting better and winning or losing in a fun way. I come and go on whether, in fact, it's possible to 'game' WWII without it being even more pushed towards ahistorical outcomes. More randomness (and therefore less known paths to victory), while also being tied to strategic choices by players, would mean more balance and longer-term interest.

Oh - another thing - maybe Axis has to nominate victory conditions at start of game (secretly) and then Allies have to work harder to guess strategy?

Some random thoughts as I ponder yet another brutal defeat by a better player than me (or should I say, several brutal defeats!)

I agree with much of what you are saying. While there are "penalties" of swinging countries towards the Allies or Axis for certain actions, the game could be more reactive to alternate history as it unfolds.

Some examples of what I've included are below. These types of decisions ensure a different game every time. I have a mod full of these.

The first decision is a whooper, but these types of decisions are great because it keeps everyone on their toes and does not create an automatic script to follow. The game needs more of these.

The second is a type of decision which will only popup in a very specific scenario, so it is reactive to in game conditions. If Portugal is within the Allied sphere of influence (Allied leaning) and Spain is at or above 80% Axis leaning.

[Aussiematto]

+1 to this crispy; I like the USA reaction one. Would it mean the USA goes to war with Germany/ Italy only?

I do suspect that the problem with increasing the size and scope of the decision tree is that it becomes extremely hard to playtest for balance since the number of decisions and consequences expands exponentially! I am happy to do some play testing of a mod which expands the decisions and events. Maybe I need to give your mod a go?

Incidentally, I think the game would benefit from attaching some (small) change for some of the nice historical events which otherwise are just informative. Example: Yamamoto is shot down. First, randomise this event (something which could, for example, have occurred anytime from 1942 onwards). (Each turn there is a 5% chance of this happening, cumulative, after USA n Japan at war). Then link to circumstances (-2% modifier for each USA island in the pacific in Japanese hands; - 10% if Hawaii is in Japanese hands, etc). Then add penalty (Japanese navy suffers a 10% morale loss on turn it occurs). Warsaw Ghetto - again randomise, attach a penalty or, potentially, a decision ("do you spend 50 MPP to deploy garrison or suffer loss of MPP?)

[crispy131313]

ORIGINAL: Aussiematto

+1 to this crispy; I like the USA reaction one. Would it mean the USA goes to war with Germany/ Italy only?

I do suspect that the problem with increasing the size and scope of the decision tree is that it becomes extremely hard to playtest for balance since the number of decisions and consequences expands exponentially! I am happy to do some play testing of a mod which expands the decisions and events. Maybe I need to give your mod a go?

Incidentally, I think the game would benefit from attaching some (small) change for some of the nice historical events which otherwise are just informative. Example: Yamamoto is shot down. First, randomise this event (something which could, for example, have occurred anytime from 1942 onwards). (Each turn there is a 5% chance of this happening, cumulative, after USA n Japan at war). Then link to circumstances (-2% modifier for each USA island in the pacific in Japanese hands; - 10% if Hawaii is in Japanese hands, etc). Then add penalty (Japanese navy suffers a 10% morale loss on turn it occurs). Warsaw Ghetto - again randomise, attach a penalty or, potentially, a decision ("do you spend 50 MPP to deploy garrison or suffer loss of MPP?)

It's a full declaration of war against the Axis, which is why the Pearl Harbor Fleet is called back to safety.

Feel free to give my mod a go. BUT I accidentally introduced a bug and I need to fix it this weekend, it could result in Japan becoming belligerent with UK/India early. So wait for the new one this weekend.

[pjg100]

I just finished a game with Hamburgermeat to test an idea I had for a counter to the 1940 Barb. Figured if I sent a large Allied air and land contingent to the USSR with sufficient HQ support to keep them well-supplied, that might give the USSR enough breathing space to mount a credible defense. Long story short, didn't work, due in part to the fact that you can't reinforce or upgrade Allied units in the USSR (should have tested this strategy a little better solo, d'oh!). As of June 1941 I was still putting up a defense but the larder was running bare and Russia was probably only 2-3 turns away from collapsing.

At this point, it appears to me that the 1940 Barb is a strategy that cannot effectively be countered.

There are some fixes that could be incorporated into future revs that might make this more of a jump ball, e.g., fixing the issue re non-spawning Baltic Front units, enabling the USSR to annex the Baltic States based on GE success in France rather than a fixed date, imposing a NM penalty on GE for a 1940 DOW, implementing the 18-unit mobilization hit in early 1940 rather than 1/1941, etc. Possibly add a DE, triggered by the loss of at least two of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, that enables the Allies to convert Allied units to Russian units that spawn in the USSR (to simulate Stalin deciding to permit Allied troops to enter Russia in force to save his regime). In the meantime, probably best to deal with this by means of a gentlemen's agreement.

[Aussiematto]

Adding this to my key things to agree ahead of time, then, is it just that Russia has no men n no industry? Germans usually weak but I guess even Pz Iis work vs thin air

[Cpuncher]

ORIGINAL: pjg100

Possibly add a DE, triggered by the loss of at least two of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, that enables the Allies to convert Allied units to Russian units that spawn in the USSR (to simulate Stalin deciding to permit Allied troops to enter Russia in force to save his regime). In the meantime, probably best to deal with this by means of a gentlemen's agreement.

A better DE is possibly have USSR to become "cooperative" when things are desperate. This would be historically conceivable. This way Western Allied units can get full supply in Russia and keep their own tech. Converting to Russian units will be weird and Russia is likely having bad air tech.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: Aussiematto

Yeah, I think this is a potential solution for a lot of the perceived issues - let me explain.

There is probably not enough interactivity in the game between the passage over time of a particular game and what happens in it, and the events. Moreover, the events are insufficiently random. A lot of events don't really give people a choice. So, for example, the Soviet choice whether or not to undertake the Winter War seems to me often to have little benefit to the Russians if it doesn't happen (and major benefits if it does happen, once you work out how to exploit the frozen, weak Finnish army on T1 of Barbarossa). The choice re the BEF in or out of France seems like no choice at all. Other choices, like attacking Norway or not for the Axis, are better - if you do it, you get the ports; if you don't you get much needed MMPs at the start. And, with the balance of Norway potentially moving into Axis anyway as a response to convoy interdiction by the Brits, this is now quite an interesting part of the game. You really have to decide whether to take Norway or not, and fit that choice into a longer strategy.

So, back to pjg100's idea - the benefit of this is that the game adapts on the fly more effectively to what is happening. Actions (attacking France early and getting somewhere) have consequences elsewhere or, perhaps, create new decision trees which mean the game remains more alive. Think, for example, of what happens when Japan invades Australia - there's no historical event (as would have occurred) where Australia's government demands return of Aussie troops and ships. I am not saying this should happen automatically but there should then be a choice forced on the Allies as to whether a) they commmit to defending Australia and retain benefits or b) suffer some loss while the diggers are maurading through Algeria or something. The effect could be tied to when it happens too - so that a late invasion doesn't affect things as much as , say, one in late 41 which would have really put the heat on the alliance (this is historical, by the way - Curtin's demand for return of troops from ME was material).

Moreover, things are either known absolutely (the Italians wilt and die and there's nothing you can do to fix it aside, perhaps, from being super effective in Russia and holding morale up for a while) so therefore one side knows ahead of time the likely outcome of one strategy or another (ie the Allies KNOW that invading Italy reduces morale, knows how exactly to do it), or there is a complete lack of consequence for something ahistorical which would have had a major impact.

So, while I am no designer, and am unsure if it is possible, my sense is that the game could benefit from a lot more randomness in the decisions / events and more of them, and more interactive events that respond to game conditions. This part of the game is where it really shines and allows for things that are not just 'this is the way history went'. The randomness could be timing (so +1 for the randomised Afrika Korps), outcome (maybe, say, taking Singapore results in a major boost in Japanese morale, OR a loss in Allied morale, OR triggers another event around, say, deployment of naval forces).


I might add - one of the big challenges in the game is that, well, it is a game. It ain't going to work "just so" because by the nature of games they have to balance between historical (where, frankly, there was never a chance of Axis victory as defined by the victory conditions) and the playable (as in keeping it interesting). I think my major beef with all massive WWII simulations is that the effort of playing and learning is very high and long vs the satisfaction of getting better and winning or losing in a fun way. I come and go on whether, in fact, it's possible to 'game' WWII without it being even more pushed towards ahistorical outcomes. More randomness (and therefore less known paths to victory), while also being tied to strategic choices by players, would mean more balance and longer-term interest.

Oh - another thing - maybe Axis has to nominate victory conditions at start of game (secretly) and then Allies have to work harder to guess strategy?

Some random thoughts as I ponder yet another brutal defeat by a better player than me (or should I say, several brutal defeats!)

This gets a lot of discussion on the Paradox forums in relation to event-chains. Ultimately the big draw-back of long, branching chains of events is that the outcomes become impossible to do proper testing on because each individual outcome (I.e., combination of event outcomes) is quite unlikely. For example, if you have six different events that each have a 50% chance of giving one of two separate results, then the chance of having a given outcome from those events is less than 2% and to test each outcome even once you’d need to run the game more than 50 times.

Hence nowadays Paradox put more emphasis on mechanics than branching event chains (although they do these too).

[Elessar2]

As a modder I'd simply dole out the Russian's "DoW" units out over a given period of time, let Stalin put them whereever he wants. I see zero reason why he should be forced to do the exact same silly things his predecessor did. That by itself would probably remedy the issue.

[Elessar2]

The World in Flames solution wouldn't work here because of the totally free ability of a fully at-war major to declare war against any other major (or minor) they want. [In WiF the Soviets can garrison the hey out of the border, requiring the Axis to respond with large forces of their own so as to void the Pact. In SC that would just mean more surrounded and surrendered Russian units.]
Unless there is a script option to provide for a large NM penalty for any DoW when the appropriate conditions/triggers aren't in place (yet).