B41_lgf.04.09.2020 balancing playtest

[larryfulkerson]

T1, At Start
Barbarosa '41 is one of my favorite scenarios because it plays fast and has less than 500 units per side to move each turn and is more simple than D21 or FITE. I've decided to document my moves and why I'm moving there in more detail than usual. I have indicated my major routes for the advance in yellow on the map. I want to stay close to the roads and rails as much as possible to expedite movement rates. There's a sizeable weak spot both in the north and further south and I intend to take advantage of those bad boys. I want the Panzers to avoid any firefights and just zoom ahead as far as they can go. I've experimented with airfield attacks in previous games and have determined that they aren't as effective in destroying Soviet planes without also receiving a substantial Axis loss rate. Several times in previous games I've been able to get one of my arty units adjacent to a Soviet airfield to bombard the planes without any losses to my side. I'm going to try that again. I've taken a look at the expected reinforcements and there are no units that are going to withdraw from the game for the Axis side. I'm going to start my fighters with a three-dot setting and then play it by ear in subsequent turns. I'm using B41_lgf.04.09.2020 as the scenario and you can find it here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.a ... ey=�

[larryfulkerson]

T1, Initial Moves
I've moved about two dozen units to get surrounds on several Soviet units. Once those Soviet units are gone I can move my units more freely. The aim is to extend the front lines as far north as possible in the first turn. There aren't many MP's to these units so several of them have already spent their MP's just getting into these positions. The main goal is to get the units moving along the avenue of advance and killing the Soviet units can be left to the follow on forces.

[larryfulkerson]

T1, Just Prior to First Combat Round Execution
I've moved all the units and there are eleven battles scheduled for this first round. I elected not to do any airfield strikes because prior experience has taught me that in this scenario doing that just brings the Axis side lots of unneccessary losses. I've stayed near the roads and rails to capture them early so I can use them to convey my forces forward faster. I struck out trying to repair the rail leading NE from Konigsberg so I've railed four RR engineers to the northern AO to help out next turn. The 4/800 Commando unit captured an airfield near Daugavpils and I've flown in a fighter unit and a bomber unit already. I've set the Panzers on a course toward Minsk because I would like to capture that city in turn two if possible. Down south Kiev seems a long way away still but I've got the recon units out in front and progress is being made.

[Richard III]

Following this one [8D] Much more manageable map for the panzers IMO.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey There Richard, good to hear from you again. I too like the map a lot but it felt like it didn't have nearly the number of airfields needed. So the only thing I did to change the map was to add about 30 new airfields, most near major cities, but also just west of the Urals for whatever they may be worth. This latest mod gives the Soviet side a little help equipment-wise. I gave every infantry unit some PanzerFausts ( spelling? ) and just on a whim I distributed some easter eggs to chear up the players. For instance I gave 12 OV-10's to the Axis side more for me to see how they actually perform in combat. I'm debating with myself whether or not to shorten the scenario from 40 turns to 30 to make it a little more exciting. I'm torn between choices. What's your advice?

[larryfulkerson]

T1, Just Prior to Second Combat Round Execution
I have moved everybody who could still move and now I'm ready to pull the trigger on the second combat phase. If you compare this image with the one above you can see the areas that I made a little more progress. Down south I seem to have burst through the Soviet lines and unless they clog up that path with some units I can make some rapid progress. I'm trying to surround the Soviet units before I kill them. That way there's only a single BattleFieldTimeStamp in the hex the Soviet unit occupies and I can usually go around it.

[larryfulkerson]

T2, At Start of Turn Two
Here's the starting positions of everybody at the beginning of T2. I haven't moved anyone yet.

[larryfulkerson]

T2, Just Prior to First Combat Phase Execution
Okay, I've moved everybody and I have a good chance of capturing Riga in T2. I've already captured Daugavpils which gives me a crossing over the river Dneper. I've flown the 4/800 Commando unit to near Pskov and then I dropped the bridge there in an effort to slow down the flow of Soviet units toward Riga. It doesn't look like I'm going to make it all the way to Minsk in T2. Too much Soviet interference. But in T3 for sure. In the south the Hungarians and Romanians are still in garrison mode and can't move. I think they activate in T4. 10 battles are planned for round 1. I've got 2982 HRS's and 108 on hand. I'm making 30 per turn and in T1 I lost 48 of them. Which means that I'm going to use up all the on-hand HRS's and after that the strength of the various Infantry units are going to decrease in strength as the number of HRS's decreases at every combat they engage in. I'll have to monitor the strength of the force to not let it get too weak to defend itself. I've got 875 Me-109's assigned and only 9 of them on hand. I'm making 4 per turn and in T1 I lost 11 of them. So I have a similar situation for the fighters.

[larryfulkerson]

T3, Beginning of Turn
I haven't moved anybody yet in this image. I neglected to check out the turn-burn meter before I executed my attacks and just a single combat round was all I got in T2. Now it's T3 and I have another new turn to try it again. The web page for this AAR is loading slower and slower lately so I think maybe it's best if I post pictures about this size from now on so the page can load slightly faster. This is the northern section of the front lines. I'm in a good position to capture Riga and perhaps make some progress advancing to the NE toward Pskov, my next short-term goal. Losses have been light so far. The supply levels are falling to zero at the point of the spear so I may have to ship some more RR engineers up here to help repair rail faster. All the aircraft are green and I'm going to receive a boat-load of reinforcements in T4 so I'm optimistic about what's happening.

[larryfulkerson]

T3, Minsk
This is the middle of the map and shows my slow progress pushing to the east. I don't have Minsk yet but I plan to capture it soon. The burning of T2 has set me behind schedule and I don't think I can make up that time. But it's still a good game for me.

[larryfulkerson]

T3, Proskurov
This is the action happening in the south. It's too early to tell how well I'm doing but I'm going to try to break through the Soviet lines and get a surround on their units before I destroy them. I'm headed for Kiev and Odessa.

[larryfulkerson]

T4, Riga
I thought I'd start using my XO to run the show instead of me micromanaging everything. I'd rather watch the big picture and make minor adjustments here and there. I've turned on the Elmer Assist System or whatever it's called now and I adjusted the objectives of the first moving formation. The old objectives were just fine, I just wanted it to go in a different direction. I intend to adjust them all. Also a lot of the formations were set to "attack" mode and I changed those on "attack" to "advance" because I believe that will tend to make the formations help each other more than "attack" will. Adjusting all of the formations will take at least an hour or so. So I'll be offline for a while.

[rhinobones]

Larry

The ability to adjust objective tracks is a nice feature, however, there are problems of which I’m sure you are aware. Formations will ignore objectives which are in friendly controlled hexes and move toward the next objective in enemy controlled territory. The formation will find its own way there which may be quite different than the planned track. This makes it difficult for reserve formations entering from behind the front line to effectively move into position. Matrix is aware of this problem.

With a scenario as large (number of formations) as the one you are playing; formations tend to erase parts of each other’s objective tracks. I suspect this is the primary reason why the AI is typically better at defensive play.

Regards

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones
Larry
The ability to adjust objective tracks is a nice feature, however, there are problems of which I’m sure you are aware. Formations will ignore objectives which are in friendly controlled hexes and move toward the next objective in enemy controlled territory. The formation will find its own way there which may be quite different than the planned track. This makes it difficult for reserve formations entering from behind the front line to effectively move into position. Matrix is aware of this problem.

With a scenario as large (number of formations) as the one you are playing; formations tend to erase parts of each other’s objective tracks. I suspect this is the primary reason why the AI is typically better at defensive play.

Regards

I just inhaled a lungfull of "Arnold Palmer" and I'm feeling a mild confusion right now. And on top of that I'm having a senior moment. I don't exactly remember your name clearly but I want to say it's Steve. Hi there Steve my friend. Um....I've been using the formation panel to access each formation's "move-only-this- formation" button and then scoping out the results. I find that each formation needs some minor tweaking before I'm satisfied with what they have done. I like, for instance, to set my LCU's on a three-dot setting when they park for the rest of the turn. Elmer doesn't do that for me. And those units in the formation that have too few MP's to move for the rest of the turn need to be dug in where they are and Elmer doesn't dig them in. I have to do that. And those engineer units that are part of a formation move like they are part of the formation instead of repairing bridges, broken rail(s), etc. I have to move the engineer units by hand to get them to do what I want them to do before I let Elmer move the rest of the formation. Same thing for the RR engineers. I haven't seen an aircraft unit change airfields yet. That I remember. There's a lot of things going on behind the curtain and I'm learning all over again how to use Elmer to move my units. I mean now that we have a TOAW IV version.

[larryfulkerson]

T4, Front Lines
I let Elmer do the moving for the entire turn and this is the result. This is at the end of combat round 6 and there are no more scheduled battles and the turn is about to end. I seem to have framed the image too far to the right and not much of the Axis forces can be seen down south. Sorry about that. I'll try harder next time.

[StuccoFresco]

There seems to be a nice hole in the Soviet lines that leads to Vitebsk and then Smolensk.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: StuccoFresco
There seems to be a nice hole in the Soviet lines that leads to Vitebsk and then Smolensk.

I agree and if it really is open all the way then I'm pretty sure Elmer will use it. I'm letting my XO move the units and I've found that I still have to go through the units one at a time to adjust their stance ( three dots for those units I park ) and put them into "T" status so that they share their combat power in adjacent combats and stuff like that. Also, I'm not all that excited about some of the paths the units take and move them myself. Also, before I move anybody I need to go through all the engineers and ferry engineers and RR engineers to make them perform useful missions because if I don't they usually act like just part of a formation that needs to move to the next objective. And after combat if any of my units turns yellow I usually just dig them in where they are so they can turn green again so that they might be useful the next turn. Also, the planes don't always move to the best possible airfields and I need to adjust them. But other than that it's working out just fine.

[larryfulkerson]

T6, Leningrad
I let Elmer do the moving for T5 and this is where Elmer moved everybody in the north section of the front lines. This is the very beginning of T6 and I haven't moved anybody yet so the lines are going to change from what you see here.

Elmer's Effectiveness
Even though I have to adjust what Elmer does each turn it IS kind of nice to have most of the moving done for you, however I've noticed that Elmer isn't following the Ruth Bater Ginsburg rule for the units. It used to be known as the red-green-yellow rule but I've renamed it in RBG's honor. So I'm going back to moving the units by hand.

[larryfulkerson]

T8, Smolensk
It's T8 and I've finally captured Smolensk so progress is still happening in some places. In the south I've surrounded Odessa and pressing to the east. And I have reached the east borders of the marshes in the middle. I'm optimistic that even more progress will take place next turn.

[larryfulkerson]

T10, Odessa
It's T10 and I've finally captured Odessa. I expect to be in the Crimea shortly. Things are going well and the only thing going wrong is that the supply levels drop off to zero at the edge of the advance. I need to get some of the rails repaired so the supply can flow better.