Matrix Games Forums

VERSION 3.3 Standard campaign 41

If anyone is interesting, we have a game with lots of shattering units in the 2 first turns of blizzards.

German were well entranched 4-6 and with good readiness 60-80.

My Soviets troops have made +/- 10.000 squads losses in 2 turns without any problem. German troops just shattered in perfect harmony. Not really pleasant for us.

Make all that turns, to arrive at that situation, is too bad for the game.

I can send turns and password, and I think my opponent will do the same.

Marc

Please feel free to send the save game (before the first blizzard turn if possible) and passwords to me at rbancroftATattDOTnet.

Thanks.

Our first blizzard turn has wrecked the game.
My opponent had been digging in, in most sections of the front for over 6 weeks, totally stalled combat in snow.
In first Russian turn I destroyed 6,600 German squads. Worse than that, every time a Russian unit broke a German line, and then continued the attack with the German unit much lower than 50% readiness for the second combat, the German unit shattered.
It has destroyed our game. No German could recover from that one turn. (no special supplies as Russian)
Despite my advice, my german opponent did not use air supply and special supply to boost readiness in first blizzard turn.
He is now repeated turn to try and acheive a less catastrophic result.
If it works better we can continue game.
If not, as many other players have done, we will have to abandon all blizzard combat, have a German withdrawal of perhaps 4 sqaures, and then continue the games after all blizzards are over.
That is terrible.
Wir 3.1 had its problems with German shatters at high supply, but no problems in normal combat.
It had a good blizzard game.
This is catastrophic.
In future, I will play Wir 3.1 only!!!!
All I would love, is a Wir 3.1 with the Russian air supply problem (it reduced readiness instead of increasing it) fixed.
If it was possible for Aunaud to do this small fix, that is all I want and it would produce a good, workable game of wir.
Blizzards in Wir 3.3 without massive use of special supply is a total disaster.
UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Why not just fix a simple, small bug (air supply) instead of redesigining the whole game!!!!

I am Crazy Horse's opponent. I used special supply and airlifts. I had a rock solid line of high strength high readiness (65-90%) corps dug in from 4-6. First turn 4 shatters. Second turn the entire line evaporated.

I'll send my turn and password along to RickyB for his review, but I can't think of anything else I could have done.

Play version 3.1.

I don't quite follow suit here...
When I experienced massive shatterings as the axis player - it was because my opponent hadn't upgraded to V3.3.

When we started a V3.3 game, the russians didn't have any chance at all. The Axis forces shrugged of the blizzards and continued their advance unscatched.

Seems like V3.1 with special rules concerning blizzard conditions is needed to play an interesting 41 campaign game.

weird. Massive shatterings in 3.1 occur if Axis readiness is too high - special supply. In Wir 3.3 if it is too low.
But if you use a continuing attack in Wir 3.3, breakthrough and keep going, the Axis will shatter every time, the point I was trying to make. Unplayable.
And I do not like special supply. Too many mule exploits.

Are these problems going to be fixed though?

Gwynn

up!
is it going to be fixed

I guess it depends on what you consider a problem. The game is working right now as designed, so what is the problem? Now some people don't like the design, but as far as I know there are no plans to change it. It still works much more logically than the tough defenses of the low readiness Germans in 3.1, but 3.1 is there for those that want to play it that way.

Originally posted by RickyB
I guess it depends on what you consider a problem. The game is working right now as designed, so what is the problem? Now some people don't like the design, but as far as I know there are no plans to change it. It still works much more logically than the tough defenses of the low readiness Germans in 3.1, but 3.1 is there for those that want to play it that way.

As designed for what? Player vs. Player? The AI has been ruined by the incredible loses suffered by the Germans in winter warfare. Is like someone took whatever the orginal design was and made German loses x4 in Blizzards. I can defeat the Germans in no time, and there is not even any excitment or any chance for the AI no matter who you play. Defeat Soviets by winter early spring.

Yo...
The russians shatter almost as easily. I have been through 4 blizzards as german in 3.3 PBEM now and I've developed a halfassed excuse for a strategy. I pull back and attack on certain points, fx where I have a pz in a city andf I can combine that attack by including nearby infantry. I always use static attacks to avoid loss due to movement in blizzard. Oftentimes I shatter the russians. Remember, they are in supply 1-3 since the railway doesn't catch up and their readiness is fubar as well.

The losses are still monumental, but it is controllable. In my last turn, I had the reservepool growing again in the mud weeks. Ie, I have an abundance of squads, eager to see all the sights in Stalingrad and to molest the housewifes in Grozny.

/Magnus

This may have been discussed in an (long ago) prior thread, but I'll raise the dead and ask why losses are subtracted from unit strength with the current scheme. It seems like a mistake which no one has addressed because it was part of the origonal coding.

Currently, losses are subtracted from "ready" squads only, and if experience and readiness is low, remaining "ready" squads after a combat round could be 0 (or negative!), leading to shatter. Why are losses not subtracted from TOTAL squads, with "ready" squads then recalculated from that new total. This seems much more logical and realistic. A German or Russian corps/army of 1000 squads with low experience and/or supply does not really fight with (for example) 100 squads; it fights with 1000 each with lowered combat capabilities.

The current system is easier to calculate of course, and maybe DOS limitations prevent a recalculation for each unit combat step. And shatter calculations may need to be redone. But has Arnaud or others evaluated the possiblity of changing the current unit loss subtraction methodology?

/radical

Actually, I am fairly positive this is all part of the original design, to make sure that these types of events happen in certain situations. The remaining strength rarely drops toward 0 except for the Soviets in early 1941 and the Axis in 1941 blizzards.

The game bases the losses on ready squads/equipment, and so that is a fixed upper limit to losses. And losses almost never approach 100%, so shatters are rare except in the above time periods. The game treats those time periods the way it does to make historical results possible. Without the built in tweaks, the Soviets would be much too strong in 1941, and the Germans would survive the initial blizzards too easily, no matter how the sides are played.