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I was just thinking about this set of values in the Editor. In SP I feel that as the game progresses there are just too many units on the map and it just becomes a case of bludgeoning the AI with Artillery, then Infantry, to reduce its NM. There is no great strategy involved really. So I am wondering if there is any way of reducing the "clutter" on the map a bit.

One idea I had was to increase the size of Infantry Corps in the major countries to 12, or even 15. I cannot do this as the maximum size is hard-coded at 10. I will have to investigate whether I can reduce the potency of infantry attacks because in the real war most of the advantages were with the defenders, whereas in this game it is the other way round.

There are other adjustments that can be made in this particular tab. The cost of a Reinforcement Point is currently set at 5%. Presumably that is 5% of the cost of a brand new unit? It also has the cost of an Elite Reinforcement Point set at 10%, which is a bit puzzling as I did not know you could replace these. I thought you had to buy them again from scratch.

There is a "Reformable?" box, which if unticked means that once a unit is "destroyed" then it does not return to the war. This is quite interesting because I think the game might benefit from manpower/recruitment limits. Whereas, in the game, the armies tend to get larger and larger, in the real war the armies started to shrink quite considerably as the war progressed. The Austro-Hungarian army reached its maximum size in 1915, I believe.

And then there are two boxes called Reformation Cost and Reformation Delay, which are currently set at 60% and 50% respectively. These are only relevant if the Reformable? box is ticked.

Has anybody experimented with these parameters at all?

Just made a start with this today using my Basic Artillery mod. I have reduced the Artillery range to 2 hexes and restricted Research chits for any Category that previously could have 3 or more chits to a maximum of 2 (e.g. Trench warfare, Submarines etc).

I have doubled the cost of replacing a strength point to 10 % and I have increased the Reformation Cost to 80% and the Reformation Delay to 70%, thereby making the replenishment of losses more expensive and a longer process altogether. It also means concentrating more carefully on the rotation of units to and from the front line as well as making sure units are controlled by an HQ when fighting. I have initially made these changes across the board for Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery and HQ's as well as Aircraft. Ships remain untouched for the time being. I am keeping a stat of units "destroyed" and the number of units purchased as I go along to see to what extent I might also be able to reduce Build Limits to stop the map filling up with units in the later stages of the war.

Right on...looking forward to see more. btw..mdsmall and I just started discussing some 'adjustments'...including a bunch of the issues that came to for during the M-Gambit fandango...but not just that localized problem, (for a mod). We probably are going to need help with this. We are just in the preliminary stages and may keep things off the forum for a little bit.

The potency of the attacks vs defender for WW1 has been noted by many from the get go, but I had read before the rational was to keep the tempo at a certain pace, i believe. Still, it will be interesting what you come up with.

I like where your going with the artillery. I'll have to admit though, that I haven't done a match since the last patch version because of the M-Gambit and its ramifications. Tanaka and I were planning a full campaign with AAR's done by me...but we aborted that till we see something by the dev's or a mod.

mdsmall and I are comparing what we both agree on for fixes, based on our suggestions and others in the forums, including you.

Most of where we are going deals with Entente issues now...but other things for both sides are on the table., including artillery I believe. The strength point replacement cost increase looks interesting btw.

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

Right on...looking forward to see more. btw..mdsmall and I just started discussing some 'adjustments'...including a bunch of the issues that came to for during the M-Gambit fandango...but not just that localized problem, (for a mod). We probably are going to need help with this. We are just in the preliminary stages and may keep things off the forum for a little bit.

OK, good luck with those endeavours.

The potency of the attacks vs defender for WW1 has been noted by many from the get go, but I had read before the rational was to keep the tempo at a certain pace, i believe. Still, it will be interesting what you come up with.

Yes, I do understand that gameplay considerations can trump historical accuracy at times. I think though that it might be possible to do a bit more to give the various fronts a bit more character. The Western Front was bogged down for much of the war, while there was more movement in the east. At the moment the Italian Front develops just like the Western Front, even though there were steep mountains there, so that doesn't seem right.

In the AGEOD game they have a feature called "Marching to the Sound of the Guns", which enables adjacent stacks to move to support the friendly stack being attacked. They have to take a test and if they pass they temporarily move into the hex of the friendly unit, fight, then move back to their original hex. This is all handled by the AI. Obviously the AGEOD game is very different to this game. It's scale is much larger and it is a WEGO game rather than IGOUGO. But it does raise the question in this game whether supporting adjacent units could give some sort of defensive bonus to a friendly unit being singled out for attack.

I like where your going with the artillery. I'll have to admit though, that I haven't done a match since the last patch version because of the M-Gambit and its ramifications. Tanaka and I were planning a full campaign with AAR's done by me...but we aborted that till we see something by the dev's or a mod.

Yes, my artillery changes do work. The only "issue" with reducing the number of guns is an aesthetic one really as there is obviously much less firing. Whereas in films you can hear the guns all the time. If we moved to a situation where artillery did not de-entrench every turn, or kill and de-entrench at the same time, then you could have more guns without them completely dominating the later game. The further linkage to other Techs for shells (Production Tech) and accuracy (Long Range Aircraft) would be very interesting, I believe.

mdsmall and I are comparing what we both agree on for fixes, based on our suggestions and others in the forums, including you.

Most of where we are going deals with Entente issues now...but other things for both sides are on the table., including artillery I believe. The strength point replacement cost increase looks interesting btw.

Yes, I may not have the values right yet, but I think it is currently too easy to replace a unit that is "destroyed". When this happens in the game I think it should be more of a setback, so increasing the replacement costs seems a fairly obvious thing to do to start off with. I do think that being able to refit the same unit over and over again when it is continually "destroyed" is also an issue. Maybe units should be re-fitted once at a discounted cost, but after that they should go back into the unit roster and cost full price to mobilise again?

The other issue is that armies did not continue to get bigger for the duration of the war. They actually got smaller! Austria-Hungary reached its maximum size in 1915, whereas other countries reached their peak in 1916/17. So manpower limits, linked to NM, might be something to investigate as well?

Hi - you have mentioned in various other places on this forum that you have been experimenting with restricting operational movement so that units moved this way must end their turn on a hex with a rail line. What was your logic in doing that and what effect has it had in your recent games? Do you see this as a stand alone change, or something to be done in conjunction with other changes?

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

Hi - you have mentioned in various other places on this forum that you have been experimenting with restricting operational movement so that units moved this way must end their turn on a hex with a rail line. What was your logic in doing that and what effect has it had in your recent games? Do you see this as a stand alone change, or something to be done in conjunction with other changes?

Well, in the vanilla game it just made "operating" seem like some sort of futuristic teleportation to me. Moving large number of soldiers about, particularly in regions with a limited railway infrastructure, would have been a lot more cumbersome and difficult in logistical terms. Yet units can travel virtually unlimited distance on railway lines and then deploy up a mountain, if they want to, all in one turn.

So I just started to experiment with the very obvious idea of restricting the operational move to the railway lines. I think I like the change so far. It is very straightforward for starters and it does mean you have to "forward think" a bit more about your operating of units. It would also kill things like the "Montenegro gambit" stone dead, particularly if you removed the Dalmatian "light railway" as well (which I have also done and also think is a good change).

I see it as something to be done in conjunction with other changes really. In the very broadest sense I think it might help to slow the tempo of the game down a little bit, which might be beneficial in MP where players are saying that a high proportion of games are decided, if not actually finished, by the end of 1916.

In WitE (War in the East), units that railed are restricted to rail line hexes only. Now this take planning, as units going to one sector have to be planned in advance and can get piled up behind the railhead..which is realistic.

Now, that's a game wide change, but it should be looked at closer for sure.

On the subject of rail snips, like the Sarajevo-Ragusa line and the Cetinje-Pec line, I think this localized change is the way to go for a partial solution to the M-Gambit..but the Serbia and Greece issues are still there.

Its going to take a 'package deal' to get the Entente portion of the Balkans squared away...which we are honing in on now.

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

In WitE (War in the East), units that railed are restricted to rail line hexes only. Now this take planning, as units going to one sector have to be planned in advance and can get piled up behind the railhead..which is realistic.

Now, that's a game wide change, but it should be looked at closer for sure.

The other thing at the moment is that a player can have an unlimited number of "operating" moves in a turn provided there are enough MPP's available. That also seems slightly off to me. Whether there could be a cap on the number of "operations" per turn, maybe adjusted for a country's initial railway infrastructure and then Logistics/Industrial Tech development during the war, I don't know. It might be a step too far, I suppose.

On the subject of rail snips, like the Sarajevo-Ragusa line and the Cetinje-Pec line, I think this localized change is the way to go for a partial solution to the M-Gambit..but the Serbia and Greece issues are still there.

Its going to take a 'package deal' to get the Entente portion of the Balkans squared away...which we are honing in on now.

Yes, there is more than one thing that needs looking at. Greece is very awkward as it seemed to lose its independence during the war and it had great political instability too.