Suggestions for WeGo System and Questions
Posted: Tue May 02, 2023 2:30 pm
Hello, I’ve been enjoying this game quite a bit. Here are a few suggestions to improve realism and playability. Some might be easier to implement than others. They could be considered as a patch or perhaps improvements for the next installment. I also have some questions at the bottom.
Stacking
Right now, the stacking is mostly based on unit size. It’s a good starting point, but there are many situations where this runs into issues. For example, a regiment is four stacking points, but then it breaks down into three units with two stacking points each. The regiment is certainly easier to control when all together, but this seems a bit much. Also, there are some units such as engineers and big gun units that might be designated as a regiment, but are really more battalion sized (or perhaps two battalions, like a Soviet tank unit). The system doesn’t really take this into account. Adjusting stacking could thus entail a few changes.
1. Change the number of stacking point in each hex from 9 to 6. Make regiments could as 3 and battalions as 1. Let HQs and small company size units stack for free. Adjust the stacking size of all units to be based on the actual unit size rather than its formal designation.
Another issue is that when units are weakened, they still take up a normal amount of stacking, even when only at 1/3 strength. This is a common occurrence in many scenarios. While perhaps requiring more programming, this one has an easy fix.
2. To determine a unit’s stacking size, multiply its normal stacking size by the percent strength remaining and then round up. One complication is if a unit receives replacements in such a way as to put it into overstacking. I don’t think that this is a big issue, we should realistically avoid people exploiting the system by putting many small units in an important defense area and then heavily reinforcing them. This can be done by imposing a fairly harsh defense strength penalty if units happen to be overstacked (perhaps reduce the strength by 10% for each point that is overstacked while also increasing attacker strength by 10%).
A final issue is that not all space in a hex is the same. The infantry are undoubtedly occupying completely different positions than the vehicles and won’t feed crowded by them. In many cases, even the guns in a hex would not crowd infantry too much (especially artillery positioned for indirect fire), perhaps only competing with antitank guns, with a single gun only taking a single squads position.
3. Allow vehicles to have a separate stacking allowance. It could be less than 6, perhaps 4 to permit two soviet tank brigades to stack together as they can now. Optionally, have a separate stacking for guns, though this one is more debatable.
Road Transit and Unit Passthroughs
In general, units would often pass though each other going to or retreating from the front. Right now, this is not possible. However, these are not blocks of pikemen. They are highly dispersed in the hex and could easily pass though a hex even if there were a number of units equal to over twice the stacking limit. The stacking limit is really about not getting too concentrated for combat (against artillery in particular). Thus, I’d argue that units should be allowed to move though each other freely.
4. Units can move freely, regardless of the presence of other units. They must attempt to end their turn without being in an overstacked position. If something unexpected happens that results in them being overstacked, then players may be in an unfortunate situation if their opponent can take advantage of this (see #2 above).
If this seems to extreme, then perhaps at least allow units to passthrough others when moving along a road (other units certainly aren’t using the road for their deployment). This prevents units deployed in towns (such as HQ/AA groups) interfering with other units’ redeployment.
Organizational Cohesion
Right now, the organization cohesion strength reduction is a nice way to keep organizations together, something that is often missing in other games of similar scale, and I particularly appreciate the reduced penalties that German units get, due to their greater flexibility in these sorts of matters. It’s also nice to be able to reassign divisions between corps. However, we can sometimes run into some issues that reduce the realism of these implementations. One of them is obvious. Units shouldn’t get increased strength just because they are together with other units of the same organization. Command and control is important, but there’s nothing special about putting units together without a specific reason (especially if they are just broken down battalions of the same regiment).
5. Don’t increase organizational integrity to above 100 in any circumstance. There are plenty of other mechanisms for improved command and control.
Other matters are a little more subtle, and there are lots of possible variations for improvements, depending on the game designer’s preferences. For example, I’d argue that it is notably more difficult for two divisions in a corps to coordinate with each other than for one division to coordinate with corps troops, such as antitank or artillery units that may routinely be attached to a division.
6A. Thus, rather than counting organization integrity by upward jumps to higher HQs, I would suggest that you go in a path directly from one HQ to another. Moving “UP” the chain of command would carry a less harsh penalty than moving “DOWN” the chain of command (perhaps “down would count for double, which would necessitate making a new organization integrity table, so that shouldn’t be too bad).
6B. This means that there would be two types of “higher level” troops. One type would be directly attached to higher level HQs (such as corps and armies). These types of units could get along reasonably well with units under command of the higher level HQ. For example, an antitank battalion in a corps would integrate fairly smoothly with a regiment from a division that is part of the corps. The other type of higher level unit would have a “dummy HQ” such as the Soviet artillery groups. For these, you would have to trace up to the higher level HQ, and then down to the “dummy HQ”, so these types of support would be much less able to coordinate with lower level units (Soviet artillery being the best example).
6C. Right now, only one type of unit can switch it’s higher organization: divisions can switch corps within the same army. To a large extent, this makes sense because the battles are on a relatively short timescale of a few days or a couple weeks. However, some units would be even more likely to be shuffled between higher organizations. These include lots of corps-level support units (which could be moved as individuals rather than just HQs being moved, though HQ groups could be included in this). Perhaps they could be moved between corps, and support units could potentially even be moved up to “army level”. If this seems too flexible, then a small readiness penalty could be applied to a unit or HQ switching organization.
Shock
Armor shock is of course a necessary part of almost any operational level WWII game, and it is generally implemented pretty well here. However, there are some little situations where it perhaps doesn’t give quite the imagined result. For example, one of my rifle regiments supported by an antitank battalion was recent accosted by a panzer battalion plus accompaniments. They were dug in, so I thought there would be at least some level of anti-tank protection there... but I was wrong. Because the antitank shock of my antitank battalion was 2, and it represented only 1/3 of the total stacking in the hex, it shock was sadly rounded to zero. If it was with a motorized regiment, then it would have retained a shock of 2, but would this really have been that different of a situation “on the ground”? The motorized regiment certainly wouldn’t keep its trucks near the front, though potential for rapid redeployment would perhaps still have provided some advantage. At the same time, would the antitank battalion really provide no benefit at all against the panzer battalion when working with a foot regiment? Meanwhile, should a tiny half-strength tank brigade really provide the same level of shock shifts against a half-strength antitank battalion, compared to a robust antitank regiment (each together with some mechanized infantry to allow full shock)? There are several potential solutions to these, so here are two possible fixes (that should not be combined together).
7A. Quick solution: On defense, don’t penalize stacks for having some units that lack “shock zero” (are foot). On offense, cut shock in half at most, even if over half the stacking value is compared of units that are not “shock zero” foot (this is the “the StuG battalion can still help” rule).
7B. Complicated solution: Instead of the current method, calculate shock by a much more complicated method. Each unit would contribute “shock points” based on its size and strength (so no penalty for leg units, which just contribute zero, or perhaps even some very small number). The ratio of these shock points would determine the number of shock shifts, limited to a maximum based on the best attacker units (I could make a suitable table for this is needed).
Another aspect of shock is that it is not really just tanks, assault guns, and direct fire support. A bunch of tanks won’t be terribly useful alone in all but the most extreme circumstances (infantry in open terrain and not dug-in). The “shock” units need infantry support for combined arms!
8. If there is no battalion-sized unit with at least 50% strength (or regiment sized with at least 20% strength), then net shock is halved. This applies to both the attacker and the defender.
Questions
Do units with "hold at all costs" orders always take 20% more casualties, or only if they would have otherwise been forced to retreat?
Do air units assigned to interdiction ever suffer any strength or readiness losses?
Is there any way to assault over major rivers, or can you only sneak across if there is no enemy on the other side of a pontoon bridge?
I tried to give replacements to the guards division in the "6th Army attacks" scenario. However, the strength did not increase, even though almost all the units were at 90% strength. None of the units in this division moved, though during the turn, an enemy unit moved next to one of the infantry regiments. Is this a bug, or did I misunderstand something about replacements?
Stacking
Right now, the stacking is mostly based on unit size. It’s a good starting point, but there are many situations where this runs into issues. For example, a regiment is four stacking points, but then it breaks down into three units with two stacking points each. The regiment is certainly easier to control when all together, but this seems a bit much. Also, there are some units such as engineers and big gun units that might be designated as a regiment, but are really more battalion sized (or perhaps two battalions, like a Soviet tank unit). The system doesn’t really take this into account. Adjusting stacking could thus entail a few changes.
1. Change the number of stacking point in each hex from 9 to 6. Make regiments could as 3 and battalions as 1. Let HQs and small company size units stack for free. Adjust the stacking size of all units to be based on the actual unit size rather than its formal designation.
Another issue is that when units are weakened, they still take up a normal amount of stacking, even when only at 1/3 strength. This is a common occurrence in many scenarios. While perhaps requiring more programming, this one has an easy fix.
2. To determine a unit’s stacking size, multiply its normal stacking size by the percent strength remaining and then round up. One complication is if a unit receives replacements in such a way as to put it into overstacking. I don’t think that this is a big issue, we should realistically avoid people exploiting the system by putting many small units in an important defense area and then heavily reinforcing them. This can be done by imposing a fairly harsh defense strength penalty if units happen to be overstacked (perhaps reduce the strength by 10% for each point that is overstacked while also increasing attacker strength by 10%).
A final issue is that not all space in a hex is the same. The infantry are undoubtedly occupying completely different positions than the vehicles and won’t feed crowded by them. In many cases, even the guns in a hex would not crowd infantry too much (especially artillery positioned for indirect fire), perhaps only competing with antitank guns, with a single gun only taking a single squads position.
3. Allow vehicles to have a separate stacking allowance. It could be less than 6, perhaps 4 to permit two soviet tank brigades to stack together as they can now. Optionally, have a separate stacking for guns, though this one is more debatable.
Road Transit and Unit Passthroughs
In general, units would often pass though each other going to or retreating from the front. Right now, this is not possible. However, these are not blocks of pikemen. They are highly dispersed in the hex and could easily pass though a hex even if there were a number of units equal to over twice the stacking limit. The stacking limit is really about not getting too concentrated for combat (against artillery in particular). Thus, I’d argue that units should be allowed to move though each other freely.
4. Units can move freely, regardless of the presence of other units. They must attempt to end their turn without being in an overstacked position. If something unexpected happens that results in them being overstacked, then players may be in an unfortunate situation if their opponent can take advantage of this (see #2 above).
If this seems to extreme, then perhaps at least allow units to passthrough others when moving along a road (other units certainly aren’t using the road for their deployment). This prevents units deployed in towns (such as HQ/AA groups) interfering with other units’ redeployment.
Organizational Cohesion
Right now, the organization cohesion strength reduction is a nice way to keep organizations together, something that is often missing in other games of similar scale, and I particularly appreciate the reduced penalties that German units get, due to their greater flexibility in these sorts of matters. It’s also nice to be able to reassign divisions between corps. However, we can sometimes run into some issues that reduce the realism of these implementations. One of them is obvious. Units shouldn’t get increased strength just because they are together with other units of the same organization. Command and control is important, but there’s nothing special about putting units together without a specific reason (especially if they are just broken down battalions of the same regiment).
5. Don’t increase organizational integrity to above 100 in any circumstance. There are plenty of other mechanisms for improved command and control.
Other matters are a little more subtle, and there are lots of possible variations for improvements, depending on the game designer’s preferences. For example, I’d argue that it is notably more difficult for two divisions in a corps to coordinate with each other than for one division to coordinate with corps troops, such as antitank or artillery units that may routinely be attached to a division.
6A. Thus, rather than counting organization integrity by upward jumps to higher HQs, I would suggest that you go in a path directly from one HQ to another. Moving “UP” the chain of command would carry a less harsh penalty than moving “DOWN” the chain of command (perhaps “down would count for double, which would necessitate making a new organization integrity table, so that shouldn’t be too bad).
6B. This means that there would be two types of “higher level” troops. One type would be directly attached to higher level HQs (such as corps and armies). These types of units could get along reasonably well with units under command of the higher level HQ. For example, an antitank battalion in a corps would integrate fairly smoothly with a regiment from a division that is part of the corps. The other type of higher level unit would have a “dummy HQ” such as the Soviet artillery groups. For these, you would have to trace up to the higher level HQ, and then down to the “dummy HQ”, so these types of support would be much less able to coordinate with lower level units (Soviet artillery being the best example).
6C. Right now, only one type of unit can switch it’s higher organization: divisions can switch corps within the same army. To a large extent, this makes sense because the battles are on a relatively short timescale of a few days or a couple weeks. However, some units would be even more likely to be shuffled between higher organizations. These include lots of corps-level support units (which could be moved as individuals rather than just HQs being moved, though HQ groups could be included in this). Perhaps they could be moved between corps, and support units could potentially even be moved up to “army level”. If this seems too flexible, then a small readiness penalty could be applied to a unit or HQ switching organization.
Shock
Armor shock is of course a necessary part of almost any operational level WWII game, and it is generally implemented pretty well here. However, there are some little situations where it perhaps doesn’t give quite the imagined result. For example, one of my rifle regiments supported by an antitank battalion was recent accosted by a panzer battalion plus accompaniments. They were dug in, so I thought there would be at least some level of anti-tank protection there... but I was wrong. Because the antitank shock of my antitank battalion was 2, and it represented only 1/3 of the total stacking in the hex, it shock was sadly rounded to zero. If it was with a motorized regiment, then it would have retained a shock of 2, but would this really have been that different of a situation “on the ground”? The motorized regiment certainly wouldn’t keep its trucks near the front, though potential for rapid redeployment would perhaps still have provided some advantage. At the same time, would the antitank battalion really provide no benefit at all against the panzer battalion when working with a foot regiment? Meanwhile, should a tiny half-strength tank brigade really provide the same level of shock shifts against a half-strength antitank battalion, compared to a robust antitank regiment (each together with some mechanized infantry to allow full shock)? There are several potential solutions to these, so here are two possible fixes (that should not be combined together).
7A. Quick solution: On defense, don’t penalize stacks for having some units that lack “shock zero” (are foot). On offense, cut shock in half at most, even if over half the stacking value is compared of units that are not “shock zero” foot (this is the “the StuG battalion can still help” rule).
7B. Complicated solution: Instead of the current method, calculate shock by a much more complicated method. Each unit would contribute “shock points” based on its size and strength (so no penalty for leg units, which just contribute zero, or perhaps even some very small number). The ratio of these shock points would determine the number of shock shifts, limited to a maximum based on the best attacker units (I could make a suitable table for this is needed).
Another aspect of shock is that it is not really just tanks, assault guns, and direct fire support. A bunch of tanks won’t be terribly useful alone in all but the most extreme circumstances (infantry in open terrain and not dug-in). The “shock” units need infantry support for combined arms!
8. If there is no battalion-sized unit with at least 50% strength (or regiment sized with at least 20% strength), then net shock is halved. This applies to both the attacker and the defender.
Questions
Do units with "hold at all costs" orders always take 20% more casualties, or only if they would have otherwise been forced to retreat?
Do air units assigned to interdiction ever suffer any strength or readiness losses?
Is there any way to assault over major rivers, or can you only sneak across if there is no enemy on the other side of a pontoon bridge?
I tried to give replacements to the guards division in the "6th Army attacks" scenario. However, the strength did not increase, even though almost all the units were at 90% strength. None of the units in this division moved, though during the turn, an enemy unit moved next to one of the infantry regiments. Is this a bug, or did I misunderstand something about replacements?