Joel Billings wrote: Wed Oct 25, 2023 9:08 pm
Balance implications are minimal as far as I can tell. How many new units are being forced to be combat unit that you want to be multi-role? For how long are these units around? My experience is this game is a like trying to turn a battleship, it takes major changes to have much of an impact on balance. A few units here or there doesn't impact much. What am I missing?
Here's the part that you are missing about why multi-role support units make such a big difference beyond what their limited size and number would suggest.
First of all, they are essentially fire brigade units, which can be teleported back and forth between OKH and the map every other turn. This means that unlike regular units which have to move normally, they can and will always be in wherever the most important part of the front is, and especially in whatever the most important particular hexes are. When they are sent back to OKH, they also will receive 130% supply and 130% ammo, and can be refitted and receive replacements without using freight
(yes, this is obviously unrealistic, but Soviets can and do do the same thing, so if you take away the ability for Axis to do it but not for Soviets to do the same thing, that greatly affects balance).
Secondly, they are the only way you can stack more CV onto a single hex than what is normally allowed by just having 3 counters. Winning or losing a battle is binary, so this can make a binary difference between a hold or retreat in any given battle. So multi-role units are good for the same reason why, say, rifle corps are better than rifle divisions for Soviets.
Thirdly, they are particularly important to Axis for making and especially HOLDING pockets. What will typically happen in, say, 1941 is (assuming the Axis player bothers to go for pockets at all rather than just grind), after you form a pocket, you will see that there is a weak hex somewhere holding the pocket. You anticipate that the Soviet player will want to attack that hex to try to break the pocket. So after you have moved your units to try to hold the pocket, you attach whatever multi-role support units you can. Since the multi-role units teleport into position, then unlike the Panzer divisions and motorized division, they do not take fatigue from ZOC-ZOC movement, whereas the Panzer/motorized division holding the pocket while be fatigued, low on fuel/supply, and weak from having moved and probably attacked during the turn. As such, if you attach 1 or 2 of the RFSS brigades, or if you attach Lehr or Grossdeutschland or even various other units like the Oslo infantry regiment or whatever, that can easily double the CV or number of men who are holding a pocket closed. Simply put, if the Axis player has the ability to attach these SUs, the pocket (maybe) holds. If not, the pocket is broken.
Whether the Soviet player can win or lose a battle attacking that particular hex is absolutely vital to whether the pocket will hold or whether the pocket will be broken, because the battle result is binary (it will either be a hold or a retreat) and the isolation status of he pocketed units is also binary (either they will remain isolated or they will become unisolated).
As such, anything that nerfs multi-role units is a direct nerf to pockets, and shifts the meta further towards World War 1 grinding and away from pockets. If you cannot attach multi-role units to hold pockets, then pockets will be even easier for the Soviets to break than is already the case (and it is already too easy for them to break pockets). As such, no sane Axis player will try to form pockets, even more so than is already the case, and everyone will just do herding and deliberate attacks instead.
Here is a specific example that shows the difference multi-role units can make:
Here I was playing Axis against Stamb in Stalingrad to Berlin. I wanted to try to pocket his units along the coast of the Black Sea, isolate his units with naval interdiction, and subsequently eliminate the pocket in following turns:
So I sneakily moved Wiking and a Panzer division, as well as a few other units, to the critical point the turn prior. That is what that 29=x stack is. Multi-role units were vital to this plan, because I wanted to make absolutely sure that my attack would succeed (not necessarily a given with a level 3 fort on rough terrain) and also that I would subsequently be ale to hold the pocket (not necessarily a given either since hypothetically Soviets could attack with up to 9 rifle corps, each of which could have 3 attached rifle brigades. That could mean, in theory, a Soviet attack to break the pocket with as many as 400k+ men (each rifle corps can have up to ~45k men with the rifle brigades). Plus artillery etc.
Anyway, in this case I actually got lucky because Stamb randomly happened to have weakened his defense of the critical hex on exactly the turn just before which I was about to attack, he replaced it so that only a single rifle brigade (albeit a guards rifle brigade) was defending the key hex.
In this case, I probably could have attacked with less force (and was aware of that) due to the hex having been weakened, but I still wanted to make ABSOLUTELY sure that I won. Because I would only have 1 single shot at this. If it failed, Stamb would reinforce the hex next turn and my plans for a pocket here would be irrecoverable. So I attached plenty of support units to make absolutely sure, first of all, that I would win:
I then moved Wiking and a Romanian cavalry division onto the hex to hold the hex. Combined they had about 40k men.
Nearly half of those 40k men holding the crucial hex to make sure the pocket held were from support units:
Wiking SUs:
Romanian cav SUs:
In this case, the pocket was relatively safe because he did not actually have much nearby to attack with (that is one of the main reasons I thought it was a worthwhile operation), but you could imagine a similar situation where Axis is trying to do a pocket near Vyazma in '41 or '42, and Soviets have plenty to counterattack with. Can the pocket be held in that case?
Here is another example, a few turns later in the same game a few turns later.
Stamb and I were fighting over this one hex for about 5 turns in a row. It is important because it is a swamp hex, also behind a river along this rail line to Valdai. It is particularly important for 2 reasons. Either it is a great defensive hex for Axis (much better than defending the clear terrain behind it at Staraya Russa), or alternatively it is the key hex along the rail line Axis needs to have to be able to push into Valdai/Demyansk, and from there to at least potentially threaten to cut off the Soviet Toropets salient.
First I attacked it and occupied it with 1 division.
Stamb kicked me off and took it back.
Then I attacked it again and occupied it with 1 division and a few regiments.
Stamb kicked me off and took it back.
Then I attacked again and occupied it with 2 divisions.
Stamb kicked me off and took it back.
Then I attacked again and occupied it with 3 divisions.
Stamb kicked me off and took it back.
Then I attacked again and occupied it with 3 divisions AND
ALSO attached multi-role units. I don't want to get too specific because it is an ongoing game, but let's just say that at least part of what I did to at least 1 division was this:
Notice one of those is the Netherlands SS regiment, the same one that a few turns earlier had helped Wiking to seal the pocket along the coast. But afterwards I sent it back to OKH, refit it and got it supplied, and then teleported it here to this important hex in Demyansk.
Without the multi-role units, that one division is much weaker, about 15k men:
But with the multi-roles attached, it was transformed into 25k men, which helped make sure I could hold the hex and have some time to build up forts against Stamb's rifle corps.
And what do you know, after that at least up until now I held the hex. And now I am building up the fort levels, so that with the forts subsequently it will become harder for Stamb to take it back. And either it can then anchor my defense in the area (much better than defending the clear hex behind it), or alternatively maybe I can push on and threaten to cut off his salient at some point.
And here is yet another example, also from the same game, a few turns earlier. Stamb was snaking forward with a Guards rifle corps without protecting his flanks, and I happened to have a bunch of high CPP mobile units around, and so I pocketed it. For this key attack to form the pocket, notice I used the Netherlands SS regiment. I could have maybe won without it, but it would have been a lot more questionable (or else I would have had to attack with a mobile unit, but then the pocket would have been less strong with perhaps 2 divisions holding it rather than 3)
I also attached as many SUs as I could to the panzer and motorized divisions which were holding the pocket (there were only so many available since it was only turn 3).
Despite the pocket looking fairly strong, Stamb managed to break it. That just goes to show you to what extreme lengths you have to go to to hold pockets, which is why multi-role units are absolutely vital for Axis:
Also note that in all of Stamb's attacks, he is using attached rifle brigades (which goes to show you how important multi-role units also are for Soviets).
I re-sealed the pocket, again using as many multi-role support units as I could (still limited numbers available on turn 4) to seal it as well as possible. Also notice that I have weird triple stacks including an air HQ and a FBD. This is intentional in order to make my units retreat the right way:
If Stamb were able to beat Grossdeutschland again, this time it would not retreat onto the hex along the blue arrow, but would retreat on the red line to the hex where I had a new full TOE 9=84 infantry division. And then he would be unlikely to beat that AND Grossdeutschland stacked together. Or alternatively, if he somehow managed to beat the 9=84 infantry division, it would retreat to the right onto Grossdeutschland, and then it would be hard for him to beat both of those together.
Anyway, so just within the first 8 turns of this game, that one Netherlands SS regiment was playing an important role in forming a pocket in Velikie Luki, forming and holding a large pocket in the Caucasus, and also in making sure I finally held a hotly contested hex in Demyansk. And it takes some time to get multi-role units set up (especially since many start in theater boxes), so if this were a Grand Campaign rather than StB, multi-role units would if anything be playing a larger role by this point in the game.
They are really the key enabler for Axis to hope to be able to do any sort of pockets. Without them, you may as well buy a world war 1 game instead. How about
Gary Grigsby's 1916: The Great War in the East, anyone?
One last thing to think about. This is from M60s AAR from his game against jubjub:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=398345
Jubjub is pushing north to try to cut off Leningrad at Lake Ladoga. To do this, he has to advance on a narrow 1 or 2 hex wide front. Frontal assaults in rough terrain are very difficult, especially if you can only attack from 1 direction (3 division max). I would bet strongly that jubjub has at least one RFSS brigade attached to Totenkopf here in order to be able to do this push (pretty sure they started this game before the OOB 2.0 changes).
Now ask yourself the question, what if they were playing with this change? Could jubjub still push? What if M60 brough up 3 of his best mountaineers, and attached 3 7000 man AT brigades to each of them and put 3 of them on the crucial hex each turn to the north-east towards Lake Ladoga, so that M60 could have up to ~66k men defending the key hex for the turn in swamp/heavy forest. Could jubjub still push towards Lake Ladoga, or would he run into a brick wall where he could no longer attack and M60 started being able to build up his fort levels?
