Matrix Games Forums

I've seen countless documentaries saying that the taking of Baku and the Caucasus in general would deprive the Soviet Union of its oils reserve. Is that represented in the game at all?

There are evidences that taking Baku gives the Axis a huge increase in Oil Stores + Pool. But what does it mean for the Soviet? Does oil in WITE2 matter at all? Is there any reason to aim for Stalingrad, the Caucasus & Baku as the Axis in the 1941 campaign beside Victory Points?

No.

I concur.

Not much reason to go down there. Stretches the Axis too thin.

The majority of their oil comes from Caucasus so they will get problems. Depends on when they lose it and how large their fuel stores are.
Problem: Soviets dont use up enough of their fuel reserves so they tend to build up huge stores.

Historically, the oil fields of Maikop (in Axis hands) have made no difference. But in WITE2 you will get a huge amount of VPs from the Caspian cities. So - go for it! (Its really a challenge...)

It is a real pity that oil plays virtually no role in a game that aims to recreate the historical conditions of the eastern front as closely as possible.

The entire goal of the German summer offensive of '42 was to (i) take Stalingrad and thus cut off any oil shipments going up the Volga river, (ii) capture the oil fields of the Caucasus which would have been absolutely vital to keep Germany in the war on the long term.

It also baffles me that we have a very intricate resource system (I am not talking about only oil) which has 0 impact on the game.

If one would find the reson why Oil Pool stops declining in GC41 after reaching ~50k the issue could possibly be solved.
I guess it's related to off-map Factory-Upkeep but so far it's just a guess...

Wiedrock wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:43 am If one would find the reson why Oil Pool stops declining in GC41 after reaching ~50k the issue could possibly be solved.
I guess it's related to off-map Factory-Upkeep but so far it's just a guess...

Isn't this like with the Soviet manpower, which remains at the 100-150k level every turn despite a much greater need? This means all resources are spent before the new resources are generated for the turn.

SchDerGrosse wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:39 am It is a real pity that oil plays virtually no role in a game that aims to recreate the historical conditions of the eastern front as closely as possible.

The entire goal of the German summer offensive of '42 was to (i) take Stalingrad and thus cut off any oil shipments going up the Volga river, (ii) capture the oil fields of the Caucasus which would have been absolutely vital to keep Germany in the war on the long term.

It also baffles me that we have a very intricate resource system (I am not talking about only oil) which has 0 impact on the game.

I am also baffled by WitE2 (and other strategy games) having some very detailed, intricate subsystems which can't be meaningfully influenced by the player, are so opaque that players ignore them, or which are even completely meaningless, such as oil seems to be in WitE2.

FortTell wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 6:28 pm

Wiedrock wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:43 am If one would find the reson why Oil Pool stops declining in GC41 after reaching ~50k the issue could possibly be solved.
I guess it's related to off-map Factory-Upkeep but so far it's just a guess...

Isn't this like with the Soviet manpower, which remains at the 100-150k level every turn despite a much greater need? This means all resources are spent before the new resources are generated for the turn.

I don't know about Soviet Manpower. But Ger+Rum are producing like ~200k Fuel each turn. So this leftover ~50k must have another reason that just "consume up to 0 and fill up after that"....I guess...
Fuel Req -> What civilians/industry needs per turn is like 180-200k or so.
Until the game reaches this "equilibrium" Pool+Stores decrease by about 70-80k each turn.
...no idea how all that is supposed to add up or make sense.

EwaldvonKleist wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 9:06 pm

SchDerGrosse wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:39 am It is a real pity that oil plays virtually no role in a game that aims to recreate the historical conditions of the eastern front as closely as possible.

The entire goal of the German summer offensive of '42 was to (i) take Stalingrad and thus cut off any oil shipments going up the Volga river, (ii) capture the oil fields of the Caucasus which would have been absolutely vital to keep Germany in the war on the long term.

It also baffles me that we have a very intricate resource system (I am not talking about only oil) which has 0 impact on the game.

I am also baffled by WitE2 (and other strategy games) having some very detailed, intricate subsystems which can't be meaningfully influenced by the player, are so opaque that players ignore them, or which are even completely meaningless, such as oil seems to be in WitE2.

In part it is because the game has a very long history, so what was thought to be really important 10+ years ago is now redundant. See armaments points for example, or the need to introduce CPP when there was already fatigue, experience, morale, supply, leader ratings, weather etc etc. (Also coders prefer to do what is challenging and sexy and not maintenance which is boring).

I like CPP. Maybe I am in the minority. I wonder of a toggle switch for something like "prepare offensively " vs "prepare defensively" would make it be pretty much fully fleshed out

For those also interested in figuring out wtf is going on.

Looking at pink, orange and purple, one starts thinking "it all makes sense".
But then starting to look at red, turquoise and yellow it all falls apart.

Ofc. the numbers the UI show do not necessarily reflect what's happening behind the scenes. Additional there is some "printing" of certain numbers only once per turn which messes things up by some degree.
Follow the Coloured numbers 1-7 (pink, orange, purple, red, turquoise, yellow, blue).

Contributions or corrections are appreciated.

There was a long thread about this a few months ago about how fuel for the axis player doesn't really matter as the axis never truly run out (there appears to be an engine limitation on that). Hence, going to caucasus just for oil is a bad idea unless you are going for VPs. It is more important to manage your logistics and achieve limited losses as possible.

For a war that was so desperate on resources, not having the axis player be concerned about their fuel / oil depots is an incredibly weird design choice.

Initially when the Axis take Maikop it really means nothing to either side.
The Soviets have Baku, Ufa and Emba. The Soviets also have a new rail-line down the west coast of the Caspian Sea that historically moved a lot of oil. As it went through Astrakhan the capture of Stalingrad was never going to effect it. They also transported significant quanties of oil across the Caspian to Guryev and up that railway as well.
So, what does it mean to the Axis? Well, that depends on how long they can hold it. If they don't get sucked into going after Stalingrad and use the Axis allies to hold the Caucasus they should hold it well into 43. You would think that if they could hold it for 12 months, they would begin to get some significant oil production out of it. Imagine the effect if they could hold it into 44.

Simon Edmonds wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:57 am Initially when the Axis take Maikop it really means nothing to either side.
The Soviets have Baku, Ufa and Emba. The Soviets also have a new rail-line down the west coast of the Caspian Sea that historically moved a lot of oil. As it went through Astrakhan the capture of Stalingrad was never going to effect it. They also transported significant quanties of oil across the Caspian to Guryev and up that railway as well.
So, what does it mean to the Axis? Well, that depends on how long they can hold it. If they don't get sucked into going after Stalingrad and use the Axis allies to hold the Caucasus they should hold it well into 43. You would think that if they could hold it for 12 months, they would begin to get some significant oil production out of it. Imagine the effect if they could hold it into 44.

No, oil production doesn't do anything. It doesn't matter how long you hold it.

You are talking about how you would like the game to work, or how you imagine that it works. It does not actually work that way though.

Beethoven1 wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:57 am

Simon Edmonds wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:57 am Initially when the Axis take Maikop it really means nothing to either side.
The Soviets have Baku, Ufa and Emba. The Soviets also have a new rail-line down the west coast of the Caspian Sea that historically moved a lot of oil. As it went through Astrakhan the capture of Stalingrad was never going to effect it. They also transported significant quanties of oil across the Caspian to Guryev and up that railway as well.
So, what does it mean to the Axis? Well, that depends on how long they can hold it. If they don't get sucked into going after Stalingrad and use the Axis allies to hold the Caucasus they should hold it well into 43. You would think that if they could hold it for 12 months, they would begin to get some significant oil production out of it. Imagine the effect if they could hold it into 44.

No, oil production doesn't do anything. It doesn't matter how long you hold it.

You are talking about how you would like the game to work, or how you imagine that it works. It does not actually work that way though.

I think he's talking history not WITE2 lol. I guess the reason the dev can't make oil relevant is for gameplay balance. Plus it would require a whole lot more programming to have oil matters. My wishlist for WITE3 (if it ever happens in 20 years) would be to have an option before starting the game to have oil matter or not. That would make oil relevant and the Caucasus an actual strategic target.

If you have beaten up the Soviet army so much that you can get to Maikop or even Baku and hold it for a long period of time then they will have already been beaten by virtue of that damage that you've inflicted on them, not by them not having the oil or you having it.

If you aren't able to defeat the Soviet army enough to be able to do this then you will likely follow the historic pattern of retreat back to Germany along your supply lines at the kind of pace where on the level the game works at fuel is not an issue.

This question comes up from time to time and it always seems a bit of a moot point to me?

Sammy5IsAlive wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 6:27 pm If you have beaten up the Soviet army so much that you can get to Maikop or even Baku and hold it for a long period of time then they will have already been beaten by virtue of that damage that you've inflicted on them, not by them not having the oil or you having it.

If you aren't able to defeat the Soviet army enough to be able to do this then you will likely follow the historic pattern of retreat back to Germany along your supply lines at the kind of pace where on the level the game works at fuel is not an issue.

This question comes up from time to time and it always seems a bit of a moot point to me?

That's a fair point!

But making Fuel matter isn't only a thing about taking Baku or not. It's also about preparing for planned Offensives by using less Fuel to have it in stores at the onset of an operation (Ground and Air consumption). This "preparation" is only reflected by freight stored in Depots so far, adding Fuel to it would force you to seize operations in other areas to enable the push in targeted sectors.
Example:
If you know an offensive needs about 30k Fuel a turn and you only add about 15k to the Pool each turn, you know you need to wait/save Fuel for 1 turn before starting an "1-week"-offensive (or you will run dry or only can do the offensive at 50% pace). If you know you'll need at least 5 Weeks for your Offensive you'd need to save Fuel for 5x(30k/15k)/(30k/15k)=5turns (Just as an example...)
Currently you just build a Super Depot and after 2-3 turns you got the freight which can be converted into Fuel as needed without Fuel being in any way a limiting factor.

Good historic examples I'd refer to are Kursk North and Bulge where Operations were initiated without sufficient Fuel stored before.

Here is a great document from John M. Astell (he is a board war game designer from GDW and GRD, aka the Europa series of games, aka Fire in the East/Scorched Earth, and many more).

https://groups.io/g/classiceuropa/files ... Energy.pdf