weird result

[petdoc]

Just finished the historical Eindhoven campaign as allies, painful, realistic. At game end my winometer sat 3/4 way through the decisive victory range. Had ALL the VP locations and full points. Had 10000 kills to 5000 for axis. However, it said I had 100 vp to 99 for axis and sat as a draw in AAR screen. Am I missing something? The winometer and VP didnt match at all. Its on my laptop (working hard at office lol), so it will take a bit of time to post a screen shot (no internet on laptop). Thanks for any help.

[Mr.Frag]

Hmm, the VP are all time based, not control at the end of the scenario. How long did it take you to kick the other side off them?

You might want to load it as the Germans and take a look at the point values they have for holding locations! They are insane compared to what the Allies get for holding them.

Looking at it, you not only have to kick them off really fast, but you have to ensure they never get control back.

[MarkShot]

I know that I have seen instances where the WinMeter reported resulted did not correlate with the AAR reported result. However, I cannot recall the reasons that accounted for that. I suspect that Steve Long will be by in a few hours and explain the mechanics of how that happens.

[Mr.Frag]

Is the meter running off real time results or is it dealing with totals Mark?

I can imagine where because he controls everything it would show a high total yet lots of time had gone by and the Axis had amassed too many points to be countered.

[MarkShot]

We'll just have to wait for Steve or Dave. It's been explained to me, but I just don't manage to retain all this stuff in my head. It's a good thing that Dave never gives the beta testers pop quizes from time to time!

[petdoc]

I controlled 90% of sites for 90% of the game, when I looked at sites it showed my total vs max

[KNac007]

VP meter doesn't count the occupation points gained by your enemy. That's maybe the reson why it didn't correlate to final conditions.

The germans gain a lot of points in that scenario just cutting of you at one point, that's why you have to occupe ll of them from early in the game.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: petdoc

Just finished the historical Eindhoven campaign as allies, painful, realistic. At game end my winometer sat 3/4 way through the decisive victory range. Had ALL the VP locations and full points. Had 10000 kills to 5000 for axis. However, it said I had 100 vp to 99 for axis and sat as a draw in AAR screen. Am I missing something? The winometer and VP didnt match at all. Its on my laptop (working hard at office lol), so it will take a bit of time to post a screen shot (no internet on laptop). Thanks for any help.

I played same scenario recently as well. I also got 100:99 (draw) on points, even though I occupied most of VP-rich locations immediatelly on start and never let them go for the duration of the scenario. I also managed roughly 1:2 kill ratio in my (Allied) favor, and it ended as I said 100:99.

Perhaps this outcome 99:100 is hard coded in this scenario? [:D]

Well, since you receive points in relation to the time you spend occupying the victory location, I just assumed I had to occupy them even sooner, and occupy them ALL (not "just" 90% of them) in order to win.

In other words I just declared the scenario as it is ridicolously hard (or perhaps with buggy victory point allocation), and decided that I actually won by any reasonable standard [8D]

That was vs. AI so it was easy, but vs. human I assume there will be some harsh words exchanged...[8|]

Oleg

[petdoc]

Well you cant get 100 VP without occupying the VP locations for a long time, as you get a max of 5 VP for eliminating the enemy, and you get no VP for just occupying at the end. Truly, if they get 99vp for the very short period of time they occupied (more like contested) the victory locations (mostly the 3 and 5 vp ones) I declare this scenario more difficult than "MarkShot's challenge" (Mook Right Hook as the Axis - try to get decisive victory)

[deadman]

I've seen it as well. Too many games ago to remember the exact scenerio. My winometer and VP didn't match. The meter said I clearly won and on the AAR it said that the game was a draw. Didn't think too much of it at the time.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: petdoc

Well you cant get 100 VP without occupying the VP locations for a long time, as you get a max of 5 VP for eliminating the enemy, and you get no VP for just occupying at the end. Truly, if they get 99vp for the very short period of time they occupied (more like contested) the victory locations (mostly the 3 and 5 vp ones) I declare this scenario more difficult than "MarkShot's challenge" (Mook Right Hook as the Axis - try to get decisive victory)

Funny thing is this scenario is not that hard to play (I felt I was in control f the situation 100% of the time) but victory conditions are next to impossible.

O.

[petdoc]

Ya I agree. I felt I was in control the whole game and dont know how I could have done a lot better, especially 99vp better!

[Golf33]

KNac is correct, the WinMeter does not take into account the enemy occupation points. It is always a good idea to carefully read the briefings, both the overall brief and your side brief, because they often contain useful information about the enemy's likely objectives that can help you to deny him any success.

As far as the Eindhoven campaign is concerned, the Germans have access to around 1000 VP worth of occupation points for their various bridges and towns. In other words, if they hold all their objectives for 10% of the game, or one-tenth of the objectives for the whole game, they will get 100 VP and you will have to achieve all your objectives to get a draw.

In other words if you haven't taken all the bridges by about 11:00 on Day 2, and hold them throughout, you will be pushing it pretty hard. This reflects the extreme urgency of the operation - let's face it, if you only make the historical progress of XXX Corps, then the paras at Arnhem are SOOL, aren't they?

Regards
33

[KNac007]

I agree, the scenario is perfecttly set up. If you find you can't hold them from the start try "favour allies" or the double drop variant.

[Tzar007]

Well, I just finished the same scenario and I pretty much got the same result (see image below).

I guess I wasn't fast enough on some bridges. The Veghel rail bridge was blowned up by the AI at the beginning and it took me a while before I could secure both Best bridges. But other than that I felt I had pretty much a very good handle on all bridges, although I don't remember how much time exactly it took me to secure the most important bridges. I was probably a tad too optimistic since I captured Son bridge intact very early in the game - I was like, yeah !, I am doing much better than the 506th did originally...

The only thing that enraged me was that I lost control of St.Oedenrode bridge less than 60 minutes before the end of the scenario, too late for me to do anything with the orders delay [:@]

In any case, 3/506th, responsible for the bridge, could not report any enemy units around since it was dark! I would have had to first find the enemy. But I guess I should have had a larger defensive perimeter and the enemy would not have been able to breach inside the objective radius without me knowing it first. Ah well.

[Golf33]

Remember, you have to get Eindhoven as well - I recommend detaching at least a battalion to capture the Phillips Factory and Eindhoven, the moment you have secured the Son Bridge. You also need to send troops to take Koevering, ensure you control all the bridges in the Veghel complex, and exploit as far as Uden - all as quickly as possible.

I am currently running a game of this scenario in my spare time, will let you know how it turns out.

Regards
33

[Golf33]

Ok, I wanted to confirm this so I tried it myself. It can be done!

Below is the AAR and the objective list from a quick game of myself vs the AI. The options are all shown on the AAR sheet I think. One interesting point is to note that although I got only a Marginal Victory, had I denied even one more VP to the enemy I would have gotten a Decisive Victory. I even know where I could have done it!

I took too long to secure the Phillips Factory and Eindhoven, since in my rushed pre-battle appreciation I didn't fully realise that they would be counted from the beginning[1]. I also didn't make any attempt on the Best bridges until everything else was pretty much secured and my second wave of reinforcements was landing.

I also didn't allocate quite enough to the Veghel complex of bridges, nor did I defend in sufficient depth in that area. This meant that even German attacks which were eventually unsuccessful were often able to penetrate through to at least one or two of the outer bridges and stay there for a few hours. This pretty quickly mounts up. A similar problem occurred over at Best where I failed to secure the treeline near the eastern bridge, from which the Germans were able to challenge my control. Mind you this probably had no influence since I doubt they were able to actually gain control for themselves, and I got 100 VP anyway.

My biggest mistake was in failing to properly secure Eindhoven once XXX Corps units started to arrive. For quite a while I only had a Bridge Pl, an Inf Coy, and I think an SPAT Bty to secure the whole of Eindhoven, with a very weak US Airborne Bn (-) at the Phillips Factory. That left a lot of open area and the AI was able to use a tiny force - a single bn-size mixed SS KG - to take control of it for several hours in the later part of the scenario. There would easily have been enough points in that to make the difference between Marginal and Decisive Victory.

I particularly enjoyed some parts of this game - it was extremely satisfying to depoy 15/19 Hussars onto the flank of a push by Pz Bde 107 against Veghel, and watch them devastate the German flank. Mind you that took time to arrange and the Germans had taken control of at least one of the outer Veghel bridges so both sides suffered in some way. I found I needed to constantly redeploy battalions from one trouble-spot to the other, trying to anticipate where the next German attack would fall in order to have something in place to meet it. Trying to work out where was already garrisoned enough, and where needed extra forces, was also a challenge throughout. I never really felt I had enough on all objectives to meet a concentrated German thrust against any one of them, until right at the end when it was evident that the enemy was a spent force and unable to take any effective offensive action.

I'm looking forward to seeing someone post a Decisive Victory AAR of this one as the Allies!

Regards
33



[1] Given my comments in the post immediately above, how dumb was this? I should have taken my own advice!

[Tzar007]

Nice victory Golf33. Compared to my own AAR, yours was less of a slugfest in terms of AFVs and guns lost for both sides, and you also had less of your troops killed.

ORIGINAL: Golf33

My biggest mistake was in failing to properly secure Eindhoven once XXX Corps units started to arrive. For quite a while I only had a Bridge Pl, an Inf Coy, and I think an SPAT Bty to secure the whole of Eindhoven, with a very weak US Airborne Bn (-) at the Phillips Factory. That left a lot of open area and the AI was able to use a tiny force - a single bn-size mixed SS KG - to take control of it for several hours in the later part of the scenario. There would easily have been enough points in that to make the difference between Marginal and Decisive Victory.

I had exactly the same problem. At first I kept a bn-size force and more at Eindhoven, but after 5 or 6 days, noticing that no German showed up near Eindhoven and since I was hard-pressed in other areas, I decided to leave just 1 or 2 support coys. In the last 2 days, the AI then kept coming back at Eindhoven and successfully challenged the control of the city for a few hours.

Indeed, I will respect the guy that can get a decisive victory on this scenario. It is so deceptive, you really need to control all these bridges right from the start and keep controlling them for 10 damn days!

No wonder it was called Hell's Highway, this scenario reflects it pretty well.

A question I have in mind: I guess playing as the Germans in this scenario wouldn't be as much fun, considering it seems easy for the Germans to get VPs?

[Golf33]

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

Nice victory Golf33. Compared to my own AAR, yours was less of a slugfest in terms of AFVs and guns lost for both sides, and you also had less of your troops killed.

Thanks [:)] I think it helped that the enemy AI in this game was not terribly aggressive and didn't concentrate its forces as much as sometimes happens. I was fortunate in that I was largely able to avoid close contact in most areas and use the tank regiments to conduct stand-off attacks by fire (using Defend orders with max aggro and rapid rof) instead of risking them in close fighting with enemy infantry. I also tended to take control of my artillery at critical moments during the initial attacks, to keep the bridges from being blown and suppress enemy fire. Lastly I tried to conduct as many of my attacks as possible at Regt or Regt(-) level, rather than at Bn level, wwhich helps to overwhelm the defenders and allows you to take the objective with a lot less fighting.

A question I have in mind: I guess playing as the Germans in this scenario wouldn't be as much fun, considering it seems easy for the Germans to get VPs?

Only one way to know for sure!

Remember, the problem for the Allied player is to make the step from a Draw to Victory, since it's easy for the Axis to get 100 VP. For the Germans, though, it's the same problem; to actually win, you would need to pretty much keep the Allies out of all the objectives for most of the scenario. This reflects that the German objective is really to block the whole highway, thus preventing the Allies advancing past Eindhoven. Anything less is good (hence a draw) but still falls short of total victory.

Regards
33

[EricGuitarJames]

I think I've learned not to trust the 'winometer' too much. I can get a 'marginal' on both sides in the Eindhoven scenario and can say that from my point of view playing as the Germans is quite a bit easier. Just to widen the debate somewhat, there do seem to be occasions when the AI opponent really should surrender. I was playing the 'Mook Right Hook' scenario as the Allies and come the mid-afternoon of the final day I had the remnants of the German force pinned in Nijmegen. I controlled the bridges and the objectives just north of the river. In real life the German position could only be described as 'hopeless' yet the force fought on until the end when I 'only' gained a marginal victory. I felt that the AI's decision to fight on was rather 'gamey'[:)]