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I've noticed that often the panzer corps will stop before they've finished their plotted moves.. Is this due to resources or a bug?

Originally posted by ollittm:
I've noticed that often the panzer corps will stop before they've finished their plotted moves.. Is this due to resources or a bug?

It is obviously because of low operation points. It worths 2 ops/hex to plot pz.korps and 1 ops/hex to plot inf.korps. March movement also costs ops. It is 2 per division and 1 per subunit. I may be wrong with numbers but main idea is to look at your operation points.

Originally posted by Mist:
It is obviously because of low operation points. It worths 2 ops/hex to plot pz.korps and 1 ops/hex to plot inf.korps. March movement also costs ops. It is 2 per division and 1 per subunit. I may be wrong with numbers but main idea is to look at your operation points.

Ouch! :rolleyes:

Just think of how many brave soldiers gave their lives for the cause since I didn't bother reading the fine print. Grigsby school of manual writing is unfortunately fairly good at hiding the essential within the irrelevant.

I often run out of op points when supplying the panzer armies, maybe I should shoot for 2 panzer corps/HQ instead of 3 like it is now.. And maybe cut down on the "add on"-units, too.

Perhaps it'd work well to attach some weaker panzer corps to infantry armies. They'd have the outdated equipment, motorized infantry etcetera.. Save the hard-hitting SS panzer divisions for Guderian & co.

What's the final word on op-points/move? Is it in the manual/updated manual?

Originally posted by ollittm:
What's the final word on op-points/move? Is it in the manual/updated manual?

Well, this isn't the final word, but AFAIK the ops cost for operational and plot movement hasn't changed from what is in the manual.

I just want to add that it could be impossible to move from one hex to another because of map features. For example it took hour to me to realize why does my unit refuses to move from one coastal hex to another because I always use strategical map with large scale. It can happen in Karelia,Pskov, Kiev and Kalinin areas.
One more thing to add that one should use every available mobile units in pz. korpses IMHO. I also always attach cav.divisions to pz.korpses.

Quick perusal of the manual and lots of page-flipping later .. Why is the same info repeated over and over while the essential info is hidden..

Manual says that a corps will consume 1 op point per plotted hex. So panzer corps needs up to 5 op points left over for proper encircling ops.. And I had beautiful isolating manouvers carry out just as plotted when I changed my panzer corps to another HQ after resupplying!

Well, massive reorg time. I already instated 2 additional panzer corps with more to follow.

Too bad Germans seem to be desperately short of HQ units! There are more available leaders than I can shake a stick at but the only available HQ is 3rd Rumanian army :p

Originally posted by ollittm:
And I had beautiful isolating manouvers carry out just as plotted when I changed my panzer corps to another HQ after resupplying!

All right, why do you guys do this? This is gross cheating, you all know it is! We restricted special supply to once per turn to reduce the incentive for this cheat, but apparently thats not enough. Gary must have never seen this loophole, otherwise I'm sure he would have blocked it. I don't know if there is any time left for the programmer to revisit this "problem". His job is to fix bugs, not spend all his time trying to block cheaters. I do not understand how you guys get any enjoyment out of this game, by cheating like that. If you're doing this against the AI, *WHY* for heaven's sake? The AI is an idiot, you can beat it without cheating. I sure as hell hope, on behalf of your conscience at least, if you yourself don't care, that you aren't doing this against your own friends and fellow gamers.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

All right, why do you guys do this? This is gross cheating, you all know it is! We restricted special supply to once per turn to reduce the incentive for this cheat, but apparently thats not enough. Gary must have never seen this loophole, otherwise I'm sure he would have blocked it. I don't know if there is any time left for the programmer to revisit this "problem". His job is to fix bugs, not spend all his time trying to block cheaters. I do not understand how you guys get any enjoyment out of this game, by cheating like that. If you're doing this against the AI, *WHY* for heaven's sake? The AI is an idiot, you can beat it without cheating. I sure as hell hope, on behalf of your conscience at least, if you yourself don't care, that you aren't doing this against your own friends and fellow gamers.

Ed,

In othe old Second Front game there was no special supply but there was a readiness bonus for a unit being within range of its parent headquarters. This caused the player to pay attention to command and control. When Gary updated Second Front to the new WIR he did away with the readiness bonus which must have taken up quite a few lines of code and instituted the simpler special supply. We have already modified the special supply quite a bit to reduce 'cheating' and done a pretty good job but unless you are ready to eliminate it all together and try to give the old bonus for good command and control back, we will have to live with gamers playing a game. What you want should be addressed in the future windows version of an eastern front game where command and control is considered as well as assault preparation stockpiled at the local level similar to the blitzkrieg supply rules for the first 10 turns of 1941 without changing the parent headquarters.

Svar

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

All right, why do you guys do this? This is gross cheating, you all know it is!

Because I had already used my op points for special supply in my savegame and wanted to try that out?

All in all, due to this and other misunderstandings I had about the game mechanics I decided to restart the 1941 campaign (this is not going to be over in 6 weeks..)

Originally posted by Svar:
What you want should be addressed in the future windows version of an eastern front game where command and control is considered..

Okay,

I already asked about this, but here I go again.

So there *is* a wir-esque game in the works with matrix right now? Where's the beef?

WIR is great fun in the 3.x incarnation but it's also painfully obviously a game, not a simulation due to the engine limitations..

So is the new game going to be a wego or ugo igo? I feel this is a must even for a strategic level wargame. You cannot expect your opponent to sit there and wait for you to isolate them.. At least if they know that you know that..

Originally posted by Svar:
We have already modified the special supply quite a bit to reduce 'cheating' and done a pretty good job but unless you are ready to eliminate it all together and try to give the old bonus for good command and control back, we will have to live with gamers playing a game.

Nothing of what you said above justifies using two HQs, one for special supply and one for combat. You *know* that's cheating, its an obvious exploit. So you blame this on Gary because he took out something you liked? If you can rationalize cheating your friends this way, what else can I say?

Originally posted by ollittm:
So there *is* a wir-esque game in the works with matrix right now? Where's the beef?

2by3 Games is the company, which includes Gary Grigsby, creating War in the Pacific, along with Matrix. 2by3 Games's web site mentions an operational war in the east, i.e. a WiR remake. Unfortunately, Matrix didn't pick that game up, only WitP, so right now, a Wir remake is just a twinkle in Gary's eye. If no developer picks it up, it may never happen. In the meantime Matrix is pushing WitP back into next year in favor of UV and their tactical stuff like CL. Road to Moscow, and World in Flames both remain vaporware and are probably DOA. That's the sad state of affairs of grand strategy WWII wargaming right now.

Nothing of what you said justifies using two HQs, one for special supply and one for combat. You *know* that's cheating, its an obvious exploit. So you blame this on Gary because he took out something you liked? Has it occurred to you that Gary may have done this on purpose because he decided the automatic benefit from being near your HQ didn't work for him, whatever his reason?

And why do you do this against the AI? *Nobody* needs to cheat to beat the AI, its braindead for heaven's sake!

Oh hell, I give up....

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:
Nothing of what you said justifies using two HQs, one for special supply and one for combat. You *know* that's cheating, its an obvious exploit. So you blame this on Gary because he took out something you liked? Has it occurred to you that Gary may have done this on purpose because he decided the automatic benefit from being near your HQ didn't work for him, whatever his reason?

And why do you do this against the AI? *Nobody* needs to cheat to beat the AI, its braindead for heaven's sake!

Oh hell, I give up....

Ed,

I know you are very passionate about 'cheating' in this wargame/simulation and don't want to irritate you unneccessarily, I'm just pointing out what gamers will do with the rules.

I looked at what special supply costs for an SS Panzer Korp with 3 SS Pz div's, 1 PzG div, SS Pz bn, JPz bn, 1 arty bn, and 1 flak bn. That korp was in a game I ran out to 1945. The cost of special supply for that korp was 30 operation points and most other panzer korps would be less but still well over 20 OPs. Presently the cost is 3 operation points per division plus 1 operation point for each battlion. That works out to 12 OPs for the 4 divisions, 4 OPs for the 4 independent battlions, and 14 OPs for the 14 attached battlions in the 4 divisions.

Given what it costs for special supply lets look at a hypothetical situation where a German player wants to conduct an operation using 6 panzer korps. If he uses 2 panzer army HQs to control combat and 3 regular HQs to provide special supply he can optimize his supply for a continuing operation. Now lets change the rules so changing the parent HQ freeses the unit so supply HQs can't be used. The gamers out ther will just assign each of the 6 panzer korps to their own army HQ and still give each korp special supply. The net effect is the same operation will take 6 army HQs instead of 5 and the total operation points used will be the same. You wouldn't get the effect of the good leadership from the two panzer army HQs but there are enough good German leaders that all the operating HQs could have a leader rating of 7 or higher.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that logistics are crudely handled in this game because of the limitations of the operating system used and gamers will use whatever they can to 'improve' them. By the way playing the game with the difficulty set to maximum help for the Soviet side will give the German player a much bigger challenge against the computer and with the difficulty set to even against a humnan player both players can employ the same tactics.

I haven't played against the Soviet set to maximum help but will after I finish a version 1.1 versus version 3.0 compasision of the blizzard 1941 combat effects.

Take care,
Svar

PS in the game run out to 1945 the real fighting was over by the end of 1942 and even playing the Soviet side for a few turns to distribute all the Soviet units that pile up in the entry HQ (its OKH for the Germans I can't remember what the Soviet HQ is called) didn't help. The AI just doesn't use them after the game has passed some critical mass. Probably the only way to really play this game is against a human.

Originally posted by Svar:
called) didn't help. The AI just doesn't use them after the game has passed some critical mass. Probably the only way to really play this game is against a human.

There's the slight problem of finding an opponent who'll stick to it for months.. If it takes about a moth to finish the long campaign if you play every day, you should multiply that by at least 3 to get a PBEM game lenght.

And some people complain that CM games take too long..

Originally posted by Svar:
Ed,

I know you are very passionate about 'cheating' in this wargame/simulation and don't want to irritate you unneccessarily, I'm just pointing out what gamers will do with the rules.

I'm not irritated, just baffled. Since most of us play against the AI much more than we play against another human, I do not understand why people would cheat when playing the AI.

I just play the game using special supply the way it was intended to be used: an occasional boost to a very weak corps, not something meant to be used every turn.

Well, I hope Gary drops special supply altogether in his remake and do something different, assuming the remake actually happens.