Cheeze strategies

[sveint]

I need more experience but I like using the corps as delayers and stay-behind-and-die troops. I don't like wasting production on cavalry corps.

I have some other things going on too, but I'll save them for an AAR. So far my Axis opponents have been rather frustrated. At least one of which clearly
has quite some experience setting up an early Barbarossa.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: sveint

I have some other things going on too, but I'll save them for an AAR. So far my Axis opponents have been rather frustrated. At least one of which clearly has quite some experience setting up an early Barbarossa.

Great, I would like to see that. [:)]

[PanzerMike]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If anything, I think the Soviets should get a slight buff in this game. All those 20% experience pre war formations should begin at 30%. The Finnish war adds another 5% experience on top of this for new construction and replacements plus whatever combat experience the Soviets can get.

20% experience rifle corps are garbage.

I am tinkering with an extra Scorched Earth scenario that is aimed at giving a tougher experience for solo play as Axis vs the AI (although there is NOTHING withholding anybody playing it H2H). I am upping the starting experience for the USSR units to 25% in 1939.

Also, the experience bonus for the USSR from the Winter War is not 5%, but 10% (this is just vanilla by the way, not my doing). Not sure how long this has been the case, but 10% it is.

I also added 3 extra Siberian Armies in the build queue to arrive in Winter 1941.

This will give a small boost to the USSR I think. Small steps is the way to go I feel.

[PanzerMike]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Two points to answer you.

First, as German, this is not the oil that is a problem at the end of 1941. The problem is that your army is in a good shape:
. Replacements are coming like hell
. Supplies are plentiful as if the railway and/or road networks are the one of Western Europe.

Second, as Russian, in another game, I had a very good fighting around Smolensk and on the roads to Leningrad. This was really an attrition for both sides. And the Germans were weaker due to these battles than in my current game as Axis. The runaway strategy makes the Germans stronger at the end because their army is in better shape. You have to fight.

Really, I think the balance is not so far. The only thing disturbing for me is the supply network that is much too good. But, you can say the supply network is the same for both sides.

Cheers

The supply network does not take into account how far you actually are from your main supply source. In casu Germany has to haul supplies a LOOONG way if they enter the Caucasus for instance. Maybe it would be an idea to implement some kind of penalty based on the actual distance the supplies have to travel.

There are quite a few railways in Russia (especially in the west) and I am not aware the Germans had a problem that the railways were too few or insufficient (not counting sabotage by partisans) or that they had a big shortage on rolling stock. Please correct me if I am wrong here. But I reckon there is quite a difference in delivering supplies to Minsk as opposed to Grozny; the difference in distance is huge.

[ncc1701e]

I am the Russian here. Images of an early Barbarossa launched beginning of May 1941.

North:

Each hex towards Leningrad has been disputed.

[ncc1701e]

Center:

Attrition battles between Velikie Luki, Vitebsk and Smolensk for several turns. I even managed to destroy a German Panzer corps.

[ncc1701e]

South:

The price to pay is there. I will have to withdraw, the defense is no longer maintainable.

[AlvaroSousa]

To answer some questions the game is not a historical simulation. It is a wargame based on history.

So somethings are done abstractly that will satisfy some and upset others.

Like Flavious hates the crappy corps. But they are one of the most manageable ways to represent the disruption in the early soviet forces. I found doing other ways causes larger loopholes and pigeon holes in the game. So say I don't make crappy corps and the ones up front are just regular armies. Someone else won't be happy. The USSR at the time had a European type structure to their army. As the war progressed in 1941 they realized their commanders and forces just weren't good enough to handle these kind of formations. So they completely changed from a standard European model for divisions to smaller 10,000 man divisions in larger groups. No matter how I rep that someone will not be happy.

Disbanding these corps represents a removal of garbage equipment and reformation of units as you get the full manpower and logistics back.

The reserves are the men that were trained and sent home then called up.

The fight in Russia was a series of blunders for the Russians early and for the Germans later. You can't possibly accurately recreate that with hindsight.

So far I have played 8 full games playing both sides in which every strategy has been tried for the Germans and the Soviets. Every strategy works very differently from the others and requires each players to adjust. The only moderately broken strategy that was also boring was the runaway strategy for the Soviets. I made a slightly adjustment in rail repair to encourage a little more defense up front.

The largest issue I saw with the run away strategy is that there was no cost to the Soviets due to rail repair. They could glide away at skipping speed and even if the Germans caught up their rail repair was so far behind that they couldn't make an effective attack that meant anything.

Diminishing supplies for the Axis is represented by Partisan rail breaks. If you invest a lot of troops into partisan defense, like I do, your supply isn't affected. If you invest none your supply will be affected. Trying to micro rail supplies with diminishing returns creates more complexity for me, balancing, and for players.

The more complex a system is the easier it is to break.

I'd be curious how long it took them to balance WitE and WitW.

In a span of 6 months as a single developer the game seems to be fairly well balanced now.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: PanzerMike

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

If anything, I think the Soviets should get a slight buff in this game. All those 20% experience pre war formations should begin at 30%. The Finnish war adds another 5% experience on top of this for new construction and replacements plus whatever combat experience the Soviets can get.

20% experience rifle corps are garbage.

Also, the experience bonus for the USSR from the Winter War is not 5%, but 10% (this is just vanilla by the way, not my doing). Not sure how long this has been the case, but 10% it is.

Yep this is 10% in the vanilla version of the game.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

I'd be curious how long it took them to balance WitE and WitW.

Seriously, are they done now? [:D]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

Diminishing supplies for the Axis is represented by Partisan rail breaks. If you invest a lot of troops into partisan defense, like I do, your supply isn't affected.

Yep that's what I do.

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

In a span of 6 months as a single developer the game seems to be fairly well balanced now.

I have to agree. Good work.

[Flaviusx]

To clarify, I am saying make the initial prewar experience bottom 30%. Raised to 35% after the Finnish war. The bonus from Finland would be reduced to 5%. The end result is the same 35%, but it would eliminate the gimmick builds where you are strongly encouraged to disband the 20% garbage units. Change the incentives here and eliminate this noob trap.

Smooth the curve of inexperience here. Because right now it's pretty ridiculous. The difference between a 20% and 35% unit is enormous. And it is not as if a 30% bottom is crazy high when the Germans are running around at 70% base experience.

[sveint]

My observation is that Soviet players that struggle built too few land units.

[Flaviusx]

Oh, I absolutely believe in spamming lots of land units. Upwards of 50 cavalry corps.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

To clarify, I am saying make the initial prewar experience bottom 30%. Raised to 35% after the Finnish war. The bonus from Finland would be reduced to 5%. The end result is the same 35%, but it would eliminate the gimmick builds where you are strongly encouraged to disband the 20% garbage units. Change the incentives here and eliminate this noob trap.

Smooth the curve of inexperience here. Because right now it's pretty ridiculous. The difference between a 20% and 35% unit is enormous. And it is not as if a 30% bottom is crazy high when the Germans are running around at 70% base experience.

Oh I see your point now. Since September 1st, 1939, you can already build units with 25% experience and after Finland war with 35% experience, you are disbanding and rebuilding your Red army. Lots of micromanagement indeed.

But, since you are obliged to do this, this is also preventing you mass building of new corps. Otherwise, you will have a Red army with 30% experience and 50 cavalry corps at 35% experience. Don't you think it will be too much for the Germans to advance?

[Flaviusx]

It is very much a micromanagement thing, I have had to sit down and hotplay this build a half dozen times to squeeze out the maximum benefit.

The key is this: every disbanded rifle corps yields 90 resources. For 120 you get a cav corps. So it is close to a straight swap. But the cavalry is 3-4 times as strong due to the massive difference in experience. Once you take into account upgrades, it's almost an even swap, because each level of upgrades for a rifle corps cost 18 production, versus 12 for the cav corps. (This is the other problem with rifle corps. They are way cost ineffective. 180 points base cost.)

You can save up to 6000 build points via disbands and per turn production by March of 1940 when the Finnish war ends and you do the swap. So it's not just a swap, there is for real additional production here. But it means you no longer have ant units even on the front line. Rather than useless speed bumps, 4 point cavalry corps can put up a bit of a fight. And they have nice mobility. They're also pretty great in the marshes.

You can keep building more of them after March of 1940. Or throw in some mech and mountain. You do have to set points aside to upgrade and reinforce the starting mech and HQs. I am honestly debating whether it is even worth doing this for 20% experience mech. The ones that start off understrength are ok, because replacements increase their experience. The full strength mech corps at 20% are close to junk. 150 point disband will yield you a cavalry corps with equal raw strength and 30 points in surplus production.

[sveint]

If I may - and I know this is mostly about the Soviets - I feel that the biggest imbalance right now is how powerful the UK and US get from 1943 on.

I've yet to see an Overlord not happen in 1943, a full year ahead of schedule. While on the east front it seems fairly historical (with very varied results).

Perhaps the Soviets should be blocked from disbanding units until the war starts? That would certainly remove the micromanagement.

[LiquidSky]

You don't want to disband the starting Soviet infantry. Much better to put them all on garrison and get back a couple thousand points that way. Also make sure they don't upgrade by turning off refit for them. You want them on the front line to die to slow the german advance. (and to prevent them from going to war too early)

[sillyflower]

Whilst Flavius' strategy makes sense from a game perspective, it does rather make a mockery of it by perhaps trebling the combat value of the Red Army by mid 41' with 4 point cav units replacing all those 1 point rubbish corps, with the downside of only 1,500 production costs if 50 inf. corps are swapped for cav xxx.

Flavius' solution to allow all Red Army units to have 30 rather than 20 experience has a logic, but with 2 remaining problems

1 Increasing experience from 20 or 25 to 30% increases the strength of the Red Army by about 40%. I'm guessing because I don't know what % of starting units are 20 not 25% at start.

2 Swapping out 30% experience corps for massed cav. will still be a no-brainer in terms of a stronger Red Army.

I agree with Alvaro's point that the game needs balance above all else, and he will never please everyone because balance changes bewtween 2 equal players depending on their skill level.

So, my answer is to support sveint's idea for preventing any USSR disbands before it is at war. Logically, that same rule should be applied to the USA (no other country can do it), though I see no benefit to the USA in disbanding any starting forces.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

So, my answer is to support sveint's idea for preventing any USSR disbands before it is at war.

Indeed, perhaps the best solution.

[Flaviusx]

I don't object to disallowing disbands if the experience floor is raised. 20% is ridiculous.

What's more, if you disallow disbands, I can still game this. I will wait until the the war starts in 1941 and then disband the trash rifle corps and feed the production into rifle armies. I won't put them on the frontier. I'll man the frontier with new construction cav corps. I'd rather bank the 90 points in construction than to use the prewar rifle corps as ants that will explode in 1 attack. They are just junk.