Advice to the Newbie: The Italian gambit

[Uncle_Joe]

Mike,

No, that part is not unrealistic for a 3 month turn. What IS unrealistic is the ability to mass the transports from all across the globe and strike anywhere in Europe in one turn, thus not needing time to marshal your forces.

It took a LONG time to set up the landing for D-Day and they were only going across the Channel. To think that they would have time to bring in transports from that distance and coordinate a landing of any size in 1940 is simply beyond unrealistic. The Germans were looking at needing months of prep work to invade England in 1940 as well. Again, this is across a few miles of water.

In other words, full scale invasions are not 'spur of the moment' surprises. The Germans knew well in advance that the Allies were massing for an invasion in Europe and the general area it would take place. The Allies could not have massed in England and then made a 'surprise' landing in Yugoslavia with the full weight of the D-Day invasion for example. That is what I see is so silly. You can go from transports and troops scattered to the four corners of the Earth to a massive D-Day invasion ANYWHERE in Europe (Baltic, Western, Eastern, Southern, even Turkey or the Middle East). It is beyond silly to even consider that as remotely realistic.

Now, I'll grant you that there are a lot of other such 'abstractions' in the game. And I'm growing to accept that this one of them. But under no circumstances would it even be considered anything other than a flight of fancy strategy that was well beyond the capabilities of the forces at the time (or even MODERN forces for that matter). To me, the less such abstractions in the game, the better. I dont want to be presented with tons of options that werent even remotely plausible at the time. YMMV on that.

As far as needing only one transport to collect, yes its true that you dont have to touch every area, but you do need to maintain the chains to England and America. However at that point in the war, the Allies are swimming in resources compared to their industry. So even if you dont connect all your resources, you are really doing little harm.

Some of the other risks involve leaving England vulnerable and the potential loss of a lot of transports. In my last game where this was attempted, I was able to (barely) hold off the invasion and the next turn I picked off quite a few of those massed transports with air forces.

Personally, I think the threat of such invasions is just as powerful as the actual doing (more in some cases). It forces the Germans to spread out their forces a lot more than they would otherwise and can greatly weaken the force they have to invade Russia. Unfortunately, its starting to make taking Spain and Gibraltar into a no-brainer decision. Its far easier to defend there than the whole of Southern Europe. And that is another of the sticking points for me. Since its an unrealistic and ahistorical strategy, it pretty much requires other ahistorical counters. So the game starts going farther and farther off base and becomes much closer to an 'Axis and Allies' style romp. Dont get me wrong, I can enjoy that too, but I'd like to be able to run the war in a semi-historical way and not feel like I'm hamstringing myself as well. Because, of course, the next step will be the piling on of forces into Gibraltar by the WAllies to keep it from falling etc.

Anyways, like I said, like it or not, it is part of the game at this point. I'll keep stubbornly trying to look for ways to defend against such tactics without forcing me to do such nonsensical things like invading Washington! [:D]

[Harrybanana]

Uncle Joe,
You expressed my thoughts perfectly. The only thing I may disagree with you on is that, in an earlier post, you stated that you didn't think it was the intention of the programers to allow this sort of mass movement of transports from all over the globe for an invasion. You may be right; but who ever programmed the AI obviously didn't have these concerns. Several times playing the Germans against the AI I've seen 30+ WA transports (out of total of 50 or less) amass off the coast of France prepatory to an invasion. I don't think they all came from England.

[tai4ji2x]

yeah, if ever implemented, maybe such a limit on transport mobility should be a human-player-only thing. i don't mind the AI having this advantage as much as for human players.

[batou]

Question: What's the farthest distance an amphibious assault could take place from, in order to have a chance of sucess on a defended territory during the time period of the war? If it is 1 or 2 sea zones, why not increase the existing penalty such that it would be impossible to take a defended beachhead (even with a single militia) from beyond this limit. Is that something we can mod?

To make it even harder, make any territory that has at least one population point generate a militia unit when attacked amphibiously. That way one cannot just bomb away an existing unit with air power and then move a unit in from the other side of the world.


batou


Sorry if this has already been suggested, as I'm sure it probably has.

[PeterF]

Bad post.

[Badbonez]

Interesting read guys, I'm wondering what, if anything, the designers will do with it. For my part I do not think that these transports surrounding Africa and South America really represent a "transport ship" they represent shipping lanes that may have been used. So when someone strips those areas of these units, they're just rellocating assets, not really taking out all those ships and moving them to the med. It's all representational. And really, I don't care if the allies wouldn't or couldn't pull off an operation torch in 1940, the game allows for it and for a counter, so once you're aware of the possibility you just need to make sure you defend Italy.

In a PBEM game I am playing my opponent attacked Russia in 1940. Would Hitler have? Probably not, should my opponent be able to? Sure, why not. It's all part of the "what if." Of course, attacking that early left a him a little thin somewhere, and that thin spot was Rome. So now I'm eating pizza and he's preparing for the Russian winter. I didn't have to move too many transports as he only had 1 militia (plus the one that pops up), so I moved in 3 units, easily done with what was available around England. And yes, Italy fell. If you take Rome, Italy should surrender, regardless of the number of other territories you take. It was sweet too, cause he's got a small army in North Africa, now no transports. Bad thing is Russia has NOTHING for defense.

These maneuvers may feel gamey to some but this is a game. If you start narrowing the what if possibilities, you start narrowing the replayability down to everyone doing the same thing. So IMO, the game is fine as is.

[Barthheart]

Could not agree more.[&o]

[mavraamides]

I agree too. What really matters is balance and I think this game has it at least with autovictory and time limit
enabled. I have yet to see anyone post an unstopable strategy with the possible exception of the Russia
doubleteam.

I feel like the invasions are a little too easy to pull off, but as long as that sword cuts both ways, which I believe
it does (Scottland and Gibralter for Axis, Sicily and Italy for Allies, etc) , it ends up being a push.

What I find really amazing about this game is that there are so many possible strategies both in terms of where
to attack and what technology to develop that it is very unclear what the best approach is. And I think that's good
for all of us. I've seen strategies already involving the invasion of Spain by the Axis, the invasion of Norway by
the Western Allies, double attack on Russia, invasion of Scottland by Germany, etc. All of them appear to be gambits
which may or may not work depending on what your oponent does.

Plus unrealistic is relative. Compare it to Axis and Allies where the Jap player regularly ran his entire fleet all the
way around South America to the Med! Try that in this game!

[Uncle_Joe]

Badbonez:

Again, I agree to a certain extent. I want to have options and I know its a game. But I dont want to see too many options that remove the historical context from the game. Suppose it was possible for Germany to invade Washington in 1941 with 6 Infantry in the game (and have chance of winning). Since the US can build all Infantry to stop it, would that be OK to include? That is obviously an EXTREME example, but it shows that probably everyone has limits of what to accept in terms of realism.

Personally, my threshold for ahistorical strats and outcomes is fairly high, but I want them to be things that were possible or at least possibly considered at the time. Attacking Russia in 40 would have been distinctly possible for Germany...Russia had just finished up the purges and was busy with Finland. Politically, it wasnt a good idea, but militarily and logistically, it was certainly within the capability of Germany at the time. Invading Washington would not fall into that category. So, I classify some of the other invasions along the same lines.

Anyways, you make a good point about the 'shipping lanes' as opposed to hard assets. It still doesnt completely mullify the 'realist' in me, but it helps. [;)]

[Harrybanana]

Once again I agree with Uncle Joe. I know it's a balancing act between realism and playability, but I prefer pushing the scales towards realism a little more.

[Glabro]

A simple fix is to include the Italian army in Northern Italy, that is missing in the game. Instead of the 2 that are there normally, just put 6 militia in, and it should be fine. Alternatively, or in addition, one could make Italy generate militia to resist a seaborne invasion.

[ratprince]

Well said Badbonez! [&o]

I couldnt agree more! [:)]

Mike

[Badbonez]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Once again I agree with Uncle Joe. I know it's a balancing act between realism and playability, but I prefer pushing the scales towards realism a little more.

I suppose this is where the disagreement is. I personally would rather see it shift more to gameplay and fun, regardless of history. It should be really, really hard for Germany to invade the USA, but they should be able to. Opens up more possible outcomes. But that's my opinion of all games - make it fun first, realistic second. But a good balance between the two is best.

And to Glabro: 6 militia? Wow, I think that's a bit much.

[Glabro]

Well, you could take it down to 5, I guess. However, no matter which way you put it, Italy had 28 division equivalents there, in five armies, as was posted.

The units in the game represent corps-level units. Even allowing for largish corps, 28 division equivalents should be represented by 6-ish units. In some cases, 2 divisions are enough for a unit, in other cases, it takes 9 to form two, in this game. I guess if you were going for historical force s, you´d base the number of units vs. divisions around three.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Badbonez


I suppose this is where the disagreement is. I personally would rather see it shift more to gameplay and fun, regardless of history.

Who said anything about "history". I could care less if a game is historical in the sense that it pushes a player into making the same choices and decisions as the nation that player is playing did historically. If Germany wants to build up a huge fleet to invade the USA great. If it would rather attack Franco in Spain that's fine by me too. Hell it wouldn't bother me if the game allowed the Germans and WA to make peace and attack the Russians, Chinese and Japanese together.

But what I do want are logical and realistic consequences to flow from the choices the player makes. Germany shouldn't be allowed to ferry its invasion troops to the USA in it's submarines. If it chooses to attack Spain there should be realistic consequences. Similarly the WA should not be allowed to invade Italy in 1940 without invasion craft. If it does invade in 1940 and land a few troops Italy should not IMHO surrender. I'm not against these things because they did not historically happen, but because they are not realistic in the sense they were even possible. To put it another way I want a game where a player can do anything that was possible, but can not do anything that was impossible.

[Glabro]

Heh, sometimes I wonder what people want by "gameplay and fun".....being able to do anything, no matter how implausible?

I hear you, Banana.

Sure, it´s fun to invade Italy when the opponent doesn´t expect it, but in my opinion it´s funnier if you can´t just teleport your transports from all over the world to the ínvasion area, transform them all magically into landing craft, and ship your invading troops from England / the US straight into Italy.

[Maginot]

A fighter or two stationed in Sardina would help elimate this problem, no?

[ratprince]

Right on Maginot!

I think the idea is not so much "realistic" as "plausible." Sometimes we get so stuck in what actually happened that we forget the innovations that occurred during the war. This thread seems to be concentrating on the supposedly inconceivable attack on Italy in 1940. Why is it "so" inconceivable? I mean, heck, the allies built man made docks for France, if that hadnt ACTUALLY happened, would we now be discussing how "implausible" and "unrealistic" man made docks are?

The point is that human beings are EXTREMELY versatile and innovative when need be. I think as long as the laws of physics and such are not broken, then the game SHOULD allow for daring and bold maneuvers. Without the potential for trickery, deciet and out and out craziness, what fun would a wargame be? If you want a repeat of history with little deviation....Channel 40, the History Channel does nicely....

later

Mike

[SeaMonkey]

I think the real problem here is not that Italy can be invaded in 1940....I'm alright with it...but the mechanics of the game initiate an immediate Italian surrender when the event happens. Not so sure that conclusion is representative of the Italian sentiment prevailing at that time..1940? Perhaps sometimes after or in 1943, depending on the successes of the Axis players at the time, a trigger should exist for the Italian surrender upon an invasion. Maybe a number of Italian colonies/territories would have to be occupied by Allied forces to trigger the event when faced with a successful invasion, like Libya, Sicily, all of North Africa, etc.

[Drax Kramer]

I see little problem with Italy surrendering after losing a part of the mainland, after all noone finds odd that France surrenders after losing Paris.

I also see no problem with an invasion mechanism that was probably thoroughly tested with historical examples (Torch, Normandy).

The problem is in Italian OOB that has nothing to do with the historical reality. Representing 28 division equivalents (including some of the best divisions in Italian army) with meagre two Militia is same as representing entire Royal Navy with one Heavy and two Light fleets and then blaming the game mechanisms for repeatedly successful Sea Lions.

A game about the WW2 should provide players with historical tools and historical mechanisms and THEN allow for all sorts of alternative strategies.


Drax