Suggestion for next release

[GeneralRiddler]

Hello,

In a recent PBEM game (slight Axis advantage) I was involved in, my Axis opponent was literally able to block nearly every coastal hex in France and other Western European countries (mostly with garrison forces). As you might expect, this really limits the Anglo-American options for opening up a second front (the same tactic could also be used by British forces to block Sea Lion).

I think it would really improve game play if units could land and initiate combat with forces occupying coastal hexes. I can understand that there would be an advantage for the defending forces, but I feel it should at least be possible to attempt a landing...

In my game, my opponent's tactics forced me to invade Portugal and Spain in an effort to breach Fortress Europe (a previous attempt at a Mediteranean surprise via the Suez canal failed miserably). My Iberian gambit also failed, leaving me frustrated at the options available to me with this type of defense...

Thanks for listening...

General Riddler

[IainMcNeil]

It's true it would be nice to resolve this but a solution is to hit those garrison units with air and naval attacks continuously as they will not be able to respond well and it will cost much manpower and reources for the Germans to keep topping them up. 3-4 tac air with experience should be able to destroy a garrison in one turn freeing up a landing location.

[YourAdmiral]

Iain,
 
That's a good suggestion, but this is what I would do to counter that if I were playing the Axis side:
 
In general, I would pull the Axis troops off the coast until I saw transports there. Since the battleships and transports can't occupy the same hex, the Allies would have to choose between bombarding the coast or landing. I would just move back and forth from the coastal hexes based on the type of ship that's there.
 
True, there are some coastal hexes that have two adjacent ocean hexes. But this doesn't present a good option for the Allies either -- they will only have 1 battleship shelling my garrisons, which won't do that much damage, and only 1 transport waiting to land, which will dilute the quantity of forces they can get ashore.
 
Regarding the air battle:
 
For landings within fighter range of the UK, I would have my own fighters to counter the Allies' tac bombers. Many landings occur in southern France anyway, out of range of the UK, so this wouldn't even be an issue.
 
I would also have my own tac bombers to bomb the Allied ships. Tac bombers (esp. leveled up ones) can be devastating against ships, so I bet that in a war of attrition the Allies will choose to withdraw their ships before I have to withdraw my garrisons. And ships cost way more to repair than garrisons.

Either way, any of the above strategies rely heavily on air power. Either side will need to starting investing early in air R&D in order to prevail in an amphibious battle.
 
Your Admiral

[GeneralRiddler]

That's a good point, Admiral...
 
Iain, thanks for your message and for your outstanding game... It's provided me with countless hours of entertainment.
 
While I agree that using tacs could help degrade the coastal garrisons and bleed the Axis somewhat of manpower and points, the best case scenario is that I can still get only one unit ashore in an initial attack. The chances of success with that approach are still quite low...
 
I would imagine that adding the coastal combat capability might be challenging, but I think the game play would be markedly improved... It's just frustrating for one side to be completely stymied like that.
 
Thanks!
 

[IainMcNeil]

Agreed - it's not perfect but if you're taking on the German Air power you'll be heavily draining their production from the Eastern front. Any German player with that much resource allocated to the Atlantic Wall is going to be having major issues in the east, unless Russia is all but defeated and in that case, it's pretty much a forgone conclusion anyway. We did look at naval landings but there were tehcnical issues that prevented it, but I don't remember what they were now.

[firepowerjohan]

In the latest patch 1.07 I modified unit prices so that strategic bombers ad subs are cheaper which means it is now more beneficial to attack UK in the mid game. This leads to higher casualties for both sides. The stacking up of units being able to block large areas happen mostly when the game has been too silent and Axis have left Britain alone lacking incentive to battle West instead of just going east. [:)]

[GeneralRiddler]

Thank you for your message, Johan, and I'd like to compliment you on your great game...
 
I'm not sure I follow, though, on your argument that it's now more beneficial for the Axis to attack the U.K. in the mid game (I'm assuming you mean 1942ish). It seems to me that the more time passes, the more time the U.K. has to block the coastal landing areas (making Sea Lion extremely difficult, if not impossible). While the new upgrade would seem to make it easier for the Axis to bleed Allied points and block convoy shipments, it doesn't take that much in the way of points to block the landing areas with garrison units... Obviously, if they choose that strategy it will take a fair amount of time for the U.K. to develop sufficient attacking power (giving the Axis time to employ the same strategy of blocking coastal hexes in France). So it seems a stalemate will often occur (when neither side can successfully attack the other)... When the Americans enter the war, that changes the equation somewhat, but they may still have limited options where to attack. I can say from experience that breaking through a defense line entrenched in the Pyrenees is incredibly difficult...
 

[firepowerjohan]

With mid game I meant the phase after France surrender and before USSR is invaded, ~1940-1941.
I did not mean sea-lion especially but meant bombing UK cities and sinking Atlantic convoys.

But doing so requires air units and subs and will cost hundreds of Production Points so means you will have less amount of ground units later in game. You do not gain any production sinking convoys and bombing cities so this strategy only makes the board unit density lower. In such situation it should be very hard for Axis to simply block the whole coast.

Reinforcing Air also cost a lot of PP so if UK decide to not let Axis totally demolish their domestic economy and instead fight for air superiority then it will drain both sides. This also replicates more what happened in real ww2 so makes the game feel more historic and balanced at the same time i.e. good change [:)]

War Production Bonus is 5% higher with patch which will affect All countries except Germany since they already start at 100%. This benefits Allies a bit so is a compensation for the sub and strategic bomber reduction in price since those units types benefit Axis.

In total, the 1.07 patch changes mean that the Axis "All East" strategy is tougher to pull off while the other more balanced ways (for example the historical Axis strategy of bombing Britain and attacking convoys with a late Allied D-Day) is more beneficial and should mean there is more balanced strategy in game.

[Ancient One]

I think much of the problem is that garrisons are still too difficult to destroy compared to their cost. While you're still working on the patch, please consider removing a point of survivability from garrisons.

[panzers]

On another note, speaking of invasions, why is it the the axis is automatically out of supply if it invades Canada or the US? I had 4 commanders in the attack, yet they all were out od supply including the commanders. Why is that?
Makes it virtually impossible to invade the americas and Canada

[sabre1]

I think Panzers, you have to take a port in order to be in supply.

[IainMcNeil]

Or a ship, place a warship next to the coast to supply low level supply. Commanders are not supply sources.