WAW serial - few toughts

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cveta
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WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

After playing more than 15 games of WAW scenarios ( diferent versions ) I must sey that it is realy great. Thanks Tweber for making it and thanks to all who did some changes. But every good thing may become better.
Here are my ideas for WAW
1- See lion is too easy for Germans. I did it few times without problem, and in one game I did it in February 1940. So if West dont prepare exelent defence wery early, England is doomed. USA should wake completly after fall of London. This will be good compensation.
Also - Kondor is testing a attack on Su wery early. He claim that he may take Leningrad in 1st turn from see attack, and that he may blast thru Su after Poland fall, and before USA enter war.
2 - Su player is defenetly too weak. I belive that cost of Su units must be reduced by 50%. I attack su very late ( 1943, summer ) and still menage to storm thru Su without much problem. Of course that I secure England and Africa before that.
3 - Japan - too low manpower. In three games Japan lost manpower in 1942. And too easy for play. In 1st turn JA take Burma, Borneo, Jakarta and Surabaja without problem. In same turn JA may attack Pearl, and still have an option either to advance towards Australia or India. So with JA player may get a wictory condition in few first turn.
4 - West - well all depend of gameplay. It he find a way to learn what Axis are up to he may defend properly, and if he fail west is doomed. West player must counter few stiles of gameplay. Fight agains a large number of subs, fight to keep a England alive, fight to keep Africa as open battleground, fight to retake Norway to help Su, and finaly to counter JA moves. Too hard for most of players.

Now - I open this subject to hear your ideas and sugestions about WAW. Let us make this best scenario ever.
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ehzorg
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

Since the game engine won't allow sea units to intercept enemy units, England's ability to defend against Sealion is severely hampered. To counter this I would agree that england needs a little help. I would suggest adding "City Garrison" SFTs in London and Manchester, perhaps a 50 stack (or less) each. This wouldn't be too unbalancing because the City Garrison units aren't good for anything else. As it currently stands, the allied player must go all-out toward defensive production of England from Sept '39 until Barbarossa to prevent Sealion (but perhaps this is as it should be...?)

I think the SU is a bit weaker in this scenario than historically, but that's fine with me - it makes the game a bit more of a toss-up. If SU production is boosted, I'd suggest a small boost to start with (perhaps double the production capability of Omsk starting in Jan 1942). 50% unit cost for SU would be a bit too much.

I can't speak on JA manpower or ease of victory since none of my games have progressed into 1943 yet.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

In two games I played JA manpover goes under 100 in late 1942 or beguining of 1943. And that is not directly conected to results in China/JA war. Fast expansion of JA uses lot of manpower to cover the taken lands.
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cveta
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

I have a screenshot from early attack on SU. Kondor did fantastic opening after he conquer Poland. There is no way that SU may defend after this. Leningrad fell in first turn from seeborne assault together with planes and ships docked in town.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

And look at the all loses in first turn. Something must be done in WAW scenario to make SU stronger and to prevent gameplay to interfere in historical development. And have a note at the date when he did this.

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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

After early declaration of war against SU and after thouse hewy loses on 1st turn Su stay almost without any sugnificant forces redy to defend. Siberian army need few turns to reach Moscov, airforce is wiped out and worker battalions are not redy to demolish bridges, so Germany have an easy job.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

Wow... yeah, I suppose that is all due to the 150% 1st turn combat bonus GE gets if attacking before 1941. With that kind of bonus you could probably drop a 40 strength paratrooper unit onto a Soviet Light TankII stack and wipe it out. That is completely ridiculous.

I suppose the only way to fix this would be to reduce the first turn combat bonus. As an alternative, the combat bonus could be extended over multiple turns. So:

GE attacks in 1939: Combat Bonuses: 1st turn = 50%, 2nd turn = 50%, 3rd turn = 25%
GE attacks in 1940: Combat Bonuses: 1st turn = 50%, 2nd turn = 25%, 3rd turn = 10%
GE attacks in 1941: Combat Bonuses: 1st turn = 25%, 2nd turn = 10%
GE attacks in 1942: Combat bonuses: 1st turn = 10%

And I've been thinking a bit more about SU production. I do think it is a bit too low... Not at first, but by the middle of 1942 the Soviet Union should be producing nearly as much as GE. By the middle of 1943 (assuming a historical progession) the SU should be outproducing GE in heavy equipment by a good margin. As it stands, I don't think SU production increases that much. Manpower is about right, historically SU did have a manpower shortage after the disastrous defeats of '41-'42.

Especially considering the evidence cveta gives here. However, both changes might be too much. I would be in favor of spreading out the GE combat bonus, and a slight increase to Soviet production, perhaps doubling Omsk and Gorki starting in Jan '42.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by zzmzzm »

I agree to make SU a little stronger.  Maybe add two light armor army since soviet have more tanks than german  historically in 1941.
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cveta
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

It will be nice if tweber gives us some ideas about this. After all he created this scenario
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by tweber »

Based on some recent games that I have played with, I think the German side is a bit overpowered relative to the Soviets especially.  I am actually working on a new version of WAW for AT Gold that has alot of new ideas.  Map is larger, US and Italy are separately playable, lots of historic variants (e.g., start in 1938 with invasion of Czechoslovakia), production has gearing limitations, research takes longer.   
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by cveta »

Jummmy - looks nice. But it will be realy bad to see that WAW scenario wont adopt changes we talked about. I still belive that this secenario have a huge potencial and it may be better.
Too bad I dont know how to fix scenario. But making SU stronger will give a game a good balance. And the easiest way for that is to boost SU production by 25% before war or maybe 50%. And the moment germany invade Su should be able to produce maybe 2 times more than now. Germany have huge advantage.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by SMK-at-work »

A couple of things that may be relevant to some aspects - Glasgow is in the wrong place - needs to be a hex south and make hte Highlands more extensive.  Edinburgh should have a coastal defence - islands in the Firth of Fort were fortified, and there were some land batteries.

Also for the USSR - instead of giving Germany a huge bonus, how about giving the USSR no staff at all?  Not sure what effect that has....is it a useful possibility?

Also Soviet armour - in 1941 it was in the middle of being reorganised into the Mechanised Corps.  These had been abolished in 1939, then in 1940 they realised they had made a mistake.

The reorganisation was not supposed to be complete until mid 1942, so maybe they can be further penalised on top the the usual Soviet difficulties?
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

So that would entail taking those two stacks of tanks and splitting the SFTs up amongst the infantry divisions on the front line. That sounds about right according to histories I've read. Or perhaps a few mechanized corps - but the majority of the armor should still be limited to the movement speed of the foot soldiers they were assigned to support.

Soviet production should also ramp up slowly but consistently in the 1942-44 timeframe so that it reaches the behemoth that it truly became. No other country, Germany included, was able to convert as much of their country's production capability to wartime efforts as the Soviet Union.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by SMK-at-work »

IMO there should probably be more Soviet tanks...but they should be almost unable to move - they had major problems with reliability in 1941 - but that doesn't seem to be something hat AT can simulate, so the designers have gone for fewer SFT's.

The Soviets certainly did convert more of their economy to the war than anyone else....but they were still far from being a "Behemoth" IMO - they gave up a lot of "chrome" to concentrate on basics.....but for xample they got 500,000 trucks from the allies IIRC - so they didn't have to make those.  The allies also sent them millions of tons of food, which made that aspect of the war a lot easier for them.  And also aluminium, copper and explosives - IIRC maybe 50% of Soviet explosives came from lend lease? - somewhere on the net there are figures for it.....it is surprisingly huge %.

Looking at the production/GDP figures on wiki some things stand out for me
- the Sov's made enormous numbers of "front line" equipment - tanks, guns, mortars, fighters, ground attack a/c
- the US made huge numbers of everything - it's GDP is over half the allied total at the end of the war, and they made a lot of large and complicated stuff - almost 100,000 bombers, 22 aircraft carriers stand out particularly for me
- Germany actually had more coal and iron than the USSR, but made less with it

to me it seems that some basic technology is too important in AT - I think, for example, I would only have 3 infantry tech levels - 1 would be as 1 is now - start of war, not many AT weapons.  2 would be more SMG's and MG's so a little more lethal and resistant - maybe 10%, and 3 would be including infantry AT weapons so more resistant to armour.

MG's & mortars?  - I might have 2 levels for MGs & mortars - most countries made no changes to those through the war in real terms - they made more of them, and some made bigger ones, the Germans added the MG42...but other than that what major changes were there?  The Brits went through the war with the Bren & Vickers & 3" mortar, the Sov's had the DP LMG, the Maxim was supplemented by the SG (I think) but never really replaced, USA had Brownings & BAR.

So I'd let Germany get to MG2 with it's MG34 and Mg42 - but level 2 would again only be a little more resistant/dangerous to infantry for a moderate cost in PP.

Tech like a/c, tanks I'd leave as they are now tho.

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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

Thought I'd look up some quick facts re: lend-lease. I pulled these from "Russia's War" by Richard Overy.

Overall, western aid accounted for 4% of direct munitions used by the SU (guns/tanks/artillery). However, western aid accounted for much more significant portions of material indirectly responsible for Soviet military capabilities; one third of all Soviet vehicles, 57% of all aviation fuel needs, 53% of explosives, and approximately half of wartime aluminum/copper/rubber needs. Transportation needs were reliant even moreso on western aid; 56% of all railways, 95% of all locomotive engines and 90% of all railway cars. Enough foodstuffs to supply one half pound of rations for every Soviet soldier for every day of the war.

Of note is also the fact that virtually no lend-lease was sent in 1941, only very limited aid in 1942 - the majority occured in 1943-5. Most arrived via sea in Vladivostok, lesser amounts in turn through Murmansk/Archangel or overland through the Persian Gulf.

Some raw numbers, total supplied 1941-5:
14,200 aircraft
6200 tanks
363,000 trucks
35,000 radio stations
380,000 field telephones
956,000 miles of telephone wire
14,800,000 pairs of boots
780,000 tons of canned meat
340,000 tons copper
260,000 tons aluminum

So yeah... it is a rather shocking amount of stuff. I'd clarify my last post to label the combined output of Soviet industries and western supplies as a "behemoth" - not just SU production capability.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by SMK-at-work »

There's a very good breakdown of volumes by each lend lease route, and a nice map, at Engines of the Red Army
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by SMK-at-work »

Another thing that needs to be done is to limit factories to a single product - you can't take a tank factory and change it to making aeroplanes overnight and vice versa!
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

Another thing that needs to be done is to limit factories to a single product - you can't take a tank factory and change it to making aeroplanes overnight and vice versa!

Agreed, there should be some benefit to choosing an SFT and leaving it in your production queue. Perhaps when changing the SFT in a production slot, production slowly ramps up to 100% capability over the course of a few months. Again, might not be possible given the current game engine.
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by SMK-at-work »

Yes - engine limitations might be a bother.  Would having different factory types be achievable - ie a Tank factory, or an aircraft factory - just as some cities/locations can only produce supplies and others only supplies, PP & infantry?
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RE: WAW serial - few toughts

Post by ehzorg »

Perhaps AT Gold will feature some of these things ;)
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