Changing AFV equipment

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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Schmart
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Changing AFV equipment

Post by Schmart »

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm begining to scratch my head a bit at why we can change aircraft equipment in air units, but we can't change AFV equipment in ground units (like one could do in WIR). Perhaps there's a reasonable programming explanation for this, perhaps too complex to add it to the code or something, but if it can be done in WIR, surely it isn't that difficult? We can do so much else to ground units, like mess with TOE, supply, etc, but not AFV assignment. And with the new patch, aircraft equipment assignment has been expanded.

For me, one of the great things about WIR was exactly that, being able to change unit major equipment (AFV/aircraft model). A new tank comes online, and one could have some influence on where they start going. In WitE, it seems random, and if I am launching a new offensive in the north (as example) I would want some new tanks there, and not have the tanks start going to the south, or half of the new tanks end up in motorised divisions...
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by cookie monster »

You can prioritise which units receive upgrades first by only having those units set to REFIT
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by FredSanford3 »

+1 on manual AFV upgrades.  Why not make it just like aircraft?
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by Schmart »

Bump.

Only two people feel this way!? Fair enough I guess, if there aren't many people who agree I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I am curious as to why aircraft, but not AFV's?
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by Senno »

I agree it's a good idea. Nice to have, but not urgent.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by jomni »

I like the idea but here are the complicating factors (on a programming standpoint).

In the game, upgrade/assignment of AFV is similar to any equipment in the TOE.  So if you put in this feature, you should be able to do the same for guns, mortars, squads, etc.  It also involves the usage of captured equipment.  So results might be very gamey unless there are mechanisms to prevent it.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by alfonso »

I like the idea, but...

-can lead to very gamey decisions, for instance, in turn 1 as Soviets you send all your T-34s to the pool so then can fight the Moscow battles, and let your T-26 to be massacred at the frontiers. So you need more programming to avoid it or you need House rules

-you need some limits to the AFVs that can be exchanged. I gave up playing WIR 3.3 because it was possible to have PanzerDivisions equipped exclusively with Tiger tanks.

-Why aircraft yes and AFVs no? Well, we can assume that planes can be tele-transported, and AFVs cannot (we can assume they are now rail-transported by the AI during the logistic phase, hidden to the player). Including the AFVs exchange should include some rail payment to do that...more programming, more balancing....

Similarly (and somewhat off-topic here), I liked the idea of production management, but in WIR many Axis players abused the system by changing ALL their aircraft production in turn 1 to FW-190A....
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by karonagames »

I like the idea, but...

-can lead to very gamey decisions, for instance, in turn 1 as Soviets you send all your T-34s to the pool so then can fight the Moscow battles, and let your T-26 to be massacred at the frontiers. So you need more programming to avoid it or you need House rules

-you need some limits to the AFVs that can be exchanged. I gave up playing WIR 3.3 because it was possible to have PanzerDivisions equipped exclusively with Tiger tanks.

-Why aircraft yes and AFVs no? Well, we can assume that planes can be tele-transported, and AFVs cannot (we can assume they are now rail-transported by the AI during the logistic phase, hidden to the player). Including the AFVs exchange should include some rail payment to do that...more programming, more balancing....

Similarly (and somewhat off-topic here), I liked the idea of production management, but in WIR many Axis players abused the system by changing ALL their aircraft production in turn 1 to FW-190A....

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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by sillyflower »

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak
I like the idea, but...

-can lead to very gamey decisions, for instance, in turn 1 as Soviets you send all your T-34s to the pool so then can fight the Moscow battles, and let your T-26 to be massacred at the frontiers. So you need more programming to avoid it or you need House rules

-you need some limits to the AFVs that can be exchanged. I gave up playing WIR 3.3 because it was possible to have PanzerDivisions equipped exclusively with Tiger tanks.

-Why aircraft yes and AFVs no? Well, we can assume that planes can be tele-transported, and AFVs cannot (we can assume they are now rail-transported by the AI during the logistic phase, hidden to the player). Including the AFVs exchange should include some rail payment to do that...more programming, more balancing....

Similarly (and somewhat off-topic here), I liked the idea of production management, but in WIR many Axis players abused the system by changing ALL their aircraft production in turn 1 to FW-190A....

+1 more. I was in favour of production control as an option before game came out but have changed my mind. Developers' time better spent on other improvements and working on WiTW.

not much point in armour swap outs if can't control production and lose a turn and experience every time.



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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by janh »

Very true, having both a lever to change AFV and TOE, as well as control over production would be awesome, but also should proceed within authentic "technical" possibilities. I like the complex WITP-AE model of production -- you can do a lot, it all costs various resources, and production changes reduce the output dramatically for a long time. Everything needs to be considered carefully, and not everything is sensible or possible.

I don't know about the development costs to implement that still in this game, but I surely hope to see both in "War in Europe".
ORIGINAL: alfonso
-can lead to very gamey decisions, for instance, in turn 1 as Soviets you send all your T-34s to the pool so then can fight the Moscow battles, and let your T-26 to be massacred at the frontiers. So you need more programming to avoid it or you need House rules

And TOE and AFV changes should require extra time (unready forces), cost experience (a tank/plane crew can't be trained for all vehicles equally well, though differences could be small if it is only minor model change), require supply and transport (rail & truck) expenditures consistent with the transport cost of such equipment, (and in some cases the old stuff back to pool).
ORIGINAL: alfonso
-you need some limits to the AFVs that can be exchanged. I gave up playing WIR 3.3 because it was possible to have PanzerDivisions equipped exclusively with Tiger tanks.

It was quite insensible to have one division entirely equipped with heavies and weaken the other ones, because the combined arms worked better with them spread out. Besides, their advantage wasn't to extremely huge as a spearhead, and the would be blunted soon. One could also consider that those heavy tanks commonly were less available ("downtimes, breakdowns, maintainance"), and also the supply/support needs of the division would need to go up. Ideally it should be within the freedom of a player to try equipping whole divs with Tigers, or Stalins for that matter, but it should come with authentic disadvantages such as low average readiness state of the whole unit, higher supply cost etc. That would probably soon render such an approach impracticable -- though technically it was of course well possible.
ORIGINAL: alfonso
-Why aircraft yes and AFVs no? Well, we can assume that planes can be tele-transported, and AFVs cannot (we can assume they are now rail-transported by the AI during the logistic phase, hidden to the player). Including the AFVs exchange should include some rail payment to do that...more programming, more balancing....

Disagree on your first argument. Pilots were not in excess, and replacement aircraft usually came forward by rail as well...
ORIGINAL: alfonso
Similarly (and somewhat off-topic here), I liked the idea of production management, but in WIR many Axis players abused the system by changing ALL their aircraft production in turn 1 to FW-190A....

See the WiTP-AE production and R&D model. It is quite powerful, but you can only make changes within reason or else you could screw up the whole war economy... I think going that way would give authentic freedom, but would also show the costs. (if you wanted the Panthers early and numerous, you have a little room for advancement, but pay the price for it by slowing everything else; on the opposite you could stick to the PzIV and PzIII and Jagdpanzer, saving lots of resources on the development and building of other plattforms, maybe later make the PzIVG-H impact by sheer numbers...)

I think there would be many ways to tackle gamey tactics, but give players sufficient freedom to play such a game out by going beyond the "Hitler mindstate". Yet the question is: how much development time would it cost, and would it be worth it for Matrix/2by3? I assume as a start they could adapt the routines from WiTP-AE, but still sounds like a lot of work...
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by alfonso »

Janh,we agree that production/replacements would be a very interesting feature, but my point was that it was not very easy to implement it in a realistic, un-gamey fashion. That part of WIR had a special appeal to me (I played WIR until last December[:)], against AI), and when I read that WITE was not going to have it, it was a disapointment. There were many threads a year ago with people demanding production, but the developers thought otherwise, so I do no think it is likely they are going to change their mind in order to include production in the near future. But, with my experience of WIR in mind, I hoped that it was a optional feature that could be deactivated for PBEM game. I never underestimate the ability of humans to find holes in any system.


And, just curious: I always had thought that one of the roles of women pilots (for instance, this WASP beauty) during WWII was to fly the planes from the factories to the front (or to the ports if they were going to be transported by ship). Never read about transporting them by train. As I don't know how the Russians and Germans handled this, would you be kind enough to indicate where can I read about planes being usually transported by train?



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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by janh »

ORIGINAL: alfonso
And, just curious: I always had thought that one of the roles of women pilots (for instance, this WASP beauty) during WWII was to fly the planes from the factories to the front (or to the ports if they were going to be transported by ship). Never read about transporting them by train.

I might be wrong, but I remember reading about that. Yet I recall also that a lot of aircraft factories had adjacent airfields. I think a lot today still have, like Grumman or Boeing. Perhaps they were not just for test flights?

Anyway, yes, you are right. Having such system adds a lot of potential, but also a lot of potential loop holes. The future will show whether enough people actually want to be able to manipulate that. The catch for AE is also that it requires a lot of time and planning, which some players merely consider boring micromanagement. Probably a tough balance to make everyone happy, and the only way is probably as you suggest: by making it optional.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by Schmart »

Some of the discussion has turned to production, which is not what I had intented at all. That is a whole different ball of wax. I was only refering to changing AFV models in units, the same way as in air units.

Some of you bring up some good points, such as about gamey tactics, which I agree with. However, some of those can be easily fixed. Loading up a division with Tigers should be theoretically impossible, since there are different types of tanks (light, medium, heavy, CS) assigned to different equipment slots, each with their own limits. You couldn't/shouldn't be able to load up the (example) 6th Panzer Division with Tigers, since it dosen't have a heavy tank slot to assign the Tigers to. The only (German) units with Tiger slots would be later war SS and GD Pz Divs, and they would be limited to only one company (15-20) of Tigers.

Captured AFVs is maybe a more difficult thing to control...but surely in the scheme of the game the numbers/effect are so small?

Yes, some restrictions/penalties would have to be put on morale, experience, ready/unready vehicles when the switch occurs (real life logistics and training difficulties/confusion when changing to a new vehicle).

T-34s in Jun 41 should again (theoretically) be simple to fix, by not allowing any AFV changes for tank and mech divisions. Once these divisions are destroyed/disbanded, it becomes a non-issue as new tank brigades and tank/mech corps would have normal allowance for changing tank models, again within the restrictions placed upon type equipment slot (light, medium, heavy, CS).

I guess I'm just a bit frustrated watching many of my new Pz-IV's going into motorized divisions, when I still have some entire panzer divisions equiped with Pz38t's in early 1943...I just think that if there is already this exact system in place for aircraft, it couldn't be that hard to translate it for AFVs. But I'm not a computer programmer, so maybe I don't understand the real life difficulties of implementing this for AFVs.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by Skacee »

+1
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by squatter »

Totally agree with OP.

Presumably those making arguments against manual AFV replacement also wish that there was no aircraft manual replacement in the game too. Perhaps they should start a thread arguing that the developers should withdraw that function in the next patch.

There's no question this was one of the abiding pleasures in WiR.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by Schmart »

Upon further thought, a Russian player pooling all T-34's early in 1941 to save them for the winter, while gamey, the player gives up their ability to slow AGS as historically, so in the process making Rostov/Kharkov (even Kursk) much more solid objectives for a German player in 1941...with the political/production/resource implications involved, maybe the Russian player can't afford to pull the T-34's out. And what prevents a Russian player now, from withdrawing T-34 heavy divisions from the front, keeping them (and thus the T-34's in reserve) until the winter?
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by alfonso »

ORIGINAL: squatter

Totally agree with OP.

Presumably those making arguments against manual AFV replacement also wish that there was no aircraft manual replacement in the game too. Perhaps they should start a thread arguing that the developers should withdraw that function in the next patch.

There's no question this was one of the abiding pleasures in WiR.

Once established that planes can be tele-transported, because they fly, and AFVs cannot, I think there is a big difference between replacing planes and replacing AFVs using the model alluded by the OP (WIR).

And yes, it was a pleasure in WiR. I liked the explicit Panzer Battalions, it is a pity that they are now pooled in the TOE, so 100 tank replacements could consume many railpoints. I would like see all that stuff in WITE, IF properly modelled (tank type, rail costs, exp, readiness, administrative points, with voluntary downgrade beeing a blow for morale, etc). I think the ground replacements are now abstracted via the REFIT function, which gives priority to those units: perhaps too abstracted (?)


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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by alfonso »

ORIGINAL: Schmart

Upon further thought, a Russian player pooling all T-34's early in 1941 to save them for the winter, while gamey, the player gives up their ability to slow AGS as historically, so in the process making Rostov/Kharkov (even Kursk) much more solid objectives for a German player in 1941...with the political/production/resource implications involved, maybe the Russian player can't afford to pull the T-34's out. And what prevents a Russian player now, from withdrawing T-34 heavy divisions from the front, keeping them (and thus the T-34's in reserve) until the winter?

Nothing, but at least the tanks are moving, not being tele-transported, as in WIR. And in the process you are withdrawing also artillery, squads, flak, etc...not just the elite tanks as in WIR. And I am a BIG BIG BIG fan of WIR (it is the only wargame I have played, besides WITE).

By the way, I'd rather defend Kharkov in September with my T-34s than Lvov in June.
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by alfonso »

ORIGINAL: alfonso

I like the idea, but...

-can lead to very gamey decisions, for instance, in turn 1 as Soviets you send all your T-34s to the pool so then can fight the Moscow battles, and let your T-26 to be massacred at the frontiers. So you need more programming to avoid it or you need House rules

-you need some limits to the AFVs that can be exchanged. I gave up playing WIR 3.3 because it was possible to have PanzerDivisions equipped exclusively with Tiger tanks.

-Why aircraft yes and AFVs no? Well, we can assume that planes can be tele-transported, and AFVs cannot (we can assume they are now rail-transported by the AI during the logistic phase, hidden to the player). Including the AFVs exchange should include some rail payment to do that...more programming, more balancing....

Similarly (and somewhat off-topic here), I liked the idea of production management, but in WIR many Axis players abused the system by changing ALL their aircraft production in turn 1 to FW-190A....

I cite myself to make it clear that if the 3 BUTs are addressed....I like the idea![:)]

1) morale, exp, readiness, AP costs
2) TOE limits by category
3) Rail costs
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RE: Changing AFV equipment

Post by squatter »

Agree with those buts alfonso.
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