Mission Impossible

[sveint]

The mission is to hold Berlin until the end of the war. Not to conquer all of Russia.

[Peltonx]

Wow 4 stars and you just figured that out, grats man

[DTurtle]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

I have played allot of 41-45 and got feed back from other side.

Generally the Russian manpower is 120,000 new troops per turn.

The lowest I have ever gotten anyone is 100,000 a turn. I took all above citys and then some.

Ok, just wait a second right here. Lets take this 20,000 a turn. That is 1 million a year. That is 4 million over the course of the game.

That is far from irrelevant.

[sveint]

My point being that it's ok if it's all but impossible for the Axis to win the war outright (against an equally skilled opponent).

We still have to little data to decide wether the victory conditions favor the Axis or the Soviets.

[Attack]

Those manpower figures don't reflect everything within the particular regions of the map you are talking about. Just about every little dot town on the map has a manpower rating -- click on the town names and you'll to see the associated manpower figures. Typically, towns range between 1 and 5 manpower factors -- sometimes a bit more. If you count up all the little dot towns in the Don Base Region, as well as adding in the bigger manpower factors from cannon fodder suppliers such as Stalino, Gorlovka, Vorshilovgrad, you actually end up in the 125 to 130 range. The same again is somewhat true for the Leningrad region – although not the same dramatic magnitude as the Don Base. I posted several screen captures a few months back that show manpower counts of these areas -- including manpower from town hexes.

I know it, that´s because I said: "Manpower in november, 41, without been conquered Leningrad, Moscow an Donbass: 2.660 (more or less)". The Germans are at the gates, so the nearest towns are german, but the main cities hold on.

Anyway, after an all-out winter offensive, the soviet player always will be short of manpower. In my limited experience, not short of armament (at the end of the winter, holding-on Leningrad-Moscow-Donbass, but losing 40 arm points, I had 0 manpower pool but 500.000 armament pool).

About the Pelton´s strategy, I try to destroy the Red Army, not to destroy the armaments points. The winter, as German, will be more survivable. And because esthetic and historical reasons, too. But may be at long term the Pelton´s strategy will be better.

[Oskkar]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Wow 4 stars and you just figured that out, grats man

Well, I also thought you did not know that...

[Oskkar]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Attack, thanks for those numbers. Interesting that losing those three big cities accounts for only about 5% of Sov manpower. While i guess that they form a larger portion of the population, I guess large parts of the population would migrate east before the panzers got there...

The population of the USSR in 1941 was 197 million aprox. Moscow in 1939 had 4 million aprox. Therefore the capture of Moscow itself should have a maximum impact of 2% in manpower (and probably less because, as you say, obviously many possible recruits would fly before the arrival of the Germans).

Added: Leningrad 1941, 3 million (1.5% of the total)

[76mm]

I posted on another thread that the Sovs supposedly evacced 25 million people through 1943, 17 million by December 1941.

It is interesting that Moscow accounted for such a small part of the population back then; now it is almost 10% of Russia's population, although of course the USSR also included many sizable now-independent countries (Ukraine, Uzekistan, etc.).

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Pelton
The ONLY area that can effect the red machine is armerment points. Before 1.05 no one really tryed to save them and I won 9 out of 10 games 41-45 campiagns, because I bagged more then 100 arm pts. The only game I lost was because I only bagged 74.

So the only area of production that can effect russian output is armerment points.

Now with 1.05 lower russian output of arm pts from 190 to 135, every Russian player evacs them asap.

If you advance as fast as I do vs a very good or good Russian player you bag about 30 to 35 tops. If you don't advance as fast as me ( I am still looking for someone, Stalino turn 7 in 12 of 15 41-45 games) you probably only pocket 12 if your really lucky vs a good russian player.

The only reason they are evaced is because of an exploit.

The reason 99% of Germans will never get close to historical in armerment pts destoryed (64) is becauce hvy means nothing and the Russian rail system is way over rated. They ecav only arm pts and leave the hvy because they are meaningless.

Read this thread for historical data ect.

tm.asp?m=2928392

Now if this one issue was corrected then Germans would have a chance of hitting historical levels of industy destoried.

Problem is every russian fanboy is defedning this out right exploit to the grave.

It is an exploit that ALL russian players now use and are happy to tell you about it.

This exploit if nerfed will bring some balance back to the game.

Whew, you are prolific, but at least you raise the same points in every post so it is not too hard to rebut...

1) Congratulations for winning 9 of 10 games with your trademark tactic. Given all of the various patches, everyone else is adapting their play-styles, maybe it is time for you to do so as well rather than complaining about exploits and game imbalances?

2) If there is an exploit here, it is the Germans reaching Stalino by Turn 7.

3) No reason to refer to the other thread, there is no "historical data" there, just a bunch of blah blah blah.

4) haha, no one has made it into the blizzard under the new patch and you are already whining about balance, could you please give it a rest?

[Oskkar]

ORIGINAL: Attack

The problem are the Victory conditions. In "Road to Leningrand", the German must conquer Leningrad to win, OK. In "Road to Moscow, to win, the German must conquer Moscow", OK. But in GC 41 the German must conquer not only Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Rostov, but too Stalingrad, Gorky, Tamboy, Saratov, Stalingrad.. ¡and even Baku!

That is not true. The Axis wins the GC41 if he has 142 or more VP on ending turn. At the beginning of the GC41 he already has 142.

[Oskkar]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

I have played allot of 41-45 and got feed back from other side.

Generally the Russian manpower is 120,000 new troops per turn.

The lowest I have ever gotten anyone is 100,000 a turn. I took all above citys and then some.

The ONLY area that can effect the red machine is armerment points. Before 1.05 no one really tryed to save them and I won 9 out of 10 games 41-45 campiagns, because I bagged more then 100 arm pts. The only game I lost was because I only bagged 74.

So the only area of production that can effect russian output is armerment points.

Now with 1.05 lower russian output of arm pts from 190 to 135, every Russian player evacs them asap.

If you advance as fast as I do vs a very good or good Russian player you bag about 30 to 35 tops. If you don't advance as fast as me ( I am still looking for someone, Stalino turn 7 in 12 of 15 41-45 games) you probably only pocket 12 if your really lucky vs a good russian player.

The only reason they are evaced is because of an exploit.

The reason 99% of Germans will never get close to historical in armerment pts destoryed (64) is becauce hvy means nothing and the Russian rail system is way over rated. They ecav only arm pts and leave the hvy because they are meaningless.

Read this thread for historical data ect.

tm.asp?m=2928392

Now if this one issue was corrected then Germans would have a chance of hitting historical levels of industy destoried.

Problem is every russian fanboy is defedning this out right exploit to the grave.

It is an exploit that ALL russian players now use and are happy to tell you about it.

This exploit if nerfed will bring some balance back to the game.

Pelton

OK then, the problem is the reduction in Soviet armament production...

Regarding the figure you provide about armamament points historically captured, I assume that it is the product of your imagination, because the reference of Overy you provided in another post shows that 65% of soviet HEAVY industrial capacity was lost. Of note, you conveniently ommitted the word HEAVY from your quote, since it strongly suggests that the Soviets were not evacuating Heavy Industry because they considered it less practical (wich seems logical, if the resources expected to be transformed by the Heavy Industry are lost anyway), and that would damage your repetitive claims.

Poor scholarship or blatant distortion?

[marty_01]

ORIGINAL: Attack

Anyway, after an all-out winter offensive, the soviet player always will be short of manpower. In my limited experience, not short of armament (at the end of the winter, holding-on Leningrad-Moscow-Donbass, but losing 40 arm points, I had 0 manpower pool but 500.000 armament pool).

Of course the Soviets burn manpower during their blizzard Offensive of 1941-42. However, the only time I've experianced large manpower shortages and large numbers of combat units degrading to "unfit" was in a game I played in which I had lost both Moscow and Leningrad. Everybodies entitled to drawing their own conclusions. And there are multiple variables affecting each particular game. But for me the clear game lesson is that if I'm playing the Reds and I loose Moscow and Leningrad, I'm going to feel the ill effects at some point down the road.

I'll say the same for Soviet HI. In my experiance playing the Soviets, the long term effects of not evac'ing HI to the Urals is not good. But than I also play half my games as the Axis. So in the games I'm playing Axis, I'd really encourage my opponents to ignore evac of HI and go ahead and gimme Leningrad and Moscow -- cause' after all you don't need um' [:D] .

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

I have played allot of 41-45 and got feed back from other side.

Generally the Russian manpower is 120,000 new troops per turn.

The lowest I have ever gotten anyone is 100,000 a turn. I took all above citys and then some.

The ONLY area that can effect the red machine is armerment points. Before 1.05 no one really tryed to save them and I won 9 out of 10 games 41-45 campiagns, because I bagged more then 100 arm pts. The only game I lost was because I only bagged 74.

So the only area of production that can effect russian output is armerment points.

Now with 1.05 lower russian output of arm pts from 190 to 135, every Russian player evacs them asap.

If you advance as fast as I do vs a very good or good Russian player you bag about 30 to 35 tops. If you don't advance as fast as me ( I am still looking for someone, Stalino turn 7 in 12 of 15 41-45 games) you probably only pocket 12 if your really lucky vs a good russian player.

The only reason they are evaced is because of an exploit.

The reason 99% of Germans will never get close to historical in armerment pts destoryed (64) is becauce hvy means nothing and the Russian rail system is way over rated. They ecav only arm pts and leave the hvy because they are meaningless.

Read this thread for historical data ect.

tm.asp?m=2928392

Now if this one issue was corrected then Germans would have a chance of hitting historical levels of industy destoried.

Problem is every russian fanboy is defedning this out right exploit to the grave.

It is an exploit that ALL russian players now use and are happy to tell you about it.

This exploit if nerfed will bring some balance back to the game.

Pelton

Just one example from the rail discussion for Pelton's "citation techniques":

http://www.feldgrau.com/dreichsbahn.html:
"German military railroad planners made one critical error in their Barbarossa calculations - they did not take the primitiveness of the Soviet interior into account when planning for their attack. This would cost the Germans dearly later."

Pelton:
"What it does say about the Soviet rail network:
1) the primitiveness of the Soviet interior [...]
I have to say, after reading this article, I'm starting to wonder whether the in-game Soviet rail cap shouldn't be about 1/5th the united Axis rail cap rather than about 5x as it is!"

Draw your own conclusions.

Regards

[Attack]

The problem are the Victory conditions. In "Road to Leningrand", the German must conquer Leningrad to win, OK. In "Road to Moscow, to win, the German must conquer Moscow", OK. But in GC 41 the German must conquer not only Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Rostov, but too Stalingrad, Gorky, Tamboy, Saratov, Stalingrad.. ¡and even Baku!



That is not true. The Axis wins the GC41 if he has 142 or more VP on ending turn. At the beginning of the GC41 he already has 142.

Axis decisive victory: 290+ VPs. This means Gorki, Saratov, Stalingrad and Baku; and of course,Moscow and Leningrad.


Soviet decisive victory: Berlin conquered before 1945, and 39 or less VP.

Is similar to conquer Berlin 5 months before that historically and to conquer all Russia? This is a balanced game?

In my opinion, if Germans could have even a little probability to reach a decisive victory, simply nobody would use the Pelton´s long term strategy to reach a minor victory, nor Pelton himself.

But if decisive victory is not posible, then the german gamers will try something to reach a minor victory. Certainly anhistorically: historically, the Axis tried to reach a decisive victory.

[Oskkar]

Attack

You should have been more precise then and stating that for victory you only understand decisive victory. You choose to forget what may well be the more common victory modes.

By the way, how many AARs have you seen with Berlin conquered? Which dates? I have seen none, so there is no empirical evidence to show that Berlin falls easily. And I have seen many AARs with Russians in disarray, we have the great Pelton to enlighten us.

[marty_01]

ORIGINAL: Attack

The problem are the Victory conditions. In "Road to Leningrand", the German must conquer Leningrad to win, OK. In "Road to Moscow, to win, the German must conquer Moscow", OK. But in GC 41 the German must conquer not only Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Rostov, but too Stalingrad, Gorky, Tamboy, Saratov, Stalingrad.. ¡and even Baku!



That is not true. The Axis wins the GC41 if he has 142 or more VP on ending turn. At the beginning of the GC41 he already has 142.

Axis decisive victory: 290+ VPs. This means Gorki, Saratov, Stalingrad and Baku; and of course,Moscow and Leningrad.


Soviet decisive victory: Berlin conquered before 1945, and 39 or less VP.

Is similar to conquer Berlin 5 months before that historically and to conquer all Russia? This is a balanced game?

In my opinion, if Germans could have even a little probability to reach a decisive victory, simply nobody would use the Pelton´s long term strategy to reach a minor victory, nor Pelton himself.

But if decisive victory is not posible, then the german gamers will try something to reach a minor victory. Certainly anhistorically: historically, the Axis tried to reach a decisive victory.

Contrary to some of the popular lore that seems to have arisen on this forum, the Axis WiTE Victory Conditions seem founded in the historical goals set forth by the Germans themselves. Even rudimentary study of the actual event should result in familiarity with the so-called Astrakhan—Archangel Line. German goals -- or perhaps I should say Hitler's "victory conditions" -- during the inception of Case Barbarossa included destruction of the Red Army between Polish-Russian border to an eastward line stretching between Astrakhan in the south -- along the Volga -- and going all the way to Archangel in the north. Of course Hitler had numerous other tangible and intangible goals in mind with Barbarossa -- Lebensraum -- Ethnic Purification etc. etc. But in terms of a wargame that focuses upon operational level warfare -- but that also requires some form of strategic level endgame -- the A-A line goal makes perfect sense.

So while I didn’t design the game, it looks to me like the WiTE victory conditions for the Axis are based upon the German's very historical goal of trying to capture all the major cities and destruction of the Red Army west of the so-called A-A line.

Do these victory conditions make for a balanced game? Perhaps -- Perhaps not. Do the WiTE victory conditions fall within the realm of "historical" or within the nebulous realm of "realism"....Yes -- very much so. While the Axis victory conditions may seem very difficult in game terms, they do seem to have a strong footing in the history of the actual event.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Attack

Is similar to conquer Berlin 5 months before that historically and to conquer all Russia? This is a balanced game?

I'm afraid that the VP need serious work. In my view, it is more a matter of motivating players to act in certain ways (ie, non-stalemate-inducing) that judging absolute victory conditions. At the end of the day I don't care much if I get a draw instead of a marginal victory, etc., but I would sure like to have fun along the way. Currently victory conditions encourage boring play.

[darbycmcd]

Pelton, I really think you are way off base on your historical complaints. Your complaints, and 76mm's, do make sense for a 'game' approach. So many of these discussions amount to the same thing. Some people want a game where each player can win. Some people want a historical simulation, and that means the germans will not 'win'. lets face it, the RL soviets fought about as badly as you could possibly imagine for a large segment of the war, and they still pretty much kicked ass.

so what we need to do is take a page from WitP and have a mod that evens things out a bit. What if we created a 'perfect war' mod from the german perspective, a war in the east version of scenario 2 'super amped up axis'. what choices in production or deployment could the germans have made to make the war more competative? what are things that we can do with the soviet side to make it more... manageable?

for instance, if the panzer pusher faction thinks the soviets don't lose enough armament points because of rail evac, you can lower the number of factories available (assume that the correct number will be destroyed and just don't even put them on the map) or (i am not sure you can) change RR cap.

the point is, lots of your whining is not really historically based, it is gameplay based. that doesn't make it invalid, but it makes it difficult to come up with a solution because the two gamer groups have different agendas. so why not do what is possible to make a solution you could live with instead of just complaining?

Edit: 76mm, i only include you above because the 'victory point' comment from above relates to game play more than historical factors, not whining and complaining in general. i find your comments to be germane and well reasoned and researched. sorry if it came across that i was lumping you in an unfair catagory.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: darbymcd
76mm, i only include you above because the 'victory point' comment from above relates to game play more than historical factors, not whining and complaining in general. i find your comments to be germane and well reasoned and researched. sorry if it came across that i was lumping you in an unfair catagory.

No worries; I actually don't like advocating victory points to influence game play, but I don't see any other way to encourage interesting gameplay.

For instance, it is pretty obvious that without some incentive, the rational Sov strategy is to retreat PDQ. Not only is such a strategy boring to play for both sides, it does not seem very historical to me. Sure, you can say that the Sovs only defended the Motherland because it was a "mistake", but in fact I think that they did so (1) partly as bad strategy; (2) partly because at least initially they lacked the command and control to withdraw in a perfectly-coordinated manner, as in-game, and 3) they thought it imperative to defend their country against the fascist hordes.

So how to encourage/force the Sovs to defend? What real difference does it make to a Sov player to try to defend Kiev or Smolensk?

Pelton insists ad nauseaum that it should be by imposing false constraints on Sov factory evac, etc. Others have suggested that Sovs will defend if the combat engine allowed them the slightest hope of success. I'm sure there are other suggestions, but in my view they either warp long-term game play too much (ala Pelton's suggestion) or they are not realistic because they would require a reprogramming of the whole game (ala better Sov army).

Similarly, there is currently absolutely NO reason for the Germans to advance beyond Lgrad-Moscow-Voronezh-Rostov (or really well short of there). Just as the Sovs have every reason to retreat, the Germans have no reason to launch serious attacks in 1942. We've seen the results often enough in AARs--1942 as a snooze-fest. I think the devs hope that 1.05 will change that, but I don't see it, as they have not addressed the key factor--the Germans simply don't have any reason or incentive to attack (other than local attacks to chew up the Sov army).

Therefore, I see victory conditions as the only real way to deal with this, despite the "gaminess".