Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

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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Timotheus
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Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by Timotheus »

Here come the questions crew! Thanks in advance!


Right, I think I got the supply down somewhat... As I understand it...

1) Supply is moved from closest working railheads (green, not orange under repair/conversion to German gauge) OR PORTS to ALL THE HQ UNITS IN RANGE.

Correct?

Trucks are used to move supply and fuel and the farther they have to move from there to each HQ, the more trucks break down, sink into mud, bad stuff happens to them. When you don't have enough trucks to move your supplies to each HQ then they are not supplied.

This one is not really a question, more of a softball to you guys [8D]


2) 20.4.1
HQ gives supply to its member units when these are 5 hexes AND 20 MP. So I must group those HQ and their units TIGHT.

HQ GETS its supplies from railhead. A HQ must be at maximum 25 hexes and 100 MP of working supply (railhead, port, etc).

So for a combat unit attached to a HQ BOTH of these conditions must be true, otherwise NO SUPPLY that turn? Again, I am 99% sure this is right.

3) Advanced 20.4.1
A unit with supply path greater than 50 MP (is that for BOTH HQ AND COMBAT UNITS?) - it gets partial supply based on some ungodly algorithm including trucks, terrain and the devs cats OR...

Do they get a straight up 1/3 or 1/2 supply penalty?

They DO GET SOME supply, right? Then if so this CONTRADICTS the 20.4.1 rule of 5 hex/20 MP and 25 hex/100 MP!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE ****!!


3) Attached to High Command 20.4.1
What about combat units attached to OKH directly? They don't get OKH Combat support units as they are waaaaay over the distance limit, but WTH is their supply? They trace it to nearest railhead?

But their HQ is 300 hexes away, soooooooooooo the rule 20.4.1 is broken here!





Right, that's supply, lets move to Air Power implementation in this game

4) Airbase stacking
The ground HQ have a nice and easy to read status of how many combat units they have attached to them and how many can they handle (Usually a corps is 6:8, meaning they could handle another inf division).

Airbases have no such thing because the devs like to be cryptic. Also, could not find any mention of airbase stacking in the manual...

What's the limit on airbase stacking (for German? and for Soviet?).

5) Fighters, Bombers and Recon in one airbase OK?
Should an airbase have ONLY one type in it? So fighters would go to 1 airbase, and bombers to another? Does this matter at all?


6) Night Missions
Why would I do night missions at all? HOW to set a unit to do them and switch them back and forth between night and day?

7) I know I can move an air unit from national reserve to an airbase. HOW do I move it back from an air unit TO national reserve to let it rest?




And finally my least favorite mechanic of this game - TELEPORTATION

8) WTH?????
I saw an infantry division teleport from a port across the Gulf into another port. Routed divisions teleport away from my units and many hexes away from me EVEN IF THEY ARE TOTALLY ENCIRCLED IN ALL HEXES.

9) A routed unit when it comes in contact with an enemy unit will SHATTER, which means bad things to it, correct? Essentially means the division is not routed, it is destroyed and must be rebuilt, yes?




I am sorry, crew, but the manual is not the clearest it can be (and/or I am really bad at finding answers to it).


Knowledgeable help will be appreciated with a Kudos! [:D]
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loki100
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by loki100 »

basic supply is in two phases. For a combat unit the ideal is it takes supply in the first phase, ie from an already supplied HQ that is close. It can take supply in the second phase (which is how stuff assigned to OKH for eg gets supply). Best way to look at this - take any counter, click on supply and look at what has happened, then do the same for a few HQs. That'll give you an intuitive feel for how all the rules interact.

airbase stacking - each plane has a stacking cost. So single engine fighters/tac bombers are relatively low, transports and level bombers relatively high. You'll get less 40 plane German bomber wings per airbase than 4 plane fighters. How to check? Add a unit, go to the airbase and check 'support' this will show two numbers like: 50/120 the first is how much support you are using, the second how much is available. Don't exceed or planes will go into reserve (ie are in the unit but not active) and repairs etc will slow down

night missions may help you do something on a sector where your opponent has air superiority. So if you want to resupply a pzr spearhead and its embedded deep into the soviet lines, you may do more good at night than by exposing your tante jus to Soviet fighters. Equally some Soviet planes operate at night - the U2s etc, so if you want to curb that menace you'll need some fighters on night.

you can mix your airbases as you like with the Germans - its a bit less straightforward with the Soviets

move to national reserve either on the counter (click reserve) or in the Commanders report, there you can do it by type, airbase, individual plane or set criteria

If you want units to die rather than rout, you have to wait a turn. That does mean that the defenders at places like Sevastopol will inevitably escape (as they did). Its actually relatively realistic. A lot of Soviet troops escaped out of the June-July 1941 pockets simply by walking east. If you read some Soviet biographies, by mid-1942 it had become a bit of a badge of honour among the new generation of commanders to have survived at least one complete encirclement.

but a unit that routs takes extra losses and loses extra morale.

No a unit that is in a routed state, routs again (it maybe that some shatter but most rout), which means they get a double dose of the above.

There are some arcane rules for when a unit can rout - basically they need a town hex within x MPs (or hexes I forget) - which means you may see some outright surrenders. There also seems to be a morale aspect to this and there maybe special rules in place for turn 1.
swkuh
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by swkuh »

Oh my, Tim... your job opportunity beckons!

But, KUDOS for your questions and same for Loki's answers. Especially night missions, air base loadings, and routings vs. isolations; great play tips for me.

Keep them questions coming, great thread.
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RealChuckB
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by RealChuckB »

Hi - I'm no expert on WitE but I found this article about the routing in WitE and how it reflects reality is quite interesting: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2011/0 ... ut-report/

This is part of a whole series by the author (Bruce Geryk) on this website, which I thought was good - not as detail-oriented but entertaining and Bruce is generally very knowledgable (long time wargamer)
Timotheus
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by Timotheus »

Kudos awarded to Loki and Chuck.

Good job!

In fact, as an extra, Loki for going in depth gets a special reward: an "Attaboy!". [:D]

In all seriousness, this is a DEEP game and I am writing my own bible on this.

Once I am satisfied I will post it and perhaps it could be used as a mini guide to supplement the "Operational Bootcamp" which is a VERY VERY GOOD guide and, really, should have shipped with the game.
NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle

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https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl
Timotheus
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by Timotheus »

Just got a great tip from Chuck's link to Bruce Geryk's series of articles on WITE.

War in the East: Sid Meier’s Heinz Guderian’s Railroad Tycoon

"What did I do wrong?"

"So what I was doing wrong was simply using my autonomous rail engineer units (called FBD units) to repair the rail lines without realizing that I needed to keep headquarters units within command range so they could augment my main rail repair."
NEWBIE GUIDE Distant Worlds Universe
http://tinyurl.com/k3frrle

War in the Pacific Poradnik po Polsku
http://tinyurl.com/nxd4cesh

INSTALL WITPAE on modern PC
https://tinyurl.com/l5kr6rl
Mehring
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by Mehring »

the U2s etc, so if you want to curb that menace you'll need some fighters on night.
One thing I notice is that LW fighters set to night never intercept partisan supply missions. Anyone ever seen different?
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loki100
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by loki100 »

ORIGINAL: Mehring

the U2s etc, so if you want to curb that menace you'll need some fighters on night.

One thing I notice is that LW fighters set to night never intercept partisan supply missions. Anyone ever seen different?

I certainly lose planes doing partisan resupply but never really checked as to whether this was due to operational problems or enemy interdiction. Would be hard for the Germans to set up their defensive fighters to stop those missions as they are all over the map, especially if the Soviets use their IL-4s for the task.

I'm certainly losing some U2s to enemy fighters, as they have been mostly operating on the more stable sectors where I can place airbases very close to the front so my opponent has set up a few dedicated fighter groups (he seems to be using the Bf-110s) to curb them. Not sure its worth his effort as the damage is very much at the level of attrition (100-300 men, 5 - 30 guns per turn) and if I lose any there are masses in the pool to replace them.
Mehring
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RE: Questions to the crew - supply, air stacking, night missions and teleportation

Post by Mehring »

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: Mehring

the U2s etc, so if you want to curb that menace you'll need some fighters on night.

One thing I notice is that LW fighters set to night never intercept partisan supply missions. Anyone ever seen different?

I certainly lose planes doing partisan resupply but never really checked as to whether this was due to operational problems or enemy interdiction. Would be hard for the Germans to set up their defensive fighters to stop those missions as they are all over the map, especially if the Soviets use their IL-4s for the task.

I'm certainly losing some U2s to enemy fighters, as they have been mostly operating on the more stable sectors where I can place airbases very close to the front so my opponent has set up a few dedicated fighter groups (he seems to be using the Bf-110s) to curb them. Not sure its worth his effort as the damage is very much at the level of attrition (100-300 men, 5 - 30 guns per turn) and if I lose any there are masses in the pool to replace them.
It's hard to tell what causes losses to partisan missions as Russian but as German, you can note the number of kills a fighter group has and see if it changes between turns. This is from a game played years ago but like your opponent I used mainly Bf 110s and from 1943 a dedicated night fighter unit, but never recorded a single kill. They were often based close to partisan activity.

Night Witches are another matter as are regular tactical bombing missions set to night, both very useful and both vulnerable to interception. As for bombing cities, it's virtually useless in day time so quite pointless at night.

One of the problems with WitE1 interception is that it doesn't take place along the flight path, in or outbound, only at the target hex. Because of that, if your target hex is far enough away from enemy air bases you can fly over their whole air force and no interception will happen.
“Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.”
-Leon Trotsky
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