Food in Flames unbalancing?

[AllenK]

As a counter-argument to the general 'submarines are ineffective' trend being voiced here, I would say it depends on how you define effective.

In my game, despite all the free CP's from aligned countries DoW'd by the Axis, losses to subs have left the CW struggling to keep all its factories running and, on a couple of occasions, it's been left with idle factories. No resource or BP shipments to Russia have been possible, resulting in the Germans facing a somewhat weaker Red Army. The game is now into 1945 and the German army is far from being broken in Russia. My somewhat less than optimal production planning and other FUBARs have certainly contributed to their success but the Allies have had to spend a large number of BP's building new CP's and repairing damaged CL's. BPs that would otherwise have been spent on more offensive units to take the war to the Axis.

Certainly, aborted CP's can be re-organised and sent back out to sea before the turn ends but that takes an HQ to do it. An HQ that could otherwise be supporting land operations or re-organising strategic bombers for a second go in the turn. As Axis player, I know what I would prefer.

So, they haven't brought the CW economy to its knees but the diversion of production effort into defensive rather than offensive units, the constraining of the CW by pretty much compelling its first impulse of the turn to be naval and the volume of losses inflicted has more than justified the cost to build and maintain them. That seems a pretty good definition of effective to me.

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Lord Drakken

Has their ever been any discussion on the forums of making the convoy owner lose resources as the convoys are sunk? The fact of the matter is that when a convoy gets sunk full of resources putting another convoy out to sea does not bring those resources back. Perhaps losing half of a resource or half a production point for each convoy sunk would be a fair representation in the game.

I think that idea has some mileage and probably the 1/2 point resource loss, rather than BP loss. Would it ever get introduced into WIF and thence MWIF and would it ever get coded when there are several optional rules, AI and PBEM to get working is another matter.

[Centuur]

I don't want to see that happening too. What you often see is that German players think that the U boats they've got at there disposal at start should be enough to cripple the CW. Well, it isn't. Germany has to put quite some build points into SUB production and don't start attacking the convoys before France has fallen. If Germany wants to build for the BoA it can assemble a good SUB force to attack British shipping with a good degree of succes end of 1940 and in 1941.

But crippling the CW economy is very difficult (as it was during WWII). Personally, I think the successes of the U boats were overrated during WWII. Sure, there were shortages, but I don't think the war economy did suffer a lot in the UK...

Sure, a lot of goods were lost at sea, but I've got the impression that it almost looks like those losses were incalculated to a certain point. In late 1941, things were becoming somewhat difficult for the British, but after the US got in the war, things were healthy again, although a lot of extra merchant shipping had to be build...

[Orm]

I think that most German players think it is to difficult to get to the historical level of tonnage sunk. If not even close to impossible.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

IIRC, someone here did the math and concluded that the losses in the Battle of Atlantic, for the entire war, came up to 81 convoy points in game.

I've never seen anyone sink 81 convoy points in WiF, and if they did, the Allies would be in serious trouble. So yeah, it's really hard to get anything like the historical levels of tonnage sunk; which is compounded by the fact that if they did, we almost certainly wouldn't get to the historical outcome.

[Numdydar]

Here is some data to consider. Just looking at these number through the end of '43 I would have to agree that the sub effort by Germany was a colossal waste of time/resources. The number of sunk tonnage compared to actually shipped tonnage (sunk/total shipped) has got to be less than 10%. Not enough to really have a major impact on anyone's production.

http://www.usmm.org/wsa/shiploss.html

[Lord Drakken]

In this discussion I am trying to get convoy play to be more realistic without an overhaul of the rules altogether. I really love the premise of Food in Flames optional rule. However, it gives a huge boon to the CW which I think is unbalancing.

I am not saying that the U boats are ineffective at all. I think they can be very useful just like you said... That is if the Axis builds them.

The problem I find in the game is the gift of merchant shipping the CW gets with each neutral entering the war. Hence the Axis players are discouraged from attacking neutral countries with large merchant fleets.

Now that I think about it. A house rule can work for my new food in flames rule without having to be coded into MWIF. The CW can just be forced to idle a factory in the UK for each of the 3, India, Australia, and South Africa it doesn't manage to get resources from. This will encourage those long convoy routes to be in play without buffing the CW base production that has been balanced through the years of play testing.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

The problem that I've found is twofold though

Every u-boat you build is fewer BP that are going into hitting Russia, and at least in my experience, that's where you win or lose the game. I'd much rather cripple the Soviets than cripple the British, and direct my efforts accordingly.


And if you do build for a major U-boat campaign, the British are going to respond and build for a major anti u-boat campaign. And when they've overrun the Azores, and stuck swordfishes and a couple of cruisers in the sea zones most likely to get hit, it's very hard to make any progress at all, and harder still to do so without getting your fleet wrecked and having to spend 2 turns repairing it.


The air power advantage that the CW has over all the likely target zones, in my opinion, makes a major push for the BoA a speculative play at best.

[brian brian]

many players feel the action limit costs of using the U-Boats is a major problem as well

I like leaving the Netherlands neutral till Japanese DOW due to the Convoy Points, and the rest of the Dutch Navy as well. Not because I like to go all in on a Battle of the Atlantic ... but to not give the CW all the Convoy Points and it is then that much more of an investment for them to build a convoy line to Russia.

And I can get across the Dyle without an Offensive Chit or Rotterdam. The chit is better used in the green fields beyond.

[Zorachus99]

Regarding the U-boat war, it is interesting that if you treat them as strategic weapons instead of tactical ones, you have much different results.

Consider this:

First, your subs are no strategic weapon if you have no reserve, long range subs in port to commit.
Second, you must commit to buying subs every turn, long term.
Third, if the enemy fails to escort a convoy, or only lightly escorts a convoy, send at least a single raider every time.

So what I've outlined is an extremely passive submarine war. What? What?

This strategy permanently ties up the owner with escorting the 0 box. Sending ships or aircraft to the 0 box cost oil, and more invaluably, commits the unit for the entire turn.

At first glance this seems unimportant, but over the entire game, this can turn into over 100 oil points expended in escort duty alone.

If your enemy suddenly forgets to escort, you send out about half your forces to raid, while still keeping the implied threat alive to all the sea lanes with more threats still in port.

I've played opponents that lost over 100 cp using this tactic because they would refuse to escort, and/or were focused on their plans and schemes too rigidly. The economic loss was substantial as a side benefit to the convoys which had to be rebuilt.

In terms of economics, the Allied nations will tend to outproduce the Axis by more than 3x over the course of the war (I'm guessing here), so, all attempts to slow this unstoppable force have an effect, but you cannot see the effect as a unit on the board, instead it is one *not* on the board, and therefore is strategic warfare...

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Regarding the U-boat war, it is interesting that if you treat them as strategic weapons instead of tactical ones, you have much different results.

Consider this:

First, your subs are no strategic weapon if you have no reserve, long range subs in port to commit.
Second, you must commit to buying subs every turn, long term.
Third, if the enemy fails to escort a convoy, or only lightly escorts a convoy, send at least a single raider every time.

So what I've outlined is an extremely passive submarine war. What? What?

This strategy permanently ties up the owner with escorting the 0 box. Sending ships or aircraft to the 0 box cost oil, and more invaluably, commits the unit for the entire turn.

At first glance this seems unimportant, but over the entire game, this can turn into over 100 oil points expended in escort duty alone.

If your enemy suddenly forgets to escort, you send out about half your forces to raid, while still keeping the implied threat alive to all the sea lanes with more threats still in port.

I've played opponents that lost over 100 cp using this tactic because they would refuse to escort, and/or were focused on their plans and schemes too rigidly. The economic loss was substantial as a side benefit to the convoys which had to be rebuilt.

In terms of economics, the Allied nations will tend to outproduce the Axis by more than 3x over the course of the war (I'm guessing here), so, all attempts to slow this unstoppable force have an effect, but you cannot see the effect as a unit on the board, instead it is one *not* on the board, and therefore is strategic warfare...

Works for me!

[Centuur]

That is indeed the way to do it. But it can be countered by the CW building the right units (especially the CVP's, NAV and the cruisers needs to be repaired and convoys replaced). To many CW players start by finishing the CV's or building other shiney things in 1939. The only shiny thing which should be started is an AMPH. The rest is all for countering a possible BoA and FTR's and cheap land units to defend (with the HQ's, of course). With all CV's having planes and land based NAV available, the CW can survive (even when now and than a convoy line gets broken). Yes, that cost oil, but oil is something the CW has a lot of...

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: AllenK

ORIGINAL: Lord Drakken

Has their ever been any discussion on the forums of making the convoy owner lose resources as the convoys are sunk? The fact of the matter is that when a convoy gets sunk full of resources putting another convoy out to sea does not bring those resources back. Perhaps losing half of a resource or half a production point for each convoy sunk would be a fair representation in the game.

I think that idea has some mileage and probably the 1/2 point resource loss, rather than BP loss. Would it ever get introduced into WIF and thence MWIF and would it ever get coded when there are several optional rules, AI and PBEM to get working is another matter.

A very effective turn against convoys, although usually rare in RAW7, is a triple whammy:
- you have to replace the convoys sunk at 1 BP each
- you lose production points for the shortfall at 1 production point each
- you lose the "opportunity cost" of what you were planning to build with the lost BPs

So losing even more BPs for having the convoys sunk is uncalled for, IMO.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

IIRC, someone here did the math and concluded that the losses in the Battle of Atlantic, for the entire war, came up to 81 convoy points in game.

I've never seen anyone sink 81 convoy points in WiF, and if they did, the Allies would be in serious trouble. So yeah, it's really hard to get anything like the historical levels of tonnage sunk; which is compounded by the fact that if they did, we almost certainly wouldn't get to the historical outcome.

There's a WiFcon game report I read somewhere on the net, that talked about losses of over 130 CPs in one game.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

What happened to the Allies?

[paulderynck]

I imagine the CW was utterly neutered and the Axis won the game, but can't recall the final outcome as the most notable (and memorable) thing was the CP losses.

[composer99]

My very first WiFCon, in 2005, my Axis team sank over 100 cps of convoys.

We still got steamrollered. We had to end early because we ran out of time, but Japan was effectively conquered (only a few factory cities to go), Germany was on the ropes, Italy was strong but obviously incapable of resisting for long once Germany went, and it was only the summer of 1944.

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: Lord Drakken

Thanks for the input everyone. Actually German GDP outpaced the Commonwealth throughout the war, even late into 1944.

Bumping an old thread whilst reading around ...

If the quoted poster is still around please quote sources for this assertion.

Please also define:

(a) what you include in German GDP; and

(b) what group of economies you include in CW GDP; and

(c) please clarify if you are alleging bare GDP is a true measure of comparative military output?

Thanks.