I have two questions. I am playing the battleground Italy scenario and am on turn 67. I've had two issues recently:
1. Three allied Italian units, two that were supposed to arrive in Messina on 10/7/44 and another that was supposed to arrive 2-3 turns earlier failed to arrive at all. At the time, Messina had 3 units in there already, but from my experience, that shouldn't stop reinforcements from arriving.
2. I've had an issue with some of the British divisions, especially the armored divisions and brigades where they are way down in strength, I place them in a city with a depot in Refit mode far behind the lines and near a friendly HQ and on top of rail lines and plenty of supply, and the receive no replacements at all. A couple are showing signs that they are actually shrinking, with replacements list under Supply Details showing -12, -35, etc.
Am I seeing normal behavior or does this seems buggy?
Thanks, Erik
Issue receiving replacements
Moderator: MOD_WarintheWest
RE: Issue receiving replacements
On point one, I wonder if the alternate spot is 'off map' in the scenario, and that's what has caused them to vanish. You didn't find them anywhere in the commanders report, right?
On the second point, a few considerations: are the units in question in command range of their parent HQ? Can you see in their supply details if their leader is failing his admin roles?
You mentioned it was the British, and they are manpower constrained, and this is heightened by the scenario rules that leave you with just a subset of total weekly production.
It's likely you're scraping the bottom of the barrel on British manpower, which is preventing the creation of the necessary elements to bring up strength in your units.
You can take steps in the commanders report to reduce the TOE% of units, as well as take steps to make as many airbases as possible American instead of British. Because of how the air support replacement used to function I ran into a British manpower crunch with this scenario because too many of my captured/created airbases fell under the Union Jack.
On the second point, a few considerations: are the units in question in command range of their parent HQ? Can you see in their supply details if their leader is failing his admin roles?
You mentioned it was the British, and they are manpower constrained, and this is heightened by the scenario rules that leave you with just a subset of total weekly production.
It's likely you're scraping the bottom of the barrel on British manpower, which is preventing the creation of the necessary elements to bring up strength in your units.
You can take steps in the commanders report to reduce the TOE% of units, as well as take steps to make as many airbases as possible American instead of British. Because of how the air support replacement used to function I ran into a British manpower crunch with this scenario because too many of my captured/created airbases fell under the Union Jack.
"War is never a technical problem only, and if in pursuing technical solutions you neglect the psychological and the political, then the best technical solutions will be worthless." - Hermann Balck
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Hey Seminole. Yeah, the units are definitely nowhere to be found on the map or in the OOB list. The reinforcements list showed that they arrived, but I think they were swallowed by a black hole.
Yeah, I know the British were starving for manpower late in the war, plus Italy was considered a secondary front so that makes sense. I'll double check the HQ and Leader admin stuff. And good point on the air bases. I'll definitely try that out. The British forces definitely did the lions share of the advancing in this scenario so I bet almost all of my air bases are British. How do I change it from a British to American?
One other thing I noticed which I think is a bit unrealistic is whenever I destroy a German unit, it's recreated and back in the line within 4-5 turns. I've destroyed the HG Panzer div like 3 times and came right back each time like nothing happened. I'm sure it wasn't the same combat unit the original was, but in Italy even marginal units are quite effective.
Thanks for the help.
Yeah, I know the British were starving for manpower late in the war, plus Italy was considered a secondary front so that makes sense. I'll double check the HQ and Leader admin stuff. And good point on the air bases. I'll definitely try that out. The British forces definitely did the lions share of the advancing in this scenario so I bet almost all of my air bases are British. How do I change it from a British to American?
One other thing I noticed which I think is a bit unrealistic is whenever I destroy a German unit, it's recreated and back in the line within 4-5 turns. I've destroyed the HG Panzer div like 3 times and came right back each time like nothing happened. I'm sure it wasn't the same combat unit the original was, but in Italy even marginal units are quite effective.
Thanks for the help.
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Hey Seminole. Yeah, the units are definitely nowhere to be found on the map or in the OOB list. The reinforcements list showed that they arrived, but I think they were swallowed by a black hole.
Shouldn't be a hard bug to duplicate given the only condition was having 3 units in Messina when arrival was scheduled. Have any auto-saves from before that happened? If you can upload them so the devs can duplicate the problem they should be able to eliminate it.
Yeah, I know the British were starving for manpower late in the war, plus Italy was considered a secondary front so that makes sense. I'll double check the HQ and Leader admin stuff. And good point on the air bases. I'll definitely try that out. The British forces definitely did the lions share of the advancing in this scenario so I bet almost all of my air bases are British. How do I change it from a British to American?
Airbases were my biggest gripe before one of the more recent patches altered the airbase air support replacement/resupply routine to happen when aircraft are re-based (instead of during the logistics phase between turns).
Air base nationality is a little tricky:
6.3.5. Air Base Unit Capture
When an air base unit is captured, the new friendly air base unit will choose its HQ attachment based on the following priority order
1) if captured due to combat, the Air Command providing ground support to the HQ in charge of the ground combat
2) The Air Command in charge of the closest air base unit with the same nationality
3) The closest Air Command HQ unit.
Captured air base units are automatically reset to supply priority 3
Once it is set, if can be changed, but it is kind of a pain (need to empty it of aircraft and wait a turn):
8.3.4.1. Air Base Unit Nationality Switch
If an in-supply air base unit contains no air groups, and the TOE of the air base unit is set to Auto, then in the logistics phase the air base unit will change to match the nationality of the air HQ unit that the air base unit is attached. When a friendly air base unit changes its nationality it will retain the Max TOE setting that the air base had before the nationality change. Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Rumanian air base units will not change nationality.
V1.00.44 introduced a few more (welcome!) changes that are not in the manual:
• New Features and Rule Changes
1. Added ability to attach construction units to cities at the cost of 1 AP point per unit. These are attached to cities the same as flak from the City Detail screen. They can be sent back to their HQ at no AP cost by pressing the X next to their name in the City Detail screen. Construction units in cities will automatically attempt to repair factories (including ports and railyards), and repair/expand airbases. Units in cities will be used first, but if deemed insufficient, additional construction units may still be summoned automatically to the hex. Units attached to cities will not be used by the automatic rail repair system.
3. Added air transfer destination air base resupply code that is immediately activated when an air unit is transferred to an airbase:
- if air base is empty it will assign it to new air hq (based on max aircraft)
- if air base is empty it will try to swap air base nationality
- air base will be resupplied and air support transferred if there is some in the pool. No new air support will be built.
5. An air Group on an isolated air base may not disband.
6. Transferring an air group will send all damaged/reserve planes to the transit air pool. If the air base is isolated they will be destroyed.
Previously you had to wait on the AI to automatically assign engineers to build, repair, or expand an airbase, and they would busy themselves first with other priorities you couldn't change. This ability to focus them is worth noting.
Keep in mind the air transfer code change, as paying attention to this should help you 'initialize' the air base nationality with your first air group transferred in if you didn't get the correct nationality from capture/creation.
One other thing I noticed which I think is a bit unrealistic is whenever I destroy a German unit, it's recreated and back in the line within 4-5 turns. I've destroyed the HG Panzer div like 3 times and came right back each time like nothing happened. I'm sure it wasn't the same combat unit the original was, but in Italy even marginal units are quite effective.
Units that surrender are reconstituted and fleshed out from the production pools (to the extent that required elements are available). If you capture the H. Goering Panzer Div it will be back, but the replacements won't start with 70 experience, they'll have to build back up to that. For this reason capturing designated elite units (who have national morale+15 for their morale limit, which is the limit to which experience can grow) should be a priority. Unit morale is the determinant in movement costs for entering enemy territory, so if you can drive down the morale of the panzers you're doing a Good Thing.
"War is never a technical problem only, and if in pursuing technical solutions you neglect the psychological and the political, then the best technical solutions will be worthless." - Hermann Balck
- Joel Billings
- Posts: 33050
- Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Santa Rosa, CA
- Contact:
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Please attach a save in this thread or email it to 2by3@2by3games.com. Ideally one save just before the units were to arrive, and another after they were set to arrive. If I get a save (or two), I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what's going on.
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
-- Soren Kierkegaard
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. I think I know what happened but not sure if it was SUPPOSED to happen that way.ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Please attach a save in this thread or email it to 2by3@2by3games.com. Ideally one save just before the units were to arrive, and another after they were set to arrive. If I get a save (or two), I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what's going on.
I accidentally found the Allied Italian units that never arrived. They are attached as support units to the British V Corps. Is it expected behavior for a 9000 man brigade to be relegated to support unit status instead of being a movable unit on the map in the Italy 43-45 scenario?
If not, I'll go back and try to find when these units where supposed to arrive and send you the right save file.
Thanks
RE: Issue receiving replacements
ORIGINAL: Seminole
On point one, I wonder if the alternate spot is 'off map' in the scenario, and that's what has caused them to vanish. You didn't find them anywhere in the commanders report, right?
On the second point, a few considerations: are the units in question in command range of their parent HQ? Can you see in their supply details if their leader is failing his admin roles?
You mentioned it was the British, and they are manpower constrained, and this is heightened by the scenario rules that leave you with just a subset of total weekly production.
It's likely you're scraping the bottom of the barrel on British manpower, which is preventing the creation of the necessary elements to bring up strength in your units.
You can take steps in the commanders report to reduce the TOE% of units, as well as take steps to make as many airbases as possible American instead of British. Because of how the air support replacement used to function I ran into a British manpower crunch with this scenario because too many of my captured/created airbases fell under the Union Jack.
Seminole, I never really figured out the issue with the British units....seems regular Infantry and armored units can get replacements but the armored brigades, not so much. I lost patience and eventually just disbanded the brigades so I could use them as replacements for my divisions and that seemed to work.
I also checked my airbase nationalities and almost all where American, so I left that alone.
Thanks for the help.
- Joel Billings
- Posts: 33050
- Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Santa Rosa, CA
- Contact:
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Yes, according to the OB for those Italian units they are Support units, not Multi-Role, so they are not allowed on the map. I'll ask Jim and Trey if that was intentional.
As for the armored brigades, it's very possible that given the small scenario limited production that something could be out of whack and causing shortages in a way the scenario designer didn't intend (or maybe he wanted a shortage). I grabbed a save game from an AI vs AI test of the scenario and found several Allied armored brigades short of equipment. It looked like a combination of some manpower shortages (for British and Canadian) and some AFV shortages (Polish and some British and Canadian). I know there have been some reworking of Allied AFVs in the later parts of the war, and you may be running into some of the shortages that this work was meant to correct in the other scenarios. For your game, it's just something you have to deal with, which it sounds like you have through some selected disbanding of units. Not sure if Trey will want to make some adjustments in this scenario or just leave it as is, but I'll bring it up with him.
As for the armored brigades, it's very possible that given the small scenario limited production that something could be out of whack and causing shortages in a way the scenario designer didn't intend (or maybe he wanted a shortage). I grabbed a save game from an AI vs AI test of the scenario and found several Allied armored brigades short of equipment. It looked like a combination of some manpower shortages (for British and Canadian) and some AFV shortages (Polish and some British and Canadian). I know there have been some reworking of Allied AFVs in the later parts of the war, and you may be running into some of the shortages that this work was meant to correct in the other scenarios. For your game, it's just something you have to deal with, which it sounds like you have through some selected disbanding of units. Not sure if Trey will want to make some adjustments in this scenario or just leave it as is, but I'll bring it up with him.
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
-- Soren Kierkegaard
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Thanks Joel.
I never really noticed the Canadian or Polish divisions to be short of manpower or equipment, just the British. The Br Infantry div were also short of manpower but it was most noticeable in the armored brigades.
Given how starved of troops the Allies eventually become in this scenario, I think having even these weak AI units on the map would be helpful. Not sure if it is worth making a change in a future update.
-Erik
I never really noticed the Canadian or Polish divisions to be short of manpower or equipment, just the British. The Br Infantry div were also short of manpower but it was most noticeable in the armored brigades.
Given how starved of troops the Allies eventually become in this scenario, I think having even these weak AI units on the map would be helpful. Not sure if it is worth making a change in a future update.
-Erik
- Joel Billings
- Posts: 33050
- Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Santa Rosa, CA
- Contact:
RE: Issue receiving replacements
Trey confirmed that he thinks the Italian units should be out on the map, so this will likely be changed in the future. Not sure if there will be a change in manpower or not. Have you tried disbanding some flak units or other unneeded units to free up some manpower? Thanks for the report.
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
-- Soren Kierkegaard