ORIGINAL: Pelton
Its because no Stalingrad.
As I constantly say WitE is not a movie or a book.
No German player is going to throw away 350,000 men.
....
Pelton .. 'Stalingrad' has nothing to do with it, the issue is the impact of fighting in the summer. The reason I fought forward was I assumed (completely incorrectly) that the battering vigabrand's infantry divisions took in the winter would weaken them for the summer. Well it doesn't. This is essentially about the size of manpower reserves and losses.
ORIGINAL: chaos45
Bozo- I dont think its quite that simple...........
I do believe that the German Army is much larger than historical. Even before Stalingrad so the no Stalingrad arguement isnt valid. The entire reason Stalingrad happened was the German Army was very weak/reduced in manpower before the Soviets even attempted the encirclement- something we are not seeing in the game at all.
Now so far me and Peltons game is fairly balanced and has been a tense and IMO a well played match so the game is maybe close to being balanced?? just have to see if the Germans remain to strong or weak 43-45. Again though he still has a way stronger German army than historical despite bitter fighting and counterattacks by my soviet forces.
The issue I have with the game numbers and historical numbers- the game total manpower includes all Airbase, HQ, and in general rear area troops. Im not sure all of the historical totals include some of these manpower sources. Even with the extra men included such as Airbase manpower which Im fairly certain wasnt in the historical numbers you still see a German army probably inflated 500k+ or more over historical levels tho.
As I think all the Luftwaffe HQs = several hundred thousand men...now the massive issue here is the german player can just disband all those luftwaffe HQs and suddenly generate about 2 entire extra armies of trained combat infantrymen over a couple weeks if they want to.......something the German army historical could not.
The main reason you see this IMO is as has been beat to death like a hundred times now........combat losses are to low for both sides. Moraeval has said in the next patch combat losses should increase some for both sides so that should help keep both armies from maintaining 90%+ ToEs.
the idea of converting Luftwaffe bases to combat manpower is really just simple rules abuse. The Germans did some of that and produced a whole load of pretty useless formations. There are accounts of those units deployed as garrisons in Bielorussia doing deals with the local partisans for localised ceasefires (& to warn each other if new formations were moving into the region)
ORIGINAL: morvael
My extensive tests done for 1.08.05 have shown that armies are indeed stronger in 1.08.00-04 because of repairs after movement. I have slightly reduced the effectiveness of these, while at the same time increased the losses from combat (thanks to reworked "too many attackers penalty"), in order to get closer to 1.07.xx-level totals. Because of the smaller airbases and 41a Rifle Divisions it wasn't possible to get above 100% for 1941, because otherwise the losses for later years were way too high. So comparing to 1.07.xx you can expect less disabled in 1.08.05 but more killed and overall losses will be bigger later in the war (when the fort levels are high). Some German manpower was also rescheduled from 1941 to 1943. Will the current level be enough to force operational pauses just because of mounting losses? Only time will tell. A sample from what I got in AIvsAI games for the first 10 turns of each campaign scenario:
1941GC: German level of losses in 1.08.04 compared to 1.07.15: 80%, Soviet: 87% (killed 80% and 144%). In 1.08.05: 95% and 94% (killed 134% and 189%)
1942GC: 60% and 104% (killed 65% and 180%) vs 82% and 130% (killed 100% and 234%)
StoB: 142% and 102% (killed 210% and 185%) vs 154% and 128% (killed 270% and 221%)
1943GC: killed 93% and 214% vs 152% and 258% (disabled are negative in this scenario, so can't calculate totals)
1944GC: 107% and 101% (killed 77% and 180%) vs 95% and 149% (killed 127% and 284%)
VtoB: 46% and 76% (killed 53% and 94%) vs 118% and 136% (killed 166% and 174%)
Bear in mind I should have done more 1.07.15 tests to have average numbers, but I did only one. For 1.08.05 I did more tests, especially in the middle of development, but less at the end. So the % may vary by as much as 20-30% depending on whether the AI is able to pull of Stalingrad or not, manage to force Rumanian surrender or not etc. Some changes are also caused by different TOE and scenario fixes. Also, players do not waste manpower in headon attack as the AI does. But I would expect an increase in losses, that's for sure.
All this sounds great, I think everyone is well aware of the problems in balancing, really across two aspects. First supply is too permissive (and won't change to WiTE2), but second is across the imposed shifts in the game (ie moments when the rules change without player intervention). Both those have the capacity to disrupt any balance.
agree about the AI, oddly it produces a more realistic game than PBEM due to its tendency to attack. Against the AI I find I'm burning off masses of supply as ammunition, in PBEM its not really something I notice