Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

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).

Moderators: Joel Billings, elmo3, Sabre21

Post Reply
Saulust
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 2:37 am

Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Saulust »

Playing as the Soviets in a GC against the AI, I don't understand how this could possibly happen. I have just witnessed a 3 stack of surrounded German Infantry Divisions evacuate from a long term & very long distant cut off hex on the coast over the previous last two turns.

I had 46, 251 & 254 IDs cut off and surrounded in the swampy coastal hex (X56, Y34) west of but just right next to the port city of Riga, they had been cut off there for about ten turns. I never lost Riga and I had captured Koenigsberg 13 turns ago, Ventspils 12 turns ago and both Memel & Libau/Liepaja 11 turns ago IIRC, anyway it was on T12 that I flipped the complete rail net behind the whole of AGN & the northern part of AGM, while I captured the last two ports. I kept them all completely cut off from ever re-linking back with supply and I finally destroy all other of the formed German pockets of AGN on T22, 38 German Divisions (plus 5 Italian) in total on that turn. It is now T23.

On T22 two off these 3 German Infantry Divisions 'disappeared' from that isolated coastal pocket and now at the start of T23 the last one, the 46th has also disappeared! They seemed to have pulled out somehow teliportal style like because I identified the first two 251 & 254 IDs stacked together just two hexes behind the current German front line over the course of last turn. They were basically at full strength, minus there bombing & attrition losses while in the pocket. I know for certain because the AI used these two in a few attacks on the next turn, German T23.

Now similarly I can see the 46th ID about where the other two were stacked last turn, also it looks to be near full strength from my aerial reconnoitre of it. The rest of the German Ostheer 2.0 is made up of half strength shell husks. Apart from these 3 IDs, I have destroyed by surrender all starting Axis ground formations including all re-enforcements up to those that arrive by T20 including the 227th ID, and yes I even got both the 2nd & 5th PzDs!

Annoyingly all three of these escapees have magically absconded from their coastal hex with out getting lost as surrendered or shattered and are therefore not showing up in the Destroyed Divisions list... yet. I also missed out on getting most their troops into the Axis casualty totals, where they were due to end up on this turn, T23. The Germans only suffered just under ten thousand casualties on their turn and from attrition, so it couldn't be much from the 46th ID in that meagre amount, certainly not all of it I'd say, while OTOH my Soviets still lost nearly 100 000 on T23 so far cos I haven't moved yet! [;)]

So over these two turns they have just appeared right behind the German front line about five hexes west of Posen and the first two have attacked right up to that city with the 46th ID also 'beamed' up behind them this turn, great Scot! (ST reference there I hope, cos that's what it looks like.) [:'(]

They had been cut off with the rest of AGN for ten turns, they were mine to destroy, but no they have just transplanted themselves 50 hexes away (I counted them!) with out needing to be resuscitated or resurrected like all others. It's a miracle! [&o]
Searry
Posts: 1223
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:01 am

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Searry »

An intervention by the Nazi gods?
I have read of such stories before about the AI having this sort of magical capacity.
-Flashpoint Campaigns Southern Storm Beta Tester
-Rule The Waves 3 Beta Tester
User avatar
56ajax
Posts: 2132
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:43 am
Location: Cairns, Australia

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by 56ajax »

The AI can helicopter units out of pockets, cross impassable barriers and seems to get extra MPs
Molotov : This we did not deserve.

Foch : This is not peace. This is a 20 year armistice.

C'est la guerre aérienne
Aufklaerungs
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:37 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Aufklaerungs »

Sounds like a hex coding error - hex appears to have coastal hex attributes enabled. Place one of your units in the offending hex and check supply details.

I have found a number of clear hexes (from hex art palette) that are coded as heavy forest.

Dennis Nedry
Aufklärungs
User avatar
56ajax
Posts: 2132
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:43 am
Location: Cairns, Australia

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by 56ajax »

Well I have stopped games against the AI, rolled back the Turn, changed AI to Human and tried to replicate what the AI did and failed miserably.

In one situation I had a Soviet unit trapped with adjacent Germans on 5 sides, ended the turn and when I came back the Soviets were 8 hexes away..

AI has super powers.

Molotov : This we did not deserve.

Foch : This is not peace. This is a 20 year armistice.

C'est la guerre aérienne
Aufklaerungs
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:37 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Aufklaerungs »

We are but mere mortals. The AI is so far above us ...
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4a334677-a463-4767-b63b-d8d4c1fd1d88 [8|]
Aufklärungs
Saulust
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 2:37 am

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Saulust »

Yeah, I feel with some of the respondents.... OK I'll live with it in this game, since I thought that totally flipping the railnet behind AGN was a bit drastic just cos I captured Memel with a Cavalry Div of probably no more than 3000 Cossacks!

Yes I have seen the AI perform magical things... kind of makes up for its atrocious performance all round otherwise I guess, but I thought this example was gallingly beyond the pale TBH. [X(]

For context if it helps to clarify my surprise, the AI has only been performing such vanishing tricks with German Security Divisions and the 8th SS CAV Bgde since I captured Budapest and made Hungary surrender, when all 6 or 7 remaining German Sec Divs flew to behind the Danube in a line pattern south to north from the Yugoslav border but coming from all the cut off pockets they were all pickled in! [:@]

(Mind you the AI chose to have them then abandoned that line the very next turn and 'pin balled' moved north to around Bratislava the next turn... then bounce them all over across the front in the north so basically abandoning the line they were set up in and going into no where... then in a hand full of turns later they of course weren't there around to defend that last Carpathian Axis Ally capital city where I again simply marched into it unopposed on T17! [8|] )
Aufklaerungs
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:37 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Aufklaerungs »

Best remedy for me in similar situations is to chalk it up to FOW - bad sources, bogus recon reports from patrols that never actually happened, deception measures, political officers, etc. [:(]

My only other option was to walk away from the game - too unpleasant to contemplate. [&:]
Aufklärungs
Saulust
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 2:37 am

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by Saulust »

Well a real remedy would be one thing, not a fantasy contrivance in your head work-around but a wished for solution I guess. [8|]

At the time I thought that may be there was a special case with those 3 Divisions because they were stacked cut off against the coast... I was wondering if it didn't bode well for my similar case now in the same game with three ground units cut off and pressed against the coast in north-west Pomerania - perhaps I should expect this 'Dunkirk' quirk to happen again, plus I just thought the Sec Divs & 8th SS Cav Bgd had 'special' abilities under the AI or that they got them cos I made Hungaria surrender.
User avatar
GamesaurusRex
Posts: 505
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 3:10 pm

RE: Cut off German Inf Divs pull a Dunkirk from non-port coast!

Post by GamesaurusRex »

Clearly this is a flaw in the coding of the game. Perhaps the specific map hex coding or some other routine regarding routing or retreat...

HOWEVER... Considering that the game has few, if any random events routines other than the combat results routines, I would suggest that this "error" is in fact an entertaining positive. In this particular game, you are playing against the AI... right ? An AI that has a hard enough time just maintaining a decent front, much less pulling off something truly creative to challenge you. So, given the overall limitations of the AI, I wouldn't worry too much about it being allowed to cheat now and then. It enhances the challenge.
"Real Life" is a game... THIS is war !
Post Reply

Return to “Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series”