Balance discussion

[chaos45]

If you have time to lose 90 out of 100 games you my friend have way to much free time lol [:D]

[Colbert]

ORIGINAL: ledo
The pointing the finger comment and the generalization statement was what I was talking about... I just think the quality of the debate surrounding balance in this game has been in decline for a while, with multiple flare ups. People seem to oscillate here between being antagonistic and rude to any divergent opinion, to preaching a calm and more polite debate, often its the same people in two different threads.

I have not really posted much here since I first joined - and until recently enjoyed the atmosphere on the site. I think we can all see it has gone down the toilet.

But I have to thank Ledo for spurring me on to finally commnet. I was one of those new guys who kept an army in reserve for a final attack - it was required in qn old board game so it seems to me not unreasonable for many beginners to do that. Not something to be laughed at.

But the rank hypocrisy of some of the posters above is amazing. After a long time I was tempted to join one of the team games - and we can all see the trolling and poison there. Go and have a look at the 9PM opponents wanted posts. Someone preaching calm here was trying to take over someone else's game. They posted so much poison that I do not feel I can post an interest there - and I can see no one else has.

It has come to the point when the trollers do need to be called out -particularly when they masquerade as something else elsewhere. If not then all other new guys or the ones not wanting to see that stuff will be put off this site completely.

[VigaBrand]

Could we be on track with balance, if we allow the soviets to use there airborne brigades?
At the moment most rulesets disallow that, but with the actual german performance, this could bring some well soviet weapons back in the game.

[Beria]

I think the airborne rule was to avoid artificial play like breaking rail repair - so not just about balance. But yes you can look at all the standard house rules and options - allow naval invasions, or even both +1 and full blizzard.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[Beria]

So the core issue is about allowing the Soviet side to attack successfully in 1941?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[SparkleyTits]

Fighting along broader fronts helps to still get gains currently but it means it's harder to get the flashy operations in over winter
Having airborne and amphibs allowed in more games would help bring more variety and options but you could still easily have a house rule that stops hitting the rail lines with those options

[Colbert]

The team games had the no suicide rule - do look at the 9PM opponents wanted thread

[Beria]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: Beria

So the core issue is about allowing the Soviet side to attack successfully in 1941?

No. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. The full blizzard just plays differently at the moment because of the extra MP from failed attacks.

So before blizzard yes - but not beyond that?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[Beria]

It may be I have lost the thread actually …

I thought there was one theme of changing house rules e.g. airdrops, para invasions and so on.

There was another theme about the effect of changing rules to discourage soaking attacks.

And a cross-cutting theme about different approaches to before and during blizzard.

So putting it together I thought the suggestions, using all those permutations, are
i) Do you change house rules (airdrops, naval etc) before blizzard?
ii) Do you not change house rules (airdrops, naval etc) during blizzard?
iii) Was the rule change on soaking attacks before blizzard a good thing?
iv) Was the rule change on soaking attacks during blizzard a good thing?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Nada

[Bitburgerdraft]

Every game i have played has been influenced heavily by how well or not an ahistorical Lvov pocket is executed. Lots of fun to do, but not many would try to argue it was possible. No Lvov or Super Lvov, and my games that have seen the game out, usually ending in a minor victory, either side. I am an average player, balance should be on focused on the majority, so i propose the houserules i would ask in my next game. Army group center can not move south past hex Y73. And no German units can change HQ until turn 3, to get around that. That gives the Russians a fair, historical start. Otherwise, might as well be playing Orks and Elves[:'(]

[BrianG]

v) I can still do massive soaking off attacks with Armor Brigades during the blizzard against German PZ's Division to cause very nice German tank losses if they are on the front line(because of damaged tanks being lost). With 20-30 MPs I can get in a great many hasty attacks off on German armor with the Soviet tank Brigades. This has been the ONLY way I can get tank loses on German armor(besides making the Division retreat through ZOC). I have gotten a handful of tank kills with IL2's bombing with many of my IL2's in the high 80's in Experience. Level bombers don't kill any German armor. Attacking Inf gets a few. But if you hasty attack with Armor brigades after a while you will get very nice results. All other hasty attacks is suicidal with extremely high loses and added MP's on a normal assault . So you really have to plan accordingly or you will come up short on the attacks.

I can confirm this is causing large German tank losses, especially on front line tired out tank divisions.

[trh2164]

With the top German players seeming to easily take both Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 and blizzard and +1 settings not really affecting it much in the summer, has it come up to create an option on setup to simply disable HQ Build Ups? I would like to see how that would change things. I suppose a workaround would be to reduce Axis AP/turn to perhaps 20, which would make buildups much rarer, although affecting other things later.

[thedoctorking]

I like Bitburgerdraft's idea. If you can evacuate those Lvov guys, or at least some of them, it makes a huge difference. In our Connect4 game, we were able to get at least the SU out of the pocket, and a good number of units, and so even though AGS did have reinforcements from 2nd Panzer Group for the first ten turns or so, they were unable to get beyond the Donbass cities and didn't take Kharkov.

[SparkleyTits]

Yeah Axis really is the harder of the two teams to play well until you get attack pathing, logistics and decent strategic foresight down then it starts the swing to the opposite corner with the Soviets becoming the much harder of the two teams to play as you continue to improve

I do like Bitburgers idea too, great way to make a more historical start by stopping some of the gamey ways to bypas the intended limits!

[skraft16]

It sounds like a lot of the balance problems (and I agree that there are some) can be fixed pretty easily.

1) House rule against diverting army group center units more than 1-2 hexrows south of Brest-Litovsk on turn 1 and 2. Also no reassignment of units between army groups until after turn 2

2) Edit the standard campaign game scenario to unfreeze the Southern Front so it is available on turn 1

3) House rule against Army Group South units going more than a couple hexrows south of Lvov on Turn 1, and maybe 5 or 10 hexrows on turn 2

4) House rule about HQ swaps. Or if we can put something in the game that you cannot voluntarily reassign units more than once every 4-5 turns

5) My experience in playing (nearly all of it vs. AI) is that the Russians do not need port supply to sustain their late-war offensives. And they don't need ports to sustain army-sized formations around Odessa and Sevastapol early in the war. If yo agree that this is the case, perhaps the port supply issue can be solved by reducing Black Sea port sizes to just 1 or 2? I think that would dramatically reduce supplies moving forward to the German spearhead via the ports, and it would simulate the fact that Russia largely had naval command of the Black Sea.

6) Edit the campaign scenario to add some more manpower to cities in the Caucuses/Voronezh/Moscow belt. If the Axis can gain control of these cities then the "moral collapse" causes Russian recruitment to fall.

7) #6 does require that the Russian evac some more heavy industry and armaments to take advantage of the manpower boost.

[MarauderPL]

I dont like prohibiting AGC units to go south, as it takes one of the few strategic tools the Germans have in their pocket. You could just agree in a set of houserules which pockets in the South are allowed to be created (Rovno, Kovel, Lvov, Proskurov etc.)
I believe under current rules, if the Germans go with a "historical" start, they may as well just surrender. The main problem with historical approaches is that in real life its the Soviet mistakes that allowed German advance - with player hindsight and "realistic" settings every game should grind to a halt near Smolensk. Thats why the game has to "overdo" with the unit quality disproportion to make up for operational/strategic mistakes that were present in history but are not in the game. The same is true for the later stages, where German commander wont make a Stalingradey/Bagrationey type of error, so the game emulates that for him with national morale and TOE changes.

If I were to influence the game design/patching, I would have suggested to get rid of some (most?) of the reinforcements schedule for the Soviets as well as the ridiculous 40AP per division creation cost, and allow the Soviet player to create units on his own to tailor his army. There could be two different kinds of divisions created, a more costly one with higher starting morale and cheaper with lower. The amount of AP received each turn should also be amended. This way the Soviet player would have to decide, if he wants a smaller but better army, or bigger but crappier. It would also provide tools to solve the problem with not enough Soviet counters on map that can occur in some games. In general my approach would be to give more tools to the players, and less railroading them to a historical outcome.