Matrix Games

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ComradeP

Also, regarding your theory that the game is heavily stacked against the Germans to survive until 1944: this is sort of a contradiction to what you're saying about games not lasting until 1944. How can you know that the Germans will be gone by 1944 if basically no games get to that point? I agree that the mid war situation for the Germans isn't pretty for a variety of reasons, but it's not like we have a dozen or more AAR's where Berlin falls.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Bletchley Geek: it's more a problem of them having significantly higher chances to fire even with poor to mediocre experience and leaders. It's also why casualties go up again as soon as the Soviets get 41c Rifle divisions: 41b Rifle divisions have a minimal amount of support weapons, but 41c Rifle divisions have plenty of mortars and also some SMG squads.

It's also caused by combat almost always ending with close quarter fights and, particularly, by virtually all elements closing in on eachother.

Normally, the SMG squads would probably just be picked off one by one by regular rifle squads in clear terrain, as there would be no reason for the riflemen to close in to a range where they're at a serious disadvantage. Currently, your infantry happily runs into a disadvantageous situation and pays the price. The SMG squads now always perform like you might expect them to perform in urban terrain, as virtually without exception, elements close in to about 50 meters.

Real men go to war on Real tanks

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ORIGINAL: Swenslim

I think the problem is in the VP system. Lets look why Soviets lost so many soldiers in 1941 and 1942. Because Stalin demanded from his generals to defend Minsk in any cost, to start immidiate counter attack at Dubno,  to defend Kiev at any cost, to defend Odessa, to retake Kerch and whole Crimea, to stand and defend every soviet city.
And what we see in game ? Soviet player only runs and runs. It is almost impossible for germans to recreate historical cauldrons.

In real life Stalin  often executed his generals for abondoning Pskov, Kerch, Minsk and other cities. In game soviets players suffers nothing for abandoning almost without any figt such cities of utter political importance as Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol and even Leningrad. Leningrad is a cradle of soviet Revolution, the loss of that city would have been catastrofic moral hit to soviet people and their will to fight. In game only loss is  few manpower points.

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ORIGINAL: Swenslim
The loss of Moscow before 7 December 1941 would definitly had resulted in Japan attack against soviet Far East.

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I see, so it's a problem about calibrating ground element attributes and also a problem about combat not having more phases (say more phases at mid ranges, between 1,000 and 50 meters). I still don't see why fixing any of the two issues would entail a major rework of the supply system, if ROF is capped proportionally to the lengthening of combat resolution ??

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

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I see, so it's a problem about calibrating ground element attributes and also a problem about combat not having more phases (say more phases at mid ranges, between 1,000 and 50 meters). I still don't see why fixing any of the two issues would entail a major rework of the supply system, if ROF is capped proportionally to the lengthening of combat resolution ??

The supply system would have to be reworked because artillery, which now often fires only a limited numbers of rounds, would consume far more ammunition, and for artillery elements the ammunition costs are tougher on the supply system than that of another round of, say, rifle fire. Machineguns could also theoretically consume far more ammo.

ROF being proportionally capped to the lengthening of the firing resolution would not fix the problem because, like I said before, it would not remove the problem of the relative amount of times that elements are likely to fire. If a certain element now fires 2 times, and another 4 times, if you'd cut that in half, one element would still fire twice as often/half as many times as the other. The ROFs themselves are not too problematic, although the SMG ROF is probably too generous in general as there should probably be some penalty for the inaccuracy of the weapon at full auto. I've decreased the SMG ranges in a customized variant of the game, and that results in fewer losses.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
The entire combat system would also need to be changed to take into account different weapon ranges. For example: riflemen should not normally be within 50 meters of SMG squads in clear terrain. The often heard rebutal of the distances being odd is that "the defender isn't supposed to be static", but that still doesn't make some parts of it historical. Several element types, such as SPAA, would not normally be directly at the frontline, yet they're at the frontline in the game. The only elements that seem to keep some distance between them and the enemy are artillery and (some) AT guns.

Real men go to war on Real tanks

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Well, the ROF is part of the problem, but why some ground elements are more likely to shoot than others aside from ROF is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.

As I see it, ideally some elements/element types should have their chance to fire increased whilst others should maybe have their chance to fire or to hit decreased. The problem isn't ROF per se, but more due to the haste at which a battle seems to take place, which is causing support weapons to get maybe 1 or 2 shots in and artillery often only 1 before the short-medium ranged elements start firing.

As stated, my earlier statement about the supply system not being able to handle changes was due to the increased ammunition costs that would occur if the support weapons and artillery would fire more often.

Shorter range elements are highly benefited, since they're less exposed to be smacked at a distance and they don't care about less chances to shoot, regardless of ROF (ATR's, SMG's, etc.)
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There's one item that doesn't fit any of these two patterns: MG's. MG's should really own soft elements because of high ROF. Have you tried to tweak the ROF values for German MG elements (MG42, MG34). There should be a ton of those in German TOE's (every squad had one of the lighter kind, every platoon one of the heavier kind).

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Combat results can be so variable, and the differences between how elements perform whilst attacking or defending so great that it's difficult to do more than spot trends/problems that happen most of the time. I've seen 90 experience elements perform worse in battle than 50 experience elements, and I've seen 50 experience elements barely being able to lift a finger as they get crushed by 90 experience elements.

Perhaps Pavel can build for you guys a modified Debug version of WitE that collects this data and stores it into CSV format so it can be analyzed offline. I guess such logs could weight a few hundred megabytes, but that should provide you guys with a consistent stream of data so you can track performance of ground elements during combat. Say you get this and then you see that the distribution rather than being a bell curve of sorts, is skewed to either side or too flat. That should ring a few bell ring alarms. Such a tool would be unvaluable for a game like this, were small changes can get amplified in quite unexpected ways. Say someone is generating a random number and because of a typo, one of the function parameters is out of whack.

That's what I think people call Back To Back or Regression testing, or in Agile parlance, Functional testing.

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Real men go to war on Real tanks

(in reply to ComradeP)

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Longer range elements with low ROF (tanks with higher caliber guns, IG's, ATG's, Rifle) are severely impaired because they get less chances to get shots from a distance. I guess there are really very little elements with long range and high ROF.
Shorter range elements are highly benefited, since they're less exposed to be smacked at a distance and they don't care about less chances to shoot, regardless of ROF (ATR's, SMG's, etc.)

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP

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Longer range elements with low ROF (tanks with higher caliber guns, IG's, ATG's, Rifle) are severely impaired because they get less chances to get shots from a distance. I guess there are really very little elements with long range and high ROF.
Shorter range elements are highly benefited, since they're less exposed to be smacked at a distance and they don't care about less chances to shoot, regardless of ROF (ATR's, SMG's, etc.)

Your second conclusion is pretty much correct. Artillery currently does only a small amount of actual damage, which is also why the performance of Soviet artillery divisions can be less spectacular than you might expect. If artillery gets to fire more often, those artillery brigades/divisions will be really scary (and we might have to do something like letting them arrive at the historical time, to avoid people going crazy with them). I have no idea why AFV's are often not performing all that well. When they fire, they tend to hit with high experience, but many never seem to fire and just absorb shots. Infantry guns have fairly good ROF and thus perform well. Soviet 76mm guns cause substantial casualties too.

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
We can see the performance of every element type in the debugger, but like I said: there's just too much variability to draw conclusions from aside from noticing some elements are performing well and some are not. The debugger doesn't really tell us how a certain combat result happened, it just explains in detail casualties of/caused by elements. We can even check things like hits per element, but that still doesn't explain why that X amount of elements hit anything. Currently, it's not the lack of data about the performance of the elements that's causing us headaches, it's the complete mystery that is the combat system.

Real men go to war on Real tanks

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ORIGINAL: Swenslim

I think the problem is in the VP system. Lets look why Soviets lost so many soldiers in 1941 and 1942. Because Stalin demanded from his generals to defend Minsk in any cost, to start immidiate counter attack at Dubno,  to defend Kiev at any cost, to defend Odessa, to retake Kerch and whole Crimea, to stand and defend every soviet city.
And what we see in game ? Soviet player only runs and runs. It is almost impossible for germans to recreate historical cauldrons.

In real life Stalin  often executed his generals for abondoning Pskov, Kerch, Minsk and other cities. In game soviets players suffers nothing for abandoning almost without any figt such cities of utter political importance as Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol and even Leningrad. Leningrad is a cradle of soviet Revolution, the loss of that city would have been catastrofic moral hit to soviet people and their will to fight. In game only loss is  few manpower points.

The loss of Moscow before 7 December 1941 would definitly had resulted in Japan attack against soviet Far East.

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ORIGINAL: 76mm

While I agree that Pelton's strategies have been rather one-trick-ponyish, I think the emerging problem is that if the Sovs simply retreat, a strategy to destroy the Sov army in 1941 is just not feasible. So what effective strategies does that leave? I've heard rumors of a mythical "grind the Reds" strategies that does not depend on encirclements but simply grinds the Sovs where they are, but have never seen such a strategy employed in an AAR...

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ORIGINAL: johnnyvagas

Here’s my jaded, rose colored glasses opinion. I’m sure retribution will include the standard issue cries of Russian Fanboyisim.

After reading through this thread and threads of similar ilk, I can’t help but come away with the impression that Pelton is frustrated as a result of a game strategy he’s employed in the past that no longer seems to work. From scanning his old AARs, his winnings appear to have been based heavily upon factory raiding. One Trick Pony. More recent AARs indicate that a number of players have developed effective defensive tactics to counter the dreaded factory raiding approach to German game play.

Pelton’s inattention toward destroying the Russian Army in vain attempts to grab factory cities before their evacuation has left him in fairly precarious position come the blizzard. The size of the Russian Army that he has allowed to develop will continue to nag at him into 1942. Since his tried and true factory raiding no longer works, the game must be broken and all that’s needed to make it perfect again is to invoke changes that will once again allow a factory raiding strategy to prevail. If only Heavy Industry meant something; If only the Russians didn’t have so much rail capacity.

Pelton’s been drug kicking and screaming into a 1942 where he has allowed the Russian Army to grow to an enormous size. He’s faced with trying to do in 1942 what he should have been focusing upon in 1941. But rather than try to wrestle the initiative back into his court in 1942, he sits on his hands and proclaims that it’s hopeless for the Germans to do anything other than dig in after 1941.

Now we get to read complaints about German combat results being nerfed in 1942 and how National morale keeps German units in 1942+ from obtaining the uberness they enjoyed in 1941. If only German units in 1942 all had morale of 75+ and were filled out to 100% TOE than Pelton could dig himself out of the holes he’s dug by his pursuit of a flawed 1941 strategy of factory raiding.

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

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ORIGINAL: 76mm

While I agree that Pelton's strategies have been rather one-trick-ponyish, I think the emerging problem is that if the Sovs simply retreat, a strategy to destroy the Sov army in 1941 is just not feasible. So what effective strategies does that leave? I've heard rumors of a mythical "grind the Reds" strategies that does not depend on encirclements but simply grinds the Sovs where they are, but have never seen such a strategy employed in an AAR...

I am playing against JAMiaM as Soviets, as he seems to be taking more of this approach, rather than pocketing. Losses are still pretty severe.

The Soviets probably need more of an incentive to stand and fight, like turn-based VPs. Fear of getting shot worked well IRL, unfortunately, not something we can replicated in the game.

Same thing for the Germans: Too easy to withdraw in Winter to avoid the Blizzard attacks. As it turns out, Hitler wasn't such a fan of that strategy......

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Soviets running too far east = inability to capture Berlin.
Axis running too far west = inability to defend Berlin.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton
2. 2 by 3 changed the ratio for 42 which was retarded, LAMO

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ORIGINAL: Marquo

Soviets running too far east = inability to capture Berlin.
Axis running too far west = inability to defend Berlin.

The game ends in 1945 not '42, '43, '44 .....

Marquo

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ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Bletchley Geek: I forgot to mention it, but a while ago, we were working on/testing an alternative combat system, but the testing was halted in favour of concentrating other things, although the alternative combat system will be used in WitW. The current combat system won't be at the core of WitW. I'm personally hoping that the new combat system can then be moved back to WitE, but the developers are not yet sure whether that might be possible.

Real men go to war on Real tanks