Rasputitsa
Posts: 1468
Joined: 6/30/2001
From: Bedfordshire UK
Status: online
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JLPOWELL
I have to agree with Gary. It IS playable, but must add that some scenarios are way out of balance. Also divisions are not worthless they can be useful, you just can't attack with them (at least without some corps in the mix and they cannot stand up to a group of higher effectiveness corps with them either. This is exaggerated when you look at USSR division vrs a GE corp (worst case scenario)
Playing at normal I have not found a scenario which was not 'too easy' the AI just isn't capable. The hardest scenario is Gotterdamerung, and the USSR in that scenario pretty much suck. (see below for some brief details.) That said the Axis was pretty much toast before xmas 1944.
>> Repost of Gotterdamerung mini AAR >> BTW the Allies/ USSR should move first in this scenario as they had initiave
Not enough detail here for an actual AAR, but when I looked at this from a PvP perspective the GE do appear a bit heavy particularly in air. I played the standard scenario (v1.03 as provided not my MoD) to see how hard it actually is. The results were a bit surprising.
The USSR has to go on the Defensive for several months which indicates they are under-powered. In the west things are very different the AI just can't handle the dynamic of invasions and airdrops, and the UK/USA crushed the AI. Italy was taken in late May, and Hamburg Berlin Copenhagen and Paris were all taken by September 1944 (USSR really never got any traction, but was on the offensive by mid summer.
Settings were FOW set to 3 everything else at the scenario default. US/UK/USSR/Iraq/Persia/Free French/ Human all others AI.
Suggestions to strengthen AI (AI only scenarios this would mess up a PBEM game IMO)
German AI needs strong frozen units on all objective hexes particularly Milan
Generally the scenario has German air way overrated vrs Allied air particularly USA
USSR very weak on ground (again in 1944 ouch...) Recommend increase USSR tech on tanks and inf to 4 and a war effectiveness boost. Adding some (quite a few) frozen units on rails behind the lines with 'freeze expiration' set at intervals would be an easy mod.
Really didn't like Axis bombing units in England early in game and attacking ftrs based there (successfully) and USSR getting pushed back in spring of 44
I think the Germany is overpowered vrs the USSR, and has sufficient strength to hold the allies, but insufficient 'I'
General impression is US is under powered compared to UK with serious lag in tech (Really in 1944 seriously)and the USSR should be able to go on the offensive (again this is 1944) but the scenario is not as out balance as a quick look indicated.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: gwgardner
It's not unplayable. I've been playing it since it came out.
See my AARs.
If you find a particularly unbalanced aspect, or something that doesn't make sense to you, it's easily moddable. Example, if you think amphibious transports are too expensive, go into the data file and lower the cost of them. It doesn't have to be arbitrary. Look at the historical costs and try to translate that into the game. If costs are about right, but the UK can't buy any, then production is out of kilter. Fix it easily with a mod also, or use F12.
The designers I believe did a good job with OOB for the scenarios, but there has never been enough time to thoroughly test for balance. So you're left with the choice: stop playing the unbalanced game, or balance it yourself. Wastelands is a small shop, I don't think they're going to do the balancing at this point. fortunately there are many ways to do the balancing yourself.
I'm going to start a Gotterdamerung solo as Allies and see if it's as badly balanced as you're saying.
Rasputitsa - There are some obvious errors in the scenario const file, like the missing lines on 'chance for naval engagement'
Have to add a +1 to this.
You have to keep in mind the scale of the game, 30 mile wide hexes and just over a week per turn, if you put a division into the line to defend 30 miles it's going to get blown away. Put it into a city and give it time to dig in (tried to adapt the scenario trenches data for more bonus after more time in place) then you have creditable defence, which may hold long enough for you to prepare a heavier defence, after the enemy has committed to an attack. Divisions will defend against and deal with partisan and para attacks, you don't want to sprinkle you valuable Corps units all over the countryside.
So I am making use of divisions and so is the AI, German PZ divs are sometimes bouncing off Soviet divisions in 'Fall Gelb', even when divisions are forced to retreat, they still slow things down. Yes, they die quickly, but isn't that just what happened, just make sure the national easy/hard settings give the balance you want.
For a division sized amphibious landing, as at Dieppe, you need to make sure you are landing on a undefended beach, or you have hammered the defenders with air and sea bombardment, otherwise you get the same result as Dieppe. Again, it comes back to scale, using operation 'Shingle' (Anzio) as an example, the initial landings were made by division elements, but with 70,000 men landed in the first week, or a big Corps in one ToF turn. So in a full game turn you are representing the first wave, second wave, third wave, support units, etc, in a Corps sized attack in a big chunk of real-estate. Each D-Day beach, Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold, each represents a Corps sized attack over a game turn of just more than a week (with maybe weeks worth of sea and air bombardment).
Gotterdammerung makes a good starting point for an Allied return to mainland Europe, but it needs to be modded to take out some of the obvious errors and start date at the end of 1943, to give time to get ready for a major Allied landing (create the Corps units you need). I intend to use the editor to place more defence lines in Italy for the Axis to retreat to. The AI is set to 'defend at all costs' fortifications of level 5 and up, so place more level 5 fort lines to encourage the AI to hold (Gothic Line etc.), or adapt the AI to defend lower levels. I use self imposed house rules to get more balance against the AI, so for me a D-Day operation will need at least 6 month game time to prepare, which is why Gotterdammerung has to start earlier.
I think the response of most players starting the game is WTF, and there are may WTF moments as you get deeper into each scenario. Some of this, although not by design, can be good, the historical commanders did not have 70 years of books to read, they didn't always know what was going to happen next, war is chaotic, TOF provides this uncertainty.
I am not a computer expert, but I can modify an Excel, or Notebook, file, the problem is finding out what the data does. I have now six different versions of TOF on the HDD, so if I mess up the one I am working on, I have a fall-back. You need to find your way round the scenario and GUI files, if it's a saved game the files are in the Users/My Games/Time of Fury/Saves, if it's going to be a new game it's in the main game folder, mainly scenario/scenario name/const file, other Excel files control other game items, just adapted the 'commanders' file to change some of the names (Doenitz is not going to be at sea and Goring won't be at the Front).
Obviously some will not want to do this, but even if Wastelands could give the game each player wants, it can never please everyone and it is refreshing to have so much access to the workings of a game. The best we can hope for is that they will fix the major bugs, the rest are errors in the way the scenarios have been set up, some scenarios are better than others (Fall Gelb seems one of the better options).
The best hope is to get the editor working better and easier to use, then player scenarios will solve many of the problems which are scenario based. In the game I am playing the national PP levels have collapsed, not sure why, but I have played the game through several versions, which may have caused it. I'm not going to throw the game away, just use F12 to reset the PP levels to where they should be and keep on playing, at least TOF lets players do this. You can spend a lot of time in the innards of the game and any mods and adaptations have to be repeated as each new game version comes out. 
< Message edited by Rasputitsa -- 2/7/2013 8:21:59 PM >
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"We have to go from where we are, not from where we would like to be" - me
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