Artillery Bounce still in

[runyan99]

Ugh. The whole reason I wanted to play 1.04 was to test this new rule:

"Artillery and flak require ground taking units to attack: artillery or flak (which cannot take ground) will no longer fire if they advance into an enemy region without the support of at least one ground taking unit (militia/infantry/airborne/armor). This prevents gamey artillery “bounce” attacks to kill opposing units and return to starting region."

Either I misunderstood, or this does not work. I thought you needed to match artillery with ground units one for one, in order for the artillery to fire. That is, say 5 infantry allow 5 artillery to fire on offense. That isn't what is happening. One ground unit allows any number of artillery to fire. As shown by your attack in Russia where I was attacked by 3 infantry and 25 artillery, and all the arty fired. Thus, the gamey bounce is still very much in play, as long as you bring along one militia. That's not much of a fix.

If possible, you've got to adjust the rule so one artillery supports one ground unit (Armor, Infantry, Militia). Otherwise, it's perfectly viable to create extremely gamey armies of artillery. A one for one match promotes a realistic force balance and use of combined arms, and reflects the fact that a front is formed of ground units, not unsupported artillery. This should apply equally on offense and defense. In reality, an army of one infantry and nine artillery would be overrun, as the attacker moved around the small infantry front.

[Lebatron]

Yes, one ground unit does allow any number of artillery to fire. But what makes this change different from before is that now a land taking unit being present in the attack creates the possibility of taking over the attacked spot. The old artillery bounce was a cheap trick that allowed you to attack without then exposing your force to a counterattack when it moved forward. Now that the stack of arty one tries this with has a chance of moving forward, well lets just say the opportunities to exploit this now are a lot less favorable. Since the patch I have not tried anything like the old arty bounce trick because I would never want my arty to move forward without an adequate support force.

If you don't have infantry and tanks to support the arty then those arty will be very easy to kill. Your example of being attacked by 3 inf and 25 arty seems kind of odd. I would have to see how this particular encounter happened, but from experience this is unusual to see. Where was your force that could have countered? If his attack had succeeded and he moved forward, could you have made him pay with a costly counterattack? If not, then maybe he was able to get away with it because your opponent got the better of you? Were you almost out of forces to counterattack with? Anyway, the new rule works well when things are in parity. Once parity is broken and one side is getting their way in almost every fight, you begin to see all kinds of attacks with forces of unfavorable mixes, and this is because you opponent by this time can get away with it.   

[runyan99]

The attacker did advance, and I might be able to destroy a some of the artillery in a counter attack. Or maybe not. The artillery is just as hard to attack as defend against. But that sort of misses the point.

Where the attack was, what I could have done on the next turn, etc are all irrelevant in my view. I don't see how forcing the attacker to throw in one militia changes anything. That should be no great hardship for the artillery bouncer/attacker in any potential situation.

What stands out in my mind is that the artillery is still clearly preferred to the exclusion of other ground units, particularly by the Russian players, and the rules allow and encourage the construction of artillery armies because the guns are cheap and more powerful than the other units. It's all too silly for me to accept. I think it is game-breaking. Probably the last PBEM of W@W I'll ever play as long as the artillery clearly dominates the game.

Might as well have designed War Between the States so that the players could build an Army of the Potomac of 50 guns and three infantry too. Obviously, that would be ridiculous on its face, but somehow for World War Two it is okay? I don't think so. I know W@W isn't meant to be a hyper realistic war sim, but come on, how about a little common sense applied to the game mechanics?

If the 1-1 rule cannot be applied, then in my view it is clear that the starting tech level of artillery needs to go down, or they need to cost more to produce, or both.

[runyan99]

I did a check and if I counterattack his stack of 23 artillery with every unit I have in range, including around 8 armor, I can expect to take losses at a 2-1 rate. That's because the artillery, even at a fairly modest level 7, is the strongest unit in the game, the only land unit you really need. Meh.

[Lucky1]

I really recommend that you try deluxe. The map alone is worth it. As I mentioned previously, the different suppression rules mean that AA, arty etc work differently. This results in a different mix.... A super stack of arty will never exist.

It takes a bit to get used to, but really it is just a question of a few games to adjust to the changes.