D-Day to the Ruhr

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sPzAbt653
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

Airdrops completed.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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Ground movement/combat completed.


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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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Elmer's immediate reaction. Not much movement to the area, only one attack that pushed some Para's off a captured airfield.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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The Para operations worked very well, and there is now a huge bridgehead over the Rhine. There are traffic jams to deal with as US units stream north towards the Ruhr, which is just seven hexes beyond the northernmost Br Para unit at the top hex row of this shot. If the US troops can secure that seven hex gap, a large pocket of Germans will be in the bag.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

There is something not quite right here, the Grey German units with the 'squad' symbol belong to the D-Day Reaction Force, and they withdraw when the breakout occurs [technically, they are disbanded by event which means they will not return]. They are replaced by the fieldgrey German units, like the one seen at the lower right. The fieldgrey units come in under strength and are partially filled out by the disbands, so this gives the Allied player the incentive to not let them survive to the disband point. So both type of units shouldn't be here at this point in the scenario. I'll have to do some investigating to see what the issue is. Meanwhile, resistance is a little stiffer than it normally would be.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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Been pushing hard north from Gummersbach toward Hagen but Elmer keeps thwarting me. He thinned out the line around Cologne to do so, and therefore the US units were able to push north thru that area toward Solingen. We are battling for every hex and waiting for all AG's to be released so that the full weight of the WAllies can be put into the attacks.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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Elmer probably can't hold on much longer. There are six more Ruhr Victory Locations that are still German held.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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A turn later after capturing two of the six remaining Ruhr locations, I got this message and the scenario ended. I'd like to put a victory plaque in there instead of the stock one, but I don't think there is one. I mean, I think I could but it would be the same for both sides, which isn't appropriate.
I'm not too happy with the Victory Conditions. It should be that the scenario will end only when all of the Ruhr locations are captured by the Allies, and the Victory Level should depend on when that happens - May = Draw, April = Marginal, March = Significant, Feb = Overwhelming. I'd like it to be that way, so I'll have to look into changing it from the way it is now. Those 'Victory Level Boundaries' throw me off a bit as I'm not sure how they are calculated.

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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Review:
The Victory Conditions and units returning that aren't supposed to are things that I'm sure I can straighten out. Other than those things there were very few changes that needed to be made as this scenario was played, such as a couple of spelling mistakes and removing some of the unnecessary rail lines.
The Coast Battery Suicide issue I can work on by setting up a test scenario and trying different settings. The False Supply Points and Double Turns are game engine things that I can't do anything about, so we'll have to wait for a patch to see if they get fixed.
I was concerned that Elmer wasn't blowing any bridges at all, then around turn 285 I noticed that he was. This is something that has been discussed in the past. There isn't anything the scenario designer's can do, it is up to the game engine to decide when conditions are right for blowing bridges. It could improve itself by not blowing bridges that put its own units out of supply, but I imagine that coding 'last one out blows the bridge' isn't a reasonable expectation.
Overall I have a lot of fun playing this scenario, and anyone who is into this sort of monster should also. It's a little different from most other scenarios due to all the Supply Rules. Even I can't remember all the specifics, but I know the general outline and can refer to the Briefing when necessary to clarify/verify things. With the above mentioned flaws it is still quite playable, and it will get better with a little more work.
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MikeJ19
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by MikeJ19 »

Steve,

Great job and I really enjoyed watching your approach. Thanks for much for sharing,
Mike

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Nicholas Bell
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by Nicholas Bell »

Thanks for your detailed AAR, Steve. This should be stickied for future reference - the supply system is complicated!
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

Thanks guys.
I've deciphered the unit issue that is outlined in Post #165. It turned out to only affect two formations, the 2.Pz and 21.Pz div's, and in both cases it was an event boo-boo on my part. Also, it seems that the Supply Point bug mentioned in Post #36 can be manually avoided by editing them in the Editor. Working on that and will test it to make sure.
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by gliz2 »

Blowing bridges is a tricky business especially at this scale (time- and mapscale).
I'm playing vs myself Overlord and I have noticed that in first turns playing Germans I was able to blow only 4 because otherwise I'd cut off my units or supply and counterattack routes.
I can imagine that poor Elmer must be completely lost.

Thanks for this very nice AAR. Will definitevely try this scenario.

All in all this falls short to John Tiller's PC:Normandy (I've played the 400 turns monster on this). The engine is not fit for the purpose. Seems the best is to stick to grand operations. Unfortunately I feel bit disappointed playing Overlord in TAOW.
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

It is often easy to criticize Elmer, so before I do I like to think about how humans would behave in the same situation. You hit right on that in your assessment in that you did not want to blow bridges that would cut off your own units. However, there could be a situation where a human might want to leave a sacrificial rearguard on the wrong side of the river, and also if the human opponent knows that Elmer won't blow a bridge if his supply would be interrupted that might give the human an unfair advantage. As for counterattack concerns, the human player would have an appropriate engineer or river crossing unit available that would render the blown bridge a non issue.

Thanks for the comparison to Tiller's Normandy, feel free to go into more detail! I'd also be interested to hear comparisons to War in the West. I have neither. I understand your disappointment in Air and Naval Operations in TOAW and I won't defend them, especially not Amphibious Operations, but TOAW isn't designed for one specific thing as are other games, TOAW must try to cover everything. Therefore it is up to TOAW Scenario Designers to make things fit. This is not possible in every case though, but things were done in this scenario to alleviate some of the flaws.
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by gliz2 »

Well as you said TAOW is aiming at covering everything which in the end means it fails at all.
If it would be periodic (like IIWW and around) it would probably be much better.
What it does good is the grand strategy like FITE2 where it shines. I have to say, personally I prefer TAOW to Gary Grigsby's any day (grand strategy).
But on operational scale John Tillers Panzer Campaigns most of the times beats TAOW hands down.
That difference in the scale playing Normandy or Market Garden makes such a difference. Hding up a bridge is more complex task and if the enemy is already on the other end you might simply fail to blow it.
In Overlord you have 2 turns per day which represents shite. In Pz.Camp. you have 2 daylight turns and a night turn with specific rules. It makes a hell of a difference when you are moving German units or trying to attack during the night.

What is the biggest problem of TAOW is I have yet to see Elmer splitting the units and also most of Human players fail to do it. While it's fine on 1km scale on a 6-10km it's absurd. Becomes a parody of waregame where divisions or regiments are always moved as whole.
Furthermore both PC and TAOW suffer from godmod and perfect execution of orders.
For me perfect game would be combination of PC, TAOW and Combat Ops.

PS. You can give a try to Military Operations. Like the concept. Far from perfect but I find it both intriguing and challenging.
Plans are worthless, but planning is essential.
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sPzAbt653
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

Ok, well, I have to disagree with everything you say there, so no sense in continuing. Thanks for the comments though.

Updated v1.1 is now posted here:
tm.asp?m=4378627&mpage=1&key=&#4507749

Fixed the Supply Point and double units issues. Reworked the Victory Conditions, they work ok but I want them perfect and this will take a few run thru's to see if it's possible to get what I want. Meanwhile, it's quite playable, the Allies will still get a victory if they win.
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by Curtis Lemay »

ORIGINAL: gliz2

In Overlord you have 2 turns per day which represents shite. In Pz.Camp. you have 2 daylight turns and a night turn with specific rules. It makes a hell of a difference when you are moving German units or trying to attack during the night.

TOAW has specific rules for day and night.
Furthermore both PC and TAOW suffer from godmod and perfect execution of orders.

Except for units/formations that are reorganizing.
My TOAW web site:

Bob Cross's TOAW Site
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CaptBeefheart
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by CaptBeefheart »

Great AAR! Thanks for doing this. I have decided to install this game based on this AAR (I bought it on sale a couple of months ago).

You had me fooled for a while, as I thought Elmer lived and breathed. It seems this would be tough for the allies if the German were human. Is it intended to be Allies vs. AI?

Cheers,
CB (ex-Commander Cody)

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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Ok, well, I have to disagree with everything you say there, so no sense in continuing. Thanks for the comments though.

Aye. Much has to do with how well a scenario designer uses what's there. Steve is one of the best and his scenarios are a great demo of how each scenario can almost be a different game in itself. [&o]
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/

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sPzAbt653
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RE: D-Day to the Ruhr

Post by sPzAbt653 »

Do you EVER say anything nice ?? Oh wait, you DID say something nice !! I am shocked, lol. Thanks very much. [:)]
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