Issue with pockets

[numdydar]

Something else for a patch.

I have cut off several regions in the game where there are NO rail or road connections to the rest of the country. Yet newly build units are being placed in these locations. Very annoying.

The other factor, is these untis are just going to die like the rest of the cutoff units versus being useful in areas that are not isolated.

If the game uses these tiny ports (like on the Caspian Sea as an example) to bring in entire Armies and Tank Corps, then this needs to be stopped as well. You can certainly use these as secondary supply for food, ammo, etc. But to allow them to bring in huge amounts of troops is not very realistic.

New units should only be allowed to be placed near cities that have a rail connection to the capital. I would not even use roads, especially in Russia as the road network there was abysmal. This would easily solve the issue

[Bill101]

Is this something the AI is doing, or something you are able to do?

Only I would imagine that the units you mention as being deployed in isolated areas are arriving by script, because without having a connection to a Capital or Industrial Center such deployments from the Purchase screen aren't possible.

[Duke of York]

Is this something the AI is doing, or something you are able to do?

Only I would imagine that the units you mention as being deployed in isolated areas are arriving by script, because without having a connection to a Capital or Industrial Center such deployments from the Purchase screen aren't possible.

This can be done by Player and AI.

While you can't operate units to cut-off places without rail connection, new units from the purchase queue can be placed in every city with enough suply regardless of any kind of rail or road connection. This is a general game mechanic, present in SC:GC and SC:WW1.

And I aggree with numdydar, it's quite unrealistic.

In this screen you can see the deployment possibilities für China:

While the Capital is still Chungking, isolated from the rest of China, all new units can be placed in every city. Even in Yarkand and Khotan further to the west.

I can send you this save if you like.

[Bill101]

Hi Duke of York

Just looking at your screenshot and there are two Industrial Centers still owned by China, Sian and Lanchow, which therefore allow units to be deployed elsewhere.

The purpose of an Industrial Center is to both allow for full capacity production and supply in areas only linked to it, but also for the production of new units.

Just to clarify, if a resource is cut off from both the capital and all Industrial Centers, then no units should be able to be deployed there from the Purchase Queue.

[Duke of York]

Hi Bill!

Yes, I see the sense of the existence of Industrial Centers. Especially in China.

But what about deployments in Yarkand and Khotan? They have no rail connection to the capital or an Industrial Center od any primary or secondary supply source.

Or Kunming? You can cut the connections of Kunming to the rest of China. But new deployments cann still placed there.

My example wasn't the best to show the result of these mechanics. China has too less railroads, they need other places for deployments.

The problem is everywhere, where you cut the rail connections and isolate regions from capital or Industrial Centers, but new units spawn there from nowhere.

[Bill101]

Essentially, the connection doesn't have to be via rail for the deployment of new units.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily wrong, as new units can be raised in the areas unconnected by rail to the Capitals or Industrial Centers, but their supply will be low and they will take time to reach a higher supply area, as they will have to march there.

This to my mind represents the raising of forces in less economically developed areas, that won't be as effective as those raised in higher economic areas until they have been moved to those. Of course, they can be used to defend the less economically developed areas, but given the supply constraints (their resources being at a maximum of 5) their combat potential is lower.

[numdydar]

If are staing that industrial centers are setup in the game to produce as many and of any kind of unit possible independently of reources from the rest of the nation, then that is wrong. That is just not the way production worked then or now.

If you are tying to recreate tanks rolling of the production line directly into combat like at Stalingrad, then while a good idea, it just does not work on a game of this scale. The parts/infrastructure needed to produce entire Armies/Tank Corps, entire air fleets, etc. is impossible from a single factory center. I totally agree that these center should supply supply, but without a rail and/or major road connection to the rest of the country nothing should be allowed to just 'appear there.

By allowing this things like the Keiv pocket (which is far more important to model correctly than tanks coming off the production line) are impossible to recreate. I have the entire Causass isolated from the rest of Russia, yet I am still fighting tooth and nail for the area because units are 'magicly' appearing because Baku is an Industrial center. So you are telling me that Baku could produce any equipment in the entire USSR ToE AND had the manpower (not to mention the training, etc.) to have units of all typos muster there? You see how silly this is?

Baku was important because of it's resources, not its factories. If you are going to keep this industrial center 'magic', then the easiest solution is to just eliminate Baku as an Industrial Center so at least the AI does not continue to put units in a pocket where they will have limited supply and just end up dead. The rest of Russia has been serverly weaken by this. The same mechanic is occuring around Arcangel too.

Arcangel also has zero rail/road connection to the rest of Russia, yet all kinds of units are popping up there like mushrooms. So what I have done, gamy as it is, is just have a few units stationed East of Lennigrad to keep them bottled up and let the AI cram as many units as it wants up there lol. Less of them to fight to where I want to go .

So not only is this behavior with the way Industrial Centers totally broken and should be fixed somehow, but it is causing the AI to waste massive number of units in totally unimportant areas when they are desprately needed in far more important areas of the country.

To fix this, I would suggest that for units to appear next to a city, the city has to have to have a rail/road connection to the capital OR TWO other industrial centers. At least this way the AI will not waste units. There must be 20-30 units cutoff in the north and southern Russia. With more appearing ever turn. If these units were actualy in Russia proper and not cutoff, I can only imagine how much harder my game would have been than it is now. So please address this somehow if you can.

[xwormwood]

It would be a good thing if players could only place a limited amount of new units into cut off regions.

The unrealistic part comes if you are able to place a dozen of units into a surrounded area. Allow the player to place one or two units next ot each city, but not units all around a once empty city.

From my point of view it would be best if you could only place minor units (minor as in: the weaker units of your country) into a pocket.

Even better would be if you would have to purchase the placing location too.

Pay less if you will place your unit into a connected industrial area.

Pay a little more if you want to place it into a remote but still connected area.

Pay even more if you want to place it near a frontline.

Pay much more if you want to be able to place it anywhere in your realm, pocket or not.

[SeaMonkey]

Just have supply level equate to unit size deployments. Supply 1 or greater = garrisons only, supply =>5, division; >= to 8, corps; and all others require 10 supply for deployment from the Q.

[mcaryf1]

I think this is getting into the area of making SC too complex but one solution for you would be to introduce the concept of factory cities and limit some unit types so they could only be produced from a factory city. I have experimented with units being automatically produced from some factory cities if you own them on a particular date so it might be possible to develop that idea. Thus you could stop the USSR being able to manufacture tanks but have tank units emerge regularly from Stalingrad or Tankograd as long as they were owned. You could do this for all units using specialised equipment, e.g. Saratov would build fighters, so that only variations of infantry could be built in cut off areas.

I am not sure I would enjoy that as much as the standard game but the editor could certainly make that happen and it would be more realistic than the present situation.

Regards

Mike

[xwormwood]

Funny, i would consider factory cities more complex.

[numdydar]

Just have supply level equate to unit size deployments. Supply 1 or greater = garrisons only, supply =>5, division; >= to 8, corps; and all others require 10 supply for deployment from the Q.

I think this is a great idea

[Bill101]

Just to explain to those new to the series, Industrial Centers were introduced to avoid situations where, for example, the Axis would take Stalingrad and by doing so they could then guarantee conquering the Caucasus because no new units could be deployed there.

This was a frustrating situation for Allied players, and it certainly didn't feel right to not be allowed to build any new units in this area.

Just have supply level equate to unit size deployments. Supply 1 or greater = garrisons only, supply =>5, division; >= to 8, corps; and all others require 10 supply for deployment from the Q.

This does have merit, however it could be frustrating if we take a situation where your capital is bombed, reducing its supply down below 10, and you can't then deploy that Tank Unit or Army that you'd saved up your MPPs for to purchase. Especially during a really tough fight around crucial areas like your capital.

That said, there may be a variant of this that could work. However, are we getting into the realms of adding complexity to the game that will reduce its fun aspects?

Generally, it isn't the best idea to raise new Tank units in a cut off pocket, and in competitive multiplayer it will probably be rare to see such units raised there. But should we prevent it being possible?

If we were to do so, then the Axis could virtually guarantee that no threat will come from a cut off Caucasus, and could then concentrate strong defensive forces to their east/north east, while completing their conquest of the Caucasus.

It is overall more realistic, but it reduces the strategic potential and would probably come to be a standard Axis move in the campaign. That isn't necessarily a good thing, as the game is more fun if your opponent's moves aren't too predictable.

I will be interested to hear a wide range of opinions on this, as introducing any new features here would result in a fundamental change to some aspects of the game.

[Duke of York]

Generally, it isn't the best idea to raise new Tank units in a cut off pocket, and in competitive multiplayer it will probably be rare to see such units raised there. But should we prevent it being possible?

Look here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1432147#post1432147

By doing exactly this, spawning new units in the Hlukhiv-pocket in the west of Kursk, HvS flanked the Army Group South and brought them in serious trouble. This is the Point where this game overturned.

[numdydar]

But that is not the historical record. Armys spent huge efforts on both sides to break back into troops that were cutoff and extract them. So with units allowed to apear anywhere they want regardless of connectivaty to the rest of the country, neirther the opposing player nor the AI has to do anything in order for a pocket to survive. Just keep adding units to your hearts content.

So rather than trying to do something to save the troops, the player can just ignore them and not have to worry about them dying off. If it looks like things are going bad in the pocket, just add more troops until it stablizes again. Plus it REALLY screws up the AI's efficent use of troops.

Just to explain to those new to the series, Industrial Centers were introduced to avoid situations where, for example, the Axis would take Stalingrad and by doing so they could then guarantee conquering the Caucasus because no new units could be deployed there.

If the Axis had taken Stalingrad, it WOULD have been difficult for Russia to raise troops in the Caucasus. So why is this a flaw in the old game design? Because it was not 'fun'? I do not think the Russian's would have thought losing Stalingrad would have been fun either. Which is why they spent so much effort to save the city.

One thing that seems to be lacking in the game design is the understnading of the scale of the game. We are talking about ARMY level units here. The typical Army was THREE corps, a Corp was three divisions. With a division consisting of around 15K people, so a Corp is 45k plus all the equipment as well. So an Army is 135K of people, plus all the extra equipment it needs. So in an isolated pocket, the game allows you to create units that need 135K of people plus the support as many times as you want? Are there breader vat units in the game? And we are not even talking about Tanks and AC units that can appear either.

If I wanted to play a 'fun' game, it would definately NOT be a stragetic level WWII game. When I buy and play these games, I want to be confronted with the same issues the leaders of the time had and I am pretty sure none of them were able to magicly create entire armies in isolated pockets.

For reference Baku had THREE general Heavy Industry factories in June '41. Compare that to Stalingrad which had 19 Armament, 62 vehicle, and 4 general HI factories. Yet Baku can produce whatever you need just like Stalingrad? And you wonder why I find this mechanic so absurd?

The bottom line is I am not a looking for a science fiction game in an alternative universe. There are plenty of those out there already.

[Bill101]

Look here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1432147#post1432147

By doing exactly this, spawning new units in the Hlukhiv-pocket in the west of Kursk, HvS flanked the Army Group South and brought them in serious trouble. This is the Point where this game overturned.

I can see that, but it doesn't look like a pocket in the screenshot as the deployment location is connected by rail to Kursk which appears to be connected to the Soviet hinterland.

Of course, I cannot see more than that in the screenshot, but if that is the case then that doesn't appear to be the same as units being deployed in cut-off pockets such as Soviets in the Caucasus.

[SeaMonkey]

With regards to Bill's well founded concern about Capitals not being able to place new units and an eye on the scenario editor's tools, perhaps capitals and Industrial centers should use their "preset" supply value as the defining condition for new unit placement.

Because certain urban establishments were capable of generating substantial reinforcements during battle conditions, let that be the decision of the scenario designer as to where those centers will be by using the editor's preset supply level. All others would be at the mercy of the aforementioned levels of my previous post.

[xwormwood]

Capitals could get a more generous value for unit placements.

On the other hand, can anybody imagine a situation where the Germans would have been able to produce a new tank unit in 1945 Berlin, surrounded by the russians, and bombed into rubble from the Allied bombers?

:confused:

[SeaMonkey]

Yeah, i could never imagine that I would direct Albert Speer to build an underground factory in the Berlin suburbs! Or for that matter that one of my forward thinking commanders would prestage a bunch of Tigers and Panthers in a camo'd warehouse nearby, knowing the Russians were on the way?

Seriously though xwood, I'm pretty sure it would be a very rare occurrence for a surrounded city to display an empty uncontested rhombi for a Q deployment.

[Hubert Cater]

But that is not the historical record. Armys spent huge efforts on both sides to break back into troops that were cutoff and extract them. So with units allowed to apear anywhere they want regardless of connectivaty to the rest of the country, neirther the opposing player nor the AI has to do anything in order for a pocket to survive. Just keep adding units to your hearts content.

So rather than trying to do something to save the troops, the player can just ignore them and not have to worry about them dying off. If it looks like things are going bad in the pocket, just add more troops until it stablizes again. Plus it REALLY screws up the AI's efficent use of troops.

If the Axis had taken Stalingrad, it WOULD have been difficult for Russia to raise troops in the Caucasus. So why is this a flaw in the old game design? Because it was not 'fun'? I do not think the Russian's would have thought losing Stalingrad would have been fun either. Which is why they spent so much effort to save the city.

One thing that seems to be lacking in the game design is the understnading of the scale of the game. We are talking about ARMY level units here. The typical Army was THREE corps, a Corp was three divisions. With a division consisting of around 15K people, so a Corp is 45k plus all the equipment as well. So an Army is 135K of people, plus all the extra equipment it needs. So in an isolated pocket, the game allows you to create units that need 135K of people plus the support as many times as you want? Are there breader vat units in the game? And we are not even talking about Tanks and AC units that can appear either.

If I wanted to play a 'fun' game, it would definately NOT be a stragetic level WWII game. When I buy and play these games, I want to be confronted with the same issues the leaders of the time had and I am pretty sure none of them were able to magicly create entire armies in isolated pockets.

For reference Baku had THREE general Heavy Industry factories in June '41. Compare that to Stalingrad which had 19 Armament, 62 vehicle, and 4 general HI factories. Yet Baku can produce whatever you need just like Stalingrad? And you wonder why I find this mechanic so absurd?

The bottom line is I am not a looking for a science fiction game in an alternative universe. There are plenty of those out there already.

Hi Numydar,

You are not necessarily wrong on your points but at the same time it is very much like Bill mentioned a matter of attempting to balance history, playability as well as game balance for each way that SC can be played... be it against the AI or in a competitive multiplayer game.

The current setup really does attempt to address all of these issues and potential game breakers and while it could be viewed that we are just trying to make the game "fun", really we are just trying our best to keep the game play consistent for everyone to the best of our abilities.

* * *

It sounds like you mostly play against the AI and perhaps the idea that a game breaking multiplayer strategy won't ever resonate as being at the top of your list, which is definitely fair enough, but again from our end whether we would like to or not we simply have had to address the issue as otherwise multiplayer would be broken.

So as Bill mentioned, our original setup for areas like Stalingrad was exactly as you would have imagined and as much as we wanted to keep it exactly as it should have been historically it just killed multiplayer games as any surefire path to victory, i.e. one that doesn't require any real element of planning or surprise with very little in the way for your opponent to counter/prevent essentially killed the game.

For example, and this goes all the way back to SC1, at one time before we introduced industrial centers, Axis players would simply surround Moscow without taking it (as that was the only industrial center for the Soviets) and as you can imagine this became a very gamey tactic that killed the game as there was very little the Soviet player could do to mount any sort of counter attack to the tactic.

As a result we started placing key industrial centers on the map so that countries like the USSR could not be as easily cut in half and for the SC community it has been more or less accepted as a tradeoff for playability.

Keep in mind this has been a set of campaigns and a gaming system that has been constantly developed for over 10 years now, so while some of this may be surprising to anyone new to the game, and while we definitely won't suggest we've got everything right, we would need a lot of convincing to change certain elements knowing it will break the game on some other level.

But that being said, we are always open to ideas and suggestions and for anyone that has been around since the beginning we do end up making a lot of changes and sometimes do indeed go back on an implementation that didn't quite work out as expected.

At one time the maps were also much smaller and having key industrial centers might have made much more sense whereas with a bigger map it could very well be that a more detailed set of alternatives, as suggested in this thread, could be the way to go... but I would still caution that they would have to be really thought out as well.

At one time, keep it simple was a standard we lived by, and in that vein every new rule and every new detail is just one more thing to remember and one more potential source of confusion especially when things don't work out as you would expect them to.

For example, we could start limiting industrial centers to only allow for certain builds and for limited numbers and so on but in the end we always have to ask ourselves how much do we gain from much more detailed approaches? Is the game now less approachable to the average player, is it too detailed, is it less playable and more confusing and so on.

This is one of the reasons we provide the Editor as well. While we may feel some set of constraints to design a game that we think will play well for our target audience and for the various game play methods, we never want to limit anyone from making any changes that they see fit for their own personal pleasure.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

I should add one thing after re-reading what I wrote above, many of the gamey tactics that we attempted to resolve for multiplayer games did kill AI games for a lot of players as well.

For example, the idea that a country like the USSR could be cut in half in terms of where it could place new units was a game breaker that made defeating the AI too easy as well.

Hubert

[numdydar]

Thanks for your comments Hurbert and the time to make them.

I know first hand the tradeoffs between a 'fun' balance and historical reality. While your audience may be differnt than most games, the great majority of people play against the AI. So it seems like you may have fixed issues with MP and mesed up the AI.

I have NO interest in MP. So I buy games for the AI. in Gold and BF I thought the AI was one of the best I had run across. But the AI putting troops into pockets needs to be addressed somehow while leaving that option for MP. Because the AI is not 'smart enough' to determine where a risk of that magintude is worth it or not.

The Russian AI in my game lost 30+ units for doing this stupidity. And I was able to beat Russia because of it. I can only imagine how much better the defense of Russia would have been with 30 units on the front versus trapped in various pockets.

I would definately NOT have Baku as an Industral Center, because it was most definately not. Unless you want to add Oil as a resource for tanks/planes/etc. the entire region was totally unimportant for military production of units.

I am not sure what you can do to fix this, but it is an important one to fix. As a critical part of any German strategy in Russia is the surrounding and isoluation of units. The game breaks this. At least for me anyway.

I want to stress that I REALLY like the game. If I did not I sure would not be spending time on this board trying to help it becaome better lol. Yet at the same time it has so many issues that totally break the realities of the period. Because these realities are broken and seem not to be considered as important, it should not be considered anywhere close to a semiblance of WWII. You might as well have unicorns and dragons as units Of course if you did then, then I would have no issues with the game mechnics since 'magic' covers a lot of ground

[Eisenhammer]

many of the gamey tactics that we attempted to resolve for multiplayer games did kill AI games for a lot of players

This is the reason why I am starting to hate multiplayer with a passion.:mad:

I have NO interest in MP. So I buy games for the AI. in Gold and BF I thought the AI was one of the best I had run across.

What is BF?

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Eisenhammer,

Just in case and in order to clarify, my comment regarding the campaign adjustments that helped balance games out in multiplayer I would say for the most part also help out in AI games and not necessarily the reverse by making the AI worse. Or at least that is our guide for making these changes.

Just meaning that a gamey tactic in multiplayer can also just as easily be employed (if not more easily employed) against the AI so any solution that helps to eliminate gamey tactics in general should help no matter how you play the game.

Numydar, for the AI building in pockets, this could be the case but it could also be the case of the AI receiving specially scripted reinforcements in those pockets to help balance the game out as well, i.e. to not make it so much of a pushover in certain situations.

It is hard for me to say without seeing the game in progress or key turns but if this is the case then some of those pocket builds by the AI are not necessarily lost units that it could have built elsewhere as it would never have otherwise received the units in the first place.

BF is for the Brute Force campaigns that were included in GOLD.

Hubert

[crispy131313]

Thanks for your comments Hurbert and the time to make them.

I know first hand the tradeoffs between a 'fun' balance and historical reality. While your audience may be differnt than most games, the great majority of people play against the AI. So it seems like you may have fixed issues with MP and mesed up the AI.

I have NO interest in MP. So I buy games for the AI. in Gold and BF I thought the AI was one of the best I had run across. But the AI putting troops into pockets needs to be addressed somehow while leaving that option for MP. Because the AI is not 'smart enough' to determine where a risk of that magintude is worth it or not.

The Russian AI in my game lost 30+ units for doing this stupidity. And I was able to beat Russia because of it. I can only imagine how much better the defense of Russia would have been with 30 units on the front versus trapped in various pockets.

I would definately NOT have Baku as an Industral Center, because it was most definately not. Unless you want to add Oil as a resource for tanks/planes/etc. the entire region was totally unimportant for military production of units.

I am not sure what you can do to fix this, but it is an important one to fix. As a critical part of any German strategy in Russia is the surrounding and isoluation of units. The game breaks this. At least for me anyway.

I want to stress that I REALLY like the game. If I did not I sure would not be spending time on this board trying to help it becaome better lol. Yet at the same time it has so many issues that totally break the realities of the period. Because these realities are broken and seem not to be considered as important, it should not be considered anywhere close to a semiblance of WWII. You might as well have unicorns and dragons as units Of course if you did then, then I would have no issues with the game mechnics since 'magic' covers a lot of ground

Do these pockets always include industrial centers? Is that how the units are deploying?

I am also curious where these pockets were on the map in the game you played and how large they were?