Ok, Official AAR beta, detailed.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

"Perhaps a fix would be to give the fortress their own inherent defense value?"

They do

Ah, what's it equal to in Inf strength?

Sounds like just a little more tweaking needed. Perhaps take away one French Army and spread the strength among the forts?

[J P Wagner]

But does that mean the German player must attack an undefended Maginot Line hex, and reduce this defensive value to 0, before it can enter the square? If that is not the case, and the defensive value is only added to the unit occuppying the fort, then this value means nothing if the French units pull back, because then the German player simply occupies the abandoned fort....

[Hubert Cater]

Sorry my misunderstanding, I was refering to the bonus defense a unit will have if stationed on a fortress tile.

[J P Wagner]

I was probably the one who read it wrong Hubert.

[Lars]

So a fortress has no value without an army based on it?

Seems a bit odd. The whole point of a fortress is you don't need an army to defend it.

[Comrade Trapp]

Originally posted by Lars:

Seems a bit odd. The whole point of a fortress is you don't need an army to defend it.

I agree.

[Guest Mike]

Guns don't serve themselves, and empty pillboxes aren't going to slow anyone down much.

What use is a fortress without an army in it??

[Lars]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Guns don't serve themselves, and empty pillboxes aren't going to slow anyone down much.

What use is a fortress without an army in it??

Er, it frees up manpower to cover the flank without a fortress?

[rbensing]

Originally posted by Blashy:

The Production queue is something that will have alot of debate over it. Me and Nax feel that having to save up MPPs for a unit is representative of a production queue and once you buy it and have to wait again makes it feel like you have two production queues.

With all due respect, I don't buy that. Even in the early stages of the game, it takes no more than a couple of turns for Germany to get the MPP's to build a tank group; in the latter stages, one turn is more than sufficient. Disabling the production queues leads to the "instant army" effect of SC, which wasn't in the least historical.

And it's not good from a gaming standpoint, either. A good strategy game compels the player to make strategic choices. Disabling the production queue removes that compulsion. For example, if I'm Britain after the fall of France, and the PQ is disabled, I simply hoard my MPP's. If the German player does a Sealion, I build a bunch of corps. If he goes with a sub offensive, I build cruisers. If he goes with Barbarossa instead, I dump it into research and planes.

But if the PQ is enabled, hoarding doesn't do me any good, because I can't react instaneously. I've got to make some hard choices, with the knowledge that if I make the wrong ones, I'm screwed.

As you point out, the great thing about the game is that you can decide whether you want it on or off. But I think it's far more realistic, and a better game, with it on.

RB

[ November 10, 2005, 05:00 AM: Message edited by: rbensing ]

[Comrade Trapp]

Originally posted by rbensing:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Blashy:

The Production queue is something that will have alot of debate over it. Me and Nax feel that having to save up MPPs for a unit is representative of a production queue and once you buy it and have to wait again makes it feel like you have two production queues.

With all due respect, I don't buy that. Even in the early stages of the game, it takes no more than a couple of turns for Germany to get the MPP's to build a tank group; in the latter stages, one turn is more than sufficient. Disabling the production queues leads to the "instant army" effect of SC, which wasn't in the least historical.

And it's not good from a gaming standpoint, either. A good strategy game compels the player to make strategic choices. Disabling the production queue removes that compulsion. For example, if I'm Britain after the fall of France, and the PQ is disabled, I simply hoard my MPP's. If the German player does a Sealion, I build a bunch of corps. If he goes with a sub offensive, I build cruisers. If he goes with Barbarossa instead, I dump it into research and planes.

But if the PQ is enabled, hoarding doesn't do me any good, because I can't react instaneously. I've got to make some hard choices, with the knowledge that if I make the wrong ones, I'm screwed.

As you point out, the great thing about the game is that you can decide whether you want it on or off. But I think it's far more realistic, and a better game, with it on.

RB </font>

[acrashb]

Originally posted by Lars:

The whole point of a fortress is you don't need an army to defend it.

No, the whole point of a fortress is to make an army's position more defensible. Empty buildings don't shoot at an advancing force.

Various barriers (dragon's teeth, mine fields etc) might slow movement, but casualty rates are insignificant.

[Blashy]

Originally posted by rbensing:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Blashy:

The Production queue is something that will have alot of debate over it. Me and Nax feel that having to save up MPPs for a unit is representative of a production queue and once you buy it and have to wait again makes it feel like you have two production queues.

With all due respect, I don't buy that. Even in the early stages of the game, it takes no more than a couple of turns for Germany to get the MPP's to build a tank group; in the latter stages, one turn is more than sufficient. Disabling the production queues leads to the "instant army" effect of SC, which wasn't in the least historical.

And it's not good from a gaming standpoint, either. A good strategy game compels the player to make strategic choices. Disabling the production queue removes that compulsion. For example, if I'm Britain after the fall of France, and the PQ is disabled, I simply hoard my MPP's. If the German player does a Sealion, I build a bunch of corps. If he goes with a sub offensive, I build cruisers. If he goes with Barbarossa instead, I dump it into research and planes.

But if the PQ is enabled, hoarding doesn't do me any good, because I can't react instaneously. I've got to make some hard choices, with the knowledge that if I make the wrong ones, I'm screwed.

As you point out, the great thing about the game is that you can decide whether you want it on or off. But I think it's far more realistic, and a better game, with it on.

RB </font>

[Edwin P.]

Any more turns coming? I want to see if Blashy,the Axis player, makes a move against the Middle East or the Nordic Countries before attacking Russia.

[rbensing]

The idea that Seamonkey suggested would work great. You buy it right away and you have the mpps it cost divided by the turn it takes to get it. This is what you pay each turn.

I think that's an excellent idea, too. I understand the point you're making, and I agree with it to an extent. I just don't like the idea of getting 300 MPP's for my turn, deciding, "well, I need a tank group," and presto, there it is. It would be one thing if you really did have to save up MPP's, but in many cases you don't.

Plus, even when you do have to save them up, it's not like you're making anything more than a mental commitment as to what you're going to use them for. Go back to my example of Britain. If I hoard MPP's and get Sea Lioned (when did that become a verb?), I build corps, if I don't, I build ships or airplanes or do research. I have a problem with the concept of 40,000 soldiers being told that they've just become sailors or pilots or scientists instead.

RB

[Blashy]

Yes I agree that you make a good point and because of that I have to agree that playing with the production queue will prevent this VERY unrealistic even from occuring.

[ November 10, 2005, 08:10 AM: Message edited by: Blashy ]

[Lars]

Originally posted by acrashb:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lars:

The whole point of a fortress is you don't need an army to defend it.

No, the whole point of a fortress is to make an army's position more defensible. Empty buildings don't shoot at an advancing force.

Various barriers (dragon's teeth, mine fields etc) might slow movement, but casualty rates are insignificant. </font>

[Edwin P.]

Re; Maginot Line

2cents from a guy who has not playtested the game:

1. Start units in the Maginot line fully entrenched. The slow buildup up of the entrenchment level in the Maginot Line (aka 1) for units starting the game in those tiles always seemed to me to be unrealistic given the prepared nature of the Maginot line.

2. As HC says, Italy joins earlier if Maginot line is taken by German forces.

3. Split one Army into 2 corps.

[rbensing]

[

Plus, I can't see France just chucking the cornerstone of their pre-war defense policy. There's got to be some way to nailing down that defensive strength to those hexes.

This is one of the problems with historical games: you know how the movie ends. If the French had known that the Maginot Line was useless and that Germany was going to kick their butt regardless of what they did, and that the only sensible thing to do was hold the Germans off for a couple extra months -- all things which the Allied player in this game knows -- they might well have pursued Blashy's strategy instead.

I don't think that the strategic options should be wildly ahistorical, like, say, putting a couple units around Paris and trundling the rest of the French army off to Britain, to live to fight again. But I don't think a player should be strait-jacketed by history, either.

Besides, it's way too early to tell whether Blashy's strategy is fool-proof. It gives the German player much greater room for maneuvering his units than he otherwise would have. I'd want to wait a while before we come to any conclusions on it.

RB

[Lars]

Originally posted by Edwin P.:

Re; Maginot Line

2cents from a guy who has not playtested the game:

1. Start units in the Maginot line fully entrenched. The slow buildup up of the entrenchment level in the Maginot Line (aka 1) for units starting the game in those tiles always seemed to me to be unrealistic given the prepared nature of the Maginot line.

2. As HC says, Italy joins earlier if Maginot line is taken by German forces.

3. Split one Army into 2 corps.

To play devil's advocate, think that's to reflect the time it took France to mobilize. However, in game play terms, rather moot. I agree you might as well go fully entrenched.

One way to fix it would be to replace the armies with corps and boost the defensive value of the forts even more.

Or leave it as it is, and add units to cover the flank.

Or the inherent value idea. Would cover large pre-war forts like Sevastopol and the like. Don't think any nation ever abandon something they had poured so much resources into lightly. Value could be adjusted as needed. Sevastopol - a lot. Mannerheim Line - not so much.

Later in the game, not knowing how the engineer units build fortresses for something like the Atlantic Wall or Siegfried line or such, would be nice if there was a dialog box specifying the amount of MPP you want to pour in to a fort. No need to fortify the Gustav Line to the same amount as the rest, you're already sitting in pretty good terrain.

Or perhaps, the longer the engineer unit sits there, the stronger the fort gets would be another, more elegant way to do it.

[Lars]

Originally posted by rbensing:

Besides, it's way too early to tell whether Blashy's strategy is fool-proof. It gives the German player much greater room for maneuvering his units than he otherwise would have. I'd want to wait a while before we come to any conclusions on it.

This too is true. Blashy needs to weigh if giving up Maginot bought him more time than keeping it. We shall see.

[jon_j_rambo]

Guys, it's Blashy.

[Blashy]

[ November 10, 2005, 01:55 PM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

[J P Wagner]

This is supposeed to be an AAR to help promote SC2, not a damn political/personal forum...either start playing a new hotset game, and show screen shots of a quickly advancing game or get on with this one!

I did AAR's for World at War and thankfully had a respectful crowd that appreciated the effort. But it is also the responsibilty of the testers to keep the game moving and ignore 99% of the distracting posts that will inevitably pop up (like this one!)....if one is going to comment on every nit that pops up, this AAR will be 10 pages long before the Fall of '41!

So how about it...let's get these AAR's moving and perhaps have a separate commentary thread to accompany the AAR so the original thread will be devoted to the game turns without all of the dross....

[ November 10, 2005, 10:44 AM: Message edited by: J P Wagner ]

[SeaMonkey]

Interesting discussion, and I agree that the historical context of the opening of the France invasion is circumvented by the game mechanics.

So....everyone has good points, perhaps this can be covered with a script. I agree the Maginot Line should have an inherent defensive value, but I also believe it is necessary to man that fortified line to some extent to make it significant.

Therefor, I'll recommend that at least one French corps should be place in the middle tile of the Maginot representing deployed forces to account for the inherent defensive value.

Oh by the way...this corps is frozen in place until at least one Axis unit comes in contact with Paris.

As the French, you now have your garrison, but not so strong that the Germans wouldn't consider an attack on the Maginot, and in keeping with the French doctrine and simulating their perspective at the time without the benefit of historical hindsight.

Of course this may require some juggling of the OOBs for play balance.

I for one think it is inconsequential what the French do, for they are doomed.......

Do you hear me DOOMED!!!!

[Blashy]

This AAR will be stopped.

Only AAR with default settings will be made from now on.

A new one was started.