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arby

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Everything posted by arby

  1. Oh, we're having quite a time. I kicked his Axis butt out of Russia, and retook the Low Countries. Now he's sitting in Berlin, whimpering as he waits for America to enter the conflict and open a gigantic can of Whomp-Ass on his head. It's not going to be pretty. As that great American, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, once said, "We can do this the hard way or we can... No, there's only the hard way."
  2. What the hell are you talking about? SC2's been out for three months now. You mean you still don't have your copy? Loser.
  3. Even assuming that's true -- and I don't think it is -- why do you think that was? I think the explanation is relatively simple: tanks were so far ahead of the weapons intended to stop them that far more effort had to go into developing those defensive weapons. It's hard to fully appreciate just how revolutionary a concept the tank was. Warfare throughout the ages has been a construct struggle between the offense and defense. From the Civil War through World War I, the defensive was ascendant. The massed charges that formed the basis of Napoleonic tactics were made much more difficult by the advent of the rifled musket, and rendered completely obsolete by the repeating carbine, the machine gun, and barbed wire. And on the eve of WWII, everybody expected pretty much the same thing. Except the Germans. The tank changed all that; the pendulum swung decisively in favor of the offense. We all know that the French and British tanks in 1940 were better than the German ones, but it was the Wehrmacht that developed and perfected the use of armor. And for two and a half years, they used that to run roughshod over the rest of Europe. And again, I think your basic premise is incorrect. If you compare the early-war tanks to the late-war tanks of just about every country -- the PzII to the Tiger II for Germany, the M3 to the M4E8 "Jumbo" for the Americans, the T/34 to the IS-II for Russia -- the difference is huge.
  4. What I said was that the game did not correctly model the shift in strategic initiative from the Axis to the Allies that occurred during the war; the Axis retain the initiative throughout. Part of that is because the Italians are overrated. I think that's not accurate. Oh, don't misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting that it's of no concern. As I've said, ground combat isn't realistic: it doesn't correctly reflect the role of armor, and it's not bloody enough. Both of those lead to other problems, like the overimportance of air and the economic imbalance: Germany winds up getting to reinforce units that it would otherwise have to replace, at much greater cost. And that winds up affecting the accuracy of the entire game. On the other hand, there are people who claim that oil should be a much more significant factor in the game: that you should only be able to build so many armor or air units per oil resource, or even that each hex should have a particular resource (steel, grain, superglue, whatever) that should go into determining what you can produce. That would certainly be more realistic, but I don't think it would have a major effect on the accuracy of the game. (In fact, as HOI demonstrates, it could actually have a negative effect.) The importance of oil is demonstrated in the game, although abstractly, by virtue of the fact that oil is the most productive resource. I think that's about as far as you need to go. Two: 1. It was so cold today that lawyers were walking around with their hands in their own pockets. 2. Q. What's brown and black and looks good on a lawyer? A. A doberman.
  5. I don't think it can be. I agree with you that Italy is substantially overrated in the game. I'm playing a game now where Italy is getting more MPP's a turn than the US. That's completely whack. Sort of off the subject. I remember seeing a thread about the A-bomb a while back, whether that should be one of the techs. I'd definitely vote no on that, for a couple of reasons. First, it wasn't used in the European theatre, and I'm very doubtful that it would have been. Secondly, one of the problems with a historical game is that the people playing it know how history came out, which affects the game. We all know how significant the A-bomb was, and thus a player is going to do his best to develop one. Back then, though, there was no particular reason to believe that it was going to amount to anything much. There's a big difference between going to somebody in 1940 and saying, "Hey, if we spend a lot of time and effort on this, we will be able to develop a single bomb that can destroy an entire city," and saying, "Hey, if we spend a lot of time and effort on this, we might be able to come up with some sort of superweapon, but we're really not sure what it will do."
  6. This is where I wouldn't get too wrapped in the realism aspect, and attempt to duplicate the "exact" advances that each country had. For a couple of reasons. First, advances can entail more than technological change; it can involve changes that are doctrinal or even experiential. (And "experience" in this game would not necessarily reflect those. Experienced soldiers do things better than non-experienced soldiers. But they also learn techniques in combat that can then be passed off to soldiers who don't have any experience.) Second, and perhaps more important, limiting advances to those that were actually done "strait-jackets" the game too much for my tastes. Why should I, as the German player, have five tank advances just because the Germans did? What if the Germans had decided to stop with the Panther and devote the resources that went into developing and producing the King Tiger to other things? What if the US Army, instead of believing that light tanks performing the role of light cavalry was the way to go, correctly discerned that heavier tanks were better, and had produced the M-26 Pershing in late 1943 instead of 1945? The tech levels are abstractions, but they work. They can work better; I'd like to see the effect of certain techs, like rockets/artillery and tanks and anti-aircraft, increased, and I'd like to see strategic warfare improved. If all that's done, then players will really face some significant decisions in their choice of which techs to pursue.
  7. I don't know whether I'd agree that aircraft destroyed "10's of 1000's of tanks"; after all, Germany barely built tens of thousands of tanks (the most numerous model, the PzIV, only had a little over 8,000 produced of all versions during the six years of the war). I don't question that more German tanks were destroyed by aircraft than by Allied tanks on the Western Front, but that probably is more a testament to the woeful capabilities of Allied armor than to the prowess of Allied aircraft. I know what you're saying, and I didn't mean to suggest that aircraft were of marginal significance. Obviously, they played a primary role; it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for the Western Allies to have achieved the success they did without overwhelming air superiority. I do think, though, that the effectiveness of air power is overstated in this game, and that the effectiveness of armor is substantially understated.
  8. I've read other stuff along those lines, that tank losses attributable to air were substantially inflated. Makes sense: you're flying 300+ mph, trying to hit a target that's around 30 ft long and 10 feet wide, and very well may be moving, too, with weapons that weren't particularly accurate. Air superiority was obviously helpful, but it wasn't nearly as determinative as this game makes it. The Germans had total air superiority on the Eastern Front until well into 1943 -- they virtually destroyed the Russian Air Force, on the ground, in the opening days of Barbarossa -- and it did not stop the Russians from mounting numerous counteroffensives.
  9. That's not what makes the importance of air greater. What makes it greater is that there's not much change in ground unit's value, other than the strength points. Take air, for example. By 1942 or 1943, when everybody's up to L2 or L3 jets, air combat is deadly; it's not uncommon for a unit to lose 6 or 7 strength points in a single combat against other air units. Why? Because those advances have increased the attack and defense values of the air units. An L0 air fleet has air attack and defense values of 3; an L3 air fleet has double that. Which means that a clash of 2 L3 air fleets is going to wind up with each unit inflicting (and taking) double the losses they would at L0. What happens with ground combat, though? Nothing increases the soft attack values in the game: Attacking a corps with an L5 infantry (or a tank, for that matter) results in no more damage than attacking it with L0 infantry. (Except for a slight increase in damage if the L5 unit has its max strength points of 15.) In fact, tank combat v. infantry is really out of whack, since infantry gets the benefit of an advance in TD, while tanks don't get any advance in SA. (This leads to some ridiculous anomalies: an L0 tank attacking an L0 army will suffer a 50% lesser loss than the army, but an L5 tank attacking an L5 corps will suffer a 50% greater loss than the corps.) This has a number of effects. First, ground combat is never any bloodier, and becomes less effective as the war goes on: basic attack and defense values don't change, but infantry units become much harder to destroy because they have more strength points. Because of the limited number of ground units which can attack another in a single turn, air becomes even more important. And, since air units don't increase their ground attack values, either, having even more of them is necessary, because it takes more to get the job done.
  10. Never did get turn 50. Bummer, dude. So, like, send it, you know?
  11. Every now and then, somebody comes in here and tells us something that he thinks we don't know: that this is only a game. Apparently, you've been chosen to fulfill that role this month. Well, sorry to steal your thunder, but we already know. There are also people who feel that there's no sense in trying to make an accurate or realistic simulation. You apparently are one of those; you would be just as happy with the game if it included spaceships and the Germans could go off and colonize Mars if things got a little too sticky down on Earth. That's fine, too; that means that you won't be troubled by anything that's done with the game, as long as it's still fun for you. Rest easy; I'm pretty it will be. Especially if you're high. Hey, what's not fun when you're high? So, why don't you just let us amuse ourselves with this stuff, okay? And take a toke for me.
  12. You bring up an interesting point. The effect on combat is relatively inconsequential. With one army attacking another, and no other variables, each additional strength point of the attacker will result in an additional .13 loss on the defender; each additional strength point of the defender will result in a .067 loss to the attacker. Even at the extremes, it's not going to amount to much. One army attacking another, with the attacker at XP 3 and, with a HQ that has a combat bonus of 2, will inflict 5.1 points of damage on the defender at strength 10; if you boost the attacker all the way up to 15, it will inflict 6 points. So the direct effect on combat is negligible. The logic behind having it increase strength is questionable, too; as you point out, equipping a unit with panzerfausts makes the unit more effective, but it doesn't make it bigger. The biggest effect that increasing strength points has is to keep the unit alive. That's a huge effect, especially considering the common complaint that there are too many units. On the other hand, bigger units are more costly to build, so it's probably a wash. I'm not sure that allowing an increase in strength points beyond 10 makes much sense from a logical standpoint, but I don't think it has any particularly negative effect on the game. In light of some of the other aspects of the game which need attention, I'm not sure this makes the list.
  13. Okay, two things: tanks and corps. Tanks first. I think the problem is you're using a reductionist fallacy -- one tank can't knock out more than a few soldiers, so several tanks can't knock out more than a platoon or so. But applying such a tactical analysis to a strategic situation runs into problems. In this game, a tank group doesn't just represent tanks, it represents the mechanized and motorized divisions that panzergruppes contained. You may not be concerned at seeing a tank or two rolling toward you, but if you saw a company of tanks rolling toward you along with halftracks and armored cars, my guess is that you'd be off to the races. Which, historically, is exactly what happened. You may not believe that tanks could "blow holes" in anything more than a squad, but the German tank groups certainly blew holes in the Polish, French, and Russian (and American, at the Bulge) armies that they opposed. Not without cost, certainly; while German casualties in the blitz of France were minimal, it lost 30% of its tanks. But the tanks were what hammered the opening. In this game, you use infantry to open up the gaps and follow through with your tanks. In reality, the exact opposite occurred. As for your suggestion about tanks affecting readiness, the big problem with that is that it really won't mean much: readiness only affects the losses you inflict, not the losses you receive. And given the present state of the game, in which damages to the defender greatly outweigh damages to the attackers, reducing the defender's readiness is of minimal value: in a standard Eastern front infantry v. corps combat scenario, reducing the defender's readiness by 90% has the effect of reducing the attacker's losses from .23 to -.4, and has no effect on the defender's losses. Tank groups were the most powerful ground unit in the war, by a huge margin. I've read military historians who claim that the panzer division was the greatest single development in warfare since the invention of the bow and arrow. They aren't here; they're no more effective against infantry than other infantry, and actually become less effective than infantry, on the attack at least, as the game progresses. This desperately needs to be addressed. As for corps, I don't think I made my point clear. I understand that special corps units were created in WWII that were superior to general army troops. But corps in the game don't represent those, they represent "half-armies." At the game's outset, you pay half the price for a corps that you would for an army, and get half the value: all of the corps values are exactly one-half of the army's values. What happens after that, though, is that while the price stays the same, the corps values go up at the same rate as the army's values. When I get to L3 anti-tank, my corps has a TD value of 4, while my army has a value of 5. Meaning I can buy two units with a TD of 4 for the same cost as one unit with a TD only 20% higher. That's one of the reasons you see so damned many corps: it's more cost-effective to produce them than armies. One final note on tanks. As a hobby, I build armor models. About 90% of the hobby is devoted to WWII models, and about 90% of that to German tanks. Realism is the Holy Grail of modelers; it's not unusual for a modeler to spend $100 on books (especially those with a lot of pictures) before building a $30 model, just to make sure it comes out historically accurate. One day I was at the hobby shop when an old guy came in. He looked at a model of a King Tiger -- the 60-ton behemoth that the Germans were producing at war's end -- and said, "Boy, that brings back memories." Turned out he was at the Battle of the Bulge, and had seen a King Tiger in combat. We all crowded around, breathless for the opportunity of getting some eyewitness accounts to bolster what we'd gleaned from books and pictures. "What did you see? What did it look like? What kind of camouflage pattern did it have?" And he said, "All I saw was that it was big, and it was coming straight for me, and that's when I decided the next glance I got at that thing would be over my shoulder."
  14. Simple. Increase the terrain bonuses for cities. Right now it's 1 for SD, 2 for TD. I'd give serious thought to boosting it to 4 and 6, respectively. (In fact, the terrain bonuses should all be boosted if the attack and defense values are.) A unit defending in a city will suffer about 2 points less damage against infantry, and more than 2 1/2 less against tanks.
  15. Okay, here goes. I thought there was a corps in Riga; at least, there invariably is by the time I start Barbarossa. The other two I disagree with. Barbarossa was a disaster for the Russians. The problem for the Russians is not how the war starts out; that's fairly historical. It's what happens after that. A better way of balancing things out, I believe, is to give Russian IT advances a 10% benefit, and to reduce the costs of Russian units: a corps costs 100, an army costs 175, a tank unit costs 300. (No reason that everything has to cost the same for each country.) That way, if the Germans don't take out Russia by within two years at most, they get overwhelmed. Would also modify Russian surrender: capture of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad does it. Med works just fine as is. If the British player makes a major effort to hold it, it's almost impossible to take for the German player. But that opens up the risk of a Sea Lion. I've made some suggestions on techs and air power over on the Countertechs thread, so I'll refer further comment on your suggestions over there.
  16. Okay, in no particular order: 1. Beef up tanks. Soft attack starts at 5, not 4; SA, SD, TA, and TD goes up 1 with each level of tech advance. (Also increases strength, of course.) This means that an L2 tank will inflict 2 to 3 points more damage than it does at present. Inflicting a 7-pt loss on a unit is going to open up some holes. 2. Change values of infantry versus tanks. Right now, armies have TA of 4, TD of 2. Should be the reverse. Infantry was virtually useless on the offensive against tanks. On the other hand, tank losses could be staggering; Germany started Barbarossa with 3200 tanks, and when the offensive closed down six months later only 160 were still operational. 3. Change the techs for infantry. Either have one "infantry tech," which raises soft and tank attack and defense ratings across the board, or (my favorite), split them into two techs: AT, which increases TA and TD values, but does not increase strength, and Artillery (fold that in with Rockets, maybe), which increases SA and SD values, and does increase strength. Note that the effect of the above three changes will substantially increase losses from combat, especially as the war progresses. This has the added beneficial effect of forcing the player to use MPP's to reinforce units, rather than to create new ones, thus eliminating the Great Wall of Russian Corps and similar world wonders of SC. 4. Keep the air combat model as it is, but do a couple of things. First, reduce range. There's a big difference between range and combat range -- the latter of which takes into account the much greater fuel consumption involved in dogfighting -- and I think the former was used in this game. The Spitfire, for example, had a range of over 500 miles, but a combat range of less than 400. Air fleets should probably start out with a range of 4 and go up from there. Second, and I'm undecided on this one, have AA advances benefit ground units as well as resources. Remember, defense value only affects the losses that the attacker suffers. Inflicting additional casualties on air units is one way of dissuading a player from adopting the "20 air fleet" strategy. Making ground combat more decisive is another. 5. While we're on the subject of air and AA, reduce the base rate of AA for all resources to 0, and allow strat bombers to hit the resource instead of the unit on it. That means the strat bombers will take 0 losses until the opponent starts investing in AA. That should open up strategic bombing a bit more. 6. Corps are overvalued in the game, because they get the same benefit from tech advances that armies do. At the beginning of the game, a corps has half the TD that an army does. After 3 advances in AT, the corps has 80% of the TD that an army does, at half the cost. Corps should get half the benefit of tech advances, rounded down. 7. Also undecided on this one: a unit can either move and then engage in combat, or engage in combat and then move. (And if it can engage in combat, then move, can it engage in combat again at the end of the move?) There are some real interesting possibilities with this, but the problem is you don't have any idea of what it's going to do until you try it. Then again, my guess is that it wouldn't require too much of a code change, and if beta-testing shows it doesn't work, you can just take it out. Your confidence in my statement that this is so will probably not be enhanced by my confession that my experience in computer programming is virtually nil. Anyway, I've run all that up the flagpole, let's see who salutes.
  17. Interesting discussion. I'll make some comments in this post, then some suggestions in the next. 1. There are some misconceptions about tank warfare here. First, infantry never caught up with tanks; in fact, the disparity between the two of them got wider. A 37mm AT gun could easily knock out a PzII; even a 75mm AT gun would have a problem with Panthers, and couldn't hope to kill a King Tiger unless it got a flank shot. An American advance in 1944 could be brought to a screeching halt on a mere rumor that there was a Tiger up ahead. Second, while the "breakthrough" aspect of tanks was important, they were not used as light cavalry, i.e., with a primary mission of hitting HQ, supply, and rear areas. (That was indeed the mission of armored forces that the US planned on, which was one of the main reasons that US tanks were pieces of crap.) The tank was used as a battering ram; its proper analogue would be not to light cavalry, but heavy cavalry. In every single major offensive of the war, tanks were used to blow open and through the enemy's lines, with infantry to follow in a mop-up role. That is exactly the role of armor today. 2. WWII was the war of two machines: the plane and the tank. This game overvalues the first and almost completely neglects the second. In fact, it could be argued that the tank played a larger role in the war than the plane did; every major offensive, from the blitz on Poland through Barbarossa through the breakout from Calais was the primarily dependent on armor. That doesn't happen here. 3. Why it doesn't is a result of a number of factors, most of which have been previously discussed at length. The inability to stack and to have more than three, or usually two, ground units attack a defender, combined with the lack of retreat makes air power the god of battle. 4. There have been any number of suggestions as to how to remedy this: stacking, overruns, retreats, etc. The vast majority of them would require major changes to the combat engine. I think that's unlikely, because I think it's unlikely that Hubert is going to want to spend the countless hours necessary to do that, since the game isn't that terribly out of whack, plus there's no guarantee that it's going to work any better than the present system does, and may be worse. What happens if you spend all that time completely reworking the combat engine, and it turns that it completely screws things up -- the Germans can't conquer France at all, or wind up in Moscow five turns after they start Barbarossa? Then what do you do? So I'm going to offer a range of suggestions which will work within the confines of the current system. Some may be good, some may not be, but that's what we're all here for, right?
  18. I couldn't agree more. What I was trying to show is what you did a much better job of showing: that the submarine's role as an attacker of surface warships was a distant second to its role as a convoy raider. Look at the numbers: you show that German U-boats sank a total of 148 warships, versus nearly 3,000 convoy ships. That would seem to bear out the argument that the primary target of U-boats was the convoy ships, and that they would avoid engaging surface fleets whenever possible. Which, if you read accounts of the Battle of the Atlantic, is exactly what happened. But it doesn't happen in this game.
  19. No, it's not nonsense. Certainly, if targets of opportunity presented themselves, subs would take advantage of it. But given the substantial advantage that surface ships had in mobility, coupled with the limited time that a sub could stay submerged, it would have been suicidal for any wolfpack commander to intentionally engage surface fleets. This is born out by the stats: The US and Britain, combined, lost 290 surface ships in both theatres; the Germans lost 994 U-boats. You said you were in favor of a "more realistic Battle of the Atlantic," which appears to concede that the present Battle, in your opinion, is not realistic. What problem do you have with zones, and what other way would you suggest we might have a more realistic Battle?
  20. Yeah, I didn't get into how surface warfare would be handled by a zone system, since that's really not part of the strategic warfare topic. Actually, the present game engine does a reasonably good job of handling surface combat. Some things would have to be ironed out if a zone system were used for that. I kind of like this idea, but it has problems. First, while many of the early fighters served almost exclusively as interceptors, by 1942 most of the fighters served dual roles, and some -- such as the German Fw-190 and the American P-38, P-47, and P-51 -- excelled in the tactical bombing role. Secondly, if you're going to have three different types of plane, you're probably going to have to cut the cost of purchasing them. I'm not sure about the idea of having escorts incorporated into the bomber fleets. As you probably know, until the development of the P-51D, bombing runs into the German heartland went unescorted. That led to horrific losses; over 12,000 Allied heavy bombers were shot down, resulting in about 100,000 crewmen being killed. Sometime this week I'll probably start a thread on air power. I know it's been discussed, arguably to death, but it might be good to get some consensus.
  21. Submarine Warfare I've seen this utilized more frequently than strategic bombing, but it's still a relatively rare bird. The German player starts with 3 subs; 2 are almost invariably gone by the end of 1939, and the third has great difficulty getting into the Atlantic. Even after that, problems abound. Subs have much more limited movement than surface fleets, they don't inflict damage when attacked, the supply rules for ships make them very vulnerable after a few turns at sea (because of the movement rules, ships can usually be kept near port and in good supply, and still be able to attack subs in one turn). And since the British start out with a fairly sizable fleet, the only hope the German really has is of making a sizable submarine fleet of his own. Sending out four or five sub fleets may prove effective; sending out one or two is close to suicidal. But building five sub fleets costs almost 1800 MPP's, which means that, assuming they could in fact inflict the maximum damage on Britain -- 40 MPP's a turn -- it would take 3 1/2 years of game time for that investment to pay for itself. Given that cost/benefit ratio, it's understandable that most German players would figure that those MPP's would be more wisely spent building five tank groups for the Eastern Front. What to do? This is much more complicated than bombers, because perhaps the most fundamental problem here is that the game gives the submarine a role it wasn't intended to have in WWII: attacking surface warships. While there are certainly numerous instances of such attacks, that's not what they were meant to do, and they weren't very good at it; in fact, they usually tried their best to avoid it. The first thing I'd suggest is scrapping the entire naval combat system. Others have suggested going from a hex to a "zone" system, and I think that would be ideal. Instead of having losses determined by actual combat, sub and MPP losses would be determined by four things: the number of subs in the zone, the number of surface fleets, whether one of them is a carrier, and the level of sub advances v. sonar advances of the respective combatants. (What I'm left undecided on is what the losses should be, and if there should be any limit to MPP losses.) You might also include a "Murmansk convoy" zone, which would result in reduction of Soviet MPP's. One other thing to consider is the reduction of costs for building subs, and the introduction of an "escort" unit in the game, which would also be substantially lower cost than the cruiser or battleship. Maybe 250 for the sub and 325 for the escort. Anyway, that's my two cents. Which, after Vegas, I could use....
  22. Strategic Bombing This is probably the easier of the two to fix. The problem here is relatively straightforward: too little damage is inflicted by strategic bombers, and too much damage is taken by them. That problem is compounded by a few quirks in the rules. Let's start by taking a look at the numbers. There are 148 resource points within a 9-hex range of Britain. I use 9 hexes, because the US starts out there, and the Brits should have at least 1 increase in LR air by the time mid-to-late 1942, and the Western Allies can start strategic bombing in earnest. By that time, 148 resource points would probably represent 27% of total German MPP's, so that's a pretty big dent. Of course, there's no way that the Allied player could make that big a dent, unless he devoted virtually all of his resources to building bombers. But he could do some serious damage. Three strat bombers at L1 will each do 2-3 pts. of damage per turn. I'll short-circuit the math lesson, but after 5 turns of that, the German player will have lost 60 to 104 MPP's during that time, will have had its MPP production cut by 18 to 33 points per turn, and will be losing an additional 3 - 6 per turn on top of that. Crank up the bombers to L2, thrown in an 8 HQ and a 1 experience level, and the losses become near-catastrophic: The German player will have lost around 240 MPP's, will have had its production cut by 78 per turn, and will be losing an additional 12 to 15 each turn after that. So why not do it? A number of reasons. First, that's about all strategic bombers are good for. They do reduce entrenchment levels by two, but they're only half as effective against ground units as air fleets. Given their lesser cost and their greater versatility, and the overarching importance of {tactical) air power in the game, it makes sense to buy air fleets instead of bomber units. Second, the current rules allow you to use a corps to protect a strategic resource from being bombed; that tactic is much more effectively countered by tac fleets instead of bombers. Third, anti-aircraft is a killer. While mines and oil wells have no intrinsic air defense, ports have a defense of 1 and cities a defense of 2. Bombing a city costs the bomber 1 to 2 points per turn. Do the math: what sense does it make to inflict a 3-MPP loss on your opponent, when it costs you 54 MPP's to repair the losses to your bombers. That's why the German player rarely keeps fighters on the Western Front: he doesn't have to. In fact, he's better off not doing that, since then he avoids losses to his fighters. And often times the German player won't make any investment in anti-aircraft, and in virtually no case will it be among the top priorities. So what to do? First, tone down the tactical air effect on strategic resources. Right now it's 2, and it probably should be 0. (I think there's a pretty solid consensus that tac air needs to be toned down in other respects as well.) Second, have strat bombers affect the target, not any unit on them. Third, have all strat resources start out with 0 anti-aircraft defense. That means there's no cost to the bombers, unless you defend with fighters or invest in anti-aircraft research. A fourth suggestion would be to beef up the US strat bomber force: start them at L2, and given them a 2-pt. bomber they have to build up. That doesn't make it a done deal by any stretch. There are still substantial costs to a strategic bombing campaign, and the payoff isn't phenomenal; unless the German player passes on anti-air and leaves the Western Front undefended by air units, it may well be that the costs still exceed the benefits. Then again, they arguably did, and that's what a strategical game is supposed to simulate.
  23. Sorry I was on hiatus for a while, but I spent the last four days in Vegas proving the truth of the fool/money aphorism. I thought I'd herald my wallet-lightened return by discussing another aspect of SC, with a view to sparking a discussion on how to change it in SC2. The subject is strategic warfare. The first question should be whether it needs to be included in the game. For example, a number of people have clamored for the inclusion of paratroopers. The problem is the counterargument: given that there were only four major uses of paratroopers in the entire war, and that two were pretty much of a disaster, the omission of them in a grand strategic simulation is understandable. Not so for strategic warfare; both sides devoted substantial resources to strategic warfare and the counters to it. The effect of the German U-boats was significant; by 1942, they had almost brought Britain to its knees. While the effect of Allied strategic bombing is more debatable, at the very least it forced Germany to devote resources to the Western Front that could have been employed on the Eastern Front. The second question is whether the game accurately simulates the effect of those aspects of strategic warfare. I don't think there's very much question that it does not. I have rarely seen the German player undertake a significant effort to use submarines to the extent that the Germans actually did, and even less common is to see the Allied player engage in strategic bombing. (In fact, the current in vogue strategy for the Allied player is to disband the one bomber he starts with.) The next question is why this is. I think the answer is relatively simple: the costs of adopting a strategic warfare strategy are substantial, and the gains relatively minimal. The penultimate question is whether this should be fixed. I think the answer is yes, for two reasons. First, a historical simulation should attempt to simulate history. Secondly, a grand strategic simulation should give the player choices. It may be that the Allied player does not want to devote substantial resources to strategic warfare, but would rather use those resources to build more infantry units, so as to invade Europe earlier, or better defend the Mediterranean, or whatever. But right now, that choice is made for him; as mentioned, the costs of pursuing such a strategy far outweigh any benefits that will be received. The last question is what to do about it. I'll give some suggestions in the next couple of notes, and you guys can take it from there.
  24. Germany did not have the capability of motorizing more than a fraction of its units. German motorization would be reflected by the armored unit. US and British units were heavily motorized. (I read somewhere that a US division had 10,000 trucks.) I'd suggested earlier that this be reflected by having US and UK armies and tank groups have one extra movement point. (Not an original idea; 3R did this.) Wouldn't apply to corps. I question whether that's true, and besides, this game ends in 1946. What would be the difference between a level 0 jet and a level 5 jet, in that time frame? I'd leave this as is. Slightly off the subject, but this brings up a point: corps benefit to the same extent as armies from advances. Three advances in anti-tank raises an army's TD rating from 2 to 5; it raises a corps rating from 1 to 4. In other words, a corps starts out with 1/2 the TD strength, and winds up with 4/5ths the strength. Should this happen? Not having corps benefit from advances might help with the "too many units" problems. Why not? Keep in mind that research advances should not only reflect technological changes but benefits gained from experience and doctrinal changes as well. As you point out, guns became bigger during the course of the war, and they were utilized better as the war progressed. Artillery was responsible for over 60% of the ground unit casualties in the war. Making ground combat more deadly would also tend to reduce the number of units.
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