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I would have thought AT increases the CTV for Anti-Air Units, instead of AA? Is there a typo somewhere? or maybo both AT and AA increase CTV for Anti-Air Units? Can you elaborate?

British, Germany and Russia were all stretched beyond imagination as far as manpower goes. Germany lost 46% of its male population in casualties. Any man left between the ages 18-40 was in the armed forces... plus many teens under 18 and more than few men past their 40's. I've to confirm this number but my recollection is that Russia had something like 28 million casualties, plus another 6 million in the armed forces by the end of the war. Not sure if there were any men to be found somewhere in Siberia. Manpower shortages were a very major issue for these countries. Hubert's use of Hard/Soft Limit is extremely valuable element as far as giving a historical context to the game. I just feel more can be done in this area.

OK, everything you said makes sense to me, except for this part. I understand the compromises you had to make. Still it seems too counterintuitive that the same research used to make a better battleship would result in a better naval airplane. Besides, it means that the U.S. and England get to improve their Air to Sea capability with the same research the use to improve their battleships. So Allied planes become better sub hunters with the same research that Allied Battleships... I guess, if you do not want to create a new research area right now, it is a necessary compromise. Still, long run, I think these should be separate areas of reserach.

I am a bit unsure about your use of accronyms. AT stands for Anti Tank? Why does AT affects Soft Attack (SA)? I understand AT (Anti Tank) should imporove TA (Tank Attack). TACs (Tactical Bombers) in WWII were fitted with 50mm AA guns and they were deadly against AFV's. But when attacking soft targets, TAC's relied on regular bombs and regular machineguns. It seems improved airframes that allow the fighhter to carry more guns, to control the plane better on a dive, to survive flak, etc. was much more relevant to Soft Attack. ...same thing for Air to Air combat. It seems to me a AA (Advanced Air) would be most pertinent to a TAC's performance in aerial combat. I think a TAC unit should benefit from 4 techs: AA, AT, NW, LR. Now, come to think about it, Hubert never gives 4 techs to any unit. Is there a reason for that? And still, if forced to limit my self to 3 techs, I would revaluate what NW really stand for. What makes a WWII TAC a good Naval Attack Plane. It sounds that he ability to deliver either a big torpedo or a big bomb down the chimney was key to it. So load capacity and dive control were key. This seem to be the same elements that would make the Tactical Bomber. So I would propose renaming NW as ATBA: Advanced Tactical Bomber Airframes and have this Research area imporve Naval Attack, Soft Attack and Air to Air Attack values. I would allow AT to improve Tank Attack and of course keep LR.

Did the Axis player have Moscow and Stalingrad in both games?

Lars, I've read similar works to those you point out here. ...and, clearly the short war mindset was a big part of the picture. That explains why war industry was not fully mobilized. It also explains why Germany drafted such huge number of men in disregard of industrial production. Having said that, I do not think this contradicts my earlier statements. Germany drafted too many men into the Army. This must have impacted war production. You cannot 10-15% of the labor force out of the economy in a couple of years and expect it to have no impact. Single shifts and under utilized equipment are as much proof of the short war mindset as they are proof of the fact that would be laborers were in uniform somewhere else. In fact, I would argue manpower missmanagement was as much a result of this very shortwar mindset you point out.

Should Moscow be the holy grail of SC2? Shouldn't we define Axis victory conditions?

1943 was the only year that Germany did not build more tanks than they lost (Built 6,000- Lost 6,400). I should say full year, because in 45 they lost them all. </font>

It seems from the historical numbers that even before HItler launced Barbarosa, Germany was already facing manpower shortages. At some point, slave labor may have helped. But there are two very important points to remember about slave labor: First, slave labor was not a good source of recruits for the army. The army was desparte for recruits since early '42. To fill the gap, they had to draft well educated, skilled labor, technicians and profesionals already in their 30's and even 40's. ...not to mention children and old men by the end of the war. Any way, each time they took away a technician or an engineer from a major factory, port or train service, they were hurting the economy in a disproportionately high manner... it caused a higher degree of dislocation in the chain of production than whe you recruit someone who is not performing a similar task already. To the extent you had well educated women to take over those task, the dislocation would be reduced. Still there would be a time lag before the person filling the possition gets acquainted with her new tasks. Slave labor, however, is a different ball game all together. There were tasks you could not trust to captured enemy soldiers. In fact, you had to restructure production sistems, and even rellocate factories to take advantage of their labor. All this represented additional costs to the economy. Balancing for the game seems the crux of the matter. One element we could work on is Russia's activation. In SC2 Russia seems to eager to attack Germany. Germany's easy victories throught Western Europe were actually quite scarry. I imagine Russia would not have attacked Germany as early as SC2 would have it.

One of the good features in SC2 is the use of Soft Limits in the advanced settings modes. For those of you that do not venture into this window, Soft Limits allow you to build extra units at a higher cost, once you exceed the maximum limit set for a given set of units. I would like to push the idea of soft limits one step further. As I see it the soft limit/hard limit options try to simulate the fact that each country had limited resources. Elsewhere in this site much was said about Germany’s limited capacity to produce fuel, and hence to sustain a large armored force. Although I generally agree with the fact that Germany had limited fuel resources, there were other resource limitations that were more important during WWII. At the start of WWII, Germany had a male population of some 30 million. By the end of the war the Wermacht had had some 13.5 million casualties (dead, missing, captured or disabled). See Glantz’s When Titans Clashed. By mid 1942, Germany had some 3.5 million men in the eastern front, and probably another half million men in arms elsewhere throughout Europe and North Africa., but had already lost about as many men in casualties. So, by mid 1942 Germany’s economy had been drained of 7 million workers (half in service and half in casualties) out of an initial population of 60 million. Clearly, this represented a huge drain to the economy. Anecdotal evidence suggest that arms production suffered because of lack of manpower, long before Germany started to experience fuel shortages. In his memoirs, Lost Victories, Manstein tells us the Wermacht experienced sever manpower shortages as early as 1942. Manstein thinks the problem was the Luftwaffe and SS had first pick on recruits and there were not enough men left for the Wermacht. That may have been so, but numbers also tell us that the manpower pool was running on empty. The soft/hard limits are a good start in an attempt to model this manpower shortages. But soft/hard limits fall short on one important count: loss replacement. SC2 limits only look at the total number of units you have on the board. You can have huge manpower losses, and, you can keep replacing them at “low cost” without triggering the soft/hard limit penalty. As long as you do not exceed the number of unit counters on the map, a player is not penalized for inordinate manpower losses. I would like to see an SC2 take into account casualty replacement as something that can hurt war production if it exceeds certain limits. One easy way to achieve this is to assign each country a soft maximum of replacements per turn. Once you exceed this maximum, all additional replacements bought in that turn will cost extra - say 25% more. Say for example Germany is given a monthly soft limit of 20 replacement points per turn. A German player may replace up to 20 combat points among all its units in any given turn at the prevailing MPP cost. However, if in a single turn the German player tries to replace 23 combat strength points (adding up all replacements bought in a single turn) then the last 3 replacement points purchased in that turn will cost 25% more. Rebuilding lost units should count as part of this soft limit of replacements per turn. If the German player lost an infantry corps and he tries to rebuild it, rebuilding that unit should count as 10 replacement points for purposes of the soft replacement limit. But, disbanding a unit should give you a replacement credit for the turn in which a unit is disbanded. I would give serious thought as to whether production of a new unit should count towards this manpower limit. Say the German player is building an Infantry Corps (combat strength 10). In doing so he would have reduced by 10 the replacement pool available for that turn. Hence, in the example above, he would be left with only another 10 points for replacement before triggering the replacement soft limit penalty. Of course, this soft limit on replacements per turn is only a half measure to what would be the ideal way to model manpower availability. Ideally, we would have a replacement pool which expands in a month when casualties are not replaced, and contracts when replacements are purchased. But, programming such a pool would be more complicated. A soft limit on replacements per turn as described above would keep programming at a minimum while adding a reality check on casualty management.

Right now we have this hard/soft limits. I would use Supply and Manpower pools instead of hard/soft limits. I dont think this would change the current level of micromanagement from the current game. ...and the impact on balance should not be very different from the current hard/soft limit set up. However a pool system would give more flexibility to the players. For instance, right now you have a fixed limit of corps and army units, you cannot change one for the other. With a pool system you could have more corps and less armies or vice versa. Same thing with supply: some think gas was an issue for Germany. But you could reduce the number of tanks and increase the number of planes. Or reduce the number of cruisers and increase the number of trucks to carry infantry.

Good Point! The US produced 86,000 tanks but only fielded 16 Armor Divisions. The majority of the tanks were in seperate tank battalions at Army and Corps level which were attached to the Infantry/Airborne Divisions. As you pointed out, raising the Tank Attack and Tank Defense value for a US Corps from 1 to 2 might be overkill, but a raise from 1 to 1.2 might be appropriate. </font>

Lars, The best would be to have a "winter" upgrade per unit. Sometime in the fall or winter a player could buy this "winter" upgrade and that unit or HQ or city would perform better during that winter. In the fall of 1941, the German High Command was so confident of a week victory that they chose to push on toward Moscow instead of resupplying their troops. Plenty of winter coats and other necessities were not shipped to the troops in favor of ammo for the Moscow offensive. A "winter" upgrade would force the unit to stop to resupply ...to call off the offensive. As a second choice, infrastructure is a nice abstraction to represent the fact that with better infrastructure it would have been possible to bring more stuff forward to the troops, e.g. coats.

From my readings it sounds 75% of supply trucks used by Russia were probably U.S. made. These trucks probably supplied the heavier mechanized units. Meanwhile, probably most of the foot infantry was supplied by carts drawn by animal. My guess is that these carts did not count as equipment eventhough they probably hauled the supplies for most of the army... just like they did for their German counterparts. As far as the comparison with the U.S., your comment is fair enough. Still my point is not to diminish the role played by U.S. industry but to point out the vast amount of men mobilized in a very short time by Russia. Russia called to arms something like 6 million men within the first 12-15 months of the war. This number is extraordinary by any measure. ...and, I would like SC2 to somehow model it.

Earlier in this topic I mentioned: I've wondered how to simulate in SC2 the fact that Russia had so many patially trained men ready to call to arms. I remember reading recently about the stupendous rate at which the Russians created new divisions and armies during the first few months of the war. I will try to get this numbers for you all later on. Any way, I remember something the Russians raising something like 100 divisions in a few months. Obviously, all these reserves were called so quickly because Germany was invading Russia. I imagine that these reserves would not have been activated at the same rate if Russia had attacked Germany. So I wonder if Hubert and Co. could include a script in the game that activated production of a large number of Corps when Germany takes over say 3 Russia cities. I remember playing a board game (War in Europe) that did just that. In WIE Russia could be in either of three states: neutra, limmited war, and total war. Russia entered total war when Germany captured any 3 Russian cities. This activated fast production of Russian Reserves (the 5 million men mentioned above) and also activate war production (similar to an automatic rachetting up of Production Tech in SC2. ...I hope Hubert and Co. look at this idea. It allows for the Axis player to chose an interesting game path. Face a hostile Russia without pushing it into "The Great Patriotic War" - to use the term still used by Russian historians.

Short answer, I don't think Germany had any chance at all of winning the war, even if the U.S. did not have the A Bomb. I think an Axis player that manages to hold to very small gains until 1946 should be consider "victorious" for game purposes. There are two ways of balancing a game, making the Axis player look stronger viz a viz the Allies than historically accurate or making the "Victory Conditions" represent what a good genearl could have reasonably achieved given the most difficult odds faced by Germany. Hitler lost the war when he attacked Russia in 1941. And he lost the war for a second time when Japan attacked the U.S. later that year. Either one of those events meant certain defeat for Germany down the road. Maybe Russia would have attacked Germany any way. Maybe the U.S. would have declared war on Germany any way. Either way, Germany could not fight a two front war. I find the following number very telling: When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, about 12% of Germany's male population was already in the armed forces. I am including male babies and old men as part of the male population. This is a huge number. A lot has been said about Germany not fully mobilizing for war because Hitler did not want to put undue preasure on the population. Numbers do not support this. As of June 1941, Germany had about 158 regular infantry divisions, 11 security divisions, 37 panzer and light panzer divisions (pnzr grndr) plus2 independent panzer brigades and the equivalent of 2 paratrooper divisions, the largest airforce in the world, and probably the largest submarine force as well. To put this in context, during the whole of WWII the U.S. activated something like 100 divions. And the order of battle I listed above corresponds to 1941 - before the U.S. even entered the war. The fact is that Germany mobilized too many men from the very begining, hurting industry and transport infrastructure. Whatever the Wermacht achived through 1941-42 was the most you could reasonably expect from the Wermacht. Back to my victory conditions comment, these comments regards solely what should be the victory conditions for the game. Winning in the game does not mean anything but that, winning the game. It does not mean that because Germany won the game, does not mean that Germany could have won the war.

I agree 100%. The fact is that the Wermacht was somewhat better prepared for their second winter in Russia... and this greatly reduced the damaging effects on troops. Also, winter effects should hurt the Russians also. The Russians faired badly in Finnland partly because they were not ready for the winter. They learned more than a few lessons there, and, were working on those issues when Hitler attacked. If we use Lars idea we could have the Russians (and every one else) hurt by Russian winter, but give the Russians a headstart in infrastructure. Having said that, I would Helsinki should be spared from the "Russian" winter effects ...to simulate Finland's better preparedness to handle the tough winter conditions.

I am not thrilled about your first suggestion, but, I liked your second suggestion: It makes sense, although I do not know if it is historically accurate: Did Yugoslavia increase the size of its army after Italy attacked Greece? Did Finland increased the size of its army after Russia invaded the Baltic States? Did Sweeden drafted more men in account of Germany's invasion of Norway? etc. Any one knows?

I guess I did not explain myself very well. I am trying to reduce randomness without eliminating it completely. I am suggesting that there should be some degree of randomnes, but as time progress, the degree of randomness should fall. When you start working on a research project, there is a very small chance you may hit on the right answer on your first try. But, most likely, not everything will work out quite right at first. So you start looking at what went wrong, try to fix it, or to look for alternative. Of course, you learn through the process, so failure actually brings you closer to success... at the very least you know what does not work, so you won't try it again. There are many algorithms I can think of to model how time elpased in a research project increases the probability of success. Some of them my look to John as the big hairy thing he drew last night. But, still the general idea is fairly straigth forward: the odds of success should increase as time researching a given subject passes on.

...is there anything the Axis player can do to prepare for the Russian Winter? In 1941-42 the German's failed to ship adequate winter supplies for their troops because they gave priority to the Moscow ofensive, and, because they were overconfident of a quick victory. In 42-43 and 43-44 German troops were better prepared for the winter. It was still extremely tough on the troops, but it was just as tough for the soviet troops.

I do not think the Germans had a chance of taking over Russia. They did not have the manpower... But "victory" should not be defined as taking over Russia. Ass a matter of fact, the historical goal of Barbarosa was to set up a defensive line deep enough into Russian Territory for Russian bombers not to reach Germany... I would define a major Axis Major Victory as follows: by war's end, the Allies have no cities and no ports in Western Europe, the Axis control Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland, Libia, the Baltic States, Minsk, Smollensk, Kiev, Karkov, Odesa, the Ukranian Resource centers and Sevastopol. I would define an Axis Minor Victory as follows: by war's end, the Axis Control Paris, Dunkirk the French resource centers north of the Alps, all cities of Benelux, Denmark, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Western Poland, Germany including East Prussia, and, Italy including Sicily. I would define a Minor Allied Victory if, by war's end, the Allies recovered all French and Russian cities and hold at least one German or Italian City. I would define an allied Major Victory if, by war's end, the Allies recovered all French and Russian cities and also hold at least half of the original (1939) Italian and German cities. Notice there is room for a draw. If the Allies fail to clear French and Russian Cities, there will be a draw even if they take over most of Germany and Italy. Also, if the Axis manage to hold each and every of their original (1939) Italian and German cities, it is a draw. ...and, by the way, I really don't like the A Bomb as a victory condition. If you want to have a super bomb that can knock out a city for ever, fine. But blasting a city with an A Bomb should not be a "victory" condition. A German city should not be deemed occupied by the Allied merely because the Allies bombed it away with an A Bomb, nor vice versa. We can also define an Axis Overrun and Allied Overrun Victories when a knock out is achieved before war's end. An Axis Overrun would require the Axis to take out France, England and Russia (as in SC2) before war's end. An Allied Overrun would require the Allies to take Rome, Berlin and two thirds of the original (1939) German and Italian cities, before war's end.

A semi random would be best... what I mean by semi random is that as time goes on since research started, the probability of success should increase. There are several ways to do this: One way is for the program to remember the date when research started and then the probabilistic formula should take into account time elapsed since that date research started. Another way is what I call the bucket approach. Imagine you have to fill a bucket. Each turn you have a probability of adding one cup of water to the bucket. This probability of adding water to the bucket depends on # reseach chits allocated, intelligence, and anything else Hubert cares to throw in. As the bucket fills up you get closer to completing research. Say each bucket holds 10 cups. The probability of adding one single cup may be quite high (say 80%), but it still would take at least 10 turns to fill the bucket. On average it would take about 12 turns to fill the bucket. If you have bad luck it may take a few more turns... so you get some ramdomness, but not quite as much as you currently have.

No so because units with lower strength have reduced morale and readiness and this affects their combat values. Only a unit with 10 strength can get 100% readiness and morale. </font>

There are some oddities about the existing Army Unit. In the past I have written or read other forum members birng forth separate questions which I think merit setting in one single topic. Back in ths SC1 days a lot was said about the fact that SC did not provide for stacking. Some argued convincingly that the Army Unit was an acceptable alternative to stacking. The idea was that an Army Unit would represent a stack of 2-3 corps. ...and, back then someone asked: "why is the Army Unit slower than the Infantry Corps"? The answer was that the Army Unit represented a much larger group of infantrymen (2-3 corps). And, clearly it takes more time to march 150,000 men through a couple of roads and into possition than marching just 50,000 men. This is a fair enough answer. But does the Army Unit in SC2 really behaves like a concentration of 2-3 corps into a single tile? The combat values in SC2 represent the firepower of a unit. Higher combat values result in higher losses to the opposing unit. But a higher combat value does not mean a unit can take more punishment. The amount of punishment a unit can take is determined by the unit's combat strength. When you pack 2-3 corps into a single tile, the result should not be higher firepower, since most of your additional units would be kept in reserve, behind the front lines. Instead the result should be a higher capacity to withstand losses, since you have a large reserve several miles behind the front line. - That's what defense in depth and echeloned attack stand for: keeping a lot of reserves out of harms way during openning part of an engagement so you may have them available during later stages... When I recently mentioned this, one of you reacted: Accordingly, if Army Units really represent a concentration of 2-3 Corps in a single tile, then they should have similar combat values (firepower) to those of an infantry corps but a much higher combat strength (manpower). Back then Sea Monkey warned that concentrating 2-3 Corps into a single tile would result in higher losses during a bombardment. I beg to differ: Defense in depth was all about keeping multiple defensive lines several miles behind each in order to minimize losses from initial bombardment. Thining your front line, on the other hand, made your only defensive line more vulnerable since it was pinned by the initial bombardment and there was not a second line of dissengaged men to prevent encirclement of the pinned front line units. It also made your supporting services (artillery, communications, logistics, etc.) vulnerable if the first and only defensive line was broken. Given the scale of SC2, it would be perfectly consistent with WW II history to imagine 6 divisions (2 corps) packed into a single tile, building multiple trench lines within that tile to provide defense in depth. ...or to make a multi echelonned attack where several divisions are kept off the initial attack and used to defend the acquired tile once the oppossing unit breaks down. If we conceive of Army Units as 2-3 Corps, Army Units should have higher combat values - say 20 instead of 10. And Army Units should cost twice as much MPP's to build (say 200. Alternatively, to the extent that both units have the same manpower (combat strength), we may think of these units not as Armies vs. Corps but as Heavy Infantry vs. Light Infantry. Heavy Infantry would have a larger assortment of heavy machine guns, anti tank guns, and artillery. These were cumbersome weapons that would slow down the whole unit, but, it would also give the unit much more firepower. However, a lot of this heavy weapon was - because of its weight - more usefull in defense than offense. And, when you compare the SC2 values for Armies (Heavy) and Corps (Light), it turns out that Armies (Heavies) are not better in defense. A heavy infantry (army) unit should have higher SD and TD than the corresponding light infantry (corps). I believe the current Army vs. Corps distinction is out of whack. It does not correspond accurately with what it purports to represent Army = stack of 2-3 corps. It looks a bit more like a heavy vs. light distinction, but again the combat values do not match. If we really mean to have an Army vs. Corps distinction, the Army unit should have higher combat strength but the same combat values as the Corps. If, on the other hand, we mean to distinguish between heavy and light infantry, then we should revise the existing SD and TD values - and the names assigned to the different units.

Great. Can we set different experience caps for different units. Say "1" for infantry, but, "3" for air fighters?