A few questions/statments to Russian Cival war campaign.

[Sapare]

So, I have been playing said campaign a bit more as of lately and a small number of things came to my attention. Feel free to argue them any way you want.

I feel NM(or PS) just doesnt have enough use in this game. With the lengh of thi game(60 turns?) I can not immagen EVER seeing any of the involved factions giving up based on running out of PS(Reds are the only one at all capable of it(having enough territory), and even then I don't think there is any way for this to happen without the reds already having lost all their territory as it is.

This includes the european nations, the only reason they EVER withdraw from war is due to scripted events.(the lose of moral from people at home complaining, or breakin rules such as moving french units/keeping brits over the height line)

Maybe this is supposed to be that way but I feel it makes PS goals for the PS rating rather useless, and to fight brit/french/US units seems also rather irrelevant because the damage done to their units is so little it wont even change their exit from war by 1 turn.(Maybe that is historic, idk how much people at home got mad if the people at the front died, though these days that seems to have the effect)

The whole "north russia is upset at brit depature" is for example totally irrelevant, by then NR will always have 100(or higher) moral, and afterwards they will have 90 (or 100) moral.

Just my little rant on NM because I LOVE how NM is inplemented so PERFECTLY in Call to arms but I have yet to ever see it of any relevancy in any other map of this game and WW2 gold. Right now it just feels like something to gauge how the war is going, rather than a viable way to win the game.(maybe supposed to be, just bringing it up)

2nd thing is ofcourse the trains, enough said.

3rd thing is some AI weirdnesses. As I barly ever play against AI(only did once) I guess most others don't either, but the AI LOVES to go all out on some of the Ural white towns, which ofcourse ends with 4 corps standing in mountains/0 or close to supply and being totally ineffective.(those cities are not takeable to anyone with brains, the the captial is a 10 suppy, with HQ and two corps/1 detachment.)

4th thing. It feels really weird that red russians.(and Whites I believe, though never tried it) can invade Germany/Romania and all those nations without ANY backlash.(Infact, I will assume Poland can just capture all germany and nonoe will complain?)

I mean, I love the idea of the freedom of being ALLOWED to do it, but that there is no backlash(and germany has 0 units do to them being dismantled) seems a bit silly.

5th. Is it supposed to be that european units in the north have no way to move to the south?(there are no arrows or anything, the units from north russia after having to depature are stuck bein useless)

6th, maybe this is meant to be but it is possible to push the british units in the north low enough that they are below the "leave this area by..." line, without ever evacuating them.(Also STILL leads to north russia being upset at their depature, even though they never left... they just fought themself far enough down)

[Ivanov]

6th, maybe this is meant to be but it is possible to push the british units in the north low enough that they are below the "leave this area by..." line, without ever evacuating them.(Also STILL leads to north russia being upset at their depature, even though they never left... they just fought themself far enough down)

This issue will be addressed ( the armored trains aswell ). As to the rest, let's wait for Bill

[Bill101]

Thanks for posting this Sapare, you make some good points, some of which we will certainly be addressing in the first patch, and a few more that I'll look at and report back on in the next few days.

[Sapare]

I might as well go and update the topic with some other things I thought of.

This isnt nessesary but nice to have, but: I feel an ability to let the game continue running after the historic date for it to end would be nice.(to my knowledge there is no reason for the match to end at such a date, in WW1 this is adressed by letting the war run as long as it does.(though you can tell it to stop at said date)

This might actully help to make NM a bit more usefull(At least the reds could be drained if they are losing but able to hold on for a long time, currently I think the date will always arrive before NM is cracked)

The 2nd thing is more of a ballance concern rather then bug:

The northern russian capital(the port city, I am currently spacing on the name due to knowing at least 3, if not 4, names for this city... seriously.. lol.) is pretty much impossible to capture.

And I don't mean difficult, I men plain impossible.(place 1 detachment(or corps if you got the forces) into each of the fortresses(forward city) and 1 HQ squished between the other units, 1 corps to the right of the main city.(as to block the field this unit will be standing on)

And you got a perfect defense. I doubt it is breakable with anything short of leveled up heavy guns.(and I dout it is breakable with even that, which you will never have in this game, at that place)

This is because the HQ will be untouchable by anything untill the forward units are killed, but they will at all cases have 7 supply because even when cutt off it will only go down to 3. The main city parts themself are not bombable by ships because of the ports being in the way and to attack an entranched unit, over a river(Which will have at least max 2 entrenchment, 6 in the fortress) just won't ever do enough damage to kill it.

This is combined with the fact that the adjecent towns are just not close enough.(you get good supply at the left side, where the enemy fortress is, but at the right side your HQ's won't get any supply)

With all these things combined I don't see a viable way to win this.even with the Finish in the war, The finish only got 3 detachmants, which won't do any damage(once in a while 1 damage to HQ, lowering Supply to all other units to 6) and airplane carrier.(again, once in a while 1 damage)

If you can prove me wrong, make a pic showing what there is to do.

Last thing, more an oddity/confusion rather than enough.

I am confused on WHEN supply for a town goes down. I get that it goes to 3 if cut off compleetly, but does it drop below that when more then 4 units stand adjecent to it(because I thought only industries had that, but I seen towns drop to 0).

And also, I thought HQ's are able to give each other supply(maybe I misread), that doesnt seem to work at all. But more odd so, I had cases of HQ's lowering other HQ's supply.(I might be wrongly remembering here. But I believe to recall I had an HQ give off 8 supply, and another HQ which stood in a place where it would have recieved 0 supply(resorting to basic 5) only giving off 2(or well, non) due to standing in a field which recived 2 supply from the other HQ.

Very disorded post, I am sorry.. long day.

[Hubert Cater]

For supply drops, yes there are the normal supply rules that consider connections, and being cutoff and then on top of that supply can be reduced further when there are 4 or more units adjacent to a town, resource etc.

The only exceptions are Capitals and Fortresses.

For HQs the way it works is like this:

HQs are given a supply value based on their distance from a resource and the supply value of that resource. There is a table in the manual that outlines what they will receive, but I believe it is 10 for maximum supply value, 8 and then 5 if it is cutoff.

But after that an HQ can have its supply increased by another HQ just like how an HQ increases regular unit supply.

So if let's say there is a supply 10 HQ that is in 4 tile range of another HQ that is considered cutoff or out of range, then the cutoff HQ which would normally have a supply value of 10 will now have a supply value of 6.

For example, 10-4 = 6.

Hopefully this makes sense,

Hubert

[Sapare]

For HQs the way it works is like this:

HQs are given a supply value based on their distance from a resource and the supply value of that resource. There is a table in the manual that outlines what they will receive, but I believe it is 10 for maximum supply value, 8 and then 5 if it is cutoff.

But after that an HQ can have its supply increased by another HQ just like how an HQ increases regular unit supply.

So if let's say there is a supply 10 HQ that is in 4 tile range of another HQ that is considered cutoff or out of range, then the cutoff HQ which would normally have a supply value of 10 will now have a supply value of 6.

For example, 10-4 = 6.

Hopefully this makes sense,

Hubert

That does make sense, but could it be that there is a problem in following example case.

HQ1 is 4 fields away from a 5 supply town. As such it gets input supply of 1, and an output supply of 8. Now, 6 fields forther south of this you have HQ2, which has nothing ells to draw supply from(aka, considerable "cut-off"), if HQ1 was not present it would revert to its state of giving of 5 supply.(correct?)

But do to how the HQ rules are applied(or weirdly applied as I have yet to see the point of the HQ linking), it will INSTEAD take the 2 Supply leftover from HQ1(8-6) and continue using those.

Which in turn means a unit only 1 field south of HQ2 will get 1 supply.

I got a savegame here which shows this problem, if clearification is needed.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Sapare,

Your analysis is correct and the code should prevent this from happening, i.e. HQ2 should only take supply from HQ1 if it increases its supply.

If it is taking the supply from HQ1 and it is decreasing the supply of HQ2 as a result then this is a bug.

Please send me the turn at support@furysoftware.com and I'd be happy to take a look.

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks for the bug report and files and this has been corrected for the next build

[Bill101]

Hi Sapare

I'm working on this now and have some fixes in place to improve the Romanian and add German armed forces (mainly Freikorps) so that will make attacking either country a much less attractive prospect in future.

I had already added some loops from the north to south, but you've inspired me to add another directly from the White Sea near Archangel to the Med, but the journey will take a while.

The first patch will iron out a lot of things in this campaign, not least of which will relate to the armored trains.

I still need to work on the Political Standing because I totally agree with you, and a lot of things have already been added in ready for the first patch, but a little more won't do any harm.

Finally, I sent you a PM a few days back, don't know if you've seen it or had a chance to reply yet?

[Rabelesius]

Bill, also have a look again on the historicity. I guess you should not have a total victory for the White (taking Moscow and Petrograd) a real historical win. At least, it should be really improbable.

For me, a White win would be a longer holdout than historical. In 1920, the Whites should be on the ropes everywhere and the focus of the game should shift to the Russo-Polish War. So, this is the most difficult game situation to design: the fighting withdrawal and holdout. I am sure you can do this with this engine as the WWI scenarios show.

[Bill101]

It is possible, if the Whites hold on to Archangel, Ekaterinburg, Rostov, Minsk (a job for the Poles) and Tsaritsyn, but it would only give the Whites a Minor Victory.

It's certainly a worthy goal, and will be more likely after the first patch.

[Sapare]

I wanted to ask how much the poles are meant to be able to go into russia/ how strongly they are affected by going deeper. Asking this because in my game I only had desertions in 1 round and then they were seemingly fine with walking all the way to almost moscow(I pulled them back becuase I assumed it was a bug)

[Bill101]

The Polish forces will suffer further mutinies, but I hadn't set it so that there would be further messages as I thought it might be a bit too much.

Though I'll be happy to add them in, as thinking further it does makes 100% sense from the perspective of knowing what's happening, as Polish units will be suffering hits to their combat effectiveness for as long as they remain deep in Russia.

Their Political Standing will also decrease by 50 points a turn. This will probably be largely or wholly offset by their successes in advancing this far east, but at least it should help prevent their PS from rising too high.