Issue with pockets

[xwormwood]

I have NO interest in MP.

Lucky you once you find a equally strong friend and player to start your first series of MP games.

Boy, are you in for a treat, honestly!

In the meantime, fight the good fight for a better and better AI, i'm right behind you!

[numdydar]

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?

Not sure. I Know that Baku was a IC and units that appeared there were due to Baku being an IC. As i had units on both the North and South sides, there was no FoW so I could actually see the units pop up out of thin air next to cities within the pocket.

With Arkangel/Murmansk I do not know. Neither location was connected to Russia by rail or road, but I think because the port was open, the AI may have been able to have units placed there. If so that should no be allowed either. Transported in from a different port is fine, instantly appearing is not. All I can say that at one point, there did not seem to any units at all East of lenningrade, then a large force of 10 or more units appears and strats heading to Finland :eek:

While region was not a pocket the way the South was, the only land connection was miles of forest and not roads or rail in or out.

In the South the pocket was just north of the mountians which included the city of Grozny to the Caspian Sea, south to Tabriz in Iran, West to Erzurum which the Russians owned for a long time, then to the Black Sea. So all in all, it was pretty big. About a 10 x 15 square area. With no connection to Russia in or out other than the Port at Baku to a land locked body of water.

If the port is why units could appear, then the game really needs to add some checking mechinism so that tiny ports like Baku are treated differently than major ones. Just like Arkangel, units transporting across the Sea is fine because then they can be interdicted as in Stalingrad when this occured. But this instant appearing of troops in places where they should be be able to is a game breaker for me.

[crispy131313]

I am sure that the ports were not allowing troops to be built, it must be another way. Ports have nothing to do with placing units from the production que.

Back to the pockets,the USSR had given military training to nearly 14,000,000 civilians during ww2, and when you consider that the original army of nearly 5,000,000 soldiers was almost entirely wiped out in the first year of the war it does not seem unrealistic that the Russians are able to form units within these eastern pockets, because this is historically where these troops were coming from, even if they were not encircled at the time in real life. Perhaps they are just picking up the guns of the dead in front of them. As for placing new tanks etc, I don't have an answer so this is not a perfect answer by any means.

It is also possible that some of these units that were being deployed were not from the production que, but were rather scripted AI units which are basically units that are not shown on the map yet, but will take the field on your approach. These units can be easily toggled off in the options menu (in the game start up not the editor) before you start the match if you do not like this feature. The best part is this is an option.

For game balancing perhaps it would be interesting if the USSR player had an option as to whether to transfer all the industries to the Urals or to send some to the Caucasus and some to the Urals. It would be a risk/reward scenario to send factories into the Caucasus but perhaps it could be a requirement to make Baku an Industrial city. If the player did so, then there would be less MPP production locations in the Urals activated on the map. The more options available to me as a player the better.

[numdydar]

I can definately tell you it was not scripting. Plus we are not just talking small types or weak units. These were Army size units of Art, Tanks, and Inf. Also, if you want to get into specifics, that area of Russia was not real keen on fighting for the Motherland. So if The three major cities in Russia had fallen, and the Germans were pushing past the Urals like I was, somehow I do not think hundreds of thousands of men would be suddenly deciding to fight tooth and nail when there was no hope for them to succeed.

I know you are trying to help, but there is no historical background for this to occur. So it should be fixed.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Numdydar,

Thanks for the more detailed posts and this does help to paint a better picture on my end of what you might have been seeing on your end.

I have a few thoughts on this, as from what I can tell this is directly related to the Industrial Centers on the map with perhaps one scripted AI UNIT event for the Caucases that I can easily adjust, and I'll discuss with Bill to see if we can come up with something more applicable now that the map has increased in size from our previous releases.

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

Just a quick update from our end...

After looking at this more carefully, and considering all the suggestions as well as the new realities of the larger maps, we think the easiest solution would be to implement a new rule (as suggested) that requires a rail connection from all Capitals/Industrial Centers for any new unit placements.

We will also try removing Baku from the Industrial Centers list as it is not likely as key a center for play balance now with the larger map and we can go from there to see how this works in testing on our end.

Thanks again for all the feedback

Hubert

[Duke of York]

Great work, Hubert & Bill.

[numdydar]

Thanks so much for listening

Now if we can get the naval system revamped, then we are getting a lot closer to perfection

[Hubert Cater]

Our pleasure , and for the naval system it is unfortunately a bigger project and something that will have to wait for SC3 as we are planning some revamps for that.

Hubert

[numdydar]

That's what I figured, unfortunately. So will just to wait until then