Two Questions: City supply and national morale

[AshesFall]

In my current game (as the germans) I managed to completely cut a soviet town (not a city) off from any sort of Primary or secondary supply or industrial centre. Despite this, when I approached the town, I noticed that supply from it was still at 5. I was under the impression that it's supposed to fall to 3?

How big of a factor is National Morale in regards to actual combat ability of units on the map? For example, in our current game the soviets have an infantry tech of one, equal to the german (mine simply will not advance, stupid thing). This means that soviet armies are, stats wise, one up on their german counterpart corps. Despite this, my units generally do well in combat. I've tried to figure our why, it is partly because of commanders, but by this point commanders are fairly equal in many/most places.

Thanks for your help!

[Big Al]

You have to surround a city with 4 units to drop its supply level or bomb it strategically to reduce this supply value. So if you have 1 city with 9 soviet units around it the city value won't drop.

As for combat values....

I designed the scenarios where the Germans should always be 1 tech level ahead of the Soviets. Early in Barbarossa the Germans have experience advantage and tech advantage.

German corps are SA/SD 2/2 +1/+1 = 3/3

Soviet armies are SA/SD 3/3

So they are equal. The difference is the Soviets have more armies, planes, and tank groups than the Germans have. So late in there war this makes a difference along with the production differences. The Soviet production increases and the Germans start being subject to the Western Allies on the Italian Front, Western Front, and strategic bombing.

I read all the AARs and examine in detail how games progress. I also consult with some of the better wargamers on balance. The general consensus is that the game is pretty well balanced where skill take precedence. Historically the best the Germans could hope for was a stalemate vs a historical Soviet action. In AoC we have hindsight and fun factors included. So the game is balanced for 4 possible victories situations

#1 Soviets crush the Germans in 1942

#2 Germans crush the Soviets in 1942

#3 Germans get held and Soviets push them all the way back to the main objectives winning the game before time runs out

#4 Germany cripples the Soviets enough where they can't achieve an objective victory by the end of the scenario but they don't conquer them.

Skill and strategic planning is very important in AoC. It's very much like chess in the sense of how much skill and experience in the game matters. I played 20 games myself and I was never short of trying out new and better strategies as either side. I am pretty critical of my own work too.

[AshesFall]

I see there was a slight misinterpretation regarding the last question. I wasnt critizising the scenario as much as asking how much, game mechanically, national morale impacts the actual combat capabilities of the units on the map.

The rest was there to give a context to that question, to reiterate; We both have a tech level of 1, so at the moment the soviet armies are better (4/4 vs 3/3). Despite that, my german corps are doing fairly well combat wise, and I guessed it might be due to national morale (the germans currently have 20 more at 83 than the soviets at 63). Does the national morale difference have an impact, and in that case how?

Thanks again!

[Bill101]

Hi Ashes Fall

National Morale will have some moderate impact on the unit morale and capabilities, as per the chart below:

The Effect of National Morale on Unit Morale

National Morale 0 - 40% -> unit.morale = unit.morale * 85%

National Morale 41 - 75% -> unit.morale = unit.morale * 90%

National Morale 76 - 90 % -> unit.morale = unit.morale * 95%

National Morale 110% or higher -> unit.morale = unit.morale * 110%

So in the game you're playing, Soviet unit morale will be reduced to 90% of what it would have been otherwise, while the German unit morale will only be reduced to 95% of what it would have been.

Subtle differences, but with differences in HQ ratings (which are important factors) and (if applicable) supply, then those would explain why your units are performing better. Especially if they are on average more experienced.

As to your question about supply, I agree with you. This wouldn't be the case if the supply settings have been changed from the default (as this is editable) but in the standard campaigns (and I've just checked 1941 Barbarossa) resource supply is calculated based on railway connections, so it should in normal circumstances drop from 5 to 3 as you've described.

Can you post a screenshot of the situation so we can take a closer look?

Bill

[AshesFall]

Thank you very much Bill, this answers my questions exactly!

These are the relevant screenshots. The first is at the start of the tuirn, the second is at "discovery" so to speak. The relevant city is Yahotyn, seen in the second picture info box.

Edit; Insofar as I know we havent changed anything from the basic settings, except soft build limits .

[Hubert Cater]

Hi AshesFall,

The reason that town is still at 5 is that it is not completely cutoff from a traceable line of friendly territory.

It is at 5 because it is cutoff from friendly rail lines, but once it is a completely isolated pocket without any traceable lines of friendly territory to another supply source, then it will be at 3.

Hope this helps

Hubert

[Bill101]

Of course, Hubert is right as I was forgetting that it's not the lack of rail connections that reduces a resource from 5 to 3, but the lack of a connection with friendly territory that is at the higher supply value.

[Hubert Cater]

To be honest I wasn't sure until I saw the screenshots as that definitely helped to narrow it down as otherwise I was thinking the same thing about his assessment being correct.