Questions on Combat & Movement

[Aacooper]

I have some questions on combat.

First, a general question... have different combat situations been tested (a la DuPuy) to check the combat systems realism? I know there should be a variety of possible outcomes for any given situation, but are they reasonable, and did the historical outcome fit?

My questions on combat and movement:

Will...

1) Armor's effect depend on terrain?

2) The likelihood of breakthroughs depend on force density?

3) Weather have an effect?

4) Sides be able to move strategically a certain number of units (a la "Third Reich"), or have a certain number of strategic movement points (a la

rail movement in TOAW), or is there some other system?

5) Oil supplies affect movement of motorized units?

6) Axis units fight harder against the Soviets?

7) Encirclements lead to a possibility of surrender (sometimes encircled units gave up, sometimes they didn't)?

8) Soldier quality and attack/defense matter -- in other words, inexperienced soldiers could sometimes defend pretty well, but took heavier

losses when attacking?

10) Does Fog of War allow for misinformation tactics, can it give a wholly inaccurate picture, or is it very limited? One of the points of "Strange Victory" (book by Mays) was that the Germans were able to blitzkrieg France because the French put their best troops in the wrong place. I believe the French shouldn't get any special disadvantages to recreate the historical outcome, but rather, a recreation of their flawed plan should make the historical outcome possible. Likewise, if the Germans attack the French strength, there ought to be more of a war of attrition. Similarly, the Soviet victories from Kursk onward were made possible in part because the Germans didn't correctly understand Soviet troop concentrations and intentions.

There are cases where the Soviets thought the Germans had another army they didn't have (in 1945!), there's Patton's Army Group waiting to invade France, and of course there's the Ardennes Counteroffensive.

11) Countries have maybe special decoy+ and decoy- units they could use to try and puff up or hide troop concentrations? There's always a chance the deception wouldn't work.

Thanks,

[Titan]

In comment to your question #7 regarding encirlements,I was looking at the screenshots and going by the size of say france the thought of doing a pincer movement or evening getting an encirclent would take up most tof the country, I mean Germany is only 7 hexs wide along its border with france.

[Hubert Cater]

Units have been modelled to certain characteristics. So soft units like corps/armies will have different attack and defence values for tanks, air units, naval units etc., and these will be different from other units like tank groups. This will also mean that tank groups will not do as well assaulting units defending in cities as they would in open spaces and so on.

Each unit type has it's own values for:

Soft Attack

Tank Attack

Air Attack

Naval Attack

Strategic Attack (i.e. resources)

Soft Defence

Tank Defence

Air Defence

Naval Defence

Terrain also gives bonuses to these values in attack and defence value calculations as well as unit readiness, experinece, entrenchment etc.

FoW is not as detailed as you've outlined, but does provide limited information for spotted units in some cases. Basically you have to be next to a unit to see it's total strength, otherwise if a unit falls within spotting range, it will be identified but you will not know it's strength so this could be used to mislead your opponents, especially if a unit can only be spotted by air, like Patton's army group!

[Compassion]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

FoW is not as detailed as you've outlined, but does provide limited information for spotted units in some cases. Basically you have to be next to a unit to see it's total strength, otherwise if a unit falls within spotting range, it will be identified but you will not know it's strength so this could be used to mislead your opponents, especially if a unit can only be spotted by air, like Patton's army group!

How about the ability to spend strategic resources on intelligence to geta better picture (and the chance of having your opponent counter spend to muddy that picture) of what's going on on the other side?

[roman uk]

I AM THRILLED TO HearR ABOUT THIS GAME, AND DEFINNITELY WILL BE BUYING IT.

HOWEVER, Please, please, tell us that encirclement and resulting loss of supply is implemented in this game!

A WW2 strategy game without grand encirclement does not tell the tale of ww2; it was afeature of every theatre and every great victory and defeat.

Thanks

Roman

[Hubert Cater]

Not to worry... it is!

[Aacooper]

Hubert,

Thanks for the responses -

Is there strategic movement?

Any chance of getting "maskirovka" (Russian word for masking) in the game? Every side did it, to varying amounts of success, and it happened on the strategic level. For instance, before the great Russian offensive of 1945, the Germans guessed the number of Russian troops in the center, and were off by a factor of 2. Either that, or would natural FOW have the possibility of errors that high after a lull?