Further ideas/disagreements

[Schutze]

One of my biggest disagreements is the "concept" that one sub counter equates to a certain number of subs. This would be fine if subs acted in battle groups. But the fact is that a sub is a solitary hunter. Even in the day of the wolf pack they acted solitarily. Giving a RN battle group the chance to wipe out a 'fleet' of them at one stroke seems silly. For them, the subs, to be effective, you have to have at least half a dozen. If going with the 'concept', you've built over 600 subs. And they still die like lemmings. I think one sub should be one counter, at a suitable price.

Next. Air units take too much damage from surface vessels, and air units are too powerful against surface vessels. One reason Seelowe was called off was because the Luftwaffe couldn't be certain that it could sink the RN heavies. Other air forces were far behind the Germans in the early years of the war in air-to-surface attacks. And there was certainly no way any surface squadron could destroy 1/5 of an attacking air fleet.

Defending air units only get one chance to impede an opponent's air forces. Imagine how the Battle of Britain would have gone if after the first attack by German bombers, the rest attacked scott free till the next fortnight.

The old phrase "It takes 3 years to build a ship" is still close to true. Raising or refurbishing ships in a fortnight is just plain wrong. After Jutland, most of the vessels that suffered serious damage on both sides were in drydock for 10 months to a year. Perhaps ship building time could be made more realistic, and units already under construction at the beginning of the war, like the Bismarck or Prince of Wales could come in at some scheduled date.

The real satisfaction in the game is it's ease of play, and the fact that it's one of the very few in which one can even try to subjugate England. Forcing that surrender is enjoyable indeed. Perahps with some tweaking it could be made more desirable for those of us over 13 years of age.

[Jollyguy]

I don't agree in your assertion that air is too powerful in the game against ships. Let's recount the notable times air was instrumental in sending ships to the bottom: 1) The Bismark 2) Those two British battleships the Japaneese sunk 3) Taranto 4) Midway 5) Coral Sea 6) The Battle of Leyte Gulf (was that the Turkey Shoot?) 7) And oh yes, Pearl Harbor.

If you didn't notice, WW II was when heavies gave way to air, and. . . aircraft carriers.

As to the scale of the subs. They fit the game. What do you want, hundreds of individual subs clogging up the Atlantic? This is a macro game, not micro.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Schutze:

Next. Air units take too much damage from surface vessels, and air units are too powerful against surface vessels. One reason Seelowe was called off was because the Luftwaffe couldn't be certain that it could sink the RN heavies. Other air forces were far behind the Germans in the early years of the war in air-to-surface attacks.

That's true on land, but at sea it was the opposite - Germany was virtually the only major power that had no naval attack air units.

It had no torpedo bombers, and no AP bombs for its dive bombers, and THAT is why it didn't think it could sink any RN heavy units - their bombs wouldn't penetrate the armoured decks. By 1941 it had fixed this problem.

In contrast the UK, Italy, Russia and the USA all had some sort of dedicated naval air attack units. In hte case of the UK and USA they had carrier borne air arms equipped with torpedo bombers and dive bombers (and AP bombs!!), the UK and Italy also had airforces which included torpedo bombers, while the Soviets had a land-based Naval Air arm equipped for torpedo bombing.

[Edwin]

Defending air units only get one chance to impede an opponent's air forces. Imagine how the Battle of Britain would have gone if after the first attack by German bombers, the rest attacked scott free till the next fortnight.

Imagine if the German air force could only attack once in two weeks. Its the same for both sides.

Jollyguy - The turkey shoot was the Marianas (Saipan, Tinian and Guam)

[husky65]

Originally posted by Schutze:

If going with the 'concept', you've built over 600 subs. And they still die like lemmings.

Historically, to use your figure of speech, they did die like lemmings, I would suggest that you have a look at the figures.

(actually they didn't 'die like Lemmings', Lemmings don't die 'like Lemmings' [en masse], its a myth).

I think one sub should be one counter, at a suitable price.

Micromangagement hell on so many different levels - production, deployment, attacking, defending, accounting for damage done, repairs and since only 1 counter per hex can occupy, we will fill the North Atlantic up pretty fast.

All in favour say aye?

The Nays have it.

[iolo]

For sure the idea of a counter per sub is for a different game.

But it is true that the English and Americans were only able to wipe out the untersee fleet by means of improved detection measures. Up until that point the battle of the atlantic was certainly anyone's game.

In SC the allies seem to start with those technological advances in 1939. No matter how many uBoats you build they're all gonna end up as great National Geographic project 50 years later...

[coe]

The intersting part is when you strategic or

regular bomb a hex and there are multiple defending air groups within range, only one replies....

Hmmm, I wonder what kind of tweak could do it

such that you could get multiple air groups to

defend....

[Sir Whiskers]

1. Concerning sub warfare, I agree that as things stand, SC does not simulate the Battle of the Atlantic in any meaningful way. It is far too easy for the Allies to sweep the seas of subs, and far too difficult for the Axis to send more out. Though I don't see a fix for the current version of SC, in SC 2 (if there is one) I'd like to see convoys moved "off map", where each side deploys air and naval units, and the computer determines results (MPP lost, naval and air attrition, MPP arrived). This would also be an effective way of implementing Lend-Lease. Subs could still be used in a fleet support role (especially by the Allies) but, in such a case, they would not affect convoys.

2. I have to disagree about air being too powerful vs fleets, but the later point about the German air force not having dedicated anti-shipping air units is well taken. Again, we can't change this now, but in SC 2 differentiating units by nationality would solve this problem (and many others). In the same vein, US infantry could have more movement (all US infantry divisions were essentially mechanized), Soviet infantry could be cheaper to build, and so on.

3. How about allowing the player to decide (vs AI only) which units respond to a given airstrike, if any? For instance, how many times have you seen your Soviet air interdict an airstrike against an unimportant unit, only to then lose an important unit because no air was left to protect it. Rules could be included to allow more than one air fleet to intercept the same strike, if the player so chose. This would not work in PBEM, and it would slow the game slightly, but the benefit to the player would be considerable.

4. I agree wholeheartedly that the production system is too simplistic. Using a system closer to World in Flames, where different types of units require different build times would be preferable - requiring players to think several turns out. This would require having turns of the same length (1 month? 2 weeks?), but otherwise I can't see any other major problems. Yet another idea for SC 2.

5. Yep - simplicity is the best part of this game. More options does not have to mean more complicated, just more difficult to master. I was telling a friend about the game and now he wants the demo. If the game were as complex as Third Reich or World in Flames, he would never touch it. Games like this help bring new players into the hobby and should be applauded.

[husky65]

Originally posted by iolo:

But it is true that the English and Americans were only able to wipe out the untersee fleet by means of improved detection measures. Up until that point the battle of the atlantic was certainly anyone's game.

Actually it wasn't technological advances that did in the U-Boats, it was convoying and finally killing the idea that the way to hunt subs was to search the open ocean (rather than concentrating your assets at choke points and near the convoys) and the release of sufficient numbers of heavy bombers for maritime patrol.

The tech advances certainly helped, the doctrinal changes were most important.

[Old Patch]

I'd also add the Allies eventually swamped the Atlantic with escorts - just the British alone built over 90 DE's (+50 old US DD's), over 200 Frigates, and way more than 200 corvettes by 1944. By 1943 escort groups were larger, better coordinated, and with radar the favored tactic of surfaced night attack by U-boats became too dangerous. Forced underwater, even a slow convoy could outrun a submarine.

[Tony Reale]

I also think that air is too powerful. The Italian navy wiping out the British Navy is unbelievable. The biggest problem that I have is that the USA production is so low.

Fun game if you don't take it too seriously.

[husky65]

Originally posted by Old Patch:

I'd also add the Allies eventually swamped the Atlantic with escorts - just the British alone built over 90 DE's (+50 old US DD's), over 200 Frigates, and way more than 200 corvettes by 1944. By 1943 escort groups were larger, better coordinated, and with radar the favored tactic of surfaced night attack by U-boats became too dangerous. Forced underwater, even a slow convoy could outrun a submarine.

Certainly, but if the Allies had persisted with the older doctrine, the extra amount of escorts would not have helped.

For quite some time there was an insane insistence on hunting U-boats in the open ocean (searching for needles without a haystack to narrow it down), at great cost in resources, when the only place that really matters with a U-boat is near the convoy - if they are not there, they don't matter.

[ August 25, 2002, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: husky65 ]

[Aloid]

It wouldn't bother me in the least if the sub war was abstracted the same way convoys are.

Force spending into sub "pools", escort pools, and allow for the occasional attack on capital ships.

It's been done like this in plenty of games before, so I'm sure there must be a good model someone could point us to.

Sorry, but it's just not working out well in SC so far. IMHO

Aloid

[iolo]

I think there's hope for the SC subs. I really like the way they subtract varying amounts of MPPs based on location, and it's just fun to move them around the atlantic.

If they were cheaper, harder to detect, and maybe more likely to dive, I think it could at least be a viable human vs human investment for the Axis player.

[Doomsday1]

Originally posted by Sir Whiskers:

3. How about allowing the player to decide (vs AI only) which units respond to a given airstrike, if any? For instance, how many times have you seen your Soviet air interdict an airstrike against an unimportant unit, only to then lose an important unit because no air was left to protect it. Rules could be included to allow more than one air fleet to intercept the same strike, if the player so chose. This would not work in PBEM, and it would slow the game slightly, but the benefit to the player would be considerable.

[Doomsday1]

Originally posted by Doomsday1:

I hear you knocking. Why would I want to intercept say a bombing of London with my US jets, when they are severly in need of maintenance, where there are no pilots to fly 'em, when the weather is lousy, etc... The idea here is if my units are weak, I would not rise to the occasion, and risk complete destruction, and thus preserving them. Quite another thing if my airbase is attacked directly.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Doomsday1:

I suppose you could prioritize things, and set

your planes to only defend certain kinds of units,

or ones with a certain amount of damage (I hate

how the Russkies will gang up on one of my Panzers

on the E. Front). Would be a lot of micromanage-

ment tho for a fairly small gain.

John DiFool

[Russ Bensing]

Originally posted by John DiFool:

I suppose you could prioritize things, and set

your planes to only defend certain kinds of units,

or ones with a certain amount of damage (I hate

how the Russkies will gang up on one of my Panzers

on the E. Front). Would be a lot of micromanage-

ment tho for a fairly small gain.

How "realistic" is any of this? You think Hitler or even OKH micromanaged which fighters would protect which units? You think that was even done at the air unit command level? "Well, boys, if you spot the enemy going for that pretty banged-up Panzer unit over there, hop to it, but if you think they're going after somebody else, get some shut-eye for tomorrow"? At the grand strategic level, in the course of a game turn that lasts a week, defending air units are going to attempt to intercept attacking air units. It's as simple as that, and giving the player a choice about that is what is not realistic.

This is a grand strategic game. If some people want a game where they replay the entirety of WWII while being able to refight Kursk at the battalion level, God bless 'em, but I'd like to be able to play the game in somewhat less time than it actually took to fight the damned war. Much of SC works very well at what it is supposed to be. It rewards those who develop a coherent overall strategy and execute it well, and it penalizes those who don't do one or the other, or both. It does not reward, for the most part, "gamey" strategies and tactics. If you know something about military principles and something about WWII, you will almost always beat someone who knows less than you do about both.

There are things that don't work, like the role of subs and the lack of sufficient map space in the Mediterranean. But when most people say SC isn't "realistic," what they mean is that it doesn't allow them to micromanage units the way they want to, which would be completly inappropriate for a grand strategic game anyway.

[iolo]

.. what he said ..

[Brian Rock]

Ditto.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Russ Bensing:

Note that my original message (which you quoted)

didn't advocate the POV you ascribe to it: I too

dislike any and all micromanagement pointlessness

which has been advocated in this forum, basically

for the reasons you state. OTOH can (and should)

we add some extra options and added functionality

to the game (or SC2 rather), without drowning

the simple and elegant interface in a morass of

confusing choices? I insist that the middle

ground CAN be claimed.

John DiFool

[Sir Whiskers]

Russ, I have to respectfully disagree with two of your points:

1. It does not strain the bounds of credulity to believe that strategic headquarters would assign air assets (or any others, such as supply, for that matter) to particular units. During the Stalingrad campaign, do you really believe that OKH allowed luftflotte to support any unit that happened to be in range? At the beginning of the campaign, the squadrons supported the attacking units. Later, they supported the defending units within the Stalingrad pocket and, when able to given the weather, the units attempting to link up with the pocket. Luftflotte generally had clear priorities, and I feel the current situation in SC limits the player's ability to re-create this.

2. Your objection seems to be that suggesting changes to the game is "gamey", while playing as is somehow demonstrates a superior grasp of strategy. Yet any game, of necessity, enforces particular rules which, to win, a player must learn and master. For that reason, any successful strategy is "gamey" - otherwise, the same strategies I use in SC would work just as well in World in Flames or Third Reich (they don't). While general strategic principles are indeed universal - apply superior force at the point of contact, maintain a reserve, take risks only for commensurate gains, etc. - applying such principles without taking into account the specific rules of the game will not guarantee success.

SC is a grand strategic simulation, so I agree that any additional "micromanagement" forced on the players must be carefully considered. I don't agree that any additional complexity is necessarily a bad thing - that logic, taken to extreme, would remove the player's option to build the particular units he wants, deploy them where he wants, etc., simply because it requires "micromanagement". I consider it a sign of how well Hubert has balanced these elements that we in the gaming community tends to disagree about such relatively minor aspects of the game.

[arby]

Originally posted by John DiFool:

Note that my original message (which you quoted)didn't advocate the POV you ascribe to it

You're right. I was taking aim at the general idea that you were responding to, not advocating, and it was unfair of me to portray it in a manner which suggested that you were advocating that position.

[arby]

Originally posted by Sir Whiskers:

Russ, I have to respectfully disagree with two of your points:

1. It does not strain the bounds of credulity to believe that strategic headquarters would assign air assets (or any others, such as supply, for that matter) to particular units.

That may be, and it may be that allowing the player the option of whether to intercept might be appropriate and easy enough to do. (A simple window -- "Intercept Y/N?"). I'm not sure that accurately simulates the situation at this level, though. Generally, the strategic plan you're trying to implement is to develop either overall air superiority, or localized air superiority at the point of the planned attack. That's what the game is attempting to simulate. Gaining that air superiority involves intercepting the other guy. There's no other way to do it. In a real war, I can't see the air commander deciding that he'll use his fighters only in a tactical support role; denying the enemy the ability to use his fighters in that role is just as important.

2. Your objection seems to be that suggesting changes to the game is "gamey", while playing as is somehow demonstrates a superior grasp of strategy.

I didn't mean to suggest that. There are some "gamey" strategies which can be pursued, especially on the Eastern Front; after playing a number of PBEM games, I'm firmly convinced that an aggressive Axis player will ALWAYS prevail if he pursues a given strategy, simply because of a quirk in the supply rules. And I've been critical of several aspects of the game, subs, the lack of Lend-Lease, and the Mediterranean being three.

I probably overreacted to the "Kursk at battalion-level" suggestion. But I do think some of the criticism of the game is along the line that unless you have units representing divisions and individual subs and you get to micromanage them, the game isn't "realistic." I don't agree with that. I don't think that's where the problem with realism lies.

[ August 28, 2002, 10:44 AM: Message edited by: arby ]

[Sir Whiskers]

Russ, thanks for the clarification. I still want control over my air units, but I concede your point that such control may not fit the scale of the game.

I think you make an excellent point about the types of changes that are sometimes suggested. One common suggestion is the addition of airborne units. Yet, when we consider how those forces were used in the war, it's difficult to see how they would fit in with a game of this scale. If Hubert ever decides to create a lower-level version, then airborne troops would have an important role. In a grand strategic game such as SC, they just don't seem to fit, IMO. Ditto for giving partisan units to countries other than Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and adding HQ units to minor country forces. Tinkering with the areas you suggested (supply, Lend Lease, subs, etc.) are more in line with the game's scale - though, as another poster noted, we still have to carefully consider how such changes will affect the balance of the overall game. I've held off posting a number of suggestions solely because I'm not sure they'd make things better, rather than worse.