Hubert - tiny thought for human players

[japinard]

Maybe on future version, you could add a button called "reinforce all"?

Then the human player wouldn't have to manually click every little icon to reinforce/resupply them.

[dougman4]

This is so funny!

This precisely puts a finger on a major game imbalance. Reinforcements are so cheap that there's no reason not to reinforce all units all of the time! Let's auto do it! Maybe we could code an auto attack for every unit with strength of 8 or more, and an auto reinforce for units whose strengths are 7 or less. Then we could go to work and come home 9 hours later and see if the battle lines had changed. Doubt it!

[SeaMonkey]

Nay I say D4, the expense in experience is crucial to unit effectiveness and is more important than the unit strength(1 through 10----15 rating).

[dougman4]

Whatever experience gain the attacker has over the defender, they both lose as they take reinforcements.

The defender remains extremely difficult to kill, and easy to reinforce. There are so many MPP's available, that the defender can reinforce all units with enough left over to spawn new ones for the rare occurance when it is necessary to replace a piece that actually dies.

The game is unbalanced in this respect.

[CPROFITT]

I agree. I was sad to see that even though a unit was not defeated there is NO forced retreat.

[japinard]

I don't agree Dougman. I just played thorugh my first whole campaign where both sides start out with NOTHING. I found that the game forces you to overcome defenses through the following:

1. Getting him un-entrenched.

2. Lowering his experience through forced reinforcements.

3. Using combined arms tactics to overwhelm defenses (air power).

I find the balance pretty good.

[dougman4]

Japinard,

Beating the EI is relatively easy, and you won't appreciate what I'm saying by playing campaigns of any type against the computer. Perhaps if you bump the computer and experience settings to unbeatable levels you could simulate the experience.

You are absolutely right about the normal way to try to kill a unit.

1. Un-entrenched him – GOES WITHOUT SAYING

2. Lowering his experience through forced reinforcements - NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE DISSIPATES AS YOU TAKE ON REINFORCEMENTS

3. Using combined arms tactics to overwhelm defenses (air power) - NOT POSSIBLE IF YOU DON’T HAVE AIR SUPERIORITY

The key is air superiority. However, that is a wildcard entirely up to chance. Experienced players understand that jet power and industry are the crucial research areas in the early game. If both players spend heavily on jet air, and through chance one player gets advancements and the other player does not - then the game becomes un-winnable to the player without the advancements. Because, that player has lost the opportunity to take pieces off the board since air is the only way to remove beaten down pieces.

The game is unbalanced, air shouldn't be the only way to kill a piece.

[ev]

Originally posted by dougman4:

This is so funny!

This precisely puts a finger on a major game imbalance. Reinforcements are so cheap that there's no reason not to reinforce all units all of the time! Let's auto do it! Maybe we could code an auto attack for every unit with strength of 8 or more, and an auto reinforce for units whose strengths are 7 or less. Then we could go to work and come home 9 hours later and see if the battle lines had changed. Doubt it!

I agree with your concern. It is too easy and too cheap to reinforce. I have a couple of ideas on this point:

a. Limit how quickly a badly battered army can reinforce. I t is on thing to reinforce an army thatis down to 8 point back to 11. It is another thing to reinforce an army that is down to 2 all the way up to 12. ...it is quite a thing to do this in one week. I would limit to 4 stregh points the amount of reinforcements a unit can receive in one single turn regardless of whether that unit is adjacent to an enemy. I would further limit reinforcement if the unit is in mountain or swamp hexes. And still further if adjacent to an enemy.

b. I would create three Replacement Pools: Air, Naval, and Ground. A player would have to buy replacements in advance for later use. Replacements could not be used in the very same turn they are bought, but instead credited to their Replacement Pool for use in a subsequent turn.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by ev:

a. Limit how quickly a badly battered army can reinforce. I t is on thing to reinforce an army thatis down to 8 point back to 11. It is another thing to reinforce an army that is down to 2 all the way up to 12. ...it is quite a thing to do this in one week. I would limit to 4 stregh points the amount of reinforcements a unit can receive in one single turn regardless of whether that unit is adjacent to an enemy. I would further limit reinforcement if the unit is in mountain or swamp hexes. And still further if adjacent to an enemy.

b. I would create three Replacement Pools: Air, Naval, and Ground. A player would have to buy replacements in advance for later use. Replacements could not be used in the very same turn they are bought, but instead credited to their Replacement Pool for use in a subsequent turn.

Good ideas, would add just a modicum of micro-

management but a whole new additional strategic

angle. Paying for replacements BEFORE you need

them-you have to decide how many, and in what

areas, in anticipation of future losses.

John DiFool

[dougman4]

EV,

I like the way you think, as I have said before. Your Option A would definitely be preferable to the current status. My own preference might include a sliding scale with decreasing reinforcements as more enemy units are engaged (adjacent).

Your Option B is clearly unique and rather thought provoking - but anything that is a constraining influence would improve the current situation.

Let's add these ideas as toggles, so people have a choice in how they play!

[ October 23, 2002, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: dougman4 ]

[geozero]

Can reinforcements be considered from a "pool" of resources that will run out at some point?

For example: in the Civil War game called the Blue and the Gray (I think it was by Impression) I believe you had a finite number of men and rifle you could recruit or build. When these were gone that was it - no more reinforcements.

Here is a thought: One of the reasons the French surrendered so quickly and unexpectedly in 1940 was that they did not want to lose the staggering numbers they suffered in 1914-1918. So there should be a finite (limit) number of "soldiers" to reinforce. This holds true for all nations (which is why at the end of the war Germany was recruiting old men and young boys to fight).

So why not set a limit of men, aircraft, tanks, ships, etc. that model more closely what was economically available during the war years for each nation, instead of points that can be used to build a zillion air units? I mean at some point you just can't build any more jets!

Just my 2 cents.

[dgaad]

Reinforcements or New Units ? Which should be cheaper? Pick your horse, then ride it.

One type of troop is more expensive than the other. The historical data (in Mark Harrison's book - The Economics of WW2) suggest that a replacement system is much less expensive than a system which emphasizes the construction of new units preferentially over replacing existing ones.

Second Point : Game Scale, people. Each hex is close to 100 miles. Having units "adjacent" doesn't do jack to the ability to replace units, or to construct new ones for that matter.

Third Point : Game Scale, people. MPPs represent, imho, much more than simply economic capacity. Since they can be stored, they also represent part of the replacement pool. They represent the mobilized but as yet undeployed field formations. They represent a host of things.

Fourth Point : Game Scale, again. Some of you complain about armies being reinforced from 1 to maximum in one turn. The loss of strength points doesn't necessarily mean loss due to direct battle, nor is it a good indicator of number of men lost. It represents loss of combat power. More than 60% of the total firepower of formations in WW2 was artillery tubes. A unit could lose a great deal of its combat power, due to loss of these tubes -- or for other reasons -- and yet, as a large-sized formation, still have most of its men. Correspondingly, a loss of combat power like this CAN be restored very quickly.

Fifth Point : Operational movement and Game Scale. In early August, 1942, the Germans approached Stalingrad. It was at this time that the Red Army began shipping approximately 40 divisions that had been held in reserve to guard against a possible German offensive against Moscow. Within two weeks, most of these units were in place in the Stalingrad area. In SC terms, this could be A) the operational movement of two armies to Stalingrad while two German armies were adjacent to Stalingrad or the creation of two new Soviet Armies in or around Stalingrad from the MPP pool (representing the deployment of mobilized but undeployed reserves).

[dougman4]

Geozero, good idea! A resource pool would also be a constraining influence, I’m all for it. Make it a toggle-able option, it can only improve the game. It makes no sense for German to get typically 200 to 400 MPPs a turn to spend on new units or reinforcements indefinitely (SC games can go on quite a while as they often devolve into a quagmired trench warfare style). At some point, Germany’s entire population is dead. Naturally, the same goes for Russia or any other country.

Dgaad, appreciate the constructive criticism. Here’s some of my own:

1st Point: Agreed, reinforcements should be cheaper than a new unit. However, reinforcements are priced too low because you can typically reinforce all units to max and have extra left over for new units or to save for research. There’s nothing to force you into hard choices. Hitler and Stalin and Churchill never had it so easy. Something broken or downtrodden, no problem – Presto – good as new! Seems ludicrous.

2nd Point: Each hex is 50 miles, not 100, so your logic is half as relevant. Adjacent units do have an impact on reinforcement and construction of new units. This impact increases as the city or unit is surrounded. This impact is also greatest in the zone of control (adjacent hexes) of a unit. If we agree that it should be difficult or impossible for a surrounded city (or unit) to reinforce or build new units, then it shouldn’t be unlimited for a city (or unit) to reinforce or build new units if it is surrounded but for one hex. I advocate a sliding scale that reduces reinforcements or new units as more enemy units are adjacent.

3rd Point: Don’t believe anyone’s disputed that MPPs are Military Production Units, the meaning of which is clear.

4th Point: Agreed, operational strength has many of factors, not all of which are manpower. However, manpower is a significant factor and not all equipment losses could be restored very quickly.

5th Point: No one in this tread including myself criticized operational movement.

[dgaad]

Originally posted by dougman4:

1st Point: Agreed, reinforcements should be cheaper than a new unit. However, reinforcements are priced too low because you can typically reinforce all units to max and have extra left over for new units or to save for research. There’s nothing to force you into hard choices. Hitler and Stalin and Churchill never had it so easy. Something broken or downtrodden, no problem – Presto – good as new! Seems ludicrous.

As it stands right now, using reinforcements is one half the cost of creating a new unit. I don't see any way around this. If you make them more expensive, it then becomes a distinction without a difference.

Taking your statement, I think the situation of being able to "replace all your forces" and "still have enough left over for new units and research" is exactly the way things should be.

If you have enough to replace all your units, its because the enemy simply didn't do enough damage across the board.

WW2 has been called the "Ultimate War of Attrition" by people much more erudite on the topic than myself. The key to winning in the game, economically, is NOT the reduction of units, but the ELMINATION of them. Even the German economy in 1942, with production of 500+ MPPs, could not stand the ELIMINATION of 2-3 armies per turn

I tend to agree that in most games on even this scale, there ought to be some limits on the amount of various types of units; limits that reflect historical capacity. The phenom of the Germans building airfleet after airfleet is indeed ahistorical because with the relatively limited production of oil in continental europe, this number of aircraft simply could not be flown.

I don't think, however, that the amount of armies or reinforcements used reaches ahistoricity in this game, because of the brake put on production and reinforcement by MPPs. Virtually every nation did create or reinforce to the general extent they do in the game. If I had a quarrel, it would be with the construction and use of more specialized units like airfleets that needed a particular, and relatively rare, resource.

[Rouge]

Too many opinions to make an effective idea

[dougman4]

Dgaad, agreed that the key is to remove units from the board, not beat them down. But, you can't do so because reinforcement is so easy and rules prevent enough ground attackers from engaging in battle (no stacking permitted, you can’t attack and move units to the rear to bring in more units for continued attacks, you can’t move then deselect and then attack). You can whack numerous units everywhere on the board and see them all get reinforced the next turn. It is silly, no army has ever been able magically resurrect the dead and create new armies to boot! I don’t care how it is fixed, whether you get fewer MPPs or units cost more or the relative cost between reinforcing and buying new units is tweaked. But, tweaked it must be. Or, simply create a toggle of options so that it is customizable and everyone is happy.

[JerseyJohn]

The points about reinforcments being too cheap seem more applicable to the Germans and Russians than to the English. For most of the game it's hard for them to keep their units fairly strong while transporting troops to North Africa and scrambling to find a few saved MPPs to put into research. Which is a real change from games like Clash of Steel, where England (if she gets her convoy imports) seems to have way too much --by comparision the UK in SC is very poor!

I'm not sure which system has it right, but I am certain that, if reinforcements were more expensive, there'd be little point in playing the UK.

[dougman4]

JerseyJohn, we're agreed that Russia and Germany can reinforce everything at any time with the MPPs they receive - creating a quaqmired battlefield as it is so difficult to kill units with the current ground rules.

And, I agree England's resources are comparatively limited. But, it seems proportionally suitable to me. England was not able to launch a war winning ground campaign by itself. To me, England is best served by doing nothing (in many ways this is a Seinfeld-esque game – where the best strategies involve nothing) and devoting all MPPs to jet power and air supremacy. Then, when US finally comes into play the invasion of western Europe can successfully commence, albeit at a quagmired pace.

[SixthArmy]

I would like a hotkey I can press to bring the selected unit up to full strength.

[dougman4]

Good idea! Seems more useful than the first post which asked for a reinforce all to max hotkey, which provoked my derision as to the ease of reinforcements to begin with.

There is a pitfall with such a hotkey though. In some terrain or situations, you might not be entitled to max out. And, you might not have noticed that was the case. By hitting the hotkey, you might reinforce and only get say one reinforcement (ending your turn for that unit). Had you known, you might have chosen instead to move to the rear instead of leaving yourself vulnerable in the front line.

[ October 25, 2002, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: dougman4 ]