APs, APCs and Mr. Ed in the Wehrmacht

[BloodyBucket]

Is there going to be a AP difference between units of different nations?

Other threads have brought up the subject of increased mobility for the motor heavy US Army. Will this be reflected in SC? Perhaps as a research category? Seperate Mech Infantry unit? Not needed because German horses are assumed to be in top condition?

[Hubert Cater]

Short answer is no... one of the problems is the scale and supply rules that limit action points. Changing AP by even 1 point is a huge difference at this scale considering the current general setup:

If units are in full supply:

HQ AP = 2

Corps AP = 4

Army AP = 3

Tank Group AP = 5

Although this response is surely to open me up to a flurry of debatable responses this might also answer the question of why there are no mechanized infantry etc. It was something that I considered early on, but again just didn't seem to fit the scale very well once I started thinking about the implementation.

Hope that helps,

Hubert

[Jorgen_Cab]

In my opinion there could be motorized armies and corps, which should give them one extra AP, but no other advantages than that.

This could represent the motor heavy armies that the US used.

But that is my opinion only...

[vonManstein39]

Having the corps AP at 4 (max) is equivalent to having motorised infantry. At this scale, a corps moving 4 hexes moves 200 miles. Summer turns last a week. That means a movement rate of 28.5 miles a day.

An infantry unit on foot that marched 28.5 miles a day for a week would lose quite a few men in the process. Multiply that by several weeks and men would be dropping like flies. I don't think many foot troops in WWII managed to sustain a pace like that for very long.

So in SC the corps are probably all motorised, whereas the armies are only partly motorised. The tank units have one extra AP due to their being elite units with a bit more drive and motivation than a normal mechanised corps.

Mind you, I also prefer the COS system where AP did vary by country. You can't imagine Spanish infantry being equipped, trained or motivated to move as fast as German infantry!

[Jeff Heidman]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but this just really bothers me.

WW2 saw the first large scale, but not ubiquitous, use of this new fangled technology called the internal combustion engine. The difference in mobility and power between a leg infantry division and a motorized, not to mention mechanized, infantry division is immense. I suppose we must presume that a Tank Corps is made up of tank and mechanized/motorized infantry.

I guess there is nothing to be done about it now, given the scale of the game, but the abstractions are really starting to add up.

Jeff Heidman

[pzgndr]

Corps AP = 4

Army AP = 3

Tank Group AP = 5

I assume the reason for lower Army AP is due to its size and inertia. There's no unit stacking, so that's why we have a difference? Even with mechanized infantry, the US and British infantry corps designations did not show mech, so we really don't need the difference except for color and this doesn't need to be a research area. A possible adjustment would be to have regular infantry corps and army AP both 3, but have US and British mechanized infantry corps and army AP both 4 (perhaps with the mech inf designation to show the difference). German pzgndr units normally were part of the panzer groups anyway, and other countries didn't have significant mechanized infantry formations. This would be a subtle change for the most part and would address the mech infantry issue. Comments?

[Desert Dave]

How about keeping the research option, so that USA begins mechanized-improvement at level 3, Britain and Germany at level 2, Italy at level 1 (due to access to German tech) and France and Russia at level 0.

So Army and Corps are AP 3 (though Corps is smaller and better organized than unwieldy Army, so how do you rationalize the same AP?) and you would have to pay a certain number of MPPs to upgrade to mechanized/motorized.

This way, each nation would upgrade depending on whether they chose to do research, and whether they are conducting mostly offensives, or -- like Russia early, and Germany later, relying on defensive doctrine.

Now, all of this is speculation, and very likely will interfere with Hubert's well-planned and vastly tested AP. But, perhaps for another (next?) version of SC?

(... before we're through, we'll have our personally envisioned dream-game yet, eh?

[pzgndr]

It's harder to rationalize why an Army HQ can't keep up with its subordinate corps. This strikes me as a stacking limit abstraction, which shouldn't necessarily affect the movement capability. Only problem with the research option is that there really isn't anything to research. It was more of a doctrine and cost issue. The Brits and US could afford halftracks and APCs, and had the fuel to use them, whereas other countries could not. Maybe provide some option or variant to reflect a change. This might not be too hard to change for the official release version - don't delay the demo. Another consideration would be to give German and US armor groups AP of 6 to reflect their better capability. This is based on some old Third Reich game design considerations, which seem relevant here. Just a reasonable suggestion.

[Desert Dave]

I was thinking of the research aspect as an abstract way to model industrial outlay and alterations in assembly-line production, as Chrysler or Rolls-Royce or VW did. There might be a better recourse.

Seems like there could be some way to allow those nations which needed wheels for rapid advances in their offensives, to add it to their Armies (infantry or armor) as necessary.

If it was an optional upgrade (with or without research), then that would satisfy the need for extra APs as required. If playing defense, then MPPs would be probably not be spent.

I too wondered about HQ units only having 2 AP, since you would surmise that they would be more mobile than a corps or Army?

[Hubert Cater]

Don't forget that the HQ also acts as a supply/repair base as well.

Let me think about the AP concerns a bit, most likely no change for the demo, but I'll see if I can come up with something for after that.

I agree that the mechanized capability is already implied with the existing units, but things like decreasing mobility to Minor Corps or increasing German tank range just might work.

I'll let you guys know

Hubert

[Desert Dave]

Hubert,

More than fair.

More than most would do.

More than that, we cannot ask.

Thanks.

[pzgndr]

Sorry, I didn't mean the HQ units in the game, since these shouldn't move around too much anyway. I meant the army units should move the same as corps, since for all practical purposes they represent two corps stacked together. They should be able to move the same. IMHO, it would be preferable to have AP differences between inf and mech inf rather than corps and army.

[Jeff Heidman]

Infantry:3

German/Soviet Mech Infantry: 4

US/British Mech Infantry: 5

Tank: 5

Armies should have equivalent mobility with their type, i.e. an Army can be mech, infantry, or whatever.

JMO, of course.

Jeff Heidman

P.S. Hubert, why Eiffel, as opposed to Java or C++? I am a developer, and I was just wondering.

[Mr. Clark]

Considering the suggested changes by Hubert (lowering the AP's of minor Corps by 1) perhaps we should look at the higher Corp AP as a representation of mechanized inf., while the larger Army units would move a bit slower, even if they contained mech inf., because the larger unit would have to contain at least SOME slower units? Kinda like the Corp is more streamlined for movement?

Thus the lowering of AP's for minor Corps would represent their lack of mech inf., right?

I'm really just babbling, but I hope it makes a little sense...

[pzgndr]

German/Soviet Mech Infantry: 4

US/British Mech Infantry: 5

Jeff, at this scale you really can't justify German or Soviet mech corps/armies as independent units. And while US/Brit infantry was more heavily mechanized, their supporting units at the corps/army level were not. 4 would be appropriate as a default value. Hubert may consider subtle changes, but anything to radically change the playtested AP system is probably not going to happen. Hopefully, the scenario editor may allow us to tweak these values ourselves and provide gameplay feedback for future enhancements.

[Titan]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Infantry:3

German/Soviet Mech Infantry: 4

US/British Mech Infantry: 5

Tank: 5

Jeff Heidman

.

I like Jeffs Ratio's here but considering the size of the map i think if all of Jeffs suggestions where dropped by one,that would be more in scale with the size of the map,I dont think a Armoured corps could speed across france in almost one turn,or get to moscow in two or 3 turns

[ May 09, 2002, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: Titan ]

[Desert Dave]

How about this?

Replace the Corps unit as we know it, with two separate units.

1) Militia/Homeguard -- to satisfy need for inexpensive garrison, or for fighting partisans or for a kind of early-warning picket-line. AP would be 2 for all countries.

2) A special Corps unit -- a combination of APCs, armored cars, recon and light tanks (as Pz I, II, or even IIIs were) which would have the following AP values:

France and Minors: 4

USSR and Italy 5

Germany, USA, Britain 6

The Army would remain the staple and the same for all countries.

The tank detachment would represent heavier vehicles and groupings, so the value could stay the same for all countries (... or, alternatively, increased to AP 6 for some).

This might satisfy the need for some variation among different countries, and the mech/motorised corps would represent those faster breakthrough units -- out ahead of the regular infantry.

[Straha]

The argument that an army is inherently the same as two stacked corps is a valid one.

Therefore the following would be easiest in terms of disrupting the present system as little as possible:

- army, corps: 3

- mech: 4

- tanks: 5

Maybe the mech should be restricted to corps size so that it is not too tempting to ONLY produce them (should be much more expensive anyway, due to all that equipment).

Straha

[Mr. Clark]

As I was poorly trying to say before, that could almost be seen as how the system works already. Corps have AP 4, Armies AP 3. If Hubert then lowers the AP of minor Corps to 3... then Major Corps are, in effect, our mech units.

(and the only bonus we get is the 1 AP... which seems fine at this scale.)

[Hubert Cater]

P.S. Hubert, why Eiffel, as opposed to Java or C++? I am a developer, and I was just wondering.

Design by contract, multiple inheritance, garbage collection, very fast, and take a look at "Object-Oriented Software Construction Second Edition" by Bertrand Meyer, it's a very convincing book If any of that peaks your interest take a look at the latest IDE available at www.eiffel.com, it's a really nice design.

Hubert

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

P.S. Hubert, why Eiffel, as opposed to Java or C++? I am a developer, and I was just wondering.

Design by contract, multiple inheritance, garbage collection, very fast, and take a look at "Object-Oriented Software Construction Second Edition" by Bertrand Meyer, it's a very convincing book If any of that peaks your interest take a look at the latest IDE available at www.eiffel.com, it's a really nice design.

Hubert</font>

[Hubert Cater]

I took Eiffel in university, dabbled in C++ and Java there as well, but for my money Eiffel was the most elegantly designed OOP language at the time.

Feel free to contact my hotmail account and when I get a chance I can answer some of your more specific questions, but it'll probably be a while before I can

Hubert