Terif V Jollyguy AAR, Wonder Weapons vs. Super Long Range Air

[Konigs]

Nice game guys, excellent AAR thanks....

[Jollyguy]

I believe there is a modest Axis bias. One thing I would like to see is much, more random Russian partisans. Terif has figured out how to totally avoid Russian partisans, and I mean 100% no partisans in any of his Axis games, ever, by leaving a handful of specific Russian hexes red. That allows him to have perfect supply in Russia. If Hubert changed nothing but that in 1.07 it would help the Russians against Terif's Axis.

As to the Axis rising in productive capacity as the Allies are running to keep up, yes, I agree to some extent. My caution there is that an Axis player has to be fairly good to make it work, something which I haven't figured out yet from the Axis side. I think some of the Allied advantage comes in the early game, when the Brits can harass the Axis and cost them mpps and/or (naval) units. Again, Terif is superb at this, while I'm still learning.

If there was going to be any tinkering I would do it slowly, but do think the Russian and Yugo partisans shouldn't be allowed to be "gamed" by leaving specific hexes the Allied color. That in itself would help the Allies IMO.

Bob

[Liam]

The Axis have it hard, if the Allies know what they're doing. Terif in particular is one of those players that knows best how to use the British to suckout the early German MPPs with sideshows. Not the only though!

The Germans by 1942-43 are unreasonably powerful, however any wise Allied player with level 3-4 IT and perhaps Production Tech with some luck can match them and exceed them. It's just that the Axis have those excellent Airfleets with lots of experience, all that time to get lucky with tech and as mentioned the inner line... However if they do not push that early advantage they may find themselves in a heap of trouble early! It's not rare for me to execute a D-day in '42 with a lucky diplochit with the USA or two... With the new fortifications it may not be in France but it will be a pain for the Axis most definitely. Historically the US and UK were no threat to the Axis on Main European soil until 1943... So whose ahistorically overpowered? Also Russians were a disorganized ramble constantly being raped by more Organized and disciplined Germans until '43 themselves...

Historically you can match things, PUSH HARDER. If you push the opponent so hard with sooooo many early offensives and just say heck with tech and longterm strategies it'll be hard for him to dig in and build 20 thousand units, forts, unattainable techs... By the time say Germany Reaches the Urals she'll be waiting on that supply to hit 3 in those border cities to step any further...

However this is not neccessarily a winning strategy, then again the Russians will be awfully weak vs the Germans so it's a tradoff, plus D-day will be awhile off due to the parameters set up in the game.

All and all I would say Allies have the upperhand longterm, Axis short term. Plus how each are played. Most of my games if I take the Allies into '44 or beyond game is usually over for the Axis, they're outnumbered and usually, not always that's that..

Russia is not quite the supply nightmare of history but it's quite a wasteland with a lot of defensive capabilities. I lost a game recently just because I overgarrisoned the wrong positions! So every Allied advantage counts and must be exploited, similary with Axis. That's the difference between various players and their skill level also.. Not just their tactical saavy on the Map, which all comes into play which makes SC2 a very very intense, enjoyable and mind boggling experience, not really historical. Just a abstract piece of work, with a historical feel

[Terif]

So far I have to say IMHO Fall Weiss is nearly perfectly balanced - some players think there is an allied bias, others think an axis bias...in average it is balanced .

At least my mirror games with both sides played have shown a pretty much perfect balance: in the ones played till the end, two of them even ended in exact the same turn with major victory for both my Axis and Allies, most of the mirror games ended around plus/minus 2-3 turns at the same time .

In any case: Allies and Axis greatly differ in the strategies they can/have to use - simply cause Axis in general is the aggressor and Allies are the defenders - but from the chance to win with them, I think they are both equal in V1.06 .

[Terif]

Here my rocket strategy was fun to play - but Axis endangered during 1941 as they were extremely weak on the ground and close to beeing overrun by Russia.

Rockets are VERY expensive and together with the added costs of motorization 2, Germany never managed to build all airfleets, armies or tanks till the end of game ! Usually it has them already in 1942 and here end of 1943 still over half a dozen were missing and never built .

War photographies from during the battles after the end of war in the allied turn after August 29, 1943:

Russian invasion of Romania begins:

Due to all the investments into rockets, there are insufficient ground forces – difficult times for Axis and allied all-time high:

[ April 02, 2007, 04:28 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Terif]

Allied first D-day at Brussel – before german reinforcements arrive:

and 2 weeks later:

Winter 42: German forces preparing the assault against Rostov:

German main forces approaching russian mountain fortress in the Urals...

Allies advancing in France, with the spanish border reaching their maximum expansion...

...and the scenery 4 weeks later:

Last russian offensive against Kazan after they slowly got grinded down near Kuybyshev:

And end of the war after a bloody nose for the russian spearhead:

[John DiFool the 2nd]

There certainly needs to be more random events, esp.

partisan events. And for SC3 it would be great if

certain scripts could be coded and encrypted so that

people aren't "gaming" the scripts. And if a block

of enemy territory gets surrounded (no units), it

should flip to the surrounding country's color next

turn (easily patched right now).

[jon_j_rambo]

Terif's France is an entire fortification.

[Terif]

Yep, Axis engineers always get a lot of practice... - here a screenshot from a different game with some more fortifications

[jon_j_rambo]

Yodl's family pictures Well, in this case, family dwellings!

[Iron Ranger]

After seening this, and what I've noticed in my last two games vs Normal Dude; I'm wondering if we need to set a number of fortifications that can be built by each side? Can this even be scripted? Perhaps have each 'side' of a new fort cost X MMPs?

While not sure the above is a good idea, if you let the other side build that many forts you should have to deal with it. On the other hand its not like thier is an infinate amount of steel and concrete in eroupe in the 40s. If given till 1944 for D Day, its not imposiable to think that the german and itlian unit could turn all of France and Germany into a fortress hex.

[Jollyguy]

The thing is you can’t always use what Terif does as the template for the game as a whole, as he’s in a class of his own.

As mentioned earlier, IMO partisans should be fixed so they can’t be gamed. I.e., in a game we have going now I left a non-upgraded corp in the four marsh hexes that Terif always, always leave undisturbed, to see if he would attack. He didn’t. What he’ll probably do is take it out with air later on, but he will leave those four hexes red no matter what.

But as to the engineers, the Russians really need theirs and if anything could stand to have it show up a bit earlier. The German and Italian engineers can build like crazy, but has anyone tried methods to delay them? The Brits can see the opponents engineer during the replay with their bomber, so in one game against Terif I was thinking of concentrating my air power and carriers, and either amphib’ing a corp and/or dropping in my British paratrooper to try to take him out. But that’s kind of expensive.

In our Wonder Weapons vs. Long Range Air game, I used probably around 1500 mpps buying an extra fighter and researching LR air and upgrading my fighters and bomber and carriers. If instead I had invested in land units which are much cheaper, I might have been able to disrupt the Axis building program around Western Europe better.

So I’m not sure what the answer is, but if you lessened the effect of the Axis engineers you would have to compensate them in some other fashion, as without those fortifications the Western Allies would have a much easier time of it.

I have an idea though, how about allowing ships and bombers and fighters to attack empty fortifications just like any other unit? The fortification would take damage, more from a bomber and a ship than a fighter. And so would the attacker, but not as much as from an enemy unit that fired back. After so many hits the fortification might be destroyed, and each hit would damaged it so units couldn’t entrench as well. The fortification could be repaired by an engineer. All together this might lead to a somewhat restrained building program. But it might be better if the fortification couldn’t be totally destroyed, just suffer reduced effectiveness, as it was pretty rare to totally destroy a fortification. And as we all know, bombardment is only so effective, look at D-day and the Japanese defenses in the Pacific, which withstood tremendous shelling. It seems in most cases it’s the land units that have to clean them out. Maybe 1 in 10 times a damaged, empty fort could be destroyed, similar to about 1 in 10 times that a naval unit reduces the entrenchment of a land unit or damages it.

I think this would also be historically accurate to some degree. After all, operation Cobra simply pulverized German defenses in France and led to a massive Allied breakout, and combined naval and airpower helped turn the tide at Anzio.

Bob

[Iron Ranger]

Remove the Italian engr. from thier force pool. 50% of all forts for axis are gone. Problem solved?

[Colin I]

I think the Germans DID turn much of the French coast, Franco-German border and so on into fortifications.

There are several responses. Firstly, gamewise the Allies can see where this is happening and invade elsewhere given their naval capability. I'm not usually hugely put out by Axis fortifications in France. Where they really make a difference is where you must take an objective and you have limited directions to approach it from. Think this is more true in Russia because supply problems make some routes of attack for Axis harder. But again, its reasonable and Russians did fortify like crazy.

Secondly, think Bob is right. I would go with an upgrade in fortification reduction for strategic attacks AND let engineers attacking to reduce by two steps (historically many fortifications were dismantled close up, even when occupied by an enemy, by combat engineers). AND if a fortificaton was reduced to zero by whatever criteria by strategic attacks it is destroyed. This might take some tweaking but could work.

Thirdly, just have fortifications cost a few MPP in addition to the engineer time. its reasonable, they did use a lot of resources (slave labour, materials). And even a small MPP cost means players now build them where they need them, not just because an engineer is bored and idle. Would also like other engineer tasks (e.g. repair ports faster) on same system

[Jollyguy]

I like Colin's suggestion to have forts cost mpps, it makes sense as they were a tremendous cost in labor and materials and talent to construct. Maybe not super expensive, but something. And since Germans built most of them and most agree there is an Axis bias, that could chip away at that a bit.

Bob

[Bromley]

Another anti-engineer thought (not that it's necessarily necessary) would be to tie their constuction times to turns rather than months. You can justify that in terms of available light, road condition, etc.

If not, they should be changed to weeks rather than months to enable you to easily figure out when they're due.

The interesting thing for me from all this is why Terif did what he did with that fort east of the French mine. I'm stumped .

[Liam]

I screw up when facing the New Engineer Strategy sometimes, the only goal of the Allies or Axis vs this strategy is to go 'around them' best you can or focus a massive amount of air on them... The opponent wants you to bunt heads vs a good Fortified position to lose your units, you really going to have to pick your fights. I had an EXTREME edge in my last game vs Rambo and I headbunted his Russian Forts only to lose...

As far as The Rocket Strategy, I'm shocked that the Russians didn't focus more cash on more HQs, Land Units and Air, isntead of Paras, AT and other such equipment. Sadly I think JollyGuy must've not seen this strategy comming or he'd of given Terif a run for his money. Terif 105% right, Rockets could've really hurt rather than helped. They're an Ify Wonder weapon

[Jollyguy]

Liam;

You're right, I didn't see the rockets coming, and by the time I did my force pool was already built or close to it. And, even if I had spotted the rockets earlier, I'm not sure I would have adapted fast enough seeing as it was the first time I encountered them in force. I learn more from the school of hard knocks anyway, so I'll just consider that game a good lesson.

In a later post I did surmise that swarming the Axis would be right strategy (and some long range air), and I asked Terif later on and he said that a swarming strategy was correct, but live and learn. I also think I motorized too many of my Russian units, I should have just had a mobile reserve. But anyway, it was a great game!

Bob

[Liam]

JollyGuy,

Rockets have the advantage longterm I'm thinking. When the Fronts are bogged down with 2-3 Forts in a row, 10-20 long. Most of your units are already built. Going into the Balkans was risky but I myself wouldn't have been as gutsy as you vs Terif. What if?

He had just been misplaced enough that you took out Romania, Bulgaria-Yugo...Never know... If those Red Paras would've killed 2 LWs could swing the game. Russians need to kill a lot of Germany early, kill off her experience then rebuild and reconquor. Tough Side to play, a waiting game

[Hubert Cater]

Bromely the fortifications are actually calculated in days it is just a bit tricky to anticipate the exact arrival due to the turn lengths over the seasonal changes.

[n0kn0k]

Maybe an idea to make it turn based?

I bet it takes twice as long to dig trenches in wintertime anyway in real life.

So that would negate the longer winter turns.

[Hubert Cater]

Perhaps... the downside could be where players build numerous forts during the summer etc.

[Terif]

@Bromley:

The fortifications around the mine were more a try to build an eight world wonder than building it for war purposes...or you could say it was the work of some idle engineers that had nothing better to do any more

Anyway, beeing able to build a lot of fortifications first seems to be not unhistorical (Key word: "Atlantic Wall") and more important at the moment helps the balance in the game: Space is limited in France and since in open terrain the attacker has a huge advantage in SC2, Allies simply could overrun it within 2-3 turns if there would not be enough fortifications as deterrent.

Fortifications also force the enemy to think before encountering the enemy and to plan their attacks (including to use enough airpower first to weaken the enemy before the ground troops can attack..), instead of just moving forward and killing everything in the way like it was the case before engineers/fortifications became usable via the last patches .

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

Perhaps... the downside could be where players build numerous forts during the summer etc.

Make it 2 turns then, or 3

Those days are a bit hard to keep track off.

It would also be better for mods that have a lower number of days in a turn.

[Hubert Cater]

In that case you can adjust the fortification build time via the Editor