Missed Chance with Oil

[Major Spinello]

Actually, one of the few things I´m dissapointed with in SC2 is that all resources do the same, namely getting your mpps up. I think at least oil should have played somewhat of a "double role" in that you gotta have a certain level of oil resources/troops ratio to get all your troops going beyond a certain amount of action points.

And I wonder whether something like this could not be implemented still.

[pzgndr]

And in the end, if Hubert were to take the HOI approach and micromanage resources, would it result in that much better of a game experience? I'm not convinced.

MPPs do fine. When Germany loses Ploesti, they lose 40 MPPs per turn, in addition to whatever else they have lost to that point. So they're probably getting down to the 250-300 MPP range, and unit reinforcement and rebuild costs for motorized units and air units start to become restrictive. That's realistic enough.

If we get too specific about resources like oil, we would also have to provide historical alternatives such as synthetic oil production. So the prudent player would simply do this, and in the end there would be no oil effect. So what is gained? Personally, I prefer to just play the game and have fun rather than worry about extra micromanagement.

[Timskorn]

Well, in an abstract sense you could do it by placing more oil wells on the map and/or making their MPP value much greater than anything else. The problem with this is that games would begin to rely on taking and controlling these resources as a primary means to victory. Just look at the Caucusus already.

As far as implementing oil directly into transportation and movement, that'd be a little more difficult to do I think.

[Major Spinello]

I myself am not fond of micromanagement at all, but I do not see why making oil more important would inevitably lead down the "HOI-road". It´s not that I want a "world market" or "synthetic oil". OF COURSE, if oil would have an effect on movement, then certain resource-centers would be important strategic targets, but I don´t see what would be wrong with that, quite on the contrary.

[Major Spinello]

Actually, I deliberately wanted to avoid getting answers to the effect that distinguishing resources with respect to what they do would complicate the game. But as we are already there anyway, I will hint at an even bolder suggestion: if we would have two types of mines that would account for ore and coal BOTH being needed in a certain ratio to be able to produce certain things, then we at least wouldn´t have a problem of how to make invasion of Norway attractive to the Axis, would we? Again, this would not mean additional micromanagement, but just give certain targets their due strategic value ...

[Retributar]

I too am an avid rapacious wanter of exotic aspect's in the game such as you guy's want!,...we already in the past had many long discussion's on all of this and more before!,...with some friend's and enemies resulting during discussion as well as aftermath!.

Friend's come and go!,...but, Enemies accumulate!.

pzgndr ...does have a point too!,...about being too-specific & micromanagement.

Thus...the quandry!!!... . I think with more discussion & input on these realism mechanism's...perhap's a middle-ground might be found!. THAT is what i would like to see...such inclusion's such as Major Spinello advocated!,..."Making the invasion of Norway attractive" or translated into Layman's term's,...'now having a real needful 'Historical' reason to do so'!.

[Blashy]

micro managing, eurk!

SC2 = beer & pretzel wargame, I love it!

[Major Spinello]

But the thing is that you can have these differences in resources without ANY micromanagement. Micrommanagement would mean that you would have to manually allocate resources to production or have oil tankers or supply trucks load oil and follow your ships and tanks etc. What I suggest would include nothing of this, though, and so not subtract from the beer and pretzel feel at all. The game could autmatically keep track of whether you have enough oil well mpps to move all your stuff around at full APs. And it would tell you if you have enough iron/coal mpps to produce your carrier or tank (or how many you lack). It´s the same as it is now, just that you have different sorts of resource-mpps instead of just one generic type.

[wolflars]

I'm going to have to agree with pzgndr on this one. Forcing the micromanagement issue will take a lot of the "beer & pretzels" fun out of this game. If you look at the statistical impact of the resource management you will find out they are amazingly accurate for a game of this scale without becoming too complicated. That being said, there is a bit of a quandry when it comes to shaping the Axis strategy. For example there is little need for the Axis player to invade Norway. This bothers me in the original version of the game but game be solved through innovative ideas (script events etc). Take for example, Honch's excellent mod. He included a French and UK sub. At first I thought hmmm how odd until my opponent used them to "blockade" resources coming from Norway. This forced me, as the Axis player, to wish to remove them. Therefore I needed local air and naval units to hunt them which, in turn, caused me to "secure" Norway as an opporating base. This was one of the few times I ever felt pressured to invade Norway. In short, I think staying away from micromanagement is a good idea for this game. HoI is pretty cool but not a lot of fun too play IMHO. SC2 is exactly what Blashy said, " a beer & pretzels" game, which is its appeal.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Blashy:

SC2 = beer & pretzel wargame

Yep - and that's all it is.

It is a good B&P game, but it will never be more.

Micromanagement isn't required - oil usage can be reflected by limiting the movement and/or range of mechanised, air and naval elements.

[Rolend]

Well you guys know my view on historical aspects and how I prefer the game to be. However if we are going to start making what I consider major changes to the basic game engine then I would much prefer those changes be geared towards combat and not supply.

For me supply is important to simulate as it played a major part in the war but I like it abstract and the more time, even if a little, I have to put into it's managment the less enjoyable the game will become for me. Put that effort into improved navy ops and land warfare and make it a better war game, don't waste it on the suplly side to make it a better resource managment game.

[ChrisND]

To me abstract and B&P is a quality, not a drawback. My day job is already brain-taxing enough, I don't need another job just trying to relax!

[Blashy]

Originally posted by Major Spinello:

But the thing is that you can have these differences in resources without ANY micromanagement. Micrommanagement would mean that you would have to manually allocate resources to production or have oil tankers or supply trucks load oil and follow your ships and tanks etc. What I suggest would include nothing of this, though, and so not subtract from the beer and pretzel feel at all. The game could autmatically keep track of whether you have enough oil well mpps to move all your stuff around at full APs. And it would tell you if you have enough iron/coal mpps to produce your carrier or tank (or how many you lack). It´s the same as it is now, just that you have different sorts of resource-mpps instead of just one generic type.

Which means the player would have to track, because it would say you have X APs this turn, now you start to look at what and you can move and where.

Its fine now, you limitation in MPPs and force pool limits will limit you in how many troops you can muster and thus limiting how many actions you can do so it is in someway a limition in AP except it requires NOTHING from me .

[R.J.]

I agree it's not a big issue, and UK subs sounds like a simple cure for the Norway problem (surface raiding would be better though).

I remember AH's The Russian Campaign had a very simple rule for oil: every spring when the Axis took their replacements, they got one panzer corps for every oil well they controlled. It made Stalingrad an (historically) appealing strategic target. There's already a rule for getting cheap rebuilds if they're in supply when destroyed. It would be simple enough to make certain resources have an effect on rebuild costs- or limits. Not strictly necessary (imo) but an idea if H.C. wants to go down that road.

[JerseyJohn]

The oil issue is an interesting one.

It makes sense to say it would only add to our old fear of having so much micromanagement that the game wouldn't be fun any more.

On the other hand, by not having oil stocks directly affecting the game we miss certain things that were an issue in the actual war.

For example, in May of 1941 there was no real strategic reason to send Bismarck into the Atlantic. All sorts of reasons have been presented but the plain truth is Raeder thought that, if he waited too long, all the fuel would be given over to the army and air force after the invasion started. He figured that was his last chance to send the BB, with it's extra large fuel capacity, into the Atlantic.

For another, we miss the big oil plundering Germany had in France (along with huge numbers of confiscated vehicles). And, Rommel's decision to press on into Egypt because he'd captured a huge fuel store at Tobruck -- hard to believe when you see the photos of the harbor billowing smoke as Commonwealth prisoners are led out of it.

Details like those are very interesting, but if they're included, the next step is having that oil moving from the fields to the refineries -- and from there it's on to the next stage of micromanagement.

I think Hubert chose the correct cut-off point. Also, as this same idea was discussed at SC Forum two years back and he commented on it then, it's something he must have given some thought to.

[Guest Mike]

Rolend how can it be a better wargame if it misses out one of the major targets of the war?

IMO there's nothing too much wrong with the combat mechanisms for land units as they stand - what changes wouold you see made in that area that even compare slightly to increasing the realism in the supply side?

The fear of micromanagement is nonsense - I've already posted a mechanism for how oil as a resource could be used without a single bit of extra player input at all!

I was hoping SC2 would be more than another B&P game - there are plenty of B&P games of WW2 - but not many proper wargames.

[TaoJah]

Even though I HATE micro-management more then anyone else, the oil idea has it's merits IMHO.

Oil could be inplemented without falling into the micro-management trap IMHO.

Oil was and still is VERY VERY important, both to military and industry (although there are alternatives for the latter).

Why did the US go to Iraq ? Why is Russia making a come-back on the international scene ? Why did the UK clenched to the middle-east colonies much more then the others ? Why are Western countries worried about China ?

Oil is very important, so it has it's merits to add it to the game.

The only counter-argument is that the military does not need ALOT of oil : even the current US army only uses a small percentage of the oil out there, despite the fact that it relies much more on airplans then the Germans ever did.

[Retributar]

I have only heard of it once, but cannot remember any of the specific detail's,...but it was in one situation where the German's had something like several hundred tank's so low on fuel that they were simply overun by the Russian's with hardly any problem at all,...the German Tank's were all wiped out because of a shortage of fuel!.

------------------------------------------------

Remember in that movie,..."The Battle of the Buldge"...where Hessler spoke to his driver, 'Conrad' after an American Reconnaissance airplane buzzed them [Henry Fonda was the Intel Officer passenger in the Recon Aircraft],...Conrad panicked thinking it was a fighter aircraft trying to kill them so he almost lost control of the car but did stop it eventually ...BUT...'Left the Engine Running'!!!.

So Hessler said to Conrad..."Conrad!...I am ashamed of you!,...couldn't you see that it was only a Reconnaissance aircraft,...and that you also left the Engine running when you stopped the car!. Remember Conrad!,...'that FUEL IS BLOOD!'.

Therefore!... 'OIL is GOD' of the 'Battlefield'!.

So even though i understand the counter-agument's to including it in the game,...i still favour Stalin's Organist idea to incorporate it into the game!.

[Franky-Boy]

@Retributar

You remember the good old movie "Battle of the Bulge" with the charismatic Oberst Hessler (played by Robert Shaw)? Nice! In Germany, the film is named "Die letzte Schlacht" (= The Final Battle).

Speaking of Oil in SC2, I think there's no need to change something, since the importance of Oil is already represented by the high MP value of the oil resources.

Ciao Frank

[Guest Mike]

Franky oil is an important comodity for production - everything depends upon it, so having it as 3 MPP's is fine.

But it is also directly related to the ability of an army to operate.

Having it represented by high MPP's has no bearing on the ability of an army to operate - or an airforce or a navy for that matter.

TJ tell the Luftwaffe that it didn't need oil in 1945......the reason the US army uses such a small proportion of oil is 2 fold:

1/ Oil production is many times what it was in WW2

2/ Civilian oil consumption is what has taken up hte slack.

Deprive the US army of oil and it will grind to a halt just like Germany did in 1945.

[Rolend]

But there is a lot more to fuel supplies then just oil. Germany had huge synthetic oil production, so now we have to add a tech? Then there is the issue with strategic bombing of the oil fields Not to mention how the lack of fuel effects unit movement, air resources and navy ops. If you want it in then it has to be done right and that is an entire can of worms that personally I would rather be left the way it is.

One last note is that real fuel problems for the Germans really didn't start impeding their war operations tell the last couple years of the war and only severely in the last and by then they were doomed no matter how much fuel they had.

[Major Spinello]

Well, now that you mentioned it: what would be so wrong with adding a "synthetic oil" tech that decreases the effect of oil-shortage by some percentage?

And why would strategic bombing of oilfields be a problematic issue? Yes, UK and US would have an incentive to develop long range bombers to get to Ploesti, Germans would then have to deploy LF-cover (or develop anti-air) to counter the threat - this all sounds like reasonable strategy to my ears!

I think that far from being a can of worms, the whole oil-issue could be implemented by a sound integrated harmonic design concept.

[Rolend]

On paper it all sounds good but what I think you are asking for is fairly large and maybe something to think about in SC 3. Just as with the Sealion problem and my suggestion to change how the new amphib tech works might be a bit much for the current game engine. Get that HC we are already talking about SC 3 in many areas, how about a release date for SC 3, nothing solid just a ball park date LOL

[Guest Mike]

German synthetic oil production didn't even come close to supplying its needs, and was inefficient and expensive - the plants were used only briefly after hte war to refine imported crude.

This Google answer has a bunch of links to info on synthetic oil production.