Vital changes for getting operational scenarios to work

[Kuniworth]

Hey guys I want to stress to vital issues for "operational" type of scenarios.

They concern the type of scenario I am working on, an operational scenario with focus on corps and armies rather than the more strategic scenario we see as the orginal ones in SC2. My scenario "Battle for Russia" is in many aspects complete in OOB and other things but I can see two problems that really are putting the break on creation of more of those. And I'm 100% sure that scenarios like mine will be more common after people have "emptied" all ideas for grand scale strategic scenarios. Soon we will see more battle specific or theatre specific scenarios. The problem though for this is two folded;

1. OPERATIONAL MOVEMENT

This got better with sc 2 with the railbasing system but it is still a big problem. The reason for this is that operational movement is related to the MMP base which causes the side with more MMP to be able to move more units. Now on a strategic scale of scenario this is less of a problem than here. In my scenario there is always this risk with a player "massing all units" on one spot and then a giant battle ensues and the winner wins the war. This is a real problem that takes a way the very thinking of manuveourbility and attacking week spots. In my scenario Russia starts weak but can in just a couple of turns almost halt the germans due to they having more MMP and can operate whole armies in no time from critical spot to the next. I can't reduce MMP as this would make german MMP production unhistorically strong and Russia would go down easily.

The only solution I think is to have a cap on maximum number of operational movements per country or be able to set what it should cost.

2. UPGRADE COST

I've mentioned this before and this is the other major change that would be good to have. Let me give you an example; in my scenario russians start at level 2 in tanks(t-34) but many tanks are obeselete and on level 0. Cost of a tank group is 500 and upgrade cost from 0 to 2 is 100 MMP, than means that with the russian MMP they can upgrade their tank groups in 1 week of playing time to the cost of like 800 MMP. This is putting a huge break on the ability to simulate the great tank battles of barbarossa as russians go from disadvantage to superiority in 1 week. And I can't reduce russian MMP(russian war-production will be unrealistic and they will lose due to german experience) and not increase cost of tanks either(Upgrade cost would still be to low and tanks to expensive and I end up with no tank units on the board).

Those two issues are as I see it fundamental obstacles to create operational scenarios that function well not least in terms of game balance.

What can then be done in a simple way to solve this? I can think of two suggestions;

1. Make room in the editor to set number of operative moves each turn for each single country. The cost of it is not really the issue and can be reduced via infrastructure tech(?) so I'm primary looking for a limit.

2. Also in the editor make each player able to set the cost in % of unit costs for upgrades. For example a 500 MMP tank could be set to cost 60% of unit cost = 300 MMP per upgrade instead of 10% = 50 MMP.

[Blashy]

Those are simple suggestions that I think should be implemented to help tactical scenarios.

A simple section in the editor to have 0-100 the limit for operations per turn makes sense, let the players decide what they need.

Suggestion #2 might be easy to implement as the game already works on % for upgrade cost so a simple 0%-100% in the editor on a PER unit basis would be helpfull feature.

Tactical level scenarios could be much more accurate with these features. Lets hope it is not a ton of work and something Hubert finds is something worthwhile to intergrate in the game.

[Kuniworth]

thanks, I agree with the importance for tactical scenarios.

[SeaMonkey]

A suggestion. Dave has done away with operational movement in his North Africa scenario and just increased the AP of the units. Seems to work fine.

Another suggestion was the need for a road tile, this could also be tweaked to simulate a rail tile.

Perhaps setting up a number of clear terrain and good weather tiles connected from one industrial center, city, reinforcement entry area, to another would solve this problem. The units could run these corridors using their full APs simulating rapid type movements.

Obviously I haven't dwelt within the editor yet, but these are some things I remember being discussed pre-release.

[Scook]

Operational movement for Russia was pretty high in the war, that's how Uncle Joe got so many troops to Kiev to get encirlcled (true story). The rolling stock allocated just for military use could move (I think, have to go see if I can find my research) 16 armored divisions at a time, and if they commandeer all the stock they could, they could move close to 24 armored formations, or about 60 infantry divisions. This is from memory of about 15 years ago, so don't take this as gospel.

Rail lines on the Eastern front scenario make sense, and pretty well everything on the Soviet side will go through Moscow. Moscow is the only city to have a direct link to every major city (essentially 6 rail lines. Soviets could move a lot of stuff, but in only a few limited directions.

Don't forget Russian rail lines were not the same guage at the rest of Europe. German engineers had to retool every last foot of rail to be used by them, and the Soviets likewise on the drive back.

As for the Soviet tank upgrade problem, I feel you pain. The one thing the USSR learned from the Finnish invasion is their tank formations were just this side of useless. At the outset of the war, all the Soviets were in division formation still. They were all slated to be reorganized into Tank Corps formations, and those into the Mech and Tank armies.

What I was thinking is take the Rocket slot, and make that the Tank Divisions, give them weaker attack, defense, and movement. Set how many can be built to 0, and then pop your divisions on the board (think it's, what, 13 or 16 formations?). So, as they are eliminated the Tank Divisions will count from -16 to 0, and you can't build any more of those formations once eliminated. You can upgrade them still, yes, but once gone, they will never be seen again.

Then, you can have your Mech units on the tank builds line, with all the formations there to be built and rebuilt. I am not sure if this would work, but I think it would help if it did.

[Scook]

Another separate thought I was reading your AAR about your scenario. I still think the German panzer formations should still be more like supermen, and they can be for the whole war, I think, without too much problem. I reread "Enemy at the Gates" again, and the whole relief force to get back through to Stalingrad came down to the 16th Pz. Division(!). They took on anything the Soviets threw in their way and annihilated many formations before being halted by 5 Soviet Armies. I read this stuff and think how operationally supierior the German armor is compared to Soviet.

So, I am going to take your scenario and modify German tanks with two things: i) Give German armor 1 more defense, ii)add +2 to their movement.

This hopefully makes them more durable, able to encircle pockets quicker, and get back from trouble faster too. Yes, they can go fast, but that will put them at a supply problem immediatly, and German tanks fought short of supply most of the war anyway.

I dont know if I can mod one sides units and not the other, but I will take a look and see. Maybe find a workaround. Time to dig into the editor myself. Sigh

[John DiFool the 2nd]

For op moves just implement a suggestion made long

ago: have a flat rate per move PLUS a cost per

square moved. Say 30 base plus 10 * squares for an

armor unit: now moving it from Leningrad to Kiev is

going to cost you close to 200 MPPs. It would also

pay off in the default (grand) scenarios where this

can also be a problem. Micromanagement is not a

problem either because you can see what the cost

will be before committing to the move.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by John DiFool the 2nd:

For op moves just implement a suggestion made long

ago: have a flat rate per move PLUS a cost per

square moved. Say 30 base plus 10 * squares for an

armor unit: now moving it from Leningrad to Kiev is

going to cost you close to 200 MPPs. It would also

pay off in the default (grand) scenarios where this

can also be a problem. Micromanagement is not a

problem either because you can see what the cost

will be before committing to the move.

Problem would still remain, the side with more MMP can more easily in operational scenarios feed all their forces into battle.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by Scook:

Operational movement for Russia was pretty high in the war, that's how Uncle Joe got so many troops to Kiev to get encirlcled (true story). The rolling stock allocated just for military use could move (I think, have to go see if I can find my research) 16 armored divisions at a time, and if they commandeer all the stock they could, they could move close to 24 armored formations, or about 60 infantry divisions. This is from memory of about 15 years ago, so don't take this as gospel.

Well with operational scenarios raging from 1 day simultaneous to 1 month this needs to be able to be changed. Otherwise the side with more MMP can easily just mass tons of troops on the schwerpunkts. This is what we should be able to change to give operational scenarios the possibility to be played out well in all different turn-lengths.

Rail lines on the Eastern front scenario make sense, and pretty well everything on the Soviet side will go through Moscow. Moscow is the only city to have a direct link to every major city (essentially 6 rail lines. Soviets could move a lot of stuff, but in only a few limited directions.

Rail-lines would be cool but until then if ever, let us at least get some restrictions on how much you can move.

As for the Soviet tank upgrade problem, I feel you pain. The one thing the USSR learned from the Finnish invasion is their tank formations were just this side of useless. At the outset of the war, all the Soviets were in division formation still. They were all slated to be reorganized into Tank Corps formations, and those into the Mech and Tank armies.

There were nearly 30 Mech Corps on june 22nd 1941, but not all of those were up to strength, some almost had no tanks at all.

What I was thinking is take the Rocket slot, and make that the Tank Divisions, give them weaker attack, defense, and movement. Set how many can be built to 0, and then pop your divisions on the board (think it's, what, 13 or 16 formations?). So, as they are eliminated the Tank Divisions will count from -16 to 0, and you can't build any more of those formations once eliminated. You can upgrade them still, yes, but once gone, they will never be seen again.

Then, you can have your Mech units on the tank builds line, with all the formations there to be built and rebuilt. I am not sure if this would work, but I think it would help if it did.

Unfortunately the editor does'nt work this way, you can't build units or place any on the map if you have a hard built limit of 0. But if I would introduce a new unit it would be "Mechanized infantry" in which many of these Mech Corps would fit to reduce the maximum of tank units on the board. This would also include german 56th, 46th and 14th Panzer Corps as they only had 1 panzer division each on june 22nd. That would leave russians with say the original 6 tank armies and Germany with a limit of 6-7 Tank formations. THEN maybe one could increase their range with +1 or/and increase mech corps AP to 3.

[Kuniworth]

Not to mention several SS Corps and the russian Shock Armies that would fit also into this cathegory.

[Ranchero]

“1. Make room in the editor to set number of operative moves each turn for each single country. The cost of it is not really the issue and can be reduced via infrastructure tech(?) so I'm primary looking for a limit.”

This same limit should also be considered for each country for sea and amphibious transport via the editor. It would add the real restrictions some countries had in these capabilities.

[Hubert Cater]

Good list Kuni, some are already on my list and I'm sure I can come up with something down the road wrt your additional notes

[Kuniworth]

Great news!