sea war: zone- or hex based?

[wosung]

next question:

will the sea war be zone-/box- or hex based?

First would be like in clash of steel, World in Flames: Sea boxes represent left-over movement/action capacity (WIF) or combat stance (COS)
2nd one would be like in War in the pacific.

Regards

[firepowerjohan]

Hex Based.

[SMK-at-work]

Hex based naval is a bad mistake IMO for this scale - unless there's a radical new system in the works it simply doesn't reflect naval warfare properly - it's a failure in SC2 for example.

[wosung]

Hex based naval is a bad mistake IMO for this scale - unless there's a radical new system in the works it simply doesn't reflect naval warfare properly - it's a failure in SC2 for example.

Yep, I think so too. But for other reasons: With a map of this scale, hex-based naval and air war, will result in quite a clickfeast. Even with Corps-sized units. Imagine the units U have to move each turn, for instance as German player with a Russian front. And for realism, probably hex-based naval war would mean whole flotillas of Subs (Uber-wolfpacks) would go hunting in one hex. Same with air war, even if historically there were some 1k bomber-raids.

There must be abstractions in a strategic game of this size. Even with PC. If there's too much micromangement, then turn playing and resolution will be too long (like in Grigsby's War in the Pacific). So the trick is, to get the right mix of abstraction and detail. And that's a question of good sense, personal taste and market considerations.

From what I've read here, for my personal flavor Europe - Commander at war, doesn't get the right mix between abstraction and detail. I'd rather give up the hex-based naval war and the totally hexed based air war for division-sized subunits and a bigger repertoire of commands/Rules for engagement. Market-wise perhaps this would be more of a novelity.

But, that's just me.

[IainMcNeil]

It is definitely an issue we've considered. I am in favour of region based naval, but not sure we have the resources to implement such a system for this game. I'll talk to Johan and see if there is anything we can do.

Maybe some mix of regional/hex based would work. I.e. Move on a hex basis but combat resolved on a sea region basis.

[firepowerjohan]

With or without abstraction can both be clickfest. It depends on how many units in the hex case or how many orders you have to issue per turn in the abstracted case.

I can assure you, our primary target with this game is to NOT make it a click fest and we will do whatever we can to avoid it. For example we would make the air and naval units expensive enough so you do not have too many of them. Ideally, Axis have 3-7 subs and Allies 5-10 ships in the Atlantic. More than that and it becomes too demanding. Same for air. It would become rather boring having a doussin air fleets so I recon Germany at its peak would have perhaps 5 fighters, 3 tactical bombers, 1 strategic bomber.

Leningrad to Odessa is 30 hexes in the game so that means Axis could have like 40 ground units to cover the important areas of the map.

This means in total (ground, air, naval) Axis and Allies would get away with having perhaps 60 units each on the map at full scale post Barbarossa situation which is doable without bogging down gameplay too much.

[wosung]

2x60 units: That means quite a low unit density altogether, compared with your huge map. So every single unit destroyed will be a big pain. Plus: Not many options for players to build Schwerpunkte or reserves, when units just are sufficent to hold the front line. So the repertoire of command options'll be more important.

Don't know if you'd played The operational art of war: Lot's of user made scenarios. Some of them just had too much or too few units for the map space. Perhaps there's a mathematical ratio units/space for a popular WW2 strategy game. (I don't pretend to know it).

And for the Atlantic ocean with X hexes just about 20 units altogether: Depending on sight options, I don't think, it's much fun to move this few units around in such a huge space. Player'd click without much effect.

Don't know if you read discussions about HOI(2) on the official forum. There was critique about naval and air combat feeling just like land combat. That happens more easily, when using the same map parameters for all 3 combat enviroments, like hexes

Make each combat (enviroment) feel unique.

Regards

[IainMcNeil]

I think a lot of these thigns will fall out of play testing. I wouldn't like to say how many unit's we'll need until we've played it through the later war years. All we can for sure is that the aim is to avoid lots of micro management while presenting interesting & realistic choices for the player.

[SMK-at-work]

The main reason I dislike hex based naval is the propensity to make mistakes due to clicking the wrong hex or the wrong unit. It's usually not so bad for land units as they often don't move far, have some sort of "zone of control" effect to stop the enemy taking full advantage of mistakes, and have adjacent units of a similar type that can go where you wanted the original one to go to anyway. But I usually still manage it every now and then.....

but it always seems worse with naval for some reason.

i am encouraged by the developer responses that they ar trying to avoid a click-fest, but IMO even 60 units is quite a lot - that's just the Russian front, so there's going to be more units in garrison for the Germans throughout Europe, anti-partisan forces, Nth Africa, etc. 60 units is probably more than the Axis has for it's entire force in SC2 for example.

[firepowerjohan]

No, I meant 60 units per side for the whole map, not just for Russian front. The harsh ZOC penalties (+2 movement cost per hex) mean you can slow enemy down and do not need so many units to have a front line. The huge amount of hexes means we are gonna have mostly single lines of units meaning we can get real solid breakthroughs (like in real barbarossa where Russians were surrounded and surrendered) in the game.

Ofcourse, in 1940 France the front is much narrower than in Russia so that it will be a whole different story than in Barbarossa

[vypuero]

I understand that it is actually realistic to have a lot of possible holes on the Eastern Front, as neither side ever could be said to have truly had a full front. There just were not enough men and too vast a distance to cover, and that includes the Russians. So, I think that will work, though personally I would prefer more units than less, as long as it is not too many like in TOAOW, which just was a terrible headache to me. Plus, the scale means that you by no means will have to do that much with all your units every turn, you can concentrate on a few key areas and most of the rest will most likely just sit there.