supermax wrote:This new rule, as i have started to experience in my new RC9 game, will have major impacts on the game. Not entirely sure if its going to be super positive however.
We will just have to play it thru and see what happens.
Early blitz wont be super-affected anyway, or at least the way i do it.
In Russia however,. its another stick in wheel of the german eastern war machine.
I guess you guys based this rule change upon moriss AAR on his game with Joe rock... We will see, but i am not really fond of weakening the germans even more, again after a Moriss event.
Anyway, i am not fond of it.
This time ,I do agree with you !
We agree on many things Moriss. The main one being rule creation to block or stem players creativeness.
Problem with this is that with every rule change, there will be other opportunities created for creative players.
I think its good to have this continued development of the game, i just wish we wouldnt have players proposing rule changes to compensate for their lack of originality or talent. I am not referring to anyone in particular here, just a general thought.
Bottom line this may get out of hands if we are not careful.
Often time when a players feels wrongly done in a game he proposes a change...
I don't think what you write is fair Supermax. Many suggested changes are ditched and for the latest one there was no particular player who suggested that a change was needed. It was actually I who made the initial suggestion based on the experience from several games.
Then I made a proposal and we voted on it as we usually do. The vote results pointed in one direction, i. e. that we need to fix this exploit. Joerock who was the "victim" in one of the games used as an example (the one against Morris) hasn't said a single word about wanting to change the rules. So it's not true in this case.
At the moment the alpha team is discussing adding quite a bit of cities (rail hubs only, i. e. no production) so it would be easier to rail in certain areas. The main reason is that you can now only rail if you're adjacent to a city instead of anywhere on the map. Another reason is that the Axis standard gauge rail heads will faster reach cities in Russia and then get a chance to rail there. So we discuss adding cities like Mogilev, Rzhev, Kaluga, Velikiye Luki, Zhitomir, Cherkasy, Poltava, Mariupol, Voroshilovgrad. Maybe only a few of these will make it. The discussion will decide that. If the majority in the alpha team is against it then we might even ditch adding any cities.
We've suggested adding cities in Austria (Linz, Graz), Czech republic (Brünn (Brno)), Slovakia (Kosice), Ireland (Cork), Germany (Rostock, Dresden and Erfurt), Switzerland (Zurich), Poland (Lublin), Romania (Cernauti) so rail movement will be somewhat easier in central Europe as it should be. It probably doesn't make sense that Austria and Czechoslovakia were added to Germany, but only Vienna and Prague were added as cities. With slightly more cities the Germans can rail from more positions using their superior rail / road network to better use.
In the Middle East we suggested to add some cities too so these areas have better mobility as they had in the real war. Syria (Aleppo, Homs), Trans-Jordan (Amman), Iraq (Fallujah, Najaf, Nasiriryah, Kut), Persia (Kermanshah, Qom). This means action here can be more interesting. E. g. Aleppo in Syria is as big as Damascus and close to Turkey so the Allies can stage units against Turkey if they want to. It will be easier for e. g. the Axis to do anything in Iraq with more cities and so on.
The biggest impact will be in Russia because the rail heads will reach cities sooner and that will compensate a bit for the rail heads being left behind. OK, Russia may defend in those cities, but they're not in good defensive areas so they should fall soon.
Morris is right that it will be harder to get all the way to Uralsk and Caucasus in 1941 with the Germans now. You will fight a lot in supply level 3, but if you crush enough Russians then you can still do it. If the Russians retreat then you might be punished during the winter. It's certainly not a historical simulation to allow the Germans to storm through Russia in 1941 and rail corps units right to the front line the turn after they cities were captured. So the former GS rules created some kind of momentum that didn't exist in the real war.
Do we really want to play a game with big rule holes that players can exploit to get very ahistorical results? It's ok to beat your opponent if your skill is better and your opponent doesn't defend properly. But if you have a defender who knows everything and he's still crushed then that indicates something is not right. It's like playing a chess game realizing that the black player's knight was missing. Black can still win, but it will be much harder.
Started new game & now the rail connections from Nth Scotland have all dissapeared. Fully understand why but as a consequence of the changes this may not be the desired outcome. Its almost as if you now need a railhead = not a city or fortress etc but a junction to embark or disembark.
timrt wrote:Started new game & now the rail connections from Nth Scotland have all dissapeared. Fully understand why but as a consequence of the changes this may not be the desired outcome. Its almost as if you now need a railhead = not a city or fortress etc but a junction to embark or disembark.
We could drop Thurso or Halkirk on the map to solve that specific problem.
Maybe it's just me, but this change (not the rail gauge rules, but the you-can-only-rail-from-cities/resources) is starting to seem like more trouble than it's worth. As has been repeatedly pointed out, yes, I'm sure by carefully adding cities and by carefully planning all your moves to plan in advance you can overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule, but honestly, is this making the game more fun? more realistic in any solid way? I am not liking the added level of headaches/micromanagement this new rule is adding, especially for the Axis who already have so many small but crucial matters to juggle.
We have legitimately been concerned about the unrealistic and unbalanced exploit of too-rapid rail expansion in Russia, and the new rail gauge rule would seem to address that. I'm just not seeing any great improvement gained from the secondary rule about where units must be located in order to be railed.
Maybe a potential solution is to make it an option, like corps-sized paratroops and buying Russian guards?
Diplomaticus wrote:Maybe it's just me, but this change (not the rail gauge rules, but the you-can-only-rail-from-cities/resources) is starting to seem like more trouble than it's worth. As has been repeatedly pointed out, yes, I'm sure by carefully adding cities and by carefully planning all your moves to plan in advance you can overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule, but honestly, is this making the game more fun? more realistic in any solid way? I am not liking the added level of headaches/micromanagement this new rule is adding, especially for the Axis who already have so many small but crucial matters to juggle.
We have legitimately been concerned about the unrealistic and unbalanced exploit of too-rapid rail expansion in Russia, and the new rail gauge rule would seem to address that. I'm just not seeing any great improvement gained from the secondary rule about where units must be located in order to be railed.
Maybe a potential solution is to make it an option, like corps-sized paratroops and buying Russian guards?
For what its worth, I like this approach but it will require a scouring of the map to ensure that there are no obvious blind spots!
Before you could rail FROM any hex, but not to or adjacent to a city. This has been changed so you can rail from and to the same hexes. This makes the rule symmetrical. It doesn't make sense that you could rail from any place on the map, but not to there. In fact you could rail in areas where there were no rail lines at all.
We don't have to add cities (or towns) everywhere to ensure you can rail from everywhere. That's not the point. What I noticed was that Germany didn't have cities in Austria and Czechoslovakia except the capitals. That would hamper rail movement there. It did before and even more so now since you can't rail from e. g. hexes there. So we simply forgot earlier to add some cities there. It didn't feel needed before because you could always rail from the area when you didn't need the units there anymore.
Adding e. g. Graz means that the Germans have a staging point for the invasion of Yugoslavia close to the border. Adding Kosice means that the Germans can get units faster to an area devoid of cities.
I didn't add any cities in France, Italy, Britain and USA because in those countries the rail density seems right. You can get units to most areas of interest in 1 turn. Besides the rail network in Germany was better so you could rail from most areas inside Germany.
In Russia any added cities would be more of a help to Germany than Russia because they can be used as rail hubs earlier since the cities are within the area Germany would normally conquer in 1941.
We haven't concluded yet about what to do. I'm just pointing out that adding some key cities can remedy the rail from problem that some people have mentioned.
So far people have only commented on Germany and not the Allies. So the issue seems to be about core German territory and not so much elsewhere. I've played through case White and didn't notice anything that would hamper German operations.
Stauffenberg wrote:We haven't concluded yet about what to do. I'm just pointing out that adding some key cities can remedy the rail from problem that some people have mentioned.
So far people have only commented on Germany and not the Allies. So the issue seems to be about core German territory and not so much elsewhere. I've played through case White and didn't notice anything that would hamper German operations.
Yes , it seems work well before Babarosa , Axis only need to pay 20-40 more fuel . I think Axis could afford for that . The real challenge will be in Russia .I wonder if Axis have courage to let their troops across the area without rail .If not they will have to stay around Rostov . Kursk , Smolensk & leningrad . That seems not a satisfy siutuation for Axis in 1941 . Russia will be too powerful ito defeat in 1942 . I will try to test it in my several present pbems .
You can easily get the railheads pretty far east during 1941. And you have a truck range of 6 to remain in supply level 4. East of Rostov you will have supply level 3 regardless because of the distance to Berlin.
The best way to get a longer supply level 4 range is to capture Moscow as the Axis. Then the range is extended by 10.
What happens if you can't rail directly to the front line late in 1941. Then you will rail the units as far east as you can and then move to the front line. I don't see a problem with that. Armor and mech units will usually be at the front line so they don't have to be railed. It will mostly be corps reinforcement built after the start of Barbarossa that will have to be railed.
I don't see this as a problem because you decide where you will form your main defense line for the winter. If you make it east of Rostov then you will fight in supply level 3 regardless of the old and new rules. The main difference is that you can't expect to rail units to Maikop in 1941. These units have to walk there.
One reason I suggest adding some rail hubs is because I want the front line cities the Germans to use to be a little further east than now. E. g. Germany might not get railheads to Rostov until December / January, but might get them to Mariupol in October. Then units need one turn to move from Mariupol to Rostov and a front line there.
Besides, clever Axis players can use paradrops to capture cities from the Russians behind the front line to speed up the invasion. Now you can actually use paratroopers for something useful in the east.
Diplomaticus wrote:I'm sure by carefully adding cities and by carefully planning all your moves to plan in advance you can overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule, but honestly, is this making the game more fun? more realistic in any solid way? I am not liking the added level of headaches/micromanagement this new rule is adding, especially for the Axis who already have so many small but crucial matters to juggle.
This is beta testing; but if something doesn't work we can undo it. I have some questions concerning your statement, "... overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule ...". What major difficulties have you encountered because of this rule change? That, in my opinion, is a fairly strong statement and I'm interested in hard data and specifics for you, or anyone, else who believes this rule change is an undo burden or tilts play balance one way or the other. Personally, I'm in favor of this rule change because of the symmetry and because of the impact that I've experienced through play testings.
Diplomaticus wrote:I'm sure by carefully adding cities and by carefully planning all your moves to plan in advance you can overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule, but honestly, is this making the game more fun? more realistic in any solid way? I am not liking the added level of headaches/micromanagement this new rule is adding, especially for the Axis who already have so many small but crucial matters to juggle.
This is beta testing; but if something doesn't work we can undo it. I have some questions concerning your statement, "... overcome the major difficulties imposed by this rule ...". What major difficulties have you encountered because of this rule change? That, in my opinion, is a fairly strong statement and I'm interested in hard data and specifics for you, or anyone, else who believes this rule change is an undo burden or tilts play balance one way or the other. Personally, I'm in favor of this rule change because of the symmetry and because of the impact that I've experienced through play testings.
Yes! I agree, it adds Logistical Planning - a must for a strategic Wargame!
Stauffenberg wrote:You can easily get the railheads pretty far east during 1941. And you have a truck range of 6 to remain in supply level 4. East of Rostov you will have supply level 3 regardless because of the distance to Berlin.
The best way to get a longer supply level 4 range is to capture Moscow as the Axis. Then the range is extended by 10.
What happens if you can't rail directly to the front line late in 1941. Then you will rail the units as far east as you can and then move to the front line. I don't see a problem with that. Armor and mech units will usually be at the front line so they don't have to be railed. It will mostly be corps reinforcement built after the start of Barbarossa that will have to be railed.
I don't see this as a problem because you decide where you will form your main defense line for the winter. If you make it east of Rostov then you will fight in supply level 3 regardless of the old and new rules. The main difference is that you can't expect to rail units to Maikop in 1941. These units have to walk there.
One reason I suggest adding some rail hubs is because I want the front line cities the Germans to use to be a little further east than now. E. g. Germany might not get railheads to Rostov until December / January, but might get them to Mariupol in October. Then units need one turn to move from Mariupol to Rostov and a front line there.
Besides, clever Axis players can use paradrops to capture cities from the Russians behind the front line to speed up the invasion. Now you can actually use paratroopers for something useful in the east.
Thanks for your advise .Our practise will prove how it works . we will see . Regarding to the paras , I seldom use it in the east but once to use it conquer Omsk . I will try this time .
