Can we save the Bear, Richardsd vs Morris (no Morris please)

[kaigab73]

its actually just not viable to defend Moscow, even fully entranched, never moved, with an 8 leader you hardly dent the Aixis units!

It's sad to read that this is the case in 1942. There is really some tech imbalance here that is throwing the east front out of balance. One thing the Soviets should be able to do in any game is make the Germans pay in blood. Even in a worst case 1941 scenario the Germans should take heavy casualties vs SU.

It's sad to read that this is the case in 1942. There is really some tech imbalance here that is throwing the east front out of balance. One thing the Soviets should be able to do in any game is make the Germans pay in blood. Even in a worst case 1941 scenario the Germans should take heavy casualties vs SU.[/quote]

in '41 Germans lost (before winter) 800.000 men, Soviet 4.000.000 according to official archives. the ratio is 5:1 so i think '41 is ok. In game terms, it means that in '41 germans should lose 2 steps to kill an inf unit. and i believe more or less this is tha ratio we have ingame.

Btw, excluding Morris, do you guys have problems playing russia? i play 50% of games as allies and usually it's not hard to hold germans in east. obviously i never faced an early may Barbarossa.

[richardsd]

its actually just not viable to defend Moscow, even fully entranched, never moved, with an 8 leader you hardly dent the Aixis units!

It's sad to read that this is the case in 1942. There is really some tech imbalance here that is throwing the east front out of balance. One thing the Soviets should be able to do in any game is make the Germans pay in blood. Even in a worst case 1941 scenario the Germans should take heavy casualties vs SU.

It's sad to read that this is the case in 1942. There is really some tech imbalance here that is throwing the east front out of balance. One thing the Soviets should be able to do in any game is make the Germans pay in blood. Even in a worst case 1941 scenario the Germans should take heavy casualties vs SU.

in '41 Germans lost (before winter) 800.000 men, Soviet 4.000.000 according to official archives. the ratio is 5:1 so i think '41 is ok. In game terms, it means that in '41 germans should lose 2 steps to kill an inf unit. and i believe more or less this is tha ratio we have ingame.

Btw, excluding Morris, do you guys have problems playing russia? i play 50% of games as allies and usually it's not hard to hold germans in east. obviously i never faced an early may Barbarossa.[/quote]

you can hold against normal assualts - they can get Moscow or Stalingrad or the Oil (even Stalingrad and Oil) but they cant keep them forever!

[richardsd]

5:1 is absolutely not what is happening, Morris is doing better than 10:1!

[richardsd]

ok, more of the same

Moscow is cut off and somehow I mess up the screen shot!

In the south we continue our minor counter attack



and start 42's distraction operations





we also continue our steller research (not) and leader luck, mine take 7-9 tunrs off, his 1-2, love the random generator

[richardsd]

I am very interested to see what Joe faces in his game as I fully expect a load of German troops to oppose both my distractions!

[richardsd]

so here is what we see in Europe



we scout around and sortie a little



in the med we don;t seem to have a before, but again we scout around and sortie a little



in the south



we continue our 'counter attack' in the south



in the North



and after a disaterous set of combat outcomes

[Cybvep]

Crap. He really owned you in this game .

[ncali]

Crap. He really owned you in this game .

I'm not so sure. You will likely lose Moscow, but the Caucuses is interesting. I would be inclined to move the Red Airforce down that way and make a short-term commitment in aid of your defense/counterattack.

[Diplomaticus]

As I found in my game, the problem is that vs. M's concentrated forces, the Red Army, no matter the formation, gets mown down like wheat. The early techs/quality advantages are such that standing and fighting in anything but the most defensible terrain is just a slaughter; and the most frustrating part is to see how few are the casualties inflicted in return. And even in the vast woods around Moscow, because of M's massive Korps army and his ability to outflank by pressing his advantage in open spaces, eventually the Moscow sector turns into a death trap.

Supermax has got the best analysis so far on what would actually work in response to the M attack plan:

Well its not really hard, really.

First and foremost, we dont need to change the rules... Please stop changing them because of supposed play imbalance...

So, its not rocket science.

moriss has clearly demonstrated that he cannot be stopped before stalingrad and caucasus.

Given that assumption, player just need to accept this, and plan accordingly.

For example, it can be as simple as planning and organizing a major fall-winter counter attack at the fartest- most limit of german possible advance ( in this case the germans wont be able to do more than stalingrad), as moriss brillliantly demonstrated in earlier games as allies with his rostov- kharkov counter attacks.

One thing is sure, the germans cannot be stopped when they are concentrated, but as they advance on a widening front, opportunities arise... Like when he split his forces to do stalingrad and caucasus. With a serious counter- punch east of stalingrad and out of reach till october- november, the germans wont be able do to a thing against concentrated armor, air and mech russian units.

Ok, so when yo play against someone like Joe Rock or Plaid for example, a counter offensive strategy just wont work, because they are constantly ready for it, in the sense that when they are on the offensive, they do it on a cohesive matter and never advance too far for units to be in danger...

But Moriss is something else. He will just attack and attack and attack until he either wins or get destroyed. For the ones of you that followed my last aar with him can clearly see that with a carefully planned offensive- defensive strategy, you can blunt, and defeat moriss unstoppable hordes.

Its the same play against me. If you are on the defensive as the allies, you will loose.

Does that help?

Now, with 2.1 going live, of course quite a bit of our travials will be somewhat dated, but even with the tweaks I'm convinced that anyone playing Morris needs to be incredibly careful about how he plays his hand. I speak from painful experience (see my own AAR).

[Plaid]

Well, in one of my resent games I tryed to do roughly the same, what axis do here.
Maybe not so much min-maxing, as morris does, but have built 7 tanks and 7 mechs and send them all in the southern sector with all availieable air support.

Result : in northern and central sector soviets manned dnepr line defences and my corps units without support of armor/airpower had no chance to cross that river at all. So didnt got Smolensk/Bryansk even.

In the southern sector all availiable soviet units were sent to stop german advance in the area between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, ignoring casualties. So germans just stucked in heavy combat there. Destroyed half a dozen of soviet units each turn, but didnt advance any further then Kharkov. Lost only 1 german mech myself, while soviets lost lots of mechs and several tanks, but they effectively stopped any german advance and they have all frest siberian tanks and shoch armies for counterattack.

It looks to me much better solution (from allied point), then to let germans have Stalingrad and stuff so easy aswell as running that suicide landings in France.

[richardsd]

yep I have been handed it in this game, but as I said earlier, this was game 1 and I have a much better idea of what to do now (plan A doesn't work)

we will start another game with 2.1 to test the new changes (and my new strategy), of course I will concede this game to Morris - the joys of beta testing, but the next will be to the death, hopefully not mine

the next game will show my 'string' strategy - stay tuned if you aren't to bored!

[ncali]

I hope you won't concede quite yet! I'd like to see you play out '42. It's still early, and things are far from settled (even if Morris has the upper hand). I'm curious what his oil situation is, for instance.

[Schnurri]

Well, in one of my resent games I tryed to do roughly the same, what axis do here.
Maybe not so much min-maxing, as morris does, but have built 7 tanks and 7 mechs and send them all in the southern sector with all availieable air support.

Result : in northern and central sector soviets manned dnepr line defences and my corps units without support of armor/airpower had no chance to cross that river at all. So didnt got Smolensk/Bryansk even.

In the southern sector all availiable soviet units were sent to stop german advance in the area between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, ignoring casualties. So germans just stucked in heavy combat there. Destroyed half a dozen of soviet units each turn, but didnt advance any further then Kharkov. Lost only 1 german mech myself, while soviets lost lots of mechs and several tanks, but they effectively stopped any german advance and they have all frest siberian tanks and shoch armies for counterattack.

It looks to me much better solution (from allied point), then to let germans have Stalingrad and stuff so easy aswell as running that suicide landings in France.

Plaid - I think you are referring to our game. In that one you got too late a start and therefore I made my stand relatively far west. If you got a May 8 start you would have done as Morris does I think. I also would have defended farther into the interior.

[Plaid]

Plaid - I think you are referring to our game.

Nope

[jjdenver]

First and foremost, we dont need to change the rules... Please stop changing them because of supposed play imbalance...

Supermax, just to be clear I'm not suggesting changing something like Soviet tech because of play imbalance. Perhaps some really creative player can find some really creative strategy like you describe...i.e. run away to caucasus and past Stalingrad then counterattack at the right moment. But my problem isn't that it's impossble to win as SU...apparently it's not as you describe. My problem is how gamey the Soviet player has to be to achieve any success. The Soviet player shouldn't have to run away all of 1941 to have a chance. The Soviets historically would not have abandoned their homeland that way - it wouldn't have even been politically feasible and it wasn't what they did. The Soviet player in the game should have some chance to defend....playing a game where SU is forced to do very very ahistorical strategies isn't really a WW2 game....and even in 1942 as we see in this AAR the tech imbalance creates a situation where the Soviets can't afford to fight because they can't cause casualties to the Germans. There must be a way to let the players pursue at least semi-historical strategies and achieve similar results.

The basic problem to me isn't a play balance issue - it's that the Soviets just flat out can't defend and cause the Germans significant casualties - even if they choose to defend - something that doesn't look at all like the historical situation did. Where the Soviet defended in fall of 1941 they were able to make the Germans pay. Even in the first months of the campaign they could cause casualties where they chose to defend. It is just painful to see a game's strategies devolve into extreme ahistorical strategies such as "run away don't fight until he passes Stalingrad, Rostov, etc" or you'll lose since the tech imbalance is so great.

And seeing this size of German blob get to Stalingrad in 1941 is just a little silly since there is no way the German supply tether would have allowed this. Even a year later in 1942 they had trouble keeping a smaller force supplied at Stalingrad after stripping their rest of their units in Russia of motorized transport.

So my problem isn't "play balance." I'm sure really creative players can always devise extreme strategies to achieve some outcome.

[Cybvep]

This doesn't change the fact that we see Morris repeatedly crushing all opposition in Ukraine in these AARs. I think that Stauffenberg once said that it is not uncommon to see other players failing while using Morris' strategy, but Morris himself somehow manages to execute it perfectly.

Supermax, just to be clear I'm not suggesting changing something like Soviet tech because of play imbalance. Perhaps some really creative player can find some really creative strategy like you describe...i.e. run away to caucasus and past Stalingrad then counterattack at the right moment. But my problem isn't that it's impossble to win as SU...apparently it's not as you describe. My problem is how gamey the Soviet player has to be to achieve any success. The Soviet player shouldn't have to run away all of 1941 to have a chance. The Soviets historically would not have abandoned their homeland that way - it wouldn't have even been politically feasible and it wasn't what they did. The Soviet player in the game should have some chance to defend....playing a game where SU is forced to do very very ahistorical strategies isn't really a WW2 game....

It has been mentioned several time that in CEAW the Eastern Front in 1941 is just a running show. In most games the Germans try to run as fast and as far east as possible and the Soviets try to do the same thing until they reach Moscow/Stalingrad/Rostov/whatever. This is sth that needs major changes in balance and couldn't have been done in 2.1. Don't know about 2.2.

[Plaid]

I am not sure, why allied players keep running from the axis on the east normally.
Its much easier to recover lots of units casualties with USSR, then lots of lost territory.

[richardsd]

I am not sure, why allied players keep running from the axis on the east normally.
Its much easier to recover lots of units casualties with USSR, then lots of lost territory.

er, no its not! I ran a long way and didn't really defend until Stalingrad/Moscow and even then not to much at Stalingrad. The Russian's have had manpower problems (below 75%) for most of 42

one of the side effects of the new supply rules is that fewer Russin's escape

[kaigab73]

I am not sure, why allied players keep running from the axis on the east normally.
Its much easier to recover lots of units casualties with USSR, then lots of lost territory.

in any game where soviets tried to hold in '41 (near Dnepr, near Don) i as axis won easily. yes, maybe you slow down germans, but you lose so many units that russia in '42 is even weaker than in '41.

when i play axis i am alway happy when i see allies player choosing to defend in '41 summer. if you lose "half a dozen" inf every turn, it means around 250PP/turn worth of troops while just producing as russia 100PP/turn for all '41, how can russia hold germany in '42 ? if in '41 you lose more troops than you build (while the germans very very few) in '42 russia is dead.

[Plaid]

in any game where soviets tried to hold in '41 (near Dnepr, near Don) i as axis won easily. yes, maybe you slow down germans, but you lose so many units that russia in '42 is even weaker than in '41.

when i play axis i am alway happy when i see allies player choosing to defend in '41 summer. if you lose "half a dozen" inf every turn, it means around 250PP/turn worth of troops while just producing as russia 100PP/turn for all '41, how can russia hold germany in '42 ? if in '41 you lose more troops than you build (while the germans very very few) in '42 russia is dead.

Logic tells this is truth. But real experience shows the very opposite. I would be happy to show it, if you would like to play a game with me.