Discussion on CEAW-GS v2.10

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We also had discussion about air units in the beta forum regarding how hard they were to kill. We changed some parameters then and then the air units now take 5+ damage from each hit without giving any damage in return. What is the problem with that?

I don't mind having to kill air units instead of ground troops. I know each major power has a limited number of them and they're so much easier to damage than even garrison units. If my opponent wants to squander his most expensive units, i. e. the air units, then I say just go ahead.

Where do you see air units being used as front line units?

[unikey]

I used them in my last game as the Axis on the West wall.

[Vokt]

I want to bring here some suggestion now. I refer to the following: when a ground unit is below 40 effectiveness (orange?) it should not be allowed this unit to be railed. Reduced effectiveness from massive enemy attacks would imply that the attaked unit also loses significantly organization capability thus affecting the direct availability of the unit to be railed. This would keep some units (specially armoured depleted units to 2-3 steps) from being railed and then saved from an almost sure destruction on the very next turn.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I used them in my last game as the Axis on the West wall.

It should be easy for the Allies to attack the airbases in the fortresses prior to storming the areas. The Axis won't afford to pay the losses. If you get land units to the area you can first attack with land units and then follow up with airstrikes.

[unikey]

I don't know if it was a good idea but they were all that was available and held until they could be replaced or sacrificed. As TAC's seem useless without air parity at least, any gain in time or damage seems worthwhile.

[Vokt]

I don't know if it was a good idea but they were all that was available and held until they could be replaced or sacrificed. As TAC's seem useless without air parity at least, any gain in time or damage seems worthwhile.

The whole idea of sacrificing units in late game in order to achieve a (axis) victory seems to be wrong. May be axis victories at a high cost in units lost should not be considered so.

[GPT55]

Back to Scotland: The new map looks like a nice improvement. One further change to consider--based on the map posted by Vokt it looks like Glasgow should be moved one hex to the southeast. It is actually a bit south of Edinburgh and probably should be in the clear terrain.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Glasgow has to be adjacent to the port so we have the coastal city there.

There are inaccuracies here and there regarding cities. That can't be helped because ports have to be attached to cities.

If you have a city in a rough hex then the terrain is treated as similar to clear (supply, movement), but with the city defensive properties.

Glasgow is a particularly important city because the UK convoys are sent there. So there are quite a few rules linked up to the location of the Glasgow port and city. Moving Glasgow 1xSE could have effects we don't know about so I think it's too risky to do. We don't want to add new bugs and risk having even more updates in a few weeks time. One problem that could happen is that a Glasgow city not on the coast line could disrupt convoys etc. because they get problems with pathfinding. I also recall some rules about UK supply that is linked to Glasgow when London falls, but it could be it's linked to Liverpool instead now. All I know is that there is specific code regarding Glasgow and it can take awhile to find them all.

Besides that I think it's more accurate to have Glasgow 1xSE of the current location. I'm discussing with Paul whether we should move it or not. I can look through the game.class files to code about Glasgow.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We moved Glasgow and this is how it looks now. By doing so we had to move the 1 production from Edingburgh to Aberdeen to avoid text overlap between Glasgow and Edinburgh at zoom level 2. This makes sense because Edinburgh is a financial city with income from trading etc. while Aberdeen is a city with several mills, quarries and after the war oil production. Production in GS is factories and other manufacturing facilities and not shops, banks etc.

[Cybvep]

Production in GS is factories and other manufacturing facilities and not shops, banks etc.

Then London shouldn't have so many PPs, PPs from many Soviet cities should be transferred to Siberia after the invasion etc. Let's not create illusionary justifications for individual changes. You moved one PP from one city to a different one because of technical limitations and that's it. There is nothing wrong with it, every engine has its limits.

[GogTheMild]

Probably too late for 2.14, but why can't leaders be attached to air or naval units?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Production in GS is factories and other manufacturing facilities and not shops, banks etc.

Then London shouldn't have so many PPs, PPs from many Soviet cities should be transferred to Siberia after the invasion etc. Let's not create illusionary justifications for individual changes. You moved one PP from one city to a different one because of technical limitations and that's it. There is nothing wrong with it, every engine has its limits.

Capitals usually have a high PP value because of the impact losing it. One can consider the PP's around London being London itself and all cities near London.

When we allocate PP's to the smaller cities we try to find out which were bombed during the war because of important factories etc. So some cities have 0 production and some have 1. If they have more than 1 then those cities had major production capability. Population also has something to do with adding production to the city, like Leningrad.

[Morris]

We moved Glasgow and this is how it looks now. By doing so we had to move the 1 production from Edingburgh to Aberdeen to avoid text overlap between Glasgow and Edinburgh at zoom level 2. This makes sense because Edinburgh is a financial city with income from trading etc. while Aberdeen is a city with several mills, quarries and after the war oil production. Production in GS is factories and other manufacturing facilities and not shops, banks etc.

It looks good . But it is a bad news for sealion lover , Scotland becomes more difficult to take !

[Cybvep]

Well, there are more clear and forest hexes now and Edinburgh can still be attacked from three sides, so I don't think that it will affect balance that much.

I'm wondering about Aberdeen ATM. Will that 1 PP change the supply level from 1 to sth else when the Germans land there? If yes, then a surprise invasion there could be deadlier than it is now.

[GogTheMild]

I'm wondering about Aberdeen ATM. Will that 1 PP change the supply level from 1 to sth else when the Germans land there? If yes, then a surprise invasion there could be deadlier than it is now.

It shouldn't change the supply level. It should still give level 3 supply, just like it does with no PP. Ie the same as Norwich.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Well, there are more clear and forest hexes now and Edinburgh can still be attacked from three sides, so I don't think that it will affect balance that much.

I'm wondering about Aberdeen ATM. Will that 1 PP change the supply level from 1 to sth else when the Germans land there? If yes, then a surprise invasion there could be deadlier than it is now.

No. All cities provide supply level 3.

[Cybvep]

Why the supply level drops to 1 when Leningrad is encircled and has 0 PPs due to bombing, then?

[GogTheMild]

Any city which 'goes red', usually due to bombing, has the supply it generates reduced to 0, or 1 if it is a port (like Leningrad). Bombing Aberdeen into the red, and so to 0 (not 1) supply, would be a bit of a giveaway though . This is because the city's underlying 'strength ' has gone to 0 or 1 (out of 10). This 'strength' also determines whether the full PP quota is generated. So supply and PP both depend on the same thing; although supply is 'all or nothing', whilst PP loss is incremental. (I don't know why. The supply aspect seems counter intuitive. That's just the way it is.)

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Slitherine mentioned it can take a little while until they can host the GS 2 patch. That means we have time to add a few more fixes before we make it available.

At the moment we're currently working on the following.

1. Retreats for air units being attacked by ground units.

Retreat is now set to 100 and will happen even if the air unit occupies a city or fortress. So you can't anymore hold any defense lines with air units unless the defense line is double so retreat is not possible.

2. Naval unit retreats

We have coded so naval units can also be forced to retreat after battle. The retreat chance is dependent upon the naval unit type, defense strength and attack strength after battle. Subs and BB's are the most difficult ones to retreat and transports the most easy ones.

This means that if you use transports to screen your surface naval units then the enemy can attack them to dislodge them and sail through the hole in the line to attack your rear naval units.

3. Sub evasion

Subs who are defending (not attacking) can now evade attacks by air and naval units. The evade chance is dependent upon the attacking unit type, sub tech in submarines, attacking unit tech in ASW and radar.

The reason to do this is to give the subs a bigger reason to go after e. g. convoys even when the Allies have got naval superiority. Retaliation won't be guaranteed.

We are experimenting with the values to find a reasonable evade chance. Evading subs is used e. g. in Lordz'es Panzer Corps.

4. Surface naval unit sweeps

We are also looking into adding an opportunity for surface naval units who don't attack after movement to sweep adjacent sea hexes (not ports) for enemy subs. The percent chance for finding a sub is dependent upon tech and unit type. Once a sub is found the sweep is ended and the sub becomes visible. A battle can occur, which the sub can evade as usual.

The main reason for these possible updates is to make the naval warfare a little more interesting. At the same time we hope we can reduce the exploits people are doing to use garrisons as transport cannonfodder.

The Allies will usually use surface naval ships as a perimeter around their transports when sailing units across the Atlantic. Before the transports were completely impossible to reach for the subs. Now the subs can attack to force a retreat in the perimeter and then sail into the rear units to attack the transport. The retreat chance is not that high, but it's there and with several subs you should get a good chance because retreat chance increases if the defender is damaged.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It looks good . But it is a bad news for sealion lover , Scotland becomes more difficult to take !

I would say Scotland is easier and not harder to take because there is now clear and forest terrain in Scotland and not just rough.