New player, first observations

[daveinva]

Hello all.

I downloaded CEAW a few days back, and am about halfway through my first campaign game (Axis, 1939, oil off, no advantage to AI). Still trying to get the feel for everything before I "push the engine." So far, I'm enjoying the game-- it's beer & pretzels, but not ridiculously so (I was hoping CEAW wouldn't be a repeat of Panzer General, which I never really liked-- TOO abstracted for my personal tastes).

Before I continue into my observations, I'd preface everything with the argument that I'm completely happy with a game that does NOT strive to be all things to all people, as long as it has rules that are logical, consistent, and fun within the context of the game. Thus, I'm not one to argue that there aren't Marines/Paratroopers/Patton's ivory-handled pistols in the game. I've played wargames for twenty years, board and computer, and the most I ask is that they all be fun and logical within their own particular niche. I love Advanced Third Reich, HOI2, TOAW, etc., but I'm just as happy that CEAW fills that updated Clash of Steel/PG hybrid role of easy-to-play, hard-to-master.

That said, like all players do, I've found a few things that rub me a little wrong. I figure I'd list them for comment/possibilities for changing them (FYI, I've read through the forum here and over at Matrix, so unless I missed these before, yes, I've searched the forums .

1. Interface:

A. The ability to choose the order in which you deploy new builds. Others have mentioned this, but this is a problem when you have a commander in your deployment stack that you don't want to deploy yet, but you can't get to the other builds until you deploy that commander.

B. The ability to cancel a production order before hitting next turn.

C. The ability to disband a unit and return manpower to the pool. Can we get this as an option?

2. Egypt. I'm with the folks who say the British should be able to build directly there, or at least make looping there easier. I know there's a chance for a human player to use this powerful capability to their advantage/their opponent's disadvantage, but it seems like this would really aid the A.I. Allies in defending Egypt.

3. Russian objective cities. Moscow and Perm? I think there should be more of them. Definitely Moscow and Perm, but also an either/or for Leningrad and Stalingrad, or the oil fields. Obviously, in an oil-on game, the Axis has to go towards the oil fields anyway, but relying only on the Moscow-Perm direction for forcing Soviet surrender seems to be ahistorical.

4. Commanders. Can we get the A.I. to use them? I know they were a late edition to the game, but is there any chance for this to be added in via patch?

5. Submarines. They're really not very useful unless you build a lot of them, and even then, you have to use them ahistorically to take out the Royal Navy fleets if you want any hope to survive. Something tells me that this can be fixed with giving subs an advantage after battle. Perhaps only the first attack against them is at full strength, and later ones are at reduced effectiveness? Maybe better sub tech for the Axis at start?

As it stands now, I don't really see how anyone can justify a 70 pp submarine, especially since you need to buy so many to hope to be useful against convoys. There's no way to replicate any of the German "happy times" against the Allies in the early part of the war, as using your subs too early/too few just gets them slaughtered. To be accurate, this really should be the other way around, where subs are more effective *in the beginning*, only with declining effectiveness as the war/technology/U.S. fleets come into play.

I know this is close to doing the history griping I said I wouldn't do, but Axis subs just don't seem to ever cost-effective in CEAW unless there are exceptional ideal circumstances.

6. The A.I. Yes, I know, I know-- no A.I. can match a human player. I'm not interested in refighting that argument, but I will say that the A.I. in CEAD *really* needs improvement. I'm in my first game, and finding it competitive because I started out with some bad (for this game) strategic choices. But I can tell even now that it won't be hard forever, *especially* as the Allies (I've read up on all the trouble the A.I. has in offering any defense at all of France and western Germany).

Now, it seems to me that the bane of all strategic WWII game A.I. has been in getting the Axis AI to fight an effective two-front war. But can we expect to see any AI improvements in CEAW in this department? I'm not asking for human-level competence, but simply 2008-level competence. At times with this game, I think I'd unfortunately settle for *1998*-level competence. (love the game, recommending it to everyone. . . but there's no excuse for a 2008 game to only fight half a war).

Questions I haven't seen the answer to:

A. Replacements. When repairing a unit, I don't always get a maximum repair up to 10, even though I have enough PP and manpower. Why is that? I can understand that when the unit is in the line, in contact with the enemy, but when the unit is in the rear. . . just curious.

Also, is there an experience benefit to repairing a unit out of line as opposed to in contact? Maybe the distinction is too subtle, but as long as the game is making the calculation, I'd argue for less of a hit (or chance to hit-- how does this work?) to experience if the unit is repaired out of contact than if it is repaired in contact (to reflect more "peaceful" time to incorporate new replacements-- much easier to do while "resting" behind the lines, and as a benefit this reflects the actual German policy during the war).

B. ZOCs. How strong are they? They don't seem very strong at all, as I learned to my surprise with a couple of annoying deep Soviet thrusts on the Eastern Front. How much does a ZOC slow down movement? (Okay, I'm sure this was in the manual, but I'm at work without it in front of me, so I'm just curious now).

C. Is there a penalty for marching to a battle? Meaning, if you start next to the enemy and attack, is it any different than if you march five hexes and then attack? One would think your combat power would be reduced by the latter (in the first case, you attack and succeed, you get to move one hex after. The second case, you can move as many hexes as you can, then do a full attack, then move that same hex after if you overrun. Seems unbalanced).

D. I haven't played as the Allies yet. How is strategic bombing? Is it useful, or is it like submarines for the Axis.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more questions later when I think about it things some more.

Great game, Slitherine. Really having a blast, and thanks to all the folks on the forum and their suggestions/comments that have already helped me out in enjoying the game.

Cheers,
Dave

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Hello all.
Questions I haven't seen the answer to:

A. Replacements. When repairing a unit, I don't always get a maximum repair up to 10, even though I have enough PP and manpower. Why is that? I can understand that when the unit is in the line, in contact with the enemy, but when the unit is in the rear. . . just curious.

Also, is there an experience benefit to repairing a unit out of line as opposed to in contact? Maybe the distinction is too subtle, but as long as the game is making the calculation, I'd argue for less of a hit (or chance to hit-- how does this work?) to experience if the unit is repaired out of contact than if it is repaired in contact (to reflect more "peaceful" time to incorporate new replacements-- much easier to do while "resting" behind the lines, and as a benefit this reflects the actual German policy during the war).

The number of steps you can repair depends upon your supply level. Naval unit can repair a maximum of 3 steps per turn. Close to your capital (within 20 hexes) you have 5 supply, further away (within 40 hexes) you have 4 supply (e. g. German units in Russia) and even further away you have 3 supply. If you have captured a port with overseas supply you have 3 supply (supply circle is half white and half black). Air units in islands without ports have 3 supply. If you have to rely upon ships to be adjacent to a coastal hex then you have 1 supply (black supply circle). If you don't have contact with your capital at all you have 0 supply (red supply circle).

B. ZOCs. How strong are they? They don't seem very strong at all, as I learned to my surprise with a couple of annoying deep Soviet thrusts on the Eastern Front. How much does a ZOC slow down movement? (Okay, I'm sure this was in the manual, but I'm at work without it in front of me, so I'm just curious now).

I'm not sure about all ZOC details, but I seem to remember to have read that if a hex has enemy ZOC from at least 2 enemy units it will give a unit trying to move to the hex some movement penalty. So if you move to the flanks of a defense line or through holes 2 or more hexes wide then you're less affected by movement penalties. I think the ZOC rules work great in the game. Especially after Happycat and I changed the terrain rules so vehicles pay 1 extra movement cost to enter forest and rough terrain. This makes deep armor exploitation through not clear terrain very difficult.

C. Is there a penalty for marching to a battle? Meaning, if you start next to the enemy and attack, is it any different than if you march five hexes and then attack? One would think your combat power would be reduced by the latter (in the first case, you attack and succeed, you get to move one hex after. The second case, you can move as many hexes as you can, then do a full attack, then move that same hex after if you overrun. Seems unbalanced).

You lose efficiency when you move or attack with your unit. And you lose your entrenchment if you move. Your efficiency increase every turn you don't do anything until you reach the max efficiency for the unit. I'm not sure if the efficiency loss will happen before or after the actual combat.

D. I haven't played as the Allies yet. How is strategic bombing? Is it useful, or is it like submarines for the Axis.

Strat bombing is a great weapon, both for the Allies and the Axis. Even the Russians can use strat bombing very efficiently. If you play with the oil rule and see several Russian strat bombers attack the Ploesti oil fields you will see you get much less oil per turn. If you get the oil field down to 0 then Germany loses 20 oil per turn. It''s devastating.

One big problem with strat bombing is that many people don't understand how it works. They think they inflict the number of PP points of damage as the actual damage you see when you bombard a hex. That's not true.

Strat bombing doesn't work like that at all. All hexes have an intrinsic strength of 10 (just like normal units) and the damage you see reported is how many of these intrinsic strength points are lost in the hex. It's important to know that a hex only regains 1 intrinsic strength point per turn.

The actual production of a hex is calculated like this: current intrinsic strength / 10 * production from the hex. So if you inflict a total loss of 10 steps to a hex it will drop to 0 production.

I will show with an example how this works. Let's say the Allies bombard the Ruhr hex with a strat bomber and inflicts 4 losses. Ruhr has a production of 7.
That means the current production from the Ruhr will instead be: (10-4)/10 * 7 = 4.2 So the strat bombing lowered the production with almost 3 PP's

If the Ruhr hex will be left alone then it will produce next turn: (10-3)/10 * 7 = 4.9 (2 PP's lost)
The turn after it will produce (10-2)/10*7 = 5.6 (1 PP lost)
The turn after this it will produce (10-1)/10*7 = 6.3 (1 PP lost)
The turn after this it will have max strength and produce 7 PP's.

So the total loss will be 3+2+1+1 = 7 PP's.

If the Allied had instead bombarded a city with maybe 1 production then you need 6 hits to drop it below 0.5 production. So it's much smarter to bombard hexes that produce a lot of PP's like capital, resources etc.

Also notice that you only produce half from captured cities and resources. E. g. Paris with a production of 8 will only produce 4 PP's per turn. So strat bombing these hexes will have half efficiency than the printed PP's.

Look at the color of the production in a hex. It changes the same way as the strength color of normal units. If the color is red it means less than 25% of the intrinsic strength is left. Orange is less than 50% and yellow is less than 75%. This is a good indicator to see if it's necessary to bombard a hex further to lower the production even more.

So the essence of this is that strat bombing is very efficient if you go after the right hexes. Your best targets should be big German cities and resources (like Ruhr). Your second best targets are captured capitals like Paris, Hague etc.

Germany can be very efficient with maybe a few strat bombers and go after Moscow, Leningrad and maybe cities like Gorki and Stalingrad. It's even better if you can bombard the oil hexes in the Caucasus.

So don't forget to use the important tool of strat bombers and you will see your enemy cry because his production is so low. I've managed to drop the German production down to about 70 per turn with just strat bombers and not capturing any city at all on the continent. This shows how effective they can be.

But I've seen people strat bombing sea ports seeing they inflict 3-6 step losses believing they inflicted 3-6 PP's upon the Axis. If the sea port has 0 production it meant it didn't affect production at all. If it had 1 production it means you inflicted 1 step loss the first turn if you scored 6 hits and nothing at all the other turns.

I always try to let my strat bombing targets drop to red color before I focus upon other targets. Then I'm sure the hex is neutralized for some turns. You will have to send 2-3 strat bombers to drop a hex from 10 to 0. But it's worth it if you attack a hex like the Ruhr or even better Berlin.

But enemy fighters like to intercept strat bombers and to reach the juicy targets you often have to fly without your own fighter escort. That means you suffer some losses. With higher strategic operations techs you get better survivability and can withstand fighter attacks. So never forget to research heavily in strategic operations.

I have a nasty trick I often use when I want to avoid enemy fighters attacking my strat bombers. I base my own fighter as close to Germany as possible and send them on bombardment missions to cities as close to Germany as possible. That means the German fighters will intercept my fighters and an even fight will happen. If you have more fighters that the Germans it means all the interceptor have flown their missions before you fly your strat bombing missions. Then you can send your strat bombers deep into Germany unopposed.

A German counter move against this strategy is to base the German fighters deeper inside Germany so they can't reach the hexes the Allied fighters can reach. That means they aren't tricked into flying interceptor missions and can still stop the strat bombers.

But the Allied counter move to such a strategy is to get to the conclusion that the German fighters are quite far from the British border since they don't intercept the Allied fighters trying to bombard cities in Belgium, France etc. That means you send your strat bombers to Paris, Lorraine, Hague etc. knowing they will strike unopposed.

So it's a lot of cat and mouse activity happening with the strat bombing of Germany. I like it a lot. It works. I hope you see now how effective strat bombing can be.

The sub warfare doesn't work well because subs are too expensive and cost too much to repair compared with the damage they cause. Since the Allied escorts can attack with as many units as possible against a single sub it means it's easy to destroy the subs. They can't evade.

The biggest problem is that the subs can inflict a maximum of 14 PP's upon a convoy. A tech 6 sub will not inflict more damage. The reason is that convoy attacks are performed the same way as normal attacks. You get as many attack dice as your current strength + 4. With a high tech sub you will hit with every attack die against a weak convoy. So you inflict 14 PP's. But when you attack the Allies can attack the sub and maybe inflict 5-6 steps upon the sub and only receive 1-2 itself. That's very expensive to repair and you also have to travel for several turns to a port to repair and then move back to the attack zone.

I think subs should inflict much more damage against the convoys, especially at higher tech levels. I think a good way would be to give each sub 3 attack dice per step when attacking convoys only (not enemy naval units). So a full strength sub will get 30 attack dice. That means they will inflict 10-15 steps early on and maybe as much as 30 steps with higher naval attack values. This way the subs inflict as much damage as they can receive from a DD. If some kind of evasion rules had been added it would be even better.

[Maj_Battaglia]

One quick fix related to your suggestion on deployment: click on the unit in the queue and it moves to the back and the next eligible unit comes up.

Regarding a lot of your other points, especially subs, there is a lot you can mod. I made subs cost 25pp (and destroyers are 30) but greatly lengthened build time to reflect the reality of advance planning for naval buildup. Those things don't get built in only 60 days (and note the Happy Days were not right off the bat; Doenitz had to wait a while to get his subs). I also increased the frequency of convoys but decreased the average size (so the number of pps being moved is the same) so that some could be destroyed but there are others on the way that might evade.

Also, you can change the loop time from West Africa to Red Sea. I made it one turn. Naval movement is abstracted away from reality (it is much slower), which is fine for gameplay. But since nothing can happen in the loop (i.e., no intercepts), may as well model it closer to reality. 20 days is plenty of time to go from West Africa around the Cape and into the Red Sea. I am also playing with changing the naval movement (making units move longer distances in a turn) but I have not found the right balance yet. That would help move units to Egypt faster as well.

[borsook79]

One quick fix related to your suggestion on deployment: click on the unit in the queue and it moves to the back and the next eligible unit comes up.

Right-click to be exact moves a unit to the back of the queue, so the deployment problem has been solved. It's not in the manual as it has been introduced in one of the patches, but you can find that info in patch readme.

[borsook79]

The sub warfare doesn't work well because subs are too expensive and cost too much to repair compared with the damage they cause. Since the Allied escorts can attack with as many units as possible against a single sub it means it's easy to destroy the subs. They can't evade.

I have to disagree. Subs are very powerful but only if used correctly. Allies economy relies very heavily on convoys, if you start the war by producing a few subs you can very easily starve UK and with their tiny PPs they won't be able to do anything against your subs, taking into account the destroyer cost. This tactic is very effective especially if Luftwaffe helps from the French coast. The only trick is that 4 subs is absolute minimum, and aiming at 6 is advisable. The happy times do end US entering the war, still your sub fleet should be able to inflict more PP damage than your cost. Plus when you see 200+ convoys heading for USSR you'll see that at times even losing all 6 subs but stopping 1-2 such convoys may mean winning the war in the east.

[daveinva]

Thanks to everyone for your comments, especially to you Stauffenberg RE: strategic bombing. I'll be curious to try that out.

Oh, and thanks much for solving the deployment problem!

[firepowerjohan]

Hello all.

I downloaded CEAW a few days back, and am about halfway through my first campaign game (Axis, 1939, oil off, no advantage to AI). Still trying to get the feel for everything before I "push the engine." So far, I'm enjoying the game-- it's beer & pretzels, but not ridiculously so (I was hoping CEAW wouldn't be a repeat of Panzer General, which I never really liked-- TOO abstracted for my personal tastes).

Before I continue into my observations, I'd preface everything with the argument that I'm completely happy with a game that does NOT strive to be all things to all people, as long as it has rules that are logical, consistent, and fun within the context of the game. Thus, I'm not one to argue that there aren't Marines/Paratroopers/Patton's ivory-handled pistols in the game. I've played wargames for twenty years, board and computer, and the most I ask is that they all be fun and logical within their own particular niche. I love Advanced Third Reich, HOI2, TOAW, etc., but I'm just as happy that CEAW fills that updated Clash of Steel/PG hybrid role of easy-to-play, hard-to-master.

That said, like all players do, I've found a few things that rub me a little wrong. I figure I'd list them for comment/possibilities for changing them (FYI, I've read through the forum here and over at Matrix, so unless I missed these before, yes, I've searched the forums .

1. Interface:

A. The ability to choose the order in which you deploy new builds. Others have mentioned this, but this is a problem when you have a commander in your deployment stack that you don't want to deploy yet, but you can't get to the other builds until you deploy that commander.

B. The ability to cancel a production order before hitting next turn.

C. The ability to disband a unit and return manpower to the pool. Can we get this as an option?

2. Egypt. I'm with the folks who say the British should be able to build directly there, or at least make looping there easier. I know there's a chance for a human player to use this powerful capability to their advantage/their opponent's disadvantage, but it seems like this would really aid the A.I. Allies in defending Egypt.

3. Russian objective cities. Moscow and Perm? I think there should be more of them. Definitely Moscow and Perm, but also an either/or for Leningrad and Stalingrad, or the oil fields. Obviously, in an oil-on game, the Axis has to go towards the oil fields anyway, but relying only on the Moscow-Perm direction for forcing Soviet surrender seems to be ahistorical.

4. Commanders. Can we get the A.I. to use them? I know they were a late edition to the game, but is there any chance for this to be added in via patch?

5. Submarines. They're really not very useful unless you build a lot of them, and even then, you have to use them ahistorically to take out the Royal Navy fleets if you want any hope to survive. Something tells me that this can be fixed with giving subs an advantage after battle. Perhaps only the first attack against them is at full strength, and later ones are at reduced effectiveness? Maybe better sub tech for the Axis at start?

As it stands now, I don't really see how anyone can justify a 70 pp submarine, especially since you need to buy so many to hope to be useful against convoys. There's no way to replicate any of the German "happy times" against the Allies in the early part of the war, as using your subs too early/too few just gets them slaughtered. To be accurate, this really should be the other way around, where subs are more effective *in the beginning*, only with declining effectiveness as the war/technology/U.S. fleets come into play.

I know this is close to doing the history griping I said I wouldn't do, but Axis subs just don't seem to ever cost-effective in CEAW unless there are exceptional ideal circumstances.

6. The A.I. Yes, I know, I know-- no A.I. can match a human player. I'm not interested in refighting that argument, but I will say that the A.I. in CEAD *really* needs improvement. I'm in my first game, and finding it competitive because I started out with some bad (for this game) strategic choices. But I can tell even now that it won't be hard forever, *especially* as the Allies (I've read up on all the trouble the A.I. has in offering any defense at all of France and western Germany).

Now, it seems to me that the bane of all strategic WWII game A.I. has been in getting the Axis AI to fight an effective two-front war. But can we expect to see any AI improvements in CEAW in this department? I'm not asking for human-level competence, but simply 2008-level competence. At times with this game, I think I'd unfortunately settle for *1998*-level competence. (love the game, recommending it to everyone. . . but there's no excuse for a 2008 game to only fight half a war).

Questions I haven't seen the answer to:

A. Replacements. When repairing a unit, I don't always get a maximum repair up to 10, even though I have enough PP and manpower. Why is that? I can understand that when the unit is in the line, in contact with the enemy, but when the unit is in the rear. . . just curious.

Also, is there an experience benefit to repairing a unit out of line as opposed to in contact? Maybe the distinction is too subtle, but as long as the game is making the calculation, I'd argue for less of a hit (or chance to hit-- how does this work?) to experience if the unit is repaired out of contact than if it is repaired in contact (to reflect more "peaceful" time to incorporate new replacements-- much easier to do while "resting" behind the lines, and as a benefit this reflects the actual German policy during the war).

B. ZOCs. How strong are they? They don't seem very strong at all, as I learned to my surprise with a couple of annoying deep Soviet thrusts on the Eastern Front. How much does a ZOC slow down movement? (Okay, I'm sure this was in the manual, but I'm at work without it in front of me, so I'm just curious now).

C. Is there a penalty for marching to a battle? Meaning, if you start next to the enemy and attack, is it any different than if you march five hexes and then attack? One would think your combat power would be reduced by the latter (in the first case, you attack and succeed, you get to move one hex after. The second case, you can move as many hexes as you can, then do a full attack, then move that same hex after if you overrun. Seems unbalanced).

D. I haven't played as the Allies yet. How is strategic bombing? Is it useful, or is it like submarines for the Axis.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more questions later when I think about it things some more.

Great game, Slitherine. Really having a blast, and thanks to all the folks on the forum and their suggestions/comments that have already helped me out in enjoying the game.

Cheers,
Dave

I am glad you like the game and it is always interesting to hear those who think CEAW is a good in between game compared to other games out there which shows that some ppl think the trade offs and abstraction chosen for the game were adequate