Rommel in Normandy: Initial Assessment

[Old_Warrior]

I think those who have identified the AI as the problem are correct. When you're playing as the allies in BA you have to use specific tactics to defeat the superior German armour - either a, get up close and hit rear armour, or b, attack with several tanks at once to suppress them. The AI hasn't been updated to use these tactics, therefore while the allies have superior numbers they're unable to make that count as they're too dumb to take out the panthers and tigers.

Currently the only way the AI has taken out my stronger armor is when I've made a mistake and left side armor exposed or driven past concealed infantry.

Good points. However, I did note that my Panthers were getting bumped off from the front by certain British armor. So it is not just the flank that matters. You have to know what is to the front. Esp. the Firefly but I think I was knocked off by a Cromwell too. I cannot remember the British tank at this point.

[Old_Warrior]

That last point with regard to the AI and naval artillery is very pertinent (as it is also with regard to air interdiction). The AI knows where your units are!

Gilles

Actually the US Artillery and Air "bonuses" for the AI have to scripted in and the designer CAN place them where he best thinks that a US commander would drop in the artillery. So in the case of the missions where the Germans are trying to hold a ridge (one of the missions mentioned as too easy) I would just add in two missions for US Artillery and one for US Air. Just find out when the US tanks start appearing near the ridge and then add 1 turn and drop in the artillery but make it random of course. Same for the air strike.

I never mind air and artillery in the game. Its real. Its WW2!

And the US has tons of both. It allows the AI to have a chance.

For me the Market-Garden module was the hardest. I have yet to win the first mission!

[bjarmson]

While I think any WWII game should have a certain amount of historical accuracy (unless it's a totally hypothetical scenario, i.e. Operation Sea Lion), what I'm most interested in is a challenge. I enjoy sitting down at the computer, playing BA, and being engrossed in an interesting game. This is not what is happening with the last 4/5 scenarios in RiN. They're so easy to win it makes replays boring. If the only easy way to make them more difficult is by adding more Allied artillery and airstrikes, so be it. It's not binary, it's historical reality.

[sherman619]

While I think any WWII game should have a certain amount of historical accuracy (unless it's a totally hypothetical scenario, i.e. Operation Sea Lion), what I'm most interested in is a challenge. I enjoy sitting down at the computer, playing BA, and being engrossed in an interesting game. This is not what is happening with the last 4/5 scenarios in RiN. They're so easy to win it makes replays boring. If the only easy way to make them more difficult is by adding more Allied artillery and airstrikes, so be it. It's not binary, it's historical reality.

Even Operation Sea Lion can be hypothetical and still somewhat accurate so long as the weapons of the time, strategic situation, and the probable locations of battles are accurately portrayed. The problem with heavy German tanks is that they have been so incredibly hyped over the last 3-4 decades that Joseph goebbels is probably laughing all the way from hell. It's as if the propaganda machine is still working even after the third Reich has been annihilated, exposed, and discredited.

The tanks in the game are always portrayed in the most ideal fashion, few breakdowns here and there but nothing wrong by the next turn, all the fuel in the world (like the US), no problems with supplies in general, no artillery or aircraft to contend with, and great crews. The game has done for the vehicles what only hitler's imagination could have while the concepts were still on paper. Did the vehicles have strengths? Sure, great optics, the lowest manufacturing tolerances in gun production in the world, great anti tank ammunition, and great protection. But mobility was atrocious because engines, transmissions, and final drives were being used from much lighter tanks. The tanks also lacked power traverse in the turrets unless the engine was running, the turrets turned slow enough with power traverse and manual traverse even on level ground took precious time. The vehicles were difficult to maintain requiring a ton of man hours to fix and were infuriatingly unreliable. Add in the catastrophic shortages facing the Wehrmacht late in the war and it becomes obvious that these vehicles were actually a real dreg and a logistical nightmare for the German army.

If you want to make the game realistic let players purchase these machines with the understanding that the more they move them the more likely they are to run out of fuel or breakdown. and in cases they may not be counted on at all due to crippling mechanical breakdown that renders them useless for half the game at a time. Not to mention that purchasing them should be prohibitively expensive and means getting less of the available forces. In other words let folks feel the frustration and hopelessness that the German soldier was forced to contend (artillery and aircraft included) with as they went thru the motions of losing the war. The tanks can still be valuable in defensive positions and certainly have a big role to play if used appropriately. But the way they are depicted in the game, you'd think the Germans won the war.

[LandMarine47]

While I agree with you on the engine part, Slith wants to make BA a fun board game for the mainstream gamer. Adding all this stuff in would probably discourage any players from playing after getting to the harder missions. While the Hardcore gamers would praise BA the rest of the world..... Well BA would be branded "too difficult". No matter how much we beg the mainstream gamers always win. If you want all this your going to have to mod it. As Slith has said before "Battle Academy has unlimited modding capabilities" so an official product with all of this will probably never come, but if a moderator who has the time and energy to make this will be praised! Look at Enric in his time on BA he has singlehandly changed so much! Replacing next to all bonuses with acctual units, a person can look back on his work and improve upon it! I plan on becoming a full time moderator next summer as I'm too busy with school work but when I do I plan on including engine failures that require time and energy to BA.
But BA 2 is still being developed! Lets see if engines will play a bigger part this time

[bjarmson]

Part of the German problem with armor was the bewildering variety of it. While the US and Brits had a couple of kind of tanks and tank destroyers, mostly based on the tank hull and engine drive train of Shermans, and the Russians were cranking out 1000s of T-34s and a few heavy tank variants (KT and IS), the Germans at the end of the war were trying to keep going Panzer IVs, Panthers, Tigers, King Tigers and a myriad of different tank destroyers. Parts availability for all these units was tenuous to say the least, and mechanics familiarity with some of the more esoteric units was lacking. Tanks could sit for weeks waiting for some mundane part. This led to a great many units remaining useless in repair yards, because there were no parts available to fix them (and other units available to cannibalize had non compatible parts, can't use that Marder to repair that Panzer IV or vice versa, so they both sat broken). Recovering many of the heavy tanks and heavy tank destroyers was also problematic due to the immense weight of the vehicles, so battlefield breakdowns usually meant simply abandoning them to capture by the Allies.

German armor production was also extremely limited compared to the Allies. Whereas about 22,000 Panzer IVs, Vs, and VIs were ever produced, Allied Sherman variants reached the 60,000 range and Russian medium and heavy tank production was around 75,000. That's 135,000 to 22,000 or better than a 6-1 advantage. So despite individual German tanks being better than its opposite, the German AFV susceptibility to breakdown, lack of parts and ordnance (they mostly used different shells too), inability to rescue damaged units from combat situations (the Germans were mostly in retreat by 1943), meant that individual superiority was of dubious advantage. Allied AFVs were sort of like mosquitos, swat one and suddenly there are a dozen more to deal with.