Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.4

[McGuba]

In winter '44 i am already struggling very badly against the enemy artillery, which seems incredibly strong. In 1 turn, 2 (probably overstrength) Russian artillery will take around 2-3 strength off my heavily entrenched infantry, fully suppressing them. Then the Russian tanks roll in and annihilate them. So it no longer works for me to use entrenched infantry backed by artillery as a bulwark / strongpoint on the eastern front and i am forced to rely on heavy armour to hold the line. Of course my playthrough is atypical, but i still hesitate at giving the enemy even more artillery...

I do not plan to add many new artillery to the Soviets. (Even though probably I should.) So far I only added like 4-5 additional ones for the whole war. The main difference will be that some will have longer range. Soviet artillery barrages were very strong, they invested a lot in artillery. Soviets made a similar investment in artillery as the US made in strategic bombers.

Artillery producion of most common guns (exlcuding infantry guns) form early 1930's to 1945:

SU
10,000 76mm M1939 USV field gun
48,000 76mm M1942 ZIS-3 (dual purpose) field gun
17,000 122mm M1938 howitzer
2,500 122mm M1931/37 A-19 gun
6,800 152mm M1937 ML-20 gun-howitzer
1,500 152mm M1938 M10 gun
817 203mm M1931 B-4 howitzer
+post WW1 stock of 5,500 122mm Howitzers, 4,000+ 76mm M1902/30 field guns, and the rest...

Germany
22,000 (appr.) 10.5cm leFH 18, 18M and 18/40 howitzer
5,400 15cm sFH 18 howitzer
2,200 10cm K 18 gun
711 21cm M18 howitzer
338 17cm K 18 gun

Then came the British and US production...

The numbers speak for themselves. German field artillery was heavily outnumbered for much of the war, when they faced the great powers. Even if they captured a number of foreign guns from France, Poland, Czech, etc. those were mainly used as stationary coastal guns in the Atlantic Wall.


As for the defense, in ww2 the Germans also realized fairly quickly that stationary defense just does not work in the east, partly due to the large open spaces, but also due the heavy Soviet artillery concentrations. That's why they adopted the mobile defense doctrine. The late war "Festung" idea of fortified areas or cities did not work, either. These were all encircled and successfully besieged after a while. In the end they just traded space for time against overwhelming odds. That's why they retreated for two years from mid 1943, while it took them less than 6 months to capture the same area.

[McGuba]

If I could give you a suggestion, I don't know if it's possible to do in the current state without changing the scenario balance, is to take off the AI zone of Moscow and give it to Stalingrad, since Stalingrad was much more important strategicly than Moscow in the war.

Even if the Germans were able to take the city of Moscow it wouldn't have made much difference, as most of the historical evidence suggests that the Russians would not surrender just because of that city. The important factories that would keep the Soviet war machine alive were being transfered to behind the Ural Mountains. Stalin signed the order for the transfer as early as 41. So, by the end of 42 the Soviet had already a mass production of war equipment coming from those factories, as operation Uranos have shown.

Moscow importance in the war was more symbolic.

Sorry, but I disagree with some points. There is no doubt that the Soviets would have continued to fight in case Moscow falls. That's why the capture of Moscow does not mean the end of the SU in this mod. But Stalingrad did in practice fall as the Germans reached the Volga in Nov-Dec 1942 and captured the large majority of the city. And still the Soviets were far from surrendering.

Moscow was not only symbolic, but its symbolic importance cannot be underestimated. In 1942 everybody in the world knew that Moscow is the capital of the SU. Its possible loss would have been a huge prestige loss for the SU. Much less people heard about Stalingrad before the famous battle. I dare to say that even Leningrad was more important than Stalingrad: Leningrad was the second biggest city after Moscow, and was also the home of the Baltic Fleet. Additionally, there was some more industrial capacity in Leningrad.

The other main importance of Moscow lies in its position as being a transportation hub. It is enough to have a look at a map of Russia and easy to see that Moscow is in the center of an extensive road and railroad network. And it was the same in WW2. The possible capture of Moscow would have greatly affected the transfer of goods, weapons and people within the country. Although Stalingrad was also important, largely due to the Volga, its position was more marginal. Several generals suggested that Stalingrad should not be taken as it would have been enough just to reach the Volga somewhere to disrupt the flow of goods and weapons on the river and Hitler only demanded the capture of the city because it was named after Stalin. Many beleive that Army Group South was too weak to take and hold the city and capture the Caucasus as well at the same time and possibly that was the main reason for the Axis defeat.

Therfore I would not swop Moscow for Stalingrad, but I will surely have another try if I can add a shared AI zone to it.

[Yrfin]

Just questions about movements system in BF.

So..
In standart system PzC (i mean GC) Hex equal 8-... km.
Tank unit have movement about 5 hex/turn.
4 Turn in daytime.
So, 20 Hex per day (4x5x8=160 km/day). Too much IMHO. Guderian wrote about 80 km/day like very good. Well whatever.
Fuel 40 -20 =20 next morning.
So, Tanks can move 2 days (320 km), than need to refuel 1 turn (about 3 hour). So-so looking real.
Right ?

What we seen in Big Scenarios (like BF and so on) ?
Hex was increase to 45 (?) km.
Turn was increase to 15 days/turn.
So, we have Tanks Unit with Move 5 hex at Turn. 5x45 km = 225 km in 15 days = 15 km per day ? And after moving about 40/5*15=120 days (4 Month !), Tanks need to refuel during 15 days (1 turn) ?
Im shocked.

Too slow movements for Tanks Units (doesnt matter Batallion or Division) - 160 km/day in GC and 15 km/day in BF (and 22 km/day in RaW mod).
And unreal refueling time...

In what I am wrong ?
Need we something do with it ?

Any suggestion ?

[Akkula]

Man, that is game coding. Mcguba cant do magic but to create the most accurate possible scenario by using what the game offers.
I think he did a fantastic job with the balance of the mod.

[Yrfin]

Man, that is game coding. Mcguba cant do magic but to create the most accurate possible scenario by using what the game offers.
I think he did a fantastic job with the balance of the mod.

Im sure McGuba made a Great Mod ! Really.
And i hope he can make much more in future (i think).

[Akkula]

What I meant is that your remarks cannot be fulfilled as they are game features. I am pretty sure McGuba had those numbers in this head too.
Personally I think what it makes PzC so fun and addictive is its semi-realism when it comes to strategies and logistics; otherwise it would be a game just for hardcore strategy fans.

[Yrfin]

I am pretty sure McGuba had those numbers in this head too.

Are you a brain-reader ?
Sorry but let's listen we will hear McGuba opinion.

[JimmyC]

I agree with Akkula. If you were to try and make movemement, range, etc. exactly as per historic, it would lose its fun. Also, PzC is not meant to be that. Its a light war game that roughly approximates the situation. So its really a balance of keeping the game fun and playable and making unit stats that are historically accurate.

We can at least all agree though that McGuba did an excellent job. This is by far the best PzC mod out there and i just hope he will devote the same attention to upcoming PzC2.

[McGuba]

What I meant is that your remarks cannot be fulfilled as they are game features. I am pretty sure McGuba had those numbers in this head too.
Personally I think what it makes PzC so fun and addictive is its semi-realism when it comes to strategies and logistics; otherwise it would be a game just for hardcore strategy fans.

Well said by Akkula. There is obviously a good level of abstraction and simplification in this game. It is not too hard core and boring, but also not too gamey, à la World of Tanks and the like. I guess Panzer General found the golden path between, and its "spiritual successor" just followed the good example, and harvested the crops. We will see how it continues with the next installment.

The movement / time problem indeed exists, but if you take a look at air unit movements it is even more exagerated.

I cannot say anything about the official campaigns as I had no part in it.

As for the Battlefield: Europe mod:
When I made the map in early 2014 I did not want to make it too big or too small. I was aiming at the afformentioned golden path in the middle. And I wanted to keep the vanilla movements for most units, as I assumed that over the years the large majority of players got used to the fact that for example most tanks can move 5 and most infantry can move 3 (which itself could also raise questions if you think it over). The "spiritual ancestor", Panzer General had exacly the same movement speeds for these units, and I guess the creators of PzC decided to keep them for the same reason - continuity. So since I had the movement speeds fixed I decided to adjust the map size so that players should be able to reach Moscow by Dec 1941, which is turn 12. But why is it turn 12, and not 30 or 42? Because I did not want to make the game too long either, so I decided that it should not be longer than 99 turns. So I just divided the number of the days from June 1941 to July 1945 with 99 and got 15 as a result. That's how I ended up having a 15 days long turn and checked how far the German infantry should reach by winter 1941 and adjusted the map size accordingly.

So the movement speeds in relation to the map size and time scale is mainly based on historical facts:

What we seen in Big Scenarios (like BF and so on) ?
Hex was increase to 45 (?) km.
Turn was increase to 15 days/turn.
So, we have Tanks Unit with Move 5 hex at Turn. 5x45 km = 225 km in 15 days = 15 km per day ? And after moving about 40/5*15=120 days (4 Month !), Tanks need to refuel during 15 days (1 turn) ?

(By the way one hex in this mod is closer to 25 km.)
So it should be 5x25 = 125 / 15 = 8.3 km / day for the tanks. However, I am more interested in infantry movement speed as the bulk of the German army was not motorized, so let's see that one:
3x25 = 75 / 15 = 5 km/day - pretty slow, isn't it?

Now let's see what happened historically! The German army covered about 1,000 kilometers from Brest to Moscow in 160 days (22 June to early December).
1000/160 = 6.25 km/day
That's quite close to my scale, isn't it?


Why so slow?
To start with, I guess the Russian soldiers made sure that their German comrades did not feel that they were marching on a parade. There were some battles, indeed. Then the weather. Then they had to rest. Then there were some traffic jams. And so on, and so on.

Which means in the end movement speeds for ground units in this mod are mainly average operational speeds on enemy territory over extended time.

Even then, especially, since their speed was certainly affected by the above factors, for a time I have been thinking about changing the movement speed of ground units at least on roads. Also, in WW2 tanks could always move faster on roads, their off-road speed was about half of what they could make on roads. This is not simulated at all in the PG/PzC games and I think it would worth a test. For now I am thinking to make most, if not all ground units to use only 0.7 movement points on dry roads which would result in a speed increase like this:
regular infantry: off road movement 3 - road movement 4
slower tanks like KV-1: off road 4 - road 5
average tanks like Pz.III: off road 5 - road 7
faster tanks like T-34: off road 6 - road 8
etc.

Which would make it more accurate historically, even though a 50% increase on roads would be possibly even better. But, again, firstly players got used to the (unhistorical) movements speeds with no regard to roads for tanks and infantry, and second, it is a mistery how the AI would react to it, and how it would affect the existing balance of the mod. But I think it would worth a test play at least.

A possible negative consequence can be that the AI will prefer to use roads much more than now, wich would result in a more predictable and restricted AI. Another consequence would be that artillery and other units in land transports would become even faster, which would result in even more suicidal AI runs. So maybe it should only apply to tank and leg movement. In that case it would actually reduce the number of sucicidal attacks by weak land transports as their road speeds would be closer to that of the tanks and could not overtake them on roads.

A definitely positive consequence would be somewhat faster troop movements, especially in North Africa, where there is no railroad. I think most players would welcome it.

[McGuba]

Tanks need to refuel during 15 days (1 turn) ?

Ooops, I did not write about refueling. In case it is not obvious, max fuel in this mod represents a combination of actual range and reliablility. Units with low reliability like early T-34 or early Tiger tanks have low fuel to represent reduced mobility affected by frequent breakdowns and maintenance. But all other tanks and vehicles needed maintenance at times and crews had to have some rest sometimes, too. So by no means it takes two weeks to refuel a tank unit.

So when it comes to:

And after moving about 40/5*15=120 days (4 Month !), Tanks need to refuel during 15 days (1 turn) ?

in my understanding it means that if a tank unit moves for 120 days than during that time it has to spend 15 days with refuelling, resting, repair, etc. Thus in 12% of the time interval it is not combat ready, which results in an average 88% serviceability. Which is not bad at all, as for example in 1944 Panther and Pz.IV tanks had something like 60-70% serviceability rate on average (60-70% of all available tanks were combat ready, the rest were out of service for whatever reason, which may include maintenenace, rest, waiting for spare parts, repairing battle damage, and yes, refueling ).

[JimmyC]

By the way, what happened to Operation Market Garden? I experienced this in v1.06 but not in 1.08. Did you remove it or are there some triggers that must be fulfilled in order for the event to happen?

[McGuba]

No, I did not remove it. It has some requirements, though. If I remember well, the Allies has to take two "important" Axis cities, which is most likely Paris and Tunis. If that stands it can happen after fall 1944. If the Allies do not take at least two of these then they are likely too far from Belgium and then the whole operation becomes even more suicidal than it actually was.

[Yrfin]

So I just divided the number of the days from June 1941 to July 1945 with 99 and got 15 as a result.

Its clear.

(By the way one hex in this mod is closer to 25 km.)

Lest see the map. Moscow -Brest = 28 max hex. 1100/28=40 km. Moscow-Leningrad=17 hex. 700/17=40 km.

3x25 = 75 / 15 = 5 km/day

So 3x40=120 /15 = 8 km/day in mod.

Now let's see what happened historically! The German army covered about 1,000 kilometers from Brest to Moscow in 160 days (22 June to early December).
1000/160 = 6.25 km/day

But lets see historical.
First : -1 month for Kiev operation.
Second: winter movement.
So lets see to Smolensk (captured 16.07.41 - 25 days) Brest - Smolensk 800 km /25 = 32 km/day in history.

For now I am thinking to make most, if not all ground units to use only 0.7 movement points on dry roads which would result in a speed increase like this:
regular infantry: off road movement 3 - road movement 4
slower tanks like KV-1: off road 4 - road 5
average tanks like Pz.III: off road 5 - road 7
faster tanks like T-34: off road 6 - road 8
etc. Which would make it more accurate historically, even though a 50% increase on roads would be possibly even better.

Sound like good solution.

A possible negative consequence can be that the AI will prefer to use roads much more than now, wich would result in a more predictable and restricted AI. Another consequence would be that artillery and other units in land transports would become even faster, which would result in even more suicidal AI runs. So maybe it should only apply to tank and leg movement. In that case it would actually reduce the number of sucicidal attacks by weak land transports as their road speeds would be closer to that of the tanks and could not overtake them on roads..

Absolutly. Average speed for transportation Heavy Arty cant be more than tanks speed.

A definitely positive consequence would be somewhat faster troop movements, especially in North Africa, where there is no railroad. I think most players would welcome it.

Why only N. Afrika ? I suggest ALL troops must be faster (+1 maybe even +2 move from current value).
Tanks on road 7 move: 40*7/15= 18 km/day BF. Close to 32 than 13 km/day in current version
And of coz transport movements must be changed/balanced so.

...and second, it is a mistery how the AI would react to it, and how it would affect the existing balance of the mod. But I think it would worth a test play at least.

We will see it in future versions of BF after test

[Yrfin]

And after moving about 40/5*15=120 days (4 Month !), Tanks need to refuel during 15 days (1 turn) ?

in my understanding it means that if a tank unit moves for 120 days than during that time it has to spend 15 days with refuelling, resting, repair, etc. Thus in 12% of the time interval it is not combat ready, which results in an average 88% serviceability. Which is not bad at all, as for example in 1944 Panther and Pz.IV tanks had something like 60-70% serviceability rate on average (60-70% of all available tanks were combat ready, the rest were out of service for whatever reason, which may include maintenenace, rest, waiting for spare parts, repairing battle damage, and yes, refueling ).

Looking too rare stopping for maintenenace: 15 days / 4 month. But with move 7 (average tank unit) it will be 15 days /3 month (17 %).
May be even decrease fuel at 10 % ?

[Ceek]

Hi again, McGuba,

I just finished a play-through beginning in June, 1944 and want to offer some feedback on some of the new game mechanics I noticed.

• 1. I liked that you gift the player under-strength units during the dying days of the war. It's fun to get to play with the "wunderweapons," even if it is in a doomed effort where they are quickly overwhelmed by Allied numbers and experience.
  2. Overall, the end game feels much better simulated in terms of the number of Allied units, their quality, the AI's direction/strategy, and the coordination between elements (air, ground, and naval) than in earlier versions. I don't know how much of this was sheer luck of the play-through or by your design, but beginning in June of 1944 is now a true challenge, and I was defeated quite soundly after Romania fell.
  3. Unfortunately, one element of "Gotterdammerung" that needs reworking is how the supply crisis is modeled following the fall of the Ploesti oil fields. Currently, the mod imposes a -5 penalty on all armored units following the fall of Ploesti. This penalty interferes with other game mechanics in a significant way, and I suggest you modify how the supply crisis is simulated in 1.9. I'll explain the issues I experienced in more detail in what follows, including a suggestion for a possible work-around.
  
  In my play-through, I found that the -5 fuel penalty every turn makes armor a huge liability given how supply rules work. For example, if you are adjacent to more than a single enemy unit, low-fuel units won't be able to resupply sufficiently to allow the unit to resupply sufficiently to be able to move. In my play-through, this meant that whenever more than one enemy units wound up adjacent to my low-fuel units (esp. Tigers and Panthers), they were quickly drained of fuel without possibility of resupply. On top of this, the fuel penalty continues to count beyond zero so that even if you are able to free a unit of being surrounded (good luck at this late stage of the war!), you're still potentially stuck resupplying it for multiple turns before it can move again. The -5 penalty also causes strange problems if Panthers and Tigers are placed in forests or hills based on the resupply penalty implemented in 1.8 (not to mention V1s and V2s are practically unusable). All told, the new rule required a level of micromanagement where I had to carefully calculate using my armor knowing that one false move and they would be doomed, and even then it was nearly impossible to prevent them from getting trapped along the front lines where they were quickly surrounded and destroyed. Maybe all this is by design, but it was frustrating nonetheless, and I couldn't understand why a crippling penalty for armor units wasn't also imposed on naval and air units.
  
  My suggestion is to instead implement the Ploesti oil penalty as you did with the Italian Navy in early1942, cutting max fuel levels for all Axis units and to impose the penalty gradually every month or so with the max arriving, say, 6 months following the fall (this max could even be, say, 66%). Importantly, this would help prevent units ending up in negative fuel levels (which feels a bit broken, as a game mechanic), while still imposing a significant hindrance on German strategic aims in the war's late stage (which I believe was the intention of the penalty). If you still feel like this is too generous, you could also impose a similar penalty for max ammo counts, too, cutting these by 33%-50% (perhaps tied to the number of successful bomber raids over Germany, or something else?). Finally, I would also include naval and air units in whatever global supply penalty you impose, for consistency's sake.

Separately, I noticed the following event issues during my play through.

• 1. I received a message for the Volksturm event, yet the trigger did not fire in terms of actually generating any new units in Germany. Also, I could still buy '44 infantry through to the end of the war. In previous versions this was not the case.
  2. The Market Garden event fired for me even though the Allies did not control Paris. I thought I read in a recent post that it wasn't supposed to happen if that city wasn't held by Allies.
  3. A replacement Finish unit randomly appeared for me a few turns after Finland surrendered. (He did not survive for long.)

[McGuba]

Looking too rare stopping for maintenenace: 15 days / 4 month. But with move 7 (average tank unit) it will be 15 days /3 month (17 %).
May be even decrease fuel at 10 % ?

It is possible, but then eventually they would slow down as what they gain with the faster road movement they would almost lose with more often refuelling.

Unfortunately, one element of "Gotterdammerung" that needs reworking is how the supply crisis is modeled following the fall of the Ploesti oil fields.

the new rule required a level of micromanagement where I had to carefully calculate using my armor knowing that one false move and they would be doomed, and even then it was nearly impossible to prevent them from getting trapped along the front lines where they were quickly surrounded and destroyed.

These losses are supposed to simulate the increasingly large number of German operational tank losses suffered at the final stage of the war. An operational loss means a unit which has to be left behind due to mechanical problem, combat damage or lack of fuel or lack of recovery vehicle. These losses are obviously more common with the side which is on retreat as the site where the tank is left is taken over by the enemy and it is not possible to retrieve it later. Thus the tank becomes a loss even if it is not necessarily destroyed or knocked out by the enemy. This mechanic, albeit being frustrating, can simulate operational losses quite well in the game.

I couldn't understand why a crippling penalty for armor units wasn't also imposed on naval and air units.

Naval units already get a serious penalty earlier and because of that I did not want to further limit their usefullness. But if Ploiesti falls chances are high that the general situation is so bad that navy is already largely destroyed so it would not make a big difference to limit the fuel of the few remaining ships. As for the air units, I did not want to give them the same penalty as in that case sometimes they would just run out of fuel and fall down unexpectadly which would be even more frustrating. And the same applies here: if Ploiesti falls chances are high that the Allies have total air superiority anyway, so reducing the fuel of air units would make little difference.

My suggestion is to instead implement the Ploesti oil penalty as you did with the Italian Navy in early1942, cutting max fuel levels for all Axis units and to impose the penalty gradually every month or so with the max arriving, say, 6 months following the fall (this max could even be, say, 66%).

Unfortunately I cannot do the same here as I used a different method for the ships in early 1942. It is not possible to change the unit stats during a scenario so the trick I did was I replaced each battleship with a similar unit but with lower max fuel. I could only do so because naval units cannot be upgraded so I could easily replace e.g. the Tirpitz with another Tirpitz class battleship, but with lower fuel. Now, I cannot do the same with ground or air units as these can be upgraded to any other type and thus there is no way to tell that what unit should I replace with for example the unit named "Panzer 6." in late 1944. Should it be a Pz.IVJ or a Panther? That's why I decided to use a fixed -5 fuel penalty for all ground units. Although for a while I was thinking that it might be a bit too harsh so I might reduce it to -3 or make it happen in every second turn and not in every.

1. I received a message for the Volksturm event, yet the trigger did not fire in terms of actually generating any new units in Germany.

Ok, I will check this message. The player only gets Volksturm units if none of the German cities marked with the black "+" is in Allied hand.

Also, I could still buy '44 infantry through to the end of the war. In previous versions this was not the case.

Yes, I changed it recently back. Mainly because otherwise players on the winning path would not be able to upgrade their infantry to the latest 44 Model in the final turns which would make no sense. Players on the losing side have serious prestige problems anyway form early 1945 so they can hardly afford purchasing or upgrading this expensive late war infantry. And if they can, it is good for them.

2. The Market Garden event fired for me even though the Allies did not control Paris. I thought I read in a recent post that it wasn't supposed to happen if that city wasn't held by Allies.
3. A replacement Finish unit randomly appeared for me a few turns after Finland surrendered. (He did not survive for long.)

Will try to fix these.

[P210]

Couple of comments,

The fuel penalty is rough but justifiable. Little less than -5 per turn might be better. And I wish it would not go into negative side.

Finnish unit after armistice. Not all Finns actually believed that SU would honor armistice and would not occupy Finland. Therefore significant stocks of small arms, including AT weapons, were hidden all over the country and plans were made to organize large scale guerilla war against occupation forces. SU was aware of this and number Finns were imprisoned due to this. This might or might not have influenced in that Finland managed to stay independent after the war. These weapon caches still emerge time to time. Therefore one could argue that the lone Finn infantry unit is actually historically accurate as the in game SU forces will invade Finland.

[Yrfin]

Looking too rare stopping for maintenenace: 15 days / 4 month. But with move 7 (average tank unit) it will be 15 days /3 month (17 %).
May be even decrease fuel at 10 % ?

It is possible, but then eventually they would slow down as what they gain with the faster road movement they would almost lose with more often refuelling.

Not realy. Lets see.
Pz III series for example.
1. Move 5 Fuel 41.
41/5=8 turns + 1 turn for maintenenace: 9 turns x 15 days = 135 days.
5 move x 40 km/hex x 8 turns = 1600 km.
1600 km / 135 days = 11.9 km/day
2. Decrease Fuel (maintenenace) to 41-6=35 (15 % decrease)
35/5=7 turns + 1 turn for maintenenace: 8 turns x 15 days = 120 days.
5 move x 40 km/hex x 7 turns = 1400 km.
1400 km / 120 days = 11.7 km/day

Logistic rulez

What if change a movements on Roads only (Increase March Speed) ?
Coefficient 0.5 - 0.6 for Tanks & Inf ?

[Yrfin]

Finnish unit after armistice. Not all Finns actually believed that SU would honor armistice and would not occupy Finland. Therefore significant stocks of small arms, including AT weapons, were hidden all over the country and plans were made to organize large scale guerilla war against occupation forces. SU was aware of this and number Finns were imprisoned due to this. This might or might not have influenced in that Finland managed to stay independent after the war. These weapon caches still emerge time to time. Therefore one could argue that the lone Finn infantry unit is actually historically accurate as the in game SU forces will invade Finland.

lol

[Brontoburguer]

If I could give you a suggestion, I don't know if it's possible to do in the current state without changing the scenario balance, is to take off the AI zone of Moscow and give it to Stalingrad, since Stalingrad was much more important strategicly than Moscow in the war.

Even if the Germans were able to take the city of Moscow it wouldn't have made much difference, as most of the historical evidence suggests that the Russians would not surrender just because of that city. The important factories that would keep the Soviet war machine alive were being transfered to behind the Ural Mountains. Stalin signed the order for the transfer as early as 41. So, by the end of 42 the Soviet had already a mass production of war equipment coming from those factories, as operation Uranos have shown.

Moscow importance in the war was more symbolic.

Sorry, but I disagree with some points. There is no doubt that the Soviets would have continued to fight in case Moscow falls. That's why the capture of Moscow does not mean the end of the SU in this mod. But Stalingrad did in practice fall as the Germans reached the Volga in Nov-Dec 1942 and captured the large majority of the city. And still the Soviets were far from surrendering.

Moscow was not only symbolic, but its symbolic importance cannot be underestimated. In 1942 everybody in the world knew that Moscow is the capital of the SU. Its possible loss would have been a huge prestige loss for the SU. Much less people heard about Stalingrad before the famous battle. I dare to say that even Leningrad was more important than Stalingrad: Leningrad was the second biggest city after Moscow, and was also the home of the Baltic Fleet. Additionally, there was some more industrial capacity in Leningrad.

The other main importance of Moscow lies in its position as being a transportation hub. It is enough to have a look at a map of Russia and easy to see that Moscow is in the center of an extensive road and railroad network. And it was the same in WW2. The possible capture of Moscow would have greatly affected the transfer of goods, weapons and people within the country. Although Stalingrad was also important, largely due to the Volga, its position was more marginal. Several generals suggested that Stalingrad should not be taken as it would have been enough just to reach the Volga somewhere to disrupt the flow of goods and weapons on the river and Hitler only demanded the capture of the city because it was named after Stalin. Many beleive that Army Group South was too weak to take and hold the city and capture the Caucasus as well at the same time and possibly that was the main reason for the Axis defeat.

Therfore I would not swop Moscow for Stalingrad, but I will surely have another try if I can add a shared AI zone to it.

Hello, McGuba!

I coulnd't win the war against SU yet, neither take the city Moscow, so I didn't knew about the battle continuing in the East after Moscow falling to the Germans. But very nice to hear that!

When I meant Stalingrad it was not exactly because of the city importance per se, it was more because I think the main soviet oil supply line from the Caucasus came from the Volga, passing through that city. For the Germans, they would have just to set foot on one side of the river to cut that line, they actually didn't had to take that city. Yet, as you know, Hitler didn't saw things that way, so the battle developed the way it did, and it was quite a mistake of the Germans.

But since we're talking about a game, to make things simplier to the players, I think just taking the city of Stalingrad would better represent the movement of cutting those Soviet oil supplies I'm talking about. Of course the Soviet would have made use of some other route, like ships in the Caspian Sea, for example. But I personally don't think they would have the logistics to keep up a operation like this as it was before, with the trains and the barks. And if the Germans focused their forces to reach the Caspian instead of going south to the Transcaucasus Mountains, expending much time and their few resources, and instead, establishing air bases next to the sea route in the Caspian, it would be quite a challenge for the Soviet to keep receiving their precious oil.

And without oil the Soviet couldn't make any of their mobile offensives against Germany. So, considering the contexts after invading SU, I think the only feasible chance the Germans had back then to put the war at least in a stalemate, would be going in that direction, I think.

My Best Regards, Brontoburguer!