Technologies - Unit Types, Armour & Equipment

[miki]

50L42 it was

[firepowerjohan]

honvedseg. that was a nice interesting reply and the kind of reply we eventually expected

The thing is, to not make game too hardcore and tough for the casual gamer, we want to give each country the same values so same tech levels (there are several techs for tanks) would produce the same numbers when leaving the factory regardless of nationality.

So, if dividing them into several armour classes we need images that differ. Some models look too alike so if u dont zoom in or have very much tank knowledge u wont see the tech level directly on map. Our goal is that the game is hard to master but easy and fast to play especially so that multiplayer games of this big scale can be completed in one session. We also would not want a 1945 light tank to look indentical to a 1939 heavy tank hence there need to be some kind of manipulation. Another way would ofcourse be that there are only light tanks at the start of the war... and with technology you can build medium and heavy tanks later on. We are open to suggestion. Again it is the realism vs playability issue.

So, thats is why we have to find out if units as selp propelled anti tank armour and self propelled artillery are convenient for using for some models without upsetting the historical fans

Another problem is, having say light , medium , heavy tanks i.e 3 armour classes could be tough since at the start of the war realisticly there were no heavy tanks for some countries...

Even if we cannot satisfy every different opinion of different ppl, we do want to avoid features that are crucial for some ppl to even play the game.

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for the feedback Hovensdog. What we're interested in is does this justify the use of 2 types of armoured corps - Heavy & Light/Medium? Were some corps equipped with heavier tanks than others or were all armoured corps roughly the same with a mix of light, medium & heavy tanks?

I think Marder had a heavy gun so one idea was that it could be classed as heavy armour because of its punch, but its limited armour and lack of rear & overhead protection I think prevents this. So many different pieces of equipment and most of them changed many times during the war! I guess that's why this is such an interesting period and why we need some guidance from you guys on what is accurate and what isn't!

Isn't it a Marder that comes along with the Tiger I's at the end of Saving Private Ryan? I was at Duxford Imperial War museum last week doing some research & saw the Tiger I they constructed for Saving Private Ryan. They also have a Sherman, Churchill, Crusader, Panzer III, T34, JS II and much more, plus a plethora of aircraft (we got buzzed by a Mustang & Spitfire). They even have a V1 & launch platform, coastal artillery and a huge radar dish. It's well worth a look if you are able to get there.

[tora_tora_tora]

Can corps be upgraded after they got purchased?

I mean in the year 1941, player made several armored units.
And some of them do survive harsh russian winter.
During winter, back in Germany, there appears Tiger Ⅰ on the tech tree diagram.
So player send back the best armor unit back to Germany or railhead, and upgrade it into Heavy armored unit,
while others got medium tanks upgrade.

[xtiaan72]

If you are modeling a Corp level game I can promise you that the majority of wargamers that know what they are talking about are going to want to stack them into "army units". If you don't want to stack units then why wouldn't you guys want to base the units on armies instead of corps? Corps are too small for a whole hex on this scale imho.

The original SC did allow for some stacking. Sc2 doesn't but they model corps and army units so it still works, Although many players prefer the original stacking rules.

How is your game different from the SC series? Are corps going to be grouped into armies that have the same commander? That would be new but possibly as confusing and complex as stacking ( If that is what you are worried about?).

To model Corps with no stacking on this scale would require hundreds of Corps per side. A Corp is just a grouping of more than one division. It's very subjective what a Corp really is. ( in reality Corps vary in size depending on the situation and divs could be attached or detached as needed).

But if armies could split into corps. That would be something new in a game like this. Realistic and cool to be able to split up armies to encircle enemy positions and allow for corp with different abilities.

By the way, I am not an SC fan boy. Its a good game design with questionable AI. I hope Commander is better on every level. But its has to be said that this game looks very similar to SC from what I can gather so far.

[IainMcNeil]

Don't forget our map is probably around *4 the size of the SC map so there are many more hexes & you can sit corps next to each other to create army groups. .

[tora_tora_tora]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Group_Centre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

it seems player got many corps, I suppose. maybe around 30 per front or more?
if you got 200 divisions and eacn corps have 5 divisions, it means 40 corps.
And besides, you have fighters and bombers, and if you have arctic convoys like PQ-17,
then you have another front up in the north. That's the reason some of you tell about User Interface.
Am I at last catch up the original intention of this thread?

humm, NATO type symbol is easy to distinguish with each other, though 2D icons could be really problem.

infantry corps' icons could be pictgram depicts rifles, machineguns, and handheld anti-tank weapons.
Kar98 and granade > helmet with MG34 >helmet with MG42 >helmet with MP44 >Pz. Faust

armored corps' icons could be
PzⅠ > Pz Ⅱ　> Pz　Ⅲ　>Pz Ⅳ　>　Panther, and when commanders with special ability is added, heavy tanks, assault guns, stukas, cannons and
like that appear in the background, or foreground in smaller pictgram.

what is really hard is with fighters aeroplane.
From Bf.109E to Bf.109K, they got some changes, but it is really hard to discern with each other from far distance.
Bf109, Fw160, Ta152 might be good, but if every technology has five steps, I need two more.

Though problems is, if axis and allies, and russians have same icons set, and only difference is their colours, there might be some more
universal, non-specific suitable designs.

[malthaussen]

There is so much to be said on this subject it is difficult to know where to start. Usually, in a case such as this, it is best to define your terms before you do anything else.

So, is your question one of functionality or eye-candy? If you simply want pretty icons to differentiate a 1945 heavy tank from a 1942 heavy tank, there are plenty of choices. If the question is functionality, however, then IMO you are operating at too high a level for equipment differences to make much difference.

Certainly, when it comes to the tactical and operational levels, the exact tank or airplane one is sitting in makes an enormous difference, but at the corps level all that matters are numbers, training, and logistics. Especially since you have already decided not to allow the players to decide on corps compositions, even though every one of the contenders in the conflict had different ideas about corps structure and these ideas had a definite impact on the outcome of battles.

You will discover, however, as you investigate this question, that you are going to have a very hard time finding some units, because they just didn't exist. A Geman heavy bomber? No chance, unless you want to include a weapon that was only proposed but never flew. An allied jet? One could use a Meteor, I suppose, for the Western Allies, but the Russians had no jets. Maybe you'll need to use a MiG-13. A heavy tank for the western Allies? They didn't have any until 1945. And so forth.

Your decision to make all units for all sides the same at any given level of technology makes perfect sense in terms of play-balance, but it is grossly unrealistic. Technology is not, per se, a determinant of unit quality or effectiveness, unless under "technology" you are subsuming such questions as mechanized doctrine, development of engineering techniques and equipment, artillery employment and doctrine, and other questions of tecnique, training, and organization. The Germans didn't overrun France in ten days because they had more or better toys than their enemies, but because they had a better doctrine for employing these toys -- which is not something one can necessarily develop by throwing a few "research points" into tanks.

As for your unit types, in terms of employment you really only have a few kinds of land units: armored corps, mech inf corps, motor inf corps, foot inf corps, cavalry corps (for the Russians and Poles, anyway), and maybe a paratrooper corps, although these were really ad-hoc units and never had any kind of fixed establishment. Among these, the only "icons" you can use that would provide any differentiation would be for armored corps, since there just isn't enough variety in trucks, half-tracks, and horses to make any difference between units of various technologies (I suppose one could make the horses different colors).

You want to have apporx 6 levels of tech development per corps type, and a distinct icon to reflect this, if I understand the thread. So, for tanks, at lvl 1 one should probably use a lighter tank icon -- Pz II, Mark VI, and one of the Russian choices (there are many). As technology improves, you develop medium tanks, and at the end of the cycle you get the heavies. This is ahistorical -- the Tiger was operational in late 1942, and is a heavy tank, whereas the Panther was not operational until a year later, and it is a medium tank, but you aren't really concerned with this. For your icons to reflect the potency of the weapons, this light-medium-heavy progression would work. There is really no point in discussing tank destroyers, self-propelled artillery, and other weapons of this nature, because they will not be reflected in the functionality of the unit. You'll have an easy time doing this for the Germans, but not for the Allies. The Soviets settled on one medium tank quite early, and produced 50,000 of them: the T-34. You can use a T-34C for the early tech levels, and a T-34/85 for, say, tech level 4 or 5. For the western allies, however, you have some problems: there is a lot of equipment, especially British, but mostly at the lower tech levels. Once the Sherman was developed (piece of crap that it was), the Western Allies used it (almost) exclusively as their MBT. You might make a distinction between the US Sherman and the Firefly to mark a tech jump, although the latter was only used by the British in very small quantities.

Aircraft are more problematical, because there isn't a lot of variation: the Germans used the Bf109, the British the Spitfire, and the Russkies whatever they could get their hands on. While there is a great deal of difference, performance-wise, between the Bf109D and the Bf109K, the plane still looks pretty much the same. But it is not so much performance as, again, doctrine that marks the "development" of air forces during the war, especially in the fields of tactical support and strategic bombing. You can start with biplanes, since every nation but Germany employed them as first-line fighters at the beginning of the war, then go on to early monoplanes and evolve eventually to jets, but somewhere in there you are going to have to make a distinction between nations which used fighters for tac support, as the U.S. did, and those that did not, like the Germans. You also need to consider the role of the fighter: interceptor or escort? Development of escort doctrine makes or breaks a strategic bombing campaign, and can be reflected by a particular icon, e.g. a bf110 or a P-51.

I hope after you finish this game you think a bit about making something a bit more detailed and complex (and realistic). The computer provides such great facility for records-keeping and numbers crunching, that it's a shame an occasional game hasn't been produced that really gets into the guts of a simulation, rather than just being "fun and playable."

-- Mal

[xtiaan72]

"Don't forget our map is probably around *4 the size of the SC map so there are many more hexes & you can sit corps next to each other to create army groups. "



- That is really big! I Didn't realize how big the map is compared to SC. On that scale I think the game could do quite well with Corp size units. And on that scale I think you could consider having Artillery pieces that had range. Nothing overpowered but some shock like you were talking about. I think it would add to gameplay and not really be unrealistic.

Everything malthaussen said is very true. The Mark series, The Sherman, T-34 are pretty much the main battle tanks for each side. Panthers and Tigers were not produced in enough quantities to really replace or substitute for Mark tanks. But at least the Marks are a series of tanks that could represent some sort of tech advance. The options really are pretty nil for the allies who's tanks started the war as death traps and ended the same way.

Maybe you should use little "Stars" on the units to represent tech advancement.

"Your decision to make all units for all sides the same at any given level of technology makes perfect sense in terms of play-balance, but it is grossly unrealistic."

-I agree. So much better to simulate the actual strengths and weakness or each side into the units. Example: Allies have poor armor but exceptional air power. Germans have all round quality and secret weapons but little resources. Russians have man-power. England has superior navy ect. I realize that is a simplification but at least it abstracts some realities. Making the units exactly the same for each side at each tech level is, hate to say it, very beer and pretzles. But I like games like that too. Was just hoping for a little historical modeling.

[*Lava*]

What are peoples thoughts on artillery?

Hi Iain,

Since you asked for thoughts... I will fell free to comment.

Personally, at this scale, with one corps per hex, what I would like to see is the division of units into combat and support.

Combat units are your normal corps: infantry, mech, armor.

Support units would be stuff like artillery, recon, anti-tank, headquarters, etc. They would have to be of a smaller unit composition than corps, battalion for example.

Ideally, a structure like this would allow the player 1 corps per hex and 1 support unit stacked.

I know this is probably much more detailed than you all are looking at, but when I look at games like Strategic Command I, such a capability would have made it far more interesting from a strategic viewpoint, because well, that is the way war is fought. It's a building block affair with combat and support units. The problem is, finding the right balance to keep it at the strategic level, but at the same time making it interesting through variability, yet simplistic in design.

Ray (alias Lava)

[*Lava*]

Thanks for the feedback Hovensdog. What we're interested in is does this justify the use of 2 types of armoured corps - Heavy & Light/Medium? Were some corps equipped with heavier tanks than others or were all armoured corps roughly the same with a mix of light, medium & heavy tanks?

Hi!

I think a better description of armor at the corps level would be light/medium and medium/heavy. Or Just light and medium. For all the kewlness of heavy armor, it was never fielded in sufficient quantities to deserve a corps designation as "Heavy." Yep, heavier tanks such as the Tiger were produced as early as 1942, but their numbers were never substantial due to design problems and heavy fuel usage. I believe there were less than 2000 Tiger/King Tiger tanks produced during the war.

Basically you have a period (1939-1942) in which armor was predominately light. For example, in Operation Barbarossa, of the 3,300 odd German tanks, there were only about 1,400 PzKpfw III's and IV's. After Barborassa the Germans began upgrading their PzKpfw III's and IV's (forming the core of German armored divisions in '42), getting rid of the PzKpfw I altogether and working on a "true" medium tank the PzKpfw V (Panther), which did not see mass production until 1943. From 1943 to the end of the war, the "basic" German division consisted of upgraded PzKpfw IV's and V's.

Thus, at least at the "corps" level, calling a tank unit "heavy" would be misleading, however, having said that, for the casual gamer, it might be percieved as far kewler.

As I pointed out in the post above, if you allowed "support" units to attach to corps, one such way of modeling heavy tanks would be to make them a support unit as they are too few in number, but definately bring a superior capability into the game.

Ray (alias Lava)

[pompousdivinus]

Thanks for the feedback Hovensdog. What we're interested in is does this justify the use of 2 types of armoured corps - Heavy & Light/Medium? Were some corps equipped with heavier tanks than others or were all armoured corps roughly the same with a mix of light, medium & heavy tanks?

I think a better description of armor at the corps level would be light/medium and medium/heavy. Or Just light and medium. For all the kewlness of heavy armor, it was never fielded in sufficient quantities to deserve a corps designation as "Heavy."

Ray (alias Lava)

I totally agree; at Corps level the type of panzer should not be the main concern. To the contrary it would have a very strange effect on the game to find a whole corps say, the XLVIII Panzerkorps represented with a Panther symbol whereas the XLVI still is represented by Pz III.
Of course those who play the game because of the nice graphics might disagree. But imho a game like this will not be played by too many graphic freaks anyway.

I'd be rather concerned about the fact that a genuine corps level without stacking possibilities and very similar units in 1939 ( I don't think that French, Brits and Germans had that different equipment that it would have effects on Corps level) will rather lead to a WWI style combat type with little possibility for breakthroughs.

Maybe you could allow Divisions AND Corps as units: like this you wouldn't have a problem with stacking but have significantly different combat values allowing a kind of Schwerpunkt tactics.
(BTW the Soviets wouldn't have used Corps (except artillery) but rather(sorps sized)armies& divisions anyway- but this would be of course too confusing)

In the good old days boardgaming there was something like an SPI standard for tank divisions (Corps in your case). These units (to reflect organisatorial superiority it was only used for German and US tanks) were split up into Regiments (equal to Divisions in CommanderEaW that you could provide with all sorts of fancy tank symbols ) but when combined into a divisional stack (single Corps unit in your case) their combat strength was doubled. This - together with a movement system for breaktroughs- avoided any kind of trench warfarelike situations when Panzers were involved. On the other hand it was pretty nasty to loose one of the regiments: the combination ability was lost for that division if the regiment could not be replaced.
Maybe you can think of a similar possiblilty.

[malthaussen]

Adding support units would contribute to the realism of the game, yes, but it appears that the devs don't want to do this because it is too complex. IMO, allowing "one support unit per corps" or some such thing is just as unrealistic as no support units at all: every country had different units and different ideas (not all of them good) about how to attach them at the corps level and below. For example, a typical U.S. corps would comprise 2 Inf Divs and 1 Armored Div, but have attached some six to eight batteries of medium and heavy artillery, plus AAA, tank and tank-destroyer battalions (towed and SP), and a whole bunch of combat engineers. Remember all the loose corps-level units that were running around the map in the SPI Battle of the Bulge game? IIRC, something like half of the combat units in the U.S. Army in Europe were "independent" battalions that were "temporarily" attached to divisions and corps, even if "temporary" meant for all of 1944 and 1945. This is rather difficult to simulate in a corps level game.

It is also rather difficult to simulate with "technological advances," which means that the typical U.S. corps is going to suffer considerably in comparison to the others. You might keep in mind that the whole U.S. Army in Europe fielded only what, twenty corps or thereabouts, and the Commonwealth about ten? Whereas the Germans had nearly a hundred of the buggers running around in east and west Europe, albeit corps that were much, much less effective than those of their enemies. How is this going to be simulated in this game? And how does the game address the fact that the Russians dropped the Infantry Corps formation right around the time Barbarassa started, and only fielded infantry divisions (grouped into armies), while their tanks and mechanized units were fielded as either corps or independent brigades? Just how far from Axis and Allies is this game going to end up, actually?

-- Mal

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for the great feedback. A few points
* Although tech levels will be equal for all sides, it doesn't mean that nations will start at the same tech level. E.g. Allies could have better fighters or bombers, while Germans have better tanks, or organisation. This allows for each side to have strengths & weaknesses, those these can be overcome if the opposition really focuses on research in that area - though obviously they will lose out in others.
* Each unit has multiple techs it can benefit from so its not a simple level 1, 2 3 etc. You can improve armour, weaponry, AA, AT and teh tech level displayed will be an average of your abilities across different areas. You could have teh most lethal tanks in the world, but they might be made of paper! I'm not saying this is a good strategy but it's up to you! In general research will be spread across all areas of a units design but you can focus on one area to the detriment of others.
* The unit icons are just eye candy. A pather icon does not mean a corps of panthers it means a corps of mixed units, but we're using the icon to denote how advanced that unit is. We could use stars but this feels misleading & looks like experience to me. The plan is to try and show as much information in as many different ways as possible. We could just use an icon for each piece of information but then the map becomes a blur of icons. The trick is to design things in a way to get the information across with the lowest amount happening on screen, so people know what's happening without even realising it. That's good UI design!
* Stacked units really doesnt sit well with us as far as gameplay & UI design goes. Supporting units is fine, but I think they would need to be from adjacent hexes, and maybe this is a step too far for now. We need to be careful not to try and do too much or it will (a) never get done, (b) be full of bugs and (c) too many features added in one go can result in unbalanced gameplay.
* If we split tanks corps into light & heavy, will that sit ok with you guys, or does it feel wrong?

[*Lava*]

Go for it Iain!

It's really hard to comment when one has so little information on the mechanics of the game.

I would, however, trust in your ability as a game designer to strike a good balance.

Ray (alias Lava)

[pompousdivinus]

* If we split tanks corps into light & heavy, will that sit ok with you guys, or does it feel wrong?

At a corps size this feels (historically) wrong. U just wouldn't have found corps of either heavy or light tanks. Since you are looking for 5-6 Levels of armour it seems even better to me to use the year instead to reflect the tecnical as well as organisational development, e.g. Armour 39 + PzII Symbol, Armour 41 + Pz IV symbol, (goes for aircraft as well e.g. Fighter 43 with a Thunderbolt symbol or whatever). When having researched the respective Armour it is necessary to spent production points to refit the old armour.
This would have the effect that a player might have Armour 39 in 1941 if not researched enough with heavy penalties when fighting against an enemy of Armour 41 but also allows you to research Armour 44 already in 42!
But mind you this should also include the organisational development (otherwise German Armour41 wouldnt stand a chance against Soviet 41).
To make things a bit complicated you could even have a ranking within a given year e.g. Fighter 44
US
British
German
Russian
but Fighter 45 (taking into consideration the appearance of jetfighters)
German
US
British
Russian

so that the German faction should frantically try to get from Fighter44 to Fighter45 when the opponent has researched Fighter44

[SMK-at-work]

Legion Arena doesn't run on my system sadly, so I'm looking forward to this.

At a Corps level there are fewer differences - IMO there's no need for light tanks vs mediums and heavies for example, unless there's something I've missed whereby we're counting every tank and other piece of equipment??

The Russians had 3 types of Corps (really divisions but let's not quibble) - Tank, Mechanised and everything else. And at this level IMO that's about all the differentiation you need.

I'm playing a lot of SC2 and have gone back to look at teh old AH game of Hitler's War currently, and I think there are some lessons to be learned from both.

1/ SC2 has a lot of problems, but the basic approach of having units with broadly upgradeable tech is, IMO correct - no-one cares whether the light tanks in the recce Bn's are 38T's or Pz-IIL's - the "tank" strength of an armoured unit is in its mediums and heavies.

Where light tanks might be depicted would be if you have a high tank tech, but cannot afford to equip a unit with the latest and greatest . In SC2 for example you might buy a tank at tech 1 and get a model of a T28 in 1944, but in 1944 a tech 1 tank unit is more likely to be equipped with modern or obsolescent light tanks that are actually in existance, so I think a T70 would be a better depiction.


2/ Hitler's War has a simpler approach that befits a board game - tech advances only affect the purchase cost of troops.

In Hitler's war you only get 1 unit per hex, but that unit is an army group, and you can allocate up to 10 strengthpoints of troops to it - these can be mechanised, infantry, paratroop, tac air and amphibious. Each troop type has advantages - infantry tends to be used to absorb losses, tac air conducts a seperate attack before everythign else and can only be countered by otehr tac air, etc.

but alas this is at an even more grand strategic level and probably not suitable for EAW - each counter is an army GROUP!!

however the concept is of interest IMO - if yuo can give varius points of various troop types to corps then you get a situation where a corps is defined by it's actual contents rateh than a pre-designated formula - if you want a corps to be "mechanised" then only give it mechanised units.

Right - that's my initial rant over and done with - I'm gonna go read some more about the game now!

[IainMcNeil]

Hitler's War is one of my favourite games & is also in the cupboard

The strength point approcah they used is one I'd like to explore but is a step to far for this game.

The majority seems to be against splitting tanks to light & heavy right now. Maybe we shoudl start a poll

[honvedseg]

In the case of Germany, most of the armored divisions were made up of a wide variety of armor types, including SP guns, earlier models, and refits of captured equipment. In many cases, towed AT guns were even incorporated into the mix. The divisions also included motorized or armored infantry (mechanized at the start of the war usually meant bicycles) to keep pace with the armor and hold the ground taken.

A frequent tactic was to place the heavier armor at the front and wings of the formation, so any AT fire would be taken by the best armored vehicles. The lighter tanks, SPGs, and half-tracks were shielded in the center, but could fan out and "hunt" once the heavies secured a breakthrough. Remember that the Germans fielded the Panzer Mk.II, III, and IV simultaneously at the start of the war, each with its own battlefield role, and did NOT design one as an "upgrade" from the other.

[SMK-at-work]

There's a version of Hitler's War being made for windows if yuo ever want a game Iain!! No AI so only head-to-head across the 'net, and it's a fairly small file - 800k's zipped......http://homepage.eircom.net/~monalisa/HitlersWar/