Slitherine

This AAR is over, and I am going to post some comments about this game flow and balance.

First of all air unit range changes do favour allies. In this game I was not prepared for this, so effect was truly devastated. In second game I was ready, but still was able only to mitigate effect, not to remove it completely. Escorted runs for Ruhr are availiable starting from first strategic ops upgrade mean that Ruhr and Essen will be likely destroyed into red production from 1942 until the end of the game. It is already ~12 PPs * war effort, so it is like reversed "large axis" advantage set at game start.

Bombing anything out of escort range can (and should) be made very cost-ineffective by interceptors, but escorted bombing always favour allies. If axis intercept, thats even more PP damage. Repairing 3-4 fighters every turn is probably more devastating for Germany, than bombing itself.

Another thing illustrated by this game is that its very bad to face Soviet winter offensives standing still - retreats are strongly advised for axis. Huge casualties sustained during winters together with strategic bombings destroyed way to much German PP and MP to hold Berlin into 1945.

People here made comments about June 22 Barbarossa is being very bad. I don't think so. Even if you start in May you are unlikely to secure something major (Moscow/Leningrad/Stalingrad), and minor objectives deep to the east like Tula/Orel/Kursk and so on will be likely abandoned (or lost, if defended actively) during SW. Very bad is standing ground while Soviet shock units wipe out axis troops with minimal damage for themselves, not Barbarossa in June.

Axis also suffered from airforce disbalance. 5 tactical bombers were built, but they were mostly grounded starting from mid 1943. Those PP would be better invested into fighters and ground units.

Barbarossa was not properly executed in this game though. It was "lets attack everywhere and see what happens" campaign without any certain objective in mind. So it got worse progress, than it could.

In 1943 things were bad, I thought Soviets will start offensive in summer and rush all the way to Berlin. In fact things went not so fast. Succesful 1943 Overlord is also fatal for axis. It was surprise for me, how relatively long Berlin and Hamburg held.

In general game idea was to play "historically" and see what happens. Old 3.0 game http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=43999 was was played with same philosophy in mind, but led to a stalemate. Here we see allied major victory.

Vokt on the contrary properly utilized rule changes and executed very effective strategic bombing campaign and executed ones of the most devastating winter campaigns in USSR, from what I have seen, so he got his well deserved victory in this one.

Cybvep wrote:Good job, Vokt. You were so effective in 1941-1942 that the outcome of the game was a foregone conclusion. Actually, I think that considering the circumstances, Plaid gave you a good fight in 1943-1944. He definitely lasted longer than I thought he would.

IMO this game demonstrated the importance of air power. Plaid lost air superiority very early on and paid the price for it. Lack of air superiority and Soviet winter campaigns in 1941 and in 1942 were the major causes of your victory IMO. However, this game also shows that even when you suffer high losses in 1941-1942 when playing the Axis, you still can last quite long if you manage your resources properly.

Thanks for your comments.

It's true that outcome was foreknown by mid-game and for that reason allies did not need to rush from 1943 on. That's why British did not quickly advance to Germany in summer 1943 but they waited for reinforcements and for upgrades to start the attack on Siegfried Line and Albert Canal.

One thing which should be changed IMO is the survivability tech gain of STRATs. They don't seem to suffer enough damage, while IRL Allied losses were huge. I think that STRAT cost is fine and it's only survivability that should be changed.

We may take a look at that, but the SURV for Strategic bombers are the same values in version 3.10. The values for SURV radar were lowered by 2 and AA for resources were raised by 2.

So you need to invest in radar which helps in the ASW war and increase AA for resource hexes against bombing. I doubt any changes at the moment are being contemplated. So far The Bombers help against Germany, but not overwhelming.

My feel is that strats survivability should be left as it is now. It's axis player that has to set up an adequate defending the Reich strategy. Allied strats got pretty high losses until they reach strategic level 4 that provides +2 survivability. That lab level usually isn't reached untill mid 1943. 2-3 Luftwaffe fighters (preferably xp ones) with a commander nearby, would kept allies from doing unescorted until that date. They could be stationed in locations in which they don't engage with allied fighters.

UK war's economy sort of struggle by mid game when so many scenarios have to be attended. If we make strat losses even higher then it will struggle more. Let's remember that UK produces ≃50 PP's for a great part of the game. If the axis player is effective with his u-boats campaign those PP's finally come too short.

If we would want to make Germany air defense campaign more effective, we might try to do that by decreasing fighter cost unit by 5 PP's. This reduced cost of fighters, that would make sense relative to the cost of the other 2 types of air units (strats and tacs were much more costly than fighters in real war), would make less costly for Germany to oppose allied bombings.