Slitherine

Its all units in game, not only russians.
Simulates local fights across the frontline.

Could you let us know what Allied air and ASW tech is like? Also it seems like there's no new strategic bombers on the map at all.

thanks!

Maybe Moriss should do an AAR himself?

supermax wrote:What i am implying is that he should stop letting others do AAR and do some screen captures for once... This has nothing to do with his english.

And besides, everyone, and by that i mean everyone is VERY curious on how he does what he does.

Why don't you ask him, if he is willing to share screenshots from the Allied perspective with one of the developers or someone else, who publishes them here at the forum. I think this should be possible. I just started a game with him and asked if he would do an AAR. He offered to provide screenshots, but would not do an AAR because it costs him to much time and he fears his English is not good enough.

By the way I also asked you for a game and did not get any answer yert

Crazygunner1 wrote:Don´t think Russians should get experience by just being adjent to enemy. Why is it like this? Shall only be required by battle

All units get that regardless of country. You get battlehardened by being at the front line. The main thing is that you gain XP so you will eventually get better quality and even later better survivability. I think that's pretty historical and it separates newly built units from units being at war in the presence of the enemy for quite some time.

I fixed the bug regarding the Soviet partisans. Now they can't become guards units. It will be available in GS v2.01.33

Stauffenberg wrote:The main problem with Morris is that he doesn't want to EXPLAIN his exploits so we can fix them. He's a beta tester and fails to see the main reason why he is that. If he doesn't give us the ideas behind his strategy we can't fix what he means is broken. All he says is that we have to play against him to find out for ourselves. That simply takes too long time.

We want GS v2.1 out before Chrismas and that means we need all the help we can to ensure we get rid of exploits.

If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. Example:
UK has 4 AIR units + 10 INFcorps at the start. If you gather it all it becomes powerful way to drain power from German. The same with powerful Soviet reserves or US that can start 1942 with swarm of tanks/strat bombers.

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". Loosing Iraq/Persia. Who cares? Germans get some PP and 25 oil production which is not something that can cause them to be "I do not care about oil anymore". Yet all this endeavors require serious engagements and can be used by Allies to drain PP/MP/oil from Germans.

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. (For me in order to spawn a convoy you should have at least one DD as an escort all the way to UK, supply should be provided only by BB/CV).

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

You can see even it this very ultra Allied successful game - there is no Axis offensive in the 1942 which is supposed to be continuation of Barbarossa and drive to oil fields of Caucasus. Axis are struggling with oil and if Morris keeps engaging they will not be able to do anything serious till the very end. He still have chance of winning that.

Kragdob wrote:
If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. ...

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". ...

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. ...

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

While I think you exaggerate the case a bit, I agree with the essence of what you're saying. In the real WWII, it's almost inconceivable to me that the Allies could have bounced back from the loss of England after a successful Sealion, yet, as you point out, in CEAW this can easily happen.

But... I don't see how we can address this issue without creating a whole snake's nest of problems in game terms. Do we really want the game to terminate because of a successful Sealion? We've already removed so many of the wilder options from vanilla (conquest of Canada, German invasion of Baku oilfields coming up from a conquered Persia, etc.), I hate to see the game get so narrowly historical that the Allies "have to" do X to protect England and Y to defend Egypt.

As Borger points out, Moriss is really the only one who exploits the game to such extremes, so why re-design everything with one player in mind? Sure, others *could* do the same, but in my experience nobody else really does it.

peterjfrigate wrote:Could you let us know what Allied air and ASW tech is like? Also it seems like there's no new strategic bombers on the map at all.

thanks!

Its bottom of the barrel ASW allied is 4 and air tech for Russia is 4.

Brit air tech is 4 dogfight! and American 4 dogfight as well.

zechi wrote:

supermax wrote:What i am implying is that he should stop letting others do AAR and do some screen captures for once... This has nothing to do with his english.

And besides, everyone, and by that i mean everyone is VERY curious on how he does what he does.

Why don't you ask him, if he is willing to share screenshots from the Allied perspective with one of the developers or someone else, who publishes them here at the forum. I think this should be possible. I just started a game with him and asked if he would do an AAR. He offered to provide screenshots, but would not do an AAR because it costs him to much time and he fears his English is not good enough.

By the way I also asked you for a game and did not get any answer yert

I know Zechi... We will play together i promess you. Will send turn soon. when i start i will have time and we'll have lots of fun!

Kragdob wrote: If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. Example:
UK has 4 AIR units + 10 INFcorps at the start. If you gather it all it becomes powerful way to drain power from German. The same with powerful Soviet reserves or US that can start 1942 with swarm of tanks/strat bombers.

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". Loosing Iraq/Persia. Who cares? Germans get some PP and 25 oil production which is not something that can cause them to be "I do not care about oil anymore". Yet all this endeavors require serious engagements and can be used by Allies to drain PP/MP/oil from Germans.

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. (For me in order to spawn a convoy you should have at least one DD as an escort all the way to UK, supply should be provided only by BB/CV).

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

You can see even it this very ultra Allied successful game - there is no Axis offensive in the 1942 which is supposed to be continuation of Barbarossa and drive to oil fields of Caucasus. Axis are struggling with oil and if Morris keeps engaging they will not be able to do anything serious till the very end. He still have chance of winning that.

I completely agree with your summary. Max has done everything almost perfectly, including superb tactical play. And yet he is struggling and could still lose due to not having enough oil to prevent the 1943 Western landing or the winter of 1942 on the East front. What to do about it? I am not sure. However there are some tweaks that could be done; the axis could be given more African supply than it does now if the RN is evicted from the Mediterranean. Russian effectiveness could be given a bigger hit if they lose key cities like Sevastopol, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow.

Stauffenberg wrote:I fixed the bug regarding the Soviet partisans. Now they can't become guards units. It will be available in GS v2.01.33

Good job!

I've played the Axis with GS v2.01 and in all my games I get to Maikop and Grozny in 1942. I don't even find it particularly hard. In some games we got to the spring of 1943 and still no Allied presence in France. Sicily is about to be invaded and the Germans are still in the Caucasus and Stalingrad. Leningrad had fallen as well.

It would have been very hard for the Allies to get to Berlin in the games where I was the Axis. So if you weaken the Allies more then I can promise you that the best players will be in Omsk by the end of 1942. Then you've really broken the game.

We have to analyze the exploits that Morris is using. One is the specialization of his units. That's not so easy to accomplish now because USA and USSR can not put research focus until they enter the war. So Morris can't get US or Russian armor units with maximized blitzkrieg in 1941-1942.

Morris can still sacrifice the British, but there are penalties for that now. Especially before USA joins the Allies.

If you look at the game between Supermax and Morris you will see that the Allies risk losing big time because the Germans collect techs in every area while the Allies only in specialized areas. So the Allies can't keep up even if they will eventually get higher production that the Axis. One thing is to stop the Germans from advancing. Another is to push the Germans back to Berlin. You need that to win.

So I simply don't buy the argument that the Allies are way to powerful in GS v2.01.32.

I think it's good that we now see flaws in Morris'es strategy. Soon more and more players who meet him will know which counter moves to make and then his strategy will crumble. E. g. since you know that Morris builds a lot of armor units you just focus your research on tank destroyers and antitank. Then his armor units won't be worth much. You also keep high tech in bombers and fighters and you can crush the Russians in the east as long as you have oil.

Oil is the only reason Supermax might still now be 100% sure to win the game. So if the British lost Iraq and maybe even Persian then it would be a disaster for him because then Supermax can afford to use his oil consuming units as he wants to.

So Iraq is definitely not an area Britain can just ignore.

I agree that Britain has quite a lot of units at the start of the game, but many of these units are locked in Egypt and won't be released until France is broken. When France surrenders then Italy is on the Axis side and the British units are supposed to protect Egypt and Iraq. They need all they can have to hold ground.

You also have to take into consideration that Germany has 3 times as much production as UK in 1940. So they can build up a strike force much faster. If you weaken Britain then Sealion would be a cake walk.

The only problem I see is that players like Morris abandons certain areas with Britain without thinking of the repercussions. Losing Egypt is definitely not good for Britain. First Suez is closed off and second Iraq might fall with extra oil to Germany. So they need a healthy force there to force Germany to send so many units so Barbarossa will hurt. If the Allies fail to balance their forces properly then they can crumble in several areas before USA joins and can help.

I've yet to see the British make real problems for Germany in 1940 / 1941. All I see are nuisances. Supermax had little problem destroying the British 1941 invasion of France and even the Allied invasion of 1942. He's a clever player so inferior Axis players would certainly have crumbled to such pressure. But Supermax shows that the Axis will prevail if the Allies go for an extreme strategy.

I think Morris would have done much better if he had played less aggressive with the Allies and let Supermax bleed his forces in attacks across river etc.

Kragdob wrote:

Stauffenberg wrote:The main problem with Morris is that he doesn't want to EXPLAIN his exploits so we can fix them. He's a beta tester and fails to see the main reason why he is that. If he doesn't give us the ideas behind his strategy we can't fix what he means is broken. All he says is that we have to play against him to find out for ourselves. That simply takes too long time.

We want GS v2.1 out before Chrismas and that means we need all the help we can to ensure we get rid of exploits.

If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. Example:
UK has 4 AIR units + 10 INFcorps at the start. If you gather it all it becomes powerful way to drain power from German. The same with powerful Soviet reserves or US that can start 1942 with swarm of tanks/strat bombers.

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". Loosing Iraq/Persia. Who cares? Germans get some PP and 25 oil production which is not something that can cause them to be "I do not care about oil anymore". Yet all this endeavors require serious engagements and can be used by Allies to drain PP/MP/oil from Germans.

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. (For me in order to spawn a convoy you should have at least one DD as an escort all the way to UK, supply should be provided only by BB/CV).

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

You can see even it this very ultra Allied successful game - there is no Axis offensive in the 1942 which is supposed to be continuation of Barbarossa and drive to oil fields of Caucasus. Axis are struggling with oil and if Morris keeps engaging they will not be able to do anything serious till the very end. He still have chance of winning that.

Let me disagree with your last part. I dont launch an offensive because i choose not to. I still have 270 + oil which would enable me to have some fun, but why would i do that? Moriss his throwing himself at me with his hordes... There is nothing to do but continue to destroy his forces. the 80+ units (close to 90 actually) he lost so far are a testament to that. We both know that the 1942 offensive is not worth it in most games if you only capture territory, because at one point of the german advance, Russia becomes un-defendable. I am just sparing the Axis from more trouble down the road.

I intend to prove you what i am saviny with the next few screen capture. There is one turn in particular that i destroy 2 or 3 german ARM, encircle 5 INF corps and destroy 2 INF CORPS as well. So, why do i need to spend oil to get to Moriss since he is getting to me???

Diplomaticus wrote:

Kragdob wrote:
If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. ...

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". ...

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. ...

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

While I think you exaggerate the case a bit, I agree with the essence of what you're saying. In the real WWII, it's almost inconceivable to me that the Allies could have bounced back from the loss of England after a successful Sealion, yet, as you point out, in CEAW this can easily happen.

But... I don't see how we can address this issue without creating a whole snake's nest of problems in game terms. Do we really want the game to terminate because of a successful Sealion? We've already removed so many of the wilder options from vanilla (conquest of Canada, German invasion of Baku oilfields coming up from a conquered Persia, etc.), I hate to see the game get so narrowly historical that the Allies "have to" do X to protect England and Y to defend Egypt.

As Borger points out, Moriss is really the only one who exploits the game to such extremes, so why re-design everything with one player in mind? Sure, others *could* do the same, but in my experience nobody else really does it.

And furthermore to your conclusion, he will have trouble finding opponents after a while as well...

Sorry Max for the thread focus change, but this view is related to your game here....
Personally I wish a Sea Lion option would be near impossible for GE before 1941. IMO an early failed Sea Lion Attempt means the Axis should lose early every time - they simply cannot make a huge mistake like that early in the game and get away with it unless the Allied player is completely incompetent (in which case we should disregard the results for judging play balance). Conversely, if the axis would defeat the UK in a 1940 Sea Lion invasion then the Axis should be extremely difficult to stop in the game (not sure if that happens in GS but it certainly would be the case in the real world). Either way I think a 1940 Sea Lion makes for a pretty uninteresting game, it's like a guy who always goes all in on the 1st poker hand - that's usually a short game.

I know that all WW2 gamers expect an early Sea Lion option by now because of all the past WW2 games that featured that option, but in WW2 Germany had a near perfect start of the war, comparable to a perfect 1st 4/5 turns GS, and they decided against Sea Lion for very good reasons. Anyway, instead of having built up UK at-start forces to stop an early Sea Lion, maybe we could make the option prohibitive by further restricting transport access before 1941.

Rhialto wrote:

Kragdob wrote: If you asked me the exploits is very simple: Allies are too strong at the start of the game which enables them to weaken Germans in 1940/1941. Example:
UK has 4 AIR units + 10 INFcorps at the start. If you gather it all it becomes powerful way to drain power from German. The same with powerful Soviet reserves or US that can start 1942 with swarm of tanks/strat bombers.

I suppose they are for the Allies so they can defend have some options BUT the objectives that (especially UK) are to be defended although vital during WWII are not vital in the game. Lost of UK would be a disaster for Allied cause. In GS 2.10 even with current changes it is not. Lost of Egypt would be a disaster for English colonial image/power yet you can loose it and the only thing you get is "saving Italy from early invasion". Loosing Iraq/Persia. Who cares? Germans get some PP and 25 oil production which is not something that can cause them to be "I do not care about oil anymore". Yet all this endeavors require serious engagements and can be used by Allies to drain PP/MP/oil from Germans.

You can loose all RN as it is not needed for anything more than providing support for landing which you can do with 1 DD. (For me in order to spawn a convoy you should have at least one DD as an escort all the way to UK, supply should be provided only by BB/CV).

Morris figured it out that he has huge forces to defend objectives/areas that does not mean he loose the game if he lost them and he does what he does he uses this forces not to defend but to force Germans to defend and spend resources. The more the better.

You can see even it this very ultra Allied successful game - there is no Axis offensive in the 1942 which is supposed to be continuation of Barbarossa and drive to oil fields of Caucasus. Axis are struggling with oil and if Morris keeps engaging they will not be able to do anything serious till the very end. He still have chance of winning that.

I completely agree with your summary. Max has done everything almost perfectly, including superb tactical play. And yet he is struggling and could still lose due to not having enough oil to prevent the 1943 Western landing or the winter of 1942 on the East front. What to do about it? I am not sure. However there are some tweaks that could be done; the axis could be given more African supply than it does now if the RN is evicted from the Mediterranean. Russian effectiveness could be given a bigger hit if they lose key cities like Sevastopol, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow.

There is one thing i would change and that i will in my next game with Moriss, and that is in my opinion my only error. I should have sent only Infantry and TAC planes in Russia to get to a defensive line, since anyway Moriss isnt defending the country and when you get to Rostov he counter-attacks with magic tanks and magic mechs... So i say to all playing Moriss: Attack Russia, but only take the important cities and save oil. Get to a defensive line, buy good defensive HQ like i did, and climb your effectiveness. Then wait for him to send waves after waves at you at great loss ratio. Then he will loose every game he plays in, since german oil will be minimally affected by that strategy.

Stauffenberg,

I know that it may be possible (or in many cases easy) to reach Baku. I do not think changing current game startup will do any good. Game is in my opinion very well balanced on tactical&operational level and what Morris is revealing is poor balance on strategic level. In short Allies have nothing to loose in early period so they can use all the forces they have (in game) for biting Germans. Nothing like that really happened untill 1942. Germans were expanding but their expenditures were due to the fact that they tried to conquer Russia & Egypt and Alllies defended well and inflicted looses.

I think that Allies should be bound to loose if they loose UK or should have very hard time if they loose Egypt. This would switch strategic probablities. If loosing UK islands ment that Axis have 80% chance of winning you would focus not on disrupting Barbarossa but on preventing German invasion. You would not sacrifice nor land nor naval nor air units untill in 1941 you know Germans drove on Moscow.

If you could spawn transport only if you have DD/BB/CV to escort (otherwise shipman would not agree to sail to UK) than you would not sacrifice RN in attempt to draw Axis forces/PP/oil from Soviet front (at least not too early)

If loosing Egypt would mean Germans get huge oil boost (sorry but 76 I had after I conquered all UK territory, except Canada is not something I'd call "boost"), which could mean that Germans can afford more ARMS which means possible crush of Soviet in 1942/43 then 8 Army would be more cautious and you would not decide to send spare 4 INFs to do any offensive elsewhere.

Maybe this would make Germans more NA oriented as well as now you can see that most PRO Players tend to resign from this campaign (do you think why they do that?) and against Italians you can defend almost with GARs only.

You don't need to forbid you just need to make loosing those strategic places more risky. Than in 1940/41 Allies care for defending with their huge troops and after risk of loosing is lowered they can switch to be more offensive. This will not affect normal (conservative in early years) game - it will make Morris strategies more risky and if he sees that he can (and does) easily loose early due to being too much offensive then you will see him much more defensive.

I'm beginner for this game but more Morris like if few other systems All the above are just ideas that are striking me when playing this great game.

supermax wrote:Let me disagree with your last part. I dont launch an offensive because i choose not to. I still have 270 + oil which would enable me to have some fun, but why would i do that? Moriss his throwing himself at me with his hordes... There is nothing to do but continue to destroy his forces. the 80+ units (close to 90 actually) he lost so far are a testament to that. We both know that the 1942 offensive is not worth it in most games if you only capture territory, because at one point of the german advance, Russia becomes un-defendable. I am just sparing the Axis from more trouble down the road.

I intend to prove you what i am saviny with the next few screen capture. There is one turn in particular that i destroy 2 or 3 german ARM, encircle 5 INF corps and destroy 2 INF CORPS as well. So, why do i need to spend oil to get to Moriss since he is getting to me???

But would you choose not to if you did not have Allied invasion and only 270 oil level? I think from your current line it would be impossible for you to reach Baku (in 7-8 turns of fair weather) and if you tried you could easily end up overextended, out of oil with many step hexes conquered...

So in this game Morris is making you big favor destroying his units by himself (with your little help ). If only he played more wisely you (and remember this is excellent Allied play - kudos!) would be in deep trouble.

I think basis of Morris strategy is unbeatable right now (because he can loose almost all as Allies very early and still have good chances to win the game) and he is loosing only because he cannot adapt it to your wise play. If he focused on Italy and played it wisely you'd probably be fighting alone right now and fighting desperately not to let him out of the peninsula in 1942 or 1943 ...

Rhialto wrote:I completely agree with your summary. Max has done everything almost perfectly, including superb tactical play. And yet he is struggling and could still lose due to not having enough oil to prevent the 1943 Western landing or the winter of 1942 on the East front. What to do about it? I am not sure. However there are some tweaks that could be done; the axis could be given more African supply than it does now if the RN is evicted from the Mediterranean. Russian effectiveness could be given a bigger hit if they lose key cities like Sevastopol, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow.

If Supermax has invested in general tech then his synth oil plants will general 2 oil each with tech 4 and 3 oil each with tech 6. Each oil will generate 4 oil points so with tech 4 he gets 8 oil extra per turn. With tech 6 he gets 16 extra oil per turn. Morris has not built many strategic bombers so he can't hope to bomb the German industry. Another important aspect is that with industry tech 5 the war effort will be 140 and that means more PP's and a higher multiplier when looking at oil income. So the extra 16 at tech 5 will be multiplied with 1,45 instead of e. g. 1,3 that you get at tech 3. That is

Tech 6: 6 * 4 * 1,45 = 34,8 oil + 5 (from Romania / Hungary) * 4 * 1,36 = 27,2 + 11 * 1,45 (German war effort)+ 1 * 1,2 (Italian war effort) = 17.15 = 79,15
Tech 3: 2 * 4* 1,3 = 10,4 + 5 * 4 * 1,1 = 22 + 11 * 1,3 + 1 * 1,2 = 15,5 = 47,9

The difference is 31,25 extra oil per turn for Germany. That's quite substantial for getting 3 extra tech levels in industry. The difference will become a bit less if the Allies heavily bombard the German oilfields.