Severe winter effects

[gerones]

I´ve found that some players just stay at the hexes in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and East Poland with the axis forces before the turns that severe winter could happens and just wait in these territories in which there are severe winter effects (movement, attack, etc) for all units but there is not penalty effectiveness for the axis forces so they just stay until the turn the penalty is applied and then resume their offensives in Russia on the next turn starting the campaign with no effectiveness penalty. Shouldn´t be introduced the effectiveness penalty all over those territories with severe winter effects for avoiding this way of playing?

[timhicks]

I guess there has to be a border for the effectivenrss loss somewhere, why shouldn't it be the Russian border ?

Do you mean that sometime in mid Sept, players pull all the way back to that line, and then after that first turn of winter has passed they rush forward again, hoping that the Russians havn't already occupied their trenches and eaten all their porridge !

[gerones]

I guess there has to be a border for the effectivenrss loss somewhere, why shouldn't it be the Russian border ?

Do you mean that sometime in mid Sept, players pull all the way back to that line, and then after that first turn of winter has passed they rush forward again, hoping that the Russians havn't already occupied their trenches and eaten all their porridge !

What I mean is that about september after destroying all the russian infantry border armies the axis forces hold for a while in East Poland and Baltic countries until the penalty effectiveness turn arrives and they resume the offensive in the very next turn and this way these forces ARE NOT affected by the effectiveness penalty even they invade main russian territory in the next turn.

[Clark]

I guess there has to be a border for the effectivenrss loss somewhere, why shouldn't it be the Russian border ?

Do you mean that sometime in mid Sept, players pull all the way back to that line, and then after that first turn of winter has passed they rush forward again, hoping that the Russians havn't already occupied their trenches and eaten all their porridge !

Sometimes it's useful to just delay Barbarossa until the fall, then wipe out all resistance right up until the Russian border, then sit out the first turn of winter. You avoid the winter effectiveness penalty, then you can spend a turn or two mopping up any units at the cities right over the border, and then you can take a few turns to repair and refit before the spring thaw.

[timhicks]

I can see the advantage of escaping the Russian winter, if you havn't really started Barbarossa when the winter begins, but surely delaying the Invasion just to use that strategy, is not a good idea. After all you waste the effectiveness hit on the Russians if you don't keep chasing them, and you probably won't be able to destroy any of their Mech or Armour.

Having said that though, I did do something similar myself once , that was one game when I decided not to Invade Western Russia at all, and tried to go through Turkey and the Caucauses. I had a few skirmishes on the border to take advantage of the Russian effectiveness loss, but never went any further.

[gerones]

I can see the advantage of escaping the Russian winter, if you havn't really started Barbarossa when the winter begins, but surely delaying the Invasion just to use that strategy, is not a good idea. After all you waste the effectiveness hit on the Russians if you don't keep chasing them, and you probably won't be able to destroy any of their Mech or Armour.

The fact is that if you perform a strong Barbarossa and you use this "trick" probably you will have a good 1942 year for the axis with a huge army with full strength and air superiority ready to overrun the russians. So this is why I suggest the penalty effectiveness should be also applied to East Poland and the Baltic countries.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Look here for a map of climate zones in Europe.

http://www.gardenweb.com/zones/europe/

Here you see that the Baltic states and Poland are in a less severe zone than Russia itself. These countries are close to the Baltic sea so the climate is a bit milder than the inland climate of Russia.

I therefore think the severe winter penalties are fine to just have in mother Russia. I think that if the Axis player stays out of mother Russia in 1941 just to avoid the winter results then he’s about to lose the game anyway. This allows the Russians to form a double defense line behind the Dnepr and Dvina. That means the Germans will bleed a lot in 1942 to get across the rivers.

[schwerpunkt]

The other trick that is used as the German player when being pushed out of Russia is to base your planes in the central europe weather area which gets longer periods of clear weather. Hence, you can sometimes fly FTRs and TACs from Rumania for example when it is experiencing clear weather, into Russia which might be experiencing bad weather. Hard to get around this given the game engine but as long as both sides are aware of it, you just play with it (ie the russian player just needs to account for the greater effectiveness of axis FTRs and TACs).

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The Russian units don't suffer bad effects from winter and severe winter except movement. So it's only when it's mud weather in Russia they will be at a big disadvantage.

Late in the war the Russian fighter have pretty good values so they can harm the Luftwaffe. In 1943-1944 the Russians will have much more fighters than the Germans so if the German fighters fight they can be harassed at the airbases.

[schwerpunkt]

The Russian units don't suffer bad effects from winter and severe winter except movement. So it's only when it's mud weather in Russia they will be at a big disadvantage.

Yes, but its nice as the german player to have your FTRs and TACs all working at normal strength and able to mix it with the Russians..... I've played a few games now where having the TACs and FTRs doing normal damage was very handy... And its not in all games that the Russian player is able to get air dominance in 43-44, especially if they gone berserk building ground units!