Slitherine

The airborne 'build' limit, as I understand it, is currently set to limit the number of times that a airborne unit can be built by a particular country in a particular year.

Germany, for example, can built up to one airborne unit in 1940, and they can do that once –– it's a little redundant in this case, but presumably it makes more sense in latter years, when you might, for example, be able to build up to 5 airborne units total, and build more than 5 times.

My concern is that because the system is 'year-based', a unit lost early in the year can't be replaced for months, while a unit lost late in the year can be replaced relatively quickly.

All in all, it seems like the build limit factor causes more problems than it is worth, and if we want to limit the ability of countries to throw paras into dangerous places and then just replace them, we should make the build times themselves longer – maybe 6 turns? (We can give the Germans a para at the start of 1940, to make sure they have one, at least).

Furthermore, the only place that I know of where you can get the 'status' of your airborne capacity is in the dialog that appears at the beginning of the year. I wish there were some way to see that information –– and I can only imagine that for a newish player, this stuff must be fairly mystifying.

The intention is to prevent a country from spawning too many paratroopers too early in the war.

Since Germany can only build 1 para unit in 1940 it means Sealion will take place with just 1 para. Only USSR and USA can build 2 para units per year from 1940. The other countries will wait until 1944 before they can build 2 para units per year.

Max para units increase through the year and e. g. Germany can have 1 in 1940, 2 in 1941 up to 5 in 1944 and 1945.

With these rules it will hurt a lot of you lose a para unit early in the war. E. g. Hitler was very afraid to use paradrops again after the heavy losses suffered after the paradrop on Crete. Later German Fallschirmjager units were actually grounded para units used to defend important positions like Brest.

Until 1944 all countries except USA and USSR know that a paratrooper unit lost is a paratrooper unit you can't rebuild. So you need to make the paradrops count and make sure the unit can survive. So it won't be a good idea for e. g. UK to paradrop into France just to become a nuisance. The Germans will eventually kill the para unit and then it can't be used anymore.

Para units are supposed to be units you don't waste just because you can build as many as you have PP's for.

I usually click on a garrison unit to see if the para button lights up or not. If it doesn't then I know I can't build any more paras this year. If it lights up you can always click on it and see the remaining capacity and simply answer no to the question about upgrading the unit to para.

I use the same method for German SS builds. If the elite button is lit then I click it to see the remaining capacity.

Hmm, yes, well...

Hitler's whims aren't always a reliable guide to the state of affairs. In re: Crete, he was planning to invade Russia in a few weeks, and he lost the cream-de-la-creme of the German army capturing a nice holiday island in the Mediterranean more or less because Mussolini needed to demonstrate that he, too, could invade other countries (almost). I'm not surprised Hitler was mad. He wasn't going to get new para divisions training up in time for Barbarossa. Scratch that part of the plan.

Later in the war, the Germans used paras very effectively and courageously, dropping them in significant numbers hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, even behind the Urals, with order to demolish bridges, destroy factories, ambush road traffic, etc. See "As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me" by Josef Martin Bauer.

Back to CEAW, I think the rule as it stands too severely crimps the options for exploring different ways to use resources.

I would urge:

1. that the 'build-limit' rule be scrapped.
2. that the cost of building paras be increase by 5PPs to 20PPs.
3. that the build time be increased to 6 turns.
4. that the Germans lose a garrison from their starting lineup and get a free para in Feb-1940.

Just my 2¢.

When I first got this game I thought: "Cool, finally a game where I'm not tied to the mistakes of the past. I'll research one or two things heavily and if I'm lucky my opponent will research something else that might give me an edge where he wasn't suspecting it." But then we start with the GS mod: Can't research anything too fast. And now we get paras, but can't build them too fast, either.

I gotta say, it's disappointing.

metolius wrote: 1. that the 'build-limit' rule be scrapped.
2. that the cost of building paras be increase by 5PPs to 20PPs.
3. that the build time be increased to 6 turns.
4. that the Germans lose a garrison from their starting lineup and get a free para in Feb-1940.

I like it. But if we scrap the limit then maybe we should look at increasing the cost to 35 PP's. In effect, an airborne division would take 7 turns (1 turn to build & deploy a garrison & 6 turns to train it (i.e., convert it) to an airborne division). The cost, which would be 15PPs for the garrison + 35 PP's would equal the cost of a mech corps.

Though at this late date I do have a concern that this might tip the balance in unexpected ways (e.g., might make Sea Lion much easier) so I'm torn about it.

I very much like things as they are now. No changes, please!

it''s easy to increase the build limit in general.txt and the stats for the para etc. is based upon an upgrade cost of 15 PP's. Build time can be changed there as well.

If we change too much we might get nasty surprises regarding game balance and that will certainly mean we can't make a release for Easter.

Remember why the build limit was introduced in the first place. One was that people used paras as cannon fodder just to create nuisance. PP's are not an issue later in the game so if you can use the paras as cannon fodder you can send them to e. g. France quite a bit of time prior to Overlord just to tie up German units. If you land a para and it's almost destroyed you can make suicide attacks with it to free up the para slot and build a fresh new one.

Germany can have as many as 5 para units late in the game and have 7 builds. So they can lose 2 para units and still get max numbers. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Paras aren't units that existed in big numbers. Overlord and Market Garden saw the biggest para concentrations and for Overlord you simply need that to get ashore in force.

About research I would just like to add that max of 4 labs per area was introduced in vanilla CeaW and we haven't altered that. All we did was to make sure you can only have a max per area dependent upon year like max 2 for 1939-1940, 3 for 1941-1942, 4 for 1943+. This is a historical issue. It took time to gear up research to 4 labs in one area.

Another issue is that max tech is 6. If you can freely build as many labs in an area then you will max out tech in e. g. 1942 in some areas. We see that problem already with air tech. They max out way before the end of the game and that's not historical at all. With no limit we should be able to see Sabres as US fighters etc. If we don't have limits to the tech advancement then we would have to increase the tech limit to 9 or so and that requires a major change to the game engine and balance. Paul would have to make a lot new images etc.

With a progressive max per area dependent upon game year we manage to keep most techs from maxing out. You will max out the tech you put focus on and 4 labs on, but the others will not.

I still remember some games when there were no restrictions to techs and players got super tanks in 1942. That was not fun for the game balance at all. We all know that the game can be won if you get a big advantage in armor or air and if that's allowed then we have serious game balance issues. The Allies get their techs up to speed slower due to starting at lower war effort. So if the Germans can just rush ahead with techs in armor and air in 1939-1940 they will win every game with the game balance we have now. At the start of Barbarossa you see the tigers and panthers crush every Russian unit and they're in Moscow in 1941 for sure.

So to counter this we would have to let the Allies start with a higher war effort or let them start with higher initial techs. That would be a nightmare to try to balance. We've tried for years to balance GS as is. One of the areas that can most easily disrupt the balance is to alter tech rules.

Also remember that para and elite units were added to GS partly for chrome. If people can build such units freely then we will see the game crowded with these units. If we made such a change then we would had to lower the benefit of these units or you would disrupt the balance quite a bit. Just try to start the 1943 scenario and see how the SS panzer performs compared to the regular panzer against a Russian unit. The odds are quite different. Having 1-2 SS armor units in the east won't disrupt the balance, but if e. g. all armor units would be SS then Russia would struggle very hard to stop these units.

It's even worse in the west. SS units are more resilient to airstrikes so prior to Overlord then SS units in cities would be very tough for the Allies. The Allies land and the SS units destroy them on the beaches. The only way the Allies can prevent that from happening is to make sure these units are bombarded so heavily that the efficiency has dropped enough.

So paras and elite units are nice to have, but very dangerous if we have too many of them, especially in the early game phase.

What do you do if clever players find out that if you max para build in 1940 as the Germans then Sealion is a cakewalk? Then most players would start doing Sealion and then we have a serious game balance issue.

Just look at different editions of WIF. I remember at one time that it became the norm to go all out against France in sep/oct 1939 and quite often you got to Paris at that time. The Germans invaded Spain regularly etc. So ADG started to change the rules so it became harder. Players will try anything they can to exploit weaknesses in the game design and those weaknesses can really ruin the game. I would certainly not feel comfortable playing a game with free usage of para and elite units. I'm pretty sure players would find a way to exploit that and then the game won't be balanced at all.

I know that people like to have free access to the shiny new weapons they got, but if we allow that we have to know the consequences. I still remember the discussions when we introduced amphs, paras and elite units. Some claimed that this could disrupt the game balance and were against it. Still we decided to give it a go, hoping that we would be able to rebalance the game.

I think we might have at this stage, but that's the main reason GS has been in beta for so long. We had to replay the game from the start to see that all phases were balanced (France, Barbarossa, Husky, Overlord etc.). Issues were found all the time and we had to tweak the rules to get closer to the balance.

What is the purpose of the game design? For me the purpose is to create a balanced game that's more historical than CeaW was. With balanced I mean that both sides have a fair chance of winning regardless of playing strategy. With historical I mean that the players would face the same limitations the real leaders had to. You should be able to stretch those limits, but then you would face consequences elsewhere. E. g. in CeaW the neutral countries were just sitting ducks and didn't respond to actions. So you could invade Canada as the Axis and USA would just sit there and wait for being the next target. The Germans would just send transports to the US coast and invade prior to the US entry. Lack of on-map US land hexes would mean a quick collapse of USA. Not very historical at all.

I know that the design decisions made by the GS development team won't suit the playing style of everybody, but I think it's like that with every game. There is a reason I don't play WIF anymore, for example. Rules became too complicated. We spent more time discussing the rules than actually playing and that was not fun. With GS I've found the balance with ease of play, historical feel and fun level that *I* like so GS is a game I like to play. Some would like to decide more what to do and they can play Axis & Allies, Third Reich etc. If you want even more historical feel you can play WIF, War In Europe or whatever.

Borger,

Good points. I agree with all you said and that we need to keep things the way they are now. Otherwise; we risk unbalancing the game.

Ditto.

You guys have done an outstanding job. Someday I'll be able to play it half as well as you guys!!!! But...it will be fun all the same.

rkr1958 wrote:Borger,

Good points. I agree with all you said and that we need to keep things the way they are now. Otherwise; we risk unbalancing the game.

Ronnie,
I'm sure you still have bad memories of the 1942 Operation Overlord I pulled lead by my para's before the quotas were reduced!
I agree that we should keep the quota/limit, although there may be scope to increase the numbers a bit from 1943 onwards when both sides did start training large numbers of paras...

schwerpunkt wrote:Ronnie,
I'm sure you still have bad memories of the 1942 Operation Overlord I pulled lead by my para's before the quotas were reduced!

I somehow blocked that out. Do you think hypnosis might bring it back out.

There is nothing wrong with your points, but I think my main concern still stands:

My concern is that because the system is 'year-based', a unit lost early in the year can't be replaced for months, while a unit lost late in the year can be replaced relatively quickly.

A fixed, 6-turn lag seems less artificial.

Hi,
If your opponent agrees, you can change the value in the general.txt file and you send it to your opponent and start your game with that value.

If you play someone else with the original build time then you have to swap out an unchanged general.txt file to play that opponent.

metolius wrote:There is nothing wrong with your points, but I don't think my main concern still stands:

My concern is that because the system is 'year-based', a unit lost early in the year can't be replaced for months, while a unit lost late in the year can be replaced relatively quickly.

A fixed, 6-turn lag seems less artificial.

It does make more sense......