GS v2.00 update sent to Slitherine for release

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:58 pm

We just added the following changes to Slitherine for the final version. Paul and Ronnie will distribute these updates to you as well.

• Map and scenarios updated so the Med transport loop is moved away from Port Said to prevent units coming out of
it blocking the UK CV from spawning

• Linked the Siberian reserves to spawning before the November 8th turn instead of when USA joins the Allies. The reason is that the Siberian troops arrived in Moscow in November prior to US entry.

• All Russian Siberian ground units will be Guards and spawn with a leader (Chuikov) to ensure the efficiency for these units are about 70 when they spawn. That means they can actually counter attack.

• Guards limit is increased for Russia to take into consideration the initial 6 guards units arriving late 1941.
MAX_GUARDS_1939 0 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1939 */
MAX_GUARDS_1940 0 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1940 */
MAX_GUARDS_1941 6 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1941 */ (was 2)
MAX_GUARDS_1942 8 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1942 */ (was 4)
MAX_GUARDS_1943 10 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1943 */ (was 7)
MAX_GUARDS_1944 12 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1944 */ (was 10)
MAX_GUARDS_1945 15 /* Max number of Guards units allowed on the map in 1945 */ (still is 15)

• Initial XP of Siberian units set to 35

• Initial efficiency of Siberian units set to 80 (but will drop to about 70 before they can be moved because max
efficiency for USSR is about 70 with a leader due to low organization).

• Message changed for Siberian reserves:
INDEX-234| "The Russian spy Richard Sorge informs Stalin that Japan plans to attack USA and not Russia. Stalin decides to send Siberian forces from the Far East to the Urals northwest of Omsk."

• Message changed for US entry:
INDEX-487| "Japan makes a surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor. US President Roosevelt speaks passionately to the US Congress about the infamous treachery. USA joins the Allies."

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 7:16 pm

The reason for moving the Med transport loop is to prevent players from accidentally not getting the UK CV in Port Said by moving units through the Suez when Egypt becomes active.

The other change is more dramatical and the reason for it is to give Russia a slightly bigger chance to survive 1941 against the armor blob strategy for the Axis invented by Morris. His strategy is to build 12+ armor and 7+ mech units and ignore subs, labs (except armor) and air units. He just sends the German units eastwards at max speed, ignoring cities along the path. Rear infantry units can mop up the left behind cities.

Starting Barbarossa early in May (or even April) means you will be in Moscow/ Leningrad in August and in November you will have taken Stalingrad, Grozny and maybe even Gorki. The Russian units have too low efficiency to counter attack these strong units. The German armor can deal with any Russian threats and when 1942 comes the Russians risk losing Omsk as well and thus the game. If the Russians can fend off the 1942 offensive then the Axis player will probably lose due to ignoring the west and not focusing on labs.

The point is that this strategy is so powerful as is that even the best Allied players have no chance stopping it. We don't want to restrict how many units of each kind the players can build, but we felt that allowing the Siberian units from arriving a bit earlier without the efficiency penalties of the other units means they can go on the counter offensive if the Germans are too spread out. This threat alone means the Germans will have to consolidat in the autumn and form a cohesive front line to prevent strong counter attacks. That means it would be very risky to push way past Moscow in 1941.

The Siberian troops won't come early enough to prevent the fall of cities like Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov, but they arrive soon enough to be used when the severe winter hits to retake maybe one of these cities. That means the 1942 battles will be open and the Germans will have to fight hard to get to Omsk in 1942. They can still do it, but it requires a lot of skill and maybe some luck.

If we can make the armor blob strategy risky enough from being the norm then we have fixed a game balance issue. Thanks to Morris for finding this game balance weakness. He also found the weakness about the British being allowed to send all UK units to France without penalty. We already fixed that one.

I think his strategies (German armor blob and huge BEF in France) both still have merit, but they might not work against great opponents. Less skilled opponents will probably succumb to the pressure from being attacked by the German armor blob. It's so easy to make a mistake and waste the Russian units trying to stop the Germans too far to the west. So I think these strategies will still be used.

It's actually a bit strange to read posts about players saying their playing style as the Axis means their offensive is going down the drain in 1942 while players like Morris would be fighting for Omsk as the Axis in 1942. I think this proves that GS v2.00 still has so many unexplored possibilities regarding strategies that it will be hard to find the "optimal" playing strategy for each side.

The German armor blob seemed to be a strategy that even the best of us had problems stopping as the Allies so it was definitely a game balance issue similar to the Russian armor blob a year ago. If we had had more time we could have looked at the armor stats and maybe lowered them a bit, but we really want to get GS v2.00 released. So we think we have found a way for the Russians to still have some punch left even if they were overrun in 1941 by this strategy.

We're not so afraid about Russia becoming too strong because the Siberian units will only be available for offensive purposes in December 1941 and that means they can take part in a concentrated attack one place on the map to drive the Germans back or they can punish German armor units too far away from their infantry support units. So the Germans will be forced to be a little more conservative from October. That will not unbalance "normal" games where the armor blob is not used.

metolius · Post by **metolius** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 9:21 pm

In GS 3.0 (;-), some new rules on supply could also be used to make the armor blobs and crazy BEF forces 'historically' expensive. I can only imagine the real Wehrmacht trying to transport fuel for 12+ corps of armor over one segment of the Russian 'road' system –– the result would have been about 10 corps of armored pillboxes...

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:25 pm

First of all, I would like to point here that I´ve just finished a GS game and my feeling is that the game is now well balanced: experience, manpower and oil issues have been correctly tweaked. Strategies like followed by Morris can be sooner or later counteracted and have less importance than the factors mentioned above. Ths game is now even more interesting than before for many reasons but the main one is the many strategy options that the players have now.

Regarding to the last update, and particularly to changes made in reserve siberian units IMO they seem to be enough to counter strategies like the one Morris has followed. From my point of view, we have introduced a wide change in Eastern front scenario that has made this scenario the most important in GS (as it also was in the real war). Now, the russian player has to perform really well in 1941 to face german massive armour strategies like that. Personally, I don´t think this can be a big issue if the russians build their defensive line further east enough and if they take advantage of the many russian river and forests hexes (where armour units have less attacking values). It seems that now the russians have to face a real risk in their homeland: before it was said that it was almost impossible to knock the russians out of the war.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:47 pm

We tried to form an initial defense line from Leningrad to Moscow to Stalingrad to Stavropol and it was overrun by the Germans in 1941. That shows that you don't have a defense against the armor blob. All you can do is to have a chance to counter strike so hard when winter begins so the Germans don't dare to send their armor so deep. That's why the Russian reserve units need to have a slightly better punch.

In November / December 1941 Russia introduced 4 shock armies that were crucial in the counter offensive. So the Siberian units can be seen as part of these shock armies. The Germans were take by surprise that the Russians could fight back so hard.

No game will be completely balanced. You might find a strategy that will give you victories, until another player has found a better strategy to counter yours. And so on. I believe that you can always find ways to counter certain strategies. E. g. Morris and Supermax are both very skilled at finding creative strategies that give you better results than most manage to do. Eventually people will copy these strategies and eventually you need to find a new strategy to counter this again.

A big fear for all game designers is that some clever players find a strategy that might break the game balance completely. We've all played games we feel are completely unbalanced and then we stop playing them.

The surprise remaining drop of just 5 per turn means Russian will only regain half efficiency for 6 turns. That chance alone made it possible for most Axis players to cross the Dnepr and get to the historical 1941 line. The downside is that the best Axis players can get much further and then they suddenly have a chance to get to Omsk in 1942 and win the game. So we shouldn't alter what makes it possible to get good results as the Axis in 1941, but they should not be able to send armor units on adventure missions deep into Russian territory just because the Russians units are too weak to contain them. No real German commander would have dared doing that late 1941. They did it in June and July, but then the Russians were taken by surprise and couldn't surround the spearheads.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:28 pm

I was referring to a strong (only formed by corps units) double russian defensive line only at the forests, leaving the clear russian terrain for the panzers to have their fun. Surely they will get to Stalingrad or even more to Tambov but the panzers surely would be reluctant to face a strong russian infantry well entrenched at the forests.

Furthermore, british will be able to start a massive early strategic bombing campaign (increasing PP´s from convoys due to no submarine threat).

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:57 pm

All,
FYI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

The Wikipedia info is consistent with other references that I have and shows the basis for the changes made..
Cheers

Neil

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 12:09 am

leridano wrote:I was referring to a strong (only formed by corps units) double russian defensive line only at the forests, leaving the clear russian terrain for the panzers to have their fun. Surely they will get to Stalingrad or even more to Tambov but the panzers surely would be reluctant to face a strong russian infantry well entrenched at the forests.

Morris's game as of Aug 1 - he has penetrated extremely deeply and executed his strategy very well....

Any units that stand in his way that arent at entr lvl 4 or better get creamed. GARs seem to take only two or three units at most to eliminate them when at lvl 4.....

The maximum unit efficiency, at Aug 1, of a unit having been stationary since the start of the game with a 5 leader (eg Leningrad) is 48% (this is because the DOW penalty is applied proportionally as a cap to russian efficiency regain for the first 6 turns, so in this case of a May attack, russian units dont get normal readiness regain until the Sep 10 turn).

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 7:57 am

I like the availability of Siberian reserve not being linked to US activation. I've rarely got to use them efficiently until later stages of winter offensive. However, I'm not so sure about Chuikov. He has the +1 att/ +1 def combo making him one of the more valuable commanders. Also, apparently he wasn't even in USSR until mid '42 being stationed in China as an advisor (or so says all-knowing wiki .

)

The siberians getting insta Guards status seems bit iffy too me as well. I do realise it's hard to get Guards (that survive longer than a turn) before '43 but six with 2 mech and 2 tank?

Anyway, this's just based on my current experience. I haven't faced such a panzer roll or April Barbarossa.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:51 am

The Siberian reserves can also be seen as the introduction of the 4 Shock armies that appeared near Moscow in November and December 1941. They were better equipped than normal Soviet Armies. That's why the Russian units have Guards status.

Experience from earlier games have showed that Russia has a big problem getting guards and making them survive the first counter attack turn. You become guards at the front and then the Germans will attack the unit for sure to eliminate it. So it's very hard for the Russians to get to the number of guards units they had historically.

Several of the 1941 Siberian units are expected to be destroyed in the 1942 German offensive. Russia can withdraw their guards units to prevent destruction, but then their front line will become quite a bit weaker, which can be exploited by the Germans.

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:58 am

Ok, if the additional guards units are seen as the so far missing shock armies (good to see those IMO), it's a reasonable way to represent them. I just feel it's bit too easy to get the two valuable Gds Tanks. None of the Shock armies could really be described as tank units at least mobilitywise.

But I guess we'll see the impact as soon as some new games get that far.

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:23 pm

PionUrpo wrote: But I guess we'll see the impact as soon as some new games get that far.

Morris and I are running another game from Jun 41 in parallel with our current one (now Jan28 1942) and there is at least one other game closing in on Barbarossa that I'm aware of. So we should get some info pretty quickly.

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:26 pm

PionUrpo wrote:I just feel it's bit too easy to get the two valuable Gds Tanks. None of the Shock armies could really be described as tank units at least mobilitywise.

Yes, if we need to weaken things a bit, having the ARM as regular would be my first change option.....

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:29 pm

I look forward to that data to see if the changes we made helped.

Do you think we should rename the Siberian mech and corps units so they instead are called the 1st Gds Shock Army, 2nd Gds Shock Army, 3rd Gds Shock Army and 4th Gds Shock Army?

I can easily do that in the game class file.

It's even possible to alter a few files so the text Shock will be interpreted as guards and given the bonuses. Then the names can just be 1st Shock Army .. 4th Shock Army.

Does anyone know if the Shock Armies were mainly manned with Siberian units coming from the east or were they formed from regular units, but better equipped?

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:33 pm

Stauffenberg wrote:I look forward to that data to see if the changes we made helped.

Do you think we should rename the Siberian mech and corps units so they instead are called the 1st Gds Shock Army, 2nd Gds Shock Army, 3rd Gds Shock Army and 4th Gds Shock Army?

I can easily do that in the game class file.

It's even possible to alter a few files so the text Shock will be interpreted as guards and given the bonuses. Then the names can just be 1st Shock Army .. 4th Shock Army.

Does anyone know if the Shock Armies were mainly manned with Siberian units coming from the east or were they formed from regular units, but better equipped?

Might be some nice chrome to change the names in the next hotfix

My recollection is that the Shock Armies were a mix of units but better equipped and supplied. I'll see if I can find an OOB for them.
Cheers

Neil

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:42 pm

From Wikipedia;

The 1st Shock Army was formed as part of the RVGK (Stavka reserve) at Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad) in the Moscow Military District in November 1941. Taking part in the Battle of Moscow in December 1941, on 1 December the Army consisted of the 133rd Rifle Division, 29th, 44th, 47th, 50th, 55th, 56th, 71st, and 84th Rifle Brigades, 17th Cavalry Division, two tank battalions, an artillery regiment of the Stavka reserve, and other support units

1st Shock looks mostly like an INF corp...

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:00 pm

The old Fire in the East game OOB shows the following units coming from the Eastern Military Districts from late Aug through to late Nov;

Rifle Div's: 21st*, 26th*, 32nd*, 65th*, 78th*, 92nd*, 93rd*, 114th, 194th, 238th, 239th, 249th, 310th, 312th, 313th, 314th, 316th, 361st, 365th, 367th, 413th*, 415th*
Rifle Brig's: 44th, 55th, 61st, 69th, 71st, 73rd, 84th
Tank Div's: 58th, 59th, 60th, 112th
Tank Brigades: 7th, 8th, 26th, 33rd
Mech Div's: 69th*
Motorised Div: 82nd*
Cav Div's: 18th*, 20th*, 30th, 41st, 44th, 49th, 57th, 75th, 76th, 78th, 79th, 94th

* = winterised

Based on the above, a number of the Siberian rifle brigades at least ended up in 1st Shock Army

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:07 pm

AFAIK the Shock army was in theory supposed to make the initial breakthrough and for other mobile units then to exploit the opened gap in the enemy line. To achieve this they'd have more artillery/armor/engineers/whatnot but in practice the difference compared to regular armies wasn't remarkable.

schwerpunkt · Post by **schwerpunkt** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:12 pm

An interesting para from the Wikipedia entry on the battle for Moscow;

Because of the resistance on both the northern and southern sides of Moscow, the Wehrmacht attempted, on 1 December 1941, a direct offensive from the west, along the Minsk-Moscow highway near the city of Naro-Fominsk. However, this offensive had only limited tank support and was forced to assault extensive Soviet defenses. After meeting determined resistance from the Soviet 1st Guards Motorized Rifle Division and flank counterattacks staged by the 33rd Army, the German offensive stalled and was driven back four days later in the ensuing Soviet counteroffensive.

I've also seen references to Guards tank brigades and cavalry divisions, although I think the designation was more for morale boosting and recognition of performance than superior equipment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:22 pm

schwerpunkt wrote: Morris's game as of Aug 1 - he has penetrated extremely deeply and executed his strategy very well....

Russian defensive line in Moscow seems to be excessively thin: 12 inf corps for defending Moscow zone seems to be a rather weak force. In GS the allied player is able to build more than 30 russian inf corps between june 1941 and october 1941. This 30 infantry corps plus the initial inf corps and mechs should be enough to form a strong defensive army at the forests and preferably deployed close to Moscow. So IMO as the russians you cannot afford to pay much attention to labs at the very first moment to face such strong Axis Barbarossa.

On the other hand, Morris air support in this Barbarossa is rather precarious: so the russians can be at a maximum of 48% efficiency but the germans do not have the bomber units needed for lowering russian efficiency units before attacking them by land. This will result in increasing losses for the assaulting german forces.

The fact is that new challenges has been introduced in Eastern front scenario that will make it even more interesting and fun.