Slitherine

Under current rules germans can't regain effectiveness at all during SW. Thats all fine, but problem is that they will need several turns AFTER SW ends to gain this readiness back. And if SW ends in may this couple of turns will mean that germans regain offencive potential only in July, which is not very realistic, neither good for balance (i guess).

I believe something have to be done in this direction (for example slow regain of german effectiveness during SW instead of totally stopping it).

Historically by the end on 1941-42 winter wehrmacht was in very good fighting shape and inflicted serious defeats to overextended soviet forces, like at Kharkov or Rzhev.

Probably removing extreme SW timing will work just fine (make it starting in November-December and ending in March-April) - so there will be some MUD periods for rest and refit both before and after SW.

(thats all true mostly for early years SW, when this hit is really large).

Any suggestions about it?

Also, I have checked in hotseat game that german units at 95 effectiveness goes back to 64 effectiveness: this is more than 25 effectiveness loss.

So the german lose about 30 effectiveness and for all the severe winter. If the severe winter starts in january the german can more or less carry on this situation. But in case of a long severe winter started in late november or december I see some imbalance issues here: soviets are almost able to crush the germans right in the first severe winter with almost no worries about a 1942 german offensive since it took years to the german units to regain again a effectiveness which can launch offensive actions.

We have to take a closer look at this question before releasing the patch, IMHO.

May be a solution could be a progressive effectiveness recovery of the german units in severe winter zone. And a effective 25 reduction instead of a 30 reduction.

The efficiency loss in the first severe winter should be only 20. Units can not regain efficiency until 25 below max efficiency. So a unit at 95 efficiency doing nothing should not drop to 65, but 75. If the unit moves and / or fights then it loses efficiency from that before the severe winter effect is done.

I think that we should monitor this a bit with games soon reaching Barbarossa. Currently we have a 100% guarantee for severe winter in January and 75% chance in December. This way German units will have a chance to regain efficiency in mud and regular winter turns in the Spring.

The German offensive in 1942 didn't start before July so they needed time to regain from losses in the first winter.

Maybe the max efficiency should only be 20 lower in 1941 and no offset so all units also lose 20 efficiency regardless of the current value.

What we want to see is Axis units in yellow and some in green efficiency after the initial turns. We don't want them back to white efficiency during the severe winter. If the unit is close to a good general the normal max could be like 90-95 and that means 65-70 with the current rules. It doesn't take very long to regain above this value once the severe winter ends. Then you need maybe 2-3 turns before getting to almost max efficiency. Then you have a choice to start a bit early to get more fair weather turns or wait for max efficiency.

Regeneration rate is higher with good quality units and when they're near a general. So I think Germany needs to make sure they have more generals at the front line covering the entire front line.

Maybe the main problem is the number of severe winter turns. The average is 6 turns and a slight chance for 7 or 5. Maybe we should reduce the average from 6 to 5 or maybe even 4. This means the Germans can start regenerating efficiency slightly earlier. Severe winter would change to regular winter and then mud before fair hit. Severe winter is extremely cold temperatures and blizzards etc.

This is the average temperatures (Celsius) for Moscow:
October (low/high). Average: 2/5 Record: -16/24
November. A: -4/-1. R: -32/14
December. A: -8/-3. R: -39/9
January. A: -11/-5. R: -42/9
February. A: -10/-4. R: -38/8
March. A: -5/2. R: -32/18
April. A: 2/11. R: -8/33
May. A: 7/18. R: -7/33

Same for Omsk:
October (low/high). Average: -1/7 Record: -28/27
November. A: -11/-4. R: -41/16
December. A: -17/-9. R: -45/5
January. A: -21/-12. R: -45/4
February. A: -20/-11. R: -46/4
March. A: -13/-3. R: -41/14
April. A: -1/9. R: -26/31
May. A: 5/18. R: -11/36

Can you please vote on the following.

1. Reduce the number of severe winter turns.
a. Keep at 6
b. Reduce to 5
c. Reduce to 4

Some conclusions we can draw is the Omsk has a bit more extreme cold weather than Moscow.

For Moscow we can say that October seems to have weather that can be fair, mud or winter, but probably not severe winter. Average is above 0 so most likely the weather is fair or mud.

November has average temperature slightly below 0 so the average seems to be winter, but also some high temperature so mud can happen too. Record low is as low as -33 so it means that November can sometimes have severe winter.

December has average about -8 and some above 0, but some down to -39. So winter is the average and severe winter hits quite often at this time.

January and February are the same as December so severe winter is the normal there.

March has an average of slightly below 0 so winter is the normal and some chance for mud and maybe even severe winter in some years.

April has average of about 6 so mud seems to be the normal, but also fair and winter. Severe winter seems to happen very rarely.

May has average of 13 and that means mud or fair.

So severe winter should end no later than March in most games. Probably the severe winter turns should be December, January and February only.

If we use the GS turns in 1941 we get.


20.10.1941: Likely mud or fair
09.11.1941: Likely winter, but chance for mud or severe winter
29.11.1941: Likely winter, but chance for mud or severe winter
19.12.1941: Likely severe winter, but chance for winter
08.01.1942: Likely severe winter
28.01.1942: Likely severe winter
17.02.1942: Likely severe winter
09.03.1942. Likely winter, but chance for severe winter
29.03.1942: Likely winter, but chance for severe winter
18.04.1942: Likely mud, but chance for fair or winter
08.05.1942: Likely fair, but chance for mud

This means number of severe winter turns should be minimum 4, but with an average of 5 and a slight chance of 6. That means lowering from 6 to 5 seems to fit the weather data.

Lowering it seems like a decent idea so I'll vote for 1b.

For me the problem is not severe winter duration but the amount of morale in german units that effectively is lowered.

You can ckeck (in hotseat since I don´t think that anyone has reached 1941 with the new severe winter rules) that actually effectiveness of german units is lowered about 30. I also cannot believe it at the beginning (I thought to myself that it was because german units were not properly covered by commanders) but afterwards I tried to make sure of it and discovered it: a german mech at 95 effectiveness (under Manstein command) and stationed in Smolensk (supply zone 4) was lowered to 66 efficiency during 1941 SW. This is a 29 efficiency loss.

So we are talking of a similar efficiency loss (30 vs 35) like before but applied to all severe winter turns. No need to point that this could imbalance the game in the East.

Then we need to look into that as well. Maybe there are some other factors dropping efficiency in addition the forced drop we have added? I would appreciate if several players try out a solo 1941 scenario and check how much the Axis units lose efficiency when the winter hits and what happens during the winter.

If all goes well then the Axis units should lose 20 efficiency each from their current levels.

Hi,

The loss is from the max effeciency without any extra or added from leaders?

So a unit can lose more than 20 correct? The turn right after that would not have the leaders added?

I want to wait until the games progress before making any changes.

So if you had a unit with a max possible of 81 (base no leader) would go down to 61 (loss of 20)

If a leader raised it a max possible 14 (i.e.. a leader with a value of 7) so that would be 95. would it not take a couple of turns to add the leader value?

Stauffenberg wrote:Then we need to look into that as well. Maybe there are some other factors dropping efficiency in addition the forced drop we have added?

It must be something indeed since this is what I have also checked in a 1940 scenario once Belgium is surrendered and the 20 effectiveness penalty is applied to allied units:
- french garrisons units lose 24 effectiveness (from 67 to 43)
- french infantry corps units lose 23 effectiveness (from 72 to 49)
- french mech corps lose 22 effectiveness (from 74 to 52)
- french fighter loses 23 effectiveness (from 70 to 47)

Nevertheless, british units only lose 17-18 effectiveness
- british infantry corps in France lose 17 effectiveness
- british garrison corps in France lose 18 effectiveness
- air units in UK lose 18 effectiveness (from 80 to 62)

So it seems that there must be something additional for calculating the dropping efficiency.

pk867 wrote:Hi,

The loss is from the max effeciency without any extra or added from leaders?

So a unit can lose more than 20 correct? The turn right after that would not have the leaders added?

I want to wait until the games progress before making any changes.

So if you had a unit with a max possible of 81 (base no leader) would go down to 61 (loss of 20)

If a leader raised it a max possible 14 (i.e.. a leader with a value of 7) so that would be 95. would it not take a couple of turns to add the leader value?

Paul, may be you are right with this and that´s how the game makes the calculations.

But the fact is that we are looking to decrease both normal and extra effectiveness added by a commander. So a german corps in USSR at 90 effectiveness (stationed at a commander range) would decrease to 70 effectiveness. Otherwise, the russians would be a killer for the germans in the first severe winter.

You have to remember that you lose 20 efficiency from your current efficiency and not the max one. Most Axis units late 1941 are quite exhausted so they have maybe 50-60 before the severe winter. Then they drop to 30-40. If the max is 95 they can regain efficiency up to 70. So you better rest the German units a bit before the severe winter hits to avoid falling too low.

Stauffenberg wrote:You have to remember that you lose 20 efficiency from your current efficiency and not the max one. Most Axis units late 1941 are quite exhausted so they have many 50-60 before the severe winter. Then they drop to 30-40. If the max is 95 they can regain efficiency up to 70. So you better rest the German units a bit before the severe winter hits to avoid falling too low.

I am pretty sure that german units during 1941 being idle for dozen of turns and under Manstein's command regain to 60-61, not to 70.

It means we need to look into this. I will have to add some test code to print data for the different factors to the efficiency so I can see where the max ends up lower than expected.

It's not intended for the Axis units to lose 30 efficiency in 1941. They should only lose 20 and have a chance to regain up to 25 below the max.

Remember that the supply level also has an influence on the max efficiency. German units have often supply level 3 late in 1941 and some might get increased to 4 when the supply range is increased from 30 to 40 hexes in 1942.

Borger,

Maybe a different implantation of the desired functionality would produce the desired result. It may be that Max Efficiency factors into the overall calculation of efficiency is some unforeseen way. What about this (assuming it's not now implemented this way) ...

1. Do NOT lower the stored value of a units max efficiency due to severe winter. Say that value is EFF_Max

2. Also, let the desired drop in Max efficiency due to the severe winter be, EFF_Drop (Note that this will be a function of year).

3. Then let efficiency (EFF) after the normal calculations be capped by the equation, EFF = Math.min(EFF,EFF_Max-EFF_Drop); Note that EFF_Drop would be 0 for non-severe winter months.

These values in general.txt affect efficiency:
LOWEST_MAX_EFFICIENCY 40 /*Max EFFICIENCY for a unit with no commander, no supply, no tech, zero quality*/
EFFICIENCY_REGAIN 145 /*effeciency regain is dependant on quality+supply and this factor*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_SHOCK 5 /*EFFICIENCY points lost per shock hit*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_CASUALTY_FACTOR 45 /*Proportional to EFFICIENCY points lost per casualty point*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_DEPLOY 15 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when deploying a unit*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_MOVEMENT 5 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when moving a unit*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_RAIL_MOVEMENT 10 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when railmoving a unit*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_UNLOAD 15 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when naval landing*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_LACK_SUPPLY 10 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when having no supply*/
EFFICIENCY_LOSS_FROM_SHORE_BOMBARDMENT 10 /*EFFICIENCY points lost when performing shore bombardment*/

Here is the formula for max efficiency:
max = Lowest_max_efficiency (40) + organization techs + 2* quality + 3 *supply + 2* commander_quality

Germany has organization tech 3 in 1941 and that means 3 + 8 + 10 = 21

Let's say they have a unit with quality 4 and supply level 3. Then the addition from quality and supply is = 2*4 + 3*3 =17
The unit is adjacent to Manstein and that means 2*8 = 16 further

The total max efficiency = 40 + 21 + 17 + 16 = 94

I found the bug and fixed it. Ronnie and Paul will distribute GS v2.01.20 asap.

The bug was rather simple. The max efficiency was reduced by 35 (fixed value from general.txt) - number of years passed * less winter suffer per year (fixed value from general.txt). For 1941 it should be 35 - 2*5 = 25.

The problem was that the formula didn't have *less winter suffer per year so the formula calculated 35 - 2 = 33.

So all Axis units dropped 8 extra efficiency and couldn't regain that until the severe winter had ended.

I also reduced in GS v2.01.20 the average number of severe winter turns from 6 to 5.