why Morris does not surrender?

[Morris]

My friend told me, many people wonder why Morris does not surrender?

It is seems the time to explain to everyone that why allies still do not surrender under the great achivement which Mr Supermax had done. It looks rediculous . ok ,let me explain my original strategy in this AAR as follows :
the reason we start this AAR is to test whether the game is balance after the patch of 2.01.28 . After forbid the allies air support & land enforcement in Russia ,is it possible for the Axis have equal oppotunity to win the game as allies ? My strategy is simple that just try to attack & make Axis bleeding with fuel & manpower all the time ,& defeat Axis by a GDP cost war . As we know that Axis had two shortcoming manpower & fuel . If we can drain out Axis the resource of these , we can defeat them with the advantage of total GDP .
At the beginning of this AAR , Max made a magnificent dreamy start which Axis has never achived before , this made me make a decision that to test if Axis has the opportunity to win under such a huge advantage , if not there must be something wrong of the game engine. As you can find from Max AAR that ,I did not use any trick & special tactic ,just push everything I had to attack Axis with no stop . Maybe you think I am stupid & foolish , but if I can win this game by such an stupid & foolish way , what do you think of it ?!
Since no one could make better Axis beginning than Max (I do Believe ), but everyone even the new guys will be easy to copy my stupid strategy .　
So now is the question is it possible to win by such a simple stupid strategy ? At present , Axis have fought aginst my attack for almost three years , although Axis got great achivement , but Axis did not get any more fuel , According to my own experience , Axis fuel will be only around 150-200 . Regarding to the manpower , from the attachment you will find an German with 500+ INF lost , 300+ mech lost , 195+plane lost ,113 navy lost (not including this turn ). Most of the INF & Mech & Arm are not supply to full strength, 50% of them less than 6 strengh )I think you may caculate by yourself , how is the situation of Axis Manpower , Yes , Axis may have enough money , but I have to tell you the USSR have 120+ income not including convoy . plus US＆UK , which side is stronger ?
At present , we can say that the first half of this AAR , Axis won the upper hand . But there is still two & a half year to go ,who will be the one to smile until the last ?

I do hope Max will win . If I win it will be really a pity to this game . Maybe we will have to adjust something to the right way . I can't wait to watch the AAR which is forbidden to me & to be an Axis in the Next AAR with Max .

[PionUrpo]

As we've seen in several AARs already this strategy certainly works very well against most players.

I guess the question then is what would You do to reduce the effectiveness of it?

[Cybvep]

Ah, finally, the most controversial player has spoken. It's about time!

Maybe you think I am stupid & foolish , but if I can win this game by such an stupid & foolish way , what do you think of it ?!

This is a fair point, actually. If you admit that the strategy is extremely simple and everyone can use it, then the game balance is broken.

However, there are a few things which everyone is wondering about. For example, how do you manage to have so high tech levels and so high MP levels?

[rkr1958]

Morris,

Based on this game and other games that you've played what specific recommendations do you have to address game balance? Our objective is to balance the game in the most historical manner possible.

[Diplomaticus]

Would a relatively simple fix be to adjust manpower (reduce) for the Allies? In the AAR, we've all been marveling at the incredible losses the Russians have sustained, not to mention the UK, yet neither one is apparently even at 75%. Surely that's not historically accurate. I know that the USSR took massive losses in the war, but a) were they *this* massive? and b) didn't they indeed run into manpower difficulties?

[Cybvep]

a) were they *this* massive?

They lost more people than the western Allied COMBINED did in BOTH World Wars.

b) didn't they indeed run into manpower difficulties?

They did, from 1943 on.

[Blathergut]

Thanks for explaining, Morris! I don't know if anything is broken, but I don't think so. It is a simple strategy but Morris is able to execute it perfectly, while someone like me, playing the Allies like this, would have stopped the attacks long ago to regather myself. As the Axis, I would not have been able to manage things as Max has done, and again, would have crumbled long before now. It will, as Morris says, be interesting to see if Max can hold them off to the end. Again, thanks for the comments Morris, you explained very clearly and effectively your thoughts!

[peterjfrigate]

Morris- thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am still curious about your manpower situation.

[Morris]

all my man power is above 75% including USSR .

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Morris, what we need from you is to suggest what you think we can alter regarding the Allies so you won't think it's a good idea to drain the Axis manpower and oil the way you do. We want to make changes that will NOT alter "normal" Allied play.

It seems to me that the Russians can be subdued by the Germans despite this strategy so the solution is probably not to alter Russia. I think the big issue here is that the western Allies seem to build lots of land units to make an invasion of France both in 1941 and 1942. I don't think the real western Allies could do that. I think a 1943 invasion of France could be possible, but 1942 seems to be too early. USA has then just been at war for a few months.

Lowering the manpower base for USA and UK seems to not be the way to go. That would give them problems in the late game if they follow a normal strategy (building naval and air units first and then a lot of land units for the invasion).

So I think the problem is that the Allies can actually research only a few techs and ignore e. g. naval units completely. That seems to be very ahistorical and I think that we need to do something about that.

If there had been rules encouraging you to build naval units then you simply won't have enough PP's to build lots of land units in 1941 and 1942 for an early invasion of France.

Since draining the Germans so much as you do means that the German navy is sunk then you get the convoys home every turn with no damage to them. That means a lot of extra PP's that can be spent on land units.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

In the real war the main problem for the Allies before 1943 was that they didn't have control in the Atlantic. Winning the battle of the Atlantic was their main priority. I believe that it would have been very dangerous for the Allies to send troop transports to Europe in 1941 / 1942 without having a lot of escorts. That means you need to build more destroyers, carriers and battleships.

In your game against Supermax I think this isn't happening because Supermax can't afford to spend oil on the subs moving and attacking every turn. The bug we found regarding production of oil and PP's will give the Axis about 4 oil extra per turn. At least in the early part of the war. Maybe that will help the Axis having enough oil to build subs to challenge the Allies in the Atlantic.

If the RN is sunk and the Allies don't have a lot of strategic bombers to punish subs then the subs could easily focus on e. g. the Russian convoy and sink it every time. So the Allies would need more naval units to be able to escort them.

With more Axis oil I think the troop transports from USA to France in 1942 could have been attacked.

So, do you think, Morris, that the key to stopping you from sacrificing the RN and making big US invasion of France in 1942 would be a stronger German sub presence? If you knew they would attack every turn would you then build more naval units to stop the sub menace?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Submarines were quite fuel efficient so maybe we should look into the sub oil consumption and maybe alter it so you only pay 1 oil each time the sub attacks and not when the sub moves? Or vice versa. You pay 1 oil each time the sub moves, but not when the sub attacks.

That would allow the Germans to have a larger sub force and we wouldn't need to alter the convoy damage etc. Supermax said that the only reason he couldn't have a bigger sub force was the oil issue. Germany have enough PP's to build them.

What do you think?

[Cybvep]

BTW in regard to subs - can you please remove the annoying "bump" feature? It happens when you click on the hex where the convoy was present and it effectively wastes you one attack.

Submarines were quite fuel efficient so maybe we should look into the sub oil consumption and maybe alter it so you only pay 1 oil each time the sub attacks and not when the sub moves? Or vice versa. You pay 1 oil each time the sub moves, but not when the sub attacks.

Why not simply reduce the oil consumption? It makes perfect sense that subs consume more oil if they are fighting or moving IMO.

[rkr1958]

I would go so far as the subs not using any oil until the higher techs.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I proposed in the other thread where you can vote that subs only burn oil when they attack and not when they move. The opposite of now. That means you can use subs for patrolling without wasting oil. So if you burn oil with subs then it would be because you decide to attack something.

I think that makes sense and I guess if Supermax could have done that in the game against Morris then his subs would have been hunting convoys and not remaining in port to save oil. With less PP's to the western Allies then they would need to spend PP's on DD's and that means fewer land units until they have control over the Atlantic.

Now Morris got control over the Atlantic despite having lost most of his navy. This because Supermax needed every oil point to stop the Russians.

[Diplomaticus]

I think Borger's on the right track, although I'm not convinced that u-boats are the whole answer.

Most of us on the forum seem to agree that there's something really wrong about the Allies' ability to make these big Overlord-style invasions as early as 1941. Nobody is complaining about the smaller Husky/Torch type of invasions--it's the fact that the Allies seem pretty easily able to gain overwhelming air superiority either over the Channel or over Sicily in '41-'42, and then under that umbrella do these humongous, ahistorical amphibious invasions early in the war.

[Plaid]

Sub use miserable 1 oil point. You can move entire kriegsmarine at same price as one mid-game panzer korps. I will never believe that oil factor will be decisive for anyone in sub warfare.

Its more like PP problem, as to effectively sink large convoy (even unescorted) you need to attack several turns with many subs (ideally 6).
With standard hunting group of 3 subs convoy will go out of your sight in his turn, so you will be forced to use 1 sub as a spotter, and only 2 will be able to attack. So with average 2 attack/turn convoy can make all the way from USA to UK losing maybe half of its strength.

And there are 3 convoys. So even with totally no allied interratcion you need horde of 12-15 subs to completely paralize convoying. Its damn expensive, very expensive.

Also if you attack warships (like in Supermax's AAR) you can't attack convoys same time for obvious reasons. So you need even more subs to send some against convoys, while another - against warships. Each warship will take like 3 sub attacks even with lowest ASW possible to be sunk.
Same true for unescorted transports - if you send 10 across atlantic subs will sink like 3 or 4, rest will arrive like no problem.

So I think problems is somewhere here - you need unreasonable high number of subs to actually have and enjoy naval superiority.

[peterjfrigate]

So, do you think, Morris, that the key to stopping you from sacrificing the RN and making big US invasion of France in 1942 would be a stronger German sub presence? If you knew they would attack every turn would you then build more naval units to stop the sub menace?

This seems right.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Do you think the subs shouldn't burn oil at all?

[Plaid]

I think PP shortage limit sub use much much more then oil.
How many axis can really build? Very rarely (italian sub mass production + close the med) I see more then 6.
Its just not enough to control seas with oil cost or without it.
And its extremeley hard to find spare PPs to build more subs.
(by the way same is true for air units. Real germans had no problem to provide BOTH good cover to Germany and France in 1941 and good air support for Barbarossa. Is it possible in game? Dont think so).
Probalby germans should get some free subs like 1 free for 3 built (to encourage people actually building them, not waiting for free reinforcements, focused on other units). Historically germans produced lots and lots of subs during almost all the war.