Slitherine

I am playing a PBEM game as the Axis and have struggled with oil consumption throughout the game. Didn't focus in until I attacked Russia and used over 100 points of oil in one turn! The next turn I started by tracking the oil use for all units and discovered that the game is subtracting the oil use for a unit for the move and again for an attack in the same turn! So moving and attacking with an Armor unit is costing 8 oil! Un-intercepted Tac attack is 8 too!

I do know that intercepted air attacks double up the oil use. But this can't be correct on ground attacks. Can it?

Oh, I play GS 2.0 on a Macbook Pro.

Thanks, Ben

Yes, that's correct for ground units. If you think about it, attacking an enemy is more oil-intensive than simply driving down a road. It could probably be tweaked so that, for example, the oil cost for a tank attacking is less than the cost of moving 6 hexes. But the current system works fine in my opinion. If we lowered attack cost, we would have to raise movement cost to maintain game balance.

Air units do not use double oil for attacking. A Tac would only use double oil if intercepted.

If what you are saying is correct then we are facing this - launch Barbarossa, Axis oil "income" drops to 41 - 43 per turn. It costs 8 points to move and attack with an Armor unit so 5 Armor units x 8 = 40 points, the entire oil income for a turn?!

I have seen force descriptions in the 2.0 manual in 132.1 of "One possible composition is 10 tanks, 6 tactical bombers, 4 fighters, 4 mechanized. You can adjust this composition any way you like, but you must maintain a balance that will keep you from running out of oil."

Let's see, 10 tanks x 8 = 80 oil per turn on the attack, plus 6 Tac x 8 = 48 oil, + 4 fighters x 6 = 24 oil and 4 mech x 2 = 8 oil. This force, on the attack, will burn 160 oils points per turn? And now 2.1 is raising Mech to 2 oil so on the attack that goes to 4 per turn so this same force would burn 168 oil per turn? With an income of 43 or so?

I have to repeat - this can't be right? Where am I wrong on the numbers? I have to figure I screwed up somewhere as this does not make any sense. To me at least.

Ben

In my experience, during a full-scale Barbarossa the gas gauge does tend to plummet pretty quickly. But then again, it's now fairly typical for Axis players to begin Barbarossa with over 700 barrels of oil saved up in reserve. Depending on strategies and tactics used, some begin with over 900 oil.

Consider also that there are only 8 turns of guaranteed clear weather. Before winter sets in, most players gradually slow the pace and begin shifting into a more defensive pattern to settle in for Severe Winter. Axis may face six months or more of mud and snow (October through April), and that's usually inactive time when you can stockpile oil for the next summer offensive.

Oil management is a huge part of the game for Axis. Running out of oil too early spells disaster, so it's a skill all serious Axis players must master.

bensand88 wrote:I have seen force descriptions in the 2.0 manual in 132.1 of "One possible composition is 10 tanks, 6 tactical bombers, 4 fighters, 4 mechanized. You can adjust this composition any way you like, but you must maintain a balance that will keep you from running out of oil." Ben

That section was written long ago. A far more realistic number in 2.0 is 7 tanks, 6 tacs, 3 fighters, and 6 mechs. Even that is pushing it. And yes, Barbarossa does burn a lot of oil. But hopefully you've built up a large stockpile beforehand (800-900). And you won't be moving and attacking with every unit on every turn. Air units will be doing one or the other, and ground units will probably be doing quite a bit of uncontested advancing. Part of the challenge is figuring out how to gain the most out of each oil point spent. It's takes a lot of practice to get good at it.

Being careful with tech is also important. For example, armour lv. 1 gives you +1 survivability, but also increases oil consumption by 1. So maybe you choose to "skip" this upgrade for Barbarossa, and do it during the winter instead. Is it worth the oil spent to gain +1 extra survivability against weak, low-effectiveness Russian troops? Not making this upgrade has saved me quite a bit of oil in a current game, and I don't think it's cost me many tank steps at all. Again, practice.

Yes, I know that conserving and stockpiling oil is critical to the Axis. And you all sound so reasonable. And yes, it's embarrassing to have played this game a lot and never picked up on this double dipping. Well then, don't I have a red face? But it explains a lot. In the many games I have played since 2.0 came out, PBEM, I have crushed the Axis the 4 times I have been the Allies and have been crushed as the Axis 3. Two Axis foes have attacked Russia in 41 and two in 42. None have broken through the line Pskov, Vitebsk, Gomel, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Black Sea. And now I know that it wasn't good play on my part, it was that they were coming in with both arms tied behind their backs and a lead weight hanging around their necks! No wonder I lost my games as Axis.

700 - 900 Oil saved to start Barbarossa? From start to 06/22/41 you can generate about 1601 barrels, if you declare war on Yugoslavia as early as possible, around July or August 1940. That is 34 turns, so to have 750 saved means the Axis can use an average of 25 oil per turn. To take Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, take on North Africa and fight the sub war in the Atlantic and the British in the Med?

And you wonder why people come up with "gamey" ways to overcome the ridiculousness of this? And now you're going to "fix" the Mech Blob strategy by increasing oil use? No wonder so many players are Allies Only. I have found it to be a sure win. But how much fun is that? I guess I will stop whining now and go find some other game to play. This one has lost it's appeal

I usually have between 800-850 oil at the start of my Barbarossa. The key to save oil is to rail the armor and air units to their new locations instead of burning oil moving.

If you focus on industry a bit you should get about 55 oil per turn. If you take Yugoslavia then Ploesti will generate oil using German war effort (change in GS v2.1). That will generate a bit more oil.

At the end of 1941 I usually have dropped to 350-400 oil, but get back to about 700 before the 1942 offensive begins. The Allies can try to drain the Axis oil a bit by making attacks here and there.

As the Axis you should refrain from attacking unless it's part of a strategic plan. E. g. using the air units during mud or winter is usually a bad idea because you burn oil and you inflict little damage. So have a plan with what you want with your attacks.

Then it should be possible to keep the German war machine going for quite some time. You should also consider when to upgrade. Sometimes it's better to not upgrade if the upgrade means a higher oil consumption.

After some time it's not so hard to deal with the Axis oil consumption.

In all my 1941 Barbarossa attacks I get to Leningrad (often capture it), to the outskirts or Moscow, to Voronezh and Rostov. It's not that hard. Elite Axis players like Morris manage to get to Stalingrad and the Caucasus in 1941 as the Germans.

So I propose you play the Allies against one of them to see how far you can actually go Axis the Axis in 1941.

With the advent of 2.0 my Germans can keep gas in thier tanks well into 1943 but are running on fumes by the end of the year if I'm not careful. But that is an improvement over prior versions of the mod.

Investing in industrialization also increases the Axis oil output a little bit, and little bits over a lot of turns adds up.

Managing oil is the hardest part of playing the Axis, manpower is next, for me anyway.

But I look at it as a challenge, because lots of other players manage to do it, so it is possible to do.

It remains a mystery to me how elite players can manage to do so much damage to the Russians and still have enough oil to defend themselves. But then I guess that is what makes them elite I do plan to adopt Morris' strategy of concentrating oil consuming units on the southern part of the eastern front, rather than using them in the forested areas of the north in order to save oil and maximize thier movement potential.

My PBEM partner Joe Simon and I are playing a set of games where we each have elected for a minor Axis advantage. It is fun, but the advantage is too much we've both agreed. But I'm not running out of oil this time...

bensand88 wrote:Yes, I know that conserving and stockpiling oil is critical to the Axis. And you all sound so reasonable. And yes, it's embarrassing to have played this game a lot and never picked up on this double dipping. Well then, don't I have a red face? But it explains a lot. In the many games I have played since 2.0 came out, PBEM, I have crushed the Axis the 4 times I have been the Allies and have been crushed as the Axis 3. Two Axis foes have attacked Russia in 41 and two in 42. None have broken through the line Pskov, Vitebsk, Gomel, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Black Sea. And now I know that it wasn't good play on my part, it was that they were coming in with both arms tied behind their backs and a lead weight hanging around their necks! No wonder I lost my games as Axis.

700 - 900 Oil saved to start Barbarossa? From start to 06/22/41 you can generate about 1601 barrels, if you declare war on Yugoslavia as early as possible, around July or August 1940. That is 34 turns, so to have 750 saved means the Axis can use an average of 25 oil per turn. To take Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, take on North Africa and fight the sub war in the Atlantic and the British in the Med?

And you wonder why people come up with "gamey" ways to overcome the ridiculousness of this? And now you're going to "fix" the Mech Blob strategy by increasing oil use? No wonder so many players are Allies Only. I have found it to be a sure win. But how much fun is that? I guess I will stop whining now and go find some other game to play. This one has lost it's appeal

To tell you the truth I haven't come close in a very long time to running out of oil as the axis. Now, there are times that I have to throttle back and be selective in my actions because my oil starts running low; especially in the summer 1942. In terms of using oil conserving tactics (e.g., rail, delaying upgrades, not needlessly moving oil consuming units), I don't agree with your characterization of these as "gamey". And I certainty would not characterize the limiting factor of oil on the axis as ridiculous. I personally feel both lend a more historical feel to game play. But; you can certainty play with oil off and not be bother by either.

Oil use is there to represent a very real limitation on the Axis. I like the fact that the Allies can, in a very historically accurate move, target oil production for strategic bombing to put even more pressure on Axis. I just don't see how any of this can be characterized as 'gamey.' I can see how it can be frustrating as Axis to deal with oil limitations, but how is that different from Manpower? Both are legitimate, historically based limiting factors.

But the nice thing is that if you don't feel like messing w. oil, you can just turn it off, as the last poster pointed out.

Interesting discussion, but you are all missing the core of my point. I agree that oil needs to be an important factor in the game. What I am saying is that simply doubling use for movement and attacking is lazy thinking and programming and results in all but the "elites", whatever that means, being the ones to benefit because they have figured out strategies to get around the double dipping issue.

It seems to me a better solution would be to come up with a better use plan. Either reduce the cost in oil to move without attacking or add a bit to moving and attacking. Maybe 50% of consumption for simply moving. 75% for moving and coming up against an enemy unit without attacking and 100% for moving and attacking? Or, full price for moving but a 50% bump in usage for also attacking.

I continue to be amazed that not one respondent is thinking that this is a issue and causes many newbies to try and drop the game. And no one responded to the information about stopping the Axis cold in every game well short of any real threat to Moscow, Leningrad and Rostov? I know we all revere the guys that have taken on the programming task, but it doesn't make their decisions undebatable - just defended.

Um...I'm a newbie and admit oil gives me big problems especially when I play the 1941 scenario, but I have found when I start playing from 1939, I'm able to have enough oil to get me to the outskirts of Leningrad, Moscow and take Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk. Railing the armor and mech and air units whenever possible is key.

That said, I have yet to play a game against the A/I where I have actually taken Moscow or Leningrad but because the games are so long, and because I'm new and want to play until July 1945 I've only completed 2 games. So I have only a very small sample to report on.

There is an excellent AAR by Ronnie (rkr) that shows how to beat the A/I and defeat the Soviet Union. Its under the AAR section of the forum. After reading through that I realize I've had too many panzer and mech units created and not enough ground pounders. That makes a difference too.

I'm waiting until the release of 2.1 before starting another 1939 campaign. After that, I'll have more data.

bensand88 wrote:Interesting discussion, but you are all missing the core of my point. I agree that oil needs to be an important factor in the game. What I am saying is that simply doubling use for movement and attacking is lazy thinking and programming and results in all but the "elites", whatever that means, being the ones to benefit because they have figured out strategies to get around the double dipping issue.

It seems to me a better solution would be to come up with a better use plan. Either reduce the cost in oil to move without attacking or add a bit to moving and attacking. Maybe 50% of consumption for simply moving. 75% for moving and coming up against an enemy unit without attacking and 100% for moving and attacking? Or, full price for moving but a 50% bump in usage for also attacking.

I continue to be amazed that not one respondent is thinking that this is a issue and causes many newbies to try and drop the game. And no one responded to the information about stopping the Axis cold in every game well short of any real threat to Moscow, Leningrad and Rostov? I know we all revere the guys that have taken on the programming task, but it doesn't make their decisions undebatable - just defended.

How oil is used for movement and attack was a design that was in the first release of CEaW, and one of many things that the developers of GS inherited. There have been tweaks/modifications in GS to the specifics of this model (how much oil is used at each tech level, reduced oil use for partial strength units, etc.); but the fundamental model initially programmed into CEaW has remained unchanged in GS.

You have to understand that the enormous amount of play testing that the beta testers have done has been with this oil model; which has been tweaked as I described above. To fundamentally change it at this point means another round of full play testing to properly assess its impact on game balance and this will mean at least 3 to 4 months more before GSv2.10 could be release to the community. I know the oil model isn't perfect (e.g., it costs the same in oil to move an armor corps 1 hex as it does 6 hexes); but overall I think it works very well. And it's just not the elites, which I'm NOT, that understand how to manage axis oil. I'd say it's most experienced players (regardless of skill) that do. Learning how to manage oil as the axis is, in my opinion, an important part of learning how to play the game.

With respect to the east; I'm currently in a game as the axis where it's December 1943 and I control and have controlled Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov since 1942. I'm in another game as the allies and I just lost Leningrad a couple of turns ago. It's October 1941 and the axis are next to Moscow. I hope to hold Moscow through 1941; but it's definitely at risk in the axis summer '42 offensive.

I'd thought I'd share some data on oil and manpower usage that was collected during beta testing.

bensand88 wrote:I continue to be amazed that not one respondent is thinking that this is a issue and causes many newbies to try and drop the game. And no one responded to the information about stopping the Axis cold in every game well short of any real threat to Moscow, Leningrad and Rostov? I know we all revere the guys that have taken on the programming task, but it doesn't make their decisions undebatable - just defended.

Thanks for your input, and I'm sorry you find the game so frustrating that you're considering dropping the hobby, but truly, your information here is just plain wrong. IMO, it's very difficult to stop Axis in 1941 Barbarossa from taking either Leningrad OR Moscow OR Stalingrad (not all 3). The trick is that playing Axis is demanding in terms of strategy and tactics. To play well you really have to think way, way ahead, because even your choices in Poland and France can have far-reaching repercussions years down the line. It's not about gamey tactics, in my opinion, it's about approaching this game as you would, say, Chess.

You could always edit the general.txt file.

You can, if you and your opponent agrees to use the altered general.txt . Just remember to save the original in a safe place.