Slitherine

Erik,

I don't know if you want some feedback on this MP scenario, but here it is.

There are too many Soviet planes. I am the Germans. This is about turn 10. I launched the MP turn and my opponent's turn began. His planes started bombing my units. I let it run, went out side and mowed my lawn. I came back in and his turn was still playing and his planes were still bombing my units. I am not kidding. There is no point in continuing the game. I haven't gotten across the first river yet. For some reason my tanks are trapped in a pocket and cannot get out of it and cannot fire on some of his units. But that is minor compared to his airforce. To make this more interesting, you might consider reducing the number of planes by a few thousand.

The two latest versions have had the Soviet air strength (and AA) reduced to 5. So it will take the Soviets a long time to get back to strength, if they spend enough resources reparing.
The latest play-test with conboy simulated the destruction of the Soviet air-force quite well.
Also in the last versions all Soviet infantry were replaced with conscripts which melt under the German assaults.
On the ground I pushed hard against the Soviets until the Germans reached halw-way through the map. Then their offensive bogged down, mainly due to too much dense forests and other defensive terrain.

There was another issue with too difficult terrain to allow the Germans to blitz fairly close to Moscow.
This has been changed and the Germans now havw a much higher resource income as well.
Conboy & I are starting another play-through to see if the balance is OK.

Sounds like you are zeroing in on a good balance. Vonox and I are playing version 1.2 and I swear the Russian airstrikes go on for 15 minutes.

I hope I can talk VONOX into starting over with the latest version.

I have just uploaded a v3.1

In addition to other changes this one should fix Soviet supply when a bunch of reinforcements arrive.
i've also increased the number of truns.

Note that in this scenario the Soviets will get punished for about 20-30 turns.
But slowly they should grind teh German offensive to a halt. And they should be able to counter-attack in the end-game.
So this is a scenario that will not be balanced all along the way. It is definately more fun to play the Germans, at least as long as you're winning
But I think conboy got some satisfaction at the point when he knew my Germans would not be able to drive all the way to the Kremlin.
At least he's said he wants to take the Soviets once more...

Link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c17onrtgr0d3e ... 1.zip?dl=0

I just played Erik2 on the Road to Moscow 2.0 -- a fine scenario if you like smashing invading armies. It gave me great satisfaction to spank the German army as invented by their commander. I'll take him on again in 3.1 with a more balanced view and see how I do. Here are some comments (edited for propriety's sake) I passed them on to Erik2 in the land of the midnight sun:

The scenario was difficult as the Soviets, until it became clear that the Germans would not be able to take Moscow in 32 turns - about mid-game. Then it started to be fun because USSR had some reserves and could mount some counterattacks and still have fun doing the hex-by-hex fighting in the prepared defenses. So, that's fun but here are the things that are least fun that probably will keep USSR folks from playing the game past the first few turns:
1) Getting constantly bombarded by German planes without much to do in response.
1) Having your supply cut off at the start of the game - you should just plain get rid of that because nobody likes to deal with it. You might say it's realistic but the scenario is not because it's based on a historical artificiality in that 2nd Army goes right for Moscow. Take my word for it, it's just not fun to try to organize a defense with your supply in question.
1)Having replacements show up just in time to make your supply situation worse. No fun.
Second level of not fun things:
2)Using your bombers as decoys to keep the Luftwaffe away from your trains and troops trying to set up some defensive lines. Dilemma is; stay on the ground and get whacked, or fly around and draw the LW away from ground forces so they can get something set up. I probably should have stayed on the ground and hoped for the best, in retrospect.
2)Not being able to get anti-aircraft to the front in time to do any good. Maybe I should have used the rails more.
Things that were very much fun:
1) Figuring out ways to keep German infantry tired.
1) Figuring out best places to block the Panzers.
1)Figuring out how to make tank traps.
1)Stopping the panzers and then zapping them with antitank guns.
1)Bombarding the Panzers with artillery.
1)Counterattacking! (only got to mount two but they were fun!)
1)Massing antiaircraft guns and blasting Stukas
1)Stubbornly holding on to key defensive strong points.
1)Defense-in-Depth - falling back at the last possible moment behind prepared positions then blowing the bridges

I think if you fix the terrain issues you will correct most of the balance problems.
If you take away the USSR supply issue you will increase the fun quotient for the Russians, so you can reduce some of the later reinforcements without providing migraines to the USSR side. That whole aspect is bothersome.
I knew that one way to even the fight was to grind Wehrmacht infantry down and shoot hell out of the LW, knowing that eventually OKW wouldn't be able to sustain the offensive. (I took the chance that I could deal with WM armor by sacrificing a lot of infantry/AT, and with Arty to make them reconsider/revise the planned axes of advance).

My major suggestions to make this a whole lot more fun for USSR:
Get rid of the USSR supply problems (I had one PvP opponent quit after turn two - I understand - who needs the grief?)
Dial back the Luftwaffe about 25-33% and somehow give the USSR air branch a chance. (or get rid of all airplanes -- ground pounders rule!...only kidding)
minor suggestions:
Keep some dense forest hexes around as strong points in the deep forests - but not necessarily where Russian sappers can stop the advance completely
Provide some more anti-tank units in the west and some more German armor to engage - at least initially to put a few bright spots in the panicked retreat

I really like the idea of big-ass scenarios that take a couple of weeks to play; It gives you time to develop a strategy and recover from mistakes. I congratulate and thank you on the fine result of such hard work!

Here are some suggestions that I made to Erik2 re:Road to Moscow 2.0:
You could reduce the size of some of the dense forests and convert some of the dense forest to forest so panzers could bypass/flank the mines and tank traps.

You could make the southern area open ground instead of marsh so Panzers could traverse more rapidly. I don't think there's a historical fallacy in that.

That's two changes you could make without screwing around with the mission settings and troop counts. I think those two changes would even it out quite a bit before changing the force commitments. I'm sure your order of battle assignments are historical and it would be a pity to change very much.

BTW, I still had tons of reserve tanks, arty, and infantry which would be badly needed on a spread-out board. Also, leaving more German troops on the board might make the turns intolerably long. I'd try the map changes before I got into the other stuff. I made some huge mistakes with my air force and with reinforcements (I wiped out most of the reinforcements for supply and your next turn you killed more than I took off!)

TO ALL: I must say that this has been the most satisfying match I've ever played, PvP or Single Player. The scenario played flawlessly; my compliments!

TO ALL: Prove you're superior and beat the Soviets in Road to Moscow 2.0. (I'll help the Soviet player with mischevious suggestions...)

I'm going to play Erik2 on 3.1 and will report back.

conboy

Erik2 wrote:I have just uploaded a v3.1

In addition to other changes this one should fix Soviet supply when a bunch of reinforcements arrive.
i've also increased the number of truns.

Note that in this scenario the Soviets will get punished for about 20-30 turns.
But slowly they should grind teh German offensive to a halt. And they should be able to counter-attack in the end-game.
So this is a scenario that will not be balanced all along the way. It is definately more fun to play the Germans, at least as long as you're winning
But I think conboy got some satisfaction at the point when he knew my Germans would not be able to drive all the way to the Kremlin.
At least he's said he wants to take the Soviets once more...

Link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c17onrtgr0d3e ... 1.zip?dl=0

Ok so Erik and I are on about turn 25 of v 3.1 and I have a couple of counterattacks underway, one is stalling due to nasty luftwaffe. You're good if you use Soviet meatgrinder infantry attacks supported by massed artillery but if you get away from your anti-aircraft your counterattacks will stall. My main objectives in these counterattacks have been to degrade the German armor by attacking it with infantry until it turns orange and keep it orange, and try to outright kill as many infantry units as possible so Germans have to buy them again and redeploy replacements from the west piecemeal. Erik is good about keeping the chasers away from the prey, though. Use the cheap Soviet armor to knock out weakened units or to start the process of degrading strong infantry units. One thing I should have done is throw in some recon units on the counterattack to wipe out the badly depleted German infantry. But as soon as you go beyond the reach of your artillery and AA, you will stall due to luftwaffe. Keep pouring in infantry and hitting them where they're weak.

I tried to rebuild some Soviet planes this time so it took longer (fewer RPs available) to set up defensive strong points and I lost a lot of infantry due not upgrading the Conscripts in time to save them. It's a nasty ride for the first several turns as the Soviets. Later, you can use massed planes to significantly degrade the combined arms German assaults and prep them for infantry attacks but you will lose the planes so be careful and strategic about when and where you commit what's left of the bombers. Use them to keep the Germans from regaining efficiency once they're degraded by arty and infantry. One weak plane strike can keep a German armor unit out of the fight for another turn. It's good to set up safe havens of AA groups so you can fly your bombers from the east and give them safe places to stop at on the way.

I don't know how much Erik has in reserve at this point so now I wish I had bought a few more recon planes -- they're cheap but invaluable to tip off where armor is and where troops might be massing for an assault and to see what they have in reserve. Soviet armor is too expensive to upgrade, so use it only when the opponent is degraded or to smash into spearheads when backed up by artillery and infantry.

The terrain is much easier for the Germans now since there is much less dense forest.

This is a very fun scenario but you gotta swallow your pride if you're playing the Soviets and try to hang on long enough to set up some strong points. The enormous number of luftwaffe planes decreases the Soviet fun quotient and forces you to play very conservatively until the Arty protected by AA kicks in and starts to work its way on the advancing unit vanguards.

I tried playing the German side for a while but I realized there wasn't enough stuff behind the spearheads to keep my attacks going, so I resigned after about 10 turns or so. I was not very effective with the luftwaffe. I tried to do an armored end run around the south but it got bogged down, I didn't see a way to pound through to get into the Eastern half of the board. Erik is doing much better on the German side than I did but it remains to be seen if he can pull it off against the constantly-replenished Soviets.

We'll see if Erik can get a breakthrough somewhere that he can exploit. I still think the scenario is balanced in favor of the Soviets over time -- once you get your feet planted with some AA and Arty backup, it is a lot of fun to exact revenge on the German invaders!

The game is a lot of fun because you can recover from tactical blunders and keep the fight going. I think the battle is swinging toward the Soviets now but it depends on how much Erik has in reserve. Somehow I've got to get the Stukas and 110s off my counterattacks. I don't want to sit tight because that might allow the Germans to go around the strong points toward the main objectives.

I strongly recommend Road to Moscow 3.1 to anyone who has a dependable playing partner!

conboy

So, Eric did not get the breakthrough he needed so the Soviets win again. This time I had about 1/8 of my army left in reserve, with no Air reserve but a few fighters still in the air.

3.1 is a good match game to play with a dependable playing partner, but I think Erik2 is going to shake it up a little bit and we'll give it another go.

more to come...

Give this a shot but if you're playing Soviet side, delay with a few troops and armor units and set up defenses in the big forests near the rivers, near the two secondary objectives in the center of the map so you can use them for resupply. If you are the Germans, try for a quick breakthrough somewhere.

conboy

There's an updated 4.0 in the first post here:
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=374&t=64204

It should balance the scenario further in favor of the Germans.