Non-graphics mods for TOT Red Front Redux

[The Apologist]

I have to say that I believe removing the trade units from Lend-Lease to not only be a poor representation of actual Allied aid; but to be a mistake in terms of tuning game balance. (This was one of the things about RF 1.5 that I really disliked.) If the amount of cash that can be gained from using trade units is too high, then the answer is to lower the amount of beakers required for tech advances and reduce overall Soviet trade. Additionally, overall shield production can be increased (and shield costs increased in proportion) to make buying units and buildings less advantageous. Together, these allow for a much finer balance, without doing away with the trade mechanic altogether.
What might be a little more helpful in turning up the difficulty and reducing the predictability of the scenario would be to use ToT's event scripting to trigger Western Allied efforts based on Future Technology. (This sort of thing was done in Time Threat Paradox, though I must admit that I can't think of any other scenarios where it's been used.) If I remember my Civ rules properly, higher difficulty ratings would increase their research rate, and have the historical timetable moved up. The Americans springing across the Rhine ahead of schedule poses a much greater threat to a Soviet victory than more German units would, especially if the Scenario's victory conditions are changed to check Soviet objectives rather than German. It might also be a good idea to use the event file to focus American attacks and have them make real progress against the Reich.

[AGRICOLA]

@The Apologist
Did you finish your game of RF 1.5? If so, could you please pass on any feedback that you have. Right now we have absolutely no feedback on RF 1.5 except my own.

@TOT Designers
Am I correct in assuming that in TOT it is possible to spawn 200+ units per turn at random locations by using "COUNT=" and "RANDOMIZE". If so, the German Stalingrad and Caucasus offensives in '42, the Kursk operation in '43 and the defence of Germany in '44-'45 can be made appropriately stronger without having to alter much else.

@Everybody
The Apologist has raised the possibility of increasing the impact of Allied involvement by spawning enough Allied units to attack German cities in Italy and western Germany, probably no sooner than Winter '44-'45.

Right now, in both versions of RF, Allied ground units are a minor nuisance to the Germans and the Allied bombing raids have minimal effect on the game.

If the status quo is maintained, the scen remains a fight between the Soviets and the Germans. If sufficient Allied units are spawned, it becomes more complex and there is the possibility of a race to capture Berlin.

Which is better:
1. Leave it as a two-way fight.
2. Introduce significant Allied forces.


On a similar topic, I've been wondering about the objective of the scen. Nemo makes no mention of this, so that players are free to set their own goals. Colwyn has set the capture of Berlin by May '45 as a target. Which approach is better for players?

Apology:
Because there is no word on whether RF 1.5 can or cannot be used as the basis for the redux, I've been holding off on posting a rather long list of needed, optional and unneeded changes to both RF 1.4 and 1.5 until we know which way we are going.

[Leonidas]

The Apologist:

You have raised some very interesting issues.

I agree that lend-lease should be kept in and that other ways should be made to increase difficulty and buying soviet equipment/improvemnets.

I also think increasing Allied pressure for the race for Berlin would add a very interesting twist on the game.

The player should feel the pressure from the Allies racing for Berlin.

I also think that taking Berlin by May'45 should be the main objective for the soviet player - ie a decisive victory. Taking Berlin later would reduce the victory levels to marginal or stalement, etc. . .

AGRICOLA:

You have also raised some interesting issues and I hope you get an answer to them.

Cheers!

[fairline]

Agricola: I have just PM'ed Colwyn as I still have no reply to the e-mail I sent. I Should have PM'ed him earlier, but we'll see what happens.

[Case]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
@Everybody
The Apologist has raised the possibility of increasing the impact of Allied involvement by spawning enough Allied units to attack German cities in Italy and western Germany, probably no sooner than Winter '44-'45.

From memory, that was Captain Nemo's intention when he made RF, and he was disapointed that the Allied units which appeared in the scenario couldn't be made agressive/competant enough to set up a race for Berlin.

On a similar topic, I've been wondering about the objective of the scen. Nemo makes no mention of this, so that players are free to set their own goals. Colwyn has set the capture of Berlin by May '45 as a target. Which approach is better for players?

A common convention for wargame designers is that 'victory' is defined as doing better then what happened historically, with meeting the historical achievements counting as a draw, and not doing as well as the historical performance counting as a defeat.

As such, the objective for the Soviets should be to reach Berlin and all of Germany east of the Elbe River by May 1945 at the latest.

[vodkakov]

Perhaps Western Allied units (played by barbarians or equivalent) could appear in May 1945 near Berlin in sufficient force to be able to take the city. This would give the Soviets the historical incentive to be the first to 'liberate' Berlin.... Just a thought....

[The Apologist]

More on Lend-Lease

The last time I did some serious thinking about Lend-Lease, I came up with this mechanism, which will be fairly easy to put into RF/ToT with the extra event and unit space:

In order to get air units from the UK Base to the SU, we could spawn "shipping crates" or something of that sort in the city. These would be ground units with 1a, 1mv and some other stats. In the Russian Far North, we place a couple of "Terminus" units, owned by one of the currently unused Civs, with ludicrous defence. The Terminus Civ is at war with Russia, and Allied with everyone else. Whenever the Terminus Civ kills a shipping crate, an air-unit creating event fires. (Initially I had this in mind for a WW2 Scenario in which the player ran the Western Allies and juggled getting aid to Russia with undertaking their own war effort... but I never got around to making it.)

Now, this is quite a lot of trouble to go to, but there does seem to be something deeply wrong about not getting Allied aircraft shipped to Russia (there was a lot of this going on, as memory serves me). Further, if the trade units are completely unworkable, for whatever reason, this sort of system could be used to move money over the Far Northern supply route.


Case:

I've played a couple of wargames where it's assumed that the historical result was actually doing well. I think that's historically justifiable in this case. Maybe getting to the 1941 borders is good enough for a draw?


Agricola:

I haven't finished RF 1.5 (or even really gotten into it). I started, then realised that I was playing very badly. However, I'm on holiday for another week, so I'll find time to give it another go.
I was going to bring up some of the differences that sprang to mind, but as there's still some issues with that, I'll await your list.

[AGRICOLA]

@The Apologist

Originally posted by The Apologist
I have to say that I believe removing the trade units from Lend-Lease to not only be a poor representation of actual Allied aid; but to be a mistake in terms of tuning game balance. (This was one of the things about RF 1.5 that I really disliked.)

I can see why you don’t like the change from supply convoys (RF 1.4) to shipments of Valentine tanks and Armored Inf (RF 1.5). I didn’t think much of it either until I figured out that the Armored Inf are super defensive units and that the Valentines, though not suitable for combat, are actually very useful if used for other purposes. In the end I felt that the change that Colwyn made was a good one as it forces players to follow history by developing the productive capacity of Soviet cities rather than rush buying units.

The following excerpt from my monthly Operational Summary for RF 1.5 illustrates this point:

1943 was a pivotal year in the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet progress towards victory can best be summed up in terms of increased industrial capacity, strength of our armed forces, the damage inflicted on the Teutonic hordes and, of course, the strategic importance of the year’s conquests***.

                                     Dec ’42    Dec ‘43	 
Cities			 	          69	 99
Cities producing >69 shields		   5	 15    (a T-34/76 every turn)
Cities producing 35–69 shields	          18	 35    (a T-34/76 every 2 turns)

T-34/76’s				  59    120
Katyushas				  26     65
Su-152					   0	 39
152mm Howitzer			          32	 63
Freighters				  15	 55    (12 spawned by Events)

Net Income (millions)		       0.828  1.093

***Finland, Norway, much of Sweden, Denmark and some of NW Germany were in Soviet hands by the end of Dec ’43.

I found that the need to develop Soviet industry was not only crucial to eventual success but also to be a very interesting aspect of the scen.

Originally posted by The Apologist
In order to get air units from the UK Base to the SU, we could spawn "shipping crates" or something of that sort in the city. These would be ground units with 1a, 1mv and some other stats. In the Russian Far North, we place a couple of "Terminus" units, owned by one of the currently unused Civs, with ludicrous defence. The Terminus Civ is at war with Russia, and Allied with everyone else. Whenever the Terminus Civ kills a shipping crate, an air-unit creating event fires. (Initially I had this in mind for a WW2 Scenario in which the player ran the Western Allies and juggled getting aid to Russia with undertaking their own war effort... but I never got around to making it.)

Now, this is quite a lot of trouble to go to, but there does seem to be something deeply wrong about not getting Allied aircraft shipped to Russia (there was a lot of this going on, as memory serves me). Further, if the trade units are completely unworkable, for whatever reason, this sort of system could be used to move money over the Far Northern supply route.

Although the Soviets evidently received nearly 19,000 Lend-Lease aircraft (the number is from the Net, where there are as many different numbers as there are relevant websites), I also have to differ with you somewhat on the importance including such aircraft in the game because, in RF 1.5, aircraft are forced to play a relatively minor role so as not to upset the game balance.

In RF 1.4 all aircraft have 2 turn movement, can use their ZOC’s to block enemy ground units and have reasonable operational ranges. This has led to abuses such as defending the entire Soviet front with ~60 La-5’s (I thought that it was one of my better ideas, Colwyn didn't) that were pretty well invincible. Colwyn closed such loopholes by giving all Soviet aircraft 1 turn movement, shortening their ranges and making them extremely expensive to build.

As a consequence, I found it unwise to build more La-5’s than the 18 that were obtained as upgrades from I-16’s. These La-5’s were sufficient to defend against German aircraft and for recce. I did eventually build five Il-2 Shturmoviks, mainly to help protect the Tikhvin-Kalinin gap.

I think that it might be better to stick to freighting Valentines/Shermans and Armored Inf. I am trying to stay within fairline’s instructions:

Originally posted by fairline My view is if it ain't broke don't fix it; I would only suggest we implement changes which address potential bugs or gameplay loopholes. Perhaps a few extras can be thrown in to utilise ToT's extra unit slots and masks.

I think that everyone is looking forward to the results of your RF 1.5 game as a guide to needed changes.

[CapTVK]

It's been awhile since i tried Colwyn's RF 1.5 scenario and I remember it being harder then 1.4. The fact that you no longer can rely on your convoys for extra rubles and techboosts makes it more of a challenge. Both historical and gameplay wise.

1.5 is a good foundation for RF Redux.

I did notice something weird in Colwyn's version: multiple heavy siege guns (Karl's) showing up. Not sure if that was intended or not.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Leonidas

I also think increasing Allied pressure for the race for Berlin would add a very interesting twist on the game.

The player should feel the pressure from the Allies racing for Berlin.

I also think that taking Berlin by May'45 should be the main objective for the soviet player - ie a decisive victory. Taking Berlin later would reduce the victory levels to marginal or stalement, etc. . .

Cheers!

A way forward for this would be some sort of immovable "victory" unit holed up in Berlin or in other places as well. The more victory units you kill, the better your score.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by CapTVK
I did notice something weird in Colwyn's version: multiple heavy siege guns (Karl's) showing up. Not sure if that was intended or not.

I believe that Colwyn was trying to make sure that Sevastopol is captured by the Germans. Captain Nemo tried to do something similar in RF 1.4, where one Karl is spawned if the Germans capture Narva and two Karls are spawned if they capture Perekop.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA


I believe that Colwyn was trying to make sure that Sevastopol is captured by the Germans. Captain Nemo tried to do something similar in RF 1.4, where one Karl is spawned if the Germans capture Narva and two Karls are spawned if they capture Perekop.

Ah, that explains it. I always defended Sevastopol down to the hilt. Problem with that stategy was that the Germans went steaming along towards Stalinggrad instead.

[The Apologist]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I can see why you don?t like the change from supply convoys (RF 1.4) to shipments of Valentine tanks and Armored Inf (RF 1.5). I didn?t think much of it either until I figured out that the Armored Inf are super defensive units and that the Valentines, though not suitable for combat, are actually very useful if used for other purposes. In the end I felt that the change that Colwyn made was a good one as it forces players to follow history by developing the productive capacity of Soviet cities rather than rush buying units.

Actually, my problem with the change was that it's rather ahistorical. The Soviets were "rush buying" a lot of units, rather than building up their long-term capacity, throughout the Great Patriotic War. Lend-Lease scholarship has swung back some way from the "next to nothing" views after the Soviet-era archives were opened up. (L-L to the UK is another matter, but that would be off-topic.)

I found that the need to develop Soviet industry was not only crucial to eventual success but also to be a very interesting aspect of the scen.

Again, it's up for grabs how much industrial development took place during the period. There were a lot of programmes from the late 1930s maturing in the Ural region - given comparable experiences in other states, it seems reasonable to believe that this was the source of Russian industrial power during the war, rather than the alleged industrial evacuation.

That said, because of what most people believe about the GPW, keeping industrial development in looks mandatory. (Just don't insist that it's absolutely historical.)

Although the Soviets evidently received nearly 19,000 Lend-Lease aircraft (the number is from the Net, where there are as many different numbers as there are relevant websites), I also have to differ with you somewhat on the importance including such aircraft in the game because, in RF 1.5, aircraft are forced to play a relatively minor role so as not to upset the game balance.

I agree with the 1.5 change. I think L-L aircraft would still be a useful addition, particularly if the Soviet player is focusing on the more useful ground units. (Actually, that strikes me as mapping to the pop history view, if nothing else.) Changing over to ToT gives a lot more unit slots, and they're not going to be filled up that quickly.

I think that it might be better to stick to freighting Valentines/Shermans and Armored Inf.

Well, isn't that more of a decision to endorse the 1.5 change? Ok, I'm quibbling... I do (sort of) like the idea of having Allied material shipped over, though industrial aid was a really big ticket for the Soviets. As memory serves, the main route for industrial aid was the Northern Pacific, so perhaps we could have a smaller number of less effective trade units in the game?

I think that everyone is looking forward to the results of your RF 1.5 game as a guide to needed changes.

That had better be someone else's game you're talking about. Heaven forbid that I be thought of as an expert.

[AGRICOLA]

Thanks for your insight on both Lend –Lease and the development of Soviet industry in the Urals. It was much more incisive than what I have gathered over several hours on the Net.

In view of your relevant expertise, I would appreciate your comments on the one thing that Colwyn and I could not agree on. He felt that the way to win was to found new cities in Siberia where there are excellent resource squares. He relocated some of Nemo’s Labor Brigades to or near several resource areas. My opinion is summed up in the following edited excerpt from my Operational Summary for RF 1.5.

1. At the start of the game, the Labor Brigade units located in the Siberian backwoods in RF 1.5 will be repositioned to where Captain Nemo has them in RF 1.4. I don't want to use what I have tested and found to be an inferior strategy of founding new cities where there are resources rather than building industries around existing cities. The Russians did not build new cities in the middle of nowhere. They expanded existing ones where there already was infrastructure.

In this instance I feel that the author may be trying to make players follow his idea of what is the best strategy by locating Labor Brigades in the middle of nowhere, a suggestion to “Build here!”. Instead, why not provide a loose network of roads to areas where there are resources. At least, this gives players an option of going for the resources or using the Labor Brigades in some other fashion.

2. Existing cities will be developed in preference to founding new ones. It seems obvious (to me, at least) that enlarging existing cities that already have some improvements and founding new ones where there already are irrigated/farmland squares is a much faster way of getting production than founding new ones in Siberian forests. I do not agree that new Siberian cities can make a “major” contribution to production. From what I can see, there are good spots for only 2 or 3 new cities in Siberia. I consider that only one of these, an excellent site on the Lena with three Mountains+Bauxite, definitely warrants development because the river provides quick transportation..

The special Siberian resource squares are really not all that important. Two Labor Brigades can build 3 Industries around most cities in a year. This is enough for such cities to produce a 152 mm Howie each turn or a T-34 or Katyusha every 2 turns.

3. I ran a couple of simple tests. In Dec ’41 4 Laborers were created close to both large and small existing cities like Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Guryev and Kuybyshev. All Laborers that could, immediately joined the city and the city built one or two Labor Brigades. Four Laborers were also created at various good, resource rich locations in the Urals, where they founded size 2 or 3 cities and began building city improvements and improving the surrounding countryside.

By early 1943 it was obvious that building up existing cities was far more productive than starting from scratch. For example, an enlarged Saratov completed its first T-34/76 in Jan ’43 and the unit was at the front at the end of the turn. Meanwhile, a size 7 Chelyabinsk had already airlifted 3 Katyushas to the front.

For test purposes the CHEAT mode was used to create the Laborers and to kill the German and Finn civs so that there was no fighting and the test could be run reasonably quickly. Seasons were changed as in the scen.

The repositioning of Labor Brigades to where Nemo had them is one of the changes that I’m considering. I don’t have much to go on except that an exhaustive search of the Net turned up nothing about the Soviets founding new cities but did come up with examples of “twinning” factories evacuated from west of the Volga with existing factories in Siberian cities. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

[The Apologist]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Thanks for your insight on both Lend ?Lease and the development of Soviet industry in the Urals. It was much more incisive than what I have gathered over several hours on the Net.

Glad to be of some help. If you're really concerned with any particular questions, I can go and do some real research rather than just answering off the cuff.

In view of your relevant expertise, I would appreciate your comments on the one thing that Colwyn and I could not agree on. He felt that the way to win was to found new cities in Siberia where there are excellent resource squares. He relocated some of Nemo?s Labor Brigades to or near several resource areas. The repositioning of Labor Brigades to where Nemo had them is one of the changes that I?m considering. I don?t have much to go on except that an exhaustive search of the Net turned up nothing about the Soviets founding new cities but did come up with examples of ?twinning? factories evacuated from west of the Volga with existing factories in Siberian cities. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm sorry to say that I have no idea whether the Soviets founded new cities during the Great Patriotic War. I strongly suspect that they didn't. However, that doesn't settle the question of whether new cities "should" be founded or not in RF. Arguably, when you hit "b" and name a city, you're just expanding an existing production site, or bringing manpower in to service factories that have been under construction for some time.

As regards ease of play, and learning curve, though, I can give a firm recommendation: put the labour brigades back to where they were, and leave them ready. Though I didn't make the mistake in 1.5, it's too easy to overlook units way out in the sticks, particularly if they're not going to be brought up for new orders. Furthermore, if your testing on building new cities vs. expanding old ones is correct (and I really see no reason why it shouldn't be, especially with less money in the game), then the wilderness settlers are just a red herring for new players.