RED FRONT ToT REDUX

[MacGalleo]

How did you resist the Germans until the summer of 42 without losing more soviets cities?

[AGRICOLA]

I'm in the process of helping MacGalleo playtest RF TOT. I wonder if you might have your game saves after each turn. You have done such an great job in resisting the Germans that it would be most helpful to see the saves.

This kind of progress was possible with RF MGE but we thought that the worst loopholes were now eliminated.

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by MacGalleo
How did you resist the Germans until the summer of 42 without losing more soviets cities?

By playing on the easiest difficulty level.

[AGRICOLA]

I thought, wrongly as it turns out, that the degree of difficulty would not affect German strength and progress in this part of the scen because Germany does not actually build any units, all reinforcements are generated by events.

I was wrong on 2 counts.

I opened the scen 4 times, 2 each of Sergeant and Marshal and saved at the start of the Soviet turn. The differences are striking in 2 respects.

Ignoring the consistent loss of 17-18 nearly useless Romanian Inf cannon fodder, the average loss of good German units is at least doubled at the Sergeant level [ 54 vs 20 ]. At this rate, I can see that at the end of the 6 summer turns, the Germans might well have 100 - 200 fewer units at the front. Evidently the combat calculation algorithm takes into account the degree of difficulty.

The economic picture is also greatly changed as the number of flasks needed for a new tech is ~1300 at the Sergeant level and ~2600 at Marshal. This makes a huge difference in the rate of critical research and taxes.

I suspect that there may have to be a recommendation as to the levels that provide at least some degree of historical accuracy.


@GhostOfDisco
I guess that you don't have any saved games. They would have been very informative and helpful.

P.S. Sergeant, now that you have earned your Marshal's baton for handily smashing the Germans, why not pick up the baton and try RF TOT as a Marshal?

EDIT: Got the sentence in red a** backwards. Duh.

[GhostOfDisco]

Actually, I've got some savegames ... here's my latest one:

[MacGalleo]

I almost finished editing the 9 parts. Then I play a game for the whole test.

@Agricola
After my test, I'll send you files to test the scenario, get your impressions an make the changes if necessary.

[AGRICOLA]

There is a problem in Summer 1941 events, at least if the scen is played at Deity level.

The new events that give 3 extra Stukas to the Germans each turn make it virtually impossible to hold Leningrad. The rest of the front is tough but not impossibly so.

The problem first arose in September when only a diversion that kept the Stukas from attacking Leningrad enabled the city to hold.

In December, short of building a city on top of the Fortified Battery north of the city, loading the Battery on a ship, and freighting it to Leningrad, there seemed to be no way to hold the city. That month, 14 Stukas from Novgorod and Narva eliminated the 24 units in Leningrad and 30 more in cities from Viipuri to Vologda. These included 3 KV-1's, 6 AA's and assorted other good defensive units. The onslaught ended only when all Stukas had returned to base, either due to severe damage or having used up their movement.

The Soviet problems in September and December are caused by events spawning replacement Stukas in Narva (Sept) and Novgorod (Dec). A total of 18 Stukas were killed in December, including 5 that were killed by the defenders in Fort Krasnodar. Consequently, in the Leningrad area there were the 14 original a/c plus 18 spawned ones. Even much later in the scen, no single city can withstand 32 attacking Stukas . . . . . . well, maybe my favorite Black Sea resort, Fort Krasnodar, could do it.

Captain Nemo did an excellent job of balancing the scen by spawning a replacement for each killed Stuka. In RF 1.4, despite the spawning, during the course of the summer the total number of Stukas gradually decreases from an original 40 to ~20 due to units lost when they run out of fuel [ these are not counted as killed ]. In RF TOT, the 21 additional units that are spawned over the first 7 turns keep the total constant at around 40 a/c. In other words, without these additional units, there would be ~20 Stukas available in December, 6-7 on each of the northern, central and southern sections of the front. This number the Soviet defenses can handle. It seems to me that historically, after the losses and the wear and tear of 6 months of constant operations, the Luftwaffe was considerably weaker in Dec 1941 than it was on June 22.

I would suggest removing the 3 new events or at least cutting it back to 1 Stuka per turn. I notice that you also have added the extra Stuka spawning in Events3. It will be interesting to see how that plays.

The above also applies to the additional He-111 that the Germans get each turn.


Not wanting to spend 4 days replaying the first 6 turns, my workaround was to change the Stuka's A/D from 14/2 to its winter value of 0/2 at the end of the Soviet's November turn.

I would also suggest that a "Karl is killed" event, identical to that in Events2 and Events4, be added to Events1 and Events3. I really don't see why there should be celebrations (not to mention bonuses) only in the winter.

Otherwise the scen is playing flawlessly.

EDITS: It was late when I first posted this.

[MacGalleo]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
The new events that give 3 extra Stukas to the Germans each turn make it virtually impossible to hold Leningrad. The rest of the front is tough but not impossibly so. (...)

I would suggest removing the 3 new events or at least cutting it back to 1 Stuka per turn. I notice that you also have added the extra Stuka spawning in Events3. It will be interesting to see how that plays.

You're right, these events make it too difficult to resist to the German attacks. I remove them from the first events file.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
The above also applies to the additional He-111 that the Germans get each turn.

This event was already in the Nemo's version 1.4.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I would also suggest that a "Karl is killed" event, identical to that in Events2 and Events4, be added to Events1 and Events3. I really don't see why there should be celebrations (not to mention bonuses) only in the winter.

I add this event until the part 6.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Otherwise the scen is playing flawlessly.

This is the result of teamwork ...

[AGRICOLA]

My game is June 1942 and I see the dreaded "Too many units" message coming up before winter.

The current unit totals are as follows:
Soviets - 749
Germans - 1061
Others - 54

Total = 1864

This is 184 short of the 2048 limit and there are 6 more turns of summer.

The Germans are spawning just over 30 units per turn and the 14 types that are most likely to be killed spawn replacements when killed. This is roughly 3 times as many as in RF 1.4 .

The Soviets are now capable of building ~30 units per turn, a number that will increase as all the "small" cities that used to be size 2, 3 or 4 are now size 7 or 8 and will be producing units by the end of the summer (please see the attached save).

The arithmetic is obvious: by September or October there will be no more space for new units.

I am going to change the relevant parts of Events3 back to what Captain Nemo had except that I will keep the 3 statements that respawn Stukas. I will put the game on hold until I hear your opinion on this. That is why I haven't done anything about reacting to the German units on the pontoon bridge. I can immediately either immobilize them by a combination of ZOC, fortresses, fighters and ground units or lay a minefield between them and Rostov. The necessary precharged Labor Brigades are in Stalingrad and Krasnodar.


Comments:
There is a minor problem in Units2; the Cossack Cav and River Mine icons are reversed. They should be the same as in Units1 and Units3.

There may be a major problem in Events3. The Germans had 26 Stukas at the end of May, lost 18 (Defense Minister's casualty list) in June but ended up with with only 12 after their June turn. I think that the 3 respawning events are not working properly.

The Luftwaffe 1942 spring offensive was a dandy although when it was over the score was Commies 44, Nazis 0.

[MacGalleo]

I will examine the Events files and see if I can improve them to avoid this "too many units" problem.

[AGRICOLA]

For comparison purposes, I have condensed Events1, Events2 and Events3 down to lists and statistics of units spawned and respawned for both RF 1.4 TOT and RF 1.4 MGE. I think that by eliminating some units at startup and non-essential spawning and respawning we can free up 300+ unit slots by June '42. You will receive the e-mail tomorrow.

I was wrong when I said that the Germans spawn 30 units/turn in Events3.

They actually spawn 55 and the Soviets spawn 15 every bloody turn. Too many.

[curtsibling]

I wonder if making certain units unbuildable for the Germans might help stop mass-unit overload?
That way the rear area cities in Western Europe won't fill up with dozens of useless units...

Event-created units are the ones that the player is worrying about early on in 41-43. After that,
the 44-45 rules can be changed to allow the German civ to build defence units for the Reich defence...

Just an idea...!

[AGRICOLA]

There is no problem with the AI building unwanted units. For example, in the RF 1.4 .scn file, all but a couple of German cities are building units. However, by the end of the first German turn, they are all building city improvements or capitalization and will continue to do so until Germany has been reduced to a few hundred units.

This is typical AI behaviour and can be seen in the complete set of saves from the RF Democracy Game at Poly

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=185&daysprune=100000&sortorder=desc&sortfield=lastpost&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

IIRC, a certain comrade C. Siblingov was one of the participants.

The game was very well and aggressively played by some excellent players who finished the Germans in 1943. Throughout most of the game, the German AI was building improvements and capitalization. Only near the end, possibly triggered by the loss of Berlin, did Germany switch to producing units.

P.S. The RF Demo Game forum makes for entertaining reading about very talented and strong-willed individuals trying to make a go of a situation that requires close cooperation. At least check out the PRAVDA threads and you will see what I mean by talented people.

[curtsibling]

I recall those heady days, comrade!

How in a fever we all were, taking turns via the decadent Western email system!

I'll look at the threads tonight for some nostalgia!

[MacGalleo]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I wonder if making certain units unbuildable for the Germans might help stop mass-unit overload?
That way the rear area cities in Western Europe won't fill up with dozens of useless units...

If I am not wrong, the AI doesn't build anymore units and build instead of improvements in cities. I think the solution may be to control the number of units spawned by the events files.

Originally posted by curtsibling
Event-created units are the ones that the player is worrying about early on in 41-43. After that,
the 44-45 rules can be changed to allow the German civ to build defence units for the Reich defence...

Just an idea...!

this is an interesting idea...