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Sorry for the preamble, but it is needed to set the scene.
I encountered this problem while testing the beta version of McGalleo's Red Front 1.4 TOT. Having done extensive alpha testing on the scen, repeatedly played Captain Nemo's Red Front 1.4, as well as tested Colwyn's Red Front 1.5, I had no problem with the Great Bugout of '41 . . . . the retreat to the Don with the usual pillaging of all roads and maximal gutting of cities that were about to be lost. A good Soviet defense line was set up from Murmansk to the Black Sea and 300 refugees were built and moved to where they would either join existing cities or found new ones.
The winter of '41-'42 provided a respite to build up the defenses as the German Blitzkrieg ground to halt in the cold and snow, to found new cities and enlarge existing ones and to convert 140 settlers to engineers.
The summer of '42 marks the high point of the German invasion, with their forces hammering on the gates of Stalingrad and Rostov, and applying pressure along the rest of the front. Because the Soviet front was holding well and inflicting steady casualties on the enemy, towards the end of the summer the Soviets were able build and assemble a balanced attack force of ~65 units in the Moscow area. The balloon went up in October and by the end of the January the Soviets had recaptured Smolensk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk, Kiev, Gomel and Kaluga against minimal opposition. In 3 months the Soviets had moved 2/3 of the way from Moscow to Berlin.
My first euphoric reaction was 'Hot d**n! I have blown the scen out of the water.'. The self-congratulation was abruptly cut short when I remembered that I was supposed to at least try to act like a playtester and start thinking about the fewer than 20 German units that I had encountered between Moscow and Bialystok. This was followed by an very brief but inventively profane version of 'Oh dear, I do wonder what has happened to those nasty German units? Perhaps I should have a calming cup of tea while I investigate the source of this little contretemps. Tee hee.'.
Engaging the CHEAT mode, I checked the German OOB and found ~800 units. The total was fine but, looking at the revealed map, I could see nowhere near that number of units in the field (attached map). There were concentrations around Leningrad, along the shore of the Black Sea from Kherson to Stalingrad, Crimea was jammed full with units, but there were almost no Germans between Luga in the north and Stalino in the south.
Next, I looked for concentrations of units and found the following: 31 units in Narva and 19 in Luga in the north; 5 in Smolensk and 12 in Kaluga on the central front; 39 in Kherson and 77 in Perekop in the south; and 2 squares, A and B, in the Crimea with stacks of 15 and 34 units. In all, nearly 200 German units were uselessly stacked up, rather than spread out and attacking along the whole front. This number represented nearly 50% of the total mobile German ground units along the Eastern front. Not so good.
I finally checked the events file and found new replacement spawning events. All 12 events are identical except for the type of unit killed and the type spawned.
@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Wehrmacht
attacker=Soviets
defender=Germans
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wehrmacht SG
owner=Germans
veteran=yes
homecity=None
randomize
locations
Narva
Luga
Kaluga
Smolensk
Kherson
Perekop
Crimea A
Crimea B
endlocations
@ENDIF
The spawning locations are highly biased in that the Germans suffer at least 50% of their casualties on the central front but 75% of their replacements are spawned either in the north or in the south. This continually reduces the number of units along the central front and increases the number in the north, south and Crimea. This would account for the scarcity in the center and the large numbers elsewhere but does not answer the question why the units remain stacked where they are spawned.
From experience with Red Front, I know that stacks of German units created by the AI never contain more than 4 units. Two is the more usual number. I suspect that this is the way that the AI algorithm tries to ensure that it does not lose an inordinate number of units to a single attack. However, this also means that if a large stack of spawned units (in a city or in the open) is surrounded by small stacks, units will not leave the large stack until some of the surrounding ones move away.
This is what apparently has happened in the Narva-Luga area and Crimea. Both have very limited options for moving eastward without either running into terrain or ZOC problems. Eastward movement of units in Kherson and Perekop is severely constrained by both terrain and the Black Sea. Only at Smolensk and Kaluga are there multiple directions in which units can move eastward.
I'm going to try to rework the spawning locations in the 12 events using the following criteria and retest the summer of 1942:
1. Units will be spawned in locations where they can best use their abilities. For example, those with the alpine flag are most useful in places like Narva where the direct route to Leningrad is through a minefield and Kerch in the Crimea where any eastward movement has to cross two marsh squares.
2. Units will be spawned at multiple locations in any given area. For instance, if 4 types of units are needed, the best defensive units will be spawned in the central city and the 3 others on three nearby squares.
3. To get the spawned units into action more quickly and thereby increase the pressure on the Soviets, units will be spawned as close to the front as is reasonable and prudent.
4. Several units can be spawned on the same square to improve their chances of surviving attacks. Flak units spawned at the same location as low-D assault guns would help protect the latter from both air and some ground units.
5. Fortunately, the May '42 disposition of German units is quite good so that the need will be to maintain the existing distribution of units rather than shift units from one section of the front to another.
Note: The map is from the end of the Soviet October 1942 turn. For better visibility, it uses winter terrain. Also, to reduce clutter, nearly all Soviet units in German territory have been deleted. The only exception is the fortress ENE of Smolensk, which contains a stack of 50+ Soviet attack units heading west.
I encountered this problem while testing the beta version of McGalleo's Red Front 1.4 TOT. Having done extensive alpha testing on the scen, repeatedly played Captain Nemo's Red Front 1.4, as well as tested Colwyn's Red Front 1.5, I had no problem with the Great Bugout of '41 . . . . the retreat to the Don with the usual pillaging of all roads and maximal gutting of cities that were about to be lost. A good Soviet defense line was set up from Murmansk to the Black Sea and 300 refugees were built and moved to where they would either join existing cities or found new ones.
The winter of '41-'42 provided a respite to build up the defenses as the German Blitzkrieg ground to halt in the cold and snow, to found new cities and enlarge existing ones and to convert 140 settlers to engineers.
The summer of '42 marks the high point of the German invasion, with their forces hammering on the gates of Stalingrad and Rostov, and applying pressure along the rest of the front. Because the Soviet front was holding well and inflicting steady casualties on the enemy, towards the end of the summer the Soviets were able build and assemble a balanced attack force of ~65 units in the Moscow area. The balloon went up in October and by the end of the January the Soviets had recaptured Smolensk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk, Kiev, Gomel and Kaluga against minimal opposition. In 3 months the Soviets had moved 2/3 of the way from Moscow to Berlin.
My first euphoric reaction was 'Hot d**n! I have blown the scen out of the water.'. The self-congratulation was abruptly cut short when I remembered that I was supposed to at least try to act like a playtester and start thinking about the fewer than 20 German units that I had encountered between Moscow and Bialystok. This was followed by an very brief but inventively profane version of 'Oh dear, I do wonder what has happened to those nasty German units? Perhaps I should have a calming cup of tea while I investigate the source of this little contretemps. Tee hee.'.
Engaging the CHEAT mode, I checked the German OOB and found ~800 units. The total was fine but, looking at the revealed map, I could see nowhere near that number of units in the field (attached map). There were concentrations around Leningrad, along the shore of the Black Sea from Kherson to Stalingrad, Crimea was jammed full with units, but there were almost no Germans between Luga in the north and Stalino in the south.
Next, I looked for concentrations of units and found the following: 31 units in Narva and 19 in Luga in the north; 5 in Smolensk and 12 in Kaluga on the central front; 39 in Kherson and 77 in Perekop in the south; and 2 squares, A and B, in the Crimea with stacks of 15 and 34 units. In all, nearly 200 German units were uselessly stacked up, rather than spread out and attacking along the whole front. This number represented nearly 50% of the total mobile German ground units along the Eastern front. Not so good.
I finally checked the events file and found new replacement spawning events. All 12 events are identical except for the type of unit killed and the type spawned.
@IF
UNITKILLED
unit=Wehrmacht
attacker=Soviets
defender=Germans
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
unit=Wehrmacht SG
owner=Germans
veteran=yes
homecity=None
randomize
locations
Narva
Luga
Kaluga
Smolensk
Kherson
Perekop
Crimea A
Crimea B
endlocations
@ENDIF
The spawning locations are highly biased in that the Germans suffer at least 50% of their casualties on the central front but 75% of their replacements are spawned either in the north or in the south. This continually reduces the number of units along the central front and increases the number in the north, south and Crimea. This would account for the scarcity in the center and the large numbers elsewhere but does not answer the question why the units remain stacked where they are spawned.
From experience with Red Front, I know that stacks of German units created by the AI never contain more than 4 units. Two is the more usual number. I suspect that this is the way that the AI algorithm tries to ensure that it does not lose an inordinate number of units to a single attack. However, this also means that if a large stack of spawned units (in a city or in the open) is surrounded by small stacks, units will not leave the large stack until some of the surrounding ones move away.
This is what apparently has happened in the Narva-Luga area and Crimea. Both have very limited options for moving eastward without either running into terrain or ZOC problems. Eastward movement of units in Kherson and Perekop is severely constrained by both terrain and the Black Sea. Only at Smolensk and Kaluga are there multiple directions in which units can move eastward.
I'm going to try to rework the spawning locations in the 12 events using the following criteria and retest the summer of 1942:
1. Units will be spawned in locations where they can best use their abilities. For example, those with the alpine flag are most useful in places like Narva where the direct route to Leningrad is through a minefield and Kerch in the Crimea where any eastward movement has to cross two marsh squares.
2. Units will be spawned at multiple locations in any given area. For instance, if 4 types of units are needed, the best defensive units will be spawned in the central city and the 3 others on three nearby squares.
3. To get the spawned units into action more quickly and thereby increase the pressure on the Soviets, units will be spawned as close to the front as is reasonable and prudent.
4. Several units can be spawned on the same square to improve their chances of surviving attacks. Flak units spawned at the same location as low-D assault guns would help protect the latter from both air and some ground units.
5. Fortunately, the May '42 disposition of German units is quite good so that the need will be to maintain the existing distribution of units rather than shift units from one section of the front to another.
Note: The map is from the end of the Soviet October 1942 turn. For better visibility, it uses winter terrain. Also, to reduce clutter, nearly all Soviet units in German territory have been deleted. The only exception is the fortress ENE of Smolensk, which contains a stack of 50+ Soviet attack units heading west.
Attached Files
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