Supermax-Moriss restart (Game stopped)

supermax · Post by **supermax** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 2:30 pm

Stauffenberg wrote:Will you upgrade to GS v2.01.32 for the next game against him? It would be nice to get tested the map changes and also the other changes we made in GS v2.01.31 and GS v2.01.32.

Yes i will. I was just about to propose this to Moriss as we are still under .30 and i have other people to start games with.

supermax · Post by **supermax** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:33 pm

supermax · Post by **supermax** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:37 am

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 9:22 am

I think you still have the edge but looks like Allied landing will postpone your offensive on the East or even make it impossible. You have like 7-8 turns of fair weather and then mud/winter again so looks like reaching Stalingrad/Caucasus is not possible in this scenario.

If Morris launches attrition war he may drain your MP and/or oil faster than his and deplete you even though his AIR levels will be awfully weak. In my game I have Soviet units being able to brak through river even without air support so such tactics is not completely out of reason.

I think Morris is preparing for fight on both salients of your possible pincer assaults (Briansk and the south one).

zechi · Post by **zechi** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:08 am

I would strongly recommend to place a unit in Helsinki, otherwise you risk losing it through a Soviet air drop.

Cheers Zechi

Lexmanbis · Post by **Lexmanbis** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:08 am

waht's the situation in North Africa?

supermax · Post by **supermax** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:59 am

Well. I must be doing something good. Moriss is complaining big time about the weather and how lucky i am... Look at his last email:

Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:07:30 +0800
From: ceaw2010@163.com
To: souvorov@hotmail.com
Subject: weather skill

Hi Max :

Would you please teach me any skill about the weather ?

Morris

I dont think its funny, he as been pretty vocal about the fact that this is why i am doing good so far. I have offered him to stop the game if that is too frustrating for him not to win for a change. We will see what he says.

supermax · Post by **supermax** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:00 am

Diplomaticus · Post by **Diplomaticus** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:32 am

It's too bad the distraction in the West is slowing your '42 offensive, but that's a nice move in the Middle East! No reason you shouldn't be able to seal the Med.

Your subs are to be seen everywhere in the Normandy invasion zone, but I'm curious--where's the Axis surface fleet?

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:43 am

I think the way Morris is playing is simply stupid. I don't think this game will end in 1945. Morris will probably quit soon because he seems more and more frustrated by how things go for him. He tries some desperate moves hoping for a miracle and then he will quit. I foresee that he will complain about rule being changed to help you beat him, bad weather rolls etc. The fact is that he's losing because he has a poor strateg against an elite player like you.

One reason I will never play against a person like Morris is that he will not play a "normal" game. You know he will try to exploit the game rules and make a do or die kind og strategy that will either end up with him sweeping the board in 1942 or him losing big time at the same time.

I like to play against people who tries to follow normal procedures like putting effort into research, not making blob strategies etc. Each country should be played as if you want to maximize the chances for that country. E. g. sacrificing Britain to improve the chances for Russia would never have been accepted by the real British. Churchill would not sacrifice his own soldiers in stupid attacks.

Morris is sacrificing the Royal Navy for no apparent benefit except draining German oil. I think Churchill would be very opposed to sending his carriers and battleships to suicide attacks.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:48 am

Supermax is a very aggressive player, but you can see the reason behind his choices. He puts effort into research and doesn't go for extreme blob solutions like Morris does.

I think that none of the Allied countries would abandon research like Morris tends to do. Nobody knew how long the war would last and they would try to get every tech advancement they could to better the chances for their units to win on the battlefield. Morris is fighting like he knows all will be decided in 1942 so he doesn't need tech, except for the very few ones he needs for his strategy.

I agree with all of you who say that we should maybe stop adjusting the GS v2.1 rules to how Morris plays. He's ONE person and I don't see anyone else copying his style. Ruining the fun for all others by making rules that can stop Morris is probably not a good idea. Then it's actually better selecting opponents who suit your playing style.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:55 am

I think you should quickly try to get rid of the Allied units in France and then just stay on the defense there until the next wave comes. You're low on oil and that's what he's counting on. At least Morris is not bombing your industry and oilfields.

It's important that you continue to kill Russian units so they won't get stronger before the next winter. Since you can't support lots of airstrikes I would instead build corps units and attack where you can achieve easy victories like in Finland, the northern half of Russia etc.

You could select some airstrike supported attacks in the south. The target units should be his armor and mechs. South of Dnepropetrovsk you can attack without attacking across river. Push him back there to expose his Dnepr line. You can do the same from the Smolensk area too. Use corps units for most attacks. You can afford the PP repair cost, but not the oil expenditure. OK, you take more losses since you don't have a lot of air support, but if you can attack his flanks you get 3 units per Russian corps and that means you should kill the ones you attack.

If you kill 4-5 Russian units per turn then you ensure that all his PP's go into rebuilding the lost units and he can't form a strategic reserve. Morris should actually run as fast as he can to save his army. You burn oil just pursuing his units so that helps him.

Morris will probably not do this because he's still convinced that if he keeps up the pressure then you will get to 0 oil and his invasion in France will succeed.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:59 am

Do you think you have a chance to move towards the Iraqi oilfields once you've cleared Egypt? Closing the Suez means you don't have to garrison cities in the Med except in occupied territory. That should help you.

I can't understand how Morris allowed to lose Egypt. If he had kept the British 8th army in Egypt then he would never have lost Egypt. I think that Morris probably underestimated you because he's so used to people getting on the defense when he's pushing with his Allies the way he does.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:00 pm

Diplomaticus wrote:It's too bad the distraction in the West is slowing your '42 offensive, but that's a nice move in the Middle East! No reason you shouldn't be able to seal the Med.

Your subs are to be seen everywhere in the Normandy invasion zone, but I'm curious--where's the Axis surface fleet?

I think it was sunk earlier when Morris made his first invasion of France.

Cybvep · Post by **Cybvep** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:09 pm

Stauffenberg, most players play to win and you have to know this, because you used that argument in the discussion about Soviet industry transfer. Few players use so exploitive strategies as Moriss does, but it is mostly because they do not think that such strategies will be successful or they think that the other player will quit the game prematurely. What Moriss is doing is very counterintuivie, i.e. sacrificing the UK, sacrificing the Middle East, making little tech progress etc. Most players are much more careful and don't want to lose by 1942.

I think that most rule changes were sound. Especially the anti-blob and no-RAF-in-Russia are important ones and promote plausible strategies.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:40 pm

Cybvep wrote:Stauffenberg, most players play to win and you have to know this, because you used that argument in the discussion about Soviet industry transfer. Few players use so exploitive strategies as Moriss does, but it is mostly because they do not think that such strategies will be successful or they think that the other player will quit the game prematurely. What Moriss is doing is very counterintuivie, i.e. sacrificing the UK, sacrificing the Middle East, making little tech progress etc. Most players are much more careful and don't want to lose by 1942.

I think that most rule changes were sound. Especially the anti-blob and no-RAF-in-Russia are important ones and promote plausible strategies.

Of course, players want to win. It's HOW you want to win I don't like with some players. Some analyze the game to the death and find weaknesses in the game engine they can exploit. It's similar to a MMORPG you play and find you can get extra XP by clicking on a particular altar in a dungeon rapidly. That was not intended by the developers and you get a benefit because of a bug / flaw in the game. This is what Morris keeps doing. He doesn't follow sound real life strategies, but tries all kinds of weird strategies that might work in the game, but never in the real life.

There are many games that constantly have to tweak the game rules because players find new exploits. I play DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) myself and see changes all the time to plug suc holes. Abilities are buffed and nerfed in almost every update

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:48 pm

It's almost impossible for a game developer to make a game foolproof from exploits without taking away the player control to how he wants to play. So we need to find a middle point here. If we can get rid of obvious exploits without ruining the fun for the others then we can do it. But I don't want to see the game balance become broken for normal players just so people like Morris get a real challenge.

The GS development team is making the mod for the majority of experienced wargamers who want to have fun, not the extreme players who will win at all cost.

Since there are exploit possibilities in GS I don't think it's a good idea to organize tournaments or make "ladders" with player ranking etc. You will always find players who benefit from exploits and in order to get to the top you need to know about them. It's not fun getting crushed when you're following an excellent strategy only because your opponent exploited weaknesses in the game system you weren't aware of.

90% or more of the GS players seem to play normally and the results they get is not so far off from the historical result. That shows that you can have fun against most players.

My point is that we should maybe soon just ignore results from games with Morris and not try to modify the game to ensure that his games become balanced. I'm pretty sure that such rules will imbalance the game for the rest of us. You need to be super aggressive with both sides to have a chance against Morris.

Cybvep · Post by **Cybvep** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 2:30 pm

It depends on the type of changes. I agree that you shouldn't destroy the game balance completely only because of Moriss, but if an exploit can be prevented in a clever way, then I don't see why it shouldn't be done. For example, the morale rule for the UK was a good idea, because it's no longer possible to ship everything to France and considerably delay the Axis there. The anti-blob rule is good, too, because blobs are neither fun nor realistic.

I don't know if the Arctic Convoy is reduced in size if the UK doesn't have enough escorts in the Atlantic. If it isn't, then maybe it should. It would only be logical and prevent the Allied player from sacrificing the Royal Navy. It wouldn't affect the balance of normal games, either, because few player sacrifice the RN.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 2:47 pm

Luftwaffe opposing forces in France are quite strong: with no air superiority there´s no way the allies can progress at all in France. So, as Borger has pointed, may be Morris strategy is focussed this time in making the axis burn more and more oil.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:08 pm

Cybvep wrote:It depends on the type of changes. I agree that you shouldn't destroy the game balance completely only because of Moriss, but if an exploit can be prevented in a clever way, then I don't see why it shouldn't be done. For example, the morale rule for the UK was a good idea, because it's no longer possible to ship everything to France and considerably delay the Axis there. The anti-blob rule is good, too, because blobs are neither fun nor realistic.

I don't know if the Arctic Convoy is reduced in size if the UK doesn't have enough escorts in the Atlantic. If it isn't, then maybe it should. It would only be logical and prevent the Allied player from sacrificing the Royal Navy. It wouldn't affect the balance of normal games, either, because few player sacrifice the RN.

All convoys get reduced if the number of Allied naval units gets below a key value. That's rarely a problem after USA joins the Allies because their naval units count too.

The main problem with Morris is that he doesn't want to EXPLAIN his exploits so we can fix them. He's a beta tester and fails to see the main reason why he is that. If he doesn't give us the ideas behind his strategy we can't fix what he means is broken. All he says is that we have to play against him to find out for ourselves. That simply takes too long time.

We want GS v2.1 out before Chrismas and that means we need all the help we can to ensure we get rid of exploits.

Supermax-Moriss restart (Game stopped)

Turn49.Normandy landings.