Balancing problem - Allies advantage.

[borsook79]

After playing a few dozen of CEAW games (both against the AI and other players) I come to the conclusion that the balance of the game is tipped too far in the favour of the Allies. Don't get me wrong I do not mean to say that the Allies should not be able to overwhelm the Axis, but in Ceaw it happens much, much too early. Even after launching a successful Sealion the D-day usually comes much before the historical date. Below I'll try to identify those reasons of this situation that can be easily amended via a patch, I'll leave out others that would require serious modification of the game engine.

1. Invasions are too cheap - this is probably one of the main reasons, if one looks at the amount of time that the preparation for D-day took, the number of ship used, it becomes apparent that CEAW costs are nothing compared to that. This can be amended by two changes:
-increasing the cost of loading onto ships
-adding a limit of units that can be loaded onto transports during a turn, I'd suggest 2 for UK, 2 for US and 1 for Germany/SU/Italy. US/UK limit should be summed together, so 4 units could be loaded regardless of their origin after US joining the war. Alternatively to make things simpler a universal limit of 3 per side could be used.
2. Winter only happens in the east - while it should have larger effects in Russia, it should happen in Western Europe too -esp the speed penalty effect, plus winter should give substantial bonuses to defending units, making any offensive harder. This is what effectively happened during WW2, with the fronts "frozen" for winter months, that's why operations like Ardennes offensive were so surprising. Also, if it's possible, it'd be great if the speed decrease was applied to naval transports too.
3. Unit building time is too short - not only forming a whole corps in 20 days is utterly impossible and ahistorical, it also gives a great advantage (or rather increases it) to the side that has a higher production. Allies should be able to replace their loses better, but not that fast.
4.Convoys going to SU are too big - this is tricky, in some areas - like e.g. production of locomotives SU did largely rely on western help, but overall the proportion between the convoys and SU's own production is too great. I'd suggest lowering their value by approximately 20%.

[Redpossum]

The great problem with trying to implement more weather effects is scale.

In Panzer General weather rules worked very well because the whole map was only a limited part of one theatre. Therefore, one could logically apply the same weather across the whole map.

Given the size of the CEAW map, it would be very difficult to argue logically for implementing the same weather effects across the whole map.

This would mean breaking up the map into weather zones, determining weather separately for each zone, applying those effects separately in each zone, and providing for effects on units which transition from one zone to another during movement. Admittedly this last is already a consideration, and the game seems to handle it fairly smoothly.

Believe me, please, when I say this was an issue we wrestled with during beta-test. In fact, it was probably one of the five most-hotly-debated issues of my time as a beta-tester. Several beta-testers, myself included, really wanted more weather effects, but it just doesn't seem to be feasible given the scale of the game.

And, in all honesty, there is the KISS principle. I have argued passionately all along, both before release and since, against "feature creep", and in favor of leaving a simple, clean system alone and uncluttered.

Oh, and for the record, I have no official status with Slitherine. I'm just a long-time customer, occasional beta-tester, and maverick modder

[borsook79]

The great problem with trying to implement more weather effects is scale.

In Panzer General weather rules worked very well because the whole map was only a limited part of one theatre. Therefore, one could logically apply the same weather across the whole map.

Given the size of the CEAW map, it would be very difficult to argue logically for implementing the same weather effects across the whole map.

This would mean breaking up the map into weather zones, determining weather separately for each zone, applying those effects separately in each zone, and providing for effects on units which transition from one zone to another during movement. Admittedly this last is already a consideration, and the game seems to handle it fairly smoothly.

Believe me, please, when I say this was an issue we wrestled with during beta-test. In fact, it was probably one of the five most-hotly-debated issues of my time as a beta-tester. Several beta-testers, myself included, really wanted more weather effects, but it just doesn't seem to be feasible given the scale of the game.

And, in all honesty, there is the KISS principle. I have argued passionately all along, both before release and since, against "feature creep", and in favor of leaving a simple, clean system alone and uncluttered.

Oh, and for the record, I have no official status with Slitherine. I'm just a long-time customer, occasional beta-tester, and maverick modder

What you say is of course very true - but what I'm proposing is just expanding on the current system, currently we have one "weather" zone, what I'm proposing is just adding a second, milder, one - encompassing most of western Europe. True, one can enumerate regions of France where winter of '44 has been virtually non-existent , but I believe such a simplification is better than no weather at all - esp since more players will notice the lack of weather and resulting speed up of the game than those that will be able to enumerate hexes that should not be "frozen". Of course it would be better to have the a complete weather system implemented - and other games of this scale do that successfully (HOI, SC2) but this is still better. Also I'd argue that it would be more according to KISS principle, it's easier to remember "winter is bad for attacking" than "winter is bad for attacking but only in Russia" - Africa/Italy being excluded should intuitive (while no winter in e.g. Norway is not).

[IainMcNeil]

While we can't retro fit this to CEAW we are looking at a much enhanced weather system for CNAW and future games.

[Happycat]

I think that while the weather system is indeed simplified in the extreme in CEAW, it still works and does not give the Allies an unfair advantage. In fact, the major beneficiary is the Axis imo. In most wargames (computer or board), attacking Holland, Belgium and France in January of 1940 would be a really bad idea. In this game, it's not a problem of course.

Invasions may seem "cheap", and indeed in a game against the AI, an Allied player should have no problem. But I find in PBEM games that even though I may be able to afford large invasions, there are two problems that are harder to overcome---first, there are only so many hexes available to invade into that are near enough to ports to be practical. Second, unless my human opponent is asleep, my invasion fleet will be attacked before it lands, and the ensuing repairs will make my invasion then seem anything but "cheap".

Many aspects of the game are moddable, and I would suggest that this is in fact the best solution---players can customize the game to their individual liking.

[Phatguy]

But you don't really need cities to launch a invasion nearby. Just ships for supply. The allies have a plethora of those. Even If you absolutely need a city
to be taken, most French ports are garrisoned with poorer quality troops. If you can't overwhelm those in one turn you got problems.

[Happycat]

But you don't really need cities to launch a invasion nearby. Just ships for supply. The allies have a plethora of those. Even If you absolutely need a city
to be taken, most French ports are garrisoned with poorer quality troops. If you can't overwhelm those in one turn you got problems.

Supply via ships is not optimal. You need a port asap if you're going anywhere. I suppose the AI would garrison French ports with poor quality troops, but I can assure you that if you were playing with me as the Axis, you would find the ports garrisoned with well entrenched units (corps in the key ports), under a medium quality HQ, and with a mobile reserve under someone like Rommel close enough to reach your LZ within one turn.

Even a garrison that is fully entrenched and under an HQ is problematical. The attacker needs to remove the entrenchment levels with tactical air and shore bombardment. A properly itegrated air defense by the Axis should be able to force the Allies to pay a price for this effort.

Now I must confess that I haven't played the vanilla game for a while, because I use a mod the Stauffenberg and I worked on for months, but the fundamentals are unchanged---if you don't capture a port by D+1, the Axis player would have to be extremely unlucky to not contain the invasion by D+2.

[Phatguy]

That would be a given that a human controlled enemy army would be better run than the AI but the Germans can't defend everything unless the other human was an incompetent. Nonetheless, you can land without a port as a last resort. Playing as the invader I need to bring overwhelming firepower down on any speed bump called a defender.That firepower should cripple, if not kill outright, even a decent corp. Any competent invader wont show up knocking on your door with only a few corps.....

Sorry for the incoherence... My painkillers are taking effect....mmmmmm

[rkr1958]

Supply via ships is not optimal. You need a port asap if you're going anywhere. I suppose the AI would garrison French ports with poor quality troops, but I can assure you that if you were playing with me as the Axis, you would find the ports garrisoned with well entrenched units (corps in the key ports), under a medium quality HQ, and with a mobile reserve under someone like Rommel close enough to reach your LZ within one turn.

Very Interesting. Where would you position such a mobile reserve? Does this mobile reserve contain armor? Which ports do you consider key enough to be garrisoned by infantry corps? Which ports would you leave to garrisons?

[Happycat]

Supply via ships is not optimal. You need a port asap if you're going anywhere. I suppose the AI would garrison French ports with poor quality troops, but I can assure you that if you were playing with me as the Axis, you would find the ports garrisoned with well entrenched units (corps in the key ports), under a medium quality HQ, and with a mobile reserve under someone like Rommel close enough to reach your LZ within one turn.

Very Interesting. Where would you position such a mobile reserve? Does this mobile reserve contain armor? Which ports do you consider key enough to be garrisoned by infantry corps? Which ports would you leave to garrisons?

Hey, I'm not telling you that rkr1958---you'll use it against me in the pbem game we're playing

Alright, I'll tell ya---HQ near Paris, corps in all port on the Channel (including Holland/Belgium). Garrisons or Italian corps for the one Atlantic port and for Marseille. Keep a reserve of corps in Germany by 1943 as well, so that they can "rail" anywhere in one turn. If you rely instead upon pulling troops from the rear in Russia, you will find that in many instances, you don't have the rail range to reach the French coast (which can be really embarrassing).

I would certainly suggest that you TRY to have an armor in France (or close enough to reach France in one turn).

You need a couple of air units in France as well, so that you can keep an eye on what the perfidious English are up to

Of course if your Allied opponent is doing his job, your resources as Germany will be stretched thin, and you will be juggling a variety of needs. You may not be able to afford everything, but do what you can. You can't prevent D-Day, and in most instances you can't defeat it, but you can make your opponent work hard for every hex.