GS 3.0 Plaid Axis vs Morris Allies

[supermax]

I think you missed my main argument (normal I jumbled it up into a ton of text).

With all the limitations, the germans have lost the hability to manoever in a way where it could position them early on to win the game.

On the surface, it still appears as they can do whatever they want, but in reality the gas tank becomes empty quite rapidly after mid 1942.

I think that, without the unit build limit, that you would see again germans dominating in some games.

Also, I think you should give the germans a certain numbers of turns where they don't have a limit to the number of landing crafts after the fall of France. The allies could also get the same in the spring of 1944.

you might say it isn't historical... Well, I say that the germans spent a lot of energy converting anything afloat to landing barges in the summer of 1940. They never attempted a landing because they were afraid of what the Royal Navy might do... In reality, I believe that the germans only needed to land and the takeover would have been very rapid.

Anyway adding this little option would get the allied payer to wait for historical opportunity to land and also the germans might now seriously start to reconsider sealion as a viable strategy (which it isn't anymore)

[trulster]

IMO the "anti-blob" rules should be relaxed a little, specifically as it hinders Germany's ability to field a large fighter force (which anyway is somewhat limited by oil). Inability to contest the air is what ensures Allied takeover early on.

[richardsd]

IMO the "anti-blob" rules should be relaxed a little, specifically as it hinders Germany's ability to field a large fighter force (which anyway is somewhat limited by oil). Inability to contest the air is what ensures Allied takeover early on.

I have to say I agree

[Cybvep]

I like the anti-blob rule, but maybe we should increase German caps a bit? IIRC ATM it's 3/5/7/9/12/15 and all nations are treated the same way. How about sth like 3/5/8/11/14/18 for Germany? So no changes for 1939-1940, a small increase for 1941 and a high increase for 1942-1944. Ofc it's still a "soft" cap, not a "hard" cap. As trulster said, the Axis is limited by oil, the Allies are not. The Allies also have more PPs and all 3 nations (the UK/the USA/the USSR) have high potential, so the same anti-blob values for all nations are favourable for the Allies.

This wouldn't be a drastic change, but it would make the life a bit easier for the Axis player.

[Plaid]

IMO the "anti-blob" rules should be relaxed a little, specifically as it hinders Germany's ability to field a large fighter force (which anyway is somewhat limited by oil). Inability to contest the air is what ensures Allied takeover early on.

If you ask me, number limits for fighters is the last problem for Germany. It is already hard in PP terms to maintain 5 fighter units (assuming they are in action and lose 2-3 steps each every turn), so I can't see, how building more would help.
Problem is that western Allied fighters often have better or at least even tech making interception bad idea.
Another problem is that intercepting strategic bombers over western Germany becomes pretty pointless starting from 1943 or even 1942. (bomber will take few steps of damage, but still will inflict very high strategic damage to targeted object, and intercepting fighter will suffer casualties too) - so PP trade on Allied terms again. More German fighters - more PP trade on allied terms.

[trulster]

I like the anti-blob rule, but maybe we should increase German caps a bit? IIRC ATM it's 3/5/7/9/12/15 and all nations are treated the same way. How about sth like 3/5/8/11/14/18 for Germany? So no changes for 1939-1940, a small increase for 1941 and a high increase for 1942-1944. Ofc it's still a "soft" cap, not a "hard" cap. As trulster said, the Axis is limited by oil, the Allies are not. The Allies also have more PPs and all 3 nations (the UK/the USA/the USSR) have high potential, so the same anti-blob values for all nations are favourable for the Allies.

This wouldn't be a drastic change, but it would make the life a bit easier for the Axis player.

Good idea for change.

[Kragdob]

All the above - US is too strong, I usually have maxed out TAC and STRAT by 1943, organization becomes lvl 3 in 1942 so starting from that moment Germany has no advantage over ground units, and lose in the air. All this usually happens (depending on tech progress) by the end of 1942. In history in 1942 US were able to match Italians, not regular German army, this is why they went for NA, and didn't even try to do any landing in Europe.

I think US ORG starting lvl should be 1, and all air lvls should be 0.

[Morris]

All the above - US is too strong, I usually have maxed out TAC and STRAT by 1943, organization becomes lvl 3 in 1942 so starting from that moment Germany has no advantage over ground units, and lose in the air. All this usually happens (depending on tech progress) by the end of 1942. In history in 1942 US were able to match Italians, not regular German army, this is why they went for NA, and didn't even try to do any landing in Europe.

I think US ORG starting lvl should be 1, and all air lvls should be 0.

Yes , it sounds reasonable ,but it seems principle for the team to change it . Why not just give US o landing point in 1941 & 1 landing point in 1942 sothat there will not be any serious overlord happen before 1943 .

[GogTheMild]

I think US ORG starting lvl should be 1, and all air lvls should be 0.

This was discussed at beta test, with a strong majority against. (Which included a certain Mr Kragdob .)

[Morris]

I don't think there is an easy way to make a game balanced for all kinds of playing styles. It's impossible to predict the creativity of some players. These players can analyze the game and find weird ways to get advantages that the game was not designed for. One example is the specialization described above. E. g. just let USA produce bombers and tanks while the British produce mechs and fighters. By doing that you can focus your techs and just pump out units that the Germans can't respond to.

In order to stop that you have to add gearing limits to production. We have a soft version of gearing limits where you pay extra if you build too many of a particular unit type. We even added number of labs restrictions to reduce the specialization.

The problem is that if you try to prevent all kinds of weird ways to play you complicate the game and ruin the game balance for players who enjoy a more normal game. So in the end you just have to pick your target and try to make that work.

For the BJR group the target was people who like to have fun in rather historical games and would make plans that could have been possible in the real war. For such players GS v3.0 is pretty balanced right now.

For the players who are experts in exploiting weaknesses in the game design I think they will never find the game balanced. You will always find players who can find new exploits to beat a current exploit. The problem with all these exploits is that if you have to tend to them to win then you scare away all those "normal" players.

Again I would say that our target is these normal players and not the elite players. The development team have already spent enough energy chasing the tail of those who are experts in exploiting game weaknesses. That work is futile and won't bring you closer to your goal (a fun and balanced game for them).

I therefore recommend that such players play with general.txt or options to find ways to make the game balanced for them. We won't make updates to GS v3.0 trying yet another time to plug holes in the game rules that could be exploited.

Sorry , Borger , I have to argue with you about this .

What we are talking about is the game balance of the game engine . This has nothing to do whether this game is played by an elite player or a newbie ! The only advantage the elites player has is more experience ! Only the player who has enough experience get more opporyunity to find the game'e weakness & shortcoming by their practice . If you want us to play at a minor advantage option instead of provide our opinion about game balance , you will ruin the best WW2 strategy game I have ever met ! Actually during the last hundreds of changes , the game is coming to perfect . Although we complain about the game balance , we do agree GS have made great progress from 1.06 to 3.0 ! We just want to make it better or even perfect !

[Vokt]

For the allied strategical bombing campaign over Germany issue that Plaid has pointed out above I would like to bring here something that I suggested once before. And this is the possibility of creating anti-aircraft land units. In real WW2 there were anti-aircraft ground units corps sized. See this: http://www.ordersofbattle.com/Units/Get ... =8&UntX=62. That link goes for UK units but I assume that most of major WW2 powers had this kind of units. Yes, once it was increased anti-aircraft defensive value of cities and capitals but may be by including anti-aircraft units it would possible for axis player to emphasize in the defense of Germany PP's against allied bombers.

[Cybvep]

Nah, that sounds like too much detail for CEAW IMO. There is already a tech that increases the AA value of cities. That's enough.

[Plaid]

Yes , it sounds reasonable ,but it seems principle for the team to change it . Why not just give US o landing point in 1941 & 1 landing point in 1942 sothat there will not be any serious overlord happen before 1943 .

This will lead to US producing bombers and british doing the landing. It will not prevent early overlord itself.

[Plaid]

Nah, that sounds like too much detail for CEAW IMO. There is already a tech that increases the AA value of cities. That's enough.

By the way, probably this tech ("Radar") worth reworking/replacing, as it provides quite odd mix of ASW and air defense bonuses and in the same branch with very important "industry" and "organisations" techs, thus leading to noone effectively focusing it (Western Allies don't need air defense, Germans don't need ASW, other nations probably don't need neither).

So from historical point "Radar" tech is ok, but from game mechanics perspective it is not very useful as is.

[pk867]

Actually with the new sub rules, Radar will reduce sub evade chances (5%) for each level reached.

[Morris]

Yes , it sounds reasonable ,but it seems principle for the team to change it . Why not just give US o landing point in 1941 & 1 landing point in 1942 sothat there will not be any serious overlord happen before 1943 .

This will lead to US producing bombers and british doing the landing. It will not prevent early overlord itself.

Yes , I mean the same landing point to UK ! So Allies won't be able to achive any landing mission unless the scale like Dieppe .

[Plaid]

It can prevent 1942 Overlord, but it will make Torch impossible aswell.

[Blathergut]

I think the game is quite fine as it is. I think Stauff. is right in stepping back and saying for the average player, the game is fine. Some of you will always find some way to gain an advantage, even though it seems like you have found some for the Allies at the moment and are perhaps struggling to now do the same for the Axis. But for most of us players who stumble about in the game, it is the best one available and is very enjoyable as is. More major changes do not need to be made. Play with handicaps. That's what they are for.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Unit build limits can easily be altered in general.txt.

You can change the year limit below as shown. If you want e. g. fighters to not have any limit you alter from 1 to 0. In my games I haven't see the unit limit as a problem for Germany from 1943 and beyond. They just don't have the oil to sustain huge numbers of oil consuming units. So increasing the limits means the Allies benefit the more. Well, unless you have different limits for each country.

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Unit type build limits */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1939 3
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1940 5
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1941 7
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1942 9
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1943 12
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1944 15
UNIT_TYPE_BUILD_LIMIT_1945 20
UNIT_LIMIT_GARRISON 0 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_CORPS 0 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_MECH_CORPS 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_ARMOR 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_FIGHTER 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_TACTICAL_BOMBER 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_STRATEGIC_BOMBER 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_BATTLESHIP 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_CARRIER 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_DESTROYER 0 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_SUBMARINE 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes */
UNIT_LIMIT_OVERUSE_PP 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes. Pays extra PP when unit purchased if overuse */
UNIT_LIMIT_OVERUSE_OIL 1 /* 0 = No. 1 = yes. Pays extra oil consumption per unit if overuse */
UNIT_OVERUSE_PP_PERCENTAGE 5 /* Increase in percent per overuse level */
UNIT_OVERUSE_OIL_PERCENTAGE 5 /* Increase in percent per overuse level */

[Cybvep]

So increasing the limits means the Allies benefit the more. Well, unless you have different limits for each country.

Exactly. But that's not possible ATM, right? I wrote my proposal for Germany - 3/5/8/11/14/18.
Also, the Allies benefit more from that rule, because they are not really limited by oil. But that's ok, it makes sense, considering that the Allies controlled the vast majority of the oil-producing regions in the world and that the US production alone accounted for ~80% of ALL oil production.