Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject: Russian "Ubermenschen" ?
A friend and I are playing the GC with the H2H plug in, he complains that his German squads perform well below what can be expected.
We are currently playing turn 4 and the losses (soldiers killed ) are almost equal, which seems to support his claim as one can expect the attacking side to take more losses.
What is you're opinion on this ? Is it so that the Russian squads are a-historical strong ( to much experience, morale) or is it a designers choice to make them stronger ? Are they better equipped ? (besides the tanks and arty)
Yes, pzjager made the mod to reflect the poor condition of the German troops at the time. Low ammo, low morale, sick, starving, etc. I had to change my German tactics too. To play this mod effectively as the Germans you must wait and ambush Russians, hold your fire to the last minute and try to hold onto key positions and roads. It seems the more experienced player will probably need to play as Germans in h2h. Hope this helps and welcome
to the forums.
Yes, pzjager made the mod to reflect the poor condition of the German troops at the time. Low ammo, low morale, sick, starving, etc. I had to change my German tactics too. To play this mod effectively as the Germans you must wait and ambush Russians, hold your fire to the last minute and try to hold onto key positions and roads. It seems the more experienced player will probably need to play as Germans in h2h. Hope this helps and welcome
to the forums.
Totally agree with you.
It is also possible to play H2H using the russian Vetmod if they prefer! It works as well!
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:17 pm Post subject: Re: Russian "Ubermenschen" ?
Roeslan wrote:
A friend and I are playing the GC with the H2H plug in, he complains that his German squads perform well below what can be expected.
We are currently playing turn 4 and the losses (soldiers killed ) are almost equal, which seems to support his claim as one can expect the attacking side to take more losses.
What is you're opinion on this ? Is it so that the Russian squads are a-historical strong ( to much experience, morale) or is it a designers choice to make them stronger ? Are they better equipped ? (besides the tanks and arty)
Thanks for you're comments
I'm the friend referred to :
Just to give some more background information:
We are both playing CC for over 10 years (from the start of the series), and we just finished a GJS grand campaign. As Commonwealth player, this meant attacking, taking heavy losses for gaining little ground, and losing the majority of the battles. Fortunately, the allied player has the one offsetting advantage which can bring victory: attrition. Even when 'losing' most of the time tactically, strategically the situation gets better and better for the Commonwealth player.
After this slugging match, I choose to be the Axis defender in SDK. We play the SDK H2H submod, line vs line, but with a custom grand campaign scenario (no meeting engagements in the northern sector, most reinforcing BGs starting on map edges, supply dumps only at map edges, slightly different setup) and a couple of house rules (no heavy arty first 5 minutes, no voluntary disband unless in uncontested hex in supply, forced disband and out of supply = BG is out of the game; furthermore: the usual VL setup rules, no Axis move on turn 1).
The expectation was to have a fairly 'balanced' game in which both sides have chances for victory, meaning to have more VPs at the end of the scenario than the other side. Based on the forcepool data, the Soviets have a numerical team advantage of 1.12 vs 1 and a value advantage of 1.30 vs 1 (reflecting better Russian armor, but also apparently higher-valued Soviet infantry teams). So, difficult as German to win on attrition, but not impossible. Although the Axis player is in a bad strategical situation, being on the defence and having foresight of what will happen should allow him to conduct a fighting withdrawal, delay and extract considerable losses from the attacker.
Axis inferiority in guns/armor to defeat the Soviet heavy armor is a given, no remarks on that.
The problem I'm experiencing is that, even with the obvious advantages a defender has (ambush, better positions, good lines of fire, ...), Axis infantry squads (not only the Rumanians) often take excessive losses without sometimes even killing a single man. Firepower superiority & suppression seem to be of no avail. We've had situations like a German veteran pioneer squad lying in ambush, in command and with abundant supporting fire, is literally overrun by a Soviet engineer squad advancing in the open (without even shooting back). Or a Rumanian veteran infantry squad lying in ambush in a building starts shooting at a Russian assault squad advancing in the open, killing one guy (!) before the Soviets enter the building and exterminate the whole squad in close combat (without taking any additional losses!). Hmm...
Besides the obvious reason of bad generalship on my part , I'm looking for game-technical reasons why this happens so often. I've started to play SOC a couple of days ago, merely to check out if the same observations apply. Actually, it seems it's even worse as German player, especially because ammo levels are so extremely low. However, I understand and agree to the logic of setting back ammo levels. But this alone does not explain why Axis squads suffer so many casualties while doing so few to their opponents.
So the question is: which game parameters (I mean data settings via QClone) cause the effects mentioned by dgfred?
I know that ammo levels in SOC are set to around 30% of normal levels. Is this also the case for SDK? (I didn't check it in the data files yet, but historically, there doesn't seem to be a basis for that since all Axis units were in supply before the start of Uranus.
I checked weapon stats, no special remarks there. Morale and experience levels of the teams also seem to be pretty balanced, I cannot say that German teams are systematically underrated.
On a historical basis, I would tend to say (and I weigh my words carefully )that, on average, for that period of the war, Axis squads should be at least as good as Soviet squads, especially if on defense. Unfortunately, this is not at all what we observe in the game...
Didn't check team size yet, but fromp experience I would say that the average German team is not much smaller than its Soviet counterpart.
So, any ideas which data settings could cause this? Any comments, experiences etc are appreciated, especially from the mod maker since he knows the data files.
Everything to avoid having to admit my opponent is simply the better CC playing
But seriously, it would be good to know if the Axis infantry disadvantage is something structural and intentional, or just the product of my imagination...
In any case, since my CC buddy and I have a standing rule of playing every GC from both sides, I will be relieved to hear that every Axis player will indeed experience the same frustration because it's built in into the mod In that case, I can't wait to switch sides!
Cheers,
Roel
BTW: PzJager, thanks for the good job on both mods! I especially like the period and theatre settings (something different from the usual stock/Utah/Omaha/GJS thing), the originality of the teams/weapons, and the 'atmosphere' of the maps (brrr...).
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:55 pm Post subject: Re: Russian "Ubermenschen" ?
Roeslan wrote:
What is you're opinion on this ? Is it so that the Russian squads are a-historical strong ( to much experience, morale) or is it a designers choice to make them stronger ? Are they better equipped ? (besides the tanks and arty)
Don't forget that the squads of NKWD waited behind Russian squads, on second bank of the Volga. This was motivating very much.
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:07 pm Post subject: Re: Russian "Ubermenschen" ?
[quote="Roel]But seriously, it would be good to know if the Axis infantry disadvantage is something structural and intentional, or just the product of my imagination...[/quote]
Hi,
Exactly as you said: the product of your imagination!
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject: Re: Russian "Ubermenschen" ?
pzjager wrote:
Hi,
Exactly as you said: the product of your imagination!
Cheers
PJ
Well, that's exactly the reply I needed to start digging a bit deeper
So I did a bit of research on the adb files used for the mod. And the results are surprising to say the least! I can now at least understand why German infantry is often no match for their Soviet counterpart...
The forcepool data I used is for line vs line; the forcepools, teams, weapons and vehicles files are taken from SDK 1.2, with the H2H submod installed. Below are some extracts of the excel/access files I used to do the analysis.
The values shown are the total number of infantry teams for all battlegroups used in the Grand Campaign, per morale level and per experience level. Because the purpose is to evaluate infantry close combat, included teams are the command, recce, assault and line units, excluded are support (MG, mortar, ...) and AT units.
Soviet BGs have a numerical infantry advantage of 1.27:1 or roughly 5:4, which seems both logical and historical. To my knowledge, Operation Uranus achieved a considerable numerical superiority, especially in the breakthrough sectors during the first days of the offensive.
2/ Morale
Quite surprising results here. About 2/3 of all Soviet teams are either High Morale (Morale Level 4) or Excellent Morale (ML5). For the Axis, not even half of the teams (46%) fall in that category. In fact, 3 is the most frequent morale level for Axis teams. This gives the Soviet player an advantage of about 1.8:1 in teams with above average morale. Of course, the table above should be refined to compare individual battlegroups, but including the data would take too much space. However, taking a look at the BG level leads to some surprises as well: the average morale for German Panzer BGs is lower than the average morale of Soviet non-Guards Infantry BGs. Soviet Cavalry BGs have higher morale than nearly all of the German infantry BGs. 13 out of 27 Soviet battlegroups have an average morale that is equal or higher than the highest-morale Axis BG (24th Pz). And also: the German 131/44th Inf Div BG doesn't have any above-average morale teams at all, so 'Good Morale' at best. None of the Rumanian units either (less surprising). But on the Soviet side, every single BG has above-average morale units.
3/ Experience
Same trend here. 43% of all Soviet teams are at High Experience or Veteran. For the Axis, the percentage is 14%. This gives the Soviet player an advantage of 3.85:1 in teams with above average experience! On the level of the individual BGs, differences are less marked. Axis and Soviet BGs are all in an average experience range of 2.8 - 3.9 (top 3 all being Soviet Units). Other things to note are the low difference in experience between Rumanian and German BGs, and the fact that Rumanian and Italian Infantry BGs have a higher proportion of above-average experience units (in fact, the Italian BG is the second-highest experienced of all Axis BGs!).
Combining the above average morale and experience for all teams reveals an even bigger gap: 40% of all Soviet teams have above average morale and experience, for Axis teams this is only 20%. This results in a 4.24:1 advantage in high quality teams. Considering the effects of high experience/morale on combat and especially on close combat (harder to kill, less likely to panic, higher ROF, ...), the Soviet player not only has a numerical advantage, but also a considerable quality edge over the Axis player. This will weigh even heavier in H2H campaigns, since human players tend to field their best teams first, and they often also 'max out' on morale, experience and rank when picking teams.
So, although I do have a vivid imagination, it is not playing here
I'm curious to hear about other opinions (including the mod maker's) on Axis vs Soviet morale and experience for the theatre and timeframe of the SDK mod. Considering the above, I believe that for H2H purposes, experience and to a lesser extent morale are considerably overrated for Soviets as compared to Axis. Also, for the Axis BGs, it seems that Rumanian BG quality is slightly overrated and German BG quality seriously underrated.
Now, morale and experience discussions are always somewhat tricky because subjective and difficult to prove. Generally speaking however,in that phase of the war I would expect the average Axis infantry team to be at least as experienced as a Soviet infantry team. Also generally speaking, Rumanian/Italian BG experience would be below average, German Infantry BGs slightly above average, and German Armoured BGs above average. On the Russian side, I would expect regular Soviet infantry and armor BG experience to be slightly below average, Cavalry also below average, and all Guards units above average. Morale is more difficult to assess. Although it could be possible that Soviet BGs generally had higher morale than their Axis opponents, IMO the difference should never be that big.
I checked these assumptions with some games that quantify experience as well: V4V Stalingrad and Gary Grigsby's War in Russia (Uranus scenario). The two are quite consistent with each other and confirm most of the assumptions made.
Exceptions are the higher quality of most of the Soviet breakthrough BGs, the lower quality of some German regular infantry divisions, and the lower quality of Soviet Cavalry units. In general terms, Axis quality tends to be a bit higher than Soviet quality.
The original reason to do the above analysis was to see if it is possible to play a balanced H2H campaign, balanced meaning: at standard settings (line vs line), both sides having roughly equal chances of obtaining at least a marginal victory (controlling more victory locations than your opponent). My first feeling before starting the GC was that obviously, the Axis side would be at a strategical disadvantage, numerically inferior, with lower quality AFV and artillery, but with higher quality infantry and, very important, foresight of Soviet intentions. My guess was that it would lead to a battle of attrition (as all GCs finally do) with the Axis being gradually pushed back, but with good chances to inflict higher relative losses to the Soviet player (the overall strength ratio in number of teams is Soviet 1.12: Axis 1). However, I find myself not only fighting against superior odds but also consistently being outshot, overrun, and in the end taking more losses even as defender, and even if no AFV/Artillery support is available to the Soviet player. (Without the house rule on heavy artillery restrictions, results would be even worse) In any case, the observations made above on Soviet, German and Rumanian BG experience and morale are consistent with how our current H2H campaign is progressing: on the northern breakthrough sector, Rumanian BGs are doing better than expected in delaying the Soviets. They take serious losses and are gradually pushed back, but they are holding on surprisingly well and inflict sizeable damage to Soviet infantry as well. In the German held sectors, the story is very often the same: even the better German BGs occupying excellent defensive terrain get slaughtered, not especially by armor or artillery, but by advancing Soviet infantry. It is possible to hold maps for a couple of turns at most, but only at attrition rates that are even higher than the attacker's. In short, prospects of even so much as holding on to the edge of the strategic map after 25 turns are very slim...
So, anybody with similar or contradicting H2H experiences (line vs line)?
To be clear: I think that SDK is one of the best mods available to play against a computer opponent (human playing as Germans of course) and so far, I loved playing it against the AI, especially with the Vetmod installed.That's why we choose it to play H2H. However, for a line vs line H2H campaign game, considering the above, I'd have to conclude that there's a serious (and IMHO a-historical) balance issue, and the Axis player has very little chance to attain any victory at all. Although I understand that the mod is trying to reflect historical outcome, it's a pity that morale and experience settings are 'sacrificed'. It not only doesn't feel natural, it also greatly reduces fun for the Axis player, as infantry team quality is often one of the few assets available to him to counter Allied numerical advantages. That's a pity, given the time it takes to play an H2H campaign to the end. Luckily, we always play a GC from both sides (allowing a fair comparison), so in a couple of months it will be my turn to let my Soviet uber-infantry loose on those poor Axis
PzJager, I'm really interested to know which criteria or sources you used to determine experience and morale levels for the different teams and BGs. Since you invested so much time in the mod (which is greatly appreciated), I can hardly believe that you just 'took a wild guess at it'. I'm quite certain you took factors into account that are not mentioned above (and that I didn't even think of). I didn't have time yet to check other settings than line vs line, so maybe one could simply choose other settings. However, basic team morale and experience will not change, only the unit mix. Alternatively, as mentioned, one could always use the vetmod but that is normally used to give up 'normal' (i.e.historical) settings for better gameplay against the AI. If the vetmod does a better job at reflecting historical morale and experience, it should probably be used as the standard game...
Any comments are very much appreciated!
Cheers,
Roel
P.S. I plan to take a look at infantry firepower (i.e. the total fire value of all weapons in a team, for all ranges) as well, just out of curiosity to see what comes out...
I have a collection of letters from soldiers in Stalingrad.
German morale was tending to become worse, because they had been promised
rapid success and vacation for cristmas...
Since the mod begins after on 19th of november and all vacations were canceled on the 20th, i guess german moral was lower than that of the Russian, who were now finally in offense, after months of setbacks.
I think pzjäger did a good job in taking all variables into account. SDK is very good as it is.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:20 am Post subject: h2h
if iwas to play SOC h2h, playing a person of same capabilities(yes lots of alkihol involved) i believe the russians would, well on a lot of maps simply massecure the germans.
me v AI as germans, i have everage kill ratio of 1:2.5
me v AI as russians kill ratio is lower, 1:1.5 maybe even 1:1, as russian's have:
1) 4*ammo+
2)stalin pipes(if hidden to survive) out perform any german wharf trucks(3 rds german to some 12 to russians).
3)t34 can match mk4 1 on 1 due to elite,germans usually poor quality to start.
4) russians have longer range on ppsh,and many more ATR's which kill soldiers and tanks/vehicles.
Once i finish GC as germans i shal play russians to end. my guess is GC will be over in 6 days.
Morale and Experiencie don't work as separate entities, try giving one team full experience and no morale, the game will try to level the two and the team will end having like 3 experience and 1 morale, so I think thats why you cant have experienced low morale teams.
I have a collection of letters from soldiers in Stalingrad.
German morale was tending to become worse, because they had been promised
rapid success and vacation for cristmas...
Since the mod begins after on 19th of november and all vacations were canceled on the 20th, i guess german moral was lower than that of the Russian, who were now finally in offense, after months of setbacks.
Yes, like I said, it is well possible that Soviet morale was/was becoming higher. However, I think the difference in the game is too big.
And I suppose not many Russians got their holidays around the 19th either
Polemarchos wrote:
I think pzjäger did a good job in taking all variables into account. SDK is very good as it is.
It is very good against Russain AI, because the advantages given to the Soviet player partially offset AI stupidity. And of course PzJager did a great job, that's not the point. I just think that there is a serious balance issue when playing the mod H2H due to a-historical differences in morale/experience, and I'd like to hear some other opinions on this issue.
Morale and Experiencie don't work as separate entities, try giving one team full experience and no morale, the game will try to level the two and the team will end having like 3 experience and 1 morale, so I think thats why you cant have experienced low morale teams.
True, and it also true that in an H2H game, if both players want to 'max out' on the morale/experience levels of their teams, the quality gap could be reduced. Reason is that the base morale and experience levels of a team (as in the adb file) are generally corrected upwards when selecting a unit for the battlegroup. So while lower morale/experience teams still have a margin to improve, higher teams 'hit the ceiling' more often.
By the way: according to some testing I did, these corrections are always the same per experience/morale combination, regardless of mod or side. Example: a unit with base EL3/ML3 will always get you either 3/3, 3/4 or 4/4. I have the probabilties somewhere, but not right now... There is also a thread from a while ago that already elaborated on this (Senior Drill's CC databooks).
However, IMO most players agree that it is better to max out on leader rank, and unless you have the time to max out on all three (morale, experience and rank), you usually end up with a morale/experience values close to the base levels. So in the end, I think the effect on the observed quality gap is rather limited.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:07 pm Post subject: Re: h2h
ANZAC_Tack wrote:
if iwas to play SOC h2h, playing a person of same capabilities(yes lots of alkihol involved) i believe the russians would, well on a lot of maps simply massecure the germans.
me v AI as germans, i have everage kill ratio of 1:2.5
me v AI as russians kill ratio is lower, 1:1.5 maybe even 1:1, as russian's have:
1) 4*ammo+
2)stalin pipes(if hidden to survive) out perform any german wharf trucks(3 rds german to some 12 to russians).
3)t34 can match mk4 1 on 1 due to elite,germans usually poor quality to start.
4) russians have longer range on ppsh,and many more ATR's which kill soldiers and tanks/vehicles.
Once i finish GC as germans i shal play russians to end. my guess is GC will be over in 6 days.
The observations I made were for SDK, in an H2H campaign. But chances are that SOC will have the same issues. If you add to that the
reduced Axis ammo levels, an Axis player doesn't stand any chance at all if you ask me. If we ever get to playing SOC H2H, I'll let you know.
The issue of relative firepower is interesting as well, as I have a feeling that the Axis player is also at a severe disadvantage. I hope to find time to look into this a bit as well.
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In August of 2004, Zappi, Homba, Bambam887, RedScorpion and MOOXE all pitched
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, I'm looking for game-technical reasons why this happens so often. I've started to play SOC a couple of days ago, merely to check out if the same observations apply. Actually, it seems it's even worse as German player, especially because ammo levels are so extremely low. However, I understand and agree to the logic of setting back ammo levels. But this alone does not explain why Axis squads suffer so many casualties while doing so few to their opponents.
