A little playtesting with H2H

[Greybeard]

Hello All

FYI, I had an idea about some play testing with H2H or SPWAW enhanced. I think that WW2 and MBT have spoiled me.. in particular with how robust the infantry behaves in the SPCAMO efforts.

Even though the Germans created the 'blitzkrieg'.. WW2 was still largely an infantry affair. Being so, I have wondered why in H2H/WAW the infantry is so fragile. Sometimes so much so, that it seems a waste of good money to buy troops instead of tanks.

I e-mailed a general e-mail to all the people in my address book, but since my computer crash not many are left. And I've had some very good input from a number of people - and it's much appreciated

So here's the deal. I've been farting around with the preference settings to see if I can create tougher infantry in H2H, similar to what is found in MBT/WW2. I think I've found a good formula that toughens up the infantry in H2H - just enough the where they can get ambushed with the desired dire results, but won't evaporate in a 200 yard fire fight (as they seem so often to do now).

So here's what I have been doing.. I set the 'infantry toughness' level up to 150, and the 'artillery vs soft' up to 120. The upgrade to the infantry seems only to affect how hard it is to KIA a squad. All other characteristics seem to be not affected. Setting the artillery up to 120-130 only increases it's effect against soft targets. Too high and a shell burst too easily wipes out soft vehicle, but at 100 with the toughened up infantry and the grunts/gun crews suffer not enough from artillery fire. At 120-130 moving soft vehicles become very vulnerable, but standing still they survive pretty well (so who should be using trucks like APC's anyway?) The end result is that if trucks are used to bring in troops to assualt other infantry, they will suffer more from incoming artillery than they do now.

anyway - I'm looking for a pool of people that can play a few off-ladder (or on ladder if you prefer) games to test out how these settings work, and gain a general concensus about it.

Personally, I find myself shying away from WAW games of all types because the infantry is so fragile. (again getting spoiled from MBT/WW2).

Oddly I didn't like playing WW2 against the AI, and spent many hours with SPWAW.. until I discovered the blitz and played a few WW2 games and concluded that 'vanilla' WAW was perhaps designed to be played against the AI, where SPCAMO looked into their crystal balls and decided to try and develop WW2 for PBEM play. (just my opinion anyway)

Now I understand why Steel God liked WW2 so much.

Anyway.. drop me an e-mail, if you are interested, and I'll see about putting together some games with infantry toughness boosted to 150 artillery against soft boosted somewhere from 120 to 130.

:smg:

-Greybeard

[Fubar]

Err...whats SPCAMO:conf:

I've only tried SPWaW and SPWW2 so far.

[RedDevil]

Hey Grey, We can add another game to our current package if you want

[Greybeard]

Hello Fubar,

SPCAMO is the group of volunteers that have developed WinWW2 and WinMBT over the years. In my opinion they have done a truly awesome job. I still have my original SP-2 and SP-3 games. Comparing the original SP-2 with the work from the CAMO group, well, leets just say that SPCAMO has moved the game from ejoyable to superlative.. and they still manage to find ways to tweak it better

-Greybeard

[Walther PPK]

Hello Greybeard,

I don't find infantry in H2Hfr as fragile as it was in SPWAW 7.1 (I'm too little experienced with newer mods and versions of SPWAW to express my opinion about them) But perhaps why it's less fragile is that its anti-tank ability and machine guns effectiveness was increased. Ialso think that infantry toughness is somehow conditioned by its morale and experience. Besides that I'm ready to play a H2Hfr test battle with you. Send the files to [email protected]

greetings,

Walther PPK

[Fubar]

If you need me for any playtesting i'll have a go. I've never tried H2H before so i'll need to find and install it and i'm an SP newbie with only 2 games under my belt against Peek.
On or off ladder is fine with me, i'm not worried about ladder positions just having fun. :smoke:

[Greybeard]

Hello Walther

Yes, in some of my trials I have tried settings that improve morale and expereince. The 'country training' option controls that. Setting that value to 90 or above turns the troops into fanatics, with superhuman strength..

the 'toughness' value does not boost the morale or experience levels. It seems only to make it more difficult to inflict casualties, and allows a squad to take more casualties before it breaks and disperses..

Greybeard

[Alby]

I took a poll when working on Enhanced HTH to find out whether they players wanted the infantry toughed up, softened up, or left as is....almost to a man, they all said the infantry was just right where we set it for Enhanced FV.
In Leos H2Hfr, he drastically increased the morale ratings so the infantry acts even tougher, in some cases to the point of being too stubborn to retreat and then ultimateley getting wiped.
not sure about Infantry in Camos games.

Please explain what you mean when you say "too fragile"
what circumstances are involved?

[Greybeard]

Hello Alby

Enhanced HTH? - Where can I find the mod?

Well, by 'fragile' i mean that very often a single squad has the ability to KIA an enemy squad with 2-3 shots, and also I've seen 10 man infantry squads disperse after losing 4 men in a single small arms shot. It even happens to 'elite' units regularly.

In MBT/WW2 a 10 man squad won't generally disperse until 70% are KIA. but as a unit takes losses, it becomes harder and harder to rally, number of shots decrease, and available shots in weapons 2-4 reduce until it reaches 0. Also, if only 3 men are left in a squad, and they perchance have shots available for wepons 2-4, they usually can't fire all 4 weapons. Sqauds under fire won't revert to pinned status if they are in route or retreat status - continued incoming fire just adds to the panic.

Honestly there are so many glaring (and subtle) differences in the way infantry behaves compared to H2H/WaW that it's almost a matter of 'seeing is believing' which takes more than a game or two.

Simply a change to the 'toughness' won't cover all, but I think will increase the length of time that any infantry unit will stick around to fight.

-Greybeard

[Alby]

The Enhanced FV mod is here
www.spwaw.com

the add on and instructions, details, for the 'PBEM' version (FV HTH) is here.
SPWAW Enhanced FV HTH


Some points, ....when an infantry Squad fires weapon#1 in SPWAW, it assumes that every man in the Squad fires this weapon, so if 10-12 men all get hits, then an opposing Squad can get wiped out in '1' shot technically.
I have seen this at times but not all that frequently.
Now a MG firing at an opposing Squad especially if they are caught in the open, is a different matter, these Squads can be decimated, as is should be.
Every unit in SPWAW has to pass Morale checks, and sometimes they just fail them and disperse (roll of the dice kinda thing) when they get down to a few men.
iIn war....Sometimes men run...fact of war,do they never do this in SPww2??
Also if they get too far away from, or their Commander (The 'O') unit has been destroyed this also hurts them in rallying, dispersing, that kind of thing.

Myself I could not ever get into the comabt routines of WW2 or MBT...just a matter of personal preference as is most things in life I suspect..
:)

BTW turning artillery vs soft UP to 120 will hurt infantry more.