Several Moscow 42 Questions

[Liquid_Sky]

Having grown up in Northern Alberta, I can say a couple of things about frozen ice in winter.

While the banks of a river will freeze (or a pond for that matter), and freeze rather solid, the center will inevitably be thin. It takes a long time at very cold temperatures before moving water will freeze. But what can happen is chunks of ice can block the water in places and cause ice bridges to form, that can be safe to walk across. Although I know of trucks that have crossed what used to be a ford, but is now frozen, I doubt a shaking 40 ton hunk of metal can survive crossing without seriously injuring the ice, if any water is underneath.

I have seen ice as thick as 10-20 feet at the bank, thin out to a mere skin of ice in the center. And this in January.

But once the river/pond freezes, it doesn't thaw. Not until spring. And the ground will never unfreeze to the point where one day you can't dig, and the next day you can.

Probably what is happening (totally conjecture on my part), is the Russians/Germans are building some sort of bridge to hop over the weak middle of a 'frozen' river. And that the constant use of supply vehicles crossing weaken it to the point where it needs to be rebuilt elsewhere. And the (random) time lost rebuilding the supply road/bridge elsewhere can be simulated by the weather change where the rivers 'unthaw'.

But I think that the weather should be permanently frozen, with storm to simulate blizzards, and visibility changes to simulate snow/blowing snow....or even snow blindness. Or have more 'fords' on the map to simulate ice bridges, and allow the weather to fluctuate.

[76mm]

Probably what is happening (totally conjecture on my part), is the Russians/Germans are building some sort of bridge to hop over the weak middle of a 'frozen' river. And that the constant use of supply vehicles crossing weaken it to the point where it needs to be rebuilt elsewhere. And the (random) time lost rebuilding the supply road/bridge elsewhere can be simulated by the weather change where the rivers 'unthaw'.

I'm no expert on river ice, but from what I've seen/read while here in Russia, you don't necessarily have to "build" anything, engineers would just have to determine where the ice is thick/thin, and choose routes accordingly. As far as I know, cars, etc. (not tanks!) regularly drive on river ice here in Russia. Also, I don't if there should be any time lost for rebuilding an "ice bridge" because I suspect that in reality engineer units would pick a number of crossing sites, includimg back-up routes, and direct traffic accordingly, rather than waiting for a truck to fall through the ice!

Finally, the real problem for me with these thawing rivers is not even supply, but the fact that my rifle battalions can't cross them without marching several hexes to a bridge, and then back to where they want to go...given the one-hex-per-turn movement for Rifle battalions, this is just brutal. And obviously the Sovs can't assaut across thawed rivers.

[Strela]

Guys,

Just a comment as the designer of the game. Though it's fun to pull out every feature and examine it in isolation it misses the point that all these parts have to come together to represent a reasonable facsimile of the fighting around Moscow in 1941/42. I can promise you that you will be able to fault every 'feature' of the game. These units are too strong, movement rate is to slow, weather is having too much of an impact etc.

There was a lot of work done right up front to make certain the game was representative of what we had read/heard about the fighting - we pushed a lot of counters around in our test scenario to get the 'feel' correct. Add to that the fact that we had a guide from history in terms of advance rates, losses in vehicles etc and we had a reasonable set of outcomes to look at emulating with the game. We believe we have managed to do that.

Now everyone's mileage will vary. There are some areas that we will look at tightening up because they have game play implications, for example the maximum visibility distances in the first couple of days of the Grand Campaign to prevent early release of fixed units. Others like the weather are there to put a little more randomness in for the player. It will differ from game to game, but if players believe they have a better set of assumptions please feel free to go and change the Weather.dat file and lock the frozen weather in!

My take on the weather debate is that at best weather is a generalisaton. For a start it covers the whole map, not the various different local climates that would be present. The variation between snow & frozen is meant to be representative of all the difficulties armies have fighting in winter. One day a river is easily crossable, the next it is much more challenging. Warmer weather will help the Germans more than the Soviets (no frozen penalty) etc etc. I deliberately laid out my assumptions in the designer notes so that people would understand the whys. If you disagree, then again please edit the weather file.

Finally, the design team are paying very close attention to player's experiences. If we believe that there is a design flaw that needs correcting we will. But that said, lets ensure we get enough games played so that we can see that there is an issue rather than just a few players thoughts & experiences.

All comments are appreciated!

David

[76mm]

I didn't mean to be overly critical, I am actually really enjoying the game, and think it is very well done. The ability to revise almost whatever we want, and your active presence on the forum, are huge pluses for me.

Obviously you'll need input from many players over some time about various aspects of the game, but I did want to point out the weather issues above.

[Strela]

I didn't mean to be overly critical, I am actually really enjoying the game, and think it is very well done. The ability to revise almost whatever we want, and your active presence on the forum, are huge pluses for me.

Obviously you'll need input from many players over some time about various aspects of the game, but I did want to point out the weather issues above.

Ha ha - I promise you I am not that precious!

I just want to make certain that people don't fixate too much on individual features. Your call out is correct - it will take time for any issues to be confirmed and then we will make the call to change the scenarios.

As I said before, I want to see a dialogue going on - it means people are hopefully playng the game!

David

[76mm]

Well, while I'm pointing out things you might want to fix, at the risk of coming across as utterly pedantic, I think the NKVD headquarters in Moscow is in the wrong location.

As far as I know, the NKVD was headquartered at Lubyanka, which should be around hex 415, 129 rather than its current location.

[Strela]

Well, while I'm pointing out things you might want to fix, at the risk of coming across as utterly pedantic, I think the NKVD headquarters in Moscow is in the wrong location.

As far as I know, the NKVD was headquartered at Lubyanka, which should be around hex 415, 129 rather than its current location.

Interesting. Looking at the map I used (below) you're right. I have confused the Palace of the Soviets (the Parliament) with the NKVD. I will correct this in time for the next patch update - got to know where to go to liberate the political prisoners!!!

David

[bdtj1815]

Although I have edited the weather.dat as recommended earlier in this thread it is turn three in a restarted campaign game and visibility has gone up to 3 hexes unfixing most of both sides front lines.

This is the edited line: 6 12 1941 0 0 0 0 100 1 2 0.

What is going wrong now?

Studying the weather.dat further there are two later days, 11th and 12th December, where the visibility could go up to 3 or even 4 hexes resulting in the same problem because 5th, 33rd, 43rd and 49th Armies should still be fixed. I really don't want to play 100 or so turns into the game for this problem to arise again as it totally changes the dynamics of the campaign.

[76mm]

Well, the good news is that I think that by Turn 100 all units will have been released (so last units release on Dec 14), so maybe it is not an issue. I have not had viz higher than 2 so far, and have had two Storm days (out of five).

I'm still reviewing this "Frozen/Snow" issue and I'm on Dec 10, and have had Snow conditions on Dec 9 and 10, with a 95% chance of Snow on Dec 11 (with 5% chance of Mud!). This really screws things up around Kalinin, as there are several river hexsides within the city, and to the East of Kalinin there are no bridges across the Volga for about 60 hexes!

Also, I need to look at the pdt file to see what is going on, but my units, particularly ski and cav units, seem much less mobile in Snow than Frozen conditions, which seems a bit odd.

[bdtj1815]

Well, the good news is that I think that by Turn 100 all units will have been released (so last units release on Dec 14), so maybe it is not an issue. I have not had viz higher than 2 so far, and have had two Storm days (out of five).

Well you have obviously been "lucky" to have not had higher visibility basically ruin your game so far. Maybe I should have been more precise in my previous comment, and bothered to do the maths properly, and said 56 turns. At the pace of a turn a day, which is reasonable for a scenario of this size, that only means nearly two months of game time wasted!!