Balance discussion/suggestions

[ComradeP]

Now that many of us have had a chance to play several scenarios, it might be good to take a step back and see what the good parts of the new system are, and which parts could be improved (further). This might also be a good time to look at the balance of a few scenarios.

I'll try to keep the actual discussion as technical as possible, as in my opinion we should look at how something is supposed to go according to what the system (the formula's in the manual combined with unit values) suggests and we shouldn't try to describe some sort of situation where an abstract result could've taken place. It's a mathematical system, so it should be approached mathematically when determining if it works well.

As you can see in the ladder, not a single draw has been reported thus far.

14 major victories were reported, as well as 5 minor victories.

The high number of major victories suggests that a number of the scenarios might be unbalanced, considering that the people playing the games are, if not veterans of PzC, long-time wargamers who generally know what they're doing.

The scenarios I feel might be unbalanced/favour the defender are the ones with limited turns compared to compared to the objectives that need to be captured to win, numerous bunkers and/or very difficult terrain. The best example is Gertsovka, which is very, very difficult to win as the Germans against a good defender.

A number of other scenarios where a major victory was reported can go either way. The State Farm scenario, for example, will usually be won by the Germans I'd guess, but the only reported result thus far is my major victory as the Soviets. As mentioned when discussing the result earlier, in another non-Blitz State Farm game at the same time I couldn't stop the German tide and the likely result would've been a minor or major German victory.

Clearing lines of bunkers is not impossible, but infantry casualties can quickly mount for the attacker to the extent that taking the second or third bunker line is no longer possible. Whether the defenders hold out to the last man or not is also something neither the attacker or defender has much control over. Variability in results is good, but the variability itself shouldn't be allowed to dictate how a game will end.

It is important to keep in mind that there are no unit replacements or men/vehicles/guns reinforcements (as in: men/vehicles/guns being added to a unit). Losing 4 or 5 men per turn as the Germans isn't too bad for the first couple of turns, but after about 10 turns you've lost a platoon. If that happens to all or most of your infantry companies, your attack is going to stall rather quickly. Losing 4 or 5 men as the Germans when close to the enemy is fairly normal from direct fire only, so artillery isn't included in that average.

The unit values don't really take rate of fire into account, or whether an artillery piece is a suppression weapon or a barrage weapon. This means that the best artillery units aside from heavy howitzers are Katyusha's and Nebelwerfers, which inflict disproportionate casualties at the moment.

Suggestion: In my opinion, slightly lower infantry casualties from direct fire and indirect fire for both sides would improve balance

One of the ways to achieve this might be to make the stacking penalty casualty calculation also work the other way around, so when a target unit has less men than 50% of the stacking limit it will take fewer casualties

As far as I'm aware, neither the breakdown or the AA range formula were adjusted for the new scale. This means breakdowns are 4 times as common as in PzC and AA 4 times less effective.

A 20 vehicle German A quality tank company driving 60 hexes or so will probably lose 1 or 2 vehicles. However, in reality they've only driven 15 kilometres instead of PzC standard's 60. Considering the reasonably good weather and terrain north of Belgorod, it seems unlikely that vehicles would suffer significant mechanical damage when driving such a short distance.

A thrown track or minor engine problems can easily be repaired in 1 or more turns at this scale. With their numerous D quality units, the problem is often worse for the Soviets, but they also often have to travel shorter distances. The Soviets regularly lose their first tank after just 3 or 4 kilometres.

The AA units have increased range, but are still punished by the unadjusted formula, making them ineffective. As in PzC, fire at range 1 is already just 1/3 of its AA value, even though the distance is just 250 meters instead of a kilometre.

Suggestion: convert the breakdown and AA formulas to the new hex scale, or if that makes the effects too generous, make it something like 3/4 of what it would be if it would be converted directly

The thing that puzzles me the most is the way direct fire works between vehicles, guns and vehicles and men/guns/vehicles and aircraft. I understand that, in order for infantry to be able to hit other infantry and guns, units with a lower attack value than the defender's defence value need to be able to inflict losses, but in practice that causes all kinds of strange situations.

German medium tanks regularly knock out T-34's beyond realistic combat ranges, the Soviets in turn also regularly knock out German vehicles beyond realistic combat ranges, artillery is actually fairly good at knocking out a tank and any kind of unit doesn't have all that much trouble with shooting down a Stuka with a defence value of 10 whilst they are firing with an AA value of 2. Tanks without a cupola MG can also shoot down a Stuka, because 2 is the standard AA value even if a unit has no credible AA weapon. At hex 0, AA values are doubled and I'm sort of afraid that goes for all units, which means they all have an AA value of 4.

Suggestion 1: modify either the direct fire formula or the range effect formula so that direct fire at longer ranges quickly becomes ineffective, and also to make sure disrupted or low quality units with an attack penalty can't knock out tanks at longer distance

Suggestion 2: decrease either the AA value of units that can't realistically target aircraft to 1 or only double 0 range AA values for actual AA units

Now, the scenarios. For the moment I'll only discuss the points for scenarios where the point totals seem unbalanced/it seems the scenario is nigh unwinnable by default in terms of how many VP's there are compared to the point requirements for the minor and major victory levels.

In many cases, a significant point gain from Soviet casualties isn't possible for the Germans, so it's essential that a victory can be achieved by capturing objectives.

As you can see, a number of victories have been reported in scenarios that are currently essentially unwinnable.

0705_05 Solomino: 55 points on the map. 50 for minor, 60 for major
0705_10 Hill 225.9: 50 points on the map. 45 for minor, 60 for major
0705_11 Hill 225.9 Hypothetical: Points are inverted and the victory totals are low.
0706_02 Shuravlivny Woods: 145 points on the map. 150 needed for minor, 225 needed for major.
0707_02 Batratskaia Dacha: 550 points on the map. 550 for minor, 750 for major.
0707_03 Iastrebovo: 350 points on the map. 350 for minor, 400 for major.
0707_04 Blizhniaia Igumenka: 450 points on the map. 600 for minor, 800 for major
0708_02 Teterevino North: points are inverted, but I've been told this is as it should be.
0709_02: Berezovka: 300 points on the map. 550 needed for minor, 750 for major.
0709_03 Syrtsevo: 200 points on the map. 250 needed for minor, 300 for major.
0709_05: Hill 253.6: 100 points on the map. 125 needed for minor, 200 for major
0709_06 Suko Solotino: 800 points on the map. 700 needed for minor, 900 for major.
0711_02 Oktyabrsk State Farm: 1600 points on the map. 1700 needed for minor, 2200 for major.
0711_03 Klyuchi: 200 points on the map. 250 needed for minor, 400 for major.

The true balance of scenarios aside from the above can be discussed after some additional games have been logged.

[Strela]

Hi ComradeP,

Thanks for kicking off this discussion. I'll reply in more detail soon (I am currently travelling for work) but your list is a good summation of issues and items to be looked at. We are currently working on the first patch for the game and many of the observations the community has had are being considered for adjustment.

This is the first game in the series and we expected the need for some updates once the game was launched.

Thanks ,

David

[ComradeP]

I'm sure the balance will be fine over time. A lot of it works well enough, it's only some of the mechanics that can cause odd results.

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For the way tactical air strikes work, maybe give tactical bombers a radius of 2 from a certain hex, like the scatter range for carpet bombers, although in this case it would represent a patrol range.

That, combined with changing targeting priorities so the unit normally attacjs the largest vehicle unit in the hex and a reduction in non-AA unit AA effectiveness could make tactical bombers more useful.

Direct targeting of air strikes like in PzC could be problematic in the larger scenarios and in the scenarios with Ju 87 G's and Hs 129 B's which just zap Soviet armour.

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Another topic David: do all units use the same system for determining their VP's for destroying them (so not their VP calculation for the editor, which seems to be an appreciation of its capabilities based on the numerical values)? The number in the OOB editor for men, guns and vehicles looks like you need to divide it by 10 to get to the number for 1 entity or points per 10 men. That's all fairly logical. However, a single Stuka D costs ~6 points, whilst its VP value in the editor is 13.

How does the calculation work?

[Xaver]

Well this remember me when i try a napoleonic mod using 1.01 version...

To be a 1.0 version PzB has a good engine but sure needs improvements, for example in air attacks i think needs affect the hex, for example, if you have in same hex 3 counters, 1 with 1 tank other with 6 tanks and an infantry stack the attack needs affect all them, not as is now killing the smaller tank stack.

Maybe the problem with aircraft VP is that they are more usefull in airfields because use them you are going to lose VP... for me many units needs have 0 AAA value, specially in tank units because not all have AAA MGs and well, shot down them with guns is hard... maybe the air units that do flat attacks (i think in IL-2) need a penalty when attack tank units because tanks can engage them.

Waiting the first patch... maybe is coming with a new brother for Kursk???

[ComradeP]

I ran a short test of 30 air strikes against 9 T-34's of D quality in two separate units (HQ unit and 8 tank unit) by 6 Ju-87 D's.

In total, 4 Stuka's were lost. The Soviet losses were usually 1-2 tanks. Surprisingly, the non-HQ unit was only Disrupted once.

Considering the number of air strikes you'll be launching in good weather, and the high VP's, I'd say losses of 4 Stuka's (or 3, let's say 1 for every 10 missions in this example) against targets not protected by actual AA is too high. The result against C quality units is worse. At first, I was puzzled why 2 AA value units could do this, but it makes some sense if AA values are always multiplied at range 0, making the actual AA value about 4 (the Soviets would presumably still get a quality penalty in the case of this example).

As the Germans, I find myself not using air power because the cost in Stuka losses is simply too high for most scenarios. A few 6 point losses and victory in the more tightly balanced mostly 50-100 VP scenarios becomes impossible.

[ComradeP]

Something that might be more difficult to tweak is making it more worthwhile to use the many small gun units. Currently, I keep them out of the fight most of the time as they're not very effective and the point loss when they're attacked by artillery isn't worth it. On the other hand, attacking Soviet gun-type units is often a good way of gaining additional points.

This could also be seen as an additional example of points awarded for kills possibly being too high compared to the current VP levels.

[Xaver]

Hard solve the problem with gun units... maybe made them harder to kill... and well, they needs for me some change in the line of AT combat where you see more fatigue effects on their attacks... is not a great point have support weapons that provide no support (maybe now his main value is smoke).

[Strela]

Hard solve the problem with gun units... maybe made them harder to kill... and well, they needs for me some change in the line of AT combat where you see more fatigue effects on their attacks... is not a great point have support weapons that provide no support (maybe now his main value is smoke).

If we implement the 'low' density bonus the average gun battery of three guns will get a positive modifier (from memory 10%). This will help survivability.

David

[Richie61]

So are the changes going to make the title more balanced for fairness for PBEM games? Is the objective of these changes to move away from the actual results of these battles for the sake of fairness of PBEM games?

Is there issues with the scenarios or the game engine? I have read comments that the weapons lack actual stats and the scenarios need less objectives or more time. I only counted 30 PBEM games played so far and there are quite a few scenarios never played. Shouldn't more games be played before adjustments are made?

As for scenario designs, I have a bit of time into SB games in the past. Red Victory has a bunch of well balanced scenarios, but the older SB titles have LOTS of very unbalanced fights. Oz put a lot of time and testing into the RV scenarios and it shows.

Are the PzC titles more balanced to PBEM gaming or does that series also have the same issues?

[Ricky B]

I will leave the PzB/Kursk questions to David. Regarding PzC specifically, the scenarios across the series more generally, scenarios and the large number of designers have aimed for so many results that they can't be categorized. Some scenarios are aimed at HTH, others vs AI, generally within the same title. Some started out balanced but later changes have skewed them, while others got better. Some depend may be balanced when played blind the first time, but with knowledge of both sides is present are unbalanced.

And of course the various optional rules chosen will have a large impact on balance, yet many like to pick their own rules for the game.

Finally, player experience, even if at the same level, can throw the balance off, where an inexperienced pair of players may leave the battle with no chance of a win for one side, while experienced players could go either way.

Rick