German firepower

[Dan Caviness]

Alfons:

:soap:
The German Army in WWII was obviously one of the finest fighting forces ever assembled by one nation. The game designers, all the way back to it's Talonsoft roots, were well aware of this and built those into the game in two main areas. One, with morale advantage, and two, with their firepower.
Not only the vaunted MG in question, but with their standard rifle/bicycle/motorcycle/PzGdr values. They are superior to all other units in the game. Firepower and morale.

I believe you do your scenarios a disservice by further exacerbating this shift in the mistaken belief that you are discovering a truth others are not taking into account.
We all get it, we do.

The game does an excellent job of modeling the fact that the German army, while vastly outnumbered, consistently out fought and out manuvered their opponents for the first 4 years of the war. It really does.

So...when you further adjust/improve them to model this....pushing that edge just a "little further"...you can create monster scenarios like the one your trying to adjust at present.

The inherent "stock" morales of German units (6s/7s) are vastly superior to the stock Allied values (5s/6s). That one point shift is huge. Anytime you put a first side in a lower morale situation then the defender (not saying this didn't and still doesn't happen but it's not likely and certainly doesn't make for a very enjoyable game) your creating a bloodbath.

I think your on the right track adjusting this.

The Talonsoft designer's one point morale shift allows for scenarios where you can choose the high end of Allied morale, and the low end of Axis ones, to create a level playing field, and the original designers knew well what they were doing. It works.

Then of course you can always stick to your "guns" (sorry) and simply adjust the victory levels so the Allied player can be slaughtered and still achieve a minor victory....make the Axis player REALLY slaughter them to get a draw...and knife every last one of the bastids to eke out a minor...lol...

Adjusting Objective values and Victory Conditions are the single easiest way to make games competitive. That being said, it's usually not fun to play in a game that is totally one sided no matter the victory conditions, so there are limits as to how far you can go when employing this method.

In your scenario it appears the MG units are mostly static, and/or fixed positions so this last point may not apply. It does go towards your original question though on the German MG's ability within the game...

I would like to reiterate that the German MG units may be too quick.

I don't know the details of what it took to get an MG34 or 42 up and moving, but I think it's pretty doubtful they could realistically move as fast as their PzGdr brethren. Most of the other MG units in the game are slower than their infantry counterparts in the other armys. Yet here's the MG42, throwing 16 point blank and reaching out six hexes to still deal damage and firing thrice a turn....and they can hump the thing like an M1 or a Mauser?:chin:

This is where I'd like to hear some justification from the powers that be.

I can't see it.

As RR says....good luck with your testing...keep pluggin'...you'll get it...

Dan