France '14 Update 1.03 Released

[Compass Rose]

HPS just released France '14 update v1.03.

The update includes:

Changes to France '14 V1.03
- Broken units have full movement allowance and Disrupted units have
2/3 movement allowance.
- Change so that half Frozen Penalty is applied only to Urban (Village,
Town, City, and Industrial) hexes.
- Removed Delayed Disruption Reporting as an Optional Rule.
- Change so that Replacement degredation starts at 70% supply instead of
50%.
- Artillery units without indirect fire, "field guns", that are not in a
bunker, redoubt, or fort that are fired on have a disruption effect that
is ten times that of normal.
- Disrupted artillery cannot be plotted for artillery fire nor can any
plotted fire be resolved.
- Restoration of eliminated HQ units takes twice as long.
- New Wireless Intercept feature similar to modern Electronic Warfare
added.
- Added Early Termination scenario flag similar to modern Nuclear
Termination.
- No Towed Unit (a unit that must be in Travel Mode to move) has a ZOC.

The update can be found here: http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/updates/up_WWI/up_WWI.asp

[Volcano Man]

Thanks for posting that. Also, for those that are interested, the following changes were made to the resource files in v1.03 update:



v1.03
- Drastically improved the VP levels and objective values in the #1914_0822_01s_Campaign_Early scenario. Based on feedback from campaign results, the old VP levels and objective values have been quartered. The change is minimal, but it has a drastic impact on the game play since greater historical emphasis is now placed on casualties than before (for example, von Moltke's historical decision to turn away from Paris was based largely on the desire of destroying the French Army by inflicting heavy losses on it in a double envelopment). It is rationalized that any losses sustained on a level that is massively out of proportion to the enemy's (on a difference of a half of a field army of men or more) would have influenced the outcome of the war, as the political will to fight a prolonged conflict would have likely been broken immediately. In regards to the changes to the campaign the following points must be mentioned...
a) Neither side can no longer afford to lose over a hundred thousand men and thousands of guns more than their enemy, doing so will alter the outcome.
b) If one side manages the elusive "holy grail" result of isolating and destroying an entire enemy field army then the campaign will likely be won easily. This was not possible before.
c) It has now been calculated that the Allies can afford to fall back from the start to the Marne, and still keep the game close in the draw result region. Losses above or beyond this, or taking back or losing objectives along the final line should tip the result one way or the other.
d) A forward Allied defense that disregards all losses should reliably result for them than a draw now, depending on how many losses were inflicted and which objectives were held of course. However, such an Allied tactic is risky because, combined with high losses, and just "a few more objectives" taken by the Germans will likely result in a Central Powers victory, rarely resulting in an Allied victory unless something miraculous occurs (such as like loss ratios are kept close).
e) Because of the changes above, the odds are stacked a little more fairly. A successful Allied tactic now is to bloody the Germans at the start, then break contact and fall back and repeat. Continue to fall back, periodically holding or counter attacking (delaying) in some areas as you, overall, continue the strategic withdrawal. The point in which the Allies should withdraw is once the Germans begin inflicting heavier casualties than the the Allies themselves are inflicting, taking into consideration also the time spent delaying the German advance. In other words, a series of delaying actions, with each disengaging at the point when the Germans begin to get the upper hand is advised. Near the end of the campaign, perhaps in the final week or so, the Allies should be looking to hold fast and counter attack where possible. Do this too early and the Germans may decimate the Allies and win from objectives and casualties inflicted. Do this at the right time and the Allies can push the Germans back and possibly administer heavier losses on the enemy (think of the historical out flanking at the Marne for example, and the near destruction of the German 1.Armee).
- Adjusted the VP levels and objective values in the #1914_0917_01s_Campaign_Race campaign scenario. Similar to the change made to the early campaign but not as drastic, the VP levels and objective values in the Race to the Sea campaign are now halved to allow for casualties to play some role in the result, but not as much of a role as they do in the early campaign. The rationale here is that although casualties should play a role in the Race to the Sea campaign, by this time both sides were desperately attempting to win the war before the end of 1914, regardless of cost. To do this, the Germans wanted to break through to Calais to outflank the Allies and shorten the line, and the Allies were doing their own counter attacking to push the Germans back (thus the formation of the Ypres salient). Because of that, it is factored in that losses are a little less important here, they are still secondary to the terrain objectives but are not totally irrelevant either.
- Duplicated the "early" and "late" PDT files and created new ones with the "-no rail" suffix on the filename. The difference with these is only that the normal PDT files have rail capacity, while the "no rail" PDT files are for smaller scenarios which now have a rail capacity of 0 for both sides. This was done to allow a rail capacity in the largest campaign scenarios, while preventing gamey "rail blitzes" in the smaller scenarios.
- Edited the "mobilization" and "early" OOB by removing all replacements from artillery type units. After additional research and consideration, it is determined that in the early stages of the campaign, neither side should receive artillery replacements since, during this period of mobilization, no surplus existed. Essentially, the guns available were all there were. The effect on game play is that devoting time and effort to counter battery fire in the early campaign actually becomes useful because each gun lost will never return. Also, this change penalizes those who choose to deplete their field gun units in hold-to-almost-the-last-man situations, because they can no longer withdraw and rebuild them during the campaign.
- Major changes to the #1914_0906_03s_St_Gond and #1914_0906_01s_Marne scenarios for more historical play in the Morius-le-Petit to Sommesous sector.
- Corrected German "pseudo-motorized" Jaeger unit speed from a mix of 5 through 7 to the correct value of 7.
- In the #00_Started scenario, corrected the starting location of HQ Position de Liege (Leman) to now be in the historical location of Fort de Loncin.
- Changed the starting strength of the German Gardekorps units to be a more historical level in the #1914_0913_01s_Aisne scenario.
- In the #1914_0822_02s_Charleroi scenario, removed the German 13.Infanterie-Division units that arrived as reinforcements in the impassible area. These forces were not supposed to be included in the scenario as per the change made in v1.02 and their arrival was overlooked.
- Edited German starting dispositions on the north map edge in #1914_0919_01s_St_Mihiel scenario to be more historical.
- In the #1914_1001_02s_Arras scenario, changed the arrival time of 45e DI to be 0600 instead of 0800 on 4 OCT, but the probability was lowered from 80% to 60%. This was done to allow the possibility of the division arriving earlier but at a less likelihood of doing so.
- Corrected an error in the "early" OOB where a German unit III./ResDR.2 was incorrectly specified as a pioneer unit instead of a dragoon unit.
- Corrected the name of the 1/Royal Irish to 1/Royal Irish Fusiliers in the early and late OOBs.
- Added the missing 1/Royal Irish Fusiliers and 2/Seaforth Highlanders in the #1914_0826_01s_Le_Cateau scenario (they were in reserve positions south of Haucourt.
- Corrected some issue in the OOB and with missing portraits for the French foreign legion units.
- In the "late" OOB, corrected the German IR.240 to be a reserve formation instead.
- Improved the VP levels in the #1914_0919_01s_St_Mihiel scenario.
- Changed the title of #1914_1111_01s_Ypres scenario so that it matches the scenario's filename.

END

[Al]

Thanks for the update!

[Lowlander]

Some nice changes to the unit graphics by removing the white background +1.

[Mr Grumpy]

As you can see from the amount of info in the first two posts that there is still a lot of tweaking and refining going on for F14 and the FWWC series, as well as a new title in its advanced stages of testing.

If you read through the changes the most obvious to have a noticeable effect is "Broken units have full movement allowance and Disrupted units have 2/3 movement allowance" this change was brought in to encourage players to retreat when necessary without having to leave their broken/disrupted units behind to be destroyed by the attacker, many players were trying to "stand and die" to cover for these slow moving units in an attempt to save them, only to end up losing even more units in the attempt.

"Optional Surrender" is now a default optional rule (the first time you play a scenario with 1.03 you will need to click the Opt rule "default" button to enact this change), so retreating your broken units is even more important than before as any assault on them will remove the entire unit.

"Artillery units without indirect fire, "field guns", that are not in a bunker, redoubt, or fort that are fired on have a disruption effect that is ten times that of normal"
As a "small unit" it was difficult to disrupt FG units under the Alt fire system that FWWC uses, this new change should remedy this issue and prevent FG units resisting assaults when not stacked with an infantry unit.

"No Towed Unit (a unit that must be in Travel Mode to move) has a ZOC" no more blocking bridges with small MG/FG units by straddling the bridge with a ZOC forcing the attacking units to use the forced bridge rule, now a MG/FG unit will need to be stacked with an infantry of cavalry unit to block a bridge in this way.

"Restoration of eliminated HQ units takes twice as long" in the FWWC series any unit outside the HQ command range or with no HQ drops one level of morale, so don't allow your HQ's to be destroyed!

[Al]

Thanks for explaining the rationale behind some of the changes. I think they're definite improvements. Just out of curiosity - why was the "Delayed Disruption Reporting" optional rule dropped?

Looking forward to the next title.

[Compass Rose]

Looks like some really good changes to the series...thanks.

[Volcano Man]

Just out of curiosity - why was the "Delayed Disruption Reporting" optional rule dropped?

It was deemed that this rule pertains more to World War II, and modern warfare rather than World War I period. The primary reason is because the large units of the day made it relatively easy to determine what state they were in, and because the rule made it even more difficult for the attack than it already is.

The good thing about the FWWC series is that the defender has an advantage, and it was felt that this rule simply increased that advantage too much. In other words, it was a rule that if on or off made a HUGE impact on difficulty for that attacker, but in the PzC and MC series the presence of that rule really helps balance the game away from the attacker's favor (it is generally accepted that the attacker has an advantage there). It really comes down to controlling the experience, and that I felt that optional rule was not appropriate for the time period.

I hope that makes sense.

[Al]

I hope that makes sense.

Yes, it does. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Fhil]

Although I don´t own France ´14 title, at least two of these changes sound good to be implemented into Panzer Campaigns as well - Broken units having normal movement allowance and the restoration of HQs being twice longer (could be even three-times longer if you ask me).

Any similar plans in the future for Panzer campaigns?