EP '14 mechanics/balance

[Volcano Man]

The pattern you describe for besieging Koenigsberg sounds logical, but you make it sound too easy. When you get to Koenigsberg, if you can get there, it will be after September 1st, so you will get 20 or less supply. Isolating the city/fortress either requires you to break the southeastern part of the fortified ring or crossing a major river. The Russian guns you mention are regular heavy artillery, presumably because they're so old, and not siege artillery.

I repeatedly stated that it would be difficult and challenging to get into Konigsberg; I have no illusions there, I was just outlining the steps. You wouldn't just waltz straight in, and you wouldn't try to tackle the actual forts themselves, but it shouldn't be impossible if done correctly. The description was presented simply because you stated that objectives should be present around the fortress to reward the Russians for besieging it, and I was saying that besieging it has its own reward of cutting off supplies, following by the steps you would take to try to get inside after doing that. I just don't see the Konigsberg situation written off pessimistically like your posts above were doing (you did say there was no reason for the 1st Army to even go into it). I never said this in the notes as far as I can remember.

But then again, maybe I am being too optimistic, but I have never been accused of that before.  Also, maybe Konigsberg itself should be worth a LOT more points to basically help guarantee a political termination victory even when 2nd Army may be getting thrashed. This is worth consideration.

You are correct: any siege would have to take place after September 1st, so it would directly depend on the Russian 2nd Army holding its own against the Germans or, at the very least, not getting destroyed by then. All of these are a given. But the only reason we are even discussing hypotheticals here is because, again, you were being so pessimistic in the previous posts. If I don't offer a counterpoint then you have essentially decreed that the game needs serious work (going back to your original post).

But that is not to say it is perfect either, just that I won't be making drastic changes in the game, which is why I felt an obligation to elaborate on the rationale behind it all.

Strela
If we get this right there is no reason why it can't go into other series and make the players decisions much more relevant based upon an evolving situation rather than the 'I have 24 turns to go and capture point X' - grind, grind, grind.

Yes, that would be very nice indeed. It does make it exponentially more tricky to balance when calculating VP levels though, but if kept to a minimum then it would work well.

[Volcano Man]

Disregard. Posted here by accident (and cannot delete it).

[Nitram Draw]

Do I hold that forward defensive position for as long as possible because I get large points for every turn I delay the enemy - the points I get outweigh the cost of the units to hold it. Do I rush ahead ignoring my flanks because that objective deep in the enemy rear is worth so many points each turn? I may ultimately get beaten off it, but if I hold it for a sufficient time it is more than worth the effort and will confound the enemy who has to react to stop me racking up points instead of holding back the slow grind.

We have even suggested a VP value for both sides. A particular hex maybe more valuable to the defender than the attacker and the defender will be rewarded more for each turn he holds the hex. The attacker may get 0 points for taking the victory location but he has to take it to deny the defender racking up those points.


David

This is one of the best things about a variable VP, you have to make a decision on what to risk.

I like the different VP for each side too, what is important to you may not be so crucial to the plans of your enemy. I think if both could be added you could really do a lot in the large scenarios.

[Nitram Draw]

Also, just in general here, regarding Namur in France 14 - I am in the middle of playing the Grand Campaign as a team right now on the German side and the Germans did assault and have nearly captured Namur. Why do it as someone said? There is no reason to do it because there are no VPs there. Well, again, I am not against adding VPs there, but the fact is - ***it is a foregone conclusion that Namur will be taken***. That said, variable VPs would certainly influence the Germans to attack it sooner (and I am not against the idea if I can get it added to the series, but again, a game designer has to work with the tools available). The Belgians will be withdrawn, so with static VPs there they are essentially guaranteed and as such, are pointless. All other VPs on the map are not guaranteed, or in the case of the ones present in the Ardennes, exist to allow the possibility of the French to attack at the start of the campaign to achieve an immediate termination victory. But I digress, so in our campaign why did the German commander decide to assault and capture Namur when there are no VPs present within? Because tactically it was a good thing to do - it secured VPs from destroying the units inside the forts, and it secured VPs from killing the Belgian division inside the perimeter.   It also provides a more direct route across the Sambre/Meuse, being at the tip of both.

My point about Namur is that while you can break into the area with the forces you have outside of it, you will most likely lose more than you kill and lose VP's. So why do it. It will fall by itself. I suspect once people realize all the forces will be withdrawn, for both sides, that nobody will launch an assault there. But it would be the perfect spot to put a disappearing VP hex in. Then you might have a reason to use those great A morale units that are outside the fortress :)

[Volcano Man]

My point about Namur is that while you can break into the area with the forces you have outside of it, you will most likely lose more than you kill and lose VP's. So why do it. It will fall by itself. I suspect once people realize all the forces will be withdrawn, for both sides, that nobody will launch an assault there. But it would be the perfect spot to put a disappearing VP hex in. Then you might have a reason to use those great A morale units that are outside the fortress :)

Yes, possibly, depending on the circumstances. In our game we are getting far more VPs than we are losing or, at the very least someone else might just break even, but in our game we are using the attack to get both secure Namur and get across the Meuse/Sambre far sooner (about three days sooner to be exact in the Grand Campaign). There are time based tactical reasons why you wouldn't just totally ignore it until the 24th. Personally I don't have a problem at the moment with the Germans ignoring it entirely either, they still have to do something about the forts if they want to use the nice road network through Namur and the Belgians would still withdraw as the Germans attacked around the position. Then there is the matter that only the Belgian 4e Division withdraws. If you just totally ignore Namur then you still have at least 12 Belgian battalions in your rear area from the fortress garrison, so no, you cannot just completely ignore it without consequences later.

You know, this points out an improvement I should make here: I have the Namur fortress HQ getting withdrawn also, but this is probably not a good idea in case the Germans do ignore it. ;)

But yes, as mentioned I do think it would be nice to have variable points and if I can get it to happen then I will certainly add points that will expire by the historical moment that the Germans actually took Namur (maybe + a some turns to be generous). It is a good idea, but I suspect that it won't be easy to for John to just add on a whim, so it will take some convincing. I will try my best there. :)

[Nitram Draw]

I suppose it depends on where you want to attack through as to how important you make Namur. If you want to make it the main (or good size) breakthrough point the it is probably worth attacking the forts and making a breakthrough even if you don't gain points. You don't have a lot of time with two of the corps positioned there, I think it is about a day or two from the time they are released to the time they withdraw and only a day or so between release and the withdraw of most of the Belgians where you could rack up points.
Hopefully you can find a way to convince JT do put in a variable VP as it could be used in many games, not just the WWI games.
Regardless of whether the variable VP's happen or not I really like the WWI series and appreciate how much work and thought have gone into them. Thanks for carrying the torch.

[Volcano Man]

A possibly interesting update of sorts...

I was fascinated with the idea of a hypothetical scenario based on a situation where the Russian 1st Army has reached and surrounded Koenigsberg, under the rationale that the 2nd Army was still hanging on in the south. So, I made one yesterday, mainly to see what would happen rather than just guessing and theorizing.

After playing the scenario several times it became obvious that it was EXTREMELY difficult for the Russians to get inside. I always suspected that, but it would seem to come down to a massive amount of luck to get through the first defensive line, and then even more luck to get into the interior. I actually broke into the outer defenses as the Russians when I played it solitaire twice, but ran out of steam before reaching the interior after three days of fighting both times.

So this got me thinking: I wanted to make sure I had the basics correct with the fortress itself because I could only vaguely remember the details there. So I went back and spent about six hours researching the fortress again by digging out my old data, which I love to do.  First I double checked the positioning of the outer forts with satellite imagery (Google Earth), because I knew that if I had gotten this wrong then the defenses would be too lock tight with no gaps in the perimeter that the Russians could threaten. So, using the Google Earth with triangulation measurements, lo and behold I did find several errors in their placement and have now made them more accurate (several moved one hex this way and one hex that way). As suspected, this actually increased gaps in a few places, in three places the gap is actually quite wide and impossible to block by 3rd party ZOC. This will make it even more important for the Germans to devote a garrison to the city (at least using Hauptsreserve Koenigsberg). Now there are about four major gaps in the outer defenses that must be defended, so the Germans cannot just stick units in all the forts and protect the gaps with ZOC.

Also, I discovered a misunderstanding in the initial research that the forts around Koenigsberg were modernized, but this is actually incorrect. These were 1800s brick constructed forts, so they are all downgraded to Redoubts with the smallest ones having no supply source now. In other words, they have all be reduced one level and the three smaller forts can possibly get isolated in certain desperate situations.

And finally, the inner defenses were made to be more accurate as well, again much weaker than I had them because the continuous row of redoubts was incorrect (this was due to a translation error on a Russian map).

Also, since I was looking, I figured I  would check the calculations on the 152mm de Bange "siege artillery" and the hard attack value turned out to be incorrect (it is 5 and should be 11, I was using the wrong shell weight in the calculation).  This in itself doesn't make a huge difference, but a higher hard attack doesn't hurt.

Corrected all of this for the next update. I think that in the next update it will actually be a reliable possibility to overrun Koenigsberg, so much so that the Germans will have to worry about that possibility, much more than that have to worry about it currently. They will also have to consider using their reinforcements from the western front as a relief force if the fortress ever gets besieged and attacked, while trying to hold off as long as possible for the relief effort to arrive in time. I think this may open up the dynamics a bit more here if the Russian commander is willing to take that risk to continue on with 1st Army.

I think I may make the hypothetical scenario available in the next update too - if I can test it in time.

So kudos for pointing me onto the idea of looking into the Koenigsberg situation. My guess is that I did initial research on the area early on in development and forgot to go back later and give it a second look.

OK, now I really must go back to the next title - I just couldn't resist a good investigation.   Other than this, I am not inclined to adjust anything with the Russians Army in general, but I am always up for making tweaks to scenarios for balance - fatigue, VP levels, etc.

[Strela]

Kudos Ed, for the additional research. It's amazing how many details can be found if you devote the time. That's one of the points I want to make for all - the huge amount of research that has to be done to make any of the titles. Ed is a master at it and he makes it even harder by picking topics that are generally not mainstream.

The other point is this kind of research is not quick. You can't just type 'Koenigsberg's defences' into a web browser and have the answer available. As Ed mentioned it took 6 hours to get the required information and that's a big hunk of time that the average war game designer has in any week.

I think it's also compliments to John Tiller that the same basic system can cover so many historical periods and still feel appropriately differentiated. The FWWC feels completely different to PzC yet it's essentially the same (tweaked) engine. It is still handling the test of time.

David

[Volcano Man]

Thanks for the compliment. I wouldn't say that I am the master though, but I try to do what I can to make them playable. 

Yes that is also the problem with designing games as you know - you could spend 50 years researching the data and still overlook plenty of things. Ugh.

[ComradeP]

Volcano Man, would it be an option to rate the 1st Army heavy artillery train as siege artillery based on their relative strength against the forts in the area, which as you discovered were not modern? The guns would presumably have been adequate for siege operations during the time they were constructed, which was seemingly the same time the forts were constructed. If there are no modern forts in an area, late 19th century siege guns should be able to make a lasting impression and it would at the least give 1st Army some incentive to go after Koenigsberg if it's felt they can take it. It would still take a lot of time to get there and it's debatable if they can normally get there, but any incentive helps.

As an aside: I'm currently reading Osprey's "German infantryman vs. Russian infantryman 1914-15" and it mentions that German recruits did receive entrenching tools, just like the Russian infantry. This might have been later on, perhaps their source is mistaken. However, it seems logical to me that at least the standing pre-war army had entrenching tools in substantial quantities.

One thing I've been wondering about and which the book also mentions is just how much training the Landwehr actually got, which wasn't that much as they didn't attend annual manoeuvres.

I've also been wondering if pre-war planning envisioned units cooperating like the German and Austro-Hungarian cavalry formations do at Lodz. Considering that it wasn't particularly clear where the Austro-Hungarian forces would go, or where the German forces would support them if necessary, it seems unlikely the HKK formations were operating based on a pre-war plan. The officers of the two nations might not even have met eachother before the war in the worst case scenario.

The book is a more interesting read so far than I expected, even though it's just one book it does add to what can be found in books like "Collision of Empires" and Hindenburg's Memoirs.