EP '14 mechanics/balance

[Compass Rose]

Great stuff Ed. 

With having no previous knowledge about WWI, I always enjoy reading your posts about your FWWC series as I am able to learn something new, every time.

I use to not have any interest in WWI or own any WWI games until F'14 was released.  Now, I own both of your titles and am patiently waiting like alot of other fans of your work, for your next release.

Also, I can't wait for your WWI book to come out; you know, the one you are working on, in your spare time!  

[Volcano Man]

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?

It is a good question, and I actually looked into that but the problem is really how siege artillery is translated into the game.

The "Siege Gun" flag is really intended for modern guns that appeared just before the war began, which essentially threw everything out the window and made forts obsolete overnight.  Some could argue that this was simply because of the size of the guns were so massive, but it did have to do with other things, like high angle fire and extremely heavy concrete piecing shells.

These de Bange guns are from 1877, and although are siege guns in name, they just didn't have the principles going on with the weight of the shells and high angle, for one thing. The 152mm gun had some heavy shells to be sure (~40kg), and they were concrete piercing type, but it shouldn't be considered a siege gun any more than the 21cm Moerser 10 should be, the latter being more of a candidate though, I think.

The design decision here is that these guns are what I call these "pseudo siege guns". I don't give them the siege gun flag per se, but they get the siege gun hard attack calculation because of their concrete piecing shells. So, in other words, they get the hard attack of siege gun (for the AP shell) but not the modern siege gun type devastating effects.  I think this puts them in a nice middle ground between normal artillery and the modern siege guns.

Not to mention, when I tried the 152mm de Bange guns out with the siege gun flag then they were obliterating these weak forts in single turns. With out the flag but with their correct (higher) hard attack now they are fully capable of disrupting defenders without laying waste to the forts. The latter seems well beyond their capability - the de Bange guns were conduct sustained bombardments of forts over a day or more. I suppose it is still just a design mentality we are talking about here -- the guns could be made to have the siege gun flag very quickly, but from what I see this inflates their performance well beyond what could be expected of them. That said, their new hard attack with the weaker forts gets results (when they have ammunition). In the first barrage I got about 4 disruptions on the forts. The idea here is that you will still have to bombard the forts for a long while, and even (repeatedly) assault before all defenders are disrupted. This would be in line with 1870s fortress warfare.

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As for the entrenching tool issue: well, it is unknown if they are referring to the 1915 situation in that book I would guess, or I could be thinking about sapper shovels which were transported by carts instead of a personal miniature shovel. If I was remembering it wrong then I eat my words. :)

But really it doesn't matter, the issue here is not whether a guy could dig a hole in the ground or not - the previous description is just to justify the design decision. Even if remembered incorrectly at the moment, it could be rationalized any number of ways.

Even if he had just his hands available, you figure he could dig an improved position in soft dirt in two hours time, sure. I too was in the infantry. The main issue is how long it takes, ***in game terms***, to dig a TRENCH.  With a digging in value higher than what we have, we just don't end up with 1914 style warfare, plain and simple. You get "trenches" being thrown up in a matter of turns, and the front line constantly bogging down into stagnation. So, regardless of if they had shovels on their person in 1914, or whether off the top of my head I was remembering the sapper full sized shovel rather than a portable miniature shovel, it always comes down to gameplay. The fact that we cannot allow Improved Positions to appear at one rate, and Trenches at a longer rate is the issue. So no, no change will be made there. Of course 1915 and 1916 would have a higher dig in rate however as this would be more reflective of the period and doctrine, if we ever get that far...

Also consider that Improved Positions provide a fairly reasonable protection level of -20% IIRC. What Improved Positions actually represent we don't really know, but lets put the highest considerations on them, that it is modeling BOTH cover and concealment for the entire hex of often 1000 men or more. So yes, it would take longer than two hours to accomplish this in my mind. As I said, you can justify it in any direction, and given that I feel the current behavior better simulates the 1914 campaigns, it will remain as is. Feel free to try your own scenarios with higher digging in rates though.

[Al]

As an aside: I'm currently reading Osprey's "German infantryman vs. Russian infantryman 1914-15" 

That's a good book that added to my understanding of EP'14 and east front combat in general.  Has some nice maps as well.  A good, inexpensive addition to the game.

[Volcano Man]

You know, I am sympathetic to the digging-in issue here so I think I may make a small improvement in the next version:

First, I have to admit - despite the fact that I play EP14 and F14 myself, I had forgotten that F14's IP and TRENCH hexes provide higher defense bonus than in EP14. All this time I had that 20/30% from F14 in mind when talking about digging in percentages here. Also, anyone that knows the stuff I have made in the past, then they know that there is one thing I hate above all else: lack of uniformity.

Looking at my notes again, the difference here between F14 and EP14 was intentional, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense anymore looking back on it. I mean, why would digging-in in France be better than digging-in in East Prussia? Also, standardizing it would mean consistency in both games, and F14 could benefit from a little lower defensive bonus provided by dug in positions (because the front quickly gets "puttied up" to a continuous line), while EP14 could benefit from a higher probability.

So, the improvement here would be that I will standardize both games and make the digging-in probability be higher, but the defensive bonus will be lower (rather than lower probability with higher benefit) which would make both consistent. Essentially it means that EP14 will have a little higher digging-in probability, while F14 will get a higher probability and a lower defensive bonus (because EP14 was already lower).

Anyway, I may make this change. I am certainly leaning that way at least. That said, I am absolutely opposed to raising the digging-in probability higher than 2-3%. Keep in mind too that this is a base level, battalion sized units have 3x this probability and engineer units have 3x this again (so a company sized engineer unit can dig in at the probability of an infantry battalion, and an engineer battalion has 3x an infantry battalion's probability at digging in). So, 2% [or 3%] is essentially 6% [9%] per turn for infantry units (rather than 3% currently). Throw in some engineer units and additional battalions and then you will make things happen.

[ComradeP]

Hmm, yes, I can see that the siege gun flag would make the guns too good as the redoubts provide only limited defensive bonuses to begin with when it comes to facing hard attack.

The main reason they're good against anything without a reasonable hard attack value is that units in them become hard targets, not that they inflate defensive values like they would in PzC. Infantry defense values are a lot lower than in PzC anyway, so even a 20% increase would normally mean an increase of just 1 instead of something like 4 or 5.

As to digging in: testing the more conservative values to see if they work has my vote, so 2% digging in, with -10/-20 bonuses. There are so many field hexes around in East Prussia for a -10 reduction, and France has a wide variety of natural obstacles so giving a higher bonus would glue the frontline to the ground with too much convenience for the time period.

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After giving the Samsonov situation some additional thought, would it be possible to split the Russian strategy into two parts, like how reinforcements are handled in the Grand Campaign, where you first get to pick if you want to receive the Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade or an improved 2nd Army HQ at the point where the event currently triggers, and then pick where Samsonov would return or pick that he doesn't on the 30th, and just rely on the honesty of the players to pick the matching option.

This would remove what can feel like the artificial mechanic of having to designate where Samsonov will be on the 30th days in advance without a clear picture of where the frontline will be.

To be clear, what I mean is:

First strategy choice:

1) 3rd Guards Division and 1st Rifle Brigade, you have to pick the "no Samsonov" option later.
2) Improved Samsonov (no direct effect).

*Samsonov's D quality HQ withdraws*

Second strategy choice on the 30th:

1) No Samsonov.
2) Samsonov improves and returns somewhere immediately (pick location).

[Volcano Man]

Hmm, that Samsonov idea may work, but it relies on trusting that the commander will actually choose the correct choice later, plus the AI wouldn't know the difference of course. However this is not unlike how the Grand Campaign choices are handled, only that it wouldn't be obvious that the Russian commander... cheated (for lack of a better word).

I will have to think about which I dislike the least...

[ComradeP]

The wireless intercept mechanic will always reveal the 2nd Army HQ at some point, so if the Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade are there on or after September 30th and you still get a wireless intercept of 2nd Army HQ, there's a problem.

Though we can safely assume most players can be trusted, one option would be to assign a verification unit, of the corps/army HQ type, to the 3rd Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade option which arrives on the 30th at some out of the way location so the German player can immediately spot if there's both a Samsonov HQ as well a verification unit through the wireless intercept mechanic.

As the verification unit would arrive days after the Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade, it wouldn't be likely to spoil their presence, and as it's likely the reinforcements were spotted at some point (German players who know what will happen might send air recon to the arrival locations on the 26th, for example) as written above the presence of both the reinforcements and Samsonov would be clear to the German player.

Should a player select both the reinforcements and Samsonov by accident, an agreement could be made to move Samsonov away from the front so his troops are out of command range.

[ComradeP]

Regarding fatigue: was reducing the fatigue accumulation factor for battalions to 1 ever considered for the FWWC series? One of the things that amazes me about the First World War (and about Soviet and Chinese infantry tactics in WWII and the Korean war for that matter) is that units could take serious losses and keep functioning after short periods of rest.

In the game, if your unit loses a hundred men or more, it's likely to need a day or so of rest in order to be at a green fatigue level where it won't go back into yellow in one turn. A situation like with the Orenburg regiment losing most of its strength on one day and still repulsing a German attack a few days later, whilst also advancing at the same time, is difficult to recreate.

Maybe an increase in fatigue recovery would already help, as you're "missing" two turns compared to other summer campaign games due to there being no dusk and dawn turns, whilst nighttime fatigue recovery is only at the two times instead of three times normal two hour recovery level. Maybe something like 25 instead of 15 fatigue recovery could be an option? It's fairly high, but units gain much more fatigue than they do in most PzC games due to the high losses on the attack.

As to the flexibility of the engine: it's indeed a very flexible engine, with mechanics that work well individually. It's the mechanics usually also having an effect on something else that causes problems in some situations.

The elegance of the system is that it's easy to understand and easy to use, most mechanics being centered on doing something to the most important stat for determining how well a unit can use its abilities: quality. It's a mathematician's dream made by a mathematician: a system where numbers all work together to make a single value work in a way that it represents what you want.

That is its greatest strength when it works, but also its greatest flaw when it doesn't as everything being related to something else means it's difficult to isolate a particular problem as there's usually an "and..." tied to a certain event. As Volcano Man mentioned: it's a careful balance in a scenario like Clash of Empires. Low Ammo makes your fire less effective AND it reduces your quality level. Fatigue makes your fire less effect AND it reduces your quality level. That can result in situations that quickly spiral out of control where troops quickly become useless in a way that can feel random or artificial as all it can take are a couple of failed checks, like a unit disrupting after losing 10 men and then becoming Low Ammo next turn on its first engagement, making it a weak E quality unit.

Luckily, the system works well most of the time and the majority of the issues with a particular scenario can be resolved through the scenario, database or parameter data editors. As I've stated before: as much as I might criticize parts of a scenario or a mechanic, I keep playing as the system itself, and the idea behind it do appeal to me. A little more consistency and less variability would be nice, though .

[Volcano Man]

Not sure what you mean in regards to reducing fatigue accumulation to 1? But then again I haven't had much sleep lately.

If you mean allowing for more fatigue to be accumulated or at a slower rate, in F14 development I toyed around with ideas where FWWC would have high fatigue thresholds like Napoleonic games (which I think goes to something like 600 or 1000 fatigue(?), I cannot recall exactly) but the opinion from John and myself was that it allowed too much intensity to be realistic, or that it didn't really help.

You could toy around with raising the Fatigue Recovery value from 15 to something like 30 so that units rest faster, and this is entirely subjective. The problem is that this goes both ways - any change here helps the defender and the attacker, and more often than not, it means that the attacker has an even more difficult time because a faster recovery usually just means that the defender can hold the line longer. Essentially the current fatigue accumulation and recovery rates places a greater emphasis on the side that is larger or maintains a reserve (or has reserve forces available for that matter), or is able to concentrate more divisions in one area than the defender can, and intelligently rotates them out. Any other way and I think the defender would be able to pull individual battalions off the line, holding every other hex, and then rest them quickly.

In regards to fatigue in general, I find that the trick is knowing when to just shoot at the enemy and when to assault. Most of the excess fatigue is gained via assaulting, so its best to reserve assaults for cases where you have a lot of units to press the assault in waves, and when trying to take objectives, dislodge pesky field gun units, or when trying to get that elusive breakout. Otherwise, just moving forward and firing on the enemy for several turns usually causes you to accumulate less fatigue and break the defender sooner. Just sayin' for anyone looking for a tip - excessive assaulting will get your exhausted in no time. ;)

[Volcano Man]

The wireless intercept mechanic will always reveal the 2nd Army HQ at some point, so if the Guards and 1st Rifle Brigade are there on or after September 30th and you still get a wireless intercept of 2nd Army HQ, there's a problem.

True, I didn't think about that.

Well, I will consider adjusting the S|O like that for the next update. It is certainly easy to do.

I think that neither approach is perfect and mostly as good as the other, but at least in the two part idea you don't have to gaze into the crystal ball and choose where Samsonov will arrive in the future, at the expense of having to trust that the two choices must be consistent with each other - but choosing where Samsonov deploys at the moment he arrives is probably the lesser of two evils.

I recall too that when I first made the design decision for one S|O, it was well before I worked on the "Grand Campaign" which relies a lot of consistent and matching S|O choices between each one. Since a lot of trust is placed there, then I see no reason why relying on honesty here would be any worse.