East Prussia '14 update 1.02 now available!

[Volcano Man]

Hello all,

An update to East Prussia '14 has been posted at JTS software, you can find a link to it on the homepage.

Changes:

    - Changes to some scenarios and documentation.
    - Improved responsiveness in artillery resolution.
    - Change in default fatigue accumulation from 2 to 1.5 due to larger battalion size.

Specific tweaks/changes relating to scenarios:

-In the East Prussian campaign scenarios (pre-Lodz and 2nd Masurian Lakes), removed the -10% Russian Supply reduction that happened on September 1st because it was felt that this was unnecessarily harsh. This puts the lowest Russian supply level at 40% for the campaign which is more in line with historical descriptions of their situation. That said, it is intentional that Russian supply level is 30% during the Lodz campaign so this has remained unchanged; that level is in line with the declinding state of supply that all sides suffered in November and December of 1914.
- Greatly adjusted armored car soft attack values in order to disconnect them from the database used in Panzer Campaigns. The idea was to represent these vehicles with the same values there, where machinegun only equipped armored cars had limited use by World War II. In First World War Campaigns, the heavy machine gun (i.e. Maxim) have different ratings for various reasons (tactics and doctrine of target unit, target infantry tactics, time period, etc.), and in this series these different machine gun values are now used as the basis for armored vehicles such as tanks and armored cars. The result should be something that is more historical when it comes to armored car use since they are now able to harass, screen, sortie, and conduct rapid reconnaissance missions.
- Corrected an issue where Dragoon cavalry could be used in the anti-armored car role, where they were able to charge and overrun armored car units. Their hard attack strenght is now 0 to match other cavalry units, and this is of course due to the fact that although they could operate like infantry, they were essentially less supported than ordinary infantry units.
- Reduced the Allied and Central Power vehicle breakdown rate from 10% to 5% because the original value was too high.
- Added a series of triggered releases to the Russian 1st Army in the #1914_0820_01s_Campaign_East_Prussia, #1914_0820_01sA_Campaign_East_Prussia, #1914_0820_01sB_Campaign_East_Prussia, #1914_0820_02s_Gumbinnen-Tannenberg, and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-A scenarios. This triggered release is at division level and is designed to help the 1st Army DEFEND itself if the Germans continue to attack after Gumbinnen. Note that the division level releases are intentionally strict, to prevent the 1st Army from going on the all out offensive and causing the entire army from getting released in cases where they are aggressively advancing, and it instead acts as a mechanism to allow local divisions to react for self defense only. If one division is released, but its parent corps is not, then this intentionally discourages the Russian 1st Army from racing a few select divisions forward. That said, corps level triggered releases have also been added every other day in order to allow the 1st Army to at least sluggishly react to an all out German offensive against it.
- Corrected a minor issue on the East Prussia '14 map which caused a Cossack unit to not be able to reach its intended hex as described in the "Getting Started" documentation.
- Corrected a problem in the weather data which allowed visibility to increase from 4 to 5 km on the 27th of August (visibility was intended only to be 4km on that day).
- Corrected the maximum possible visibility allowed in the #1914_0827_02s_Usdau scenario from 5 to 4 km for those that are playing without the Programmed Weather optional rule.
- Adjusted #1914_1115_01s_Kutno scenario for better balance by adding +100 points to the Kutno objective, and lowering all VP levels by -100.
- Corrected a few missing bridges on the East Prussia '14 map.
- Adjusted the starting fatigue of the Russian Caucasus Cavalry Division in the #1914_1123_01s_Lodz scenario, in order to make the scenario more balanced.
- Added a missing river hex side in the Ortelsburg area of the East Prussia '14 map.
- Corrected a typo in all German OOBs ("Kommand" to "Kommando").
- Removed the extra half day added to the end of the #1914_0827_01s_Tannenberg and #1914_0826_03s_Tannenberg+prelude scenarios, because it is no longer required to give the Germans a chance to win, and actually removing this extra day keeps the scenario more balanced. It is understood that the extra day added would be a foregone conclusion, so the scenario is decided by the final situation on the 30th of August. It is also understood and accepted that the exact historical result is not likely to happen unless the Russian commander makes a series of blunders.
- Corrected a typo in the Lodz OOB where two Russian cavalry regiments had two 1st squadrons.
- Corrected some typos on the East Prussia '14 game map.
- Adjusted the starting locations of the Caucasus Cossack Division in the #1914_1112_01s_Campaign_Lodz and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-B scenarios to help prevent a gamey 1st turn German blitz into its rear area.
- Adjusted the starting locations of the Russian VI Siberian Corps' Cossack squadrons in the #1914_1112_01s_Campaign_Lodz and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-B scenarios to help release the corps if the Germans advance a-historically quickly (they would have reacted sooner to the German advance if this was the case).
- Adjusted the starting locations of the Russian II Army Corps Cossack squadrons in the #1914_1112_01s_Campaign_Lodz and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-B scenarios to help cause a triggered release in the event of an a-historically rapid German advance.
- Removed some excessive VP locations and added points to other locations in the in the #1914_1112_01s_Campaign_Lodz and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-B scenarios, especially on the immediate south side of the Vistula, to help make the historical advance towards Lodz more attractive and essential to a winning German strategy.
- Corrected some inconsistent 10.5cm FH 98 soft attack ratings.
- Corrected a wired bridge around Goldap in the East Prussia campaign scenarios (a bridge was wired there which should not have been).
- Corrected many East Prussian town names to their German spelling (big thanks to Mr. Brendelius for his information).
- Removed the triggered release from the Russian XIX Army Corps, and I and II Siberian Corps in #1914_1112_01s_Campaign_Lodz and #Grand_Campaign_EP14-B scenarios to help prevent accidental full release of Russian forces which ends up hurting the possibility of historical German progress towards Lodz.
- Corrected an error in the PDT files that prevented pontoon bridges from being built in the "late" and 1915 scenarios.
- Corrected an error on the Lodz map where several full hex bridges on the Vistula should not have been present in 1914, and added a Russian pontoon bridge in the Plock area.
- Corrected an error in the German 21cm Moerser 10 soft attack rating (its soft attack is now changed from 22 to 25).
- Greatly reduced the German defenses in the Königsberg area in all campaign scenarios. Originally there were Redoubt hexes fully ringing the inner perimeter, but this has been replaced with high walls and a few obsolete structures. After reevaluating period maps, there were only a few bastions present, with most of the inner works being towers and revelins along the old wall.
- Removed almost all obstacles hexes around Königsberg except in the vacinity of Feste König Friedrich III.
- Reduced the number of "mixed guns" lesser Königsberg  forts by 1/2. The exact number of "mixed gun" batteries per fort is unknown, but the new amount per fort is more plausable given their size and age.
- Re-evaluated the Königsberg fort locations and positioned them more accurately based on satellite imagery and triangulation measurements. Note that this change creates wider gaps between forts in some areas, further emphasizing the need to garrison Königsberg with units.
- Doubled the amount of Victory Points located in Königsberg in all campaign scenarios in order to help make its capture a decisive factor on the campaign regardless of the situation (but not completely ignoring the overall situation either). Basically the idea here was to help make Königsberg more attractive and more important for the Germans to devote units to defend.
- Corrected the hard attack value of the Russian 152mm de Bange 1877 siege guns from 5 to 11. These guns are unique in that they have the hard attack rating of a siege gun but are not classified as true (modern) siege artillery such as Big Bertha.
- Added a new scenario: #1914_0902_01s_Koenigsberg which is a hypothetical situation where the Russian 1st Army has besieged Königsberg while a German relief effort is on the way.
- Increased Russian general Rennenkampf's quality from E to D as, in hindsight, E was thought to be too extreme. For the most part, D is a general sub average quality for most Russian commanders, while E should only be used for the most abysmal cases. Rennenkampf may have been cautious, but he was not an abysmal commander - he showed skill in the fighting withdrawals during both the 1st Masurian Lakes and Lodz campaigns after all.
- Based on feedback, adjusted digging-in parameters to standardize the behavior and to represent a change in design rationale; now the change of digging-in is higher, but the benifit of digging-in is lower. Originally the idea was to have the benifit higher, but the probability of digging-in was lower. Hopefully this will help provide a fine balance between being able to dig-in quicker, but at the same time not quickly turn the battlefield into stagnation.
- In the East Prussia campaign scenarios, attempted to improve the handling of Samsonov's Fate Strategy and Operation choices by splitting it up into two parts so that the Russian commander no longer has to decide where Samsonov's HQ will arrive days in advance. The first part is the choice of whether the Russian player desires the extra units at the cost of losing Samsonov's HQ (historical), or if he will not gain the extra units but will instead gain an improved Samsonov HQ (D --> B quality, 40 --> 60 command radius). The second part is the selection of whether or not he chose to receive the extra units or, if not, then where the improved Samsonov HQ will arrive. ***The key here is that the 2nd part of the Strategy MUST BE CONSISTENT with the 1st part, otherwise the game should be considered FORFEIT.*** Note that the AI chooses randomly so in the case where the AI ends up with both extra units and an improved Samsonov HQ then consider it a hypothetical "what if" situation.
- In the Lodz scenarios, several MG detachments from the Thorn garrison were added to the German XXV.Reservekorps, and its infantry battalions were changed from D to C quality. This was done because of recent information discovered that von Mackensen strengthened this corps by adding MGs from the Thorn garrison and by adding a cadre of Eastern Front veteran NCOs to its infantry battalions. It is interesting to note that Mackensen did this special adjustment to the corps in his best effort to compensate for the fact that he was denied the I.Armeekorps from 8.Armee (von Francois, the new commander of 8.Armee, chose to sent him the weak XXV.RK isntead, an act that got him demoted back to corps commander for the remainder of the war).
- Corrected severeal inconsistent hard attack values for various Austro-Hungarian field guns.
- Adjusted the German 50.Reserve-Division divisional color (the color that appears on the unit counters when Divisional Markings is selected) so that it is less harsh on the eyes and easier to read the unit symbols.
- Added missing Austro-Hungarian aircraft to the Lodz campaign scenarios.
- Improved the #1914_1123_01s_Lodz scenario by adding an impassible area to prevent Russian forces from a-historically moving from the south side of the pocket to the north side to throw bodies in the path of the German escape.
- Greatly improved the #1914_1123_01s_Lodz scenario by reworking it for play balance.


Enjoy!

[jim pfleck]

Thanks Ed.
I have Lodz Campaign going. Will this patch mess up our game?

[Volcano Man]

It shouldn't mess up any games in progress (you might want to back up your original Lodz .OOB file to be safe though - so if you do get an error then just replace your Lodz OOB with the old one again until you are finished, but I am pretty sure there will not be an issue). That said, you won't see all the benefits made to the campaigns unless they are restarted though.

Generally speaking, if anyone is less than half way through a campaign then I do recommend a restart to take advantage of all the improvements. But that is just my suggestion. ;)

[Strela]

And John told me he was doing Air Force work!

This looks fantastic Ed, your usual thoroughness and responsiveness. The amount of work on the scenarios is amazing...

David

[Al]

Thanks for all your work on this. East Prussia '14 is a great game and I appreciate your efforts.

[Volcano Man]

Thanks for the kind words. The quest for perfection never ends..... ;)

[jim pfleck]

One more question---can pontoons now be build over the Vistula?

[Volcano Man]

One more question---can pontoons now be build over the Vistula?

Yes, this is standard feature now for both sides but it will take a day or more  to do it.

[ComradeP]

The balancing changes look good.

Russian supply is still going to be quite bad in Clash of Empires if they keep advancing, which severely limits replacements, but they will now be able to keep some munitions coming in to avoid becoming Low Ammo each turn, so the Russians will be able to maintain combat effectiveness longer combined with lower fatigue gain. Any kind of German resistance after the supply level drops basically meaning the end of an advance was a problem in the previous version.

It is worth noting that global supply doesn't drop in campaigns, so Russian full campaign HQ's will be better than their counterparts in the scenarios starting later in August or in September. This is a good thing in my opinion, as the Germans will also be able to employ their forces in a more efficient manner.

The improved command ratings for Rennenkampf and the "improved" Samsonov are also appreciated. D for Rennenkampf indeed felt too harsh, as if he was rated more for what happened historically just in the opening stages of the East Prussian campaign and not on what happened later or what he was technically capable of.

I like the new Koenigsberg fort placement. Supply is still going to be an issue, but now it might be possible to besiege it if the Germans leave it exposed.

Pontoon bridges across the Vistula add an interesting new dynamic to the later scenarios. I thought the lack of a pontoon value was deliberate to prevent pontoons from being built across the Vistula, but now both sides have the option of a bit more strategic flexibility should they want to use it. It also makes the fight north of the Vistula less of a dead-end for both sides, as there's now a realistic chance of the enemy reinforcing an advance.

[jim pfleck]

Thanks Ed,

Pontoons on the Vistual opens the scenarios up in so many ways....At the start, it can keep the Russians guessing as to whether or not troops south of the river will head north or vice versa...And later, when the Russians start to counterattack, the Germans will have to keep an eye on multiple crossings. Doctor and I are restarting and it should be interesting!