AAR: The Curse of the Delay

[DRG]

admittedly I did deviate a bit ( but not much ) from the narrow criteria to "prove how unbalanced delays are"...

Though I suspect few player even use that low number of points. Two coys of infantry and 2 Stugs isn't excessive on a 1500m frontage. The Russian AI made a serious attempt to take that mid map road junction and it was touch and go for the first 10 turns.

I may turn it into a scenario if anyone wants to playtest save 50 be my guest...

[jivemi]

Originally Posted by DRG

admittedly I did deviate a bit ( but not much ) from the narrow criteria to "prove how unbalanced delays are"...

Yeah, since his original theory is that SPWW2 is more like WWI, maybe you shouldn't have allowed the AI any tanks. Anyway using your same parameters (map and points) I bought one and two-thirds infantry coys, a mortar section and two StuGs for the Germans; 3 82mm mortar batteries, one 120mm mortar battery (coming close to 30% force value), and the rest infantry (four companies IIRC) for the Russians. The randomly generated map was much like yours, densely forested, and I reduced visibility to 6, leaving the turns at 27.

It was all over after 20 turns. Score was Germans 2964, Sovs 81. Didn't score many kills but about half the enemy fled in terror. Here are 3 saves (from setup, turn 7 and 20); hope there's no problems with winzip or whatever (they came from slots 10-12; not sure how to change them):

[Ravindau]

Originally Posted by jivemi

Yeah, since his original theory is that SPWW2 is more like WWI,...

This is certainly not my opinion. When would I ever say such nonsense?

If anything, SPWW2 is *a bit* too much inspired by modern warfare theories. Defensive resources in WW2 were enormous and are usually underrated. Blitzkrieg is overrated and was actually never successful without the element of surprise, that is: all successful Blitzkrieg offensives presupposed inadequately prepared defenders and/or great strategic blunders.

[jivemi]

Originally Posted by Ravindau

This is certainly not my opinion. When would I ever say such nonsense?

In last year's (closed) thread--http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=51209--in post #8 you said: "My Golden Rule of SPWW2 strategy: Buy lots and lots of rifles. Win the riflemen shootout. Make sure your opponent runs out of rifle squads first!"

And in post #18 you said, "Defending against tanks is easy, they die like flies. It´s defending against an infantry horde with artillery support which is near impossible. In other words, WWI generals were right, after all."

Sorry if I took your remarks out of context.

[Ravindau]

Originally Posted by jivemi

Sorry if I took your remarks out of context.

Not only that; you also got them upside down. My presupposition was that WWI generals were, of course, wrong. Their optimistic and superstitious belief in "the spirit of the offensive" only caused immense casualties without profit.

Their ideas didn´t work in WWI, nor would they have worked in WW2, and this is what I am saying all the time. SPWW2 has a bit of a leaning towards too optimistic outcomes (from the attack viewpoint), and that happens to be my pet issue for both gameplay and realism reasons.

[Ravindau]

Originally Posted by DRG

...the narrow criteria to "prove how unbalanced delays are"...

It needs a very good game, after all, to make criticism of a specific detail worthwhile.

I would just love the play balance of SPWW2 to be as good as the enormous content, playability, graphics,... already are.

Btw, in your game you would have had it much easier with the Russians, actually proving my point.

For balance testing, you really need to set up the AI against itself. Or equal players against each other.

[grond69]

I don't usually weigh in on these discussions, but in this case I will make an exception. I think its time to face facts: your initial premise that delay/advance was seriously advantaged to advance, based on your one game, is incorrect. Both of the previous posters played similar sized battles from the delay side and crushed the advancing AI. I just finished one as well with same results: 16 casualties for me, decisive victory 3064:16. Fact is that the delay/advance isn't significantly one sided. The battle you set up was (unintentionally?) one sided. An experienced player would have seen the unit density, dimensions, and time allowed and concluded that the advance would have a decisive victory. The only question was how light your casualties would be. Why you might ask? Because the AI will always attempt to defend all objectives. That means that your high density attack force would only face 1/3 of the defenders. And, given the terrain, likely face single squads at a time. Pretty much what happened, right? The high number of turns was just icing.

Your idea of fighting many battles of equal human to human (and how do you measure that?) has basically been done in the past. This game has been around for YEARS! And you are right in that it is the best tactical game around. But don't expect the AI to give you a challenging game every time. It can't do that. If you find it too easy and don't want to mess around with settings, seek human adversaries on the "players wanted" section. I've played this game since the very first version came out, and expect to continue. I usually play long campaigns (hundreds of battles) and admit that I enjoy stomping all over the AI. Small of me, I know. Although, every once in a while, the AI still surprises me and I get a tough fight!

Don and Andy have made huge advances in improving this game and I believe that this will continue. Its up to us as the players to look at a random setup and be able to decide if it is fair to the AI. If we are looking for a fair fight....