BUG: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

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Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

As we all know, poor infrastructure slows down movement, and can cause org and strength loss. This also occurs at sea. Sea zones have a default infra value of 0, which causes enormous org and strength losses (except for AI controlled units).

Now, the problem with infra causing org and strength losses is not really a problem for human players. Humans can work around it.

The AI, however, does not. While 1.02 featured a no str loss for AI fleets at sea, they still lose organization, rendering them practically worthless in combat. The AI does not return ships to port long enough to regain the org. Anyone who has done many run throughs with FOW off will see the AI moving ships to and fro to seemingly little purpose; a subsequent save load and view of the AI units at sea shows nearly all of them with zero org left.

As for the land effects, the AI is relatively good at avoiding str losses due to attrition. However, its not perfect. There always seem to be a few AI units that for one reason or another (perhaps the AI is asleep? ) decide to plop down and stay in a 9 or 0 infrastructure province. This unnecessarily drains manpower.

A recent run through and save load review of AI forces in 1942 showed nearly all the major combattants with zero manpower left, and I'm going to take a guess that a good portion of the manpower losses were due to attrition.

We should seriously consider refactoring the entire infrastructure concept, with the goal of making it easier for the AI to handle itself strategically. Here are my suggestions.

1. Change all ocean provinces to infra 34 so that neither human nor AI takes any str or org losses from simply enjoying the sea. Str and org losses will come from combat as the only source. Correspondingly, at sea there should be a hardcoded rule that no unit at sea can gain org. Org should only be gained (up to the maximum allowed for that country / unit) in a port.

2. On land, perhaps another approach is needed. I like the movement effect of low infrastructure. Clearly a unit should not be able to move through dense unroaded jungle at the same speed with which it moves through Russian Steppe. But, we need to get rid of the STR losses on land. These are draining manpower away from the AI-controlled nations because the AI is deploying units in low infra provinces when there is no real need to.

So, in essence here we are talking about :

1. Removing all STR losses from low infra.

2. Applying ORG losses from low infra only to LAND units. (edit note : Land units that are actually on land, that is, not in a boat )

This would "help" the AI play a better game, and indeed make a better game overall even for human players.

 

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what if......

1. AI could be forced to keep subs in separate fleets. Practically no reason why subs should be part of surface fleets, neither historically or strategically speaking.
2. If more than 1 fleet is engaged in the same combat, each fleet can withdraw when certain conditions come into effect and the other(s) can continue the battle.
3. An AI fleet under let's say 30% org should be sent to reorg and kept in port until it reaches a 75% org and beyond that limit give it a 50% probability it sails or waits until it reaches 100% org
4. All ships damaged below 50% str should be automatically sent back and repaired.
5. Organize AI fleet as task forces - more fleets with less ships in each fleet with the classical destroyer support around capital ships. Probably destroyers should be cheaper to build for AI. Force penalties on human player if he starts to amass too large forces in one place (humans can do this intelligently while AI does it suicidal).
6. Force AI garrisoned troops in all key victory places that shouldn't move unless they are defeated in battle when they become regular troops. Maybe a secondary force pool for top priority garrisoned troops wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

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Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
Your example about the armor unit is perfect. Why should an armor unit in a low infrastructure province have the same staying power as one in a high infrastruture province? The high infra province is going to get better replacements because it's got a better transportation system and the low infra province is not a place to hang out with tanks. It's just plain stupid to think that tanks can operate just as well in a mountainous region as in the plains. Besides if they stay there they start to dig in and that digging in represents the setting up of ambush points and all those good defensive benefits. Having a higher org drop in low infra provinces is only proper modeling of modern combat.

Besides I don't see much detrimental effect in the game. I am playing the USA in my first HOI game and after Japan DOW'd me I ran across the Pacific and was able to land in Shanghai a year after Japan started the war with me. I was able to conquer almost all of China and Korea in about two months, in the dead of winter. I was traveling across the dog gone Himalayas with Patton leading an armor corps and I saw no real deleterious effects. Oh I ran out of gas for a few days while Patton was near Tibet but that cleared up quickly enough. I found that it was too easy and there was not enough org loss to my units that were almost constantly moving and fighting for two months straight!
Eric Larsen [/B]

How many, in supply, units in WW2 were destroyed, not in combat, but because they were garrisoned somewhere? I mentioned the only instance i can think of: jungles of se asia. And that had more to do with fighting in the jungle, and a lack of medical attention, than the presence of roads.

Certainly, it may be more difficult to gain supplies in a low infrastructure province(and if it is, maybe it's better to change the unit to out of supply/low supply status and that set of consequences) , but units were generally not destroyed because they stayed too long in the mountains.

As bolt has said, it's an just an inconvenience to the player, because the player can cope with it. But what it does do is limit the AIs ability to wage war. Have you tried playing the AI when the infrastructure penalties are gone? It's night/day.

What i'd prefer would be to set an bottom limit on org loss when in low infrastructure provs, but leave it there: don't continue to reduce it beyond the limit. That way units won't be destroyed and the ai's force ratios wont get all screwed up(and it wont use ics to replace units that wouldnt have been lost, and instead concentrate on research and such). Failing that, a non-attrition model is the best bet. As i mentioned before, taking weather into account would be great too. Perhaps the steppes might have been 40 infrastructure, but when snow started falling/started melting, that changed considerably..

As to uncommon valor, no I never got it. It bothered me that they wanted $50 for a game you ordered online, and that had no hardcopy manual. I wrote them about that and they justified their price by saying that's what it took to get the 'big names'. I told them I was interested in the game, but only if at a lower price or with a hardcopy manual. Since they've done neither, we're at an impasse

 

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Don't want a sissy game!

Originally posted by Bolt
No, I am proposing that the reduction in infra effects be applied to human players as well. However, the dev team may consider the reduction only for the AI. Its up to them.

Bolt,
Why do you want to turn this into a game for sissies? If you want to play a sissy game play Risk! I was incorrect in my last post when I stated Patton raced an armor corp through the Himalayas in the dead of winter, it was another general who led that corp almost to Mongolia from Kowloon in less than two months time thrugh rugged mountains.

Patton raced from Kowloon northwards to capture the northern provinces near and above Hohehot (sp?). But then I checked him out after about two and a half months and discovered he was down to 4 strength and organization even with all my great supply tech. I had to build him up immediately since he was in 20 infra territory and losing men and organization quickly. I had to send him to a 44 infra province to recoup. But you know what, I liked that I couldn't race willy nilly all over China without paying some kind of penalty. Now more than ever I like the strength and organization loss caused by low infrastructure provinces!

There was one thing I did notice and that was that some provinces can't be upgraded. While some I captured were still in the process of finishing improvement projects, there were quite a few where no improvements of any kind could be made. Maybe they should correct this so that all provinces in the world can be improved, especially the infrastructure. There probably should be a variable cost and time for province improvements since not all provinces are equal in size or in their ruggedness.

added 12/20/02 12:36
Did some more playing and Hodges, the general who raced around the Himalayas in the dead of winter, and another mech army got stuck in a forlorn Chinese province, I think it was Anxi, and I actually had to turn them back from trying to go to anotehr forlorn mountainous province because the low infra was causing extreme strength and organzation losses. I had to pump them up and send them back to another better infra province to recoup. I'll just have to wait for Mac (the logistics whiz) and his infantry to come up and finish the job in the deep mountains of China/Tibet. Instead of sniveling and crying about it I just suck it up as a lesson learned and change my strategy and tactics accordingly.

Let me reiterate one more time, I love the strength and organization losses caused by low infra provinces!

I still would be ok with letting the AI "cheat" and not suffer such extreme losses because every AI in every game needs a little help, but I do not want the game dumbed down and sissified for us humans.

Eric Larsen

 

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proposed org/str/infra changes

Not sure I personally agree with where this thread is heading. I don't think making sea regions 34 infra is wise at all. Many WW2 naval missions were wrecked by bad weather, for example at least one war cruise of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. There is also no good reason not to model wear and tear on u-boats and convoy vessels at work in the north atlantic, which had as much to do with sea time as fuel.

What is needed is for the AI to intelligently schedule yard time and a break-off level when str or org drops below some level. For that matter, player fleet commanders should do the same thing. Leaving fleets on station for years on end simply didn't happen. The player should be able to set this level per fleet (with no guarantees of course that the commander will comply, e.g. Italians!)

As for land infra, the str/org reductions just don't seem to be happening to my late-model units with high logistics support. That may or may not be a bug. It is also annoying that infra cannot be improved at all in some provinces where there are no IC. These two things need to be separated, it's just plain wrong. It should be very, very expensive to lay your own trans-siberia, but not impossible.
Another thought: if the AI is going to break off naval missions after some attrition, they need to be recomputed if e.g. some crucial area has been lost or won. For instance, not much point perhaps UK patrolling Waddensee if england has been overrun...nevertheless, there they were! Also, perhaps the canadians may care to try some other province than Belfast, so I actually have to garrison a little...

To sum up, infra based attrition is a good idea--if it all worked properly!

 

[Vulture]

Still good stuff here... This won't get lost I promise...

 

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Smell the Reality!

Originally posted by Sharpei_Diem
How many, in supply, units in WW2 were destroyed, not in combat, but because they were garrisoned somewhere? I mentioned the only instance i can think of: jungles of se asia. And that had more to do with fighting in the jungle, and a lack of medical attention, than the presence of roads.

Certainly, it may be more difficult to gain supplies in a low infrastructure province(and if it is, maybe it's better to change the unit to out of supply/low supply status and that set of consequences) , but units were generally not destroyed because they stayed too long in the mountains.

As bolt has said, it's an just an inconvenience to the player, because the player can cope with it. But what it does do is limit the AIs ability to wage war. Have you tried playing the AI when the infrastructure penalties are gone? It's night/day.

What i'd prefer would be to set an bottom limit on org loss when in low infrastructure provs, but leave it there: don't continue to reduce it beyond the limit. That way units won't be destroyed and the ai's force ratios wont get all screwed up(and it wont use ics to replace units that wouldnt have been lost, and instead concentrate on research and such).

Sharpei_Diem,
Units were never destroyed in mountainous areas because generals weren't stupid enough to place large armies there! Yet you want to sissify this game so that you can do ahistorical things like move large mechanized armies through extremely unhospitable terrain at the end of very long supply chains? Now that I've seen how the AI can keep large forces in low infra (20 or less) provinces I'm against allowing the AI no org or strength loss cheat there. I strategically bombed one province to zero infra and the AI forces there seemed to suffer no ill effects until I tac bombed them. What's needed to help the AI is better programming so that it doesn't do a bunch of stupid things.

In my first game as the USA player in the '36 campaign I conquered all of China and Japan while the Soviets rolled over Germany in mid '43. I decided I jght as well attack the SU to keep the game going, which I did on July 30th, 1944. I had 5 armies, over 30 tank, mech and infantry division, in Urumqi poised to attack the rear end of the Soviet Union and jump into the Urals. I set them out on July 30th for Semiplatovinsk (sp?) and at the time I had over 2,200 manpower points in my pool and almost 90,000 supplies. By the middle of September I have only 667 manpower points left and about 50,000 supplies. I found that I had to pump up the manpower every 24 hours for those units once they got to the first stop. This despite the fact that I had all the best land supply tech and equipment money could buy. Then I sent them forward to the next province. I used an airborne corp to actually seize the provinces before the land units arrived and I got the airborne corp to Omsk where it's found a nice 50 infra province to winter in. But I've now reached a dilemma in that I know I don't have enough manpower to last more than another 10 days or so and I've got over two weeks left before the armor gets to the second low infra province before it can head for a good one. Now I'm going to have to pull the plug on that offensive and turn them around and hope I can get them back to Urumqi.

Disappointed that I couldn't do what I wanted to do? You betcha! But instead of sniveling about it like some of you chaps who've played too many Risk games I've taken it as a lesson learned about trying to force too much force through too poor of an area. I think it is very historical. Let's not forget that the last major army to go through that area was the Mongol hordes of over 1,000 years ago.

While the loss of strength and organization was brutal to say the least, I'd only suggest a slight toning down of the deleterious effects at the most. It is very realistic to lose strength and organization in low infra areas and it precludes players from trying to pull the stunt I tried pulling of trying to send a major mechanized force through extremely unforgiving terrain at the end of a very long supply chain and in winter to boot! I had been able to run around the Himalayas earlier on the south China border with Burma and now that I've seen my forces run through both areas I'd have to say that the areas around the Himalayas near the Burmese borders is not low enough in infra! It was far too easy to go from Kunming towards Burma as compared to history. Maybe shorter supply lines helped, I'm not sure but there is a big difference in how the units suffered losses in those two areas that are similar in infra but different as far as how long the supply chain is. If longer supply chains contribute to more losses from low infra then that's a good thing!

Please don't ruin this game by dumbing down the game to play like Risk. Losses in low infra provinces are very realistic and it keeps us from doing things that just couldn't be done, like operating a large mechanized army in the ass-end of China trying to invade the Urals. Instead of being mad that I couldn't pull off my ahistorical invasion of the SU I salute the HOI team for adding a needed dose of reality into the game!
Eric Larsen

 

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As I have repeatedly said, I think we all want the same thing, and generally understand the limits of machines, men, and computer logic.

Unless the AI is given a way to calculate, with some accuracy and some reasonableness, the viability of moving troops or ships into low infra zones (i.e. some kind of cost/benefit analysis like : gee I will lose 12 strength by moving across those two low infra zones, but I must have Magnitogorsk because its vital to my other army's supply lines, hence I should add an extra division to make up for the loss) the current structure is badly hampering the AI, making it a weak opponent.

If the primary effect were loss of org only (which is historically reasonable given the scale of the game) then the AI would not be losing manpower at an extraordinary rate, and the normal front AI would be able to compensate for low org by adding airpower to defense or attack. On the other hand, human players doing what Larsen was doing would find that while they aren't losing strength, they couldn't take Omsk with 100 divisions because they would all arrive at 0 org and run at the first sight of a Red Army man. I would also change things so that a unit at zero org takes proportionately more strength losses from any kind of attack, and also change things so that a *retreating* zero org division takes casualties automatically (not enough to wipe it out, but enough to cause a human player to say : gee, better not try that again).

 

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Re: Smell the Reality!

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
[

Please don't ruin this game by dumbing down the game to play like Risk
Eric Larsen

I played Risk when I was 10. I moved on to Third Reich when I was 14. Never looked back.

 

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Re: Smell the Reality!

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
Please don't ruin this game by dumbing down the game to play like Risk. Losses in low infra provinces are very realistic and it keeps us from doing things that just couldn't be done, like operating a large mechanized army in the ass-end of China trying to invade the Urals. Instead of being mad that I couldn't pull off my ahistorical invasion of the SU I salute the HOI team for adding a needed dose of reality into the game!
Eric Larsen [/B]

I disagree.

The issue should be one of supply. The slow progress of units through low infra provinces is nearly perfectly related to the fact that it is harder/slower to route supplies NOT because the units themselves are slowed by the province terrain. It is silly to suppose except in the odd case that massive losses of manpower would occur.. rather you would see a greater loss of equipment... meaning in game terms an increased supply cost per day.

Unfortunatly HOI treats men and equipment almost the same. What should happen is that supply costs per day should go up substantially for inhospitable terrain. Certainly NOT the horrendeous loss of life I see happening. You shouldn't double penalize by slowing movement and lowering org and strength? it has to be about supply and the lack of it if your supposing strength losses... I mean unless your supposing loss of strength because tanks and trucks fall into quicksand or other natural type hazards. The slowdown combined with a supply cost multiplier based upon province infra would be realistic.

In a perfect game reinforcing shouldn't be instant, supplies should be broken up into differing categories for infantry as opposed to armour or interceptors, and many other things. We play however what we have and hope some changes are made for the better. Certainly I grow VERY tired of seeing 0 org AI Naval units. Something needs to be done, and just complaining that the AI code shouldbe rewritten isn't good enough... I'm not certain BOLT's suggestion is the best one.. but at least it makes a stab at a practical solution.. "Code the AI better" is not.

With all that said.. I think the following changes should be looked at to perhaps help the situation of movement and maintenance of forces... maybe some are impossible to do without major changes.. but.. I don't know that.. and I should at least suggest them.

1) Low Infra rating should NOT cause a loss of Org or Strength at all. It should continue to slow movment, and as pointed out below should cause an increase in supply usage as well as reducing the speed at which org is regained.

2) Differing movement rates by unit types... I think each unit should get a base movement rate.. then have that rate adjusted up or down based upon the province terrain and infra values as well as the unit type itself.. Aircraft should NEVER be effected, but foot infantry, Cavalry Motorized and Mechanized/Armoured should be effected differently by terrain and infra rating... Trying to move an Armoured division through the jungles of the Belgain Congo should be well nigh impossible.. while an infantry division should be able to make a go of it. Conversly a mechanized division moving through Metz should do very well, while an foot infantry formation should move at its base rate.

2a) Adding arty/anti-tank/Anti-air/Engineer brigades should be factored in to the above, the first three should slow down a division sometimes while the engineer should sometimes speed up a division (but only through rough terrain). And for gods sake paratroopers should not bet a detachment of arty unless the effects are SEVERLY limited..that just chaps me.

3) Air Units should require a minimum infra rating in order to base in a province. or even better put Aerodromes(like ports) in provinces but that is probably alot harder to impliment. The fact I can base transport planes with paratroopers in 0 infra provinces is just plain wrong (or is that plane wrong)!

4) The amount of supply a unit requires should be adjusted bu the infra of the current province. A unit in a 0 infra province should for the sake of a number require 5 times normal supply. If a unit does NOT receive needed supply THEN it should lose strength, but never if it receives supply.

5) Movement itself should cause Org loss... and infra rather than causing org loss should adjust the amount of org regained per day. So if you move a formation into a low infra province it should take awhile for the unit to regain its organization.

6) Strategic redeployment should use infra to impose additional delays when removing from a low infra province. if point 5) is adopted.. placing a unit into a low infra province will in effect cause delays as it will take a long time for the unit to build up from 0 org.

If the above ideas are implimented I think we would see an increase in both the realism.. as well as having AI that is better.

 

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My latest adventures in low infra space

I finally reached the winter time in the beautiful resort province of Semiplatovinsk(sp?). At first my two armor and 1 mech armies reached Semiplatovinsk on August 20th and then I started having to pump manpower into them at the rate of about 30 manpower points per day. Not a problem since I had over 2,200 manpower points at the start of my misadventure. I figured I had enough to get the 3 armor/mech units to the next province, another month's journey, and then to Omsk where the infra is a relatively luxurious 50. Then Mac the logistics whiz and another infantry army show up on the 30th. Now my manpower needs jump to about 50 per day. The it turns September and the early winter hits and then my manpower needs hit 80 points per day. By September 17th I know the numbers don't add up anymore for me to continue on. I had actually secured the next province and Omsk and another good province with paratroopers so I had a nice friendly corridor to travel.

Now I had to decide how to extricate myself from this dilemma. I tried turning them back towards Urumqi but it would take the armor and mech a month and the infantry over a month to go back to this safe haven. I considered disbanding some of my tank divisions since they were only whimpy M6's while I'm currently building advanced 120mm tanks, but then the strategic redeployment light was on and another light went on in my brain. I decided to strategically redeploy 38 divisions caught in the ass-end of the world and now they'll be in New York in 3 days where I can reconstitute the whole kit and kaboodle back into the exact same units again and send them to my European Front. What a relief, and what a game cheat strategic redeployment is, but that's another thread to be read.

But back to the point of low infra provinces and the way we lose men and materials in them. What I had been forgetting, and what Bolt and Sharpei-Diem and all you others who cry about the delterious effects of low infra terrain have been forgetting, is the art of cannibalization. No not the man eating type, but the machine eating type where you junk a tank to make parts for other broken tanks to be fixed and running again. Another thing you people have forgotten is Stalingrad, where untold thousands upon thousands of German soldiers starved to death rather than being slain by Soviet bullets.

You people cry about unrealistic game play because low infra provinces cause too much strength loss when it really did happen. You seem to think that in this day and age of mechanics that it must have been so back in WW2. Mechanics (not the people but the state of the art) back then was crude and when far away at the end of a slim supply chain it was even cruder. Cannibalizing was practiced with far more regularity than you realize and therefore strength losses in tanks and vehicles should be high in low infra provinces.

I watched a show on archaelogy in China and the territory there is brutal and extremely vast and empty and unforbidding. That I got hammered in my attempt to invade Siberia from Urumqi by the elements and not by the Soviet army with my overly large mechanized force makes me happy that the game won't allow for such foolish strategies to work for us humans although the AI can do it easily. That I would have to keep pumping in men and material into my units every day is rather realistic. In real life that group of armies would have slowly bled to death during the march because they were at the end of a very long supply chain reaching back to Jinzhou. Men would have fell out from exhaustion and machines would have been cannibalized at an alarming rate. No I think my misadventure proves that the game is modeling things correctly, you should not be able to operate modern armies in primitive provinces without paying a heavy price in men and materials.

Now one thing I agree with you chaps about and that's that the AI can not be allowed this particular cheat of not suffering from low infra as it is too vast a cheat and allows the AI to do things we can't. I remember one old Arnhem game where the AI could crosss major uncrossable rivers to stage attacks where humans never could and that was a game killer bug. The AI should have to operate under the same conditions we do unless we change the difficulty level. I remember that I was strategic bombing some of those 20 point low infra provinces down to nothing and then attacking later with tac bombers only to discover the AI troops weren't suffering any ill effects of the low infra terrain. I even am wondering if the AI pays any movement penalties as It looks to me like they don't from what I've been seeing of the AI's moves. It allows the AI to mass armies where we can't and operate under conditions we can't and that's not the kind of cheat that's needd to improve the AI. What's needed is proper programming from the HOI team to make the AI play well, not hide behind some convenient game cheats just because it's easier to program!

I would say let's get together on emphasizing to the HOI team that it's time for them to stop horsing around and start programming the AI the way it should be programmed. Bolt should not have to waste his precious game playing time creating user mods to try to make up for the deficiencies of the HOI programmers!
Eric Larsen

 

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Are you Sure?

Originally posted by Bolt
I played Risk when I was 10. I moved on to Third Reich when I was 14. Never looked back.

Bolt,
Are you sure you never looked back? My impression of your comments regarding low infra terrain, and your 1.01 bolted version where you basically doubled production capability of the AI, lead me to believe you want to turn HOI into a WW2 version of Risk. While in Risk you didn't have to bother with infrastructure and you could accumulate vast forces in the hinterlands of nowhere with no supply problems it seems like having to bother with it in HOI is causing you problems with reality. Sorry but I have to think you're wanting a WW2 version of Risk where you can do anything anywhere at anytime you want to do. Sorry but real life doesn't work that way and thankfully neither does HOI.
Eric Larsen

 

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Re: Are you Sure?

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
Originally posted by Bolt
I played Risk when I was 10. I moved on to Third Reich when I was 14. Never looked back.

Bolt,
Are you sure you never looked back? My impression of your comments regarding low infra terrain, and your 1.01 bolted version where you basically doubled production capability of the AI, lead me to believe you want to turn HOI into a WW2 version of Risk. While in Risk you didn't have to bother with infrastructure and you could accumulate vast forces in the hinterlands of nowhere with no supply problems it seems like having to bother with it in HOI is causing you problems with reality. Sorry but I have to think you're wanting a WW2 version of Risk where you can do anything anywhere at anytime you want to do. Sorry but real life doesn't work that way and thankfully neither does HOI.
Eric Larsen

Eric : yes you've been quite dismissive of most of the comments on this board by most of the other contributors. Please actually read some of them, and also try looking at some of the other comments I've made elsewhere. You may also want to consider looking at the work I've done with Bolted HoI. Click on the link below.

As I said earlier, it would be nice if the game could be played with some strength reductions due to low infra. However, the point of this thread is that the way the game works now, with significant strength reductions due to low infra hampers the AI to such an extent that it causes a massive penalty to AI performance. This is not a problem for thinking HUMAN players, but an AI problem. Get it? This thread is about the AI impact of low infra . . . not the historicity of low infra.

I also think that your understanding of some game terms and definitions differ from mine and from what the game itself defines. Low "Org" is defined in the game as "number of men/vehicles in fighting shape". Presumeably, at zero org, this means that the men are totally disorganized and all of their equipment is useless, such as being unable to start motors because the engines are clogged with sand/jungle gunk or lack of oil. This is what I would consider to be the primary , but not the only, effect of low infra as translated from history into game terms. Strength hits are to me actual destruction and elimination of men / vehicles. I don't see this happening as the primary effect of low infrastructure , merely a weak ancilliary effect. Strength losses should come primarily from engagement and combat loss. These are game terms that have to be interpreted and understood in the context of the game and scale of the game.

There are plenty of effects from low infra I'd like to see continued in the game such as the low movement rates, again assuming the AI can deal with it. Right now, however, I see the AI stacking gobs of divisions in low infra areas and trying to move them out, then changing its mind as to direction, losing all movement progress, etc. The AI just can't handle it, and winds up having gobs of divisions in low infra areas that never move anywhere and cause a manpower drainage that affects their ability to reinforce other troops or build new ones . See? Again, this is about the low infra impact on AI-controlled troops not human-controlled troops .

Edit note : And BTW I didn't "double the production capacity of AI" in Bolted HoI. This just shows you either didn't actually look at Bolted HoI or don't understand the nature of the changes.

 

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Re: My latest adventures in low infra space

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
You people cry about unrealistic game play because low infra provinces cause too much strength loss when it really did happen.

I've asked you before, and you weren't forthcoming, but ill try again: please cite me specific examples of where combat units were destoyed exclusively by terain...

 

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Re: My latest adventures in low infra space

Originally posted by Eric Larsen

But back to the point of low infra provinces and the way we lose men and materials in them. What I had been forgetting, and what Bolt and Sharpei-Diem and all you others who cry about the delterious effects of low infra terrain have been forgetting, is the art of cannibalization. No not the man eating type, but the machine eating type where you junk a tank to make parts for other broken tanks to be fixed and running again. Another thing you people have forgotten is Stalingrad, where untold thousands upon thousands of German soldiers starved to death rather than being slain by Soviet bullets.

You people cry about unrealistic game play because low infra provinces cause too much strength loss when it really did happen.
Eric Larsen

I cannot believe you are citing Stalingrad as an example of low infra destoying men and materials!!!??? Stalingrad was a classic case of cut off from SUPPLY! The German mechanized Corp in the city of Stalingrad was surrounded by I believe 6 Corps of Soviet troops and then summarily bleed white and attritted to extinction. Stalingrad was many things... among them a triumph of Soviet will and determination as well as a stunning victory bought by blood and courage. But what it is clearly NOT is an example of low infrastructure causing loss of men and equipment.

I could almost not pick a better example of my point.. that being that lack of supply is what should cause Strength loss not low infrastructure.

 

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Re: Re: My latest adventures in low infra space

Originally posted by Protagoras
I cannot believe you are citing Stalingrad as an example of low infra destoying men and materials!!!??? Stalingrad was a classic case of cut off from SUPPLY! The German mechanized Corp in the city of Stalingrad was surrounded by I believe 6 Corps of Soviet troops and then summarily bleed white and attritted to extinction. Stalingrad was many things... among them a triumph of Soviet will and determination as well as a stunning victory bought by blood and courage. But what it is clearly NOT is an example of low infrastructure causing loss of men and equipment.

I could almost not pick a better example of my point.. that being that lack of supply is what should cause Strength loss not low infrastructure.

Good catch Proto. I actually missed this