Balancing Soviet in 1.06beta2

[Amadeus]

Since 1.06beta2 the way to dealing with SOV handicap due to Red Army's purges have changed:

USSR's handicap moved from GDE to Morale

I really like the reasoning behind this change (as it has been explained by Radu) but it seems not working so well from a gameplay point of view as many players have reported USSR now too easily crush the Finnish in Winter War and make Barbarossa an almost impossible task for German AI...
In my humble opinion this is due to the nature of <morale> itself:

Replacing it with "morale" ( read "Re-Org rate",...) is the natural step.....

which means that for this handicap to kick in ie to affect negatively SOV forces, they have to loose organization beforehand and this loss can be somehow negated/moderated by 2 factors:
1) Strong local quantitative superiority as SOV can easily achieve in Winter war
2) High defensives bonuses as dugg in, terrain, weather, plus large mobile reserves as SOV can enjoy in Barabarossa.

So I'm wondering to how better implement this handicap without resorting to the old-fashioned GDE hack .
I was thinking we could give SOV on top of <morale> cut, a further <organization> reduction tailored for achieving the wished result, ie very poor attack against FIN in winter '40.
Then giving her back some of this <organization> reduction afterward or none according to testing in early Barbarossa.
Finally removing all <organization> handicap on Dec '41...

Ideas, comments ?

To the purpose of testing this idea of mine (or any other indeed) I'm thinking about modifing WINTER WAR battlescenario, to making a test bed out of it so that you don't need to launch 1936 Campaign each time you whish trying new solutions, adding SWE for hands off games.
But I wonder whether adding the new event will be sufficent and I'm not just waisting my time, as this old battlescenario risk not to reflect the real in game balance (ie main campaign one).

Comments, suggestion, ice creams ?

 

[Balesir]

Thanks for opening up this discussion.

Opening idea: how about if we reduce Soviet ORG in the same ration as the Morale reduction while the purge effects last and they are not at war? When war starts they would then begin to increase ORG (as the seriousness of the situation externally is now clear), but a fast German attack will be able to make big gains?

 

[Amadeus]

Opening idea: how about if we reduce Soviet ORG in the same ration as the Morale reduction while the purge effects last and they are not at war?......

Hi Balesir,

Well that's exactly what I'm proposing, I guess that by saying "in the same ration" you means the same percentage...
IIRC <morale> is reduced by -30 (absolute value) by "Red Army Purge" event choise A, which means it's reduced by 30% if we assume 100 being the base <morale>.
Now according to my game saves I've got the following datas (Inf. div. not-brigaded):

YEAR--------ORG-----MOR---EVENT
Jan 1 '36-------36-----70----Road to war
Aug 30 '39-----42-----60----Danzig or war
Jan 1 '40-------42-----60----Winter war
Dec 15 '40------44-----80----Balkans campaign (early ?)
June 22 '42-----44-----90----Barbarossa

So it seems that the <morale> handicap wasn't almost there anymore at Barbarossa start...at least in my beta-game
Anyway I'm more prone towards a pragmatic approach by testing different values for <morale> and <org> cuts and times.
Thats why I'm interested in modding winter war and/or barbarossa battlescenarios to make them a sort of quick "test-bed", if that is possible of course.

Personally I would try testing first with cutting by half <org> (ie -20) and keeping the same cut for <morale> (ie -30) and looking how it does work against FIN...
The goal being having Winter war properly working.
Once a consensus in the community (or among the dev team) obtained we should find the right amount of malus to give back to SOV as a result of lessons learned in Winter war, yet SOV should be weak enough at Barbarossa start.

Then having all of the handicap abolished by Dec '42 (Moscow defense)

Of course this is not a simulation, just gameplay balancing...

Hoping some more experienced (then me) players and modders will partecipate to this debate.
Maybe this thread should be posted in a more visible subforum ?

Best regards

 

[kane279]

Then having all of the handicap abolished by Dec '42 (Moscow defense)

+1 SOV is back up to full capacity too early at the moment
at Barbaraossa start it should either be at about 75% capacity or you have to program "stupid AI behaviour" to simulate Stalins orders ;-)

 

[Amadeus]

Ok then I will start some testing,
playing with FIN & 1.06 beta2 just to see how good (or bed actually ) a lambda human player perform against SOV.

Since I hadn't played FIN from the early days of HOI (the first ! ) I can consider myself a newbe.
Than I will replay the same Winter War giving SOV a malus of -20 in <org>

I won't allow myself any exploit or cheating and I will concentrate on Infantry, Artillary & Land Doctrines; maybe a couple of IC/Infra building if I have time/resources for them

Any suggestions are welcomed.

 

[Alfred37]

home defense

I think it could be good also to give a bonus to army who are defending on their homeland.
for example germans divisions when russian have stoped barbarossa and are entering in Germany will fight with more firceness as they know they cannot fall back anymore.

or russians when they are defending deep russian territories (not balkan or ukrainian) as Staline ordered to defend each square meters.

this could help to prevent country to collapse too soon .
and also it will help to be more realistic (in this case russian will defend with more efficiency when axis armys are deep in URSS).

just an idea

 

[Balesir]

_CV_LAND_FRIENDLY_ORGGAIN_, in misc.txt, is actually a factor that boosts the organisation regain of units on "home ground", so what you ask for is already included, in a way.

 

[Radu]

Just letting everybody we've got this covered for Beta3. The solution present for Beta2 is present in that form because the list of improvements was already long, Beta2 had long been overdue.

 

[Amadeus]

Thanks, looking for it


Best regards