Secadegas
Member
I understand your initial shock. Most usual EA players had it also when changing from the previous TOAW version to the current.Just like to add my pitiful whine to all the rest moaning about the effects of 3.4 on defense. I've been tending to play pre-WWI and other funny scenarios for quite a while now. I've seen the debate here and on Matrix, but didn't really take it in. Now admittedly I've never been a master player, but in this EA game against Mr Clubber it's turn 16 and I've taken Poland: taken Denmark: failed in an assault on Norway, failed to take Holland or Belgium (which mobilised when the Western Allies declared war) and have just about driven the French back across their border. The Finns are crumbling and I've lost Persia. I've taken 30+k HRS losses and am not especially confident of taking Paris, let alone attacking the Balkans or the USSR. The patch really has swung things in WWII games in favour of the defense, hasn't it?
Even Mr C reckons that a decent Axis player might do best just to advance to a defensible river line in Russia and dig in, hoping that the Red Army will bleed itself to death in fruitless assaults.
This certainly isn't the scenario that Ulver and I, with help from countless others, designed over the years.
The RFC (retreat from combat) calculations concerning defensive units on fortified status (entrenched at a lesser scale) were overrated on 3.4 version.
Some scenarios suffer more than other. EA is one of those that suffers more because Arty availability (on both sides) is rather scarce compared with smaller scale scenarios. Without vast concentrations of fire support is now difficult to cause even a small (fortified) enemy unit to RFC resulting on a slower game flow.
However thanks to your and Ulver incredible design EA is much more than pure combat results. It's strategical planning, resouces management and critical options players must take that definitively influence the result of the game and still brings a lot of fun.
I had already several games under this last version (2 played until 300ish turn, both sides) and can assure you that this scenario keeps intact all the simulation possibilities EA is well known for providing and only players' decisions, skill and strategic options will determine the winner - same as before.
You must remember EA (like WWII) has two big moments - Axis attacking initially and Allies later - so both sides will benefit at different moments from the "3.4 defense bonus bug". It's a bit more difficult to be Axis on the first half of war but it's also a bit more difficult to play Allies on the second half.
And... if somebody "official" would care, some more adjustments could be implemented and would make EA better adapted to 3.4 version... but that's another story...
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