US-USSR scenrio playetesters needed

LOK

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nice table!!

danneely said:
I put together a table listing each country, the number of VPs the objective hexes in it's borders are worth, the number of VPs it's army's worth, and for countries with single activation, the number of VPs needed for either side to do so. I got the VP values for the armies via disbanding, so it's limited to what I could actaully disband. Air, naval, and attack HHs aren't disbandable. I didn't think to remove yellow bars in the editor until I was ~75% done so fixed AA units aren't counted either. There might be counting errors on the VP hex side, or misremembered previous value errors on the army value one. I know I caught a few of the latter when they looked screwy but won't gaurantee I found all of them.

http://summoner.falldowngoboom.org/toaw/vps.xls
nice table!! mind if i use a version of it in the briefing?
 

Dan Neely

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LOK said:
I'd be very interested to hear any other comments/suggestions etc. I have two games going one as US and one as USSR and I am enjoying them immensly.
farther clarification, is nato/soviet union a special case? Since both sides disbaning thier deploy units on t1 is almost a given, it seems that unless the pact player used the surprise attack TO, nato would always be able to attack first.

EDIT: I'm assuming that's not your intent since earlier versions had an exclusion zone between the two sides until an attack option was activated.
 
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LOK

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danneely said:
farther clarification, is nato/soviet union a special case? Since both sides disbaning thier deploy units on t1 is almost a given, it seems that unless the pact player used the surprise attack TO, nato would always be able to attack first.
First the Attack WP unit for the US/NATO player is not deployed until turn 2. This ensures that the WP is not caught by surspise unless he fails to mobilize on turn 1.
Assuming NATO/US player chooses to attack WP first anyway (that is disband the To Attack WP unit), there is VP cost associated (-75 VP).
 

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I understand what you mean, but I fail to see any reason in the rules why isreal/syria deploying on the same turn with niether's attack unit being disbanded should allow isreal to attack syria the same turn it deploys, yet with nato/pact armies in Europe no combat's allowed until an attack event is activated. Am I missing something in the rules document?

PS I'm not trying to rules lawyer to cause trouble. I am however aware that there is a substantial portion of players that will stretch what you wrote to the limit, twisting your intent into a pretzel, all the while insisting that they're not being gamey but only following the letter of the law. If you don't believe me, ask Mark about his experiances with EA. I haven't had anything to do with the scenario for about a year, but in the ~2years prior to my break many(most?) of the changes were made specificly to counter gamey activities.

PPS viridomaros: Turn soon (probably within an hour)
 

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And a related one on guerillas/revolt units. It's a moot point on pact units since afaik they only deploy on demand and the pact player moves first, I assume that the afgans are a legit target as soon as they deploy since there's already an active shooting war going on there, but what about elsewhere? Since many of them kurds/shiites/yugo/finn represent forces belonging to groups that were already engaged in lowlevel or full scale war a case could be made for thier being attacked immediately on deployment. To an extent, I also question the finns existance in the first place. Yes they were among the more effective guerilla forces in ww2, but do those conditions still apply, or've they been softened like the other western democracies?
 

Dan Neely

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Reply from LOK

LOK emailed me asking if I would post this for him since he's suffered multiple failures when trying.

From LOK
No need for apolgies. You are making costructive
critisism. :)

I now just realized that I may have given you a
confusing resolution in your earlier post so I
apologize if I did.

Fisrt there is no difference between the TO ATTACK and
TO MOBILIZE disband units. Think of them as TO's that
allow a neutral country to enter the game. (as you
know the only reason they exist is due to the TOAW GUI
bug with the TO dialog box).
As long as the ONE FULL turn rule is obeyed by both
players (as defined in the briefing) everything
is consistent.

Let's take your example of Israel/Syria:
IF the USSR player has disbanded the TO MOBILIZE SYRIA
unit on turn 1 then obeying the 1 FULL Turn rule
during his turn 2 he can move the deployed Syrian
units. That's all! He can NOT attack Israel.
It does NOT matter that the US player has disbanded
the TO MOBILIZE ISRAEL unit on turn 1. One FULL turn
must pass before the opposing player is allowed to
enter Israeli hexes. One full turn for the US player
means: US Turn1 to US Turn 2. So the
USSR player must wait until one FULL turn has passed
since the mobilization of Israel to enter any Israeli
hex.
The US player CAN attack Syria however on his turn 2
since Syria has been mobilized for one FULL turn: from
USSR Turn 1 to USSR turn 2 (I think that's what you
asked me before).

HAD the USSR player disbanded the TO ATTACK ISRAEL
unit in turn 1 then he would be allowed to
enter/attack Israel on HIS turn 2. Again One
FULL turn has passed since the option has been
exercised.

Europe is no different except that I did not want
US/NATO launching a surpise attack on the USSR/Wrasaw
Pact.

I hope this helps
Haris
Edited because I realized there was a partial repeat in what I was emailed.
 
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Dan Neely

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LOK said:
Let's take your example of Israel/Syria:
IF the USSR player has disbanded the TO MOBILIZE SYRIA
unit on turn 1 then obeying the 1 FULL Turn rule
during his turn 2 he can move the deployed Syrian
units. That's all! He can NOT attack Israel.
It does NOT matter that the US player has disbanded
the TO MOBILIZE ISRAEL unit on turn 1. One FULL turn
must pass before the opposing player is allowed to
enter Israeli hexes. One full turn for the US player
means: US Turn1 to US Turn 2. So the
USSR player must wait until one FULL turn has passed
since the mobilization of Israel to enter any Israeli
hex.
The US player CAN attack Syria however on his turn 2
since Syria has been mobilized for one FULL turn: from
USSR Turn 1 to USSR turn 2 (I think that's what you
asked me before).


Europe is no different except that I did not want
US/NATO launching a surpise attack on the USSR/Wrasaw
Pact.
And my reply.

Now that I'm fully awake I understand what you meant re syria/isreal clearly, so no farther comment on that part. Re Europe however I do have some comments/objections.

For the 'standard opening', on t1 the pact disbands the deploy soviet units but doesn't activate the surprise attack TO because he wants the shock bonus, and nato does the same with the nato/us ones. On t2, the soviet player setsup his units along the inter-german border for attack but cannot cross it. To this point I have no objection.

Here I do. Again following the Isreal/Syria example from before, the US player is free to launch was is effectively a preemptive strike on soviet units that have been carrying out what at this point could be nothing more than a large scale unannounced exercise. That IMO is totally bogus, contrary to nato doctrine, and a political disaster. IIRC it's also contrary to your intent in earlier versions where an exclusion zone sat along the border and wasn't lifted until one of the attack events was triggered, simple deployment didn't do it.

It also reduces the pair of attack USSR/NATO disbands to gambling on a shock bonus. If the above is actually your intent now, I'd suggest: aknowledging it by changing the attack USSR/NATO disbands names to something akin to 'launch major offensive'. Increasing the odds of success to 100%, and making both nato and pact's have timelimit instead of being indefinite. To get the needed events to terminate the nato shocks I'd be willing to sacrifice the one side'sairshock since 105% is a very modest effect. Alternately the 95% shocks from destruction of HQs. Short of it going nuclear I can't see either being destroyed before the battle was effectively over anyway, and in a nuc environment far more serious penalties would be justified. Actaully the 115/110 land shocks are relatively modest as well, for a real offensive I'd rather one or two turns at 150%+ to give a real shot at shattering the opposing line (not sure how much would actually be needed), followed by a few turns of 110-120ish maintainance shock before falling off to 100.
 

LOK

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danneely said:
And my reply.

Now that I'm fully awake I understand what you meant re syria/isreal clearly, so no farther comment on that part. Re Europe however I do have some comments/objections.

For the 'standard opening', on t1 the pact disbands the deploy soviet units but doesn't activate the surprise attack TO because he wants the shock bonus, and nato does the same with the nato/us ones. On t2, the soviet player setsup his units along the inter-german border for attack but cannot cross it. To this point I have no objection.

Here I do. Again following the Isreal/Syria example from before, the US player is free to launch was is effectively a preemptive strike on soviet units that have been carrying out what at this point could be nothing more than a large scale unannounced exercise. That IMO is totally bogus, contrary to nato doctrine, and a political disaster. IIRC it's also contrary to your intent in earlier versions where an exclusion zone sat along the border and wasn't lifted until one of the attack events was triggered, simple deployment didn't do it.

It also reduces the pair of attack USSR/NATO disbands to gambling on a shock bonus. If the above is actually your intent now, I'd suggest: aknowledging it by changing the attack USSR/NATO disbands names to something akin to 'launch major offensive'. Increasing the odds of success to 100%, and making both nato and pact's have timelimit instead of being indefinite. To get the needed events to terminate the nato shocks I'd be willing to sacrifice the one side'sairshock since 105% is a very modest effect. Alternately the 95% shocks from destruction of HQs. Short of it going nuclear I can't see either being destroyed before the battle was effectively over anyway, and in a nuc environment far more serious penalties would be justified. Actaully the 115/110 land shocks are relatively modest as well, for a real offensive I'd rather one or two turns at 150%+ to give a real shot at shattering the opposing line (not sure how much would actually be needed), followed by a few turns of 110-120ish maintainance shock before falling off to 100.
I now understand your point about Europe and you are correct. The rules as written and "clarified" :crosseye: by me allow for the sequence of events you described. As you said it is is totally bogus, contrary to nato doctrine, and a political disaster and completely contrary to my intent.
It needs to be fixed and I have two choices how to fix it:
1. Revise the house rules to make an exception
2. Bring back the exclusion zone

No 2 would involve rework of the events (something I hate doing at this stage) and has a few other problems.
So I vote for solution 1 unless someone has a better or easier idea.
thanks for pointing this logical inconsistency out.
As far as shock value go I am willing to experiment and find the right formula as long as it does not predtermine the outcome.
 

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danneely said:
And a related one on guerillas/revolt units. It's a moot point on pact units since afaik they only deploy on demand and the pact player moves first, I assume that the afgans are a legit target as soon as they deploy since there's already an active shooting war going on there, but what about elsewhere? Since many of them kurds/shiites/yugo/finn represent forces belonging to groups that were already engaged in lowlevel or full scale war a case could be made for thier being attacked immediately on deployment. To an extent, I also question the finns existance in the first place. Yes they were among the more effective guerilla forces in ww2, but do those conditions still apply, or've they been softened like the other western democracies?
Sorry for the lack of reply on this one.
here is my general philosophy: None of the G units result should any combat that would alter the outcome of the war in Europe. They just represent different political situations and force players to Garisson their objectives just like irl.

Afghans are there because the conflict was still in progress. Previous versions of the map at a different scale had the entire country including Kabul making that front more interesting imo. Now it's merely a side show.
Kurds (PKK and and PUK) are there to give a bit more flavor to the the complexity of the Middle East politics (Iraq/Turkey). No real action takes place except some diversion of small units to guard against them or attack them.
Shiites are there only to simulate internal dissention in Iraq. They have very little impact.
Yugo G's are there to simulate the collapse of the federal army and I wanted to prevent the NATO player from mobilizing Yugoslavia in order to get to the "soft underbelly" of the Pact. They can be changed if need be.
Finns... I thought it was a nice idea to add some more difficulty in the Arctic front for the Pact player. I can take them out if people hate the idea of Finnish partisans.

I am open to suggestions on all G units
 

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LOK said:
Sorry for the lack of reply on this one.
here is my general philosophy: None of the G units result should any combat that would alter the outcome of the war in Europe. They just represent different political situations and force players to Garisson their objectives just like irl.
Yeah, possibly excluding the revolt of the Egyptian southern MD (haven't had the opportunity to test yet) none of them have any staying power, and the value of the Egpytian southern MD is only 7vp, so even it's a net loss in terms of troops. The kurds/arabs will be swatted in a turn or two and I suspect the same for the yugos unless they can slip back to link up with allied troops elsewhere. The Finns deploy far enough north that they should be able to last a bit longer esp considering how light of a force the soviets are likely to have unless gunning for Sweden as well.

Afghans are there because the conflict was still in progress. Previous versions of the map at a different scale had the entire country including Kabul making that front more interesting imo. Now it's merely a side show.
They still die in 2 or 3 turns though. Unless you mod the scen so they have steady reinforcements coming in every turn or two the soviets will quickly be able to swat the rebels entirely and then redeploy most of the troops elsewhere. A single div should be able to screen the Pakistani's, hammering them out of the mountains is more trouble than it's worth. Alternately I'd suggest axing the theater entirely, along with whatever iranian forces would be gaurding thier eastern border. For flavor, an option for the pact to pull out and free some troops at a fairly steep VP price would have more flavor IMO since G warfare is so hard to acomplish

Kurds (PKK and and PUK) are there to give a bit more flavor to the the complexity of the Middle East politics (Iraq/Turkey). No real action takes place except some diversion of small units to guard against them or attack them.
IMO these guys are more useful as a threat than in actaul deployment. Once deploy'd they'll be quickly splattered, and the forces freed for use elsewhere, but until then a sizeable force needs to be kept to gaurd against them, esp on the iraqi side since they don't have any rail rep ability. A single unit with 30-50% eng/rr here would be nice. Not enough to do rapid repairs in support of an advance but capable of minor housekeeping tasks. 20% in a division is small enough to be useless on repair although it does help with minor river crossings. Egypt has the same problem.

Yugo G's are there to simulate the collapse of the federal army and I wanted to prevent the NATO player from mobilizing Yugoslavia in order to get to the "soft underbelly" of the Pact.
They can be changed if need be.
I suspect the yugos will be swatting without even being a speedbump unless they can slip back to link up with allied troops elsewhere. If I changed anything here, I'd increase thier numbers.

Finns... I thought it was a nice idea to add some more difficulty in the Arctic front for the Pact player. I can take them out if people hate the idea of Finnish partisans.
The Finns deploy far enough north that they should be able to last a bit longer esp considering how light of a force the soviets are likely to have unless gunning for Sweden as well. It's not that I hate them so much as that I'm not sure the conditions that resulted in thier being so effective 60 years ago still apply.




Shifting subjects, what's the status of US bases in still neutral nations. OKinawa, bahrain and the island off oman are my immediate concerns. All have US troops potentially deploying before the host is activated. I'm assuming no farther troop movements to them, or if so only as waystations for air units/etc. And no attacks out of them until the host is activated.
 

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danneely said:
A single unit with 30-50% eng/rr here would be nice. Not enough to do rapid repairs in support of an advance but capable of minor housekeeping tasks. 20% in a division is small enough to be useless on repair although it does help with minor river crossings. Egypt has the same problem..
I may add some rail repair capability to most minor countries,a although initially the lack of engineering capability was deliberate since most minor countries would lack the spare parts and/or capability to do major repairs during a world war.


Regarding G units - I agree that Afghans are very weak compared to the Soviet forces there. The best thing to do is reduce the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan that become available. I had assumed that given a world wide conflict the Soviets would let go of Aghannistan if they needed the troops elesewhere. May be I freed too many divisions from the AFGF.




danneely said:
Shifting subjects, what's the status of US bases in still neutral nations. OKinawa, bahrain and the island off oman are my immediate concerns. All have US troops potentially deploying before the host is activated. I'm assuming no farther troop movements to them, or if so only as waystations for air units/etc. And no attacks out of them until the host is activated ..
Correct. All the US bases abroad such as Okinawa etc. (excluding those on NATO countries) are treated as part of the host nation.
1. No further troop movements to them
2. Yes, they can be used as waystations for air units.
3. No attacks out of them until the host is activated.
 

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Calling PanzerGIII

Anyone heard from PanzerGIII (Matt). I had started a game with him as USSR but had no other emails since turn 1.
 

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I seem to have lost one of my opponents so I am looking to play as USSR if anyone has time.
 

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I'll give it a try

LOK,


I have some free gaming time so I could step in and play as the Soviets

Paul
 
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LOK

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Redstorm said:
LOK,


I have some free gaming time so I could step in and play as the Soviets

Paul
Actually I need you to play as US/NATO. If you are still interested post a reply or email me.
Thanks
 

LOK

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Absolutely. I'd really appreciate any comments you may have. I am sending you the files...
 
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