SR+GW balancing and improvements

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esavier
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SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

I played UK on great war campaign. current issues are on default configuration
I was expecting somehow more features. here are my complaints:

- after pumping funds into Mark I land ship and deploying first batch of 2 stack into northern germany, they lost against one armored car, both on open terrain...
- 3 german artillery units can wipe out stack of infantry in no time, but i cant do this same with 2 stack of best howitzers i have, this is literally waste of supplies, especially that shooting artillery is rather expensive. Enemy units are free to skirmish mine, but i am unable to stop their's with 10 times more artillery.
- why german armored cars are immune to artillery? They are considerably stronger than infantry and infantry is already considered indestructible.
- why there are no anti-hard units? basic cannons were already available at this time, but i cant produce any.
- UK is starting without any transport ships, but a lot of submarines. It should have at least some low quality ones for resupply this damned tiny lawnmower submarines |O
- playing with Russia is hardest thing ever, since they are highly dependent on railways, same as for example Hungarians, since there is no water ways available to them. Armored trains, munition trains, and troop transport, without it, keeping up to germany is close to impossible, same with africa countries, especially when countries switch capitals with something
- why towed artillery is faster than foot soldiers?
- per unit entrenchment is still too slow, also entrenchment should protect much more against artillery, even if just standing on trench facility. having engineers on site should speed up entrenchment considerably. Also either engineers should be easier to produce or better equipped, somehow between specops and infantry
- trench facility is way too fragile.
- chemical weapons are particularly useless, they should be more kind of higher penalty/higher damage weapons. for example if used on larger cities (anything than military complex and open terrain) it would damage relations slightly ( per city not per usage ). but it would require direct order to shoot.
- armored cars are too fast one unhardened ground, due to lack of roads and heavy armor, armored cars should be considerably slower
- event - save Belgium, i actually cheated here, i proposed mountain of money (50,000M)and they still refused mutual defence / land transit. You have literally week or two to please them enough
and it is literally impossible, at least for me, even if i change diplomacy to very easy. It "hurts public opinion" but appareantly its better to deny UK's help than getting annexed by germany
- infantry should slowly replenish supplies even on hostile territory. Dropping a contingent onto enemy port, and they just stand and watch while being shot by damned garrison. Simple math, 20 units, ~250 men each, means around 5000 men, they would literally fist fight 1 garrison unit to death. Also dropping artillery on hostile port (accidental desant) means they will attempt suicide by trying rocket jumps - yeah they will shot themselves and your troops in one go trying to damage, but not really, enemy garrison. However, considering that somehow i have 10x damage multiplier i will lose all stacks and their garrison will live.
- artilery should damage units in following way - if artillery have 10 damage, it will inflict 10 damage divided by number of hit enemies per shot, not 10 for everyone. If you try to imagine how it looks it seems that each unit is stacked directly on top of each other.
- non infantry units should be slowed down in forest areas, unless there is explicit road or rail on such hex
- i cant resupply units ashore from ships, and supplies are crucial for desant.

## GENERAL
- we still cant release or annex colonies in multiplayer. playing UK on multi is (petrol) suicide
- this is adequate rather to SRU but there is no option to "sponsor" a city ( like for example china did ) or to boost city's development for large amounts of cash ( dubai? ), this is also a problem later, when there is manpower shortage, since (what i deduced through game plays) it seems that the more unemployed humans you have, the better military buildup per money spent is.
- supporting a country (costs) or supporting opposition should be relative to your size not target country. There is no possibility to build up relations with for example with russia as it is right now.
- useless research, for example fused grenades, will actually not help your troops fight. Technology progress should have visible impact on units. I dont know how to correctly improve tech tree but each tech should have some kind of boosts, for example +5% fighting ability, better range or something...
- coastal waters should be capturable only if nearby land hexes are captured.

## SR + GW
will there be some kind of upgrade for SRU? for example if you have SRU and SRGW will SRU get scenarios and stuff? I want to do epic 100 years campaign!

please, Devs can you spare some time and address/comment on those issues? How the future of SR will look like?
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Balthagor
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by Balthagor »

You've got so much stuff in this post, it's hard to break it all down. And you're asking some questions that have been answered before multiple times (annex/colonize in MP).

It's been a long time since it was mentioned so it's worth repeating, very large posts that discuss dozens of topics usually get skipped by us, we usually let the community answer some of the more common questions at a time. If you're hoping for answers from the dev team, asking us one question at a time is far more manageable as we try to provide equal support to all community members.
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esavier
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

I know about some of the answers but they was posted some time ago, and i was wondering if there are some changes planned or present.

so lets start with train connections, since for those there are really no informations available ( or at least i couldn't find it anywhere).
I think i heard something about trains on your youtube releases but no specific info was released. As i already wrote, i tried to play with Russia and Hungary, but due to lack of roads those countries literally can not keep up without some kind of train transportation. I was as alternative to make some supply trucks but managing few dozens of supply trucks that still are getting stuck in the middle of siberia is not particularly easy. I can imagine that this is somehow heavy feature to implement but my question is rather about whenever or not is this on the todo list, and if it is, what is the progress on it.
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Balthagor
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by Balthagor »

The addition of a "rail transport" feature is still in the works. As per the manual, that is "coming soon".

Zeppelins is ready for the next update, testing that more today...

Next question?
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

Wow, that was fast! but its great, i am really grateful!

...lets then start artillery part, there are few issues i want to address, but i want to start with basic artillery and its damage:

so right now lets talk artillery, simple question, why mine suck so much, while germany is wiping my units one after another. i had 3 full stacks (7 units each) of moderate artillery and i couldn't do anything to armored cars and entrenched ( or stationed in cities ) infantry. Even if this the result of high difficulty settings, i believe that this is just simply unfair, especially that artillery can almost instantly vacuum all of my Military Goods reserves. Playing with UK artillery is my only defence against their cars, and still its basically useless.

My numbers shows around 20 artillery on my side, and 3 units on their, tested on basically same units (basic infantry), same terrain and with very similar target unit parameters (morale entrenchment experience etc...), they wiped my stack easily within few days, while i just lost all my supplies shooting without much of effect.

and btw, i can imagine why, but, is it intentional that artillery, while moving, is faster than infantry?
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by Balthagor »

Artillery speeds assume they are horse drawn. Later artillery are spec for speed of being truck or tractor pulled.

What artillery units are you using? What are they using? What are the close attack values of your artillery? What are the indirect defense values of the Armored Cars?

Unit stats is a big issue because the game uses so many units. It's something to which we've always been open to review. And sometimes we simply have a typo in a unit's data.
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esavier
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

Sorry, took me a while, i was on a work related trip, although i got back and tested it a little more.

So again about that artillery, i am playing SRGW so there are actually no wide variety of different artillery models, early in the game. I did not get past first year of war actually. But it is not only artillery that is whooping my units - armored cars, cavalry, even infantry units are tougher. If this is related to Difficulty settings, this is just strictly unfair - same stats, same experience, morale, efficiency, and german armored car took down full batch (15 units) of mark I tanks, alone in open field. I understand that AI is not the brightest, but making units tougher is not a way to rise the bar. Wouldn't rather be better idea to decrease cost or maintenance costs of those units? this way i can still fight them fairly but it will be much harder for me to dominate the battlefield.
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by way2co0l »

Er, I think there's some confusion. The AI gets no stat bonuses to their units. They play by the same rules as the player does. Taking a brief look at the armored car units between the UK and Germany, the German units are slightly superior, but only by a couple single points in a couple different areas. They're also a newer design than the ones the UK begins with, so this advantage makes sense. They're also considerably stronger than the first Mark 1 tanks, which isn't really all that surprising. The first British tanks were famously unreliable, and most of them failed to even make it to the starting line where the offensives were to begin from. And most of the ones that did became giant bullseye targets for artillery, and very few had any real effect on the battlefield. Later advancements proved better, but that was later in the war.

So from a gameplay perspective, the Mark 1's are likewise a fairly terrible unit. Yes, they're hard targets, but so are armored cars. Armored cars are also tougher and more reliable. Obviously this early inbalance will not stay this way. Tank technology picks up and much more advanced and more capable tanks are developed and will perform much better.

Other things to keep in mind. Local supply. I'm not sure the conditions you were fighting in, but if your tanks advanced into an area with poor supply against defensive units which had better supply, they would perform even worse than you'd expect because it would take longer for their munitions to be replenished so they would take a beating while delivering very little of their own.

Artillery is very powerful in this game, and it's as it should be. Artillery was the king of WW1, and was the largest cause of casualties of all direct wartime actions. Quite simply, concentrated artillery was often the sole factor in determining who won battles. Running into several units of artillery will be very dangerous for your units and require thought on how best to deal with them. Likely suffering heavy casualties no matter what you choose to do. This was realistic.

But seriously, the AI does not get any performance bonuses no matter what difficulty you play on. The only thing the military difficulty really effects is how they use their units. Whether they travel together for offensives and how coordinated those battles are. They do not get any unfair advantages or stat bonuses. If they are winning, then it's because of the quality of the units involved, the territory being fought on, the supply levels of the combatants, or some other controllable variable. Once you get used to these things, you can learn how to turn the variables in your favor and it becomes much easier to advance, even against entrenched enemy positions. It just takes time to learn all the rules is all, but we're here to help you with that as best we can. :D
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

Mark I tanks were unreliable, yes, but that does not diminish their firepower. You are still pushing armored car against a tank
If i remember correctly, tank equipped with 58mm canons against ~7mm MG. Even if those tanks actually get tracks or engine disabled, those can still actually pose threat to rather lightly armored cars. Taking into account just the armament and armor, i can't see how on the open field, without artillery support, tank group would have lost to car group, even taking into account their speed, especially that my tanks were immobile.
If you want to make it more realistic, give those tanks low supplies capacity, or (if this is possible) bigger demand to take into account high malfunction rate. but don't decrease defence or attack.

I attached some screenshots, this is looking ridiculous. I lost already most of my forces to around 8 armored cars. Those are basically immune to artillery, and are winning against any tanks i send.
I have much more supplies than germany does ( actually, anyone at this point ), and this is not the first time i am plying SR, totally i have more than 600h playtime, mainly in SRU

Best thing is, that when i send my own cars to hit-and-run to their cities, they will pound me to death with their artillery, same thing to the east.
There are visible 4 stacks of my own artillery, at least one stack can engage on each side of the front, unless armored car drives in of course.
those 5 tanks are last from batch of 15, all got rekt by two armored cars under artillery fire one hex closer to my trenches.
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way2co0l
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by way2co0l »

I understand what you're saying, but I continue to disagree. Those first tanks should be terrible. We're talking in real world war 1 campaigns, when they had 30+ tanks allotted for a campaign, more often than not, less than half a dozen actually made it to the conflict. What you're saying about combat stats might be true if the enemy was forced to fight them. But that's not how warfare really works. There's a reason why the Germans chose to avoid the Maginot line during WW2 for example, and the same concept applies locally as well. If you see the enemy has local superiority, let's say, a few dozen broken down tanks sitting at one part of the front. Do you attack them there knowing their main weapons still function, or do you attack the part of the front they aren't at, and being broken down, they can't get to? Obviously you attack somewhere else, force a breakthrough in the line, and then they will be forced to abandon the tanks as the rest of the line withdraws. That's how it works for real. And while this is a game, you can't actually represent it fully. What they can do is look at unit specifications and reliability. When a unit of tanks attacks, how many of them actually make it into the conflict? When it's only 2 or 3 out of a unit of 20+ for example, that's going to put a serious dent in the stats that unit gets. Which is what happened here. The defensive stats for these tanks is terrible, but that's because they performed so terribly. Not once did the planned use of dozens of tanks result in the actual number of desired tanks advancing actually come to fruition. Only a very small percentage did. And when they did. they were all promptly targeted and made short work of. Only a handful of all tank engagements during the early years of the war actually made it to the enemy trenches at all.

So why should the tanks in game be any better? They are performing just as terribly as you'd expect them to. Their stats reflect that they are breaking down and generally being useless. But they aren't the only option you have. You have armored cars of your own. Not quite as good as the German versions, at least not the ones you start with, but they're certainly better than the tanks. You also have the option to research better, more reliable tanks as well. It's not like you're being forced into a situation where you have to use them. You have other options available. If you choose to stick with them anyway, you should know what you're getting. A revolutionary new concept, but one which is not yet ready for the battlefield. Plagued by all kinds of issues that prevent them from actually being useful on the front, but giving you experience which you can learn from for the future tanks which will replace them.
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by esavier »

Partially i can agree, but always you need to take into account both best and worst performance of your units. I agree you can't model everything and some things must be abstracted, but also you never attack only with tanks. Yes, they did broke down, getting immobilized, running out of supplies, but also everything else. Cannons were exploding, first versions of 18-pounders, or just tranch mortars, people considered penalty to serve in early artillery brigade because of that . Lot of trench artillery was loaded with black powder, both making shots more inaccurate and dangerous for crew, there were issues with medicine, rifles, clothing, a LOT of issues about morale and lack of qualified officers. Those things are not taken into account in game. Same with tanks. Also, mind that first tank's job was not to break through the lines. Actually the first tanks considered most useful were the female versions of Mark tanks equipped simply with MGs, not canons. At this time there were no time worthy targets for guns, even for MGs really, the main purpose of those tanks was to support advance of infantry, also to help defend lines since it was particularly hard to hit tank with indirect bombardment, and inaccurate shots were not disabling ones unlike it was for infantry.

Your argument about tactics and more mobile cars than tanks. You can not assume that cars are better than tanks are automatically making better decision in hypothetical engagement. Those tanks are the one thing that is actually well equipped to handle armored cars. Armored cars will also have hard time disabling tanks due to lack of equipment to do so. Attacking from the back is not an argument, since no competent officer would leave it unprotected, and just getting there does not magically disable tanks. Now, even if one of the tanks from the group ( represented as one unit in SR ) will be able to turn around armored cars will suffer heavy loses, since now there is no back to get to.

Also what historically got to the front also can not have impact on actual stats. This is supply issue ( by supply i also mean spare parts, ammo, food, and non military support ). What if i provide enough supplies to repair my tanks as they get to front? ( this is also the problem about lack of rail communication, since those tanks were actually transported by rails to destination)

Lets do some math, ok lets say there are 10 people in tank, and 5 in car. Both units have similar manpower (216 or so?), that means 10 tanks in unit vs 20 cars. cars speed is around 60km/h, and tanks have broken engines because they stayed on sun too long or something. It takes around minute to traverse 500 m with this speed, in best possible conditions(good wind, hardened ground, high octan petrol, extra skiny crew etc). 500m is the range on which 58mm canon can engage with some results, lets say, with average of 30%. 60 sec is time you need to reload and shoot 3 times with such canon, meaning you should technically disable 10 cars just in time they get close to you. Even then what those cars can do to your tanks? Tanks were designed to withstand MG fire. Cars cant get close, because in close combat their armor is to thin for MG's ( and its not a small target ) and they may wear it down, and can not inflict damage since tanks don really care about MGs, its a stall at best, at this point. One type of unit that can make difference is either an infantry or AT canon. Look at the screens above, i had 15 groups - 150 tanks, destroyed by one group of armored cars without any significant loses. Tanks were already there! All engaged! You want to say they get mauled by MGs? I don't want tanks to be indestructible war machines, i just want something resonable, especially that early game is kind of rock-paper-scissors, garrison beats cars, cars beats infantry, infantry beats garrisons, and i cant actually move city to fight cars. Tanks are really there just to help infantry move forward not getting pinned down by cars.

My point is - you can not diminish fighting power so significantly just because your tanks are broken, broken engine doesn't mean your tank will soak up bullets. I wouldn't mind if my tanks would stop each hex to gather resupplies (tank broken, need new carburetor, go fetch Steve), That is not automatically means your tank is not usable anymore - 2 canons+3MG or 5MG (depends on version) take all the difference, especially with those canons loaded with antipersonnel grape shot. If you are for realism, even worst tanks should be able to defeat similarly tiered cars, but be easily defeated by close quarters engagement by infantry, for example in cities or trenches. Also, please notice that only starting conditions of the game are similar to WW I, UK did not started production until late January, i had them already deployed to germany in November 1915, notice amount of supplies, amount of entrenched units... i have everything to push the line, except fair conditions to engage. And i mean fair for both sides. Right now i sunk a lot of money and resources into research and development of tanks, they are something new, for my people, but also for enemy. Instead, they are just expensive paper boxes.

One and only thing i am mad about are those 5 survivor tanks that are left after engaging one group of cars - those are basically an evidence that god is there on german's side and they are figuratively cheating. I cant engage with infantry, tanks getting whooped up, my 5 cars already had far enough, and artillery is not working for some reason (those 3 stacks makes no difference to incoming cars). In this case, getting loses are not an option since i CAN'T get ground without losing every single units, and i tried for more than 20 hours already, on different ways. K/D ratio is ridiculous. And for some reason, on long term i can not replenish manpower in any way. I can not play it smart, i can not play it defensive, i can not play it aggressive, I lost, before i started. I have no options that would allow me to deepen my lines even 5 squares, at least not for at least 1 or 2 years.
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by Nerei »

No the Mk. 1 is not immune to MG fire. Far, far from it actually. Going by Wikipedia it has 6-12mm of hardened steel armour (tank encyclopaedia puts max at 15mm). That is paper thin!

A standard infantryman with a Gewehr 98 firing K bullets has a pretty decent chance to pierce the armour of a Mk. 1 tank. Yes the Mk. 1 tank is actually susceptible to armour piercing rifle bullets!
I see no reason why a similar type of projectile fired from a decent MG should not be able to do it. The German 13.2mm TuF projectile from 1918 can penetrate the front armour of the Mk. 1 at a range of upwards of 300m. I suspect the side armour is going to be quite vulnerable even at 500m range.


If you want a slightly later not German weapon the US M2 BMG is entirely capable of penetrating the front armour of a Mk.1 at 500m range. I suspect it might have a chance at 1000m.

Yes it is a 1933 HMG firing a 1921 projectile but there is nothing technically preventing a similar projectile from being developed in 1914 or earlier. Building a HMG for it is not impossible either or you could just re-chamber an existing weapon. Germany did re-chamber the MG08 to the 13.2mm cartridge during the closing stages of the war.

So yes a good HMG is absolutely capable of penetrating the armour of a Mk. 1 tank at any ranges where it might engage. The M2 would probably lethal to most British Great War vehicles really.


Also keep in mind that even if the projectiles does not pierce the armour plating it has a good chance of produce spalling which is more than enough to immobilise or kill the crew. The thinner armour plates where notorious for spalling when hit to the point where the crew where provided mail armour to protect against it.

Not saying armoured cars defeating British tanks like the Mk. 1 this easily is accurate or not but any claims that it is a good well protected vehicle is just plain wrong. These vehicles where trash and the only saving grace was that anti-tank weapons where almost non-existant.
The psychological aspect of these lumbering metal monsters rolling across the battlefield is probably also far more valuable than their actual tactical value.
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by Balthagor »

Haven't read all of this, but worth noting that tank battalions in 1914 begin at a strength of only 12 pieces, not the 54 of later eras.
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by SGTscuba »

Balthagor wrote:Haven't read all of this, but worth noting that tank battalions in 1914 begin at a strength of only 12 pieces, not the 54 of later eras.
Interesting, didn't notice this. It would make sense why the unit comes off worse as the combat strength is the stats multiplied by the number as I recall?
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Re: SR+GW balancing and improvements

Post by GIJoe597 »

It is worth pointing out also, the armored cars are in battalions of 54. What you have is 54 armored cars against 12 slow ponderous tanks.
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