WWII-Stalingrad [QUENCHED]

[cairnswk]

Hey there. New to the map - and I have to say, the "Artillery Bombardment Range" is not clear. That legend and chart work as a mnemonic if you already know it, but if you don't...well, IMO, it needs a rewrite.

How about replacing the ABR bit at the bottom center with this text: "Artillery in W can bombard S, and vice versa. Artillery in N can bombard E, and vice versa. See marker near Refinery."

Winged Cat. You have had a couple of months to comment on this while the gameplay and graphics were being constructed.
I am once again disappointed that you have chosen not attend the map construction process.
Unless there is a massive, and i mean massive call from the foundry, i will not reconsider re-writing this.
Thanks for finally dropping by though.

[Raskholnikov]

There is no harm in a game being slightly out of balance to maintain its historical aspect IMHO.

I am a big fan of historical accuracy. BUT when you accumulate the range and power of airplanes. and realise that someone can literally wipe out up to half the opponent's troops in one round (15 territories) with 7 reinforcement troops, that is not "slightly out of balance". As I said, I love the map, but not the gameplay. You need to restrict the territories planes and batteries can reach and not give them such overwhelming firepower.

In addition, most of the map soon becomes neutral / unplayable with opponents left with something like 10 territories each, separated by masses of bombarded-into-neutrality ones. Right now, the entire game focuses on who can bombard the most opponent territories out of existence before their aircraft are taken out, then continuing same with batteries, after wich - if both opponents played well - each player is left with a fraction of the territories they started out with because they all have been bombed into non-existence. This is totally ahistorical, by the way. Stanlingrad was won / lost neither in the air nor with batteries, but on the ground, in hand to hand combat, between millions of troops on both sides, fighting for each square meter of the city. At no point were there was parts of the city totally emptied of troops and "pacified" by air and battery bombardements, the way it happens on this map.

Again: reduce the reach of airplanes and batteries by at least 50 per cent, reduce their firepower, so they have the same odds as all other territories to win or lose when they attack, and the game will be BOTH more balanced AND more historical accurate. Right now it's neither- and that's a pity, because the map is really good and has great potential.

[cairnswk]

There is no harm in a game being slightly out of balance to maintain its historical aspect IMHO.

I am a big fan of historical accuracy. BUT when you accumulate the range and power of airplanes. and realise that someone can literally wipe out up to half the opponent's troops in one round (15 territories) with 7 reinforcement troops, that is not "slightly out of balance". As I said, I love the map, but not the gameplay. You need to restrict the territories planes and batteries can reach and not give them such overwhelming firepower.

In addition, most of the map soon becomes neutral / unplayable with opponents left with something like 10 territories each, separated by masses of bombarded-into-neutrality ones. Right now, the entire game focuses on who can bombard the most opponent territories out of existence before their aircraft are taken out, then continuing same with batteries, after wich - if both opponents played well - each player is left with a fraction of the territories they started out with because they all have been bombed into non-existence. This is totally ahistorical, by the way. Stanlingrad was won / lost neither in the air nor with batteries, but on the ground, in hand to hand combat, between millions of troops on both sides, fighting for each square meter of the city. At no point were there was parts of the city totally emptied of troops and "pacified" by air and battery bombardements, the way it happens on this map.

Again: reduce the reach of airplanes and batteries by at least 50 per cent, reduce their firepower, so they have the same odds as all other territories to win or lose when they attack, and the game will be BOTH more balanced AND more historical accurate. Right now it's neither- and that's a pity, because the map is really good and has great potential.

Well, before i go doing what you appear to be "demanding" (language) with your ^Again^ statement, right now it's you who have this issue. I don't have the issue (and I am not hearing from others), and until i hear from an overwhelming number of players to adjust this aspect, i won't. I still don't agree with your interpretation.
I am pleased however that you love the map otherwise.

[Raskholnikov]

Sorry, I made no demands: Again, meant I was restating my opinion. Sorry if it came across as imperious or arrogant. It was intended to be neither.

Clearly, you shouldn't just take my word for it to make changes.

If you want to check whether what I am claiming is accurate, you could set up a series of 1 on 1 games (I've played about 20 so far) and see what happens.

My experience has been as described above. Maybe yours will be different.

[Backside]

okay here i got sum analyzis of 8 escalating game i played. (since i were able to finish it)

Yeh it was quite easy finish through every guy. So no worries. At least this time ^^ I mean the escalating we were playing and i went through 4 players recashing (tho one of em i was able to attack from pretty much one place). I think that those 2 troops in same territory lands help too since it's harder to block a route and also like i said, those various bombardments. (well since i had to use 33 troops to get first guys two 3 stacks it wasn't piece of cake, but he was weak so had to ^^) if i did go for snipers (since they are middle of map) it wud have been easier prolly. I'd say like if u got 1 sniper in both sides or if not able since competition then 1 from middle, 1 GHQ (Paulus is prolly easier to hold) and 1 Gen (Chuikov can also create nice block). (prolly just one that is available. those were just side stuff) I'll add also that since there was enough bombardment, mutual bombardement and shared bombing targets it makes it easier as well as it lowers the missing percentage (i mean when the last target is shared one when you are doing multi-way attack, u can finish it from both ways)

Well quite slow to read and make sure where i'm attacking (prolly almost impossible without BOB and speed game at least without learning the map like veeery well) (and me attacking from Orlovka to G 16th Div instead of G 60th Div, since those sound quite the same and well had both 1 neutral so no BOB help xD). Most of the attacking i was able to make without wondering since those names are quite different with bordering ones.

So as much as i was able to see with that one match i'd say that this map passes that test of not going to become a marathon. tho as long as this map is more attacking nature as it's supposed to be than defending, there is no real danger.

Also i'd vote against Raskholnikov with that bombarding thing. I think that attacking nature of this map is what makes it work, interesting and unique (at least currently unique ^^).

Woots for me not geing lazy and actually bother taking time to analyze the map ^^ Also nj with this map cairnswk and i hope u appreciated at least somewhat my view of 8-man escalating dynamics of this map. Can't rly write every single thing because of complexity of this map and so this won't be any guide ^^ I think i pinpointed the major stuff nicely enough.

(gosh it wud be cool if all of those neutrals in field cud be 2 stacks ^^ liked those, but yeh those are 3 cos em are ment to be places where players go ^^)

And don't count me to know too much about history as well as i won't critisize any changes that are more historically accurate as long as it won't make the map too much worse/ unplayable. To me it just makes sense to make and play maps that base on history. I just know about gameplay ^^

EDIT: O yeh bout snipers again. I guess neutral 3 or 2 cud be enough even with +1 auto-deploy, but as long as it's so strong it shud not be 1 neutral. Yeh i'm very strongly behind that opinion ^^ Otherwise it just comes to: the ones that start earlier -> conquer 1 or 2 and put solid stack there and it's small enough bonus that it comes more of meaningless/useless to conquer it. example i finished map at 8th round so if somemone had taken 1 or 2 at first round they wud have like 7 or 14 free troops what obviosly makes at least escalating games very un balanced. U can also see how much easier it's to hold compared to territories that have 2 armies (well having 2 armies obviously wud be enough of reason) (well ones with art. or AA can be useful too) or even hospital and all of those don't have only 1 troop o.O and yeh like i said the other abilities of snipers. IMO u shud change it to 2 or 3 neutral just knowing the facts i gave u ^^

[Backside]

Ah u ment only 1v1. Well haven't rly thought 1v1 since it normally works in every single map at least sumhow and is at least to me quite secondary thing to worry in making maps.

[pamoa]

btw yeah last time I commented about snipers I didn't even take in count +1 bonus. if snipers have that bonus too then they should be like 4 neutral and if they don't have that bonus then 2 or 3 neutral ^^

Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

well combined action with airplane bombardment and sniper seizure at the first round for the first player and the game is over
so an higher neutral like 3 would keep the struggle for city a bit open

or coding 4 HQ and 4 snipers as starting positions without any bonus for snipers

[PLAYER57832]

Right off the bat, this map is incredibly hard to read. The print seems "blurred" somehow (not true for other maps, so its not my computer or me). Also the color differentiation seems to make it even harder (this could be me).

I intend to play it a few times before making any further judgements, but can those things be fixed somehow?

[natty dread]

The blurring is because lackattack recompresses all map images to lower quality JPEG:s to save bandwidth. I've always been against this btw.

[Incandenza]

The large artillery terits appear to be basically worthless, at least after the first round or two... at the very least, could they be able to attack neighboring terits? Otherwise dropping them is a major disadvantage.

[SirSebstar]

much worse then waterloo.

[Queen_Herpes]

Again, I love your maps. This one, as mentioned by at least one previous poster leans heavily towards the player who goes first. I've won all of my games on this map simply because I've gone first in 1v1 and me or my teammate went first in doubles.

The reason is not based on bonuses, rather, it is based on the airplanes. The first player can bombard the second player's boats, planes and other territories into oblivion rendering the second player's ability even to bombard back limited based on territory count and the number of armies awarded for that.

IMO, if the number of neutral territories were increased and the number of player territories were decreased, this might solve part of these issues. Secondly, if the airplanes bombardment capability was restricted to say Russian Planes bombard 1/2 of the boats and German planes bombard the other 1/2, this might also have an effect. Just a thought.

Also, someone else noted the ease with which a sniper can be conquered for a +1 bonus. This also comes down to a "who goes first" benefit. Again, I deploy all my armies to one airplane on my first turn, bombard my opponent into oblivion, then attack the snipers with whichever adjacent territories to the snipers. If the snipers were to start with, say 2 or 3 neutrals, instead of 1, this would also have an effect to diminish the "player who goes first" bonus.

To recap, any player who goes first> deploys all to one airplane> bombards as many enemy airplanes, boats, and bombardable territories as possible> attacks all adjacent snipers> then fortifies one airplane> =enormous benefit in going first. While this is certainly a strategical perspective, I think the map would be more interesting to play if it was harder to obliterate the opponent in round one and made similarly harder to acquire the +1 bonus from the snipers.

I realize that in most maps, he-who-goes-first in round 1 is often the winner in 1v1 and other games. However, the benefit to he-who-goes-first on Stalingrad seems to be clearly greater than on other maps.

[Raskholnikov]

You have fully and accurately described my experience and thoughts on these matters. With all due respect, it seems I am no longer alone

[Backside]

yeps like i said. i was talking about other than 1v1,2v2,3v3 and 4v4 formats, but as so many bombardments i can see that advantage goes just tooooo heavily towards the starting player because of the heavy bombardment.

(btw it's not like guy who goes first often wins, but certainly has advantage over second to go. i've won 23 of my last 25 sequential games (ranks between sergant 1st class-colonel and mainly tournaments and 20 different maps so definately not due farming ^^) so i think i have my math getting to near perfect now ^^ and as i also agree with Q_H i can say that due this starter advantage my win rate wud drop quite radically.)

(just said so u'd know that i know more than well what i'm talking about when it comes to 1v1 ^^ even tho i haven't played this map i do deep analyze to the map i'm going to play and act only by using math so it doesn't even matter)

haven't rly done that analyze from 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 yet, but can see easily that dynamics are heavily towards player/ team that acts first in those games. obviously since i like 8-man (or so) escalating over those formats (because the math is little more tricky with out still leaning towards boring politics), i obviously love this map and actually think that it might even be one of the best (5 or 6-)8-man escalating maps out there and propably one of best multi-player/multi-team maps. tho the fact is still that if u don't want it to lean pretty much only towards there, but towards those 1v1 player/team games. there need to be done sum changes ^^

EDIT: for starters even aircrafts not being able to attack each others wud be already good leap forward since at least i wud bombard those first so opponent has harder time to reach the bombardment capability.

[cairnswk]

I found a couple of holes in the xml surrounding R 1077AA U1 AA Bat
This will fix that.

http://h1.ripway.com/cairnswk/_stalingrad_180710.xml

[cairnswk]

btw yeah last time I commented about snipers I didn't even take in count +1 bonus. if snipers have that bonus too then they should be like 4 neutral and if they don't have that bonus then 2 or 3 neutral ^^

Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

well combined action with airplane bombardment and sniper seizure at the first round for the first player and the game is over

This hasn't been my experience.

...so an higher neutral like 3 would keep the struggle for city a bit open

So do you want the 3 neutral placed on the snipers?

...or coding 4 HQ and 4 snipers as starting positions without any bonus for snipers

This I am not in favour of, since there are not enough regions to go around for each type for 8 player starts, and these starting positions would need to be distributed equally i would think.

[cairnswk]

Right off the bat, this map is incredibly hard to read. The print seems "blurred" somehow (not true for other maps, so its not my computer or me). Also the color differentiation seems to make it even harder (this could be me).

I intend to play it a few times before making any further judgements, but can those things be fixed somehow?

I have sent the .png files to lackattack for uploading, rather than the already wellcompressed .jpg files.
If you still have trouble, may i suggest playing the larger map since i beleive this is better legibility quality.

[cairnswk]

The large artillery terits appear to be basically worthless, at least after the first round or two... at the very least, could they be able to attack neighboring terits? Otherwise dropping them is a major disadvantage.

I have a game in progress where those terts have been kept in play by the fact that the opponent keeps wanting to bombard them with aircraft. In any 2 region bonus I wouldn't consider them invaluable.
I am not agreeing with you entirely in saying "Otherwise dropping them is a major disadvantage".
If you have dropped them and are not able to access the adjoining INF then yes that is a major disadvantage.
But if no-one attacks your ART unit in the first few rounds before your go, then it would probably be wise to use this to your advantage and bombard your opponents to reduce region numbers if not bonuses.
As for attacking neighbouring regions...well no, they are very specific gameplay units.

[cairnswk]

much worse then waterloo.

For better or worse...almost like a marriage eh what?!

[cairnswk]

Again, I love your maps. This one, as mentioned by at least one previous poster leans heavily towards the player who goes first. I've won all of my games on this map simply because I've gone first in 1v1 and me or my teammate went first in doubles.

The reason is not based on bonuses, rather, it is based on the airplanes. The first player can bombard the second player's boats, planes and other territories into oblivion rendering the second player's ability even to bombard back limited based on territory count and the number of armies awarded for that.

IMO, if the number of neutral territories were increased and the number of player territories were decreased, this might solve part of these issues. Secondly, if the airplanes bombardment capability was restricted to say Russian Planes bombard 1/2 of the boats and German planes bombard the other 1/2, this might also have an effect. Just a thought.

Also, someone else noted the ease with which a sniper can be conquered for a +1 bonus. This also comes down to a "who goes first" benefit. Again, I deploy all my armies to one airplane on my first turn, bombard my opponent into oblivion, then attack the snipers with whichever adjacent territories to the snipers. If the snipers were to start with, say 2 or 3 neutrals, instead of 1, this would also have an effect to diminish the "player who goes first" bonus.

To recap, any player who goes first> deploys all to one airplane> bombards as many enemy airplanes, boats, and bombardable territories as possible> attacks all adjacent snipers> then fortifies one airplane> =enormous benefit in going first. While this is certainly a strategical perspective, I think the map would be more interesting to play if it was harder to obliterate the opponent in round one and made similarly harder to acquire the +1 bonus from the snipers.

I realize that in most maps, he-who-goes-first in round 1 is often the winner in 1v1 and other games. However, the benefit to he-who-goes-first on Stalingrad seems to be clearly greater than on other maps.

I get your points Queen_Herpes, i am in favour of increasing the neutrals on the snipers to +2 or +3 as mentioned in my reply to pamoa above, please advise if you want +2 or +3....i am leaning towards +3.

Yes, there is strategic advantage in obtaining a good drop on the planes etc. but then that's what happened at Stalingrad where the planes were used to almost obliterate the city anyways, whereafter you know the ground warfare started.
I also have played 1v1 games and am in round 17 on one so i wouldn't say that he who goes first always wins, as this game is far from over.

So i am not in favour of altering this aspect.

Secondly, if the airplanes bombardment capability was restricted to say Russian Planes bombard 1/2 of the boats and German planes bombard the other 1/2, this might also have an effect.

Of course this would have a desired effect, but it wouldn't be Stalingrad, since the Germans were able to bombard all the Russian boats, and although the Russians didn't do it, they would have had the same capacity with the reduced number of aircraft.

[cairnswk]

You have fully and accurately described my experience and thoughts on these matters. With all due respect, it seems I am no longer alone

The fact you are no longer alone is swell for you, Rashholnikov.
I'm very excited for you.
But as of now, you are still on a very few in number, and I don't see great hoards beating down the gates.

[cairnswk]

...
EDIT: for starters even aircrafts not being able to attack each others wud be already good leap forward since at least i wud bombard those first so opponent has harder time to reach the bombardment capability.

Well, as far as i can see, opposing aircraft cannot "attack" each other but they do have mutual bombardment capabilities which one would expect in a war game; and aircraft from the same side cannot attack or bombard same side aircraft.
So i am not entirely sure what you are syaing here Backside.
Can you explain this better for me so i can understand please.

[Backside]

...
EDIT: for starters even aircrafts not being able to attack each others wud be already good leap forward since at least i wud bombard those first so opponent has harder time to reach the bombardment capability.

Well, as far as i can see, opposing aircraft cannot "attack" each other but they do have mutual bombardment capabilities which one would expect in a war game; and aircraft from the same side cannot attack or bombard same side aircraft.
So i am not entirely sure what you are syaing here Backside.
Can you explain this better for me so i can understand please.

Yeh ment mutual bombardment or any kind of action between them obviously.

Well i haven't had time to think it 1v1 and prolly wud not play aginst u normally cos just how often i wud need to win u when i go 2nd (5 out of 6 times overall wud be almost even so always from starting and 2/3 times when i go second example ^^), but i shall make exception since i have played lot for fun lately anyways. well i don't farm anyways, but by playing 8-man escalating just to see where the rank line is, but wud need massive amount to see that line anyways and have little improves that i noticed in my formulas anyways ^^

So yeh i shall accept ur challenge anyways ^^ let's see how much those affect to game then ^^

EDIT: well if those don't affect as much i think i shud win u pretty much always (no offence)

[uckuki]

hello

Snipers:
Are they supposed to just bombard, or assault (conquer) as well?

Game 7223401
Round 12. Blue bombarded from S3 Kulikov and annihilated:
B.T.F. Barrikady Tractor Factory Inf and Refinery Inf
while Meat Combine Inf was assaulted and conquered.
not sure if that's a glitch or not. I could be missing something?
tx

[jefjef]

hello

Snipers:
Are they supposed to just bombard, or assault (conquer) as well?

Game 7223401
Round 12. Blue bombarded from S3 Kulikov and annihilated:
B.T.F. Barrikady Tractor Factory Inf and Refinery Inf
while Meat Combine Inf was assaulted and conquered.
not sure if that's a glitch or not. I could be missing something?
tx

Snipers are entered from regions that border colored buildings. They also attack into those same regions.