(I initially posted this on my AAR, but I thought it worth while to post here as well.)
Morning!
Has anyone tried playing around with the traffic penalty? What are your thoughts and observations?
In our PBEM, we recently switched to v1.02 and with that came a traffic penalty option. Since there is no description on what the levels of the penalty do, I started up a fresh game, set the penalty to half and began moving various sizes of armies and corps across the plains in various weather.
Some interesting results!
It seems on average that single armies did decently well, loosing a bit more cohesion then they would have without a penalty. But anything upwards of a single army seems to have strong effects.
For example, two armies worth about 2000 CP, marched on a clear day across the plains, at the end of the turn they lost about 30% - 50% cohesion.
Those same two armies traveling in mud across plains, suffered 80% - 90% cohesion loss.
Another interesting case is where a force of 1500 CP crossed the plains in clear weather north to south, while a second 800 CP force crossed east to west on the same territory a day or two after the first force cleared the area and suffered 80% - 90% cohesion loss. Ending with only 119 CP and failing to engage the enemy at the end of their march.
These results could be because my TEAW files being a bit scrambled and not the cleanest install. So don't take it as gospel truth. But it's interesting.
This may see the end of anything more then a single army and perhaps a couple attached corps making any attacks. Which will definitely be a game changer, and may provoke a more spread out advance, hard won gains, and more easily held territories in the face of numerical superiority. As it is (at medium penalty), I hesitate to make any attack unless I have UNDER 1500 CP and still in clear superiority against the enemy.
It may need to be tweaked a bit, as all new features go, but I think this is a good thing, and it makes it nearly impossible to make any advance unless specific conditions are met.
It will eliminate any super stacks and therefore it will most certainly mess it up royally for any attacker in a war of entrenchment. It will change the face of entrenchment warfare to one in which any attack against an enemy army will require armies to attack from multiple adjacent territories. Flanking, defeats, and dispersed forces will be the new way.
I'm excited for how it could change the face of the eastern front too! Russian defense will be a lot easier! We may even see an entrenchment line being formed by the Russians along defensive points.
Interesting indeed.
In our game though, I think it would be unfair to use the medium penalty, even the lowest penalty, especially at this stage of the game. After all, the bulk of the Central Powers advances have been made, and they begin to drift into a more defensive posture in the whole war. Especially as before long the USA will also join the fight. Making the Entente purely the more aggressive party in a war that will favor the defender even more strongly.
I would consider a switch to the lowest penalty over then winter, or even a month or two from now. To change now in mid-operation may be a little unfair, now when it is my time to be offensive after nearly breaking through into Germany and the Central Powers to become more defensive after using stacked armies to knock out Russia.
This feature, if it works the way I suspect it is intended to work, is a major game changer for a more realistic and historical approach to the war of of 1914.
Well done!
Anyways! Has anyone tried this out? Any similar results?