Historical accuracy

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THEPUNISHERNL
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Historical accuracy

Unread postby THEPUNISHERNL » Wed Dec 18, 2013 8:52 pm

Hi i am really enjoying this game so far. it is astonishing that such a great game has been made by 2 guys. What i am wondering however is this. Are all battles fougth whith the historical units inside them? With that i mean Are there no units added to give one side more of a chance for game balance purposes?Lets take the stalingrad scenario as an example. Where all the russian divisions in that scenario really there during that time period? and is it the same for the germans?And also are the positions each individual unit have in the beginning of every battle there historical one,s? This are just questions that come up every time i play this game.

ComradeP
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby ComradeP » Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:25 am

Virtually all of the units in any of the scenarios for the base game or the two DLC's were actually there or could have been there as they were in the area (they might be available as reinforcements in that case). Their step strength may be somewhat different from their historical counterparts in some cases, but the units themselves are nearly always historical.

Even in the hypothetical scenarios, the OOB is within reason of the historical situation. For Black Turn, it's mostly the objectives that are hypothetical in the two hypothetical scenarios and most of the forces used in them were actually there (one hypothetical is an enlarged Tikhvin offensive scenario, the other covers the situation before the historical January Soviet offensive west of Rostov, but has the Axis as the attacker).

The main exceptions are lengthy scenarios like Taifun where some units were added to represent reforming units or local defense forces. There are also some garrison units to represent forces that would be too small to represent individually on this scale but which were there and would, combined, have been roughly the size of a unit that can be represented on the map.

We did our best to place units as close to their historical starting point as well, if possible and keeping in mind that the system doesn't allow stacking, so some unit concentrations are several rows deep instead of in the same hex.

Clx-
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby Clx- » Thu Dec 19, 2013 4:30 pm

The historical accuracy (both in units used and available tactics) is absolutely amazing. I have no idea how they've managed to make it work so well.

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Danielefc
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby Danielefc » Thu Dec 19, 2013 8:01 pm

Clx- wrote:The historical accuracy (both in units used and available tactics) is absolutely amazing. I have no idea how they've managed to make it work so well.


Yea, this also one of the things I love. Personally I'm an OOB freak - but when it comes to gameplay OOB's really aren't paramount (as long as they are kept within atleast "relatively" realistic boundary). What is more important imo is that the player is driven towards a historical playstyle - without being hampered to just one or two ways of completing a scenario. And this has been a achieved almost to perfection. When playing as the Germans i find the most successfull way of winning is almost always to use the units as they where used in ww2. Same goes for the Soviets.

What I hate in any wargame is when an armoured unit is best used as a "killing" tool. But this is usually hard to avoid. Now ofcourse the armoured formations in UoC are amazing at "killing stuff" (as they should be). But 9 out 10 times they are best used to exploit breakthroughs that the infantry have created. The supply system is key to this. It is because of the supply system that deep thrusts are rewarded - not just the standard encirclements that have been seen in countless games before this one.

THEPUNISHERNL
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby THEPUNISHERNL » Fri Dec 20, 2013 1:01 am

Danielefc wrote:
Clx- wrote:The historical accuracy (both in units used and available tactics) is absolutely amazing. I have no idea how they've managed to make it work so well.


Yea, this also one of the things I love. Personally I'm an OOB freak - but when it comes to gameplay OOB's really aren't paramount (as long as they are kept within atleast "relatively" realistic boundary). What is more important imo is that the player is driven towards a historical playstyle - without being hampered to just one or two ways of completing a scenario. And this has been a achieved almost to perfection. When playing as the Germans i find the most successfull way of winning is almost always to use the units as they where used in ww2. Same goes for the Soviets.

What I hate in any wargame is when an armoured unit is best used as a "killing" tool. But this is usually hard to avoid. Now ofcourse the armoured formations in UoC are amazing at "killing stuff" (as they should be). But 9 out 10 times they are best used to exploit breakthroughs that the infantry have created. The supply system is key to this. It is because of the supply system that deep thrusts are rewarded - not just the standard encirclements that have been seen in countless games before this one.


With the germans i first try to weaken the russian units with infantry attacks and then i use the excellent german tanks to force an overrun on the russian infantry units and try to get to there rear. I didn't played with the russians yet. so i don't exactly know there playstyle. But i can imagine that the russian use there tanks more to severly weaken a section of the frontline and then use there massive infantry units to force a breakthrough.

THEPUNISHERNL
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby THEPUNISHERNL » Fri Dec 20, 2013 1:12 am

ComradeP wrote:Virtually all of the units in any of the scenarios for the base game or the two DLC's were actually there or could have been there as they were in the area (they might be available as reinforcements in that case). Their step strength may be somewhat different from their historical counterparts in some cases, but the units themselves are nearly always historical.

Even in the hypothetical scenarios, the OOB is within reason of the historical situation. For Black Turn, it's mostly the objectives that are hypothetical in the two hypothetical scenarios and most of the forces used in them were actually there (one hypothetical is an enlarged Tikhvin offensive scenario, the other covers the situation before the historical January Soviet offensive west of Rostov, but has the Axis as the attacker).

The main exceptions are lengthy scenarios like Taifun where some units were added to represent reforming units or local defense forces. There are also some garrison units to represent forces that would be too small to represent individually on this scale but which were there and would, combined, have been roughly the size of a unit that can be represented on the map.

We did our best to place units as close to their historical starting point as well, if possible and keeping in mind that the system doesn't allow stacking, so some unit concentrations are several rows deep instead of in the same hex.


Still i feel there are some historical aspects not taken into account. take operation typhoon for example. There was alot of russian partisan activity during operation typhoon and the russian partisans played a vital role of delaying the winther clothing and anti frost supply,s which the germans needed so badly in typhoon. But they aren't represented at all in that battle. And secondly wasn't it a better design choice to also have artillery strikes as a call in ability(just like airplanes)?Artillery strikes played a major part on the eastern front and i feel that the artillery is not represented well enoug in the game. It would as a matter of fact be realistic and cool if in some battles you could chose the targets for the opening artillery barrage(which can only be used in the first turn of the scenario and where used by the germans at the battle of kursk,operation typhoon etc) and the russians used MASSIVE artillery baragges in all there big offensives in the war.

Also i have one question. what does the steps on the unit represent? are those brigades.platoons etc?

ComradeP
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Re: Historical accuracy

Unread postby ComradeP » Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:34 pm

Each step is an abstraction of the fighting strength of a unit. A 5 step unit is roughly 50% strength. A regiment is usually a 2-3 step unit.

We didn't add partisans to Taifun to make the scenario somewhat less difficult, the majority of the partisan activity would also be off-map, and adding partisans would also require adding German security formations for such a big scenario (like in the Soviet winter scenarios).