EP '14 mechanics/balance

[Nitram Draw]

The Namur situation you describe is present in a different shape in how the value of Koenigsberg (city and fort) is represented (also compared to Russian forts: the Germans can literally walk into Lomza, the VP is not in a fort but in the open. Osowiec' VP is also in the open but at least ZOC protected by forts).

Whereas a siege or investment of Koenigsberg would at the least have made it less likely that the Germans would move south into Poland until the siege is lifted, there is no incentive for the Russians to go after Koenigsberg: the high VP hexes are all inside the fortified ring, you get no particularly high points for isolating the city and the only "high" single VP location aside from Koenigsberg's center is Allenstein at 500 VP's. All the smaller point gains add up over time, but getting there is very difficult.

With the alt assault rules and without siege artillery, attacking forts against an organized defender is pointless, which means taking Koenigsberg isn't going to happen. It took one of my brigades over a day to remove two detached, isolated, low ammo F/no morale cavalry units from a redoubt as one of them refused to disrupt. From what I understand based on literature and from what the design document states and implies, 1st Army would hopefully isolate Koenigsberg so follow-up forces could take it later. There is no particular reason for 1st Army to go there at all at the moment.

The Russian penalties are so severe currently that the only hope they have of pushing back a good German defense is a combined attack by 1st and 2nd Army in more or less the same area, and both armies have a fairly large front to cover. The historical intention of advancing roughly west and then south with 1st Army and roughly northwest with 2nd Army is likely to end in a Russian defeat.

It's telling that the comments about the Russians refer to getting a draw in the discussion and the comments on the completed games so far, nobody really thinks about a victory at the moment. A German victory is a "natural" result at the moment, even though historically it should be difficult to achieve any kind of victory unless the Russians are seriously weakened. If the Russians were pushed out of East Prussia with relatively light losses, they could just have another go later on in a situation that wouldn't favour the Germans as much, but the German player only needs to recapture/hold most of East Prussia for a minor victory. The destruction of a large part of the Russian forces opposing them is necessary for a major victory, which looks like it's as out of reach as a Russian victory at the moment due to the ability of both sides to simply withdraw when threatened.

-

As an additional comment on attacking: due to moving units not actually blocking LOS until the start of the next turn, German players can spot or guess where Russian brigade HQ's are and shell that hex. The lack of dawn and dusk turns hurts in that regard, as both sides can normally spot the follow-up units as well as the screening infantry battalions due to the decent to good visibility.

I know it is extremely hard to design incentive into these games. I do think the effort was made to get that into the game. With the long scenarios it is particularly hard design as there are so many possibilities to consider.

Even with early termination available as an incentive I don't see the Russian ever trying to achieve it.  Perhaps if the Early Termination level was lower (maybe a marginal victory level) and existed for only a set number of turns they would try, the thinking being with a minor victory at this point in time would change the overall high command thinking and compel a German withdraw even if the local commanders thought they could hold out.