Minsk 44:��How's it going with the Partisan rule?

[Mafooo]

[Engelbrekt]

[Mafooo]

Well, I don't know much about partisans save from Hollywood movies and the Minsk 44 designer notes. But, their effect on frontline combat seems to be a little harsh. In one case their is a partisan unit BEHIND the russian line, and he is still disrupting my PzG's ie. russian peasant walks through russian line, THROUGH the german frontline, and disrupts PzG as they try to redeploy because they are in range of the partisan.

I had heard somewhere that partisans that were overrun by the Red Army were assimilated. Sure would like to hear from the game designers on this one.

[Engelbrekt]

I feel your pain but the game engine can't know that is it working in non intended ways. Another example is partisans traveling by rail mode deep behind enemy lines, shouldn't be possible but the game can't tell why not. One solution could be to decide house rules regulating the way partisans are being used.

//E

[Glenn Saunders]

[von Nev]

Mafooo,

As the primary playtester of the Minsk 44 main campaign I can tell you that the partisans are there in order to make the strategy you are implementing harder. What we found when we playtested was that because of the defensive terrain and the different historical timing between the attacks in the north and south that if the Germans did a wholesale withdraw immediately then and were able to establish a shorter and better defendable line then it would greatly change the chance that the campaign outcome with equally matched players would be somewhat historical. We figured that fixing units and tinkering with German release dates, etc would bring more calls from players that things were ahistorical/unfair so the partisans were added.

We also thought through the rule about allowing the partisans to trigger wires. I specifically asked about this while playtesting. We discussed it and the answer is three fold. First, the original placement of the partisans is not necessarily close to the main bridges that if destroyed would really hamper a retreat. So, the German player should know that there are partisans out there and should defend key points (on both sides). Secondly, many/most (can't remember which) of the bridges had German units defending them at the start so the German player could probably prevent bridges from triggering if they committed to keeping the units there defending them. If the German player early in the campaign moves all of their miscellaneous units forward towards the line, to help create another line of defense (as I did in one playtest) instead of continuing to do local defense as historically did, then the German player should be "ding'ed" a bit by allowing the partisans to get up right next to bridges and therefore do their damage. Third, we purposely took away partisan's ability to destroy rail because we thought that had too onerous of an impact on the game and greatly hampered the German's ability to reinforce and to retreat.

So, in my mind those buggers are doing exactly as was intended. It may not be perfect but we did think through it and I believe we struck a good balance.

Remember too that the historical outcome of this campaign was the complete destruction of 30 German divisions and in effect Army Group Center. The game is tough for the Germans and it should be. Just like Smolensk should be tough for the Russians. Playing the Germans in M44 should be done with the fore-knowledge that you WILL watch division after division of German infantry and panzers be completely destroyed. Your hope should be that you do better with LESS destroyed than historical.

FWIW, in a playtest of the main campaign I was able to hold a reasonable line somewhat close to the original lines for some 25 turns before the floodgates opened.

I also really liked playing the Germans because it was one heck of a defensive challenge. Every play had to consider where the unit may be 3 or 4 turns ahead. It was a huge chess match.

Marty

[Gasbag]

The general that you're talking about was Nikolai Vatutin.
While preparing for a new operation he was ambushed on Feb.28 or 29th 1944 by members of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army: Ukrainian nationalists) & died on or about April 15th, 1944.
Just a bit of trivia that I "Googled".