What makes for a balanced game?
That's a good question, and most players would probably agree on something like this:
A "balanced" game is one where each player has a equal chance of winning based on skill.
This works in games where chance is involved because "playing the odds" is also a matter of skill, and to the extent of chance's influence, skill will expose the better player over a number of games. In other words, luck favors the better player.
In PanzerBlitz, each side is given an order of battle and victory conditions, and a limited number of turns to achieve victory.
So how is an equal chance of winning determined?
That's an excellent question, and one without a simple answer. The problem is asymmetry of forces, which cannot be totally accounted for by adding up points representing unit strength. The Russian player has very tough infantry, and must play to the strength of that infantry. The German player must employ speed and armor.
It stands to reason that changing either the order of battle (OOB) or the victory conditions will change the balance of the situation. In some cases, increasing or decreasing the number of turns may also affect the victory conditions.
In some situations, it feels like initial setup or very early game play has an enormous influence on the outcome, such that if the opposing player can exploit a weakness early on, the game may tip in that player's favor.
In other words, some scenarios appear highly imbalanced, favoring one side or another within the number of turns given in the situation. But this imbalance may be a result of superior early positioning of that side. Should the "stronger" side deploy poorly, the game might well swing radically to the "weaker" side's favor.
Out of the box, a case could be made that PanzerBlitz ships with 3 types of scenarios: 1. breakthrough (3, 5, 8, 9, 11 & 12), 2. meeting (7, 10), 3. capture the flag (1), and 4. interference (2, 4, 6).
From both solitaire and face-to-face play of the following scenarios, for evenly matched opponents, most of the balance problems can be addressed through reasonable adjustments to either order of battle, victory conditions, or both.
Note: "evenly matched opponents" is a slightly misleading. In most scenarios, one side or the other (usually Russian) will favor poor players. That is, if both players are poor, the game will feel very unbalanced. With very good players on both sides, a "massively" unbalanced scenario may end up being only slightly unbalanced. And in games where the very strong player takes the "losing" side against a weak player, the strong player will have a good chance of winning.
Favors Germans with PL spotting, favor Russians with PB spotting. This is an excellent case where a slight change in rules tips the results in an opposite direction.
Update: this scenario is tilted to the Russians, pretty much a marginal victory lock given competent players. A couple of ways to rebalance include:
To handicap for the Russians, add tanks, remove mines/blocks from Germans, take away one or both 88 mm from German, replace with 76 mm. Remove one fortification from German, forcing a command post in the clear. Increase the turn length to 15 to allow Russians to optimize positioning.
The difficulty rebalancing this situation is that a slight advantage to the Russians could drastically affect the results. Make a fortification a little too easy to crack, and the Russians may destroy two.
The Russians must find a way to destroy at least one command post. This requires getting into position to pound on a fortification for several turns, while taking 88 mm fire at point blank.
Positioning is everything for the Germans, as they are for the most part, immobile.
These situations need to be replayed to get a better grip on balance and victory conditions.
Favors Russians, heavily. The Russian infantry does not move fast, but it's very difficult to completely stop. There is so much cover requiring spotting, and any unit getting close enough to destroy Russian infantry companies puts itself at serious risk of dangerous close assault. Nevertheless, there are a lot of options for rebalancing Situation #2.
Several easy modifications allow a much better balanced scenario. Here are a few ideas.
For the Germans, the winning strategy is getting as far forward as fast as possible, and force the Russians to fight for every hex. There is no way to stop the Russian onslaught. The best the Germans can do is attempt to slow it down while the turn clock ticks.
For the Russians, just the opposite: it's imperative to get enough infantry as far south as possible as early as possible so that the advance doesn't get bogged assaulting the German blocking forces.
The Russians have a compelling case for using the gullies to avoid being overrun while moving south, with the added benefit of concealment.
The Germans, faced with Russians in gullies, may need to park some sacrificial panzers in the gullies to slow down the advance. This may cost some German armor, but it may not, and every hex counts.
Overall, Situation #2 is an excellent scenario, and for a new player working through the scenarios in order, will be an eye-opener on just how tough those Russian infantry companies are.
Situation #3 is a "breakthrough-type" scenario, where the Germans have to clear a 3-hex wide line through the Russian defense.
Favors Russians, apparently very strongly as the PzKw III Gs cannot muster enough firepower to affect Russian infantry, and there isn't enough German infantry to push back. Hence, all the Russian need to do to win is stack infantry with artillery in wooded or town hexes, and the Germans will be lucky to dislodge even one.
Several things could be done, either by reducing Russian OOB or increasing German OOB:
For the Russian, one of the following would probably work:
Conversely, for an inexperienced Russian player, handicap with the following:
For the German player, try:
Alternatively, Alan Arvold offers a historically accurate German OOB featuring 14 instead of 5 AFVs. Under the original specification for this situation, these extra armor units help balance the battle very nicely.
For the Russians, starting the game with everything possible already mounted lets most mounted units get into play by Turn 3. It's really important for the Russians to maintain their line. If too many units are pulled off the defensive line and trucked over to the where the Germans are attempting to penetrate, the risk is losing fire coverage.
The Germans need to destroy as much transport as possible as early as possible, before the Russians get the infantry into position to push. While hunting down transport, the Germans also need to locate and destroy as many Russian long range guns and mortars.
Also, the Germans need to find a position which holds a clear line in their rear, while blocking the Russians. Given the defensive strength and offensive weakness of the Russian infantry, while the Russians can't be easily dislodged, neither can they easily destroy a stack of German units in a favorable position.
Situation #3 is a pretty good scenario in one respect: two good players ought to be able to produce a draw. The Germans, if they can destroy enough H and M, force the Russian infantry to move, which may leave holes in their line elsewhere on the map. However, if they don't move that infantry, the Russians risk a German breakthrough.
Hence, a likely outcome is the Russian leaving one or more small holes (1 or 2 hexes uncovered by fire) in their line while denying the Germans a 3 hex strip of cleared corridor. That is, a draw.
For the original OOB, victory conditions could be adjusted to the following:
Decisive German victory: achieve 3 hex corridor and break the Russian line in one or more hexes elsehwere.
These conditions are fair because the Russian player, with diligence, can maintain the line by simply positioning units to compensate every turn. If the Russian player does not pay attention to units not in the action, the player may not notice when the line breaks over a hex in one or more places.
As a variant, the Russians could add the number of German units destroyed. Points could be subtracted for each hex found uncovered by fire at the end of the game. (This should be a very expensive option for the Russians.)
For yet another variant, "covered by fire" could be defined as hexes being covered by artillery fire only, or by artillery fire and close assault range of infantry. This removes the ranged fire of the Russian infantry, making it harder for to cover the line, and harder to move infantry around with without adverse consequences.
Going further, the strength of line might be considered by requiring a certain minimum number of attack factors be brought to bear on each hex.
For a rebalanced scenario, one which a German player might win, the marginal German victory could be establishing a 3 hex corridor, while tactical and decisive victories could be 4 to 6 hex corridor, and 7 hex corridor, respectively.
Also, swamps could count against cleared hexes, and any corridor incorporating hexes on the edge of the board might have to be one or two hexes wider to acheive victory.
Try the following:
From Avalon Hill's "The General" magazine (v. 11, #6, p. 14) in an article entitled "The Professional Russian," Situation #4 is described as hopelessly tilted to the Russians. On the other hand, The General published a Series Replay (v. 12, #2, p. 20) for Situation #4 which resulted in a clear draw. The article further asserted the odds were 50% Russian win, 25% German win, 25% draw.
Let's play it and see.
The first game play (solitaire) resulted in a marginal Russian victory. The game felt like it could go either way almost to the end. However, there was a blunder in setup: two German SMGs were added to the OOB, which allowed one of the German ATGs to make an extra kill, and occupied some Russian infantry (requiring them to dismount) which essentially removed them from Russian victory point accumulation.
If having a couple more infantry units proves to better balance the German forces, it might be worth altering the situations OOB accordingly.
The Germans need to bottle up the Russians as early as possible, making the Russians earn every hex while conserving their own forces. At some point, the Germans will need to fall back and allow some Russian advance, else risk a decisive rupture of their defensive line.
The Russians need to disrupt the German line as quickly as possible and acquire what little defensible terrain exists on Board 3 as quickly as possible.
Given the Series Replay article mentioned above correctly estimates 50% Russian win, 25% German win and 25% draw, the victory conditions could award the draw as a marginal German victory.
The playing boards for Situation #4 link end-to-end. Finding a table which is close to six feet long might be difficult for many people. I don't have one myself. One way to mitigate this is play the scenario on just Boards 2 and 3. Alternatively, the ends of Boards 2 and 1 can be folded under resulting in half boards. This way, it's possible to follow the action across the boards using just the parts needed.
Another variation might be specifying objectives for the Russians, such as occupying Grabyosh and Opustochenia for two consecutive turns. This would probably require rebalancing the forces, specifically, reducing the German forces slightly to allow the Russians to penetrate. Alternatively, the Germans could enter on Board 3 or Board 1, or set up a token force on Board 1 prior to a Russian first move.
The Russians established a bridgehead at Lutezh in early 1943, and Situation #5 simulates a German reconnaissance in force against the Russian bridgehead. Lutezh is 15-20 kilometers north of Kiev on the Dnieper River, probably on the west bank of the river as everything east of Lutezh for several kilometers is now flooded by the Kiev Reservoir.
Short answer: Remove one or two rifle companies, one or two artillery batteries and a couple of wagons or trucks from the Russian OOB. Frankly, the Russians didn't need to do much more than position rifle companies to deny ground to the Germans, which would bog down into ineffective direct fire on the Russians, and go-for-broke close assaults on the Germans. Also, consider removing one or more blocks or mines from Russian OOB.
Conversely, to the German OOB, add 2-3 infantry platoons, or 1-2 engineer units to help with removing mines and getting close assault benefits.
As written, if the Germans don't have all candidate units off the east side of Board 2 by the end of Turn 5 (Turn 4, really), they might as well concede. By the time they get back on the board on Turn 8, it's almost impossible to get back through the Russian line.
The Germans may want to keep the Wespes way in the rear, and focus on using the halftracks and CPs to spot Russian units.
The Russians don't even need to fight that much, just set up the mines and blocks, and shove rifle companies everywhere else. This practically guarantees the Germans will get bogged down slugging it out with Russian infantry.
Smart players will work out all the routes across Board 1 in advance. The Germans need to know the fastest terrain for crossing, and the Russian need to deny that fast terrain.
The easiest way to rebalance is probably adjust the victory conditions:
This scenario would be an excellent candidate for using one of the ImStrat river maps. The German reconnaissance units could have as part of a victory condition requirements to get all the way to the river, then back through the Russian line and on to Board 3. The turn length should probably increase to 15. Further enhancements could include the Germans establishing a supply depot at some point on Board 1, and removing mines.
Another "long board" scenario, requiring 60" to lay out all three boards end to end. That's a lot of inches. Too many for most tables. However, the friendly local game store has tables almost long enough, and besides, the boards can often be folded and unfolded as the game play proceeds.
Situation #6 models a delaying action. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, it's really hard to actually stop a Russian advance, but it's entirely feasible to slow it down.
In this scenario, the Germans are grossly out numdered, and the two SPA platoons (Wespe and Hummel) will have a hard time finding targets which can be both spotted and correctly ranged.
Situation #6 as played in these two games feels relatively well-balanced. On the one hand, it's tough for the Germans to get the long range SPA effectively employed, and difficult to acquire other kills, on the other hand, with a bit of care, the Germans can generally stay well out of reach from the Russians, choosing when and where to sacrifice units.
But the Russians have so many units, which puts a lot of pressure on the Germans. Any German standing to fight risks being swarmed by T-34s.
For the Germans, slow the Russian advance as early as possible, sacrificing pieces as necessary to block roads and clear terrain.
For the Russians, advance as fast as possible to grab and hold terrain which would otherwise bottleneck the column.
Victory conditions for the Russians are easily adjusted by requiring either more or less units moving on to Board 3 by the last turn.
Victory conditions for the Germans are a bit more problematic. The original conditions (double the Russian take from the German loss) feel contrived.
Another way to count victory conditions is using the counts of Russian units left on both Boards 1 & 2. If the Russians manage to get 10 or more units on to Board 3 at the expense of leaving units on Board 1, that could count against them. This would be a very different tactical situation from the Russians getting all of the forces off of Board 1 and under cover on Board 2.
Apparently, Situation #7 is regarded as the worst scenario shipping in the original PanzerBlitz box. This alone provides a bit of intrigue. The general notion is that the game either runs to stalemate very quickly, or favors the Germans as they essentially acheive their victory conditions by Turn 2.
One way to investigate a better balanced scenario would be to have the Russians come in from the east and the Germans from the west, opposite of the current scenario.
Alternatively, specify the Russians as having first movement.
By the start of Russian Turn 3, it's looking really grim for the Russians, specifically, facing a concealed Wespe on Hill 129 makes motion on the north end of Board 3 really problematic.
It might be that having more than 10 turns helps even things out as well.
Another way might be to add a few units to the Russian OOB, or remove a couple from the German, or both.
For the Germans, move onto Board 2 as fast as possible, hunker down.
For the Russians, position units to apply concentrated force on selected German targets, trading units at better than 1:1.
The game starts with a de facto German victory, since the Germans start with at least as many pieces as the Russians.
The scenario is designed to force Russian offensive action. The Russians cannot win this with the usual tactic of emplacing unkillable infantry to block German action.
One way to make victory conditions a little more interesting is to require the Germans to hold some real estate. The Germans were able to minimize losses up until they decided to fight, which lost them the game. A better balanced scenario might have a few less Russian tanks, with a requirement that the Germans must hold one or more towns or hills. (This opinion is based on one game, where neither Wespe or Hummel got into play.)
Another very tough situation for the Germans, especially if playing strictly by the standard rules, without optional call-for-fire for SPAs and other indirect fire weapons.
This is one scenario where using the optional ``any German unit can call for indirect fire'' rule might make a lot of sense.
If allowing any German unit to call in any artillery is to liberal, allow platoon level units to call in the lighter artillery and mortar units, and limit the SPA indirect fire to command posts. The command posts, in turn, could be allowed to call fire while ``mounted'' on halftracks.
Alternatively, or along with allowing all Germans to call in fire, reduce the number of mines and blocks allowed to the Russians.
One of the difficulties the Germans have in all scenarios with Russian emplaced mines is what to do with any engineer units? Should the engineers attempt to clear mines, or should they work with regular infantry to get that odds shift for close assault?
More balancing ideas
The Germans must get indirect fire working. Specifically, getting the command posts into spotting positions for the SPA is really critical. It needs to be done as fast as possible.
The Russians, on the other hand, need not do much more than throw infantry into the few lanes across the map not covered by mines and blocks, then bring the armor around while the Germans attempt to clear the infantry.
A marginal victory for the Germans is exiting 30 units from Board 3, whereas a marginal victory for the Russians is killing only 10 Germans. That's really quite a lot for the Germans and quite few for the Russians, and it makes one wonder exactly what rules were being played when the scenarios were written. Certainly with the current rule set, a competent Russian player should be able to prevent nearly all the German units from exiting, other then perhaps armor which can make a mad dash across the board.
As in other scenarios requiring exiting units from the board to determine victory levels, the number of units required to leave can be adjusted up or down. Alternatively, the number of turns can be increased or reduced. In this case, cutting the units at each level in half (rounding up) might be a good place to start.
Based on a couple of plays, it seems reasonable to "reverse" the victory conditions. Marginal victory for the Germans if they can exit 10 or more units from Board 3, marginal for Russians if they kill 30 or more German units.
This assumes both the Russian and German players are reasonably competent.
The victory conditions for Situation 9 are key to the balance, where all Russians not exiting are counted as lost, hence, add to German totals.
Sometimes, balance isn't enough, and experience discrepancy needs to be addressed. Here are a couple of suggestions for handicapping:
For the Russians, increase the number of turns to 12. This will help the Russian player both kill more units and get more off the map.
For the Russians, speed.
For the Germans, position light artillery to exploit exposed Russian transport. There is no way the Russians will be able to get all those trucks across the board by "panzerbushing."
The victory conditions are good for Situation 9. Adjusting the counts up or down will provide a handicap for players with differing levels of experience.
This is another fun scenario featuring a lot of movement and a lot of elimination, both features of engagements at Kursk whence the inspiration for this scenario was drawn.
The scenario as it stands right now feels marginally slanted to the Russian player. This may be a feature of limiting the German SPA units to line-of-sight direct fire.
Again, as with most scenarios involving the German Wespe and Hummel SPA units, allowing optional indirect fire and FO support by any German unit will change the balance.
The Germans need to establish a presence on Board 3 as soon as possible, because a competent Russian player will occupied Opustchenia with fire support from the JSU-152s. The Germans need to get well onto Board 3 before the JSUs get emplaced. Further, the Germans need to get to cover on the north end of Board 3 to scare away the remaining Russian column, which will consist of enough unit to provide decisive victory conditions on the Russian's last move at the bottom of Turn 12.
Depending on how the German SPA rules are employed, adjusting the number of Russian units destroyed will go a long way to rebalancing this scenario.
Tables turned, Russians need to clear a lane and advance through the teeth of some stiff German opposition. And this time, the Germans can easily position command posts for directing SPA fire.
For an inexperienced Russian player going up against an experienced German player, removing some or all of the mines and blocks will give the Russian player a lot more options for driving across the board.
For the Russians, driving as fast as possible to get into the SPA indirect fire blind zone, and taking out the command posts are critical.
For the Germans, just the opposite: protect the CPs and the SPA as long as possible to slow up the Russian advance.
Again, adjusting the number of units which can exit is a great way to handicap players of unequal skill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman In Summer 1944, after breaking out of the bocage and moving into open country, U.S. tank units who were engaged at range from German defensive positions sometimes took 50% casualties before spotting where the fire was coming from.[40 Tank Tactics from Normandy to Lorraine]
The original rules do not discuss fighting to a draw, but adding a "draw" outcome might help balance situations. With tiered victory conditions, when both sides achieve the same victory condition, that's a draw.