New Features

[Hubert Cater]

Those are still included and as usual we'll have more info on the entire campaigns in due course

[The K Man]

I am also glad that those units (AA, Art, AT) have been elimated for the global campaign. Its not that I don't like them, but I didn't really think they would fit for this scale. At first I was dissappointed to see them listed on the 1st screen shots. I would like to see them incorporated with the regular units (army, corps.) Either via tech increases or separate strengths (similar to the carrier idea in Pacific.)

Looks great so far. Keep up the good work.

[jon_j_rambo]

I am also glad that those units (AA, Art, AT) have been elimated for the global campaign. Its not that I don't like them, but I didn't really think they would fit for this scale. At first I was dissappointed to see them listed on the 1st screen shots. I would like to see them incorporated with the regular units (army, corps.) Either via tech increases or separate strengths (similar to the carrier idea in Pacific.)

Looks great so far. Keep up the good work.

So what is there? Tanks & Armies; and that's it?

Anybody for a game of RISK?

[Hubert Cater]

K Man, I see that they are shown in the 'Purchase Unit' screen shot but this is only because even if they are greyed out, they are still listed as mods may still allow them.

Also, one thing I mentioned in Pacific thread and forgot to mention with the latest new features is that non belligerent naval units can also now pass through each other under Fog of War, i.e. you will not know if you passed through a hidden non belligerent unless you end your move right next to them. Essentially the same logic that is used for Subs etc.

[Hubert Cater]

So what is there? Tanks & Armies; and that's it?

Anybody for a game of RISK?

Everything from previous releases is included except for Artillery, Anti-Tank and Anti-Air with the only exception for the USSR in that it has Katyusha Rocket Trucks that act as Artillery units.

[jon_j_rambo]

Alright......guess I have the wrong idea. I have no love loss for AT; but AA is cool.

[teutonkopf]

Arty, AT, and AA should also be upgradeable attributes on panzer units. They would be more expensive because they would all have to be mobile armored version, e.g. Hummels for Arty, StuGs for AT, etc. Arty would increase soft attack. AT would increase tank defense. AA would increase air defense. The reason you would have AT for a panzer unit is because it would be cheaper than elite reinforcements or advanced tanks but still be a way to counter enemy armor. This would simulate the germans' shift to higher AT production as they shifted to a defensive war and demands for increased numbers of armour with limited manufacturing capability.

v/r,

tk

[teutonkopf]

I don't quite understand the need for an engineer unit. They don't make much sense. I should just be able to click on a tile and select to build something on it without needing an engineer unit sitting on it, or any unit for that matter. If the tile does not border an enemy controlled tile then I do not need combat engineers. In reality, civilians did all that work, and the military engineers overseeing the work certainly did not amount to a unit represented on a global map. If you bomb the tile while I'm building on it then it will mess up my construction time. You don't have to destroy an engineer unit. Engineers can be abstracted as Corps of Engineers Strength. I can focus those points on one tile and build something really quick or spread them around and take my sweet time. When the construction tile gets bombed then I lose Corps of Engineers points and have to replenish them. Don't make me have a globe trotting engineer unit that can only build one thing at a time. That's just plain silly.

v/r,

tk

[teutonkopf]

Here is how you can do combat engineers: allow me to allocate Corps of Engineers points to land units like HQ's, Corps, Armies, Tanks. This will give those units improvements like this:

increased attack values against fortifications (abstraction of demolitions)

increased ability to defend cities (abstraction of barricades, improved positions, etc.)

increased defensive values (abstraction of mines, obstacles, etc.).

Again, an actual engineer unit is silly. Combat Engineers or Pioneers do not take up a whole hex and should help a unit occupy a hex, NOT get in the way by taking up the whole hex with the puny combat power of an engineer battalion or brigade or whatever they are supposed to be. :confused:

v/r,

tk

[Colin I]

OK - massed ART for Russia only is reasonable.

The criticism of Engineers is accurate. I realize we do not want the game to descend into WWI style trench warfare but this should be something you pay MPP for.

I like the way this is headed.

[SeaMonkey]

Agreed, Engineers should be allocated as an upgrade just like AA, art, AT, etc. This gets back to my original suggestion of attaching assets to units, exactly the way it was done IRL.

The base units, armies, corps, and mechanized units should be upgradeable with the simulation of attaching battalion size assets to these formations. This was actually the way it was done and engineers were a part of that scenario. Attached engineering assets would provide for many of the functions already listed but also help their parent units cope with inclement moving conditions, like mud, swamps, jungle, crossing rivers, rough terrain, etc.

[Karhu]

Talking of new features, what's the story with operating aircraft? Are they going to be able to zip anywhere across the planet in less time than it takes to say "Focke Wolff", or is there going to be some other slightly more realistic system?

How about something based on eg 4 or 5 times the usual range?

[arado234]

Imho teutonkopf has a GREAT idea.I think those extra upgrades should be available for the combat units.Remember Panzer General.Those Engineers and Pioneer units removed the Rugged defence and they helped with moving across rivers.Most offensive units have them.

I dont have a problem with the operation of aircraft(even though it is way off base)because this generally helps the Allies.Since they are the ones that have the most limitations then maybe the operation of Airfleets should stay the way it is?

Hubert,is the Atomic bomb in this game?I hope so(I know SeaMonkey doesnt like it, ha ha).

[teutonkopf]

Attaching brigades and battalions is a good idea. Normally, an infantry unit does not have tanks. However, if you attach a tank battalion to it then that will give the unit 2 strikes. The first strike is the tank battallion spearhead supported by organic artillery (the units arty value) with infantry cover against enemy infantry. This simulates the tanks making a breakthru. The second strike is the infantry follow-up. Now that is a cool simulation of real tactics. This way, you can attach high level heavy tank battalions to infantry units which simulate the german heavy tank battalions. This gives the unit the ability to counter attacking tank units. The other battalion attachments like arty, AT, AA, Engineers are obvious. I wanted to point out that attaching tank battalions would also be realistic and cool. It gives you the ability to deploy high level heavy tanks against lower level tanks without having to buy an entire tank unit. I guess a tank unit is supposed to be a panzerkorps or something. For the russians I guess it's supposed to be tank armies. Tank units need to be scalable to represent the actual war. There should be Tank Armies, Tank Corps, and Tank Battalions. Tank Armies and Corps would be separate units like the thier infantry counterparts and Tank Battalions would be attached to other units. You can even attach heavy tanks to an existing tank unit to give it even more power.

On the other hand, you can attach infantry battalions to tank units to give the tanks more defense against enemy infantry. This is a way to achieve the realistic effects of unit stacking without actually having to stack units. Tanks only or Infantry Only in a hex is too limiting. It does not match the scale.

v/r,

tk

[teutonkopf]

Attached Battalions can also be transferrable to other units. If two units are not in contact with enemy units, then they can switch their attached battalions with eachother regardless of distance. This requires operational movement MPPs.

If two units border enemy units and they border eachother, then they can transfer battalions to eachother.

In both cases it does not have to be a 1 for 1 swap. A unit can give another unit its battalion as long as the receiving unit does not already have a battalion of that type, e.g. my infantry unit can give its tank battalion and engineer battalion to a tank unit that only has an arty batallion.

Given this capability, keeping track of mobile armoured versions of batallions for tank units and softskinned motorized versions for infantry units might be too complicated. This can be simplified by adjusting transfer cost. Transferring battalions from infantry to infantry or from tank to tank costs the regular amount. Transferring from infantry to tank costs more, and transferring from tank to infantry costs less.

v/r,

tk

[Big Al]

Getting too complex.

I feel the units are fine the way they are. Arty and AA shouldnt be in the game for the scale presented.

DEFENSIVE UNITS: The Germans actually lowered their # of batallions in a division from 3 to 2 and gave them more defensive weapons. You see this simulated in some games by much lower attack and slightly higher defense at a lower manpower cost. They had more tank destroyers than tanks which were cheaper and less mobile but for defensive positions it was great.

Defensive unit sucks on attack and are a little cheaper to buy. the AT unit is a good example to use. It only takes AT upgrades.

Corp Soft Attack/Soft Defense/Hard Attack/Hard Defense 1/1/1/1 AP's 3

Anti Tank SA/SD/HA/HD 0/1/0/1 AP's 2 and a little cheaper (as defensive unit)

The problem here is the AI will replace these with inf corp.

HERE is another even easier solution... dont do anything its already in the game

late in the war players have high tech. A fully loaded tech 4 corp has inf weapons, at guns, and motorization.... so simply build a corp and lets say give it tech 2 inf weapons and teach 4 AT guns and no motorization, voila a defensive unit. It has high AT strength, cant attack as well, defends vs tanks well, is less mobile, and costs less too.

AL IDEA:

Another idea is making artillery 0 AP fortifications on the coast if you wanted to use that. On this scale it doesnt work.

ATTACHMENTS OF BRIGADES AT AA TANKS:

Trying to immitate HoI2 where you can pop in attachments just puts the game on 1 higher level of complexity. Ok I do it so he does it. More mouse clicks please.

RUSSIAN ARTY:

I could be wrong here but if I remember the Russians really didnt have super artillery. They had poor logisitics and simply piled all their ammo in one spot for an attack. They had the guns just never the ammo. So they took from other places to make this huge arty barrage in certain battles. The Germans actually used more shells on the Russian front than the Russians and had better arty. Now americans, sheesh, they used 40x more ammo than germany for their artillery. They were artillery happy. They would bomb a place, send in the soldiers (they would get killed), call a retreat, BOMB THE SUPER CRAP out of the same position (germans learned to retreat before that happened), then the soldiers went in. USA way. when you combine it all together, leave arty the same. The factors balance out.

Now I know I always look like a poo-pooer of ideas. I just try and keep the game for what makes it great, simplicity combined with great abstraction and the ability to manipulate.

Now the new ideas I like it is a good improvement to the system without complicating it.

The informational addons great, they make the game move faster.

Strat bombers attacking convoys: great simple add on

Amphib attack right from seas: great simple add on. Now making islands is easier and protecting your amphibs more important. It solves the problem of invading small islands without a port. Also helps AI.

Raiders: great improvement without added time to the game.

Keep up the good work....

[The K Man]

I like your ideas Teutonkopf. I always thought the AA, ART, etc. would work better attached to the units. The battalians idea would work well (IMO.) Again similar to the carrier concept. That is basicly 2 units, that can do two separate operations...(if it wants.)

[arado234]

LOTS of great ideas but in the end(like Big Al)pointed out,how complex do we want the game to be and as mentioned before we also have to think about the A.I. Im assuming the more you add the harder it is for the A.I. to be programmed?

[teutonkopf]

Ok, the notion of keeping it simple makes sense. There is a way to keep it simple, but make it more realistic and give more options to the player. Here is the idea:

Only have 4 types of land units:

Army

Corps

Paratroops

Marines

Paratroops and Marines are your special forces. Marines need to replace the current over generalized amphibious free-for-all nonsense.:mad: A tank corps making an amphibious landing? THAT NEVER HAPPENED.:confused: That never will happen. An Army making and amphibious assault? Please, give me a break. You cannot be serious.:eek: Now, back to reality: Marines are no bigger than corps sized. Armies and panzer corps can only land on beach heads already secured by marines.

Paratroops are the same, except they need to also have air mobile capability. They should be able to airlift into friendly and unoccupied areas without having to take jump casualties. They should also be able to suffer damage enroute when they parachute or airlift. Enemy fighters can make an attack on them and friendly fighters can fly an escort mission. There is no way fallschirmjagers are going to land in Britain without Air Supremacy. Get real.

Now, here is the very interesting part. Armies and Corps have all the attributes:

Infantry

Engineers

AT

Tanks

AA

Arty

Motorization

You adjust the values how you want to. Give it alot of tank points and there is your panzer army. Yes, you can create a panzer army if you have the cash. Give it alot of Arty and there is your artillery army if thats what you want. (Oh, and by the way, Artillery does not have a range beyond neighboring hexes. Are you for real? The Paris Gun was never built, much less an artillery battalion of them.) This simulates mixing, adding, subtracting and all the funky jazz that the major and minor powers did and that you could do as supreme commander. Pretty cool, huh? I like it!

So this would apply to paratroops and marines, but they would have less options and limited values on some options:

Paratroops:

Infantry weapons

Engineers (make the whole unit airborne engineers if you have that cash. Its your money!)

Limited AT

Limited Arty

Limited AA

NO Tanks

Marines:

Infantry weapons

Engineers

AT

Arty

AA

Limited Tanks

v/r,

tk

[crispy131313]

I am not one of the constant contributors here, however I have followed the forum every day for months, and the notion of removing Tanks (as a stand alone unit) from the game is really unappealing. Panzer Groups to my knowledge were more than just a sprinkling amongst an army, and were major aspects of the war. I would like to see these groups as standalone targets to attack (especially when defending as the soviets).

I do agree with elminating some of the specialty units (Anti Tank, Anti Air) but limiting the game to only 4 units seems a little dull. Rather than changing the major mechanics of how corps sizes and armies are mobilized and with which amount and levels of weaponry the receive I would much more enjoy a more detailed account of the second world war. Brazil for example while not a significant contributor to the war did mobilze an army and sent it to Eurpoe to fight the Italians, the REF (I belive), pilots and navy fought for the allies. While their troops did not mass large numbers I would like to see countries such as Brazil become involved (ex. Strength 1 Corps, Strength 1 Cruiser, Strength 1 Fighters) join the war and leave the what ifs in our hands. (If we could decide to invest resources to build up a Southern American Country like Brazil to the point they could make an impact on a Global scale.)

The many what ifs is what excites me the most about the second world war. What if after abandoning Sealion the Germans decided they had enough time to conquer Switzerland? What If the Germans did not declare war on the Soviets until much later? Would they have gained enough ground to gain the support of more beligerents? What if Vichy France was never an option and the French nations continued to battle?

I can not speak for everyone, and I am certainly not speaking for the "hardcore" but rather than playing the same game over and over again, the replay value of this upcomign release is what I am really crossing my fingers for, not less units + more complications. Basically I'm just tossing my 2 cents out there hoping that I will never play the same game twice, and that there will be atleast an option for the timeline and or minor counrtries to be able to be altered by chance, or consequence.

[xwormwood]

Getting too complex.

Amphib attack right from seas: great simple add on. Now making islands is easier and protecting your amphibs more important. It solves the problem of invading small islands without a port. Also helps AI.

....

I hope that only units with amphib abiltity / tech are able to invade this way.

Regular units, if allowed as well, would need the abiltity to leave an island which has no harbor tile attached.

Btw.: your comments hit the point, i absolutly agree with you.

[crispy131313]

I would also like to see an advanced Diplomacy model, where as even once a country is at war (100%) they can still be affected by diplomacy. For example Hungary could continue to be a diplomatic target of the Allies even after they are at War and if the Allies can successfully bring them back down to 0% they would surrender/accept a peace treaty, or possibly even switch sides (All units outside of their country would obviously surrender to the Germans). This type of stuff is real, and once again opens door to many more what ifs.

[Bill101]

...rather than playing the same game over and over again, the replay value of this upcomign release is what I am really crossing my fingers for, not less units + more complications.

From my own experience playtesting this game, I certainly don't think that you're going to find yourself refighting the same game over and over. Far from it in fact, because there are countless strategies to try out, plus what with having two main theatres it means that even if you do the same thing twice in one theatre, you and/or your opponent could be doing something totally different in the other.

This is of course making our playtesting not only more interesting but also more demanding, and of course, fun!

[Snowstorm]

Sounds good Bill 101.

Since the emphasis on this game is "global", I would hope that Hubert and team are concentrating on the global and mapping part of it, and not trying to make too many changes to the units themselves. My feeling is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Being a big historical WWII in Europe fan, I would love to see simply a much bigger, blown-up maps and features of Euope and Asia, and even the U.S. and the rest of America. This would also help create more strategies if, say, the distance between Moscow and Leningrad were 20 hexes instead of 10. Obviously, one might need a better strategy protecting their "flanks" during an assault in this regard, then when the distance was much smaller in the previous games.

[arado234]

Teutonkopf what you say about invading is right(the fact that France can even launch a major amphib. invasion is wrong and same with the Brits. early in the war) but because the game was simplified for easier playing(im sure to program the A.I.)then these units have to be able to invade.What might be alot simpler is just limit the amount of units that can land per turn.If you choose to send a Tank army to invade that would use up say half of all available invasion craft,etc etc.I like your way better but im just thinking about keeping it simple to program and play.I dont think that France should have any capability or the Brits early on unless they invest in it.