Bill101

It sounds good, but I wonder whether in practice it would make the game a lot slower to play. Having a major played by the AI, with a way to encourage it to do whatever it is you want done, might be a bit more achievable. Imagine if Italy or the USSR were played by the AI, while you command Germany or the western allies.Undoubtedly it'll be a bit frustrating too, but I think it might be the best way to replicate the problems of alliances without adding too much coding and playing time.

Hi Vicco PDE is an expansion pack of WAW therefore you'll need WAW in order to play PDE. That said, if you like one you are going to like the other too!

I expect that he'll learn the most and come back with some really nasty strategy! Best way to learn is to try out the unexpected, my mistake is in keeping on trying out the unexpected. One just has to be a good loser too!

Taking France out before Poland does mean that you've got to march or operate all your troops back to Poland before your failure to take Warsaw starts to increase Soviet war readiness. Something I hadn't realised and I'm now suffering for it as the USSR joined the war about 6 months before I was ready to invade them! Another advantage the allies have is that the USA and to a lesser extent the USSR have a lot more time to carry out research before they become involved. In my allied game (I'm playing mirror) my Axis opponent is in for some nasty surprises, even though he's so far had quite a successful run.

Are you playing a scenario where either France or Britain aren't yet at war with Germany? For instance, in Storm of Steel it isn't until they are both at war with Germany that you can land their troops in each other's country.

The new strategic options are immense and even though I was involved in playtesting this I have to say that I still haven't done much more than scratch the surface of all the potential strategies. I agree that it would be good if this replaced Fall Weiss as the standard.

The thing is that the USSR has a number of industrial centres which provide supply in the same way as capitals. Stalingrad is definitely one, and one of the cities behind the Urals is too (can't remember the name of it offhand), so you'll need to widen your conquests in order to reduce the supply of places like Gorky and Rostov. Or use strategic bombers and/or rockets to reduce these cities. It works!

They need to have a minimum supply of 6, and to have a minimum strength of 10. Then you can add elite reinforcements at one strength point per turn until their strength equals their experience.

The Soviets will not supply the western allies in any way, and vice versa. It pretty well reflects the tensions that existed between them.

Good idea, I'll take that on board, though fear of the Fifth Column was probably much greater than the reality. It might not be full blown Nationalist partisans, but an effect of some kind shouldn't be a problem. I'm glad you're enjoying playing it too!

I think scale is a big factor here. In Kuni's Battle for Russia scenario it's possible that an ability for a unit to retreat could work because there's plenty of space. However, if we take the fighting to liberate France in a typical Fall Weiss scenario, there isn't generally the space to have units retreating all over the place.

Destruction is no different from their commander having to take the units out of the line to rest, reform and be reinforced. That's why we can buy destroyed units back at cheaper cost. Given the map scale and the amount of units we often field, I think that retreat rules would contain quite a few pitfalls of their own which could far outweigh the benefits. [ March 20, 2008, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

You can always airbrush out sensitive parts of the image. I agree that it would add to the AARs.

Keeping the price of carriers high keeps them rare. That way their influence on the European theatre is kept fairly realistic. How they should be in a Pacific scenario is a totally different issue as their strategic profile there was much higher than it was in Europe. What seems to be forgotten in some of the comments is the need for game balance. For instance, at the moment the Germans can make fighters pretty cheaply and also purchase quite a few AA units. If we were therefore to allow their AA units to fire twice then an allied strategic bombing campaign would become so much harder, if not impossible. That's the issue at stake.

Have them arrive by script the moment the country enters the war?

The US were assisting in convoy protection in a big way in 1941 and had attacked at least one U Boat before they entered the war, so I think that some US naval activity prior to their joining is perfectly valid. A way to handle this would be to have more of the USA's starting fleet set to arrive via script on their joining the war. That way they've got less to play with while they're neutral. Barring any naval activity seems a bit strict.

The French troops were all shipped off back to France after Dunkirk, and the British sent what was called the second BEF. When De Gaulle first called on the French to continue the fight there were very, very few French in Britain, and not all of those agreed with him! Going from memory I think that the Free French in the UK originally had about 1,000 men, of whom a sizeable proportion were Spanish exiles who had been in France when the Germans invaded. Include a brigade by all means, but don't overdo it. As to Timskorn's question on British weaponry, the answer is that they didn't have enough, and much of what Britain had had was lost either at Dunkirk or in the battles following. My suggestion is to give UK forces very low basic combat stats, but with the opportunity to upgrade to higher levels of infantry weapons and anti-tank than the Germans (i.e. 3 as opposed to say 2). If their starting stats are proportionately lower than the Germans they will balance out (i.e. a fully upgraded UK unit with 3 upgrades will be equal to a German with 2). The idea being that the British will be able to field units, but giving them the weaponry with which to actually fight the Germans on an even footing will require a greater investment, and many units will have to make do with very little indeed as there won't be enough weapons (i.e. MPPs) to go around. I hope that makes sense!

Tiles or hexes? If forced to choose I'd choose tiles as they look better but it doesn't really matter, it's the quality of the game that counts.

I've set some up in WAW and haven't had to type in every tile the convoy goes through, only waypoints. It does take a few minutes to do, possibly more if it has to follow a convoluted route, but I've not found it to be that hard. Are you putting in more waypoints than you need to perhaps?

If you open the editor can you open up this campaign file ok?

Just to complicate matters a little further, it wasn't British MPPs that were supplying the Chinese, it was American ones via British territory. Representing the whole shebang probably requires a script all to itself!

I thought the same about your Battle for Russia scenario Kuni, and surmised that it was because of the scale/roads turning to mud in bad weather. Is there a different reason?

Hi Robert If you want to email me the scenario I'll happily take a look at this problem for you. I can't see what it might be offhand, but something might become clearer then. Bill

You missed out problems 3 & 4, getting someone to play France! Wouldn't it be best, were this to be implemented, to have the Axis have one player and the Allies two, split between the western Allies and the Soviet Union?

I have thought about having naval combat use a higher modifier (i.e. plus or minus 2, rather than the usual 1). Reading accounts of naval battles during WWII shows that who won or lost was very unpredictable. You only needed a well aimed shell hitting the enemy's ship in a vital place and it would be going to the bottom! I haven't yet worked through this idea too far, partly because we can't differentiate between naval and land and air combats. Part of me thinks it would definitely be more realistic, but another part worries about how it would affect gameplay. If it were made possible I would love to try it out.