Bill101

It was the similarity between this game and Panzer General that first got me interested, and I've never looked back since! They aren't identical, but I think this would be a great choice for a PG2 lover. I don't know about your Vista question though.

Intelligence relies on a constant stream of reports, some of which will get through, others might not. It also depends on how it came to be deduced that a unit was wherever it was considered to be. A lot of the time this was determined by radio intercepts, not by spotting or agents' reports, therefore a unit that either kept radio silence, or gave out false radio messages, could move without the other side being able to keep track of it. I think the current set up reflects this. Another thing is that agents' reports often arrive sometime after the event, yet in this game we have the benefit of instant information, so overall it seems to balance out?

Stick some AA next to the targets, that will reduce their strength and therefore their experience pretty quickly. This is something the Soviets have done to me rather effectively when I've been Axis. My tactical bombers still gained experience in the long run, but a lot slower than if you use fighter intercepts as my escorts could deal with them.

There's some rough terrain around Cairo and as HQs only have 1 action point they just can't move through rough terrain. Panzers and possibly corps could do it. Or other units with motorisation.

Sounds interesting John, you've obviously expanded your ideas a bit over the last few years. I'm afraid that I know very little about any of the people you are trying to find out about. My recommendation (if google book search and the internet archive don't have anything useful between them) is to visit an academic/university library if there is one within travelling distance of where you are. They could contain some real gems - if there's one close enough of course! Good luck with it.

The naval base at LA will become US at some point. I couldn't use mine and then all of a sudden I could! I think it has something to do with the oilfields in the USA producing oil for the Axis - after a while they will stop doing so, and I suspect that the port will become yours too at that point. As to your other question, unless there's a wide enough gap of neutral sea (i.e. one complete sea tile) then as long as the USA is neutral no one else will be able to move through it.

Hi John Long time no hear from! Hope you're well. Bitter Glory is pretty good, but the main books I used in preparing the Poland scenario were: Zaloga and Madej's The Polish Campaign 1939. François de Lannoy’s La Campagne de Pologne (in French but with a ton of never previously published photos and some good maps). Kennedy's The German Campaign in Poland. Books used to prepare the Spanish Civil War campaign are too numerous to mention, I've got two massive box loads in the garage, but the official series produced by the Servicio Histórico Militar were the most useful, particularly for their excellent maps. As an introduction to the war, I'd recommend either of Antony Beevor's books on the subject (his most recent one, Battle for Spain is just an improved and expanded version of his earlier The Spanish Civil War) and for period flavour George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. The latter really is a must! Esmond Romilly's Boadilla is a great account of the fighting around Madrid in the autumn of 1936. Romilly (Winston Churchill's nephew) was serving with a small number of British volunteers in a German battalion of the International Brigade, and it is a classic account of warfare which would be enjoyed by just about anyone interested in military history. Married to Jessica Mitford (one of the famous Mitford sisters) he later died serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941. His is one book you won't regret reading.

Yes, great idea. It would be really good to put faces to names!

I'm playing a HvH game at the moment and I am a bit uncomfortable about having China as a UK minor. Unless we can have another major power, perhaps it would be better to make Italy a minor and have China a major? Also, the fighting between the Kuomintang and Communists is wreaking havoc on the Chinese ability to defend their country. Something I don't understand is why is China so small, so that whenever the Japanese take a city from the Chinese they are actually liberating it? Having to operate units from the capital to the eastern areas where the Japs are attacking is another drag on the UK's economy. I do really like this scenario and look forward to a WAW version, it must have been lots and lots of work to produce, and with a little tweaking it will be excellent!

While mass production could churn out material at a faster rate, training units for battle doesn't speed up at the same rate. Dividing the two would be a bit tricky! I also think that if you can produce more units because they are cheaper then it works out the same as if you have speeded up production - because rather than producing one unit every (say) six months of a given type, you can now produce one every (say) four months. You still have to wait the same amount of time, but in the long run you've got more of them!

LOL, basically we had to give the Polish player a chance to feel good about themselves! I guess we could have made it so that it lasted a bit longer, but if the Axis haven't achieved their objectives within a given time then they don't deserve any laurels. The down side is that the game can end at an interesting moment, I'll give this a bit more thought to see if there's a solution.

Thanks for letting me know Karhu, I'll take a look to see why it might have continued after they were all taken. Update 8th Nov:: I've had a look and I wonder whether you'd conquered Poland before the 20th September? That was when I'd set the victory conditions to kick in for an Axis Major Victory (I'll be changing it to the 1st September now) which hopefully explains why the game didn't end even though you'd effectively won the game. [ November 08, 2007, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

You're right that if you take Turkey, the Caucasus and the Middle East then you've almost certainly won, but it's a rail connection to the capital that gives resources a max value of 10, not just having a land connection, and this isn't the case for north Africa as the rail connection via Turkey stops just west of El Alamein. Something to bear in mind when you're plotting your opponents downfall...

Looking forward to seeing this progress!

AA bought by cities only improves defences against strategic bombers. Upgrades to AA units can be very useful if the AA unit is placed on a resource that the enemy attack, as it will hopefully discourage them from doing so again - but I don't know the actual figures so you might want to do a little playtesting in the editor to work out how effective upgraded AA units are compared to non-upgraded ones.

You could call it sabotage, but the real cause is a slight error in laying railroads by the railway engineer - i.e. me! There were quite a few issues with the railways and this one only came to light in playtesting after the release version was made. There is another problem at Guadix (if I remember correctly, I can easily check) where the Republicans can operate one way but not the other. I hope to fix these shortly.

Hi Karhu I'm glad you're enjoying playing it too. The Republicans start the war with a large number of hastily formed militia columns that can gain experience but not upgrades, so the upgrades will only apply to newer units. I had to find a way to represent the problem the Republicans faced of having to hold the front line with their militia while at the same time building up a regular army of their own in the rear. The plan is that you can hold the enemy for a while with columns but in the long run if you don't build more and more brigades and divisions (and upgrade them too) then victory will almost certainly be impossible. By the spring of 1937 the militias were giving way to militarised units, a process that was speeded up by the denial to militia units of new weapons unless they agreed to become part of the new Popular Army. [ November 03, 2007, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

If the Axis don't deploy their engineers effectively and also use AA tech and AA units then defending France becomes very hard indeed. I would say that it is both possible to defend France but also very hard to kick the allies out once they've established a solid beachead - unless you divert a lot of German units and Luftwaffe from the east.

It's made it harder for the Axis, but as I'm currently winning a game against another good player I have to disagree. I think that the overall effect is to make it more realistic, because in the real war the Germans got close but not quite close enough to winning. As to Africa, the German and Italian bombers come in very handy at reducing allied supply and entrenchment in Egpyt. If you can also get Gibraltar then the supply effect from that will make a reasonably sized Axis offensive against Egypt have a very good chance of success. There are a lot of Russians but German artillery and Stukas become real killers as the game progresses, so while it is a bloody march east for the Axis they should be able to take out loads of Soviet units. Stukas and strategic bombers are also very useful at taking out Malta, and all those Panzers are worth their weight in gold. Give it a few more tries because there are ways to win.

Paras can suffer landing casualties whenever and wherever they drop, even in friendly territory, so I think that this risk is the price you pay to be able to drop paras during bad weather, when the airforce is unable to carry out effective reconnaissance nor blast the paras' target for them. It might not be consistent with airfleets but I feel that it makes sense, and given the factors I've outlined above there is a great risk dropping them in bad weather.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you've been enjoying playing this! rjh1971: You appear to be right on the spelling of Queipo de Llano - I've had it in my head for years that it was Quiepo! I'll get it changed. Thanks!

The thing to do is to consider why you want a fort, and in the west the main thing is as protection against air attack, so it's generally better to have more forts of minimum size than a few three sided ones.

It's no bug, some countries had the doctrine and ability to carry out Blitzkrieg style armoured offensives, while others (including the French you'll notice) didn't. This is the best way of showing the doctrinal differences, though 1 strike tanks remain pretty good on the defensive, so they are far from useless.

It can be done, just wait till you've got the editor too.

You can always disband the corps you invade Ireland with at a later date, thus recouping some more MPPs. Make sure you use a British or American corps, as one from a minor ally such as Canada can't be disbanded.