Bill101

Hi Glabro If the Diplomacy screen is saying that you've invested enough chits for a 65% chance per turn, and your opponent hasn't invested in diplomacy against Bulgaria, then you have indeed faced an unfortunate and unlikely string of bad luck. The chance of a diplomatic success isn't dependent on your successes, or lack thereof, against the Serbs. Just to clarify the role of scripts in this: Bulgaria will move towards entering the war if the Central Powers have some successes against the Serbs, firstly by capturing Belgrade and then by taking Nish. These successes on their own can lead to Bulgaria joining the Central Powers, and are governed by scripts that aren't connected to your diplomatic investments. Hopefully your diplomacy will have some luck soon. Alternatively, sending some German infantry and artillery with a HQ to the Belgrade area might help to rekindle your fortunes here.

Units do benefit from Entrenchment in the WWII campaign, but no trench graphic is used to represent this. The benefit of Entrenchment isn't as much as in WWI games, unlike the Fortifications built by Engineers which are fairly comparable to WWI trench systems. You'll see that units gain a level of Entrenchment at the start of their turn in this WWII campaign, up until they've reached the maximum for the terrain or resource type.

Yes, because supply events can't be used to harm your own side, e.g. if the USSR is the country id used for the supply event, then it won't fire when the USSR controls that resource.

I think one should suffice. If the German Decision Event has the resource as the FRIENDLY POSITION then that should cover it, as once the Axis have captured it the Germans will be presented with the option to repair it, and the SUPPLY script would only happen while the resource is in Axis hands.

Hi Rosseau! Thanks, and it's our pleasure to work on these games. Seeing the pleasure it gives you and others really does make it worthwhile! Bill

Could this not be done by offering Germany a Decision Event, which costs X MPPs, and if they say no then you use a SUPPLY event to keep that Soviet resource at strength zero for the rest of the time that it's in Axis hands?

Hi Each campaign has an Events folder which contains a file for each script type. These will provide more information about the timing and likelihood of events, so you may find it worthwhile to look through these. At the top of each file is some explanatory text which will help to understand them.

Civil War Generals? Yes, I loved it, and you're right, it did have those two modes.

Hi Terrier The Bulgarians do veer towards joining the war based on the capture of Belgrade and Nish in Serbia, but given their lack of success here the Central Powers could be investing in diplomacy as an alternative route to bringing them on board. The Romanians will consider entering the war in 1916 if the Russians have units at Klausenberg, Przemysl or Rovno. This can lead to quite sizeable leaps in Romanian mobilization, and coupled with some diplomacy should see them entering the war sometime in 1916. Hopefully not, as in one of my games recently, just after the Russians took a hammering! Bill

We only introduced it with the first patch whereas the manual was written just prior to release, so although we have made a few corrections to the manual since then, the new features like unit swapping and forced march won't be in there.

Hi Rabelesius You're right, bombers, Airships and RailGuns are the weapons to use here. The supply value of Towns in the main WWI campaigns is set to 5 and you're right in that it won't diminish by being cut off. However, this means that the maximum supply value of any troops lacking a HQ will be 5, and if their is a HQ present, 7. While the HQ will enable units to reinforce to full strength if their supply value is 6 or more, if the town wasn't cut off then it is quite likely that the HQ would have had a higher supply value, and as a result the units under their command would have supply values of 8-9. This makes some difference in the fighting ability of the troops, as although the maximum reinforceable paper strength of units at supply 6-7 might be identical to those at higher supply values, they won't actually fight as well. If you can destroy the HQ then the remainder of the cut off troops will become much, much easier to destroy. Even though HQs cannot attack, they really are the most important pieces in the game. Distance is an issue so if you go too far away then the HQs won't draw any supply at all. In this situation they will have a supply value of 5, consequently any units under their command will have a supply value of 4 or worse.

Hi Meteor2 Thanks for the report and this bug seems to be caused by selecting to display the National Morale Objectives on the map via the OPTIONS->ADVANCED dialog. If you have a saved turn from prior to this event then you should be able to continue, but make sure this option is turned off. I'd advise everyone to play with this option turned off at the moment, until we have the new patch out. Thanks Bill

Hi It might be the same problem as reported in another thread about supply problems in Africa. If your HQs are set to Manual, a temporary solution is to set them to Auto or Auto-Assist.

Hi Glabro I'm not convinced that not attacking in the west is really the best move, because passivity in the west will ensure that the French get to retain one or two mines (Briey and Loos) as well as the city of Lille. Between them these provide the French with a sizeable income. The Germans will be deprived of the economic benefit of these places, as well as of Brussels and the mine at Mons. In the long run the German economy will suffer a lot as a result, and even if Russia is taken down fairly early (though probably not in 1915 against a good player), not having secured a secure position in France early on while the French are weak will surely make a later advance into France that much harder? Bill

The Russians can normally be ousted fairly easily if you use some heavy artillery, stocking up your shells to give them a burst all at once. Once the Russians' entrenchment is at zero, your German infantry supported by good HQs like Hindenburg and Mackensen should be able to attack and destroy them. Another thing you can do is to buy Bombers and Airships, as with some research invested in them they can reduce the supply value of the resources the Russians are holding. Rail Guns can also do this, and they don't need any research. I am assuming that the Russians don't have HQs supporting them? If so then this will be harder, but generally the Germans have an advantage over the Russians as their troops are better.

The choice is available for us too, because most partisan locations will only affect supply rather than trigger actual Partisan units. I don't even attempt to police all the supply-only ones, it's not necessary except to ensure that your main supply lines remain open.

It would be possible to force the Germans to maintain forces at (say) Warsaw, but in my experience from many multiplayer games, it is already hard enough for the Central Powers to win so introducing any penalty here hasn't felt necessary and could be counter productive. It may be different against the Entente AI, but I would rather have consistent rules in all types of game, as much as possible.

Hi I think people have attacked them because they could, particularly in games against the AI when they felt confident that conquering the new countries would provide a quick buck. Hence the penalties introduced to discourage this.

Not in the sense of forcing the Central Powers to hold units in the east, but it has been made that any Central Powers' aggression towards the new countries formed will be penalised by Russian mobilization, and the Ukraine now provides grain supplies to Germany. Thus the Ukraine can be a potential target for Entente diplomacy.

From my own experience it's generally better to spread your subs a little, rarely using more than 2 on any single route. So, if you have 3 subs available and there are 3 targets, I would tend to place one on each. The reason being that there are diminishing returns the more subs are interdicting any one route.

Hi Having 4-5 units around an enemy held fortress will cause the garrison's morale to be reduced slightly. This is what is happening when the fortress is under siege, as the Siege events represent the interdiction of supply to the fortress. It won't be enough to make the fortress yours, but after a few turns the defender will be slightly easier to defeat, especially if you have some Heavy Artillery who can pound the target first. Bill

It's on pages 79-80 of the manual, under Strategy Maps, but with hindsight perhaps it should have had its own title and/or section to itself as it is one of the most important things you'll have to do in the game. Glad you found it and apologies for slowing down your games!

Hi It will only affect Axis supply, so the Allied player certainly doesn't need to worry about it. Bill

There's not much that can be done because the Iraqi government is very brittle and liable to surrender once the Allies approach Baghdad with two or more units.

Minors cannot ever declare war, so it would have been Italy declaring war on Abyssinia, and minors can only be at war if someone else attacks them.