TaoJah

Yes, sorry about that. I was never good with names, I don't even know the names of the cities that I took to get there. Oh, well.

It was rainy this afternoon, so I finished the game that I mentioned in an earlier post above and I can confirm what I feared then : the AI in Russia is the same as before. I had a mayot victory in 1942 (despite the fact that I played with the house rule that I wouldn't attack Russia from Turkey). He stills pours endless money repairing the cruiser near Finland while there are two units next to it attacking, operating units back and forth from one city to the other, not defending Stalingrad properly after it becomes the capital, attacking minor units instead of the Germans ones... I can't comment on a D-Day because the game was over before it could ever happen. So, I guess it's better to wait for the next AI patch then to play now and loose your appetite for the game. [ September 02, 2006, 07:37 PM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

I am looking forward to it, this game can grow into a top-rated game with a good AI !

<nods> Thanks for clearing that up. I got to check out what this means for my theory that it's better to take elite upgrades and attack then not take them, as posted above. If the game changes the morale after my turn and again after his turn, that may or may not change the theory. We live to learn [ August 30, 2006, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

You mean wait for extra armies ? I never buy extra armies or tanks : I end the game with the 5 armies that you start (together with the two tanks and three airplanes). That are enough troops IMHO. You got to put your money in research, always have it at the full 750, not in extra armies. The only things I buy are several corps (to garrison cities) but my only attacking force consist of the two HQ's and the 10 units to start with. Needless to say, they collect ALOT ALOT ALOT of experience on the way. To answer your question : if you really, really, really want to take Malta, do it and attack Russia when the airplanes are done in Malta. But I advice against taking Malta, it will take like 5 turns and it's just a waste of time.

So twice ? Weird, weird...

True, true. I was just pointing out the effect of STR and SPL on one unit at a given time, not over a series of time. Obviously, when you want to make a time-series, you got to change the Old Morale, like I did in option 1 and 2 of my first post. By the way : when is your morale calculated ? At the beginning of your turn or at the end of your turn ? Or is it calculated twice ? [ August 28, 2006, 01:13 AM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

True, true. I was just pointing out the effect of STR and SPL on one unit at a given time, not over a series of time. Obviously, when you want to make a time-series, you got to change the Old Morale.

Yes, that's all pretty annoying that you can't use the ports that you can attack. Just like it is annoying that the northern UK port doesn't change ownership when you move a unit next to it when there is a ship in it and then the ship moves out. You got to move a unit next to it when it's empty, wich is not as easy with all the mountains there... I do know that the last screenshot is know : the Zone Of Control does not go over that little lake in Russia, it's the only place where it happens I think. By the way, how do you put pictures in your post ?

If you won against the AI so far, then you'll win against this one too. So far I didn't see any changes in the AI. I only played until the summer of 1940 so I can't really comment on Russia or D-Day, but I got a bad feeling about about them : if the AI of France and the UK didn't change... Sorry, hehe, that was a copy/paste from Poland that I forgot to change it I corrected it to the correct turn and date : after turn 6 3/12/1939.

I started my first game and so far nothing important has changed with the AI. The only change that I see is that the range amphibious transports is one less then before. This has absolutely no effect on Sealion (I still took London in juni 1940 on the first turn of a Sealion). You just can't take Denmark in turn 2 anymore (but in turn 3) and the trip from Denmark to Iceland takes alot longer, but that's about all the changes I saw so far. - He still does a terrible job at defending Poland (I got a hilarious screenshot of his troops after his first turn, it's sad to see how he doesn't move one single Polish unit towards the defend of his capital. - He stills "defends" Paris with his HQ... - He still considers his air force as front troops (I could only check this so far in the UK, but I guess it will be the same in Russia). - He still attacks the submarines and cruisers instead of the amphibious ships when I do a Sealion. - He still looses his BEF in France instead of using it to defend London. So, no real chances in my warpath so far : The Army Force transports to the Benelux in the first turn and then takes... - Benelux surrendered after turn 2 on 24/9/1939. - France surrendered after turn 5 on 3/12/1939. - Sealion and take London in turn 12 on 30/6/1940. - Take Manchester (busy). - Spain (todo). - Portugal (todo). - Moscow (todo). The Tiny Force takes... - Denmark surrendered after turn 3 on 22/10/1939. - Iceland (busy). - Ireland (todo, but this will probably be done by another unit, the amphibious transport from Iceland would take too long). The Mixed Force takes... - Poland surrendered after turn 3 on 22/10/1939. - Norway surrendered after turn 11 on 10/6/140 - Sweden surrendered after turn 14 on 28/7/1940. - Egypt (preparing). - Stalingrad ==> Mayor victory ! The Air Force... - helped taking Denmark. - helped taking France. - helped taking London. - is now helping to take Manchester. - will help taking Egypt. - will help taking Russia. So far I lost one unit : a German Airplane that got killed by the Royal Navy after I moved it to a coast field in the UK like some newbie would do <grumbles to himself>. I am not sure if I will continue playing, so far the AI has the same flaws, so it's not worth the trouble. Perhaps I'll be in an optimitic mood and convince myself that Russia will be fixed and that there is actually a <gasp> D-Day. Perhaps. [ August 27, 2006, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

IMHO damage to a transporter that carries an army should be less then to a transporter that carries a corps. An army is transefer in -say- 200 ships, a corps in -say- 50. So if a BS can sink -say- 30 ships, it should only reduce the army transporter to 7 and the corps transporter to 4. However, I do think it's wrong that HQ are seperate transporters, they should be in the transporter as an army and always survive until last. Generals don't take transporters in real, so they should not be killed in them in the game.

I just downloaded the patch and was gonne start my first game. I'll play as Axis, all difficulty setting maxed, hard build limits. My plan is to do the same as before : on the first turn, divide my force in three : Big Force , Small Force and, euh... Single Force (this is just one corps, but it makes it sound important, hehe). The Big Force transports to the Benelux in the first turn and then takes... - Benelux. - France. - Sealion. - Spain. - Portugal. - Moscow. The Tiny Force takes... - Denmark. - Iceland. - Ireland. The Small Force takes... - Poland. - Norway. - Sweden. - Egypt. - Stalingrad ==> Mayor victory ! From the beginning all my money goes to researching Advanced Infantry and extra German corpses. Whan I get Advanced Infantry 3, I divide over Advanced airforce, Production and Industry (I think these are it, the one that lower the costs of units and the one that gives more MPP, I always got to check the manual, lol). I garrison the UK and defend the border with Russia with all the German corpses. With the Italian I buy an engineer ASAP and fortify a line that goes straight north from Warshaw, to help defend against Russia, because they'll attack before my forces are there to fight Russia. With the Italians I garrison the Norway ports, France, Spain and Portugal. I don't fight with the Italians AT ALL, they're just used to garrison. That's the plan, we'll see how it turns out... In a more advanced war path, I also go to Turkey, Greece, Syria, Irak, Algiers, Tunis, Swiss, Iran, but I won't do that the first time : I want to attack Russia ASAP after UK surrendered so I get my mayor victory. [ August 27, 2006, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

I4d settle for a decent D-Day. Preferably after a Sealion, but a good one without Sealion would already be a good first step. The only point in your list that I think is important is "Allow "later move and fire" so units don't lose their action points if you accidentally right click away from them. (Very frustrating)", that is indeed very, very, very frustrating.

The question I always ask is this : what if Hitler would have stopped in France, Norway and eastern Europe ? If he never bombed the UK or attacked the USSR ? Do you think that the UK would have attacked ? The USSR ? The US ? I'd say no, no and certainly not. Then, Hitler would "have won". Of course, another question is, would Hitler stay in power if he would stop expanding The Reich ? That is another question.

I wouldn't state it in such absolute terms, but I indeed wonder what would have happened if the Germans would have stopped after the low countries, France and some of Eastern Europe. I am not so sure that the UK and the US would have attacked Germany. The BEF was indeed sned to France, but even that took ALOT of debate in the UK at the time. They had a treaty to defend the Low Countries, but they never did. There is indeed a big chance that neither the UK, US or USSR would have attacked Germany. But the question is this : how long would Hitler be satisfied with "just" Benelux, France and parts of Eastern Europe ? Did he need an expansive conquest to ensure support from the German population ? I don't know. I think sooner or later he would have attacked the UK or the USSR and that would have been the end of it.

Moving the capital to Canada is IMHO too nice towards the Allied. That would mean that the British navy keeps on fighting after you took the British main land and Egypt, which isn't very realistic. The move to Egypt was already debatable, moving it to Canada after that is too much. I would however like to see that Malta becomes independant after the UK surrenders. And perhaps even make Gibraltar independant too. Canada's points should go to the US then. And yes, there should be some sanction for the Axis taking Ireland and the morale of that Bomber should indeed made go down.

Euh, say that again ? Two of the most important factors in the game are "what if" : weather and research. Mind you, I don't like these factors to be randomized and I don't like what-if chances, but your argument doesn't hold. More to the point : I don't want to put these what-ifs chances in the game, I'd like to totally get rid of randomness in weather, research, diplomacy, supply breaking Malta or Partisans, readiness jumps... The reason is that bad luck breaks your game totally. With bad weather, you can forget about invading France early and do Sealion. With bad luck at Malta, you can loose units in north Africa. With bad luck in research, you loose without even a chance of winning. I am even against randomness in indivdual fights (just give the results as shown in the estimates), but I can live with that because there are like 1500 fights in a game. Bad luck in a few of them cancels out with the good luck in others. But this is not the case with weather, that only matters in 25 turns or so (the 5 turns just before winter) : if you have bad luck at those, you're set back half a year. Same with Malta : only the 10 turns that you are attacking Egypt count, if you have bad luck there, you loose like 2-3 units. Same with research : if he gets Advanced Infantry to level 3 while you are at level 1 for 15 turns or so, the game is over. Those numbers are too small, so luck plays an important factor.

That's indeed odd. But to have this happen, the unit has got to be at a strength lower then 3/4th the moral. That's kinda hard to do in the game since moral falls if STR lowers. Besides, the effects aren't that big as these numbers show... (old morale always 80) Old Morale = 80, STR 5, SPL 10 gives 52 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 5, SPL 9 gives 52.8 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 5, SPL 8 gives 53.6 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 5, SPL 7 gives 54.4 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 4, SPL 10 gives 44 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 4, SPL 9 gives 45.6 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 4, SPL 8 gives 47.2 new morale Old Morale = 80, STR 4, SPL 7 gives 48.8 new morale Weird, indeed, but not game-breaking IMHO. [ August 28, 2006, 01:11 AM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

If this is your only contribution to this topic, then perhaps these forums aren't for you. Go to www.flame.me or something. To the OP : the manual is indeed wrong, you got to multiply STR with 10 in the formula as you said. - - - - - - - - - - - Normal Strength units - - - - - - - - - - - These are the results for a unit with old morale at 80 (feel free to correct any errors I made). Old Morale = 80, STR = 10 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 92 (+ 15%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 10 & SPL = 9 gives new morale 88,8 (+ 11%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 10 & SPL = 8 gives new morale 85,6 (+ 7%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 10 & SPL = 7 gives new morale 82,4 (+ 3%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 10 & SPL = 6 gives new morale 79,4 (- 1%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 9 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 84 (+ 5%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 8 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 76 (- 5%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 9 & SPL = 9 gives new morale 81,6 (+ 2%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 9 & SPL = 8 gives new morale 79,2 (- 1%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 8 & SPL = 9 gives new morale 74,4 (- 7%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 8 & SPL = 8 gives new morale 72,8 (- 9%) So... As you can see, this means that is impossible to to improve morale with STR 8 or lower. This is why I go to great lenghts to keep my units at STR 9 or higher. Silly ? I don't know... Note that the loss in morale with STR 8 isn't THAT big either, -5% with SPL 10, -7% with SPL 9. - - - - - - - - - - - Elite reinforcements. - - - - - - - - - - - It's intresting to see that this firmula gives nice straight results for a unit with STR 11. Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 100 (+ 25%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 9 gives new morale 96 (+ 20%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 8 gives new morale 92 (+ 15%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 7 gives new morale 88 (+ 10%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 6 gives new morale 84 (+ 5%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 5 gives new morale 80 (+ 0%) Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 4 gives new morale 76 (- 5%) Say you got a tank with morale 80, SPL 10 and you can pick between two options : attack now or give elite reinforcements and attack the next turn. Let's say in both cases you lose one point of STR with every attack. Option 1. Turn 1 : attack a unit. At the start of turn 2 : Old Morale = 80, STR = 9 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 84. At the start of turn 3 : Old Morale = 84, STR = 8 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 77.28. At the start of turn 4 : Old Morale = 77.28, STR = 7 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 67.26. At the start of turn 5 : Old Morale = 67.25, STR = 6 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 63,59. At the start of turn 6 : Old Morale = 63.59, STR = 5 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 49,15. This means you can attack 5 times in a row (turn 1 to turn 5), before your morale drops under the 50% line. Option 2. Turn 1 : strengthen to 11. At the start of turn 2 : Old Morale = 80, STR = 11 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 100. At the start of turn 3 : Old Morale = 100, STR = 10 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 100. At the start of turn 4 : Old Morale = 100, STR = 9 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 90. At the start of turn 5 : Old Morale = 90, STR = 8 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 78,75. At the start of turn 6 : Old Morale = 78,75, STR = 7 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 67,67. At the start of turn 7 : Old Morale = 67.67, STR = 6 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 57,01. At the start of turn 8 : Old Morale = 57.01, STR = 6 & SPL = 10 gives new morale 46,88. This means you can attack 6 times in a row (turn 2 to turn 7), before your morale drops under the 50% line. So... As you can see, with one turn in elite reinforcements, you can do one more attack before your morale drops too low AND those 6 attacks will do ALOT more damage then the attacks of the first option. This is why I try to get elite reinforcements as soon as I can get them : you lose a turn at the start of your offence, but that is neutralised by the fact that you gain TWO extra attack turns at the end of your offence, before you got to restrength. [ August 28, 2006, 01:11 AM: Message edited by: TaoJah ]

Well, I don't like what they did with the map in Rome: Total War either I prefered it when you could invade province by province, not attacking endless stacks everywhere. Oh and... Egypt For The Win !!!

Several old board games have them too, not just Clash of Steel. IMHO they're not needed in this game, because your readiness and morale do not drop to zero once you landed somewhere with supply zero, they only go down gradually. And a Mulberry won't help you alot : if you can not take a city in two-three turns, your D-Day failed anyway.

Thanks for this info... Do units that are out of supply (as in supply 0) help against partisans ? Because I could swear that I had partisans next to the paratroopers that I dropped near Leningrad to get Finland to join. The paratroopers are totally out of supply there until I take Leningrad.

I use them as Allied in my war path against the AI where I use my main army to conquer the all countries with my main army (UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Africa, Greece, Middle East, Swiss, Scandinavia,...). This makes the USSR come into play alot sooner, while I am still out there fighting with my main army. So I got to defend against the USSR invasion with a bunch of German level 3 corps. I use an Italian engineer to make 4 fortifications from that river on the German-USSR border down to Warshaw. They never break that fortified line, even with the Siberian reserve. Against a human player, they're all but worthless, because the airforce destroys all the entrenchements anyway. The 1.03 patch should change this, when all units get 3 entrenchement at the start of every turn when inside a fortification.

Nice tips ! I like people that posts things like this, you can always learn something. For the french defence : I like to put corps on the Maginot if I can : if an army is at entrench 0 anyway, putting a corps in it's place will reduce the cost of strengthening it AND it will replace a unit with a low moral with one with high moral. Against the AI, I sometimes move ALL my units to France, the UK's from Egypt, the Candain, the UK's from the mainland... I can hold France against the AI on the max difficulty setting that way. That said, you can not prevent a dedicated player to break trough the Maginot : he can hit it with 3 AF's, 3 armies in the front row AND three armies/corps/panzer rotating in : in one turn or the other, that will kill any unit there.