hellraiser

"Either you're with us, or against us" --- President George W. Bush.' These are the exact words as used by the romanian fascist organization Iron Guard back in the 30s-40s. Or by the romanian communists after '45. It is an idiotic way to think about people and situations

It would have been 6 months, Liam. The red army after the advance past Iasi-Kishinew line had to face something far more tougher: the Carpathian mountains and from the Carpathians to the Black Sea, the Focsani - Namoloasa - Galati fortified line, considered one of the most powerful defensive positions left in Europe. The defection of Romania and the quick actions of romanian troops (as I mentioned before) rendered all those defensive barriers (on which the German HQs calculations were based) useless. @JJR -> 'Romanians sound like fair weather fans. ' It is the way we survived as a nation thru the centuries. Check again the geography and you'll notice we were in the middle of everything for thousand years. 'You can't be on both sides.' - this is an option for other people not for us - surrounded by enemies and lacking sufficient firepower, your main concern is to stay alive thus you gotta develop certain skillz - for example how to play one side against another in order for you to survive. Do not compare romania to UK or america for example, they have water between them and potential enemies. Having a moat outside your castle allows you to play proud and cocky

" have no detailed knowledge about the events in Italy and Romania, but would imagine that their armies switching side was of little military importance as well." Actually, Romania changing allegiance on 23th of August '44 had a major impact on the duration of the war. Not on the course of the war though. Historians widely agree that what happened in Romania on the 23th of August '44, shortened the war with approx. 6 months. The major implications were: created the largest open flank known in military history; denied Germany her last major oil supply. After losing the romanian oil, the mobility of the Wehrmacht dropped to like 20%. Some of the researchers even push it farther: they consider that by being 6 months short , Germany was never able complete the research and begin producing the A bomb. Maybe the move itself was not supposed to mean so much but due to the fast reacting of the romanian army who managed to seize the Carpathians passes before germans could seal them, it saved the soviets a great deal of time and manpower needed to break this natural barrier. Think that it would have been something like Montecassino but at a far larger scale. It is my opinion that Romania meant a lot for Germany. Perhaps even more than Italy. Certainly Finland meant something as well, tough troops, anticommunists but as an economic value, Romania was probably one of the most important Axis assets in Europe.

"working ww2 tactics" well, imo, this is one of the problems that causes so much sorrow If SC2 was actually a tactical game, you guys would've been right-but it is my guess that sc2 was never intended to accurately simulate tactical issues. Basically, if a unit kills another unit - this leaves your imagination to work - was it encircled? was it killed in a frontal assault? In SC2, you just kill stuff...on a strategical level. The game does not show how the actual killing was performed

very nice work Thrawn! The downside is that it takes quite some time for the AI to process everything...and I ain't running a slow machine But again, GJ, I enjoyed your mod a lot.

first of all, the axis player will most likely block the red baltic fleet near kronstadt port, pre barbarossa so he has the first strike after he dows ussr - so, red amphib invasion of Finland in turn 1 of barby works only if the axis player previously lost his ships or they are away.

or maybe ships move too many tiles?

I haven't got the chance to play a 1.05 H2H game yet, but while checking stuff in the new patch, I noticed the sub costs were lowered (germany can get them for 190 cash at zero tech). I wonder if any of you guys managed to do well using more subs as Axis (well, xcept for Rambo who is a well known sub freak ). Do the mass building of subs hamper severely the deployment vs Russia? Do they pay off ? Or coupled with bombers ? In fact the question may be put more straightforward - prioritizing the western front has more meaning now?

"Usually I try to get intelligence research up to max asap so that advances will come that much more quickly later in the game." This is an illusion Intel tech only helps you increase your chances in a particular field in which, the enemy is AHEAD of you.

we need randomness!!! otherwise I can't bitch and moan anymore about losing games due to bad tech luck

Sealion shouldn't be a problem unless you tried to defend heavily Egypt as well. UK will lose either the isle or Egypt - no way she can hold both of them. Obviously holding the isle has greater benefits - the D-Day can be supported with air - very important - and a landing in France threatens the key Axis objectives: Berlin, Munich. Abandoning the isle and focusing on Egypt may be dangerous since Axis will 100% go for Spain (either via diplomacy or war) so Gibraltar will fall sooner or later - then, the british resources in the Med will suffer from Gibraltar effect which is very very annoying. Surely, the UK can capture Syria and Iraq - good cash, and it doesn't upset the majors but it may prove risky in the long run. Against a Sealion, the defence is not that complicated. Use the bomber as spotter, set your air to 'ground' so you don't lose cash from unnecessary intercept missions. keep the RN close and use it to block potential landing sites - if he attacks your ships with air, that's good for you - he takes back damage and wastes airstrikes on irrelevant targets. Build the full complement of corps (not that hard), have them protect landing sites and some of them entrenched in the mountains near Manchester. VERY important - ALWAYS keep a battleship in the Chatham port! Even if London falls, the port remains allied controlled with a BB inside and he cannot ferry troops via regular transports. He will have to waste additional turns to destroy the BB in port - you just replace the damaged BB with another fresh one, if possible. If autumn or even winter kicks in, Axis will waste a lot more turns or even get defeated. Even if they capture the isle at this stage, it shouldn't matter much now - both majors' readiness percentage should be pretty high thus their production boosted significantly - very dark times for Axis

You can't do anything about it. The capturing of a minor country boosts your morale by a certain % and drops the enemy's one as well. Good thing is, this effect lasts 2-3 turns. Bad thing is (as the dev said, it will be corrected in the next patch) if you capture several minors during the same turn (or 1-2 turn difference) the morale skyrockets sometimes to values as high as 450 or even 550 (depending on the number of countries captured), making the attacking troops impervious to damage for several turns. In your case, my opinion is to continue the game - that 15% is by all means no game breaker and it will wear off pretty soon. If you want to avoid this morale stuff, agree with your opponent to DOW and capture 1 minor per 3 turns or something.

1. Currently, IT only makes sense for the Allies because it is applied only to national resources. Thus it makes no sense for Axis to invest in IT; Axis rely on conquests only for enlarging the mpp basis. That means balance. 2. At equal players' experience, it is very unlikely that Axis will hold every tile of the map for long. That's historical 3. To me, the game is pretty balanced so far - Axis have their shot early on, if they fail to get the upperhand, Allies' numbers will attrition and kill them. 4. If any adjustment are made in this respect, it may force the community to implement a bidding system (for getting the allies). 5. Conclusion - yes, the game plays pretty well H2H - for playing the AI (probably most people play the AI) adjustments are more than welcome IMO, to have a tougher game as Axis. Because, with all due respect to the game creator himself, playing as allies against the axis AI is not an option yet

If the opponent is 'very' good like you said, most likely you already lost If yo uwant to continue... 1. Get Spain - if you did not invest Italian diplo chits in Spain, do it now. If you get too unlucky, conquer them. Spain has to be yours. 2. Egypt - with the war with Russia imminent it can be very distracting. But you can still do it, at the expense of the effort in Russia. Egypt should have been yours a lot of turns ago. 3. Russia - nasty thing. I reckon your Axis is pretty weak so you won't be able to do much until, perhaps, summer 42. Get some border towns and watch out for counterratacks. General ideea is to enlarge your mpp basis, so as to be able to buy the required units. When USA will be in, the Allies will most likely outproduce you on a large scale (2:1 is an optimimst scenario) and if you won't be able to keep the initiative by attacking with overwhelming force in places of your choosing, you will lose.

'I hate starting again and again ...' Only 'again' is enough

Correction: Airfleets/Bombers need a minimum supply of 3 in order to be eligible for the 'operate' order.

"but of course they did allocate much more of it to the war effort, hence produced more useable weapons (tanks, guns, aircraft) with fewer resources." Yep, indeed. Believe it or not but the USSR had a better productivity that Germany. Less power, less steel used to produce a tank for example. And in 41-42, soviet tanks were far better than the german ones...well they lacked radio comm and xperienced crews, but still The reds were simply amazing during the war. Think that they were the key allied power, the western allies never faced more than 1/5 of the german Wehrmacht (perhaps xcept for the Ardennes Offensive). There is another thing that was crucial - soviet fighting spirit and resilience - very difficult to mod into a game -> maybe increased morale past a certain date? Or 1 xtra xp bar? I mean those features were as crucial as the war production, if not more.

Russia is protected by its own size, first of all. One reason of the failure of the blitzkrieg. But the times of Napoleon were so politically different than the WW2 era. During the '41 campaign, IMHO the capture of Moscow would have dealt a crippling blow not necessarily to 'Russia' but to the communist regime in the first place. Think that russians hated their leaders and regime, they were kept under a heavy boot- gulags, killings, all the cool stuff that comes along with a dictatorship. With the 'stand fast' order issued by Stalin after the famous Politburo meeting, where unanimously, the members agreed to defend Moscow, it was very clear for all russians: if Moscow fell, Stalin's credibility as well as the communist party's credibility would have gone down. In a country so racially mixed, a lot of nations kept together, sometimes against common sense, the civil revolt can errupt without warning especially if it is fuelled by an external factor (Germany). Think that Stalin was aware of this sensitive issue : the mobilization of the russians came after he told the people that they were fighting for 'Mother Russia' not for the communist regime - fuelling their patriotic feelings instead of strenghtening their 'political' support. Strategically, the capture of Moscow would have severed the link between the russian fronts plus would have destroyed a lot of factories, vital for the russian war effort - not everything was dismantled and moved to Urals... Hitler's view about the strategy to be employed vs Russia was very correct: do not attempt to conquer acre after acre but instead go for the vital objectives in a speedy thrust, destroying russia's neural centers. But this was only a nice theory - General Oberst Halder's plan was to advance on 3 directions, picking the final objectives later, after assessing the progress of each offensive effort. Thinking to blitz Russia was also a big mistake - Russia cannot be blitzed because of its size - some more logistic build up would have been necessary in order to support the main offensive actions towards the desired objectives. Going for the concentration of red troops (the famous encirclement battles) instead of pushing to the vital objectives, switching armoured units from one direction to another were also very bad decisions. IMO, with Leningrad and Moscow conquered before 1942, the situation in Russia could have been extremely complicated. With the communist regime shaken, mutiny all over the place, morale of red troops at its lowest level, strong support of locals (especially ukrainians, baltic people, even russians)...very difficult to tell a clear outcome especially when you think that the western allies were just starting mobilizing.

Well, if you reach the 'MPP counting' stage too soon, Germany has already lost the war. Like in reality, it is the axis' strategy that wins or loses not necessarily only the MPPs. It is the Allies' best interest to drag Germany in an attrition war, a war that Germany can never hope to win. @Blashy - interesting ideeas you got for your mod. I am curious if you can implement the allied production boost to begin with a certain year - say 1943. Historically, until spring-summer of '43, the germans were more or less able to pick the spots where to fight i.e. they kept the initiative. This happened while being outproduced for 2 full years already, so there were not only the mpps that mattered. Several big strategical and even tactical bad decisions plagued the german thrust into Russia which, IMHO, had a far bigger impact than MPPs could ever had. IMO, the game should give the Axis the chance to change what in RL was done wrongly. Should I leave an entire army group encircled at Stalingrad just because Adolf did it ? Or, should I attack against the most powerful defence the Universe had ever seen (Kursk, 1943) despite being informed about the strength of the defence? Just because it happened historically? Why shouldn't I transport more troops to Africa and deprive the UK of the valuable middle east ressources and possibly open Caucasus up for a strike? Only because Adolf failed to see the importance of this move? No, IMO, I would like to be able to change something. For example you could divide the game into something like: 'Axis years: 39-42 or possibly the beggining of 43) and 'Allied years'. If the game reaches the 'Allied years' stage, any Axis player should know that he cannot obtain a major victory and prepare the defence to deny the Allied player the victory. IRL, it was possible for Germany at this stage to defend and try to obtain an acceptable peace but the prerequisite was to give up a lot of land and organize the proper defence of the important spots. So, Allied production should receive a huge boost after winter 42 or spring 43 - perhaps this can be simulated by placing many units in the queue. It keeps the game interesting: failing to achieve a major victory in the 'Axis years' the Axis player now has to prove skilled in the defence and at least try to obtain a stalemate. I think these ideeas simulate pretty well the huge economical edge the Allied powers had during the war. Their problem was not the cash early on, but the lack of experience on how to put that cash to good use. Their troops were numerous but weak and poorly trained, their military doctrines outdated. OTOH, by 1943, they grew up a lot. Not only their economy was fully in war-mode but their troops were better and doctrines had evolved. (think that the Red Army learned a lot from their german aggressors and applied the blitzkrieg principles as well as the deep battle concepts, extremely effective). Maybe it is better than simply reduce the unit costs and/or bump ressources' values. It makes for quite a historical game - Axis years with german superiority in doctrine, morale and training and Allied years with evenly matched doctrines but with a huge war production and manpower edge.

It was possible some versions ago. Now, if Axis set foot in USA/Canada, the US home guard arrives plus USSR readiness goes up significantly. Against a half decent human opponent, I guess it would be a big mistake.

The loss of Moscow would probably have dealt a serious blow to Stalin's iron grip of the country. Russian morale would have gone down for sure, at least for a certain period. No propaganda program can sweeten the pill - the 'stand fast' order issued for defending Moscow as well as several hundreds (thousands) of trenches built by the civilian population were way too visible. Every russian knew Moscow HAD to be defended.

and there are a lot more allied freebies - just check the '39 campaign scripts

Leave as it is but force transports to either unload or wait - no transports popping near Alexandria and sailing and capturing Tobruk or Athens or whatever during the same turn (dunno if it is possible but this is they way that I see it and it pretty much achieves a compromise between the 2 opposite opinions).

@ HvS -> read what Yoda said. You will understand why i am not sure of the outcome. Add to that the fact that IR is a veteran, and one of the best around and you will see that not everything is pink for the allies in our game Think that the winter is coming - that means a breather for both sides and preparation for action. But the game was wild indeed - pretty much like my last finished game vs Terif, that's why I bothered for an AAR, the game deserves that

Blashy, as I was saying, you have a solid point of view as well. What we have to do here is try to find things that keep the balance or if something is not balanced, adjust it. The only other option for the western allies in the Med is Casablanca. But with Gibraltar Axis held, you land in Casablanca, most likely take it along with Tangiers and remain there for eternity. The distance to Algiers would hamper supply so badly that only a handful of Axis' forces can defend the area. Another option is in the east for Russia - DOW iran/iraq if you're lucky and Axis DOW on Syria or diplo in Iraq were not succesful in bringing in Iraq. If Axis entrench in the iranian mountains bordering Russia, you can kiss mid east good bye as allies. Ok, you can DOW Turkey but the risk of losing the game is way too high this way. So, not allowing Suez invasion, kinda secures an entire Axis' flank, like in SC1. Indeed transports popping near Alexandria is kinda gay but we need to see if this questionable strategy helps or breaks the game. TBH, I don't like it either as is quite far fetched, in RL terms. But I am not sure if removing this option, adds to the playbalance. Let's just gather some more thoughts on this issue - I would like some more players to post their opinions as well. To me, v 1.04 is really playable H2H, Suez or no Suez. Let's just not rush something that could be changed in the next patch, without testing it properly first. Maybe there is a counterstrategy to this, yet to be revealed.