Hyazinth von Strachwitz

Just received a mail from them today.. they say it`s gonna be published within the next few days. Rgds

Anyone in?

Much appreciated.. I`m patient.

I´ll do as you suggest. Thank you

Dear Sirs, yesterday I finished a game against the AI as Axis on 100%/+0. Over all I enjoyed the game, but I have a few remarks.. and one or two suggestions. I`d be happy if the developer would read and comment these.. I think that`s DesertDave, right? (1) Artillery damage model The Arty model is somewhat strange. I had it quite often that my Arty took damage while the target didn`t take damage.. I think this doesn`t make any sense at all. Arty should not take any damage. It happened vice versa as well.. UK Arty shot on my Recon unit, and the Arty took damage, but not the Recon unit. (1a) Coastal bombardments A ship shoots upon infantry troops. The troops don`t take damage, but the ship does. Nonsense. (2) Tobruk conquered by Axis In reality the DAK found massive amounts of fuel and other supplies which enabled Rommel to go for Tobruk. The DAK was very close to be scattered in 06/42, and basically they were creeping on their teeth as they took Tobruk. They barely needed all supplies they found there, and without taking it they would have to go back the long way to Tripolis. One recommendation to implement that is to create a script that Germany gets a few hundred MPP to refresh its troops once they take Tobruk... and to maintain game balance I would give Germany less forces in the beginning to make the conquest more difficult. (3) UK forces after Tobruk Once Tobruk falls, the UK forces are in total mayhem, and it is easy to kick their butts the whole way to Alexandria. I would love a script to gather forces around the El Alamein defense line... at the moment it is very easy to slip through the unmanned lines and surround the city. (4) Random model for new units I remeber that DD once mentioned that he implemented a random model for new units in the scenario. I know that this should bring more variety into the game, but I dislike it.. for me it`s too much playing dices. I would like to see a more historical timeframe. Apart from that: the map is very good, and I like the unit names. Rgds

Any news on the german patch? I just checked the website of Kalypso, and it`s not yet on.. and even the link to patch 1.01 has disappeared. Very good support from Hubert and Battlefront, but Kalypso cannot keep pace with them

Yes, there is a random chance.. I think it is 3% per remaining unit in the field. It is to avoid that someone simply takes an undefended capital with all other forces still intact..

(1) Paras brings them in a city with an attached ports. Then ship them back to Germany. (2) Damaged ports They repair automatically with a speed of 10% efficiency (=1 point) per turn (3) Malta Malta is tricky. If you want it early in the war, you need to do a lot of things. At first you need all the italian ships to group around Malta and lower the supply level of the island AND THE ATTACHED PORT to zero (you can you the german and italian bomber as well, if you need the ships elsewhere; combining them all helps, but unit will take damage!). Once you bombed both down to zero, it starts with supply 1 next turn and can only reinforce the corps to 4. You need to have all Airfleets and esp. the Tac bomber down there.. and the german Strat Bomber, which will help a lot (you get it in 07/40). Once you killed the corps, you need to amphib the empty island. Usually the plan is: lower supply level and de-entrench in the first turn, continue bombing in the second turn damage the unit to a strength of 4 or lower (killing it in that turn already is fine but difficult), and in the third turn finish it off.. then amphib in.

I need to admit that I`m a total MP noob.. but why not? I think I`ll learn a lot.. The only problem with me is to find time.. I think friday evening might work.. since you live "european hours" as well, it might be possible.. I would prefer TCP/IP, and it might occur that you have to help me a bit..

@ JerseyJohn: Basically Hitler wanted the Russians to join, but (as you say) the Russians wanted to much territorial gains for themselves. You mentioned that Norway/Finnland issue.. I read about that as well. But after what I read the Russians wanted even more. There is a northeastern part of Romania (today Moldawia) called Bessarabia, and they wanted that as well (funny enough they wanted it since quite a long time.. the Crimean War started also due to a territory quarrel about that area). But giving it to the Russians means giving them access to Ploesti, and Ploesti was VITAL vor Germany (that the USA bombed to it to dust in 1943 was a severe blow for Germany, because they could not create the high-octane fuel for the fighters from coal in the same way as it can be created from oil). So there were no negotiations possible about that. AFAIK these negotiations ended in late Autumn 1940. Hitler gave orders to create a plan for Barbarossa in July 1940, but he officially gave to order to prepare for the campaign in Dec 1940.. so just a few weeks after the negotiations ended. What you say about Hitler`s view on England: keeping in mind that he had racist view on people, he regarded the english people as kind of brothers.. the english kings come from Hanover (Lower Saxony), and guess who was Emperor Wilhelm II.`s Grandma? Right, it was Queen Victoria, also known as the Empress of India And I wonder why he just thought the english are our brothers.. the Germany and France have been one empire for a few hundred years, but noone would regard the french as our brothers Quite a few historians say that the evacuation of the B.E.F. from Dunkerque was allowed and wanted from Hitler to enable the UK to keep its face and enter peace negotiations afterwards (but the underestimated Churchill`s iron will; obviously he did that mistake quite a few times, right?) Churchill`s famous "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" was held on the 4th of June 1940, directly after Dunkerque ended. By that time the english population didn`t want to fight, they wanted peace.. but Churcill didn`t let them. I`m damn sure that just without one of these two people the world would look different today.. What you write about the "sensible occupation policy" in the east: yes, that should mean NO more partisans in the USSR, but I think that is an issue for SC4 or SC5. But there could be even more: efficiency of the cities and esp. the two mines should be at 80% instead of 50%! Honestly I dislike attacking Russia in SC2, because the risk/reward relationship is not what I prefer.. but the game is done in a way that you have to deal with Russia. When I play the AI, I usually play VERY defensive in the east until I achieved everything else... and until then usually the Russians bleed themselves white. I usually play on 100%/+2, and if you see the red hoardes trying to storm Warsaw with 40+ units, it`s good fun.. usually they have so many units that they step on each others feet. Anyway: very nice discussion.. and I`m happy that some of the people who usually kill every good discussion haven`t yet discovered the thread.. writing is much easier when one can have a strictly focused-on-the-topic discussion and don`t have to deal whith wise comments like "if you can read, thank God and Uncle Sam for it!", if you know what I mean But I think we`re a bit of the track, I wanted to discuss Kuniworth´s marvellous Scenario. And one interesting thing about this Scenario (and why I like it): it`s more like plain Vanilla SC2 than WaW.. I carefully read what Terif wrote about Waw and why he doesn`t like it, and I begin to understand that he`s right. Almost every Fall Weiß game I played develops in the same way (research Tac Bombers, get experience and whack Russians until they´re bled white, research U-Boats and sink the whole Royal Navy, then drive along the english channel in Lvl 5 strength 15 U-Boats with the crew having a party because the Allied planes cannot hurt them anyway), and it has certain similarities of trench warfare with completely rigid fronts. I loved playing in North Africa and the Middle East, but it is no fun anymore because everything takes ages down there.. which is ridiculous, because when you see Rommels advance in 1941 and after the fall of Tobruk, these were some of the quickest advances ever. Once I leave Amman to the east to conquer Irak, Iran and Saudi Arabia, I should tell all the soldiers in that Army group to shag their wives one last time, and they`ll see their sons being able to walk when they come back... IT TAKES AGES!! Of course there is Arty and AA in this Scenario, but to me it feels more like Plain Vanilla SC2. What do you think?

@ JerseyJohn: agreed 100%. In my eyes there was just one person between Mr. Hitler and total domination of Europe: Mr. Stalin and his iron will. Of course he had no other choice, but other people would have surrendered.. or something else. But Stalin better liked to kill 20 Million of his own people instead of even thinking about it... and I`m pretty sure that this is the most important fact when looking at the russian theater. And of course there is one things not to forget: I´m 100% sure Russia would have collapsed without the MASSIVE economic help from the US and UK, and this was also not foreseeable. But better german intelligence would have solved that matter even better.. I wonder how the world would have developed without the attack in June 41.. just imagine you play SC2 and russians don`t join the allies in late 41.. what would you do? Take North Africa and the Middle East? Not a problem, when you send two full armies down there. Rommel had 100k german soldiers in front of El Alamein, just imagine what they would have done with 2 full Armies.. first take Gibraltar and don`t care for old Franco (if he doesn`t allow it, sack him and take whole Spain which brings you more ports), then send german U-Boats to the Med and kill all supply convoys for Malta, finally take Malta, then wipe out all UK forces in the Med.. it`s like kicking ducklings.... and you get the whole oil. Bring a few minors in like Irak and so on.. having Spain and full oil supply you`ll have a nice fortress Europe.. without the need to have 2/3 of the Wehrmacht being deployed in the East, no D-Day is possible... and with all the Jagdgeschwader guarding the Reich, no bombing of german cities would occur. You know what I mean

@ JerseyJohn: I did expect that this scenario was very difficult to balance. I remember that I read a thread about the early stages of the secnario and a major tank battle at Mogilev were the russian tanks destroyed many german tanks units early in the war.. game over in that case. So what I want to say is: obviously the scenario has already a very long way behind itself, and everything what should be tweaked is just smallish now. Concerning what you say about the general path of the war Hitler`s plans I have two comments. As Hitler gave the orders to attack Russia, the High command wanted a quick campaign (with fully equipped and supplied forces to minimize losses) to destroy all russian units and force a quick surrender. Hitler changed these plans, because he wanted a more economic war (he changed his path a couple of times later!), that means gaining ressources.. so he made the whole plan bigger, but there were not enough ressources for that plan. Almost everyone in the High command knew that the german ressources where not enough to conquer and occupy Russia, to what they wanted was a quick and decisive victory. The german Secret Service was quite poor by that time, because they expected the european part of the russian forces to be around 200 Divisions in total (they destroyed more than that until the start of Unternehmen Taifun late 41), but the russians had way more. And the biggest strategic mistake was their misjudgement on russian willingness to survive. Every western democracy would surrender after loosing a few million soldiers, but the russians didn`t.. they were fighting for their existence. Simply take Byelorussia, the Baltic and the Ukraine and then go for peace negotiations doesn`t work when you tell the other side that you plan to wipe it out completely in your book.. and the treatment of the people in the occupied territories was another even worse mistake. The whole plan was wrong, because it based on the idea of a quick surrender... and I think the russians wouldn`t have surrendered even in case of loosing Moscow. The only alternative would have been to attack and take all objectives until September or October and then stop and regroup... and start negotiating. With the industrial power of the Ukraine under control Germany would have been way stronger (lots of steel and coal, and the germans were experts in creating fuel out of coal) than before. But the last final attack on Moscow was very costly, because they lost many experienced units there.. which were on poor supply levels. So what I want to say is: the whole plan was wrong, and Stalin`s will to sacrifice another few Million soldiers finally doomed it. What you say about your wish to play a historically reliable Eastern Front Secnario with your ideal wars path: then you need another engine. SC2 puts two much weight on land links.. the supply routes between Germany and Finnland worked pretty well even without a land link, because the russian fleet was trapped around Leningrad (german engineers created a huge minefield not far away from Kronstadt so no Naval unit came out until early 1944), but this cannot be modeled in SC2. Therefore Leningrad in SC2 is way more important than it was in reality. Basically I think that Army Group North could have taken Leningrad if they just wanted to, but they decided that it`s just not worth the necessary ressources so they simply let the city die... or tried it. So your wish won`t work unless SC3 is approaching

Okay... good response. Here`s my opinion in Detail. - Stalingrad Not quite sure... in reality Astrachan is sligtly more in the south than Rostov.. and Stalingrad is a bit more in the North, but more in the south than Kharkov or Kiwev, it`s about on the same height as Dnjeprpetrovsk. I think if you adjust it slightly southwards, it`s fine. The way from Voronezh and Kharkov to Stalingrad is a bit longer than from Stalingrad to Astrachan or Rostov. If you just have a look in a normal Map again (I`m sure you did that thousands of times already!), you´ll see what I mean. - Missing Tac Bomber and AT understood and accepted - Exp Bars Understood. I`d be happy with 2 or 3... this increases combat values already. And it gives some kind of reality, because esp. some of the german units were really vereran... JG 52 scored 11.000 air victories during the war. I`ll be happy with anything you decide unless it`s not one. - Tech cost High tech cost is fine and I would leave it that way. I think it is just wiser to increase the price for heavy tanks to i.e. 1500 and lower the price for ASW or similar useless stuff to 750 or 500... what I mean is: make important stuff expensive and useless stuff cheap. I fully understand that mighty german or russian tanks are a problem and Lvl 4 or 5 would cause havoc in the game balance. One solution could be to lower then values for Lvl 0 tanks and then allow to reserach a higher Lvl.. this shouldn`t hurt the balance I think. - Russian Tank pop ups and Partisans I`m fine with the current model.. just wanted to know what the reason behind is. Rgds

@ PowerGmbh: Fully agreed. At the moment there are 3 possible upgrade slots per unit, and if Hubert designs a different engine with more slots (4 or 5), he can easily achieve what you mean. Example Tac Bombers: they have three slots for upgrades, one for Anti-Tank (which kills infantry better, what nonsense), one for long range and one for anti-ship. Basically it would make more sense if this unit has 4 or 5 slots: long range, anti-ship, anti-tank and anti-infantry (in that case that means all none-armored units, i.e. Arty & HQ). I think the new engine will be the most important issue in SC3. Once upon a time I suggested to Hubert that the player can "create" his own units.. the normal standard corps comes with 3 infantry divisions and one Support/Maintenance brigade. The player can attach Tank Hunter Brigades, AA Brigades, Arty support, Pioneer Battailon (entreches quicker) and whatever else we can imagine. For those player who think it`s too much micro management: they can use archetype units.. The combat values of the Corps itself results from all the extensions the player buys.. and to make it more realistic, you need to produce the extension brigades separately before you can attach them...

Thanks... that shows me that my ideas and wishes were about right. About the on-map russian partisans: basically I was wondering why they don`t appear, but I was damn happy they didn`t!! If you play against the AI: what difficulty level do you play? I use to play 100%/+0.. has anyone beaten the AI as Axis on 100%/+2?

There is a 50% chance that Germany declares war on the 11th of Dec 41.. but just with an Allied AI.

During the past weeks I played Kuniworth`s Scenario quite often, and I really need to admit that I love it. I played on 100%/+0, and I had to cancel the first two games because I was loosing... and I had to start again. What I would like to know is if you guys made the same experiences.. and what your opinions are. I love the idea of a ceteris paribus scenario.. just see what happens when you leave Germany and Russia alone until one comes out of the Thunderdome. Of course certain things are modeled (Bombimgs of german cities), but it`s always the same every time.. so it`s more or lesse a "you or me" - Scenario. What I like about that Scenario: + Map It`s huge and very well researched. To name every landscape, forest and fortification must have been an awful lot of work. Thx for that. The space behind the Ural is not in, but if the german tanks appraoch Kuibychev, the game is lost anyway for the Russians, so I think the map is fine in that area. Just one note: can it be that Stalingrad is a bit too far in the North? Shouldn`t it be a bit more in the south? + Units There is lot of research in it as well. I miss certain things (Tac Bomber, Anti Tank), but it`s still very good. In the beginning I also missed the double strike tanks, but I`m sure that game balance is difficult to maintain with 2 Strikes. + Pop ups The feeling is unique. I`ve never seen that in a game. Very well researched and also good implemented in the scenario. + Balance What happened in my games was very close to the historical developments until late 42 (as Axis I was able to capture Stalingrad, but it was quite tough!), but only because I knew what happened and I saved a few times. The Scenario is really difficult, and I like that. Has anyone ever won it as Axis on 100%/+2? Anyway: there were very many points in that game where I had to make thoughts about my concept which seem to be very close to the thoughts the OKW did 65 years ago.. just move to the south and have Stalingrad in your back or take Stalingrad alone and have a tough fight for a worthless destroyed city.. or split up your forces and loose everything. There are very few dislikes, and their importance is way smaller than the above stuff: - Experience bars All unit can (re)gain just one experience bar. I think that this is to avoid that certain units get too strong. I can understand that (although there were certain super strong unit like JG 52), but if this is needed for game balance, it`s okay. But wouldn`t it be possible to get 2 exp. bars? I know I can use the editor, but I want to understand what the thought behind is.. - Technology and Research I know I can use the editor, but shouldn`t the prices for the different technologies be somewhat different? AA tech isn`t as important as IW or HT.. I would like it if there was a bit more structure in it and not 1000 MPP for everything. But altogether: a great scenario. What do you guys think?

Not necessarily... it depends on where the Tank Division was. I.e. if it was close to a city or village, that may also be the case if the city`s efficiency was well above 50%.

Yeah, you`re right.. I think I´ve tried almost every possible strategy in the past years, but this one makes the most fun for me. Sometimes I try to integrate wrong or useless parts into my strategy as well just to see how they work out... and it makes the game somewhat challenging. In one of my first games in Waw I tried an a massive Axis Air Supremacy.. put almost everything in reasearching Anti-Tank Weapons, Long Range and Advanced Fighters.. then bought all Air Fleets and Tac Bombers. I started a Barbarossa in late 41, and in the beginning I was a bit frightened because I had very few ground troops... but I was able to take Leningrad and Smolensk until Spring 42, because all the fresh build StuKas arrived. From 1943 on the StuKas were so powerfull that they crushed almost every resistance in the east, but the Allies at a LOT of troops in the west (they controlled all North Africa and Middle East, but I killed their surface fleet in the Med), and then the AI tried to simultaneously attack Sicily and France.. ran into a well fortified Fortress Sicily and lost all units quickly. So I could shift troops to France and send them all back quickly. After researching all the Aircraft tech, I had enough MPP left for Heavy Tanks, Artillery and AA.. but Russia was a bloody mess. I took me til 1946 to conquer Sverdlowsk. Was a good game, and the AI suprised me sometimes. Fortunately I was able to repel the invasions on Sicily and France quickly, otherwise I might have lost the game... and I think it was good luck, because all the Allied Amphibs ran into my subs.

@ Lars: it might be strange to other people, but I usually play another strategy against the AI. I play on 100%/+2 Exp, and on this level one cannot fight on all fronts. I like fighting in the Med, so I usually fortify the east german border with engineers (I need the italian engineer as well in WaW), and then take out all allied forces in the Med.. then kill Turkey, occupy the Caucasus which cripples the Russians and repel the first D-Day. The unemployed Italians garrison France until the Med task force has taken the Caucasus.. and then I switch them. It`s always funny to see the D-Day troops run into german front line troops.. of course this just works when playing against the AI.. but that`s why I play on 100%/+2. [ December 13, 2007, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: Hyazinth von Strachwitz ]

@ Lars: right. I didn`t write "the whole Kriegsmarine", because I don`t know Attila`s plans for the eastern front. Basically we should say that for the above strategy the axis player needs all available ships he doesn`t need in the Baltic to sink the russian cruiser and sub.. that sub can raid the convoys from Sweden which makes it nasty. Once the russian Navy is sunk, all availabe ships should go France. Every RN ship sunk takes pressure from France. @ Liam: what you say is basically right and would have been my answer aa well... but there is a little detail: Attila asked how to DELAY a D-Day and not how to REPEL it.. of course fortifications help a lot. Although I need to admit that the AI is brilliant in spotting weak points end exploiting it. [ December 13, 2007, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: Hyazinth von Strachwitz ]

Yeah, that`s right.. Bomber and a bit of LR tech.

Okay... before the AI launches D-Day, it builds up forces. What you simply need to do is to interrupt these preparations. In history the Allies hat total sea and air supremacy, and this is the point where you can act. You won`t be able to kill all his planes, but it makes sense to send all your U-Boats and mabye even a cruiser to the Atlantic from 1940 on... and raid the convoy lanes west and nortwest of Portugal. Group all your subs and maybe the cruiser there. Usually 1-3 destroyers come, and should be able to sink them one by one. So you can substantially shrink the RN and partially the US Navy. If the RN lost all its DDs, the AI sends Cruisers and sometimes even one Carrier, but with 3 subs and a cruiser you can sink that easily. The best area to do so is nortwest of Spain so that you can reach the french ports in one turn. So without the naval supremacy your U-Boats can lurk in the Biscaya as soon as you expect the D-Day. When it comes, you use your U-Boats to scout around southeastern Ireland, and you will be able to kill most of the Amphibs. Allies Air is busy bombing Brest and Caen.. this is usually done by the RN, but if you kill a big part of the RN, the scripts don`t work in a proper way. I would suggest to have Advanced subs Lvl 3 and at least two exp bars until early 43.. and of course it depends what happens in the Med. If you control the Med, D-Day will come in Spring 43, and you should be prepared for that. Let me know if you need more info.

There is a lot more to do.. are you playing HvH or against the AI?

Hubert, thanks for your quick reaction. I think that is what makes the game unique.