Hyazinth von Strachwitz

A Battleship group means one Battleship and its support vessels.. i.e. Destroyer and Tankers.

Sounds interesting... so Egypt can be taken.. good to know.

@ Bill: what you say is basically right... my intention were the Egyptian resources and the iraquian oil wells, and these can be linked via Turkey or the Caucasus.

@ Ottosmops: I think that is a bit of a problem.. very long way from the Siwa oasis, so even with HQ support many units will run low on supply. Basically I will give it a try sooner or later just to find out. I`m pretty sure that only works against the AI if you start a decoy attack north of Qattara and place the main attack force south.. and you need long range aircraft which can strike both north and south.. (once edited) [ November 06, 2007, 08:06 AM: Message edited by: Hyazinth von Strachwitz ]

@ pzgndr: Agreed... this topic is very low on the priority list. I still wonder what the exact mathematic behind the Leadership Bonus is.. does anyone have a clue?

@ Sombra: Fully agreed on the Navy issue... I discussed that topic once with Hubert (I think you posted in that thread also), and he said he wants to maintain the balance.. and the Subs should be a threat to the UK in 1939 and 1940. One way to solve that could also be to make the Kriegsmarine less strong.. i.e. drop one of the Cruiser groups or have the Bismarck coming out of the production queue at strength 5.

Needless to say, SC2 and Waw are very great products, and the support is better than for any other game I`ve ever played.. maybe that`s the reason why we play it. I think one reason for the high quality is the ongoing improvement.. and this thread is to "collect" all the wishes to Hubert, so that sooner or later the quality gets even higher. I focus on the `39 Fall Weiss, coz that is what most people play. I read almost all threads in the last days carefully, and the target of this thread is more or less to "bundle" and clarify these wishes. At first I need to say that there is the old philosophical question: make the game balanced or historically accurate.. and the answer is balanced, as Hubert pointed out very claerly. So if we want to have a higher degree of realism, we need to find ideas and solutions which do not change the game balance at all. So here comes the list of things I read in various threads.. I picked only those where more people agreed that this should be changed. (1) "Invisible" units and defensive bonuses Engineers (while fortifying) and Paras (while preparing) are invisible unless the attacker is adjacent to the unit. With the new defense bonus for surprise encounters this leads to the fact that attacking units can be severely damaged. Invisible is fine and defensive bonus is fine, but the combination is deadly. I think this problem is adressed to Hubert already. (2) Sea Lion Problem At the moment the UK is defenseless against a seriously prepared SeaLion. The current mechanism is to increase the war readiness for the US and USSR in case there is a SeaLion... the UK Government moves to Alexandria, and the efficiency goes up to 10 in Egypt. It works out because SeaLion doesn`t make sense, but the ways to achieve it isn`t really great. There are various ways to solve that problem and maintain the balance.. one way is to limit the total transport capacity a country can use at one time.. this could be done in the R&D screen for example. I need to say that I like the idea to avoid a game over scenario in case Germany does a SeaLion.. but the way to get to this point can be improved, simply by make the UK better prepared. (3) German HQ problem I think Germany should be able to buy one more HQ.. there are more units on the board, but not enough HQs to supply them. (4) Italian discussion Many people claim that Italy is useless... they are wrong and right, because the italians were useless. But at the moment Italy is simply not capable to do any offensive actions in the Med theater. Okay, one can buy a HQ and a tank unit as soon as there are enough MPPs collected... but shouldn`t there be a HQ or a tank group in the production chain? Of course Italy was weak, but they were weak due to bad leadership and low fighting spirit.. and they were huge in numbers in the beginning. This might be represented by cutting down the strength of the italian armies down to 5.... so they are existing but useless unless you invest into them. My problem is: in North Africa at the moment there are two choices: either abandon it or reinforce it heavliy. Even if Italy puts all its MPP into North Africa, they cannot hold it against the UK.... and if you just send a few germans down, you will have an expensive stalemate until the Americans come (this is the historic case). So most people abandon it or send down massive forces to overthrow Egypt quickly. My idea to solve that problem would be to enforce the Italians (a HQ and a Tank unit is needed... they be stored in the production queue and come out in Mid 1940 at lowered strength). I would also slightly increase the UK forces down there.. the target is to make the Italian stronger so that they can hold Lybia if they play defensive... I`m not talking about an offense. The UK should be able to hold Egypt against the Italians unless Germany sends a massive force. So I would like to strengthen the Italian more than the british troops. But we don`t want to change the balance.. so just give the UK a bit more naval units around its motherland.. this helps solving the SeaLion problem, and the balance is unchanged. What do you guys think?

@ Dmbgamer: Yes, you need a land link to have higher efficiency rating than 50%. In case of North Africa this makes sure that the game reflects the very difficult supply situation which was given in reality. So to make North Africa fully producing for the Axis, you need to get Turkey on your side or conquer the Caucasus and the Middle East... but if you manage that, the game is almost won. And for the port: yes, the efficiency rating of the ports limits the supply rating of adjacent units. This is why strategic bombing is so dangerous in North Africa... and it`s always necessary to have a HQ down there, otherwise the units don`t work properly. This is why it doesn`t make sense to start an offensive with the italian forces at the beginning.

Here comes the link: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfeldzug#Die_Arm.C3.A9e_de_l.27Air

Waiting for it as well...

@ Arado: Source is german Wikipedia.. if your german is good, check the article about the frnch campaign. Basically you are right with what you say about game balance... and I think Hubert`s way who prefers balance to historical facts is right. But sometimes I would wish more realistic situations.. i.e. a superior Royal Navy.

@ Hubert: fully understood and appreciated. I understand that you go for a balanced game, and that is absolutely okay. In fact you are right when you say that the UK felt grave danger until 1941.. and there is no "kings way" as we say in german to solve that problem. Okay, it is no simulation, it`s a game. Anyway: if you consider to make the UK stronger, I would recommend to add a DD, an AF and a HQ. You could counter that buy giving the Italians a Ariete Tank group strenghth 5... and/or a HQ in southern Italy strength 5... this solves the problem of a the relative strength between RN and Kriegsmarine, Italy is no longer a non event and it puts way more reaslim into the game. But apart from that: in WaW the Germans received an extra Tac Bomber and a Strategic Bomber, so I think giving the UK even more ships and planes shouldn`t be to bad for game balance. What do you think? Btw: is there any time over the day where you sleep? I see the times when you post... strange

Sounds like a promising start.. a step in the right direction. APPROVED!! One additional remark: if something worked out in original SC2, it is not necessary the case that it was right.... that UK is too weak is an old story, and the war readiness increase in US and USSR is just an reaction to that fact. The other alternative is to make UK stronger.

@ foko: same opinion here. There is one big weakness in SC2 and Waw: for the Axis it is too easy too win. The usual result should be an Allies decisive victory. I would vote for an english HQ coming out of the production chain somewhere in mid 1940. As well I don`t understand that the german Air Force has 3 AF, 1 Tac Bomber and 1 Bomber in 1940 while the RAF has just 1 AF and 1 Bomber in England... they should be more on equal levels. I would put an additional fighter in the production queue arriving in August or September 1940.. this reflects that the RAF might win the Battle of Britain which is impossible under the current circumstances... at the moment the Allied player can pull the Coastal AF back to Scotland or it gets whiped out by the 3 experienced german AFs (if the Axis player doesn`t use them somewhere else).. not really historical. I know that this makes the Allies more powerful, but check your history books: they won. History books show as well that the french has around 6000 war planes in May 1940, but just used 25% of them to fight the Luftwaffe (the rest was scattered of the whole country)... plain stupid.

I`m pretty sure that will change sooner or later... bets taken. Mr. Cater has a good reputation to defend.

I`m pretty sure the commenwealth would have fought on after the fall of England... but the question is in which scale and where. There is no direct frontier between India, Canada and german occupied Europe.. the only battle site would have been North Africa. But with the occupation of the UK there would have been no basis for bombing attacks on german soil.. and no raid on Ploesti which harmed the german fuel supply severely in 1943. Obviously the US would have concentrated on the Mediteraen Theatre.. but with an early fall of the UK it is very likely that the US would have concentrated on Japan and leave Europe to the Europeans.

Brilliant. Will there be a german version as well? If yes: when? Thx in advance...

After reading all these comments I need to say that it might be necessary to change the Amphib invasion system. In fact Germany had the chance to attack the UK in late 1940, but not having the total air supremacy it would have been VERY risky. 3 german Armies where preparing for Unternehmen Seelöwe, but the transport capacity was limited. They had 168 freighters (700.000 tons) 1910 barges 419 tug- and fisher boats 1600 motor boats alltogether not enough to bring over 3 full armies with 900.000 personel and euqipment. What I want to say is: Germany didn`t have the ships. In the current system we can build the necessary amphibious vessels (I think Germany didn`t have one of them in fact) by spending MPPs they conquered in France. I know that this is a simplification, but it makes the game really unrealistic.. One possible solution is that anyone who wants to make an amphib invasion first HAS TO BUILD THE SHIPPING CAPACITY FIRST. That would be as follows: The Player has to buy slots for the total transport capacity.. once bought, these slots will be inactive for a few month to represent the time to build ships. Lets say per 100 MPPs invested the player gets one slot. Corps cost one slot, armies & HQs 2 and Tanks 3. That means: if a player has invested 500 MPP, he has 5 slots permanently until the game ends (this shall represent the ship capacity he has build). The player can put units into amphib vessel as he is doing now UNTIL HIS 5 SLOTS ARE FILLED UP, i.e. 2 corps and 1 tank or 3 corps and 1 army. After these units have left the vessels, the player can embark new units. The total amphib capacity can be bought in the research screen. Embarking units still cost MPPS, but way less than now. Basically that system makes Amphib tech research useless (I don`t understand that feature anyway.. researching amphib tech doesn`t double the speed of these vessels)... all countries could have starting values they can increase later in the game. Does that make sense? This leads to the development that players need to prepare amphib invasion month before.. and they cannot put 10 armies into amphib vessels in one turn.

I like the defensive bonuses for for the "ambushing" units in surprise encounters... but the "ghost" units should receive them. Neither bricklayers building the Atlantic wall nor parachutists folding their parachutes are comparable to a normal corps or army lying in defensive positions ready for a point-blank shot.

Perhaps I slept in history but this seems a little bit strange to me. Perhaps tone down the German fleet a bit ...or much? => aka Invasion would be really risky? </font>

sounds good... I would prefer that Subs will always dive and move away, but that makes them too strong.. APPROVED!

@ Terif and Sombra: Thanks very much that you already adressed these problems.. and I would bet that the "Ghost unit problem" will be solved qucikly, because a lot of people have experienced that it`s a game cracker. The egyptian/alien infrastructue creation is a game balance issue as well... historically the war would have been over with a sucessful axis invasion of the UK, and the current settings are simply to avoid that the game is over in that case... just treat it like that. My idea would be that the "invisible" units should stay invisible, but they should have very bad offensive capability while they are fortifying or preparing. It doesn`t make sense that an experienced german army gets almost wiped out because it bumps into some english bricklayers standing in front of their concrete mixers (I need to admit that I think the whole Engineer concept needs to be revamped!). Anyway: there will be one or two patches for WaW, and I`m pretty sure that will be improved sooner or later..

I think some of the scripts are just existant to make the game more balanced.. and they get names which let them sound historically... that`s all. In fact the UK is too easy too take, but the game balance counters this with higher readiness. It`s the old battle between being historically and being balanced and "fun to play".. One example: you write that the range of transports should be reduced... but would it take german amphib invasions take 3 month to cross the Atlantic? Most probably not... maximum is 1-2 weeks, which is one turn maximum. So in fact the transport range is even to low at the moment.. but with drastically increased shipping ranges the game would very difficult to play. Basically you are right with what you say, but it`s just very difficult to put it into the game and keep it balanced. But honestly I think we get closer with every patch..

****... and I just ordered the english version... Knowing this before would have saved me money. I checked the Kalypso website, but they didn`t mention that WaW is included. Not really good Marketing. I decided to buy the english bundle because I was told that the german version doesn`t work with WaW. Knowing in advance that that Kalypso sells the new bundle in german for 30 Euros would have been very helpful.

And if you want to achieve a major victory, you can also change the end date to 2047