Sharkman

I find the new research a bit too predictable, I usualy know about how many turns I need to reach the next level. I think maybe there should be a chance of a research setback, then instead of making progress you go backwards. Possibly even a minimal chance of a catastrophic setback destroying all current progress.

In the game I'm playing my CP opponent declaired war on Belgium but did not attack them until much later, he threw the whole German army into northern France, he must have to some extent used "forced march" because there were large ammounts of German troops in northern France on the 1st turn. The French never really recovered, There were between 10 and 15 corps in the Amiens Compiegne area, the French have nothing there. I have tried this strategy against the AI and you can get units as far west as Rouen, this gives the French very little chance to set up a line north of Paris. I tried to set up a line 2 tiles north of Paris and got smashed, I should probably have tried to hold a line on Paris from the start, that's where the line ended up at anyway. The game is not yet over but I will loose due to French and Russian morale.

Thanks Bill

Interesting idea with the escort carriers, I had thought about them too but couldn't come up with any ideas. My point 6 was actualy directed at making a distiction between older small carriers (Zuiho, Bearn etc.) and and large modern carriers like the Enterprise, in all reality the Graf Zeppelin should be of the obsolete type but for game balance we can call it a modern carrier, I would tend to place all carriers with less than 50 planes into the pre-war class though. I share your opinion on the alternate historical paths, but if the Axis wants annother Bismark, then they should build one, upgrading the Strassbourg to a Bismark class Battleship or the Bearn to an Enterprise clone moves this game too far into fantasyland. And I honestly think it would add to the atmosphere to make some diffrences between old and new ships. I know that the names on the units are just for looks, the Royal Oak and King George V are just 2 British battleships, similar to the plastic battleships in Axis and Allies, instead of a battleship built in 1914 and another built in 1940.

What is the penalty to changing the trench facing?

I forgot to include 2 Naval suggestions: 6. 2 types of aircraft carriers, old or light carriers with only 1 air strike, and modern carriers with 2 air strikes. 7. My favorite, Naval leaders with similiar functions to the land based HQ's assigned to a flagship, I think this would add an element of fun to the game, imagine sending out a fleet under the command of Cunningham, Halsey or Yammamoto, this would definitely add to the atmosphere of the game. I think this last suggestion would also give the British what they are lacking because they may have been behind the Germans in technology but they had the better naval leadership. I know this is drifting away from "super subs" and I think I've allready shared these ideas somewhere else, but what the heck.

Hi Ludi, You certainly know more about the history of WW1 and WW2 than I do. I am more interested in the "historical atmosphere" than the absolute reality. So any comments or suggestions I have made are actualy directed at that "feeling". I realy like the Naval part of the game, but in addition to the extensivly discussed u-boat thing I do have a few other naval suggestions: 1. Ships should only be naval warfare upgradeable 1 time for 1 point, this prevents pre-war battleships from becomming equal to the Yamoto. 2. Captured ships should not be naval warfare upgradeable at all, this prevents the Strassbourg from becomming the third Bismark class ship. 3. Minor allied ships should allways remain 1 naval warfare point below the controlling major power, this is just logical. 4. The Bismark, Tirpitz, Yamoto, and Musashi, should start with at least naval warfare level 2, they were that much better than their counterparts. 5. All free ships entering after 1939 (with some exceptions like the old destroyers England gets from the USA, and the Free French) should begin with at least naval warfare level 1, these were modern ships unlike the mostly WW1 vintage ships which start the game. This is just some "food for thought", but I think it makes sense.

Thanks for your reply Hubert, I'm figuring out the silent mode, it suprised me to be stopped by a cruiser on my very first silent move, but your explaination makes sense, kind of sucks that I've been playing so long with out a proper understanding of the silent function. As far as German u-boats in general go I would still argue that simply having 2u-boats at all in september 1939 places them way ahead of all other nations, and they have a chit in sub research, and there are several free subs comming soon. I would say that the problems the Germans had with their u-boats and especialy their torpedoes would justify taking away the level 1 tech or at least taking it away from the subs themselves (which means the German player has to invest in upgrading his subs before sending them out). By the way I really love this game, I'm presently playing several e-mail games, Great War and Global Conflict, the last time I enjoyed playing any game this much was way back in the 70's and 80's playing Advanced Third Reich, Hells Highway and The Guns of August, you've really got somthing that is above and beyond any other computer WW1/WW2 strategy game. The player-developer-playtester communication is I think unique and exceptional.

I just tried out Silent mode, but I bumped into the Russian cruiser and had to stop:confused:

Your right about the game in the long run, (the various stategies make this game great)it's the first turns that seem to be to be unbalanced and unhistorical. The Germans start with 2 u-boats at tech level 1, and their navy is at tech level 1, the Brits have 0 destroyers and their navy has tech level 0. The only effective anti-sub unit in the atlantic is an aircraft carrier (and I'll be damned if I use it to hunt u-boats), I don't think this is historicaly correct. I too support a new Global Conflict with the Call to Arms engine, and would also be glad to pay with my hard earned money for it.

I think this has been an interesting and constructive discussion that addreses a subject that has long bothered me. Although I have changed my opinion to some extent, I still think the u-boats are more useful and versitile than they should be, I think they are ok in The Great War but in Global Conflict they are still too effective for the German player. The u-boats can be devastating even on the very first turn, in reality the u-boats were not at all effective in 1939, it might make sense to take away the level 1 technology at the start of the game or start the Germans with one less u-boat. The ammount of free u-boats the Germans get still seems to me to be too much as well.

I agree, although I didn't really like trading battleships for u-boats, I did manage to hold off the u-boats better than I expected, as far as material goes you definately won the naval battle, but strategicaly I think I came out better because I should be able to reset the blocade and you lost a good number of the subs that would otherwise have been raiding my convoy lines. It was definately an exciting battle. At least in The Great War I guess the subs are ok, I'm curious to see how they are in 1.03.

Good to know, I was unaware that subs could pass enemy ships without stopping, I guess I hadn't been properly using the silent mode. Does this allow them to leave a blocaded port? Is this in the manual? Why have I been sending my u-boat crews to their deaths for no reason?:eek:

I think a good soultion to this is to allways allow a moving u-boat to pass through non destroyer naval units if the owning player wishes to avoid combat, this would prevent BB's from blocking u-boats at all and would also give the sub owner some control over which ships to attack and which to avoid without giving his position away, this would solve another problem: it seems silly that when a sub bumps into a BB that it does not wish to engage that it should be forced to stop and get attacked next turn.

I could really live with the effectivness of the U-boats if Germany didn't get so many of them for free (I'm talking about Global Conflict here, although they do get quite a few in WW1 for free as well). I assume this is done to encourage a battle for the convoy lines, otherwise Germany probably would not invest money in u-boats. I think a good counter-balance would be to provide the British with free strategic bombers (Global Conflict) throughout the game, similar to the u-boats, maybe we might see some serious strategic bombing done by England, so far I have not played an Allied game where the Brits had 2 bucks to spare for risky strategic bombing raids.

Sounds logical.

It might be interesting to allow real fort construction durring the war along the lines of the Maginot line or the Atlantic wall, historicaly it was possible to build such extreme fortifications, very expensive of course but possible. They were not easy to destroy, the Germans avoided a head on attack on the Maginot line and the D-Day landing was certainly no piece of cake. The mechanics of this game seem to favor entrenching deep inland instead of on the coast, which I think takes away some of the historical feeling.

I agree, the Subs should not be so effective against warships, this goes for WW1 and WW2, they should be effective commerce raiders, capable of lucky shots against warships and possibly have an "ambush" function for engaging warships, which might be done by allowing subs to go into "ambush" mode, and remaining stationary and unseen where they hope an enemy warship will bump into them.

I have a sugestion for the next patch: When a unit is selected for operational movement, tiles occupied by freindly units that would otherwise be reachable should also be highlighted. I have had the problem that I wanted to move a unit and then occupy the vacant tile with another unit moved in operationaly, only to discover that I couldn't reach that tile with operational movement, which left an uncomfortable hole in my lines. There is presently no way to find out if it's possible before leaving the tile.

A cool scenario would be D-Day with the Normandy coast being the entire map with turns representing maybe a couple of hours. Any modders out there up to it?

Sounds good, max level 12 elite reinforcements. That's worth serious concideration. I hate seeing those level 14 or 15 bulldozer units that wipe out enemy units with 1 shot. Especially the tac air units. Although to be honest I have never had any units except German fighters ever reach level 15, so I have only expierienced them from the open end of a muzzle.

I think the balance is pretty good, but the German U-Boats, in my opinion upset the naval balance, if there was some kind of restriction to using most of them to actualy raid convoys it might be diffrent, or make them less effecitve against surface units. Most players (including myself) use the U-boats primarily to engage enemy surface units, and they can be deadly. I think this is by far the best playable strategic WW1 or WW2 game on the market. But I would like to see a more effective strategic warfare option, somthing the Allies can do to Germany while they're building up forces for a big attack, some way to slow down German operational movement, block supplies, force them to move fighters out of Russia. As far as I can tell the Allies can not heavily bomb Germany and build up forces for an invasion, it's one or the other. As a minimal offset to the free U-boats I think the British should at least get 2 free heavy bombers at some point in the game. And I think 400 MMP's to form Free France is a lot of money at a crucial point, I can't imagine the British devoted 3/4 of their economy to forming Free France just when they were expecting a German invasion.

I think what is missing is effective strategic warfare, where are the masses of bombers chewing up German rescources? The Germans get free U-boats through the whole game, where are the free Allied heavy bombers?

Nice pictures, I've been there 9 or 10 times, it's been a few years though, maybe I'll try to go this year, it's only about a 6 hour drive from here. Although my next planed history weekend is will be Oradour-sur-Glane, I havn't been there yet.

This is a good idea, overall I think Tech advances should be slowed down a bit, in most games I have played the Germans are maxed out in the important areas by mid 1943 and the USA has everything by mid 44. On the other hand the British are lucky if they catch up by 1946. With a little luck the Germans can start Barbarossa with level 3 or 4 tanks and air which gives them a huge advantage.