Upgrades too cheap? and other thoughts

[Big Al]

A few things I wanted to throw out there for discussion and ideas.

#1 In Brute Force I kept upgrades as cheap as the original game but now I am quesioning it?!

I notice in 1 turn I can BAM swap all my Bf-109s to Fw-190a with not much effort. Or change all my Pz-IIIs to Pz-IVs instantaneously accross the front.

I was thinking of what exactly does it take to upgrade a unit?!

For an air group it takes retraining pilots on the new plane, using fuel, and moving the planes out there. The largest and most timely cost is training pilots.

For tanks its similar but the cost of the tank and parts goes up because they are heavier.

Infantry not so much.

Ships I already incorporated an extra cost. I consider Naval Warfare more of BIGGER guns or better bombs.

#2 I was thinking of offering a structured Ship building plan as an option.

Germany can push for Plan Z by 1944 or a 1942 version

USA can easily setup their CV production

UK can easily setop an ASW production

China and USSR can setup NO production (build a navy? comrade please!)

Italy can set up a small navy

Japan can set up a heavy or light navy build.

Saves times for the common stuff and people can build beyond historical if they want.

But its an OPTION like a decision event "you cant controlled production of ships?"

#3 ASW across the world.

Its fooking tedious.

I am trying to find a way to make it easier to work ASW. While moving subs is ALWAYS cool and fun, doing ASW makes me want to save game and play later.

So I came up with a few ideas.

Decision events for abstract strategic warfare based on MPP up or down through out the war

Decision events based on abstract strategic warfare based on port reduction for convoys

An automated looping system in the oceans where you can place a DD on a spot and it automatically patrols. I have to think about this one and maybe even increase the spotting range for DDs.

So thoughts on all 3 please.

[617pathfinder]

navel up grades and repairs requires drydock, hence the britsh raid on the french drydocks and german drydocks in the baltic,..no drydocks no upgrades or repair,...the game should reflect this...most RN refits and heavy repairs where carried out in usa and canadain drydocks....and uk drydocks used for emergency repairs

[617pathfinder]

another big al is, if u upgrade to a fw 190....do u scrape the 109?

u still have a fully operational fighter, where does that fighter go?

reserve, home defence,minor allies?..interesting

[Big Al]

actual fighter is meaningless. The Germans had 1000's sitting in the factories at the end of the war. They produced 44k fighters in 1944 yet their airforce was only 5k operational all planes.

The real trick is retraining and fuel for retraining.

[Bill101]

The Luftwaffe found it easier to throw away damaged planes at the end and just give the pilot a new one. Petrol and pilots were more of an issue.

I guess that in a normal state of affairs as a new aircraft is introduced, the previous front line fighter is given to less important units (i.e. sent to lesser theaters of operations) and/or it becomes a training aircraft.

[Big Al]

Upgrading a unit doesnt lower experience. So my thinking is this.

With hindsight... if you were to replace WW2 every country would treat their airforce correctly. When you get experienced pilots bring them back to train new ones instead of flying them till they die. When you get new airplanes you retrain those pilots to get familiar with the plane type instead of just throwing him in the cockpit. That takes time and resources and not all at once.

[SeaMonkey]

Just some quick thoughts, #1 I think upgrades for certain items should be very expensive which would delay their usage and set up a quantity vs quality model. Things like aircraft, tanks(mech) and naval vessels should be extreme resource absorbers. Perhaps allowing upgrades only in the owning player's home country would simulate the extended time and cost(operate) for training and distribution although some of that is accounted for in the build Q.

As far as naval upgrades, perhaps you could designate only ports having the supply 10/100% as the ones able to do the upgrades. Keep other ports at 5 for normal tasks and limit naval upgrades to vessels that are only strength 10 or above(they would have to visit a 10 supply port to reinforce/repair first and then upgrade) would simulate the time element.

#2, a good reason to have a pregame turn for DEs so that a major can decide on its course of war.

#3 a good idea Al, but I like the cat and mouse game of sub/surface MPP interdiction, adds another dimension(interspace) to the game. However, I have noticed that your supply of naval vessels in BF is pretty liberal, might want to scale back the number of units a bit.

I'll think about this some more later.

[Big Al]

lol I did scale back. My counters are 3 BB/CV per unit, 5 CAs per unit, and 50 DDs per DD counter.

BTW I did it. I have an auto ASW convoy system. You can still do it the old way. But now there is a new way on the map to do it.

[SeaMonkey]

Yeah, you know, you're right, there are not that many as my recollection thought, maybe just the Italians in the Med is what I was thinking about.

[Big Al]

Italians had more ships than you think. They just never sent out their navy. Hitler didnt give them fuel and they didnt want to lose ships. They were too pretty to lose. Also if I remember they had skeleton crews too.

[Sharkman]

I think Armor and Air upgrades should have some kind of delay and limit, possibly limited to 1 upgrade or new unit per turn, beyond that you would be forced to build new units at 1 level lower than the available tech. And I think there could be an overall limit for example only 10% can be of the highest tech in the 1st 6 months, the next 6 months 20% and so on, in the case of quick breakthroughs there could even be a limit on the 2nd highest tech level units.

I think the upgrades on naval warfare should be limited to 1 upgrade per ship or sub, AA and ASW possibly limited to 2, this would allow a distiction between old and new ships, it has allways bothered me when a completly obsolete battleship or aircraft carrier is modernized and upgraded to super-modern status. There could be an exception for destroyers and submarines, if the owning player opts to replace them with completly new ships then that could be possible but of course much more expensive.

As far as strategic warfare goes, I have allways been in favor of separate strategic warfare boxes. A box for each area, a british atlantic convoy box, a Russian north atlantic convoy box, a Britan strategic bombing box, a germany strategic bombing box, there could be several more. Units can simply be moved there, air and AA units could be reinforced and upgraded in the box. I would think there would normaly be no acutal combat just abstract attrition, We would loose the exciting u-boat hunt, and the less exciting strategic bombing of individual citys, but I think it would be more realistic.

I would also like the strategic bombing to have some options, like terror bombing, industrial bombing, or interdiction of supply lines.

[Big Al]

No comment besides on structured (optional) fleet builds, besides the one comment I saw?

[Sharkman]

Oops wrong thread! Oh well good suggestions for future developments anyway.