Brute Force addon ideas and modification

[Big Al]

I got a couple modifications I am interested in placing within Brute Force so I will throw it out at you.

Islands: Right now I have several islands that are far larger than scale like Wake. I was thinking of reducing all these islands to 2 hexes. Since ships can blast a unit and put them out of supply I think this is the best play. 2 hexes allows a land and air unit.

More Aircraft types and LRA: I am not liking how long range aircraft works in the mod. Its too much and doesnt work to scale on the Pacific to well. So since I have several minor countries I am not using I was thinking of creating an 2ndary minor for some major powers for specific A/C. Like USA has all normal fighter units but the minor (inthe USA) has P-38s long range air craft. I can make these additions for major powers even add WHEN you get them.

Thoughts and feedback on balance for human vs human games?

[SeaMonkey]

I don't know Al, haven't really gotten to deep into the Pacific campaign yet, but I kind of like your big islands. I'm thinking an HQ, anti-air upgrades or unit, artillery with a good naval attack value, perhaps some decent defensive abilities and you've got a tough little island garrison reminiscent of the historical Japanese deployments.

As far as an air unit, it would be nice to have something with duplicity, like some good naval attack and defensive air to simulate an airfield with fighters and TAC. It seems a little more flexibility with the editor is needed. Believe me Hubert, I'm fully appreciative of what you've done with this editor, I remember the old days with SC1 and being a proponent of "scripts", but now we need just a little more.

Are we ever satisfied?:eek:

[SeaMonkey]

I know you don't want to hear this Al, but what we need is a bigger Pacific, the western area to be precise. Cut down the western USA(a few ports and land tiles), omit Mexico, build a solid area of gray tiles just off the USA west coast, use loops to Hawaii and west, bring Hawaii close to the gray tile area and the Pacific is drastically bigger. And....where's my "Storm over the Gilberts"?

[Big Al]

Well the pacific is HUGE. If I put it to Euro scale it would be 4x its current size and then it would be difficult to play. I originally planed it the same scale.

I am considering other options on what to do. Cut down Australia to off map areas and only have some areas. Not sure.

[SeaMonkey]

OK, this is just an idea, might be difficult to create, how about a bunch of isolated areas connected by loop arrows that guide the players through the different island groups, a kind of mini campaign inside the Global one. Imagine that to get to the Japanese home islands the Allied player must transit a "maze" of island groups(each one under a magnifying glass), choosing to conquer them or bypass, too many for the Japanese to monitor, open sea areas also.

This would be from the eastern Pacific to the west, southwest area would largely stand on its own, along with Indonesia and the Indian Ocean.

Sounds good, but...?? it'd be back to the drawing board.

[Big Al]

I thought about that idea too.

The part about reducing the islands is scale realism. For example, Midway cant suppose an army much less 3 armies + HQ + TAC or 1 army + 5 TACs. 1 hex for land 1 for air seems reasonable and easier for the AI to take than a 5 hex island. Also for speed.

If you have a 5 hexes filled with HQ and troops

#1 it will take forever to blow them up

#2 if you land in one hex you will be blown up by the others.

#3 also the scale. Some islands were so small that placing 5 divisions on them was simply not feasable.

I might try to convert BF1939 to full pacific. I already made the map design for it. I might save it for SC3 though.

To modify this one requires mountains of work.

[mcaryf1]

Hi Al

Rather than make islands unrealistically large, if you want to have both land and air capability how about giving an air unit some additional defensive values as if it was a land unit so it is effectively an air unit with an attached garrison. I guess as an air unit you would be able to operate it in and out of islands but that sort of gives you an air transport capability.

I am interested to know whether you have tried to make any sort of uniform adjustment in the number of units as compared with the standard scenario to recognise your larger scale map.

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

Per seamonkey, I am seriously considering upgrading the Pacific map to FULL euro size. It will make the map huge but make things to scale all over. With this I would also cut out S. America and Africa. They would be blocked off zones as just a representation with 1-2 hexes. Nothing ever happens there.

I am also considering adding minor addons for the majors so effectively they have a better force pool.

So a major would have a minor country within its own. I can expand the force pool

FORCE POOLS example for the USA

Major Attached Minor

FTR (P47,P51) FTR long range (P38, P51 with fuel tanks)

TAC (ground attack) TAC (naval air)

STR (B17, B24) STR (island garrison as you mentioned above)

CV (normal CV group) CV (CVE group for ASW only)

BB (type like Arizona) BB (type like Iowa)

for the japs they would have Kongo, Kirishima as major, the Minor would have the Yamato/Musashi build)

So you get the idea. Its still things I am working out in my head. Im not happy with the allied AI. Axis I am. But the allied AI is really tough to balance due to commitment levels. When is too much reinforcing. When does the allied AI bang its head on the wall instead of a different approach.

Specifically I am talking about the Pacific. The USA/UK AI are having a tough time. Maybe Japan produces too much. Not sure. They used to produce not enough. Myabe the USA needs more production.

[SeaMonkey]

Man, I like the way you think Big Al, always pushing the envelop. About production, I haven't gotten into the Japanese acquisition of the SRA, but so far, it feels about right. As far as USA goes, the 200 MPPs for each chit in IT and PT seems a bit drastic, so maybe 100 or 150, in between is 125.

I've got a hotseat test model for your campaign going, but I kind of lost it awhile back with the 3 mirror PBEMs I've got going. I'll try to get back to it and push it along and get you more input. You're on your own for the AI.

[mcaryf1]

Hi Al

I have now acquired Gold so I can give you some proper comments soon. However, I note that you have made Midway even larger than in previous versions. It now seems to occupy a greater land area than the Japanese island of Hokkaido which is actually 32,000 sq miles whilst Midway is just 6 sq miles!

This comment applies to all other SC campaigns I have seen as well as your own - I would suggest that Port Defence against submarines should be reduced from 4 to something like 1 or 2. My uncle was commanding a patrol boat in Scapa Flow when the Royal Oak was sunk there by a U Boat. He succeeded in blowing his own stern off whilst attempting a depth charge attack and the U Boat escaped unscathed. Recent research suggests that West Virginia was torpedoed by one of the mini-subs used in the IJN attack on Pearl. British ships were successfully attacked in several harbours (Alexandria, Diego Suarez and Gib) by submarine launched units. Thus ports were often not safe havens for shipping.

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

Interesting Mike. I love hearing storys not in the books. I watch interviews with old WW2 soldiers and the stories they tell are simply amazing.

One US pilot flew over the D-Day beaches in his P51 and got shot in the foot by a lugar. He was a teacher of mine.

Another that was a seaman on the Bellue Wood (spelling) said they had to dump A/C off the decks to make room for others to land in a large naval battle (forgot which) where many of the US CVs were on fire and not capable of landing.

I have a german friend that his grandfather went to Moscow in a Pz III. I believe he was a recon unit and he claims to have spotted the curved domes of Moscow when he got called back.

As for subs, while you might be accurate the problem is playability. Hmm maybe in my attached minor I can make a midget sub, Hmmmmmm!!!

I know some players like the big islands but with the port supply reductions it makes island battles and invasions that should last 2-3 turns, last 7-10. What I think I might do is create the Attached Minors and specialized units for island defense and reduce the islands.

One thing I didnt like about many board games like WIF or ETO-PTO is that you could put a full 2 corp + 1 extra on an island like Midway. Master WIF has size limitations on hexes. I have to think about this. But it will actially solve quite a few issues in my scenario if I can make this work.

Yea Mike the GOLD BF1939 is way better than the normal version

[mcaryf1]

Hi Al

I am grateful for the suggestion you made in a previous post about thinking of SC in broad conceptual rather than literal terms. In that context I am interested in the question of supply which is effectively free in the game if a supply source is available. Does this mean that the supply cost of units is effectively subsumed in their creation cost or does the concept of limits on the number of units attempt to recognise the restrictions on a country from being able to supply too many units?

I notice that in Brute Force you have substantially increased the build limits for example for German Armies and Corps. Clearly with your larger scale map the unit representation can be different. Thus are your limits based on what was historically achieved or what you think might be appropriate for playability? I suppose, if they are historical e.g. the Germans deployed about 250 Divisions in 1942, the limits would need to recognise that Axis forces might have been larger if they had not suffered the same 1m or so casualties during the first Russian winter.

If the original MPP cost has future supplies factored in, then is that one of the arguments for cheaper re-build costs? Just as an example the weight of steel etc consumed to create the hardware in a US armoured division would have been less than 20k tons but at 700 tons per day their supply consumption at least in weight terms would have exceeded their build consumption within 1 month. Obviously the build cost should include a training period when supplies are consumed but I guess I could make an argument that the cost of supplies consumed during operations might be equal to the original build and training cost. So might half the "purchase" MPPs be the future supply consumption costs?

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

Supply: no its just there the force pool restriction is just there also. Neither are part of the other.

Force Pools: I started with historical and adjusted for playability. Germany had too few units to beat Russia and at least delay the allies. If the Germans do well they can empty out their force pool. If they do poorly their production willl mostly be spend on repairing units. So a balance should be created in a balanced close game where the Germans use lets say 2/3 of their production on repair and 1/3 on construction... or whatever ratio. Eventually there should come a point where the allies are breaking them even and it gradually gets worse.

MPP costs: thats just a crap shoot and balance. I started based on what I read and what worked for other board games of this type, then adjusted from there.

BF1939 is a wargame based on history, not a historical wargame. Its quite difficult to make a historical wargame with tons of "what ifs" hindsight prevents it. You would need lots of restrictions if accurate everything was in there. Then it wouldnt be much fun.

Here is an example: Sealion. There was almost no way for the Germans to win that historically. Ive read a lot of material that basically said the UK out produced them and out piloted them along with many other factors in their favor. You need the "what if" factor. So in a wargame its basically this.

Sept 1939:

Hermann Göring - "Heir Hitler, I can open up 12 operation training schools by the end of winter. We will be able to train 4000 pilots a month with the resources we have. This is in preparation for when we beat France and have to invade England. We will have to divert our production from ammunition to planes and pilots. We can amass a 10,000 combat aircraft airforce by the time Sealion can start. *Salutes*

Adolf Hitler responds - "Fischizle, crank out those props and pilots, lets kill those m%$*@# f$@($@# right yo."

The above is not a historical wargame, its a wargame based on history.

So I gotta fudge and abstract it for fun value

[mcaryf1]

Hi Al

I guess Sealion for real might have been possible if the 300,000 troops of the BEF had not made it back to the UK. The Germans would have needed a mine barrage across the Channel to keep the RN away and at that stage of the war the RAF was quite incapable of hitting anything as small as ships in transit particularly if most of the transit was done at night - the RAF investment in TAC air was virtually non-existent in 1940. Thus a landing force might well have achieved a foothold without horrendous losses. There are some flat areas and some airports along the South coast in Sussex so it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that they could have held a beachhead and built up supplies by air once they were there. The Germans had a big fleet of JU 52's that successfully moved Franco's Nationalist army from Morocco to Southern Spain when the Spanish Navy and Air Force stayed loyal to the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. There was very little in the UK in the way of trained soldiers or heavy weapons other than the BEF in June/July 1940 and therefore little to restrain them from breaking out of a bridgehead. It would, however, have required the Germans to take quite a big gamble both to use their tanks to eliminate the BEF before France was fully beaten and then to cross the Channel - fortunately for us they did not try either of those possibilities.

By the way I have experimented with my new Gold release to see if I can set it for instant re-builds of sunk subs at 30% cost and that seems to work. I think it might well be the best way to go with respect to both subs and DDs otherwise there will be too many units. A unit then represents, say, 32 subs and if it is sunk or damaged then it is assumed that only the 8 - 10 subs on operations in that period are lost so the unit can be rebuilt with just 30% of the cost for replacements. Germany had about 200 subs operational in 1942 and were building 20 more a month whilst losing less than half that. Thus allowing re-builds does make sense historically as well as being a good solution in game play terms as the potentially random outcomes of ASW clashes are less catastrophic on either side even when units are completely destroyed in a battle.

Regards

Mike

[Big Al]

Im thinking of some force pool reductions. Still in the idea phase.

Sealion was just an example of history vs wargame, Im not debating how valid the material is.

I might done some other things like expand spotting range reduce ships. I think I will save the map expansion of the pacific for SC3 though. Its so much work. Remake the bottom 1/2 of the map by hand, rewrite the scripts.

I will have to create a new for SC3 anyways.