Rules, questions and comments

[Hubert Cater]

Agreed. This needs to be reconsidered also. This may be part of the AI performance issues I've been seeing, where the AI has a bad tendency to overextend itself with disastrous results and unnecessary loss of MPPs.

Ok I just looked at it again and this does not increase the losses for the surprised unit rather it simply decreases the losses for the hidden attacker on return fire calculations.

Maybe the lopsided results just make it look like the surprised units were taking more losses than they actually are, i.e. the losses are the same relative to Blitzkrieg as this aspect has not changed.

[Terif]

Hmm, the effect from SC2 was IMO sufficient with the readiness penalty for the surprised unit and the bonus for the surprising one.

Now with defence bonuses applied this leads to the situation that a surprised unit may take the same damage as in SC2, but the surprising one usually will be undamaged when entrenched or in the right terrain - in result the surprised unit will usually be destroyed in the enemies turn with little or no losses for the former defender.

Would be good if the defence bonus for surprising units could be removed, at least for land units - but even for naval units it is IMO not really necessary since the surprised unit will usually take a lot more damage than the defender which is penalty enough for getting surprised.

[Hubert Cater]

IIRC the issue was with subs ramming into ports.

A surprise encounter would occur and since subs attack and defend high, a hidden attacker in port, despite the surprise combat bonuses would usually lose much more than the ramming sub (unless it was a destroyer). By giving the port defense bonuses for the return fire calculation it eliminated this particular exploit.

[Terif]

Hmm, subs have only a defence value of 1 - so losses for the ship in port are minimal, expected loss 1 point and in the next turn the sub is very vulnerable to counterattacks from destroyers moving into that port and airstrikes even if the sub owner has naval superiority. I don´t see a real problem here with subs ramming into a port .

[Hubert Cater]

Sorry you are correct as I never double checked the numbers... still I understand the argument that if a sub were to attack a port the defender in port should receive the defensive bonuses of the port as part of the encounter.

The only reason it doesn't is because of a game mechanic where the hidden unit becomes the attacker, i.e. during the surprise encounter, but this should not be a source of penalty for the exchange.

[arado234]

The reason Germany can invade England in this game is because they and all other countries are allowed to put full corps and armies into amphib trans in the first place.When we landed in France in 1944 we had about 160,000 total combat troops including paras.(Germany in 1940 could barely scrape enough trans.to land 60,000 troops which equates to 1 army at most in this game which is hardly enough to take England).In this game you could land with multiple panzer armies representing way more divisions and tanks ANY country had the capability to invade with.

In order for Germany to be any threat to invade England at all you have to be unhistorical.So allowing England to fight on makes total sense.

I still dont think that England should be allowed to just be abandoned.Maybe have it that if England is conquered that a percentage of the remaining forces are removed from the game and must be built back by Canada.

[SeaMonkey]

Do I have to dig up my old parameters for different levels of amphib tech?

I hope not....they weren't that good.

But...A BIG BUTT....all amphibs should be limited to the corps size infantry unit and now we have the special forces also.

[arado234]

SeaMonkey special forces are hardly capable of strategic invasions.Yes i know about amphib.tech. but if im not mistaken doesnt that just effect the distance the unit can travel not the amount you are allowed?

Im not knocking the ability of these countries to be able to invade even though it sounds like i am(even France can do it right away and how many landing craft did she have and Germany if she had the mpps could launch a massive invasion first turn, bigger that what we did in 1944, no way thats possible.)its just that people seem to want more historical content(like terif says:be careful what you wish for) and there is no way Germany could have built the amount of landing craft we did in the time frame alloted for a 1940 invasion.That would be unhistorical,but this game and 99%of all ww2 strategic games cant be to historically accurate and still be playable.

I think that hubert and everyone involved have done the best job ive ever seen in making a game playable and very fun and still hold sufficient historical accuracy(through balance).

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks arado234, and just a reminder that to have the UK government move to Canada is still an option in game.

Once in game and once the campaign is selected navigate to Advanced->Scripts when presented with the OPTIONS dialog. From here all you need to do is edit the SURRENDER #1 events and turn on the 'UK Moves Government To Canada' event while disabling the UK Moves Government To Egypt' event.

Just a note that this alternative was considered for the official sequence but it was found that it would be next to impossible to ever force a UK surrender whereas if the UK government moves its capital to Egypt it is still a reasonable possibility... which I am guessing, from most responses here, is what players would logically prefer.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

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.

[vveedd]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

But...A BIG BUTT....all amphibs should be limited to the corps size infantry unit and now we have the special forces also.

Absolutely agree. My thoughts exactly but plus HQ units, of course. I also agree with Hyazinth von Strachwitz suggestion just keep it simple. Maybe will be good to have fixed number of maximum transport capability for each country and that is. For instance – Germany has 5. This means that Germany can load maximum 5 units to transport at the same time. When unload one it can load one again, when unload two it can load two again etc. Loading units still cost MPP as Hyazinth von Strachwitz suggested.

[ November 02, 2007, 12:26 AM: Message edited by: vveedd ]

[Sombra]

Hubert the problem with the current system is: It makes simply no sense to conquer England even if England can be easily takes when nearly undefended => War readiness of the US and UDSSR goes throught the roof and Egnland has even better supply in teh med and can take over the whole middle east.

The sucess of Germany in the battle of atlantik have been the subs. Good, less destroyers more firepower for other surface ships and GB need to build up its destroyer force first to cheallenge right away Germany in the convoy buiseness.

I think you got the balance perfect in SC1 . A sealion was possible if the other player didnt take care of England and deadly as a result. If the Allied player was prepared a sealion was suicide for the Axis. There was no need to shullfe around the english capital. If it had been so easy to take out London Germany would have won the war. People talk big but I doubt that the commonwealth would have fought on in a big way without Englandsure they could supply e few corps but even then the internal political pressure to not anger the big power would have been huge. Bottom line is the current scripts IMHO reward bad gameplay by the Allied player.

P:S: I think the change to only be able to put corps and HQ + special forces) on amphibs makes much sense. If you are able to conquer a habour you can begin to ferry over the big guns and simulates indirectly well the limited capacity of Germany to ferry over troops. Even a DDAY I think would be mucgh more "relaistic"

[ November 02, 2007, 02:01 AM: Message edited by: Sombra ]

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

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.

[Sombra]

Ihope we can simply agree that taking England would have been a mayor blow against the allies ...In SC" and WAw its a usally a blow against the Axis.

[foko]

Hmm,

I think the sense is that it should not be possible to Kill the E bevor the US and UDSSR are in war.

As in our game. GB was not defended (also made very, very easy, I wrong placed the navy and was really supprised)

On the other side Egypt was heavly defenden so that the german forces (heavy dmg from France) only with one stuka and no ari, had per se no chance. The Empire placed all new forces there. Anti Tank, Flak, Ari, Engineers. And a lot of Navy.

On the long term. It is more fatal to lose GB than Egypt. GB gets alone ca 54 MPP. when not Iraq and Syria was made.

I usally look that in Sommer 1940 I got my 3 Stukas with Anti-Tank 2 or 3, build Mani, and level my german Airforce in Egypt. And when there is good german Ari placed. sooner or later the the Tomi will be wiped out. It depends how quick and at what costs the German will do this, bevor he to transfer the Airforce to the Ostfron

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

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

[Sombra]

foko my vengance will be terrible. For me the main impact is the rising War reradiness of the UDSSR and US, Combine it with the tremendous costs of the operation + the new already placed UDSSR researh chits... I had all planes in egpyt..the invisible defense..+ not be able to take out ships with planes anymore...Well Terif nailed it saying that its impossible to take Egypt (like you proved)

@ Hyazintj. I really like your sugestion. As Huber as the main developer has taken notice of these issues there is hope.

[Hubert Cater]

Gentlemen,

Just reading through some of the responses here and for reference as far as I know the scripts wrt the capture of the UK Home Isle and the transfer of the Government to Egypt as well as the increases in US and Soviet readiness have not really changed since Blitzkrieg. Additionally, and just off the top of my head the current scripts are essentailly based on what was done for SC1 so the only real change here is increased difficulty in taking Egypt due to some of the map changes for WaW.

My current feelings are that if it worked before it should still work now and as Foko has mentioned having a weakened GB that receives reduced MPP from only having Egypt should in the long run benefit the Axis, not to mention that controlling the UK Home Isle makes things more of a challenge for the US to get a foothold onto mainland Europe, but from what I hear it sounds like there may still be room for improvement and I am always open to suggestions. The only thing I will say is that most changes need to be carefully considered as there are always fallout effects to even the slightest of tweaks and/or additions.

So how about this? One thought, and again the easiest set of changes on my end, is simply to penalize the UK a bit more should they lose their capital and this can be done with a few slight adjustments:

* any country that has a capital transferred will take a morale hit similar to the current rule for when a country surrenders. Additionally the opposing forces will gain in morale similar to the same surrender rule

* any country that has a capital transferred to a disconnected area loses its current production/queue items (complete wipe out) unless the transfer location is connected to the current location of the capital (pre-transfer) or to any of the Industrial Center locations for that country.

For example if the UK moves its capital from London to Manchester there is no loss of production but if the subsequent move from Manchester to Alexandria occurs all current production is lost.

* * *

These are or course generic changes and would apply in all situations like if for example the USSR has its capitals moved etc., although in most cases in the USSR production would not be lost as a result since they have quite a few Industrial Centers (strategically located) but they would suffer from the morale losses for each occurrence.

What do you think?

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

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.

[Minty]

Sounds good, would also be an incentive for the Germans to go after Moscow adding a little realism, at present the smooth transition to Stalingrad makes the loss of Moscow like any other city, whereas in centralised Soviet days it would surely have had a huge effect on morale.

And although the game is normally decided by the time Berlin falls it would also be accurate that German morale would drop.

[Sombra]

Step in the right direction. Just to comment even in SC2 Terif (as our strategic godfather commented that a sealion usally doesnt make sense even when possible )

[Hubert Cater]

HvS,

I've thought long and hard about either adding additional resources and/or additional units for the UK but one problem I always run into is that it potentially makes them too strong in the early years, i.e. either in Egypt as they could transfer their assets there or potentially at home. While I can certainly appreciate that some may feel the current setup is not perfect it does at least recreate the feeling that the UK is vulnerable at home until probably 1941 and that Egypt is also precarious requiring careful attention so that it too may not be lost. Essentailly it forces the UK player to play very carefully (and not recklessly) for the first few years until the Soviets and the US enter the fray. It is a very careful balance and as noted in this thread very tricky to get just right.

[Hubert Cater]

Also just wanted to mention that if we went with a stronger UK and let's say for argument's sake it still fell to the Axis, and this is without the compensatory US and USSR activation scripts, then it would basically be game over each and every time.

With the current implementation there are pros and cons and in most cases it does not necessarily mean an immediate end to the game which I think deep down most players actually prefer... again it is a tricky balance between history and playability and despite its perceived faults I think what we have is pretty close to achieving the right balance.

Perhaps now with these slight additions and additional risk for the UK player a Sealion may become more realistic and subsequently more attractive but still maintain that very elusive long term playability and excitement for both sides.

[Sombra]

Hubert its not against the Scripts to raise the activation of the US or UDSSR when invaded (I think this would be really raise the alarm and psuh the other nations in the war) but the transfer of the capital.

If the English player neglects the protection of home island and the Axis player takes the risk there should be a possibilty to succed the transfer of capitals negates it

Terif argued that England is nearly not defensible. More neavl units something to prevent this if played right would still create in even bigger scale the sentiment that England is under siege...right now England can do ou cntraire sent troops to Norway , Egypt without fearing much and be more active as historically

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

@ 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