Operation Sealion Variant

[General Mayhem]

Another SC2 player and I have come up with the following two proposals on making a defense of Britain an even match.

1. Use the Editor to make French units at full value. It is my understanding the French Army was larger than the Germans at the onset of WWII. The problem was the disaster that was the French High Command. By increasing the French values, it would make the conquest of France later, thus giving the UK some breathing room to prepare.

2. Make a script addition to allow a British General to be activated upon the landing of an Axis unit on English soil. We have debated whether it should be Alexander or Montgomery, but we finally settled on Alexander as a player will have to decide whether they should go ahead and spend the points for Montgomery.

BTW, Hubert thanks for such a great game! Absolute Genius!

[Exel]

I concur. French units at full strenght should be tested for balance, but it sounds about right. It would make the French conquest harder as it is a walkover at present.

While giving a free HQ on Sea Lion is something worth considering, I feel that a more important fix would be to reduce the amphib range even further to 3 or 4 tiles - that way you couldn't launch an invasion out of bomber spotting range without investing in tech first.

[ChrisND]

What about triggering an English Home Gaurd? Like low-level corps or partisan units.

[Sombra]

I disagree. Why only these script solutions? I think the player should build the units necessary to defend its homeland and not hoping for ghost units suddenly appearing in the time of need.

Further reducing the range of amphib transport is something I agree with.

[Blashy]

If you can not protect from a Sealion with the reduced amphibious, then you need to practice some more.

The only thing I would change is IF UK is taken, the Govt be moved to Canada instead of Egypt.

You should almost welcome a Sealion, it means USA and USSR join not long after. Historically Sealion might have been a remote possibility but we all know now it would have meant disaster for Germany.

[hellraiser]

Allowing France full strength units means only one thing - France will sink 5 diplo chits somewhere

[ChrisND]

Concur - Those str 5 units means that France has to invest their MPP in having a military, instead of something gamey.

[Exel]

Originally posted by Blashy:

If you can not protect from a Sealion with the reduced amphibious, then you need to practice some more.

The reduced amphib range means nothing. It is still too high; you can launch an invasion from beyond bomber spotting range even without any tech investments. Result - the Allied player wont have an idea and the RN cant intervene before the invasion hits the shore.

I don't see a problem in reducing the amphibious range to 3 or 4 for the basic level, since we now have a tech with with to increase it. Also the 6 movement points the amphibians now have largely makes the amphib tech pointless, since it really isn't needed (especially when US already has a chit on the tech).

[Blashy]

1- You load up in amphibs in Bordeaux or Denmark area, it will take you 2 turns to get to UK, your readiness / morale will have dropped and your landings will not be as effective.

2- If you have AFs properly place you can most likely spot them.

3- If he loads from Brest or Benelux you can easily spot them and crush them with your navy.

4- Which means he must use the farther away ports and thus a slightly gimped landing and possible chance of being spotted.

5- Amphib tech is a must for USA, cross the Altantic with level 6 and your troops will die a quick death when they land. You need maximum level so you can land with good morale and readiness.

6- I agree with you that Amphibious tech is basically just there for USA, overall kind of makes it useless for other countries.

[Exel]

Originally posted by Blashy:

[QB] 1- You load up in amphibs in Bordeaux or Denmark area, it will take you 2 turns to get to UK, your readiness / morale will have dropped and your landings will not be as effective.

The morale / readiness drop wont be that significant in one turn.

2- If you have AFs properly place you can most likely spot them.

No, you can't, unless the Axis player is stupid enough to sail too close. With the current range of 6 he can very well keep out of the spotting range of even bombers and invade from there.

3- If he loads from Brest or Benelux you can easily spot them and crush them with your navy.

Hasn't changed. That was the case before as well.

5- Amphib tech is a must for USA, cross the Altantic with level 6 and your troops will die a quick death when they land. You need maximum level so you can land with good morale and readiness.

That's true. Now it effectively forces the US player to group in the UK first. But if the does that, he wont need additional techs.

[markpoll]

I understood the French units being at 5 as being to do with readiness, not numbers.

[Franky-Boy]

I also think that the amphib range should be reduced to 4. The US/Uk should therefore have already "1" tech value for amphib, Germany "0" at the beginning of a game.

With an (start) amphib range of only 4, it's much harder IMHO for the German to launch a Sealion early in the game.

In order to make amphib operations even more difficult at the beginning of the game, the Amphibious Warfare tech should not only increase the Amphibious Transport range by 1 per tech level, it should also decrease the initial cost for loading a unit in an amphibious boat. The original cost for amphib operations must (of course) be higher than now at the start of the game, e.g. 80 credits.

Example:

- Amphibious Warfare tech = 0, then the cost for loading a unit into an amphibious boat = 80 credits.

- Amphibious Warfare tech = 5, then the cost for loading a unit into an amphibious boat = 30 credits.

See what I mean? What do you think?

Ciao Frank

[Rolend]

I still think lowering the range is not the way to go. Now that a Amphib tec has been added it should go something like this.

Level 1. Units must wait one turn next to land before unloading. No movement allowed after unloading.

Level 2. Units can unload on same turn. No movement allowed after landing.

Level 3. Units can unload on same turn. Units may move if enough AP's after landing.

With those added, Sealion will become very hard to pull off early in the game, as it was in real life.

[Blashy]

There is a problem with your idea Rolend. Germany could not do ANY amphibious until they get at least level 2 for Norway and level 1 for Denmark.

They had amphibious landing capabilities.

[Exel]

I don't disagree with your ideas as such Rolend (I was campaigning for something similar before) but I think they are unlikely to get implemented. First there are the potential issues of the engine handling such features without excessive reprogramming. Second I think Hubert already made a conscious design decision with the new amphib tech effecting the range only.

The result of further range reduction would be that without investing in tech your invasion attempts could be spotted and intercepted before even getting ashore. That in turn would effectively result in:

a) need to gain air and naval supremacy

or

investments in tech for better range

[Franky-Boy]

Originally posted by Exel:

Second I think Hubert already made a conscious design decision with the new amphib tech effecting the range only.

Is it thus not possible for the game engine that the amphib tech does affect both cost AND range. If not, my above proposal is useless.

Nevertheless, the default amphib range should be set to 4.

Ciao Frank

[Rolend]

Oh I understand that limiting range is the 'easy' way to go. However I think a more accurate historical way to go is along the lines of my suggestion.

As for Germany not being able to do any Amphib landings with this type of system is wrong. Most of the time I take Denmark I have 2 aircraft nearby and the Denmark unit is destroyed before my troops ever arrive. The couple games where I took Norway I moved 2 air units up to Demark, declared war on Norway, bombed the unit in the capital, destroying it then landed my amphib unit directly into the city, end of Norway. By the way that is how they pretty much did it, with sea and air pounding the defense then the troops came ashore in the port.

I contest that Germany had very POOR amphib ability and would of lost the war right there had they tried Sealion, even if they had some how managed to defeat the RAF. It would of taken them weeks to unload enough forces to mount any kind of operation and you think that during that time the RN and what remained of the RAF would of just sat around having tea??????

It is historical that low amphib tech meant that it took weeks to unload onto shore enough troops and equipment to able to fight a large army. With higher amphib you could do that same chore in hours and days. All I am asking for is a bit more historical accuracy. If it is not possible because of the current engine I understand programming constraints, but I can ask and who knows maybe with SC 3 it will be there

[Cheese Panzer]

Originally posted by Blashy:

There is a problem with your idea Rolend. Germany could not do ANY amphibious until they get at least level 2 for Norway and level 1 for Denmark.

They had amphibious landing capabilities.

You know, now that you mention it, the Germans really didn't have amphibious capacity for Norway. Most of the troops were loaded on warships and off-loaded on docks in harbors and ports. Not really an amphibious assault, more like a coup-de-main.

[Blashy]

Very good point Cheese Panzer.

[Rolend]

Right and that is why I am saying that if you are at level 1 tech you should have to wait one turn to off load troops, this makes it much more historical. When we first started discussing this idea it was kind of frowned apon due to having to add a new tech. Well now we have the new tech and I know it might be very complecated in the code to add this but I still think it would fix the problem for good and not just bandaid it like lowering movement rate does.

[ June 07, 2006, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: Rolend ]

[Lars]

Sounds good, but how about Level 0.

Think the first thing we're figuring out is how to put the doors on.

[Exel]

I'm all in favor of Roland's suggestion if it only is applicable. If not, just go with range reduction.

[Blashy]

I have to say that Rolend has the best idea I've seen so far.

[Franky-Boy]

Originally posted by Blashy:

I have to say that Rolend has the best idea I've seen so far.

Can it be realized by the game engine?

Ciao Frank

[Rolend]

Franky-Boy that is the million dollar question, I know coding can be extremlly difficult and sometimes even more so after it has already been writen. I do not really expect these changes to happen, it is just a suggestion and something to think about.

Lars ok you have me there subtract one from each of my level numbers I would have the system go level 0 1 2.

0 you have to wait a turn to unload.

1 you could unload the same turn but could not move.

2 you can unload the same turn and move in that turn if you have enough AP's.

Is that a little better