Notes on Global Conquest against axis AI

[simov]

Could not resist playing this campaign after seeing the map Played against axis AI, +100% and +1.

France was easy to defend and held on until summer '41 with the tank in Paris. Russia entered the war confidently while the war in France was still going on. However, after the fall of France the situation deteriorated rapidly and I was forced to send a full amount of lend-lease to keep the Russians alive. The speed of axis expansion looked so frightening that I also drew all (six) carriers from the Pacific to hasten the opening of a second front in Italy. Landings in Europe in '43 finally blunted the axis offensive, with Leningrad, Moscow and Kharkow lost. The game ended in June '45 with the fall of Japan.

The game and strategy were quite different from the usual Fall Weiss campaign. Most notably:

-Russian production is very very low, and the focus on the first half of the game had to be to support them by all means

-The British can be very easily disabled by bombing the convoy port. Maybe the sufficient counter would be to research only ASW and AA in the beginning, bring in the African fighter and buy one HQ to support the fighters?

-The British research cap is quite low

-The German air power was totally unstoppable in the east until the USAF could be brought in to wear them down in the west.

-The US production was high but it helped to balance the game and achieve a historical end date. However, if the Japanese AI had expanded historically, the war would have lasted a year or two longer.

-The US unit base is hilariously small, you can buy only 2 corps

-Siegfried line was a tough nut, although having 9 carriers and 4 AFs made it possible to slowly gnaw in. Having 1-1-1 upgrades against 3-2-2 of the Germans sure did not help, so this might not be so unrealistic.

-Hordes of volksturm units popping with 3-2-2 equipment were a nasty surprise. Some tough middle-aged men and schoolboys!

-When invasion was nearing, Italian corps garrisoning Rome ran away, leaving the city empty. I could amphib an army from Corsica and next turn land it directly into the city. The secondary capital was also left ungarrisoned.

-Similarily, at the end of the war, after capturing Osaka the corps defending Tokyo ran for the mountains, leaving the city free for direct capture of the city by an amphib assault.

-Japan has practically no AI yet I checked the scripts and nothing much was there. So it was not surprising that they just concentrated on the mainland China.

-I transported Eisenhower HQ into the low tip of the Philippines. However, it was then unable to move or transport away.

Despite these shortcomings I have to confess that I absolutely enjoyed playing the campaign! The weakness of Russia was compensated by strong USA. Starving the British by bombing the convoy port and German monster air in the east got me really worried for '42-'43. The map is absolutely beautiful and there is so much more depth now that you have to balance between two wars at the same time. The Siberian railway is ingenious

It is quite scary to think how good this campaign will be when the Japanese AI is completed. A big thanks for all the developers!

[John DiFool the 2nd]

I've let the designer know about many of the issues you mentioned (low Russian production, small US force pool, horrible AI); I played the Axis and the American AI was as bad as Japan was in yours (their fleet just sat in US ports for the entire game while I rampaged through the Far East and Germany took over most of Western Asia. The next update will be in WaW I believe.

[PowerGmbH]

Hi guys!

thanks for the comments regarding the GC map. Do not fear we'll have a look for all this points.

I must say i terribly enjoy this map, mostly H vs H, and the unbeliveble possibilities of a whole world.

Not forget plz that USSR received a lot of aid from GB and USA, so the strength of USSR depend historically on support via Iran, Wladivostok and Murmansk. One must really try to help each other Ally out , else all 3 go down the river...

the "hordes" of Volkssturm where thougt just for fun at least, but a little surprise challenge is alwas welcome , isn t it?

[simov]

Yes, I must admit that the lend-lease felt much more realistic this way. In the vanilla SC2 there was hardly ever any need to send MPPs to Russia.

About the volkssturm, I'd prefer them maybe popping up 1-2 units per turn, with no equipment or at half strength, for a more realistic feel. One way or other, they can only delay the inevitable

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

I like the devotion the developer put into the scripts.. shows us that he has good knowledge of history.

I love the campaign as well.. for me it just has one central weakness: China should be a bit stronger to prevent the Japanese from taking their whole country... I played on expert level vs. the Allied AI, and I took all Chinese cities until 11/42.. I was even able to invade 3 of the for russian cities in Siberia. With all the experienced and technically advanced japanese infantry being free for other tasks, the war took a funny development. What a pity the occupied russian cities in the eastern part only have a maximum supply of 4... otherwise I would have sent them all to the Ural

[John DiFool the 2nd]

In my game playing Axis, China hoarded all their new builds in the rear as I took almost all their eastern cities.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Yeah, they tried that with me as well... but it didn`t help them.

[Bill101]

I agree about China needing to be stronger. In my game against a human opponent I spent a lot of the UK's precious MPPs trying to stop the Japanese attack in China, and ended up losing both China and the UK very quickly!

I still think that China should be a major in its own right, as it shouldn't be such an income drag on the UK. Or China should be worth more MPPs itself so that the UK can afford to invest in Chinese units as well as their own.

One small thing I did notice is that when naval units proceed west from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean the message that pops up says that naval units are sailing to the Atlantic.

Otherwise it's a great scenario!

[PowerGmbH]

For China, you re right, the country is too easy to take, at least i found out what was the problem: China is a huge country (similar to russia) but the difference between both are the Mountains and Hills in China which are lacking a little.

soon you will see if it is still as easy to take China with supply levels around 0...

[SeaMonkey]

Well David or maybe that was Hubert, I saw your...yeah it was Hubert come to think of it.. post over at Wargamer about the port to WaW.

Beginning to see this might be more than just a simple port and could become a full blown expansion. I'm seeing the necessity for more code here.

You know truly...if it is well done...like WaW, I could ante up for the download. You know this would have to be a DL only for it to be worth it as shipping costs could be an issue to some folks.

Yepper...a well done Pacific with the ETO would be worth it. To bad you can't think of something to expand the historical operational theaters while doing away with the parts of the map that are essentially useless.

Those loop arrows could be mighty useful for a feature like that, operating in and out of the different areas of the connected network.

May require a holding pool, like our build Q is now with the time of appearance, highliting the potential placement tiles when ready for deployment.

Yep....a feature like that would allow the applicable battle areas to be done with more attention to detail...

Just thinking out loud here!

No big deal if it doesn't happen...just wishing .....Hoping

No need to be disappointed if it doesn't "come to pass."

[Philippe]

I'm not sure I understand why you say you might need to ante up for the download of a patch. I doubt that it will be like a multi-Gig M2TW patch that requires broadband.

[ December 09, 2007, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[Retributar]

Great Thinking!!!... "SeaMonkey!!!",... i also readilly 'ConCur' with your idea's too!!!,...to [ expand the historical operational theaters while doing away with the parts of the map that are essentially useless .]

[SeaMonkey]

Appreciate the support Retri, if it wasn't for guys like you, I wouldn't be entertaining these thoughts. :cool:

Come on guys...get on board and we can get these things considered...remember we have a true artist at our bidding.

[emf]

I think that a lot of the problems with supply levels in Russia and elsewhere, stem from the way the map was made. I think the dividing line should not be in the Urals, but between Alaska and Siberia. That way China, India, and Russia are all one nation, as they should be, and none are split in half.

[PowerGmbH]

to emf:

well i thought a lot on this approach on dividing the pacific...

at the end, i wanted not to have a war-theater divided in 2 parts.

Most important Theatres where 1)European 2) Pacific 3) Mediteranean 4) Middle East.

So only 2 Cut lines where possible: Cut USA and SOuth America from north to South, or Asia.

Didn t favour so much cutting USA, even if this is an option. also cutting America is rather difficult and not so much Asian-Centered maps available.

[Jeff Sutro]

Beginning to see this might be more than just a simple port and could become a full blown expansion. I'm seeing the necessity for more code here.

SeaMonkey:

That sounds like a great idea! A second expansion, some type of "Strategic Command 2: Global War", is something I'd gladly pay for.

To do a good job of "going global" is likely to require new rules for naval combat, expanded rules for invasions, expanded diplomacy, new A.I. coding and scripts, an extensively expanded map, new units and unit upgrades, new / expanded research, and probably a lot of other things that my limited brain can't think of right now. This would also allow for a lot of interesting new "operational" scenerios, e.g. China, Iwo Jima, Guadacanal, New Guinea, Burma, Philipines, Midway, Coral Sea, Leyte Gulf, Pearl Harbor, and hypothetical battles like invasions of the Japanese home islands, Australia, or Hawaii.

Perhaps, as was sugested on the "Strategic Command 3" thread by powergmph and Hyazinth von Strachwich (I'd provide a link to it if I could figure out how), there could be more than three upgrade options available for some units and the player could pick and choose which to use. This would allow a player to customize his units to some extent, while keeping things within reasonable limits.

It seems to me that for Hubert to put in the time and effort do do the job properly it would have to be something for which he'd need to get paid, and I know that it's something that I'd consider to be well worth the money.

[Scook]

Yes, there are some things in the global scenario that the game engines of SC2 and WaW cannot handle. The biggest one to me is a spearate peace between Japan and USSR. In a HvH game, house rules can cover this, but HvComp, you are forced as Japan to stomp all over the Russian computer player. If SC3 includes a vast world scenario, this is one area that will have to be addressed, along with China/Burma and MPPs for China (USA should supply, not Britian). But this will give HC something to play with, along with all the ideas in the sticky thread for SC3.