1939 Scenario Comments

[Omnius]

I've played the AI both ways in the 1939 scenario in version 1.06 and found several things that could be improved. I like the way the game handles the USSR/Finland war, wish that Time of Fury did it as well.

Why does Norway have 3 VP cities that need to be conquered in order to conquer the country when Time of Fury's Norway only has 2? I think that's a city too many. As well as Bergen being a port in SWiE while it's not in ToF. Plus having two starting corps makes Norway rather difficult and costly to bother invading as Germany did historically. I didn't bother in SWiE though I did do it in ToF. I figure in SWiE it will takw two infantry armies plus an infantry corp, needing 8 AIP which costs 240 PP's. To try to do that right before taking down France in 1940 just doesn't make sense when taking down France fast does.

I found that as a human player on normal setting there just weren't enough PP's being produced to do the research to reach level 5, either way as Germany or a major Allied or USSR player. As Germany I didn't build another air unit, just maintained the 3 starting ones and didn't bother with level 5 research since I thought that the PP's would be better spent keeping my units strong. If playing all countries on human and normal there just wouldn't be enough PP's produced to build historical builds for units and research. I had my hands full keeping the USSR AI at bay in the Caucausus and around Chelyabinsk. I was stunned to see at the game's end that the USSR AI had a War Economy of 384%, wow. I was also stunned to see a massive sea of Soviet armies just stacked up like dead cordwood doing absolutely nothing in the Caucausus while I slowly but surely captured Chelyabinsk. I found that the AI's were be able to have plenty of PP's to do research on normal level.

If SWiE is supposed to be a beginner's level game make sure that it's simple enough as a beginning player to play Germany and have a good chance of emulating Germay's early success. If you want beginner's to try out SWiE in hopes of enticing them to move up to Time of Fury then make sure the beginner's have a good, positive experience. If they figure that it's too hard to play Germany and do the things that the German AI does as regards Norway in 1940 or against the Allies and USSR then chances are they won't play the game long or move up to ToF. As an old grizzled grognard I found playing Germany a challenge, but a tad too much for something like doing Norway.

If you want a human German player to have a better chance at taking on Norway then give Germany some AIP's to start. Cut down the number of Norwegian corps to 1. Perhaps even do some kind of Quisling event like I saw ToF do for Denmark. I did find that it was good for the German AI to get a free pass for taking Norway, but one problem is that the German AI does not garrison Norway. As Britain I had no problem having 6 AIP's to transport 3 infantry corps to take Norway on the turn after the German AI took Norway. For the German AI you need to include 3 garrison corps to properly garrison Norway on the turn of it's capture or it just becomes easy PP's for Britain.
Omnius

[doomtrader]

Hi Omnius,

Thanks for the observations, some valuable things posted.

[Omnius]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Hi Omnius,

Thanks for the observations, some valuable things posted.

doomtrader,
Thanks, just trying to help make this a better game so I can enjoy it more as well as others. I find the 1939 senario to be a bad starting point in both games, SWiE and ToF. As a human trying to reach the 1941 start level is just too difficult, especially for Germany and the Axis. I started the 1941 scenario as Switzerland last night and watched the AI's play with FoW on, so actually couldn't see them play but could run through the game quickly. I just turn off FoW once in a while to see how things look for all countries.

The 1941 research levels are really good, better than I can achieve on normal. At the end I opened up the autosave and looked at all countries as human. I found that Germany had a 5 level of reasearch in all 5 categories and every Axis ally had achieved level 4 in all 5 categories. All major country AI's had a level 5 for all categories at the end. I finally figured out that there must be some kind of help events that either give AI's lightbulbs every so often or events that just award these countries new levels at predetermined times. No way the Axis minors could generate enough PP's to buy the lightbulbs in the time frame of the game to achieve those levels. Gives me research envy. [:'(]

I liked the way you did that Crete event for Time of Fury. Maybe some event for Norway for a human German player to select that costs PP's but gives the human Norway with garrisons, depleted of course. Actually would be good for the German AI since it never garrisons Norway until the Allies land at Narvik.
Omnius

[jimwinsor]

Well, I just purchased this game and began a 1939 scenario as the Allies. And I ran right into a huge game-killing problem:

In April 1940 Germany DOW's the Low Countries, but does not quite take Antwerp on the first turn. OK fine. I move a British and a French army into the LCs, extending the allied line up to Antwerp.

Next turn, Antwerp falls, and the Low Countries surrender. And my French and British armies that advanced into the LCs mysteriously vanish.

It would appear that when a country surrenders, all forces, whether of that nationality or not, surrender as well. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a really bad design decision, but there you have it. Needless to say, this rather nasty ahistorical surprise messed up my game quite nicely.

[jimwinsor]

Actually, I still have the autosave right before the surrender, and I see now that I actually lost 3 armies (two French, one British) due to the Low Countries surrender, not two. I miscounted.

So, I do have a save file I can send you, which will show the problem very nicely.

[doomtrader]

Yep, when a country surrenders, all of its territory is seceded to the victor, so all allied units are moved into the forcepool

[jimwinsor]

Yikes. Well, by "forcepool" I see you mean that they can come on again next turn for free, which is some consolation. But it was really devastating in my game, as the Germans moved first and overran northern France, including an air unit.

This same thing will happen if the Allies get Italy to surrender, and Germans are stationed there?

[doomtrader]

yes