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[SMK-at-work]

Yep - my object is to do better with what "they had".....not to simply give them more (or hte other side less) until suddenly it's "balanced". 
 
No wars weer ever balanced....only sometimes it took longer than others to figure that out!!

[Ancient One]

ORIGINAL: targul
I have still not had much difficulty with oil but I do find the manpower to drop way to early.  I believe we need at least 100 more manpower for the Germans.    I also think the Italians have too much manpower.

I agree. I also think that the UK and USSR have way too much manpower. In reality they both suffered manpower shortages almost to the same extent of Germany.

[Ancient One]

ORIGINAL: marklv
The manpower allocations seem quite accurate to me. They are based in proportion to population, and are pretty close to historical accuracy.

That's not good enough. You can't just look at population statistics and declare that as an accurate measure of available manpower. Manpower in the game is not modified by territorial control or the creation of partisan units (both issues greatly skewing the USSR numbers in particular). There are other factors to consider as well.

What seems not so accurate is the strength/firepower of German units, which seems too low to me.

This could help solve the above problem, but then production would have to be rebalanced, as the Axis would be too rich (which is probably already the case anyway).

[Ancient One]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Yep - my object is to do better with what "they had".....not to simply give them more (or hte other side less) until suddenly it's "balanced". 

No wars weer ever balanced....only sometimes it took longer than others to figure that out!!

Indeed. Any good historical game should as much as possible provide the players with the same resources and options available to the historical counterparts. "Balance" belongs in the victory conditions, and nowhere else.

[Dave Ferguson]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

......Those options would be great if they were backed up by realistic considerations - however the game is just simplistic - you can move units anywhere you like, you can invade whoever you like...there are no consequence, there is no limit (essentially) to how much shipping you can use, or how removing shipping from the economy to supply a massive force in Nth Africa affects production, how internal politics pans out for "you" if you let the commie bastards build up for another year, and all that sort of stuff.......

Exactly my opinion, decisions you make in the game should have consequences as they do in real life. Your example of 'free' shipping iritates me as experience showed that specialised shipping was needed for amphib operations. OK, dont have a counter for an amphib but it should be possible to charge pp's for landing in a enemy or neutral hex. This just makes the player think which is a good thing.
looking at 'political' consequences lots of historical possibilities come to mind. Realistically what could the consequences have been of germany say invading Denmark or Holland or Sweden etc etc.

Interesting thought about Sweden, Finland had a significant Swedish minority and there was a chance that an axis invasion of Sweden would result in Finland remaning neutral!. Just a little judgement call for the axis player.

It is a pity that the political section of the general script won't do the job, which might be why it is inactive.

A prime example of politics is when nations join the conflict. Italy would not join if France survived, USA would join if Germany launched Sealion, Russia attacks if Axis don't garrison east etc etc.

I don't want the basic game to be changed. These variants should be available as options.

Dave

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: Zagys

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Yep - my object is to do better with what "they had".....not to simply give them more (or hte other side less) until suddenly it's "balanced". 

No wars weer ever balanced....only sometimes it took longer than others to figure that out!!

Indeed. Any good historical game should as much as possible provide the players with the same resources and options available to the historical counterparts. "Balance" belongs in the victory conditions, and nowhere else.

I'm with both you guys on this. That's main reason I didn't like MH:CATS.... just a wild free for all with no possiblity of historical play....
At least with CEAW you can try to go historical... if only we could get the AI to play in the sand....

[marklv]

I remember reading somewhere that Winston Churchill refused to sanction an army greater than 55 divisions - that was the absolute maximum.  This was because the UK, as an island, needed a large navy and air force, and also because a lot of men were needed for merchant shipping and manning factories.  Having too many personnel in the army would cause a severe imbalance that could have disastrous results. 

I don't know about the USA, but I believe Roosevelt approved a maximum 12 million man army.  I guess only around 3-3.5 million of these actually saw any fighting (please correct me if I'm wrong).

As for the Soviets, I believe around 20 million saw active service and over 8 million were killed, either in action, or in German POW camps. The Germans themselves raised 17 million soldiers during the war, but this includes foreign volunteers.

I have no idea how many Japanese soldiers were recruited or saw any fighting in WW2. And the Italians recruited some 5 million, around 8% of which resulted as fatal casualties.

[cptracks]

Will the patch will also allow the game to work on Vista? I have this laptop for travel you see....

[SMK-at-work]

ORIGINAL: marklv

I remember reading somewhere that Winston Churchill refused to sanction an army greater than 55 divisions - that was the absolute maximum.  This was because the UK, as an island, needed a large navy and air force, and also because a lot of men were needed for merchant shipping and manning factories.  Having too many personnel in the army would cause a severe imbalance that could have disastrous results. 

British manpower planning and problems are discussed in depth at Hyperwar - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/U ... index.html and the 55 divisions by the 2nd year of the war are mentioned in Chapter V.

The Brit army was given a maximum of "about" 2 million men.....

'About two million' was in fact defined as 2,195,000 and later in 1941 the ceiling was raised by another 158,000.

As above, chapter XI

However this figure was not only British - it was 32 British Divisions, and 18 commonwealth, +10% "fudge factor". Eventually it was raised to 57, 34 being British.

...a division as contemplated by the War Office with its share of corps, army and G.H.Q. and line of communications formations would require 42,000 men, exclusive of all training establishments and of all garrisons, depots, or troops not included in the field Army.

From above, chapter XI