My suggestions

[artyar]

I think that in a head-to-head game the allies are at an advantage even when playing house rules like only 2 British units in France and no moving the African garrisons. I find that by purchasing as many garrisons as possible each turn as the French you can make a wall 2 to 3 units deep that virtually esures that the takeover of France will take the Germans "too long" and basically means the game is decided in 1940.

Here are my suggestions to even the balance...

First, I believe the Germans should start the game with another tactical bomber and a fighter to escort it.

Second, I believe that the Germans should start the game with the following units already in the development pipeline. An armor unit available second turn, another armor unit availabe third turn, and a battleship availabe fourth turn.

These units would allow the germans to attack Holland on the third turn. Also, The extra bomber, batttleship, and armor units would make the British hesitant to contribute more than a couple of garrisons to the French defense as an attempt at Sealion would be a more realistic concern (alleviating the need for the "house rule" involving British units).

Third, I believe the Germans should receive a 150 pp bonus when they capture Paris. These bonus pp's would make the Germans next moves more unpredictable (i.e. Britain would have to worry that the Germans might use them to build a more formidable navy to help with Sealion rather than buying more units to attack Russia with). There could also be bonus pp's (for axis only) for conquering Norway and Sweden. As it stands, there is little incentive or opportunity to attack these countries.

Fourth, I believe subs should be allowed to move four hexes in any direction after they attack a transport. Right now, the german sub maybe reduces the transport by 9 or so pp's but is then immediately attacked by the destroyer and perhaps other ships and gets knocked down to seven or less. The way it is now, the subs (which cost 70 pp's) are lucky to to do 15 pp's damage to the transports before they are destroyed. What I'd like to see is a little more cat and mouse out there. You would add some sort of symbol on the transport (to let the allied player know it had been attacked) but you would not see the where the sub is located. Accordingly, you would have your destroyer or other warship move through the hexes where you guess the sub moved and maybe you would stumble upon it and attack it or maybe you wouldn't. To increase the liklihood that you would find it you might use more ships for escorts but then you would have those Sealion fears too. Also, i think the damge the subs do should be increased by 25% or so.

Finally, on a more technical subject, I do not believe the native units that occupy the capitals of Denmark and Holland should be allowed to move or attack. The reason for this is that a sneaky allied player can park an infantry unit in a tranport next to these capitals and then, when the unit is red with a power at four or below can have the native unit perform a suicide attack at the surrounding units then unload the fresh unit in the capital. Thus making the conquest of these countries more than it should be.

Let me finish my essay by saying that this is a great game and the designers should be very proud of their product as is. I think with just a few tweaks, this could be one of the best games ever. OK, I'm finished.

[Krec]

nice to read a constructive post that doesnt bash or compare the game .  well done.[;)]

[SMK-at-work]

the naval stuff is a "no brainer" IMO - except I'd put in the historical arrivals....Bismark was commissioned in August 1940, Tirpitz in February 1941 - they should arrive in those turns.

but why should the Axis be able to attack Holland on T3 in the first place?[&:]

Interestingly the German army had NO Panzer Corps in 1939.....XIX Corps was essentially one - with 1 panzer and 2 motorised divisions, but all the other panzer divisions weer allocated 1 per corps among I, VIII, XVI and XVIII corps, with 1 division in 10th army reserve.....so nothing like the CEAW allocation of them at all!!

AFAIK another 4 panzer divisions had been added by the invasion of the low countries....but in CEAW you have the option to buy these with the production you get in the interim.

Subs arent' so bad in PBEM when the allies have only 1 destroyer, and if they keep thair BB's at Europe for the land war......they're a killer for the AI tho, since it always gets at least 1 extra destroyer unit

[VonManteuffel]

I agree that the Allies seem to be overpowered at this stage in PBEM. The French garrison spam is gamey, but I must admit that I do it, simply because it works. I have made huge mistakes and still won as the Allies, but this is not the case as the Axis.
 
I'm not entirely sure just how much of an advantage the Allies have, though. I need to play more games and experiment with more odd stategies to really be sure just how bad it is.

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for the feedback. We're in the middle of creating a patch so it's not a good time to experiement with these changes but it would be interesting if some of the modders were to try them out as some can be done through modding.
 
Subs are already powerful if used correctly so it's a fine balance. The clogging up of France is a potential issue but I'm not sure giving the Germans more is the answer. Maybe dropping the French manpower would be a better solution. Or an extreme fix could be to make garrions have 0 movement so you can only rail move them, not tactical move them, so they could only sit on cities. I'm not sure what knock on effects this might have though.
 
A 3rd option is to say a unit forced to retreat but without room to do so takes extra casualties or surrenders. I think this is my favourite, but the AI may have trouble coping with the idea.

[karloskar]

The clogging issue would be solved by setting an actionpoint cost to attack. As of now the most u can hope for is advance one step if you force the enemy unit to fall back or by some lucky strike manage to destroy it at once.

Lets say armour can move six hexes. If it starts the turn next to an enemy it could attack it and drop one actionpoint having five more to spend on combat and movement instead of not being able to do nothing more that turn. (Of course actionpoints should also be a question of the supplylevel).

With an actionpoint cost for the attack it would allow more attacks to be made by the same unit until actionpoints are out, this would make panzerbreakthroughs very possible both in france and in russia.

Thus one panzer could assault several lousy garrisonunits in one turn or attack the same garrison unit several times in one turn making breakthroughs against clogged garrison units more likely and forcing opponent to think more then just massing units.

Of course balance must still be maintained.

Kalle

[IainMcNeil]

AP systems are not really compatible with the current system unfortunately. They would also completely change the gameplay.

[karloskar]

Ah, I see, hm, well then in the specific case of france maybe lower efficiency for all french units. Also in some way make it harder to repair strengt of french units to full 10 once they have been "wounded", for instance via decrease of manpower as suggested allthough i think they had more of effiecency/quality/morale/leadership/doctrine problems then actual manshortage?

Kalle

[firepowerjohan]

Games from experienced players suggest that France is not too strong, they usually fall from May-August in Human vs Human games. Offense is tougher to learn than defence. Leaders like Manstein would give a 16% boost to Axis land unit effectieveness and they would become almost unstoppable.

UK can send some units to France to help out but bear in mind this also means when Paris falls the UK is very weak and have lost all of their early economy into casualties. Perhaps a Sea-Lion would then succeed...

[Vypuero]

1)  Use heavy air power
2)  Punch a hole where the allies are weakest and keep it open
 
France usually falls no matter what - and when it falls is actually not all that important.  I think the level of losses to Germany is more crucial than the time.

[SMK-at-work]

The UK sends garrisons to France which barely weakens them at all but provide "backstops" to prevent front line corps recoiling.

[PDiFolco]

Most probs can be solved by just some unit data tweaking/modding :
- reduce CV range and air value
- Give some more tech levels at start to Ger and UK in ground (Inf both, tanks for Ge), air (Fighter for all + Tac bomber for Ge), and sea (surface for both + subs for Ge)
- Make Netherlands+Belgium only 1 country with Brussels as capital
- Tone down anti-sub value of BBs
And that's just my first ideas [;)]
 
 

[Vypuero]

I don't think any of that is needed except for the CV issue, which may be addressed soon.

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Vypuero

I don't think any of that is needed except for the CV issue, which may be addressed soon.

I didn't say it was *needed*, just that it was relatively easy to do, even to do it yourself ![:D]
But BTW I'm not sure, can we "delete" Netherlands as a country in the editor (ie no capital, no army, territory given to Belgium) ?

[O.O. Howard]

Little did the Netherlands suspect as it acknowledged the independance of Belgium, that 100 years later Belgium would celebrate their centennial by annexing the Netherlands... [;)]

[davetheroad]

You could do a mod with the editor replacing Belgium and the Netherlands with one country but it is probably not worth the effort since it would be an unofficial scenario and if a opponent could be persuaded to use it why not just have the joint declaration house rule instead!
 
The only way to have universal 'house rules' is to have them hard wired into the game.

[PDiFolco]

O.O Howard
That's "design for effect", I don't pretend that it was 1 nation (now we risk having 3 since Belgium is on the verge of exploding...), but in game deleting NL as a country prevents gamey reinforcements of its 1-unit army, that historically made only a token appearance.
 
Davetheroad
I play SP only, try to enforce "house rules" with the AI !  [:'(]

[O.O. Howard]

PDiFolco

Friend, dont mind me. I am not critical of the idea, I hadn't thought about it seriously.

I am merely thinking about history. I have recently fallen in love with Belgium, and it tickled me to read your idea.

When we made pencil and paper games for WeGo risk-type games of world war 2, it might have been me who combined bel/hol/lux into a big triangular mush and called it 'The Low Countries' If your idea is stupid I was one of the original stupids about 40 years ago.

But now, out of respect for you, I give it thought.

It is odd that the game has three capital cities only about 7 or 8 hexes apart. Paris/Brussels/Hague.

In what ways would removing Hague effect not only the german advance, but later the allied landings? Are players coming into Europe via the Netherlands because of the coastal capital? If so, I would vote to remove it.

But then again, some German players probably declare war on only Netherlands at first, and then eat belgium the next turn. Taking out the Netherlands would prevent that option for the german player.

What do you think?

[Vypuero]

The neutral capitals have no effect for the allies or axis when captured

[PDiFolco]

I just did find rather ridiculous to see a Japanese-style La Hague defense, with Allied player reinforcing the unit for several turns, if the Germans don't distract a super-punch unit for this. It's just plain unrealistic, and the easiest way to get rid of this is to delete the capital !