World War III - East vs West

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: Grymme

Barthheart: aaah.. a nice feature. Although people having trouble with to much troops doing nothing is low on the priority list In the new scenario Bornholm is US territory so i think they would get some enemy contact. In any case you have transportships for the coffedrinking armies.

Btw. nice exploit of the stealthbombers. Have changed the PP cost to 30. To high or to low? what do you think?

Hard to say what a good price would be.... I went crazy and spent all my inital PP funds on bombers. Have been making good use of then by denying enemy of supplies and reinforcements... but I'm getting hammered by teched up Chinese navy.... 30 or 35 is probably good.

As for my transport ships.... they are very busy sending supplies to all the remote locations in the world.... but don't tell the Ruskies/Chinese that![:-]

[Grymme]

Hi
 
Is there an issue in your game with European cities & China being able to build both ship hulls and to build the ships directly?
 
I noticed an issue in the most current version and am fixing it. In any case the game could be fixed with NATO & PDRC agreeing to only by hulls.

[RufusTFirefly]

NATO turn 5 done and send.
 
It was a complete failure. Lost nearly all battles. Only one attack against a weak SU inf corps was successful. All other attacks caused heavy losses on both sides, but in the end WP corps remained stronger than NATo corps. Cannt hold southern Germany and Finland. Can hold northern Germany at high costs, but might loose it during the next two turns. SU units invade Turkey from the east. Have not enough units to hold them back. So, NATO is hardly possible to survive in middle Europe I guess.
 
@Grymme: NATO can build ships and hull of carriers, cruisers, and destroyers.
 
@all: I got a strange message: "Possible PBEM cheat. NATO has wiped out pbem logbook." Dont know, why this message appeared when I opened the file. Two days ago I deleted my web logfile, all cookies, and automatically saved passwords. I do this sometimes when I do a complete virus check. Maybe a logfile of AT was deleted too although only the web log should be affected, but no mail log files.

[RufusTFirefly]

@Grymme:
I think Barthheart is right, when he says that US units near Brussels are useless. There should be another US base in Europe.
But as you suggested to install it at Bornholm I have to say that this is a bit strange. [X(]
Why a US base at such small island in the Baltic Sea? Would it not be better to use a city in Norway for that (Trontheim)? US would have free access to it. Bornholm can be blocked easily by closing the Belt with a SU fleet. An it would be more realistic to have a US base in Norway with survey of the northern sea areas and protecting Norway oil fields instead of controlling the Baltic Sea.
It is better to make holidays at Bornholm instead of sending US tanks and fighters there. [:'(]

[Ccr]

Can confirm that China can build ships directly.

From the start of Turn 6 shall we put in a house rule to say we can no longer do this?

[Grymme]

Rufus: I agree on principle that a better flexibility with US bases in Europe would be very desirable. The system has huge limits here in that allies cant share territory. So you have to weigh the benefits/disadvantages with big US bases against eachother.
 
My reasoning with the current placement is the following.
1. USA should be able to help a NATO player that is doing badly. Thats were Belgium comes in. If the war goes badly for NATO and the Frontlines recede then the US groundforces in Belgium (properly stocked up  & reinforced by navy) could handle the front for them.
2. USA should NOT be able to help NATO directly in a land war against USSR unless NATO is doing badly. The reasoning behind this is that NATO and USA could basicly gang up on USSR and then finish of PDRC without them being able to do much about it. It would, IMHO be a total scenariokiller.
3. USA should however be able to help NATO indirectly with Air & Naval support.  
 
Also i think that Bornholm (although not a major airbase in real life) is a good alternative as a US base in the game. Its a city. So USA can post both naval and air units there. These could be used to threaten strategic bombardment, naval shore bombardment & amphibious invasion against the entire baltic area.
 
Having a base in Norway is an option i admittedly havent considered. It could be good. We do have a base in Edinburough though which could fill this objective & its not certain that a base in Norway would be much better since overflight of allied territory is not possible (again limitations of the system). But when it comes to protection on the ground, of course Norway would be better. Will promise to think about it.
 
Btw. Rufus. In our first test game NATO is really on the offensive in Europe and has captured whole Germany, parts of Balkans & half of Poland (on t12) so hopefully this means that the war could go either way (which is my hope for the scenario).
 
 

[Widell]

Turn sent to China! Some really challenging priorities that needs to be managed in this scenario = Great fun to play, and there's always some critical area that needs to be taken care of. I'll throw in some thoughts once I get back from work this afternoon.

[RufusTFirefly]

@Grymme:
Yes, I can see the point. So maybe Bornholm is really a better choice. But it is funny thinking of that small island in the Baltic Sea as a US main base in Europe [:D]. But, just to mention it again, Norway would be a good choice anyway, maybe Oslo more than Trontheim. So, Sweden is an area that US bombers could pass, I think. Therefore no conflict with NATO air control occures. And in case WP captures whole Scandinavia and reach Oslo, they have advanced so far that a ground attack by US units is necessary. Anyway, noone forces WP to conquer Scandianvia before most of Europe has been beaten [;)]
 
The only negative point I see is that it becomes very difficult for WP to get into the North Sea in case that NATO fleet (especially UK ships) and US fleet together block the Barent Sea. [:'(]
 
Another point: I can agree to the suggestion of Ccr that we make a house role not to build large ships directly. But in case of NATO hulls for carriers, cruisers, and destroyers can be build. What about cruisers and destroyers? Is it allowed to build them directly? I am open for any appointment we do.

[Grymme]

Rufus: Actually i listened to you and remade norweigan terrain a little bit. I added Trondheim and made it a US base (kept Bornholm).

I will upload what i hope will be the last major update of the scenario tonight. Changes after that would only be bugs & balance issues.

Regarding the capital ships. In WWIII Cruisers & Destroyers are capital ships and should be built with hulls. (they are the equivelant of the old BB and CG). So Cruisers, Destroyers & Carriers need hulls (& would have to be built with that under the house rule). Frigates, Transport ships, Submarines & the Yuan class SSN doesnt need hulls.

Screenshots show US bases in Northern Europe. Note that the brigade stationed in Trondheim is a US Delta forces Brigade.

[Widell]

One more suggestion, and I hope it can make the release - In order to make it possible for naval movement north of Scandinavia, a couple of hexes (horizontal) could be added (big sea) so naval units can sneak in and out of Barents Se. If you add weather, you can maybe make the added hexes "Ice Pack" during winter in future releases making it possible only for submarines to pass, alternatively at extreme movement cost and combat penalties for surface vessels due to the need to break ice while moving. Could lead to some interesting decisions up there in the north.... [:)] 

[Grymme]

Hi Widell. I did consider it when i rearranged the terrain up there. If you check the map you will see that the map is actually some 3 hexes higher than the WAW-map. I dont want to make the map bigger because it would make it less AI playable. So although i agree that it would be great i do not think there will be any change on this
 
The reason i made the sub event is actually to give the USSR some possibility to sneak out through barents sea.
 
Also i have decided against adding weather partly because i think modern forces fight equally good in winter and partly because i tried to program it and dont have the ability to do so (right now atleast)
 
Btw. Uploaded what i sincerely hope will be the last major update less than an hour ago. So you can check it out if you want.

[Ccr]

Turn to USA

Were we going with the 'house rule' on only building ship hulls from now on?

[Barthheart]

Turn 5 done and sent to NATO.

Ethiopia is now a Democracy again! Egypt bombed. Burmese rebels killed. Iraqi oil will belong to Israel next month. Cuban cigars selling well again in th US.

SE Asia still a mess....[:(]

I say yes to ship hull house rule.

[RufusTFirefly]

Yes, I agree with that house rule.

NATO turn 6 done and send.

[Widell]

House rule = Yes

[Widell]

Turn 6 sent to China. Sorry for being late. Had a fully scheduled weekend...

[Ccr]

Turn 6 to USA
Burma 'liberated'

[Barthheart]

Turn 6 complete. Sent to NATO.

Egyptian, Ethiopian and Iraqi armies destroyed! All of middle east is now US controlled.

Burma indeed lost.... US stratgic air strikes on Chinese mainland in retaliation!

US stratgic air strikes in Russia as well!

SE Asia in trouble....

[Widell]

Things start to get interesting. Looking forward, sort of, to see what damage is done to my poor commie motherland....

[RufusTFirefly]

NATO turn 7 done and send.
 
Warshaw Pact units standing at Frankfurt. No more NATO units west of the Rhine to stop WP troops from moving foreward to France. Helsinky was captured by SU units that are now appraoching the Norwegian border. Ankara has fallen and Turkish army gathers round Istambul to fight a last battle.
 
Only at northern Germany near Hamburg NATO successfully defeats the WP corps and have even made them retreat.
 
Supply that has to be send eastwards to reinforce the units hardly arrives due to overcrowded roads. Citizens from Germany try to escape westwards and block the roads. (NATO command hopes this will slow down enemy movement too.) Overloaded ferries try to reach England.