1.25

[boogada]

I agree with everybody saying that the transfer of resources needed to be improved. In "The Eastern Front" by Norman Stone I read recently about the mismanagement of Russian industry, resources and that a lot less equipment was delivered to Russia by the Allies than the Russians had ordered. He never talked about food explicitly though. At least the Russian railways were barely able to transport all the stuff. 

[HannoMeier]

Does the 1 turn delay Frank mentioned refers to all ressource transfers or only the ones delivered by sea? In other words: Will Austrian IP transfers to Germany delayed one turn in the future or are they still immediately available for German production.
 
(As the CP player, I like it, but I think this is not too realistic)
 
Hanno

[FrankHunter]

All transfers will now have a one turn delay, whether they're land or water

I changed the British-Russian route back to North Sea- Baltic Sea as it is now. So its easy for the Germans to prevent if they don't lose their fleet.

Or, there's the "French" route through the Med-Black Sea if Constantinople and Gallipoli are not enemy controlled.

I wasn't able to do anything on the AI issues BK6583 mentioned except to look at them. Funny that others say the CP AI always goes east when for me its the opposite, Schlieffen is usually selected as the personality and he always goes West albeit slowly and after siphoning off men to hold the line in Poland because the "don't do anything stupid" AI won't let him put 90% of the German army into Belgium-Luxemburg. However, I will try to look at those issues more over the next few days and see if there's anything I can do about them, perhaps I'll need to look at doing some hard-coding.

Other than that I did upload "1.25 Test" and hopefully that will be made available today or tomorrow.

[Lascar]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

All transfers will now have a one turn delay, whether they're land or water

I changed the British-Russian route back to North Sea- Baltic Sea as it is now. So its easy for the Germans to prevent if they don't lose their fleet.

Or, there's the "French" route through the Med-Black Sea if Constantinople and Gallipoli are not enemy controlled.

I wasn't able to do anything on the AI issues BK6583 mentioned except to look at them. Funny that others say the CP AI always goes east when for me its the opposite, Schlieffen is usually selected as the personality and he always goes West albeit slowly and after siphoning off men to hold the line in Poland because the "don't do anything stupid" AI won't let him put 90% of the German army into Belgium-Luxemburg. However, I will try to look at those issues more over the next few days and see if there's anything I can do about them, perhaps I'll need to look at doing some hard-coding.

Other than that I did upload "1.25 Test" and hopefully that will be made available today or tomorrow.

So if France falls and both Gallipoli and Constantinople fall then Britain will be unable to send any aid to Russia unless they control the Baltic and North Sea?

[FrankHunter]

For the test version yes. If everything is working otherwise with the test version I will then add the alternate routes.

[OrvalB]

Could you please please please do something about the Austro-Hungarian navy? Something very realistic, like have them start off with next to no naval assets. Thereafter, if the CP wants to blow scarce Austro points on the navy, they would, might be smart in some circumstances actually, but there is no way on earth that they should start loaded and rarin' for bear that way. Throughout the war, and in any realistic sense, there was just no real possibility of major Austro naval rampaging about the Med. Unlike WWII, the Med was a pretty placid allied lake, really.

And yeah, the AI has a major predeliction for an Eastern strategy. And it seems to learn, you beat it up badly enough once on a Schiff type plan, and it never ever tries it again.

[BK6583]

I still don't get Italy - now with 1.25 - when the CP forces Italy's surrender, can either TE or CP ever enter it again or is it like France? I ask because after the obligatory automatic redeployment I activated some Austrian units the following turn which were on the Italian border but could not move them into Italy.

[FrankHunter]

Italy is like France after the surrender, it loses territory and then reverts to neutral.

[FrankHunter]

I'm open to removing Austria's starting naval asset pts.

[lordhoff]

I'm going to throw my 2 cents in for what that is worth. I think the base problem is a matter of scale - the naval game is meant to get a feel for what happened. While the AH navy never could realistically shut down half the Med., it did indeed control the sea between it and Italy for much of he war. However, that scale is too small for the game. I think the only function on the game is Montenegro's port - early transport there would be a tad bit unrealistic, don't you think? Taking away the early naval points may open a small bag of worms. Perhaps the port should not be usable at the beginning if these points are to be deleted. In addition, having a raring to go navy has little effect too as Britain really has little transport capability or troops in the beginning and I suspect that the AI would simply use the new excess points to build naval points.

It just doesn't matter much either way IMO.

[ILCK]

ORIGINAL: OrvalB

Could you please please please do something about the Austro-Hungarian navy? Something very realistic, like have them start off with next to no naval assets. Thereafter, if the CP wants to blow scarce Austro points on the navy, they would, might be smart in some circumstances actually, but there is no way on earth that they should start loaded and rarin' for bear that way. Throughout the war, and in any realistic sense, there was just no real possibility of major Austro naval rampaging about the Med. Unlike WWII, the Med was a pretty placid allied lake, really.

And yeah, the AI has a major predeliction for an Eastern strategy. And it seems to learn, you beat it up badly enough once on a Schiff type plan, and it never ever tries it again.

The AH navy is freakishly difficult to defeat, for reasons I do not get. They seem to drag down an inordinate amount of TE resources. I've never seen anyone beat them in equal combat. I'd say limiting their naval points is a good idea.

I've never seen the AI go west either. It'd be nice if it was more of a 50-50 thing for single player games because when I play the TE I've gotten fairly into a rut.

[Naskra]

Could you please please please do something about the Austro-Hungarian navy? Something very realistic, like have them start off with next to no naval assets. Thereafter, if the CP wants to blow scarce Austro points on the navy, they would, might be smart in some circumstances actually, but there is no way on earth that they should start loaded and rarin' for bear that way. Throughout the war, and in any realistic sense, there was just no real possibility of major Austro naval rampaging about the Med. Unlike WWII, the Med was a pretty placid allied lake, really.

AH can't do a whole lot of rampaging with those 4 naval points.
The TE is already given a free pass in the Med on turn 1. Those reinforcements that appear in Paris on turn 2 are largely the French Colonial Corps shipped over from Africa. Transporting them safely to Toulon was a matter of the gravest concern to the French admiraty. With the Goeben not even in play, the French navy really has nothing better to do than beat on the Austrians if they appear.

[HannoMeier]

From my point of view, the 4 points are required for the AH, as this forces the TE to guard their sea lanes. Otherwise it will get very unrealistic.

[OrvalB]

ORIGINAL:  Hanno Meier

From my point of view, the 4 points are required for the AH, as this forces the TE to guard their sea lanes. Otherwise it will get very unrealistic.

True enough, but it is also very unrealistic for the Eastern Med to be effectively shut down for 1914 and sometimes well into 1915, plus a major diversion of TE naval forces, plus a major amount of repair work required once the Austro navy is finally put to bed. I mean protecting your sea-lanes is one thing; having to transfer DNs from Scapa to handle the Austro navy is another.

[OrvalB]

On the transfers to Russia thing, well the game is a bit far from history anyway. The whole idea behind the Gallipoli  venture was to open the Black Sea route, because there really wasn't any other effective alternative. And the idea was to swap Russian food for British/French armaments-- Russia was considered to have a substantial food surplus. Which it did; later hunger in Russia had much more to do with the collapse of the economy and rail system than loss of production.

[OrvalB]

Oh, and finally, yes the CP should not be able to get past Gibralter. Indeed, the HSF capital ships probably should not be able to function outside of the North Sea and Baltic (raiders, yes, but not DNs and PDs). They were designed to fight there, and did not have the range to operate effectively in the North Atlantic, at least not without say Brest or Cherbourg available. The thought of the HSf sailing en mass down the channel kind of boggles the mind, and there is just no way they could have gotten past Scapa without a full-on Trafalgar type showdown (which was the whole point of the Grand Fleet being at Scapa).

The naval system also takes no account of mines and shore batteries-- the TE lost a number of ships trying (and failing) to force the Dardanelles, and would have lost more if they tried to force their way into the Baltic. By the end of the war, a considerable barrage had been laid down between Scotland and Norway, with some effect on U Boats. But this is probably not feasible to model.

The naval system does a pretty good job of reflecting the realilties of North Sea capital ship conflict, and North Atlantic trade interdiction; but it just gets weird with other naval things. Aside from the Eastern Med, I have had some truly bizzare battles in the North Sea and Baltic as well.

[FrankHunter]

OrvalB, in 1.25 I did add a rule barring CP ships from entering or leaving the Med. Although that version is still in a state of flux.

As for mines, they were very important, operationally, but I couldn't decide how to model them strategically with areas so I dropped them from the design.

[Naskra]

Naval units can refit at sea. 
Submarines damage, but never sink transports.  (maybe not a bug)
The icon for transports in the naval orders screen is a DN.

oops, wrong thread.

[ILCK]

ORIGINAL: OrvalB

True enough, but it is also very unrealistic for the Eastern Med to be effectively shut down for 1914 and sometimes well into 1915, plus a major diversion of TE naval forces, plus a major amount of repair work required once the Austro navy is finally put to bed. I mean protecting your sea-lanes is one thing; having to transfer DNs from Scapa to handle the Austro navy is another.

If the combined Anglo-French forces in the Med could reliably take down the AH navy I'd not have an issue but that AH navy will clean the clock of the French and the PD - DN battle the UK brings is also a sure loser. Usually to put the AH down I have to divert my DN's from the North Sea and then get whacked by a rebuilt German fleet at bad odds in the North Sea.

[Hanal]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

OrvalB, in 1.25 I did add a rule barring CP ships from entering or leaving the Med. Although that version is still in a state of flux.

As for mines, they were very important, operationally, but I couldn't decide how to model them strategically with areas so I dropped them from the design.

Frank, could the purchase of mines act as a slight positive modifier for sea battles?