Exploit through early activation of German allies

[stevie]

Hi,

in my last 1941-campaign, all german allies activated in turn 3 because I had moved the southernmost rumanian division to the north and left an unsignificant border town unguarded. Next turn, the presence of a russian border unit changed the possession of the hex and caused the activation.

I abandoned the campaign, because it became thus completely ahistorical in regard to the allies. This event reminded me of the scrupulous plundering of the western and southern HQ's in the old WIR or Second Front games, which led to the turning up of "Italian Über-Panzerkorps".

In a game, where so much effort has been made to provide historical accurateness, this unintended activation shouldn't be possible. Ok, I could simply let the rumanian division were it is, but depending on the difficulty settings, the soviet AI sometimes makes strong attacks in the southern area, which could lead to retreats of allied divisions.

In this way, I had the 11th army and the Rumanian front divisions (which were intended to participate in the campaign) activated in turn 2. This isn't very clever from the AI, but agreeable and could have happenend historically. But the garrison units in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria etc. should definitely be prevented from activating in this way, at least so early in the campaign. Instead of major changings to the activation rules, simply setting the earliest trigger date to 01.01.42 could be a solution.

In human against human games, I see a major rules exploit when the german player lures the unexperienced Soviet player forward to get more than 30 allied divisions at once.

Greetings from Germany!

[PyleDriver]

Send the save to Joel, I thought we had fixed that bug...

[Garth Vader]

When do they normally activate? I am on turn 6 of the campaign and I remember having a lot more axis allied support in the Road to Kiev scenario.

[karonagames]

This is a specific situation where if a hex in Hungary changes to soviet control, all the frozen forces in Hungary and Yugoslavia are activated. I am not 100% sure it is a bug. If it happens accidentally, I have heard of people using house rules, and not moving the activated forces.

[Q-Ball]

That happened in my game vs. Von Beanie (first one); he sent isolated units into Hungary to tear up rail, not realizing that activates units. We agreed, via house rule, to leave everyone alone. That changes the game too much.

Soviet players should NOT send units into Hungary from the Lvov pocket for that reason. I wouldn't send anyone into Romania either, because I think the same thing happens.

It was tempting to use the Italian Armored Units, which would have been fun, but......

[Aussiematto]

Yep - my opponent just amphibbed into Constanza around Turn 8 -- nasty surprise, scramble the defences, rail German inf and a corps HQ to the trouble spot. Voila, all of Hungary and Italy activates (not, amusingly, the Rumanians -- they can't be bothered defending their own country). I will use the Italians to throw him out of Constanza or, at least, bottle it up, but not do anything more with them or Hungarians.

I also think the Rumanian surrender rule is too harsh in 1942 as well.

[stevie]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

That happened in my game vs. Von Beanie (first one); he sent isolated units into Hungary to tear up rail, not realizing that activates units. We agreed, via house rule, to leave everyone alone. That changes the game too much.

Soviet players should NOT send units into Hungary from the Lvov pocket for that reason. I wouldn't send anyone into Romania either, because I think the same thing happens.

It was tempting to use the Italian Armored Units, which would have been fun, but......

The problem is, some of them are scheduled to activate after some turns (e.g. the Italian Expeditionary Corps). When all are activated at the same time you will never know which ones and when they were supposed to. There are many ways to circumvent the problem, but with more or less effort.