ORIGINAL: Numdydar
As I said before. I LIKE the game. I AM glad I bought it. It is just not anywhere close to being a historical simulation. Which is fine as far as I am concerned but others may not feel that way so they should know that.
One other issue you may need to examine is that each turn now the version of GB that is now at war with the English Union (?) have had messages pop up saying that it no longer wants to join the Allies and the percentage drops between 10-15 points. I have no idea what happens when it gets to zero, considering that the only Allied countries right now are Iraq and the English colonies. So if the colonies leave the Allies, will that mean that Iraq will then be the Allies leader [X(] ? Like I said fantasy land.
I haven't tried 'Sea Lion' yet, so cannot comment, except to say that it could never have been an easy operation, unless there was a complete British collapse.
However, on the point of how historical the game is, is it a historical simulation, or a simulation of history. One of the good parts about the game is that it can go in different directions. Stalin's actions in Finland and Romania helped trigger Hitler's long held desire to settle accounts with the USSR and a less agressive Soviet approach to Finland and Romania might have delayed Hitler's plans. The surrender of Britain in 1940 and access to World raw materials might have put off the German attack indefinitely.
Here's one example of how one decision could have changed the whole direction of the war on all fronts :
What-if on the 24th May 1940, when Hitler visited von Rundsedt's HQ at Charleville, to discover that 4th Armee with its preponderance of panzer and motorised divisions was to be transferrd to Armee Group B, he had changed his mind. The transfer was Halder's attempt to circumvent Rundstedt and Kliest's conservative attitude and their 'close up' order of the 23rd May, which had already halted the German mobile units (at a time when they were closer to the Dunkirk beaches than most of the retreating Allied forces). Halder had wanted to get the panzers moving again, but Hitler, angered at not being consulted, decided to rescind the transfer and declared approval for Rundstedt's 'halt' order. I believe he did this to reassert his supremacy over his immediate subordinates, Halder and von Brauchitsch, despite the resulting impact on the strategic situation.
But what if he had changed his mind, intending to maximise the military situation and then deal with his subordinates later, an easy thing to have done and it could have changed the whole course of the War.
The initial British prediction of possibly saving only 45,000 allied troops would have been realised. Britain would not have had the morale boost of the 'victory' at Dunkirk, hundreds of thousands of British troops, instead of re-organising for the defence of Britain, would have gone into captivity, with the corrosive effect of plaintive letters to their families and Goebles full use of newreels to ram the message home.
The smart move would then to have not launched a bombing offensive, but massive fighter sweeps over Southern England, to wear down Fighter Command, and show the failure of British policy, at little cost to the Luftwaffe.
There is a reasonable prospect that this might have provoked a change of British government, prepared to enter into negotiation with Germany and then .........
This may be fit for a fantasy, but why should this not be a plausable scenario, Britain becomes an Axis puppet and Japan might benefit from the Axis side of the agreement and obtains access to raw materials from the former European Allies' South-east Asia possessions 'peacefully'. Just as Japan 'peacefully' accessed French possessions in Indo-China after Vichy France had negotiated a deal with Germany.
This happens long before Pearl Harbor is cast in stone and would the US then react, could they attempt to interdict this peaceful trade, would the US have been drawn into a war that was essentially over ?
I am not saying the game is perfect, there are features that I question, but I like the possible variations in the game and feel that situations that may seem impossible in the history that we have grown up with, may not be so fantastic, with surprisingly small changes.
I think the belief that Stalin was planning to attack Germany in 1940 is unlikely, but decisions can be changed and perhaps the early entry of the USSR should be set as an player option, or at least a warning issued when policy decisions may trigger major events. [:)]
