1vs1 or 2vs2 with new rules

[ernieschwitz]

Production in cities should be upgradeable factories should be removed from the game and there should be more than four production slots. Perhaps as a city is upgraded a production slot is added. Production is always population based.

Adding more production slots than 4 is impossible the way the game is built. Sorry

[kombrig]

Concerning tank destroyers and assault guns, I would like to hear ideas how to model them in the game. I think we all agree that when compared to the corresponding level tanks they should be cheaper beacuse of not having turret. Not having turret should make them better in defense than in attack. But what should be the distinction between assault guns and tank destroyers?

Ironduke wrote:

Officers should not be restricted in gaining xp by the size of forces or staff they are commanding rather that commanders should randomly have cards assigned so that you don't know if you have a Manstein or a Paulus so some commanders will thrive and some will suffer penalties because they are not up to the job.

This is unfortunately beyond my skills with the editor.

The guerilla concept is for home defence only I have heard of few cases where they are used anywhere else. Unless they take control of the country and become the army.

I was hoping to make the guerilla war action cards based but I'm convinced that this too is beyond my skills. So currently I see two possibilities: either to remove them completely from the game or to use house rules.

To be honest the building of trains always bemused me you would use the infrastructure of the country part of that being the rail network I would rather take them out of the game completely and have your train capacity based on your industrial base if that is degraded then your rail capacity drops. You have so many rail transport points at the beginning of your turn and you use them as you see fit.

Unfortunately I don't have the skills to do that. The solution proposed by ernieschwitz is too complicated for me.

Production in cities should be upgradeable factories should be removed from the game and there should be more than four production slots. Perhaps as a city is upgraded a production slot is added. Production is always population based. Or more cities but some of the cities with low production capabilities.

I think that more cities with different production capabilities can be done. In this case the factories will probably be not needed.

There might be a argument for a requirement to have a large research item say like aviation/armoured vehicle/Infantry level 2 to be able to then go on to advance the various arms to level 2

I was considering something similar. I think level 2 should be available to everybody right in the beginning, but level 3 and level 3 should have this large research item.

I don't feel readiness needs to drop much ifs at all in transfer of command. I can find not much historical basis for this drop in combat readiness the units that is combat ready will fight at the same level of efficiency regardless of any change in senior command that is due to the equipment training and officers and men of the unit and the only bearing a change in command would have is in how that unit is used/missused

The problem is (this was pointed out by Mad) that not having readiness penalty makes very easy for example to avoid the penalty for mixed HQ attack. Also if you can switch HQ before every attack you can avoid staff limit without anykind of penalty.

The small readiness loss (5 points) could be maybe explained that changing senior command takes some time (establishing new communication lines, recieving new orders etc).

[ironduke1955]

The problem is (this was pointed out by Mad) that not having readiness penalty makes very easy for example to avoid the penalty for mixed HQ attack. Also if you can switch HQ before every attack you can avoid staff limit without anykind of penalty.

I don't see this as a problem sinse I do not beleive that readiness reduction should be obtained by any other means than combat/lack of supply. On the Eastern Front during the second world units were often switched from Army to army or front to front I have not read of any impact to the combat readiness of any of these units.

[kombrig]

You have a point too. It would be actually the best solution if switching HQ does not reduce readiness but action points. However it seems that the editor does not allow such a tweak.

[kombrig]

I also forgot one thing when analyzing the test game. We researched Staff II in the very beginning. I believe this too helped me a lot.

[kombrig]

Production in cities should be upgradeable factories should be removed from the game and there should be more than four production slots. Perhaps as a city is upgraded a production slot is added. Production is always population based. Or more cities but some of the cities with low production capabilities.

Coming back to this topic. Like ernieschwitz already pointed out the game unfortunately does not allow more production slots. However what can be done is that when a city is upgraded, its production points are going to increase. Currently there are two city types: city and capitol. I am thinking of adding one more so there would be: minor city, major city and capitol. Each one would have different production capabilities and each one could be upgraded up to level III. One regime should have approximately 60-70% minor cities, 30-40% major cities plus a capitol.

[ironduke1955]

That would be a excellent if it could be made to work a expensive in PP/Raw investment to upgrade a tier 3 production city to tier 2 production city it would help in concentrating your main production in one large industrial area something like the Ruhr in germany or the Urals for the soviets plus variations in Oil field yield. Be better still if more tiers of development were available for both oil fields and city production. I have always wondered why a turn/hex based strategy games have such inferior production/industrial modelling systems compared to games like HOI3 shame because I have always enjoyed the turn based game system as opposed to the constant pausing in HOI3

[LazyBoy]

I really like the idea of this mod but feel too much was changed at once.
My overall impression is it makes it way to easy to build huge armies with little regard for resources. You only need a few cities and resources to build these armies.
The combat system has not been altered to take into account the dramatic increase in army size.
I can see 2 competent players slugging it out to a standstill as production easily out strips causalities.
I completely failed to understand the readiness loss changes ( in fact readiness and experience in the normal game as well).
Kom, have you tried the XXlarge game, 2 player gives most of what you want?
I find it achieves most if not all you want to do here, apart from changes to the combat stats of indervidual SFT’s

1) In overall in my opinion ther was much more Axis/Soviet front feel than in the stock version. The troop density was much higher. One was able to afford building a balanced combined arms army and one was able to operate it.

2) The cavalry has now its historical role: it can be used either to increase recon, to cover rear areas against guerillas or to support tanks during advance. But it's useless to build large cavalry armies because they are expenisve and the combat stats are the same as infantry.

Cavalry Need their cost reduced back to 300.
They need a combat advantage against Rifle, artillery and Engineers when fighting in good cavalry terrain and be infantry in any other terrain.

3) The mod represents the Blitzkrieg more than the stock version. Suprise can be achieved more easily now. If you achieve a breaktrough the enemy can not simply to fly all of his production against you and pretty much stop your advance into a stalemate. It is actually useful now to create reserves which can be strategically transfered.
It may be possible to make a city or factory not produce for a turn if switching HQ’s or production

4) Political points cost is maybe too low. The research was a bit too fast. Currently the cost of PPs is 200, in the original version it was 500 (if I remebember correctly). Maybe 300 or even 350 would be optimal?

Agree seemed to easy to research

5) Supply cost was maybe also too low. It is currently 1 and one city was able to supply the whole of my army. I am considering to rise it twice and the cost would be 2 then.

Agree.
I think the point of the game’s supply, resources and PPs is to make the player to have to make trade off’s
With this Mod You are able to do what you like and still have resources left over.
I spent alot of my production to upgrade Raw and oil at the expense troops.
I reduced Koms oil production to 5 resource centres, but he was still able fight unimpeded.
Using most of his cities to produce oil should have a dramatic effect on his ability to fight.
The mod failed to achieve one of its objectives in that while you could build Real a strategic bomber force, the reduced production costs ment even taking out a number of cities and resources had little to no impact on the game.
An example Kom was able to build huge numbers of AA guns and Fighters which simply destroyed all air attacks
I had half the Raw(even after upgrading to level 3) that Kom had and did find I could’nt compete in production with him
I think you need to change the combat results so they take into account the increased unit production

[LazyBoy]

6) The recon points for halftracks and especially jeeps and armored cars are probably too low. Especially the jeeps and armored cars should more represent dedicated recon units.

I don’t think halftracks need a recon value as they are just armoured transports

7) The guerillas. Should we accept that guerillas can freely operate on enemy home territory?

Guerillas need supply, maybe lower than rifles.
I would like to see guerrillas block hexes they are in, no zone of control

8) The amount of staff which the officers can command at the beginning should be doubled (it should be around 100 staff).

9) The penalty for changing unit's HQ should be at least 5 readiness points.

10) The cost of trains is probably too low. It makes strategic transfer too easy.


Some other thoughts concerning the stock version of the game:

1) I don't see the reason why air units should spend in combat twice the less oil in
defense when compared to attacking. If they are defending they have to make maneuvers too.

2) I would like to implement Iron's idea that the assault guns are more effective against infantry and tank destroyers more effective against armour.

I consider giving the assault guns the attack/defense power which equals medium tank values against infantry and light tanks values against armour. Assault guns favourite target is infantry.

Tank destroyers would get the attack/defense power which equals medium tank values against armour and light tank values against infantry. TDs favourite target is armour.
disagree with light tank values against infantry, these vehicles had no machine gun and were very vulnerable to close infantry attack
In other ways the assault guns and tank destroyers would be similar to medium tank except they are a bit cheaper to produce (also less raw is needed).

Agree

3) The paratroopers need also level II-IV which combat values should equal the corresponding rifle level. Plus the paras should have a bit higher morale and experience when produced (but they are more expensive to produce).

Agree

4) In order to boost up the army building phase I would beef up the garrisons at the beginning of the game: every one of them should have 50 infantry, 5 SMGs, 5 MGs, 4 mortars, 3 bazookas.

Assault guns to my mind are down to chassis light medium Heavy and super Heavy. With two classes of vehicle Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers the Germans had the Stug AP/HE Jagdpanther AP but other nations had other variations the Americans/Soviets/UK had a the a large list of what was called self propelled artilery/Assault guns.You have to be careful with assault guns why buy a more expensive Tank when a assault gun does a better job and is cheaper you have to know why the choice was made to continue to produce tanks. I guess one would be say if a tank has track taken out it can still traverse its main gun and a MG to defend itself there must be other factors that made armies continue to to produce tanks when Tank Destroyers were proving better in the Tank Destroyer role.

Officers should not be restricted in gaining xp by the size of forces or staff they are commanding rather that commanders should randomly have cards assigned so that you don't know if you have a Manstein or a Paulus so some commanders will thrive and some will suffer penalties because they are not up to the job.

This is outside the scope of the editor, I think

Certanly Para's should have levels I/IV Makes sense

The guerilla concept is for home defence only I have heard of few cases where they are used anywhere else. Unless they take control of the country and become the army.
Agree
Yep supply cost to low or unit and army densities could reach absurd levels

Yes armored cars jeeps are recon vehicles low fuel lightly armed
Agree



I don't feel readiness needs to drop much ifs at all in transfer of command. I can find not much historical basis for this drop in combat readiness the units that is combat ready will fight at the same level of efficiency regardless of any change in senior command that is due to the equipment training and officers and men of the unit and the only bearing a change in command would have is in how that unit is used/missused by kombrig
Agree
quote:

The guerilla concept is for home defence only I have heard of few cases where they are used anywhere else. Unless they take control of the country and become the army.


I was hoping to make the guerilla war action cards based but I'm convinced that this too is beyond my skills. So currently I see two possibilities: either to remove them completely from the game or to use house rules.

All the special troops in the game are just their to add a bit of difference to the different peoples groups.
To my mind they could all be removed with little effect on game


quote:

To be honest the building of trains always bemused me you would use the infrastructure of the country part of that being the rail network I would rather take them out of the game completely and have your train capacity based on your industrial base if that is degraded then your rail capacity drops. You have so many rail transport points at the beginning of your turn and you use them as you see fit.


Unfortunately I don't have the skills to do that. The solution proposed by ernieschwitz is too complicated for me.
Attacking rail the network and trains seemed to be a big part of the allied air war

quote:

Production in cities should be upgradeable factories should be removed from the game and there should be more than four production slots. Perhaps as a city is upgraded a production slot is added. Production is always population based. Or more cities but some of the cities with low production capabilities.

My thoughts on production are that factories must be centred around a city and cities not to be able to produce equipment, i.e armour aircraft, ships etc.

This would mean changing the deployment rules for factories


quote:

I don't feel readiness needs to drop much ifs at all in transfer of command. I can find not much historical basis for this drop in combat readiness the units that is combat ready will fight at the same level of efficiency regardless of any change in senior command that is due to the equipment training and officers and men of the unit and the only bearing a change in command would have is in how that unit is used/missused


The problem is (this was pointed out by Mad) that not having readiness penalty makes very easy for example to avoid the penalty for mixed HQ attack. Also if you can switch HQ before every attack you can avoid staff limit without anykind of penalty.

Is it possible to stop unit transfers when a unit is in an enermy zone of control?

The small readiness loss (5 points) could be maybe explained that changing senior command takes some time (establishing new communication lines, recieving new orders etc).

I don't see this as a problem sinse I do not beleive that readiness reduction should be obtained by any other means than combat/lack of supply. On the Eastern Front during the second world units were often switched from Army to army or front to front I have not read of any impact to the combat readiness of any of these units.

I agree with above

[kombrig]

LazyBoy wrote:

My overall impression is it makes it way to easy to build huge armies with little regard for resources. You only need a few cities and resources to build these armies.
I can see 2 competent players slugging it out to a standstill as production easily out strips causalities.

I tend to agree that there was too much of abundance of supply and resources. Therefore besides increasing the cost of supply I would maybe alos make the upgrading cost of raw and oil higher. Probably also the initial production power of cities should be a bit less.

I completely failed to understand the readiness loss changes ( in fact readiness and experience in the normal game as well).

Well, the main change is that if you transfer SFTs outside of HQ, they loose 80% readiness (in the stock version they lost 25 readiness). This means that freshly formed units are not very useful. It is better to wait until they have gained readiness. This also means that it is better to create reserves because not anymore you can simply fly your production where you need it and send it right away into the battle with 75 readiness.

Kom, have you tried the XXlarge game, 2 player gives most of what you want? I find it achieves most if not all you want to do here, apart from changes to the combat stats of indervidual SFT’s

Ithink it is too much micromanagment (too many cities) besides I don't really like the readiness and flying production rules of the stock version.

Cavalry Need their cost reduced back to 300.
They need a combat advantage against Rifle, artillery and Engineers when fighting in good cavalry terrain and be infantry in any other terrain.

Sure, cavalry can have a small bonus on plains and fields against rifles, engineers and artillery. But I'm not sure if it can be modelled in the game. If I remember correctly, the editor allowed to tie bonus with terrain and not with SFTs. So on plains the cavalry would have bonus not only against rifles but against tanks too. I will check that. However I would not give cavalry a bonus against MGs.

I think the point of the game’s supply, resources and PPs is to make the player to have to make trade off’s
With this Mod You are able to do what you like and still have resources left over.
I spent alot of my production to upgrade Raw and oil at the expense troops.
I reduced Koms oil production to 5 resource centres, but he was still able fight unimpeded.

Well, to be honest, I was only able to fight unimpeded because I was producing synthetic fuel. And I was able to produce it because I had such small losses. If my losses would have been bigger, I would had to choose: synthetic oil or replacements.

The mod failed to achieve one of its objectives in that while you could build Real a strategic bomber force, the reduced production costs ment even taking out a number of cities and resources had little to no impact on the game.

I disagree here a bit. I think the strategic bomber force (and fighter cover to it) that you created was not enough strong. If I remember correctly you didn't take out more than two or three of my cities. And I was able easily to counter your strategic bombing because I had absolutely no problems on the ground. My losses were usually really small. If my losses on the ground front would have been severe I would have been forced to divert more of my production there and less against your bombers.

But yes, I repeat, that generally I agree with you that there was too much of abundance of resources.

My thoughts on production are that factories must be centred around a city and cities not to be able to produce equipment, i.e armour aircraft, ships etc.

This would mean changing the deployment rules for factories

It is an interesting idea but I think this can't be easily done. I believe you can't force factories to be built only next to the cities. I will check.

Is it possible to stop unit transfers when a unit is in an enermy zone of control?

It seems that it is not possible.


Anyway, thanks guys for your feedback. And of course I would like to hear more comments and ideas.

[ironduke1955]

"My thoughts on production are that factories must be centred around a city and cities not to be able to produce equipment, i.e armour aircraft, ships etc.

This would mean changing the deployment rules for factories"

The areas around a city instead of being Urban could be left clear allowing a player to develop these as factories ineffect making the city larger. The factories could be given the same defensive stats as Urban area's excellant idea. The only place factories should be allowed is next to cities as they represent the population centers.

[kombrig]

I checked what the editor allows or at least what I am able to do with it.

The editor allows the random map to have four different city types but the big problem is that the random game generator distributes different types of cities unevenly between regimes. So it would be a headache to create more or less even map with the random game generator. So this idea must be abandoned.

It can't be forced players to build factories only next to cities... unless we use the following method. Factories can be built only on suburban hex. The random game generator randomly surrounds cities with suburban hexes. So the more suburban hexes -> the bigger city -> the more powerful industry it can have. I think situation can be made even more interesting if factories can be upgraded. They start with lower production points which can be increased. So the players can more easily to concentrate their production into certain areas.

[kombrig]

One more idea I would like to implement is Radio Intelligence. A special SFT which works as air recon but can not be intercepted and does not consume fuel. It can be used via the air recon button. You will choose a enemy hex which you want to be "illuminated". The enemy hex can be up to 8 hexes away from the SFT. Besides the selected hex it "illuminates" (to a lesser degree) also the surrounding six hexes. The SFT will be rather expensive (radio intelligence is very specialized) and they can be produced only in the capitol (max 3 per turn if you use the full producing capacity of your capitol). One Radio Intelligence SFT will have twice the more recon points than one Fighter SFT.

[kombrig]

Spent some time tweaking around with the game. It seems that SIGINT can't be modelled realisticaly so I dropped the idea.

I posted the list of current changes and additions on the mod page:

tm.asp?m=3275661&mpage=2&key=&#3300344

[ernieschwitz]

Too bad Kombrig, sounded very interesting... SigInt that is.

[kombrig]

The problem is that if I make SIGINT SFT to be air unit (to be used via air recon button) then it also starts to move like air unit on your own territory. It can operate only from cities or airbases and "flies" between them. But naturally a mobile SIGINT station should be something which moves on roads.

[ernieschwitz]

Hmm I see...

You could make it with an action card i guess? But that would require some event coding, and it seems to me that you haven´t mastered that yet.. But you are learning fast thats good

[kombrig]

I am afraid that event coding from scratch is too much for me. I'm a humanitarian.[:)] All I can do is maybe some changes in existing events.