Long-range Amphib Transport, and AI oddities

[The Land]

So I've recently come back to this game after a few years off and am really enjoying it, particularly the recent research tweaks! I'm playing Allies vs AI Axis, starting in 1941.

A few observations:

Is Long-Range Amphib Transport too flexible?
I have used Long-Range Amphibs several times:
- An unopposed British landing in Southern Greece, departing from the Egyptian ports
- A standard US invasion of North Africa (based off the East Coast of I ports)
- US landings in Sicily, opposed by Corps (based off the East Coast of the USA and Tripoli
- British landings on Wilhelmshafen, opposed by a garrison - based from Edinburgh (simultaneously with amphib/para assault on The Hague)

Of these the first 2 'feel right' - yes the British should be able to walk into Greece if a port is left entirely undefended, and yes it should be possible to do a historical Torch.

The second two feel less right to me. Should it really be possible to launch 3 corps/army sized units (8 divisions?) across the Atlantic into a heavily defended area? Even the latter example, of capturing Wilhelmshafen with five divisions direct from Rosyth, feels historically unlikely.

Of course LR amphibs are expensive (which is fine) but I wonder if there should be a harder limit on the number of LR amphibs, or their assault abilities - effectively limiting them to barely-opposed landings.

The AI, Italy and the Balkans
The AI is pretty good at fortifying southern Italy with German troops. However, the AI doesn't seem bothered by the fact that the Allies can readily land at Rome/ Civitaveccia and outflank them. Maybe the German AI could give a higher priority to securing the Italian ports, otherwise it's really easy to end up with 8 German counters complete with HQ and air bottled up around Naples.

Further, the AI seems to have trouble with the Balkans. I ended up fighting my way up from Greece, and this started off fine. But once I reached Northern Greece and Turkey entered the war, there were several issues. There were a number of correct-looking decisions too, e.g. putting up a good fight for Bucharest/Ploesti, Belgrade and Zagreb. But at one point the AI operated two HQs next to each other into a small town in the Carpathians, with no other units anywhere around, which obviously then got surrounded and killed. Also the AI put no weight on garrisoning the Black Sea ports, meaning the Turkish border garrison unit could just walk in to Burgas and Varna, securing supply lines with no effort.

Hope this is useful feedback, look forward to hearing your thoughts!

[PvtBenjamin]

I believe the idea behind Long Range Amphib is the US & Operation Torch.

Unfortunately it has led to many unrealistic outcomes in PBEM games.

Recently there was a successful LR amphib attack by Germany on the US in '41.

LRA needs some major modifications to take away "gamey" stuff.

One suggestion was to make Torch a DE and require much higher levels of amphib research for LRA.

[Hartmann]

I too came back to WIE a while ago. I was pleasantly surprised about how the game was improved since release.

However, your observatons coincide with mine. The solution IMO would be, not to make amphibs weaker, but to make the German AI more aware about the necessity to a) garrison port cities to the north of what is assumed to be likely invasion points, and b) to place a few "reserve" units in the "Hinterland" at locations where several such invasion points can be reached quickly even before units are operated in from far away.

I also sometimes noticed AI quirks like what you got with those two HQs etc - I think we should probably post these things for the devs to look into (if they want). At the moment I'm busy with WAW, but I think I will go back to WIE in due time (as I like the scale so much more than in WAW).

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: PvtBenjamin

One suggestion was to make Torch a DE and require much higher levels of amphib research for LRA.

Hmm. The problem with making Torch a DE is... there's nothing 'special' about the historical Torch. If the Allies could make a 6-division landing at 3 points in North Africa far from the nearest ports in 1942... why should they not be able to attempt the same somewhere else? Indeed, half of the invasion force for Husky set sail from either the UK or Suez - also 'long range'.

This is also an argument for not reducing the power of LR amphibs (at least not by much), and similarly for requiring high levels of tech (Nov 42 is fairly early in the war!)

It is perhaps an argument for putting a hard limit on the number of LR amphib counters there can be. I'd suggest maybe 2 for the US and UK and 1 for the other majors... based on their overall shipping capacity.

[PvtBenjamin]

Wasn't my idea but I thought a reasonable one.

I don't know if you play PBEM but LRA capabilities need to be reduced IMO.