New Mod: The Third Reich's Destiny

[Denbushi]

Download the mod here: The Third Reich's Destiny Mod

From the readme. Warning: Quite long.


The Third Reich’s Destiny Mod
Version 1.0
By Tim Morris
denbushisan@hotmail.com
20 August 2005

This mod is a fairly comprehensive attempt by me to address a number of issues I detected as a mostly German player, as a result; overall, it makes a single player game slightly easier for the Germans and slightly harder for the allies. While GGWaW is a great game overall, it seems to rather ride on a rails in a "and that's the way it really was" sort of fashion. I found that it was nearly impossible for Germany to do even as well as their historical counterparts on any but the easiest difficulty setting, let alone achieve the ambitions of the Third Reich. In reality, Germany very nearly forced an allied withdrawal from the war on numerous occasions. If it had not been for the shortsighted and inept wartime leadership of Adolf Hitler, things may well have turned out very different. Germany took a huge amount of punishment over the war but still remained a serious threat to the allies right up until the end of the Ardennes offensive. But in the game, the German player must play VERY conservatively as once they suffer more than light casualties, they will be virtually crippled for the rest of the game as they will not be able to produce new units fast enough, nor conquer the resources they need to defend themselves.

1. I have made numerous changes to the play of the 1940 campaign, most notably, as in the "Franco's War" mod, which I must note I was completely unaware of while developing my mod, Spain is now a frozen ally of Germany until Gibraltar is conquered by the Axis. The Franco regime was very sympathetic to Germany, and probably would have joined the Axis if Germany had sent them the money and equipment they needed. Many of the same troops that were now invading Poland and France had previously aided in fighting against the Federalists in the Spanish Civil war just a few years earlier. I also did borrow the idea of adding a rail link to Gibraltar, beefing up Portugal, and moving a resource from Sweden to Norway.

2. Another significant change is a major tweaking of nearly all unit stats to more accurately reflect the relative strengths and weaknesses of different nation's forces in 1940. The Russians in particular will be weaker now, but this is offset by the fact that the AI will do virtually nothing but research until Operation Barbarossa starts.

· Infantry: Lowered all Land Attack except German to represent the high quality of the Whermacht, and reduce the mortality rate among infantry and the instances of infantry units slaughtering a mechanized attack. Lowered Russian evasion to represent their lack of training.

· Militia: Raised German Land Attack and Evasion, since militia represents the Italian army, and they were actually quite excellent troops, although more poorly equipped than the German army, who were frequently praised by German commanders who fought alongside them. Raised Japanese durability to represent the die-hard nature of their conscripts.

· Mechanized: Reduced cost for all. Germany, US, and Russia employed large numbers of mechanized units, now it is actually feasible to build them. Adjusted stats to more accurately reflect the relative strengths of mechanized units at the start of the war. German tanks are now far superior, but they use twice as much fuel to do a blitzkrieg move to reflect their heavy weight, low mobility, and technical complexity.

· Artillery: Raised evasion for all. They should not be significantly easier to destroy than infantry.

· Airborne: Lowered cost for all, significantly for Germany and US, since these nations employed large numbers of airborne troops, and they were previously so expensive as to be a waste of time. Also raised evasion for all, as these were the toughest and most highly trained troops of the war. Germany also gets a boost to land attack to represent the fact that at the start of the war, the Fallschirmjagers were virtually the most elite and well armed troops in the world.

· Carrier Air groups: Cheaper for US and Japan to make them more worthwhile, and adjusted their stats to more accurate reflect their abilities. Lower speed to reflect their shorter combat range than their land-based counterparts, but better Air-to-Air so they can actually defend themselves.

· Bombers: Removed Air-to-Air bonus from Jap, gave to US for the "Flying Fortress". Boosted land attack for all so they're actually more deadly than a dive-bomber. Raised tech level for atom bomb to 11 to compensate. Germany gets a reduced cost to make their shorter ranged bombers more worthwhile. They produced (and lost) thousands of 'Junkers' bombers during the war. (Could this be the origin of the slang "Junker"?)

· Fighters: Germany gets a boost in land attack, Air to air and evasion, to represent that at the start of the war, they had the best planes, and most experienced pilots. All get a range boost and a reduced cost so they are actually useful on the offensive rather than just for point defense.

· Dive Bombers: Germany gets a land attack boost. Stukas were the deadliest dive-bombers of the early war. Japan gets an evasion and air attack boost. They were nearly as agile and capable in fighter combat as a dedicated interceptor. Russia gets an armor point. The Ilyushin-2 Dive bomber was described as a virtual flying tank.

· Submarines: Germany gets a torpedo boost so they can ACTUALLY sink a ship at the start of the war. They're still not very survivable though, so be sure not to venture too far from a friendly naval base.

· Light fleet: All get a boost to land attack.

· Heavy fleet: All get a boost to land attack to give them parity with land based artillery, and durability as they were dying way too easy.

· Carrier: All get durability.


3. Miscellaneous other changes:

· Additional factories and population in Eastern Germany, Eastern Europe, and Moscow. These were very densely populated and industrialized areas not reflected well in the game. It also makes Germany a little bit more able to actually produce reinforcements for their army once they start suffering losses. Notably, Hungary can now produce militia and mechanized troops. They actually produced some very effective tanks of their own design during the war.

· Resource points have also been added to a few regions, notably in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

· This is offset however by the fact that German tanks now use twice as much fuel for extended movement. They were awesome fighting machines, but they were heavy, slow, and tended to break down often.

· A pop point has been removed from Yugoslavia so that it does not require a huge garrison to keep under control.

· Russia now suffers from Partisan attacks in occupied territory. Nobody saw them as liberators. Russian troops commonly looted and vandalized homes and shops and raped women once they crossed into German territory, as well as executing suspected German collaborators and deporting POW's to death camp gulags in Siberia.

· The Axis now requires 80 production instead of 70 for an automatic victory to offset the increased number of factories and resources available to Germany.

· There may be some other minor tweaks I have forgotten about.

To install, simply copy all files into your ‘Gary Grigsby's World At War\dat’ directory. I have included backups of the original files so you can restore the factory condition of the game if you don’t like my mod.

Please note that this mod is only intended to be used with the 1940 campaign, you may encounter unusual results if you use any other scenario.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the balance of this mod from the Allied side, please let me know. However anyone who wants to flame me for being German biased shouldn’t bother, as no one is forcing you to use my mod.

[Denbushi]

Please note that while I don't believe there are any bugs in the mod, it has not been thoroughly playtested for balance and possible exploits.

Constructive comments are very welcome and appritiated.

[Denbushi]

I am already thinking about changes for the next version of the mod. I have decided to include the changes to finland from the raw deal mod. Also to drop the land attack of heavy bombers down to 4 but increase the speed of all by 1 so that they are less effective for clearing out troops and more effective for their intended purpose of attacking enemy infrastructure deep behind lines. Factory and rail durability may need to be dropped as well so the weaker bombers can damage them. This change will also place a new importance on dive bombers for troop attack, which were previously under-used.

Historically, B-17's flying out of England were able to strike the Ploesti Oilfields in Romania. And JU-88's out of Germany were hitting Stalingrad. These ranges would still be just out of reach, but I think it is an important step in realism and balance.

I'd love to get some constructive feedback on these ideas and the changes I've already made.

[JanSorensen]

I havent studied your changes in detail - so this is just off the top of my head.

a) You say that it is too hard for the Germans to get anywhere except on the easier difficulties. I assume you mean vs the AI. If so I strongly disagree. The Germans can walk all over the AI easily.

b) You make the Russians weaker. I find that the Russian already feel too weak - whereas its the WA that feels too strong. So, I cannot quite agree with the overall premise here.

c) Ftr. I already find that AA is superior to Ftr on the defense - while Ftr are superior on the offence. So again I cannot quite agree with your premise.

Anyway - lots of ideas - even if I am not really interested in mods for this particular game its interesting to read your reasons.

[Denbushi]

Well, it seems like your implication is that I am just an inferior player. Which is possible, but my decisions were made based on my personal play experience. In my games, Russia always had a tech advantage by the Barbarossa kicked off, because with nothing to do the first few turns, they just research like mad. And unless I am extremely careful and reload often to minimize casualties, I find that by 1943, I have lost so many troops just on the eastern front and the Med that I can't possibly rebuild my forces to a reasonable level to attempt Sealion, or capture moscow, let alone defend effectively against an allied landing, unless I neglect to build any supplies or do any research, even then, Germany is always short on population points. I've had turns where I was at -15 population in germany after suffering casualties in a major battle.

If you are of the oppinion that Germany must ultimately lose, because that's the way it was, then that's fine. But I am attempting to both increase the character of each nation by giving different units distinct advantages and disadvantages, and to make it possible (from my point of view) for Germany to do better than they did historically.

As I said, it seems to me like the game tends to ride on rails, following the track of actual events as close as possible. The majority of the time, Sealion is impossible. Germany runs out of supplies before taking Moscow and Stalingrad. The Med remains open to the Brits throughout the game (maybe just because I never tried the cowardly Spanish gambit), and the allies invade N Africa in 43.

Again, this is based on my experiences only, which is why I am looking for people to actually playtest my mod and/or provide specific input on what improvements can be made from the Allied/Soviet perspective.

[JanSorensen]

I certainly did not mean to infer anything about your ability to play - I am sorry if I came across in such a manner.

I merely state that in my experience against the AI on normal/challenging level I can quite handily take out all of Russia or take England - heck, on normal I can even take out the USA before 43. Thats playing both Japan and Germany, mind.

Playing PBEM on the other hand (an entirely different game) it is my experience that the Russians appear to be a tad weak whereas the WA appear a tad strong.

I find it fasinating to read about your reasons though as I said above - even if I might not agree with them all.

[Denbushi]

I am considering the idea of adding to Russia's starting forces or their production capabilities to compensate for their initial tech disadvantage. Again I must note that in my games, Russia always had a tech ADVANTAGE by Barbarossa because they had nothing else to spend their resources on. In reality, Russian forces were always inferior to Germanys throughout the course of the war.

[magic8796]

This may be a bit off-topic in response to your mod, but your comments raised a question. You state that Russia has nothing to do prior to invasion so they just tech-up. What about building units to slow down the German invasion? Speciffically following the suggestions in the manual for Russian strategy? Disclaimer: I have only played 3 games and all against the AI, but the strategy of building INF and ARTY in the western factories and an armored counter-attack force worked fine for me. Does this not work against a human and if so, why not? Thanks.

[Denbushi]

I'm sure it works fine. But as I primarily play as the Germans, I have found that the Russian AI typically does a LOT of research rather than building units.

Again, everything I say is based purely on my personal gameplay experience. Other people may have different experiences.

Also, as they cant move their units, they expend no supply points, so resources that would otherwise be used to build supplies are free for research as well.

[Lebatron]

Modding sure can take over your life[:D] I’m sure now you realize just how much time it takes. The documentation and testing to make sure it’s just perfect. I’m exhausted how about you? Well I read your post and you asked for constructive criticism. I think after a while when you begin to understand the game better you will get a better grasp of play balance. You may believe now that Germany needs a HUGE boost but in a month maybe less you will wonder what you were thinking. My advice, play the game in stock form a lot more before you come to any premature conclusions. My second piece of advice is how to properly present your mod to the public. You need to have a clear readme that explains everything leaving nothing out. Somewhere you said “There may be some other minor tweaks I have forgotten about” That will just frighten everyone away. You said you are working on an update so be sure to write down every change you make.

Lastly I download your mod and took a look at how you did things. That is not the way friend. You should not have used campaign 1 for your mod. That just erased the original game. Your files need not replace the originals if you call them by a different name. If you want people to try out your mod you got to be careful not to erase their original game. I’m sorry to do this but I have to warn people not to install your mod. I suggest you pull your mod for now. Rework it so that the original scenarios are not overwritten.
Hope this helps.

[Denbushi]

You're right, this mod represents a significant time contribution by myself, and I am rather dissapointed with the frosty and completely unsupportive reception of this community sofar.

Uninstalling the mod is as simple as putting back the original files, which I provided copies of. I did not feel that it was apropriate to create a seperate scenario, as some global files still need to be modified.

I included a very detailed readme that clearly states every change that I made. The "changes I may have forgotten" are not more significant than perhaps a stat point on a unit or two.

I respectfully suggest that you try not to be so condescending to others just because you happen to have a few weeks drop on them in modding exposure.

However, since apparently this community is full of nothing but non-specific and unhelpful criticism, I think I will take your suggestion and pull my mod. Who knows if it will return or not.

[JanSorensen]

Well, I am sorry you did not find my comments constructive. I can assure you they were meant to be. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.

[toddtreadway]

I don't think anyone was trying to be condecending. Hopefully you will take whatever suggestions Jan or Lebatron made and re-release your mod. I'd like to give it a try (having no idea how to do a mod myself).

I applaud the folks that are taking time to do mods on this game. I think it not only provides players a way to see what kind of game other design choices would have made, but I also think that it gives the designers the ability to get playtesting done for a variety of possible revisions they may be considering.

For example, I'd like to see the Western Allied transport capacity lowered to a 2 at game start. I have no idea how I could do this, but I might become inspired to make a mod that implements it (and other things). That would possibly allow me to later give the designers some feedback on how it might affect the game.

I love you guys! Sob![:D]

[Denbushi]

Could you perhaps expand on why you think that the transport capacity should be lowered?

It's all well and good for people to say "The Allies are too strong" or "The Russians are too weak" ... but I need specific suggestions in order to make an informed decision on how to correct the situation. Similarly, you can say "transport capacity should be lowered" but I would like to know what reason there is that suggests to you that this would improve gameplay?

P.S. To those that would suggest that the Germans are already strong. I havn't yet seen an AAR where the German player won. Are there any? I'd like to see them.

[toddtreadway]

I think that the Western Allied transport capacity--specifically amphibious capacity--is too high. Either there are too many transports out there, or the rating of three is too high. As it is right now, the Western Allies can put together a fairly good sized invasion very early on (even on the first turn). In another thread, we were exploring what solutions to this "percieved" problem there might be, and I suggested reducing the amphibious capacity to two. Not sure whether it should apply to everyone or not (except Japan). This seemed like a fairly simple way to penalize the WA without removing the transports themselves, since more transports would be required to do the same size invasion.

[Denbushi]

In my oppinion, I don't see this as a problem, as an allied invasion leaves england virtually undefended. However, I think I may remove the garrison requirement for Prussia to prevent the Prussian Gambit exploit. If the allies want to try a very risky gambit to do an early invasion of europe, that is fine with me, but I dont think that it would cause a Russian entry into the war.

[JanSorensen]

There is alot more than invading Prussia to the power of the English invasion force. I suggest doing a number of PBEM games to get a broader perspective than playing the AI gives.

[Denbushi]

I am in the process of reworking my mod with a multitude of (I think) very interesting changes, including possibly scaling back the advantages I gave to germany, since it's generated such controversy

If anyone else has any suggestions for good inclusions, or ways to balance/enrich the play experience from the allied/russian/japanese POV, I would like to hear them

All my decisions are based on primarily single player games as only one nation. So I must point out that the fact that russia falls too easy if both germany and japan concentrate on it isn't really one that I deal with, since this only happens if one player controls both nations, or there is close cooperation between 2 players. I think this kind of cooperation SHOULD confer advantages.

[Denbushi]

Well, that's fine Jan, I just dont think Russia should be unlocked if prussia is temporarilly taken. And as I said, it seems to me that that kind of invasion leaves england dangerously vulnerable. So you get some you take some. *shrug*

I would love to play some PBEM games. It seems rather hard to set them up with players that arent either flaky or waayyy more experienced at MP than myself.

It would be nice if you and Lebatron could give me some actual constructive specific suggestions instead of just cutting me down because I'm the new guy on the forum. It certainly isnt the sort of thing that is going to encourage this community to grow. So far toddtreadway is the only person that's had ANYTHING positive to say about my contribution. I think that is sad. You ought to be encouraging innovation and participation instead of trying to squash people who have a different perspective than yourself.

[JanSorensen]

Denbushi

I do not think I have been trying to cut you down. I think I have given constructive criticism. So, I simply do not see why you claim otherwise. It may not have been the kind of feedback you wanted but thats hardly my fault.

You post about some unbalance you find in the game and I post that I dont fully agree. How is that in any way shape of form trying to put you down? I then post that its possible good to play some PBEM before you can rightly judge the imbalance and that is being rude? Sorry, I think it is a very good piece of advice and far from rude.

I am sorry you think badly of me based on this - that was never my intention. As I cannot provide the feedback you desire I shall refrain from further comment though. Best of luck with your mod.