The primary corcern with the mod is to make the game less prone to end prematurely and thus to make it more likely to run to full term. As such I believe it will make it harder for the Axis to deal a knock out blow early - while also making it harder for the Allies to knock out the Axis once the tides turn. In neither case by outright denying options - but merely making things harder. Thus the goal is to make games go less wildly to either side but rather to remain competitive throughout all 5-6 years in more games rather than often end before the game even gets to 44.
It consists of the following changes.
1. Unfreeze changes.
This change is intended to make the US more sensitive to Axis aggression on the Western Hemisphere as well as remove the "bug" that lets the English bomb Japanese forces to bring the US in the war.
- If Germany invades Western Canada, Venezuela or Argentina then the USA will declare war and the WA territories will unfreeze (Burning Europe down is one thing - the Americas another)
- If Germany controls London and the date is summer 1942 or later then the USA will declare war and the WA territories unfreeze. The US might accept London falling but not for long.
- If an UK, CW or Canadian unit attacks a Japanese unit (usually in Russia or China) then the WA will not unfreeze. If the Japanese attack a WA unit the WA will still unfreeze as per normal.
2. Pacific islands.
This change is intended to make the US player much less likely to skip all or most of the islands in the Pacific when heading towards Japan.
- The Japanese armor unit is changed into an immobile high evasion land unit that cannot be produced. Instead several of these units are place on islands in the Pacific in the scenario setup to make island hopping harder for the US. Inspect the actual changes to statistics in game.
- The Japanese tac air unit is changed into an 0 movement high evasion air unit that cannot be produced. Instead several of these units are place on islands in the Pacific in the scenario setup to make bypassing the island of the pacific harder for the WA due to the op-fire from these air units. Inspect the actual changes to statistics in game.
- The following islands each got 2 arm + 2 tac air in the set up: Formosa, Ryukyu Islands, Bonin Islands and Mariana Islands.
- The following islands each got 1 tac air in the set up: Caroline Islands, Palua Islands and Marshall Islands.
- The two normal tac air in the Japanese OOB are replaced by one heavy air.
This change is intended to make the naval war more mobile by lowering the otherwise rather prohibitive cost to move fleets.
- The fuel cost for Heavy Fleets is lowered from 4 to 3.
- The fuel cost for Carrier Vessels is lowered from 3 to 2.
- The fuel cost for Light Fleets is lowered from 2 to 1.
4. Transport units.
This change is intended to make shuffling transports around both for amphibious operations and otherwise require more planning. The first change in particular is probably only for hard core players as it really requires the player to plan ahead.
- The fuel cost for transport units is raised from 0 to 1. (thus move a transport move than 1 area will cost 1 supply)
- The speed for all transport units is lowered from 7 to 5. (making it harder to suddenly invade far away)
- The amph value for WA transport units is raised from 2 to 3.
- The research into amph for WA transport units is reset from 6 to 0.
This change is intended to make US armor slightly more interesting to produce ¡V the US produced smaller tanks and had greater experience transporting them at sea making a lesser transport cost within reason.
- The transport cap for WA armor is lowered from 10 to 8.
This change is intended to make paratroopers more interesting to produce.
- The cost for paratroopers is lowered from 5 to 4 for Germany, Japan, Russia and the WA
This change is intended to make going through Spain (either as Germany or the WA) less appealing but not impossible.
- Spain is divided into two territories. NE Spain borders France while SW Spain borders Portugal and Gibraltar.
The graphics are far from polished - maybe I will do that later though I expect not as I am not a graphics person.
8. Soviet Far East.
This change is intended to make the Japanese take longer and pay more supply to march into Siberia. Credits go to Jesse "Lebatron" Lebreton for doing this first. I decided only to split two of the three territories though as I find it makes the area more interesting (even if it looks less logical). It also keeps the file size small enough to attach directly to my post here.
- Mongolia and Irkutsk are each divided into two parts (western and eastern).
- The units from former Irkutsk are placed in the new Eastern Irkusk.
- The units from Central Siberia are placed in the new Western Siberia.
Comments of all kinds are very welcome.