The Great Wishlist Thread

[borsook79]

I don't know how about the rest of you, but I'm still not that happy about the feedback from subs. Ideally I'd like to get a pop-up after each turn with a summary of all the convoy hunting activity, together with any related events for UK, having to check different reports every turn is still a bit tedious...

[ajarnlance]

1) HQ units please. Allow us to see the units under the command of each general: maybe by clicking on the general the units under command could be highlighted.
2) It is too difficult to distinguish units that have expended their APs from units that can still move. Maybe 'grey out' units that have no APs left. OR make units with AP left blink.
3) Reduce the size of the pop-up boxes. Have the option to turn off the boxes completely. Just have a quick message appear over the units involved in combat (like the 'air strike' message). So the deaths head appears if unit is destroyed, white flag if it surrenders and the strength loss appears as numbers over all involved units.
4) Allow easier movement of naval units. Instead of a pop-up box have a right-click menu to select the unit to move from the stack.

Thanks!!

[ajarnlance]

PS My ultimate wish is for a combination of Time of Fury with Storm over the Pacific to create a truly GLOBAL WWII game that encompasssthe entire war!!

[ajarnlance]

I totally agree with this one. Right now it feels like your subs are having no effect. Please update every turn with info on convoys sunk etc...

[Petiloup]

Just bought this game a few days ago as eager to play some Strategic game that stays playable.

Still probing around but so far I have one BIG problem with the game.

Why can't the German and its Axis allies move together? or do I missed some "Preferences" parameter somewhere?

I'm really dumbfounded by this as it would mean no possibility of a coordinated attack with German and Italian troops in Egypt or with Rumanian/Hungarian troops in the East front. Historically it's a non-sense so is there really something I'm missing?

If not that would be my most important wish for this game at this stage.

Cheers,

Philippe

[Petiloup]

Agreed with 2), this would help to know which units have not moved yet or moved already. Unit with -0- AP could be highlighted in some way.

[doomtrader]

This depends on the unit skins you choose.

Also, you can just jump to another unit with AP, by pressing TAB.


Every time you are attacking, and there are allied units adjacent to yours you are gaining a bonus to the strength.

[Petiloup]

Indeed the "TAB" function helps quite a lot.

Yesterday I did spend quite a number of hours doing the start of the Grand Campaign once again. Only way to learn the game but now I have a few observations that are a problem for me and as it seems part of the game engine I don't see it fixed.

So will most probably play this campaign till the end then mothball that game till it's fixed.

- Axis countries should all move together, not one by one.
- What's the point to have a Slovakian army if it needs to fight alone Russian troops [&:]
- Italian troops in the desert can't attack with German troops if you create the Afrika Korps [X(]

- German troops use German Sea Transport in the Med and not the Italian one.
- So are those ships send by rail to the Med then send back to the North Sea over the weekend [&:]
- As Germany can build many more TP then the Italian it's of course great for sending enough troops to take Egypt but
not realistic at all.

- With the Lufwaffe I can:
- Use my fighters to destroy the RAF but can't deal with a CV onboard plane, therefore they can intercept everything I launch
at it
- I can't escort my bombers on a bombing run
- Tactical bombers can't bomb other plane units. Not even other Tac or Strat Bombers. I could understand a chance not to find
them on the runway at the time of the attack, but not possible at all [&:]
- Planes are destroyed once attacked on the ground. No chance to rebase before the attack?

For the rest the game is fun enough to play without being to complex, the AI isn't that great but no AI ever is as I play wargames for 20 years now so not an issue.

I could play this game quite often and would love to do a PBEM but not untill Axis units can move together and the Kriegsmarine can't send transports to the Med... unless of course Gibraltar would be conquered for example.

At last some more explanations would be interesting especially on events.

I got the one for Sealion, spend 300 PP and so far I wonder for what benefits??? Not clear. Is there a list with full details of all events in the game?

Cheers.

[Petiloup]

Well just thought that a quick fix for the Axis not moving in sync would be an option to lend troops to another country.

If we could add an owner option on top of each troop details then we could change a German Armored Division from being "owned" by Germany to Italy and therefore that troop would move during the Italian turn, use the Italian ships (transport), and so forth.

Replacement for that troop could be lend by Germany as well if we could send PP between countries.

That way for the Eastern front and Slovakian, Hungarian, Rumanian troops could be lend to Germany and move and attack together, combining their weaker troops with the Whermacht.

Would imagine this should be possible and not to hard a fix.

[doomtrader]

Actually the Germans did transported couple of subs and smaller attack boats by land to the Black Sea.

However as we wanted to make the game accessible for more casual players we decided to simplify couple of things. All of the issues you have mentioned above are not broken, only the design decisions, so I don't think they might be fixed.
There are very limited situations in the real life when units were directly controlled by other countries. Africa case is indeed one of those rare situations, but I would like to avoid changing whole game to represent those.

[Petiloup]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader
Actually the Germans did transported couple of subs and smaller attack boats by land to the Black Sea.

Indeed they did but I'm speaking here of moving 6 Panzer Division from Trieste to Tobruk using German STP. That's slightly different.
Anyway I understand the design decision to keep it simple but this makes taking North Africa for the German way too easy. Transport issue were key in preventing the German to bring enough troops and supply to the Afrika Korps. Without this represented somehow it creates an imbalance.

ORIGINAL: doomtrader
However as we wanted to make the game accessible for more casual players we decided to simplify couple of things. All of the issues you have mentioned above are not broken, only the design decisions, so I don't think they might be fixed.

Too bad.

ORIGINAL: doomtrader
There are very limited situations in the real life when units were directly controlled by other countries. Africa case is indeed one of those rare situations, but I would like to avoid changing whole game to represent those.

Well in real life, the German didn't move first then the Italian then the Slovaks then the French and so forth. So you are contradicting this even more by not making an alliance move together at the very least.

Also in real life an Armored Corps wasn't a counter on a map but thousands of troops spread on a certain area which could be attacked from different sides by troops from different countries based on an attack plan.

I don't think in real life someone was telling the German "Please attack first" then to the Slovaks or Romanians "Ok it's your turn now". You are right they would have been under different command structure but the end result would still be for them to put pressure on the enemy at the same time more or less. Not one after the other.

The Eastern Front was definitely such a case as well.

As for units being controlled by other countries should we just look at Operation Market-Garden, if I recall well the 82 and 101 aren't British troops. just a tiny example is the French tanks used in the British counterattack of Arras.

In digging a bit I can come with plethora of example to contradict this.

[doomtrader]

You have to remember that if you have got your allied troops next to the unit you are attacking, you are receiving a bonus to your strength, so this simulates support they can provide.

[borsook79]

While I understand the issue in theory, I don't understand the practicalities of it. Contrary to HOI3 in TOF you can take control of your allies, so you can do it either permanently or just for a turn when you're planning some joint operation.

[Petiloup]

Ok, so I just finished a Grand Campaign with the Axis (Human Control of Germany, Italy and other Axis countries once joining Germany).

First I must say the game is beautiful and indeed easy enough to play. No non-sense details that impedes playability. Truly a wargame.

I like a lot of the features like only one combined attack per unit, research is helpful but not decisive, ships in details, great graphics,...

The AI is doing as expected, no better or worst for me as I managed to take over Poland, Luxemburg - Netherland - Belgium and France by Feb'1940, UK by May'1940 then attack Russia in August'1940. The first Winter was a scare as the Russian production is huge but the habit for the AI to lock his unit with a second line of units in the back make him looses tons of troops when they surrender having no place to retreat. Instead of being totally destroyed they should maybe come back in the force pool at 10 or 20% total value or give some PP like when you disband an unit. Russian went down in 1942 after gobbling up Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and Portugal. With almost 1,000 PP per week of production I thought of waiting for the Atomic Bomb but didn't see the point.

Now there are quite a bit of flaws as well but overall nothing that does threaten playability so it is still a great game to play on my sense. So posting here as part of my wish list for improvements:

Major issues:

- CV Interceptions: I had one British CV intercepting almost ALL my attacks on the fleet in the Channel and I did so with almost 10 Tactical Air Units. Each interceptions damaging my Air unit and with 2 attack per unit you can imagine how much it did cost to build back everything. This is of course ridiculous as in reality this CV would have been sunk 10 times over. In my case he wasn't even scratched. Interception should be limited and subject to a %age chance of intercepting depending also on the number of fighters able to cover the attack. My fighters of course played no role in all this which is also a non-sense as in reality they would have wiped out the CV Cap without breaking a sweat. I had 10+ fighter units.

- Fighter Interceptions: Same here, during Sealion the RAF managed to Intercept a lot of my recon and attacks with only 2 or 3 fighters while I had 10+ of mine at the ready. Interceptions should be limited to maybe 2 times the number of action left from the player turn (overusing units at the attack should prevent a good coverage in defense) or 1 time the action number if we can't keep track of what was used during the player turn.

- The US never entered the war. Not sure why at all.

- I can't crush the Allies as you can't invade the British Colonies. I know I tried as it was all that was left on the map for me besides the US. So you can't win the game.

Issues that bothers me:

- After taking Leningrad the Baltic Russian Fleet went on fighting for 9 months more or less before I finally managed to destroy every single one units. This isn't very plausible. The ships should be automatically destroyed if there is no friendly ports at moving distance and they are at sea for more than X weeks (to be defined).

- Due to Allies Victories, Vichy decides to show its true colors and Germany decides to annex it. Well I wonder which victories as by that time I did conquer France and the UK the controlled Leningrad and Moscow in Russia pushing the Russian to Stalingrad. Well I did welcome the whole French Fleet in the Kriegsmarine even if in reality they did destroy themselves. Not sure if it's a % of chance it happens but if so it should be per ship not for the whole fleet including submarines.

- There is no ending to the Winter War between Russia and Finland? or is it that you need to accept Russian demands the first time. Then would Finland join Germany later? Events aren't very well explained at all.

- Speaking of events I did invest 300PP for the Sealion Operation event... then never saw anything coming out of it. Next time I'll keep those to build my own Sealion operation... which I did obviously.

- the British Army doesn't screen all its ports so I could land Para in Plymouth and mop up the UK from there. The British Navy can't even intercept anything as you can move from Caen to Plymouth in one turn disembarking everything right away.

- the Sea Battles are strange as you never really fight with your whole fleet against the enemy fleet. At least not against the AI. I felt like the Kriegsmarine had numerical superiority against the British Navy all the time.

- Tac Bombers can't bomb other Tac Bombers. I can accept they can't do so against fighters but bombers did destroy a lot of planes on the enemy airfields.

- Tac Bombers losses are heavy attacking troops especially in Russia. So when you get the cost of repairing a plane versus the cost of the unit destroyed it's not very interesting or efficient.

- Strategic Bombers get losses from the troop, the city/factory and not sure what else but I stopped using them right away but for anything else than recon. Especially I don't feel there is an impact on the enemy production.

- Great Britain surrenders and become a puppet of Germany, the British Union. That's great but then Egypt becomes part of Britain once again. You can't even choose the territorial compensations like Gibraltar and Malta. Pretty sure Italy would have insisted to get Malta and Egypt if the UK decides to surrender and Germany would have asked Gibraltar to become Spanish once more.

- You can transfer PP from Rumania, Bulgaria, Croatia and even Ukraine if created to Germany (via Sevastopol for example) but you can't transfer the PP from Hungary and Slovakia because they are all land countries. Reason being???

- Carrier strikes never did destroy another ship in my case. After building a few CV's with the Italian and using them I got one hit or 2 hits in over 10 attacks. Might be unlucky but normally the CV's where the best anti-ships weapons so should be more efficient than that.

- When you reach a new level with your troops they all get the bonus even if they don't level up. So for example suddenly all my planes got the bonus of reaching level 3 even if they were still all at level 2. Nice but not logical.

Minor issues:

- German Strategic Bombers at level 2 and over are showing a B-24 photo. Not a problem but would prefer to see a German plane.

- FOW is showing if a unit is a division or a corps. Not a major issue but it helps to know where to attack. Maybe planes could recognize big and small formations so really not a major problem.

- Amphibious pts are destroyed after being used even if you disembark in a friendly port. I did that after cancelling an attack so better be sure that once you decide to invade you commit to it.

- No partisan units ever appeared in Russia (now I chose Mild policy in Russia so this might have an impact, as events aren't well explained I'm not sure) I had 2 in France and 1 in Yugoslavia in over 3 years and that's it. Reading about Tito's resistance army in Yugoslavia and you'll know this isn't realistic. In Russia resistance was a nightmare for the Germans.

- There should be a reminder that you have unused leaders in the HQ. I had one or two new or back there after the unit is destroyed that did nothing for most of the war.

For the rest I still don't like Axis countries moving separately and using their own supplies but that didn't prevent me to play the game.

[doomtrader]

Hi Polonthi,

Really great post and constructive observations, some of the issues were already addressed with the 1.01 patch (from your description I assume you have been playing with 1.00).
Some of them are already prepared for 1.02.

[Petiloup]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader
Hi Polonthi,

Really great post and constructive observations, some of the issues were already addressed with the 1.01 patch (from your description I assume you have been playing with 1.00).
Some of them are already prepared for 1.02.

Thanks, must say the game kinda grow on me and just playing a campaign as the Russian... to see the first round of Barbarossa and understand what it means getting the Red Army surprised by the German onslaught.

Will load the patch and see what happens still one big surprise in this game is to read that Slovakia surrenders to Great Britain. With the FOW I'm not sure what happened but would guess it's due to paratroops as if not I really have no clue [X(]

[Razz1]

We have hot keys for sea battle but lost the Auto resolve after release.

M = next move
N = Next turn
C = Close

But no A for Auto resolve


Also, there is no report for shore bombardment losses

[Hairog]

I would like to see another role for the Tac bomber. That of interdiction. Give them the ability to destroy a RR hex or cause a hex to be controlled by your side to cut supply. This would give them a much greater and more historical role than they have now.

Some how I would like to see more benefits from total air superiority. If no enemy fighter units are within range a tac bomber would have its attack strength increased dramatically. This would simulate the devastating effect of the Stuka when it was free to roam or the IL2 and P38/Tempest etc. when they were freed from attacks from enemy fighters and owned the sky destroying ships, trucks and trains at will. This would add another layer and more accurately model the war in the air as well as give greater urgency to the British and eventually the Germans in keeping their fighter forces strong.

Example... if the Germans gained air superiority over the Channel then Sealion could become a reality and the BOB would have a historical purpose. The German Tac Bombers could enjoy enhanced abilities to keep at bay the British Home Fleet went it sortied to stop the invasion. Conversely the same would be true if the Allies did not gain air superiority for D-day.Neither invasion would be possible with air superiority.

Another feature I would like to see would be the ability of the players to set the route that convoys take. If they diverge from the optimal route some kind of penalty in either time or loss of PPs would occur. This would add to the cat and mouse feel that the real War for the Atlantic had.

[duncan007]

One big wish :
Link ToF to SotP so we can play the whole war.
[&o]

[wolf14455]

Ive been playing a bit now and I miss something in my desert fighting. Supply!! In ww2 they accumelated supply by waiting and then made an offensive and then waited again. Can that be introduced in the game? Especially in areas that are on sea supply.