WAW update and notes

[tweber]

I posted v27 of the WAW scenario to the scenario bank. Here are the changes:

- Boosted up R&D a bit (I forgot who made the suggestion - Barthheart?)
- Reduce air def power on level 1 cruisers and battleships by 50% (freeboy)
- Fixed Pacific events and message on special units (freeboy)
- Made it so you cannot build resource centers

There was also a question on unit sizes. I basically scaled things to the Polish campaign. Germany had about 60 divisions, they have 12 on the map, so 1 unit is roughly 5 divisions (corp +).

There was also a question about US and Soviet entry. In 1942, the Germans must maintain a 1:1 power level. If they do and the Japanese never launch a major offensive, then the US is prohibitted from joining the war. However, I am not sure that this is a winning strategy for the Germans as the Soviets and the West should be pretty strong. The West also gets a production boost if the UK falls. I would be interested in the view on the US and Soviet entry mechanism. For me, this is the most difficult aspect of the game design. I did not want to force the Axis into entry (e.g., it's December so we must attack Pearl Harbor). By the same token, I wanted to give the Axis enough incentive to take on the future production that the US brings to bear.

The nice thing about debating the US / Soviet criteria entry is that I know players have gotten at least that far in the game.

[freeboy]

well, I think if my german, playing german opponent decides to not invade USSR, then I will eventually invade the West med and force him to pul troops from the East or risk collapse.. in the other game as Axis the geramns over ran an unprepaired USSR, combination early invasion after a late fall of france combined with a 100 percent invasion bonus.. plus the research grant.. has USSR gone.. only siberia left and soon we will see if Londan can be taken in 42  with the uber ca's guardingthe port cities...
 
Tom, Ship level one to level two will not make that much differrence for the CAs and then they reduce enemy air to insignifacance... I suggest you stop using the computerized reference and do some ca twos vs carrier air in a test say thirty carrierr air vs a smaller fleet of ships andsee.. I thing the build ratio is 2:1 ca to carriere air.. so try 30 to 10 or so same level two three etc and see if my findings are not upheld, primarily that ca are WAY overdone against airpower causing the naval war to be funky

[Vic]

Yes and in v26 it was fixed that the German AI would play Vichy card and that the DOW on Russia went properly. Versions keep going so quickly that v26 is the version i uploaded for the v1.10 gold installer.

[freeboy]

what is wrong with v25 sov dow?

[xBoroNx]

Tom, i am currently trying a strategy of spamming factories with germany in my game vs. freeboy. The plan is to boost production enough and then do a powerful offensive on the soviets in spring 1942. This way the Usa enters the war much later and i hope to have about the same economy then as the allies through my economic buildup + the captured soviet resources.

Since germany gets France + Poland early and the Balkans and Italy and Romania, Hungary and Bukarest they have the edge. Norway is nearly impossible to secure though imho.

So in early 1941 the resource distribution should be about like that (assuming no side built factories):
Axis:
Germany 40k Production + Italy 16k + captured territories (Balkan, Denmark, Low Countries, Northern France, Poland) 26k + Balkan Allies 8k + Finland 2k
Japan 22k

Allies:
Gb 16k, Lend Lease 8k, Gb Commonwealth + Dutch east indies 28k, Norway 4k
China 8k
Soviets 34k

So 114k Axis vs. 98k Allies
Also important is that most of the axis production belongs to germany. Germany can further increase the gap by starting to build factories after the conquest of France.

In the game vs. Freeboy we are now in August 1941 and i have built 7 Factories so far and building one more each turn now. I could have played riskier and spammed more factories, but i also invested in new troops. Now about 1/3 of my production each turn goes into PP, giving me 72 per turn so i can build one additional factory each turn and every now and then a tech upgrade, ~50% in troops and the rest in supply.
I am very optimistic currently that if i invade Russia in spring or summer 1942 i can cripple Russia before the Us is fully in war.
If i counted correctly the Usa has 14 8k towns + 2 resources 2k each. So 116k resources. But  they only get 4 of them after the japanese Dow, 1 is included via lend lease already in the allied production and they get the gear up only after 12 and 24 turns.

So i think the economic system might need to be reworked, especially allowing the building of factories is maybe not a good idea.

[tweber]

I would be interested if this strategy works.  I assume that the West still has the UK.  Will you have enough pp to keep the Soviets out of the war or will they attack you in Jan of '42. 

[xBoroNx]

ORIGINAL: tweber

I would be interested if this strategy works. I assume that the West still has the UK. Will you have enough pp to keep the Soviets out of the war or will they attack you in Jan of '42.

I will keep you updated and post a few screenshots when the game progresses. We are playing V25 though, but from what i read about the changes it should not be too different

[freeboy]

ok, Are heaqvy bomber unable to be loaded on ships? If so this is a game killer for me as my US production to counter his factory builds is stuck in Boston HELP!

[xBoroNx]

In our former game i could at least tranfer fighters from canada to the uk, so if you have enough cargoships i think you should be able to tranfer bombers too.

[freeboy]

ok, panic over, prepare to see bombers over Europe

[xBoroNx]

Currently we are in November 1941.

I built 11 factories with germany so far. Axis controlled europe is basically a fortress.
This is the first time i play this scenario as axis and my only other game was with Freeboy too but only lasted till may 1940 or so because we played the version with the china bug.

Freeboy did some excellent moves and i made some serious faults in the beginning. First i forgot that dive bombers are not useful vs. ships in waw and lost most of my initial airforce trying to sink one of Freeboys fleets. I also lost my fleets. Then Freeboy made a good move in France, he abandonded Maginot Line already in the first turn. I took France in July 1940 then after starting the war historically waiting till april 1940 and using the blitz card, but took some serious losses there too. Then i also underestimated the RAF and historically lost the battle of britain and Freeboy also quickly took away oslo with his fleet.

After all those desasters i got my factory idea then. I don't want to provide details about the german army yet, currently i plan to start barbarossa in late spring 1942 and want to surprise Freeboy a bit hopefully because i am trying a somewhat excentric strat i think.

[xBoroNx]

With Japan i made serious faults too. My idea was to kill China in the limited war via destroying their production with heavy bombers. Freeboy countered with repairing the cities with engineers, but waited long enough to milk lots of PP. I think he got 80-100 PP this way from USA-help.
Iirc in late 1940 i stopped the war then.

Japan i plan to use mainly as supporter for the germans, built no factories with them. They shall simply try to conquer China when Germany starts their eastern crusade and take away any unguarded or at least insufficient guarded resources in the phillipines and dutch east indies. Maybe if all that is successful they can also try a minor offensive vs. british india to bind british troops. But my goal for Japan is simply that they shall try to survive and tie up enough allied forces to enable germany to win.

[freeboy]

do not forget about the pearl harbor attacks you get for "free" ..
turn sent fyi

As The game stands, I am rapidly realizing my error of not having a huge airforce, spent too much early on Huge English fleets, lots of bb and ca3's woit hsome dd ... am also building defenses against hte japs.. must not lose there!
My efforts now are to regain air supperioty, and have some other surprises for my oponenet. I think that if I can get air supperiority, he will have to put pp into defense, rather than the conquest of USSR.. I wounder after the attack there how long he will wait to attack pearl?
PLease let him attack soon!

I have mixed gug in forces in USSR, well forward to avaopid a dissasterous 100pp and 200 percent uber surprise... must have more than 75 % within four hex of border to avoid this! After my initial panic of having no troops nd terrible quality, I am confident I will slow him down in the borders, then he hits the second line of troops nd slows down again I hope, by then I hope to unleash my western aids the reds plan PATTON andsee what we can stir up.

[xBoroNx]

How do the pearl harbour attacks work? The briefing is a bit vague there. Sent you the next turn also.

[freeboy]

pearl attack through a blitz card, there are fleets there in hawaii, send a dd or sub to scoutthem out, then launch your carrier air units againstthem at an advantage due to the blitz card, 50 percent reduced streangth I think.  TURN SENT FYI
 

[freeboy]

Well things look bleek for air supperiority in the short term.. and I hope I can get enough reds into the fight to make a difference.I also hope to stir up enough trouble to draw off some resources

[Twotribes]

You have to manually move your carrier fleet to attack Pearl? Yes?

[xBoroNx]

Hm found maybe an exploit i think. I am not doing it in our current game since it feels way too cheesy imho, but i think you could save a lot of production power if you station your troops in the winter in southern terrain. Japan especially can easily do this in south china as long as they are not at war with anybody and germany could at least deploy their airforce to the south in winter maybe to also save some supply.

[tweber]

Actually, any ship at sea does not get the supply penalty either.  I do not think it is cheesy because ships do not as impacted by bad whether.
 
The ultimate exploit is to use neutral fleets to blockade.  If you build Austrailian ships, you can easily blockade the Japanese fleet before Japan wakes up.  I would suggest a house rule that prohibits the use of neutral fleets for this type of blocking. 

[freeboy]

tom, one note my axis game failed as Japan was "beaten" as the event in vs 25 declared china a default winner as I had not played the card, which I of course did. Is this corrected in v27?