Matrix Games Forums

You can read my latest Russia AAR here, but in technical/game-play terms I have the following comments:

- For some reason the AI did not seem to upgrade allied minor units. In fact I'm not sure it was buying the units of these countries either but this may have been masked by the general collapse of the side with the most minors on it.

- Russian morale rose as high as 178% by the end of the game. This kind of rise makes it impossible for the other side to ever recover and win - morale should be capped at 100%. Logically it makes no sense for people's happiness about the war to have no ceiling on it.

- Switzerland entered the war on the last couple of turns on the losing side to no effect. Entry of minors into the war on the one side or the other should give a boost to the morale of the majors on that side of at least 1-5% so that war goes on for more than a turn or so after they join just so you can see the effect of it. Countries like Spain and Sweden joining should give at least the kind of morale boost that Romania joining does.

- Spain was a bit too easy to beat. Sweden too. Both should have militia units spawn at various cities if you invade them similar to the German Landsturm.

- I had the Ottomans withdraw from the war without the option of seizing Constantinople, which was a major Russian war aim. I suppose I am supposed to just declare war on Turkey again to be sure of seizing the straits?

All the same was generally happy with how the game turned out and had a good game. AI did put on a challenge with no very obvious flaws.

ORIGINAL: FOARP

- Russian morale rose as high as 178% by the end of the game. This kind of rise makes it impossible for the other side to ever recover and win - morale should be capped at 100%. Logically it makes no sense for people's happiness about the war to have no ceiling on it.

I could see capping National Morale at 125% but not 100%. There should be a positive benefit to early campaign successes and the bonus in unit morale when national morale is above 110% provides that. It makes sense to me that if the war is going well, public support could rise to levels above where it was at the outbreak of the conflict.

I agree though with your suggestion that the entry of minors should provide a small NM boost for their controlling major.

In a similar vein, the surrender of major powers should reduce the mobilization of friendly aligned powers that have not yet entered the war. This is particularly true for the USA, which seems very sensitive to DOWs by either side but completely indifferent to surrenders. I have seen games against the AI where the USA finally entered the war on the Entente side on the same turn as France surrendered and the CP won the war. You would think that if the UK, France or Italy surrenders, it might give a U.S. Administration heading for war against Germany a reason to pause before moving to 100% mobilization.

I agree, NM should be capped at 110 or max 120 (if that). 178 is ridiculous.

Minors in game are either too weak or too strong (eg: Dutch have 3 full corps at mobilisation more than 2X of Spain).

Thanks for the feedback and 178 NM for units doesn't sound right at all as I believe the cap should be 125%. Sounds like a possible bug, do you happen to have a saved turn where I could see this so I could take a look?

Edit: Perhaps I misunderstood, I believed you were referring to unit NM, and I see here in this other thread Bill is also addressing this concern:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5038358