Matrix Games Forums

I belive the greatest improvements to this game could be made in the production/upgrade area. It is far to easy to change types of units produced and the rewards for sticking to "historical" types is non-existant. These are the changes I'd like to see:

Changing General types of equipment: If general type of unit produced is changed (ie from Bf-109 to Fw-190) then the production should drop to (Current production/cost of new unit). In this way, the capacity 15 PzIII factory ordered to retool to PzIVg's will have its output drop to 15/5=3. Changing within the same general type should only take 1 week and the drop in production should work as it does now. This already works this way when under computer factory control, so it should be fairly easy to correct so it works the same way when under human control.

Equipment upgrades If you change the equipment of an armour or air unit to a more modern model of the same general type (i.e Bf-109E's to Bf-109F's) then there should be no experience drop, or maybe a minimal one.

Why are these changes necessary, when I'm perfectly free to play historical anyway, one might ask?

For me, this game is about exploring might-have-beens and alternate strategies. Fiddling with production WAS a real option for the leaders involved. I want to be able to change production to only Panthers and Fw-190s, but I want the cost of that to be realistic: a massive drop in output.

You CAN do this manually by using the scenario editor, but its a pain. Plus when you edit a saved game with the scenario editor, the losses to date are lost.

I find it too easy to upgrade equipment. There should be some restrictions to it. As it is equipment can be changed anywhere. What about transportation costs getting the tanks to the front and transporting the old ones to the pools? I would change it so that upgrades could only take place on working rail hexes or in HQs.

i keep to producing and using older model panzers just to keep the formations at full strengh. i seems to me that i end up fighting russian armor formations that have newer tanks but are way under strengh. germanys weak production is not up to the task to make new models and to keep the present formations up to strengh. i switch back and forth between human and computer control of facs. it seems to work by letting newer models build up enough of a pool to let you switch them to operational status. then convert more facs. to them.

I like Yogi's idea, the main problem I see is about introducing the "breed" parameter for the equipment. It would be nice to correct Goering's mistake who relied on Bf-109 that finally became inferior both in dogfighting and intercepting. I do research and upgrade first of all to preserve experience since using elite unit with obsolete equipment means waste of precious human material. The choice should also be non-trivial and challenging due to the drop of production while changing types.

Originally posted by Barbos:
I like Yogi's idea, the main problem I see is about introducing the "breed" parameter for the equipment.

Perhaps we could use the "Upgrade to" feature. This would mean you'd have to drop automatic upgrades for equipment of different types, and all such would have to be done manually.