European Theatres of Operations

[Bombur]

-Started the playtest game. First German turn. Forgot to post screenshots. Some notes
1-Casualties ratio was about 5:1 for Germans, seems to be a realistic result. We even lost 3 PzII
2-Noticed the lack of Polish planes. The Polish had about 120 P.11 and some bombers (P.23 and P.37)
3-Countries should be restricted in production, as it is currently, we will have very unrealistic results. The Polish will soon start to fly Spitifires. Why will the Italians produce MC.200 if they can produce Me-109´s???? Why the French will produce MS.406 if they could produce Spitifires?? In the way the peoples and peoplegroups were defined, it will be hard to fix this feature. It would be possible to redefine peoplegroups or create separate location types for each country.

[82ndtrooper]

my turn done.

Poland cant produce spitfires as it can barely produce enough supply to survive. He has fixed that by reducing the production capacity of the allied cities. for example all polish cities only produce at 30%. all french cities are producing at 30% and England's are producing at 60%.

I can increase my war footing in France and England buy playing action cards that cost 50pp and raise my production and combat effectiveness by 3%.
I cant do anything to help Poland though.

so in Frances case while I could produce spitfires they cost me so much that its useless right now to do it.  it would take 3 turns to make 1 from Paris. No way I can do that so I am forced to make the older type planes so I can have some air force deployed.

In fact I am not even making any spitfires in England ATM.  But I found a nice older model to produce that should do well for a year or so until I can get my war footing increased. In fact I am only making a few of this model and will then switch to an even earlier model for my main air-force.

its the same for all equipment
I can produce the newest, but my production capacity is such that I cant afford to do it. So in all categories I am producing earlier model equipment because its cheaper.

[Bombur]

Planes are relatively expensive in this mod, as compared to vanilla. How does it cost to produce older types?

[Bombur]

2nd turn (09/16/39)

Advance is slow but kill ratio improved. Still didn´t see the Polish AF

[82ndtrooper]

well if i remember right in France at 30% production a spitfire cost me 13000 to build. but a earlier type fighter like the MS 406 only cost 5000. So i can make almost 3 to 1 if I make the MS 406.  Plus in paris which is my largest production center it would take 3 turns just to make 1 spitfire. I dont have time enough before you invade to make spitfires in any quantity.

you should start another game as the allies and take a look bro you will see what I mean [:)]

[82ndtrooper]

Poland is getting rapidly destroyed.

I am trying to withdraw back behind the rivers to get into a better defensive position.
But it doesnt seem like they are going to be much help since it is so easy for units to cross them.
This is something that grumpy may want to look at.

in this screen shot you can see a unit with 75% AP can cross the river and still move 2 hex's and it can only move three hex's without crossing the river.
This is going to allow units to attack across a river with almost no penalty, it seems like to me.

But we will soon find out haha.

[82ndtrooper]

I took a few screen shots to give people an idea of the scale of this map. Its HUGE.

this is western France from Paris over
also Paris is showing the cost of 1 spitfire which is almost 16000

[82ndtrooper]

here is southern England
as you can see I have a lot of work to do ,to make sure I have adequate defenses in place.
you can also see what one of my bomber groups looks like

[82ndtrooper]

this is southeastern France next to Italy

[82ndtrooper]

and this is the area of North Africa at Cairo.

as you can see the map is very large

[Bombur]

ORIGINAL: 82ndtrooper

well if i remember right in France at 30% production a spitfire cost me 13000 to build. but a earlier type fighter like the MS 406 only cost 5000. So i can make almost 3 to 1 if I make the MS 406.  Plus in paris which is my largest production center it would take 3 turns just to make 1 spitfire. I dont have time enough before you invade to make spitfires in any quantity.

you should start another game as the allies and take a look bro you will see what I mean [:)]

-Hmmmm....I like the way GrumpyMel is dealing with aircraft progression. Le us see what will happen when Italy enters war. Logistics is a nightmare too (like in real life). Supply consumption is too high and the it´s very hard to field and to feed a large army.
-Questions:
1-How many tanks/planes/squads does a SF unit represent?
2-Is that possible for the Axis to build carriers? Will they have CV based equipment like the Re.2001 or the Me-109T?

[Bombur]

Turn three and Warsaw still holds....we started strategic bombing against the city, but their Gloster Gladiators destroyed one Bf-110C, while the entire Polish bomber force was caught in the ground (2 Amiot-143). Movement rate is relatively slow and the Polish infantry is fighting well, I really need air attacks to break the Polish units.

[GrumpyMel]

Thanks for the comments guys, I hope you are enjoying it so far..

I kept the same stats for rivers as in vanilla AT. So attack and movement across them should be the same. I did pump up movement of some SFT types though...to deal with the size of the map. I didn't think it would scale otherwise.

In regards building ahistorical SFT's (i.e. French building British Equipment).... yes that's possible under the scenerio... really didn't see a good way of restricting that without alot of extra work. I figured I wouldn't bother with those restrictions and if players wanted they could make a House Rule to deal with that....that allows flexibility or historical accuracy depending on how players wanted to play things. In reality there was a little bit of cross-over anyways...with things being sold/leased between allies or even built under license.

The early Spits were notoriously expensive due to thier design. Although they were the best plane in the air in the early war. I read a bit up on that when researching SFT's. The trade-off with building lots of cheaper planes is that it uses up more pilots then fewer expensive planes. It's a something that players are going to have to figure out what works better for thier situations....so I'll be interested to see how it plays out with you guys.

War footing is a really big factor in the early part of the game.... I think I may have actually made it a little too cheap at 50 PP's a pop to increase it. The Allies can really increase it pretty quickly if they focus on it....maybe a little too quickly...but then again....producing those PP's eat into thier ability to build-up forces. Anyways, figuring that stuff out is what play testing is for [;)] ... so thanks for taking the time to give this a go for me.... I'm following your posts intently.


P.S. Be sure to check out the readme.txt file that came with the scenerio for more detailed info.

Bombur in answer to your question...It's tough to translate SFT's into real numbers...but roughly I figured 30-60 planes, tanks or guns per SFT for those types and 100-400 infantry troops for those SFT types. Capital ships is one to one while 3-6 for DD's and Subs.

[82ndtrooper]

Since this is a test game with the goal of not only testing but to preview this scenario for Grumpy I have decided not to worry about winning or losing and will be open from here on out with my screen shots and information.

So with that in mind here is a screen shot of northern France showing my starting forces and the fact that all Army HQ's start dreadfully low on staff. So at this point in the game ( turn 3) I am only building infantry and staff.

Also I have stripped all Armor units from the Armies in the Maginot line. I will use these units to create at Rapid Reaction Force to counter any break through in my defenses. I will reinforce the Maginot line with infantry which is much more suited to a static defense.
This is something France should have done in WWII

[82ndtrooper]

here is a look at the current situation in Poland. I did my first counter attack and wrecked two German infantry divisions and damaged a panzer division that had moved to close to Warsaw. This action cost me three infantry divisions severely weakened. One will be completely destroyed next turn, but I am fighting a losing battle here so all I can do is inflict all the damage that I can. ( sorry that I forgot to take screen shots)

My supply situation is going to be critical soon, I have made a couple mistakes.
1. I should have started making engineers from the first turn I doubt I have enough to keep Warsaw repaired.
2. I could have held onto Krakow and Lodz a couple more turns but I was too eager to fall back into defensive positions. So I find myself with a larger army than I can properly supply.

[82ndtrooper]

finally here is a look at England, you can see that I am starting to get my garrison units into place for defense

[82ndtrooper]

Grumpy
can you explain how the pilot pool works ?

On the PP question and war footing.
so far I have increased England's once and this turn I increased France.
Currently I am making about 40pp per turn, so right now it looks like I will only be able to buy 1 action card every other turn. This will increase as my war footing goes up so I will keep you informed.
keep in mind that I am producing units and not focusing on just PP which a player could do and things would be different. This could be the way to go actually, you could increase your war footing faster then be able to produce more to make up for it.  We will see how it turns out, I like to produce units from the start as it helps me to decide what and how much I need to build.

So far I am very impressed with this scenario and am really enjoying it.

[GrumpyMel]

Thanks 82ndTrooper, glad that you are enjoying it. The pilot pool is just a type of specialized manpower like WAW uses. Essentialy you get X number of pilots added to the pool each turn depending upon what side you are playing and each air sft you build uses up one pilot from the pool.

I probably should have put the exact numbers each side gains in the readme, but you can get an idea of where you stand with pilots (as well as the othe manpowers) from the report you get at the beggining of every turn.

Right now I expect you are probably gaining more pilots then you are using up due to your lower production capacity. Once the US comes in and you raise your war footing up more, you may need to start keeping an eye on pilot levels (as well as other manpower levels).... because it would be possible to produce enough aircraft to drain your pilot pool (essentialy have alot of planes, but not enough qualified pilots to fly them).

The manpower pools are another differentiator between the different sides.

The Soviets have the largest pool of conscripts and regulars but the smallest pools of elites and pilots.

The Allies have the largest pool of pilots, and are in between the Axis and Soviets for the others.

The Axis have the largest pool of elites and the second largest pool of pilots but the smallest pool of regulars and conscripts.

Basicaly, none of the pools should play much of a factor in the early war...as everyone has a pretty decent stockpile they can draw from. However, as the war advances, there is some possibility of straining one or more of the pools....particularly if you are suffering high casualties (hence building lots of new SFT's).

[82ndtrooper]

Grumpy
If I had played the Allied Minors war footing card would that have raised Poland's WF ?

Poland is in bad shape I really didn't play them very well at all. The supply in the early part of this game is difficult to manage and I didn't do it very well in Poland. My poor guys are starving already. I will know better next time I play. I will also try and do better in the battle for western Europe.

I did a couple counter attacks and the results where about even if i had enough supply I could hold out for several more turns easily. But as it is I will be lucky to make it 3 turns.

[82ndtrooper]

this is the situation as it stands.
notice that I wrecked the divisions I have selected but I couldn't push them back.
also notice that my units are showing low supply already. "sigh"

the unit down at the bottom with strength of 2 was hit by a counter attack also.
all in all the polish units are fighting better than I thought they would and its poor command that has them in this situation not their willingness to fight.

we will be eating the horses soon.