[Scenario] Europe 1939-1945

Use this thread to discuss the Europe 1939-1945 scenario.


State : this scenario is fully playable, but some military operations (including USA spawning) and the late-tech units are still to be added.


Map Size : Large


Description:

Take control of France, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R, Italy, Greece or Germany in Europe from 1939 to 1945.

The game will finish when one side has lost all it's key cities, here's the list of objectives by nations :

• United Kingdom : London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Newcastle.
• France : Paris, Caen, Bordeaux, Dunkerque.
• U.S.S.R. : Moscow, Stalingrad, Kiev, Leningrad.
• Germany : Berlin, Kiel, Bremen, Frankfurt.
• Italy : Rome, Naples, Milan, Bologne.

Screens (clickable):

reserved

Greece has no listed key cities
Also, as Greece, I had to resort to WW1 tactics while England was being a scardy cat and didn't help me against Germany!
EDIT: I'ld appreciate it if after 1943, Greece can get English units, like the Lancaster or Matlida!

I've said it in another thread, but Russia needs a production boost starting in 1942 on it's basic units (Infantry, and T-34). Or at least in a couple cities. Like Moscu gets Tank Production bonus, and Stalingrad, Lenningrad, some others get infantry bonus. I think that would make it a better balanced game. The idea is that Russia really needs to make it hard on Germany, so that the other allies can start an invasion.

ottoman4u said:

I've said it in another thread, but Russia needs a production boost starting in 1942 on it's basic units (Infantry, and T-34). Or at least in a couple cities. Like Moscu gets Tank Production bonus, and Stalingrad, Lenningrad, some others get infantry bonus. I think that would make it a better balanced game. The idea is that Russia really needs to make it hard on Germany, so that the other allies can start an invasion.

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Just do what I did as Greece and attack Germany through Italy and perhaps balkans!

I'm playing this scenario and it's fantastic!

I report from the field.

Playing Italy/Prince, I conquered all Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and pretty much of Algeria, including French and English enclaves. A few turns before declaring war to USSR, Paris fell and all my Tunisian, Algerian, Lebanese and Syrian conquests were gone (only one city remained mine: Sidi Bel Abbes)... I think that when the script is fired conquered cities should remain to the actual owner!
Apart from being a terrible waste of resource by myself, this produced also the odd result that French government moved to Palmyra (that I owned) and just a few turns later, when I (forcibly) declared war to USSR, I had again Syria and Lebanon (that I owned) against me... argh!

P.S. A few turns later, Tunisia also declared war to me. Then, two turns after, I reconquered Palmyra, and instantly Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia returned to peace, even if angry as hell. The Syrian land I conquered remained mine.

With the French, in version 31, we created a fortified line of units near strasbourg and it lasted for some time until the French realised that there is a slight chance of losing and all fled (and died). I made a defensive triangle around paris and brought Matila I and Matilda II tanks in and won, but the thing is, England needs more units starting in France. They need to make a fortified line through belgium. Or, make it that Germany, France and England can only fight when 1940 comes!

Couple glitches I noticed:
1) The anglo-iraqi was lasts only one or two turns, usually as the UK player you're too busy elsewhere to do anything, and you end with Iraq only as a friend. Historically it remained allied - in game terms - and was occupied by British forces again. UK is already in a tight spot, Iraq only as a friend is hurting!
2) The Syria-Lebannon campaing in june 1941 was against Vichy France in both Syria and Lebannon. After the armistice of 14 july 1941 and until late novembre 1943 Lebannon was governed by FF General Catroux. Currently it stays neutral, which is really too tough on Free French!
3) Even without Torch, it wouldn't hurt to allow declaration of war for UK/FF and make the liberation of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia possible.

Balancing issues:
1) UK is really too weak in Egypt (both as AI or as player) making the juicy target of Suez too easy to grasp as Italy (both as AI or player). Maybe reducing the travel time of troops sent from mainland UK would be enough to help with that. It took two weeks only Ark Royal to reach the Denmark straits from Gibraltar for instance, currently it would be several turns (and thus months).
2) Free French can be in quite a tight spot if the Vichy Forces end with Somuas in Syria (it can happen, whearas they were only sent to French North Africa and ended in FF hand in 1943, fighting alongside US and UK troops in Tunisia).
3) Algeria should be French, and not an independant city-state like Morocco, Tunisia, Lebannon and Syria which were protectorates. Wouldn't change the fate of France in 1940, but will make the Free French option more viable provided you can actually free it later on.
4) Italy and Greece are both (as AI) much stronger than they really were, Italy has lots of tanks as early as 1940 (and thus can roll through Egypt for instance), Greece has far more infantry in 1941 than France in 1940 and thus can hardly be crushed (in a month in april 1941) by combined Italian and German (mostly) forces (as it was historically) and generally happily conquests Bulgaria and survives the Axis onslaught.

Gameplay
1) Germany can crush France as easily with (significantly) more planes and less tanks (as AI), which would be closer to what happened in may-june 1940. As a player [edit: with events on] it's quite easy, run for Paris the Guderian way, you don't even need hordes of heavier tanks. It would also incite UK to build more planes for the battle of Britain (which currently hardly takes place except for some convoy bombing).
Germany shouldn't be able to crush both Poland and France simultaneously (or nearly so) which can easily be done by either AI or player. Not to mention that as a player it's so easy to crush France that you could invade USSR as early as mid 1940 if not for the scenario enforcing historical declarations of war. It would make sense not only to reinforce and upgrade the German army, but also to recoup its losses after its two successful campaigns in France and Poland, which is currently really only a very minor inconvenience.
2) USSR is not in as bad a situation as France, but maybe some more industrial capacity further from the front would help.
3) France, should it be playable at all? It's almost impossible to hold as a player, marginaly easier as the UK player (which makes little sense), and the Free French don't get the opportunity to do much as you can't free French North Africa and you usually end crushed by the Italian bulldozer much earlier than that anyway!
4) UK is struggling, as it should, but Seelöwe and an Italian army much stronger than it ever was is too tough, I can't imagine how it could prevail in North Africa if you add the Afrika Corps to the scenario. Seelöwe never happened so maybe it should only be there in alternate history, and as the disastrous raid on Dieppe and the near failure of D-Day demonstrate, amphibious assault wasn't that easy even with the formidable US logistical and industrial power. And two months were necessary to reach Paris, whearas Seelöwe can result in German Panzers near Edinburg (more than twice as distant) a couple turns after Seelöwe!


Once more, great work.

I've been using the standard R.E.D. mod for some time, and decided to give the WWII Edition a shot this past week. I've played through the 1939-45 scenario once as France, and was midway through another playthrough as Germany when the game repeatedly crashed on the end turn rotation, unfortunately putting a stop to that.

So my thoughts.

Firstly, love the mod, but I'll also try to be constructive with what I liked and what I didn't.

The new loading art is a great touch, but what blew me away were the audio files that play as you wait for the scenario to load. Sets the stage, and looks very professional. The text for the France intro could use a little tightening up though, as a couple of sentences come off a bit clumsily.

I initially played as France with Scripted Events on, but the game crashed around turn 10 (not a Fall of France bug) so I restarted with scripted events off, and alternate history on. Deity difficulty level.

Playing as France is *hard*. Germany hit me with everything and I just barely managed to hang in the game - then ITALY jumped me (early, in Jan '40), and I almost collapsed in the south before Italy went back to peace after a few turns, allowing me to stabilize again. I eventually managed to recapture Strasbourg, and take Cologne, and hold a line there until the USSR entered the war (early again, in March of '41, again only for a few turns).

France starts off very weak, which is fine - it made it a challenge - but the lack of any sort of Maginot Line made me blink when I started. The Germans just rolled right across the border and took Strasbourg without so much as a by your leave. They certainly didn't have to worry about going through Belgium. It might complicate things for the AI, but the Line was such an iconic part of France's defence that its omission took me out of the scenario for a moment. Perhaps a static artillery-stackable "fortress" unit could be created for the Maginot mushrooms?

Once the Soviets were in it for good after the summer of '41 the tide slowly turned in my favour, and I took Berlin by mid '42, and had Rome by early '43. I ended the game at that point, after having to work harder for a military win than I've ever worked in a game of CiV. So kudos for that - very fun and well balanced scenario.

Some things did annoy me though. While I was fighting for my life the British sat off the coast hording masses of gold and being about as useful as tits on a bull. They never once sent me a BEF, and their total contribution to the war (aside from getting kicked out of North Africa by the Italians) was to bomb the crap out of Antwerp with a pair of Wellingtons once the Germans conquered it. Did a Dutch girl break Churchill's heart when he was fighting Boers or something? I don't expect much of AI allies, but that was just excessively unhelpful. Thanks, ally guy.

Although the art is great, there's never any reason to use the diplomacy screen. Alternate history seems to allow the AI to declare war on and off, but I couldn't myself. I couldn't even decide whether on not to accept it when the AI decided to go back to peace. I was just at peace. Bam. Overall, I didn't find alternate history to be a good option. It was random, and out of my control.

Some options to request aid from allies would be nice, as well as discuss targets or strategy (even in general terms, like, "I think you should build more bombers."). One idea I had was that as you kill enemy units you get a "blood, sweat and tears" resource (or somesuch) that you can then "spend" to request assistance in money or troops or whatever from less heavily engaged allies. I mean, by Christmas of 1940 I was sitting at 15 gold a turn and 0 in the bank, desperately maintaining an army on the ragged edge, while Churchill was sitting on something like 100+ gold a turn and 10,000 gold in the bank, totally refusing to spare a Franc for the French.

To be honest, if the game had allowed it, after Rome my Legions would have been marching not on Moscow, but on London to dip the lot of those money grubbing English pigs in a molten vat of their shabby lucre. All the love in the world for the Greeks though. Those guys were champs.

Which brings up victory conditions. By the time I stopped I'd conquered Germany up to the Stettin and Prague (I magnanimously let Comrade Joe have Vienna), and I'd conquered from the north down to Rome, and was on the outskirts of Naples. Seeing the opening post here it seems that taking Naples would have ended the game, but that wasn't clear in game, and I assumed the scenario had no specific endgame coding. It's not a big deal, but it might be worthwhile to list those conditions in one of the intro screens. I'll probably go back and take Naples later just to see what happens.


I started a second game as Germany, on Deity as well, with alternate history off this time, and events also off, and it was going great until it crashed at the end of turn rotation of turn 59. Which is too bad.

One thing though. From reading the poster above it seems that with events on, taking France is only a matter of marching to Paris. In my German game I conquered Poland, while allowing the French to invade the Rhineland. Then I encircled them and wiped out their army, followed by a rapid riposte across the border to roll Paris before they could reform. It was February of 1940, and I figured that would be that. I could get an early start on Sealion.

Hell no. That was just the START of the fight. The Brits in *this* game poured forces onto the continent to help (how's THAT for AI solidarity, oh yeah, I see how it is), while De Gaulle relocated his capital to Lyon, slapped down a military base to bunker up, called up reserves, and made me WORK for it. I didn't have all of France secured until another five months of bitter fighting that left my panzer divisions battered shells - and even then I had to deal with a vengeful death ride into the Baltic by the entire French fleet, which badly delayed my plans to mop up Norway.

All that to say, I found it all immensely entertaining, and perhaps a point in favour of not using the Fall of France event. It's just too bad I'm not going to be able to finish the game.

EDIT: I suspected the cause of the crash might be Operation Weserubung, which I just completed on turn 59. However going back to an earlier save and stopping work on the op still lead to a crash at the end of turn 59, so no dice. Oh well.

EDIT EDIT: It was the convoy bug mentioned elsewhere on the forums. I just used the IGE and deleted all the British convoys, and that fixed it.

In any event, an excellent mod and a superbly well constructed and balanced scenario, and I look forward to seeing how you develop it further.

Forming a defensive line with infantry and tanks then replacing tanks with infantry and field guns as well as a bit of ak ak be enough.
But we also need maginot lines!

OK, so mostly finished my conquest of the Soviet Union in my German game. It was a bit too easy, IMO. The Russians didn't have much on the border so I pushed through with very little resistance. The few troops they did have I just bypassed and mopped up later. The first major battle was around Kharkov, which turned into a massive tank brawl that extended north in a running melee to Kursk and Voronezh before we both disengaged. Me because I was feeling over extended, and the AI because I imagine it had run out of tanks.

Which was the problem. That was the last big battle we had. After that there were a series of skirmishes, and some bitter sieges, but the Battle of Kharkov was essentially the end of the Soviet field army.

One thought I had was to give the Soviets three winter operations, for the winters of '41, '42, and '43. They should trigger if built, and only if a certain number of Soviet cities are occupied by the Axis (so preventing a player who is winning anyway using them as an offensive "I win" button). When the offensive triggers in the Winter of each year (assuming it's been built of course), it would spawn a large number of new tanks and troops - more for the AI.

These would be essentially massive defensive buffs, but they would also serve to make the human player (of Germany) incredibly wary of the upcoming winter, as opposed to just making it another date on the calendar.

Another point is that the Finns folded very quickly in my game. I don't know how common that is - the Soviets seemed to throw a lot of forces at them (when they really needed those forces against me), but maybe a buff for Finland could keep them in the game longer. Perhaps as a follow on to Weserubung, if Germany has successfully conquered Norway, they can build Operation Silberfuchs, which spawns additional troops in Finland.

Also, to agree with Nemovadit, from both games now Greece is awfully strong. This isn't a bad thing, because it forces you to pay attention down south rather than just ignoring the Balkans entirely as an irrelevance and throwing everything at Russia. It's not really historical, but I wouldn't change it for play balance.

Finally, I would like an Operation to send the Afrika Korps to Libya, just for the sake of coolness. The problem is the Italians really really do not need the help. In both games they've bulldozered all the way to Cairo (they have trouble taking Cairo itself though). So the British would have to be significantly buffed before anything like that. Still it would be awesome to run with the Desert Fox for a bit.

Anyway, a fun game after the hardmode of playing France. Perhaps that colours my impression, but Germany's opponents are generally a bit too weak IMO, and could be balanced to be stronger. Winter Offensive buffs for the Soviets, and a much stronger allied presence in the Med to pressure the Italians would be my suggestions.

wau I am a little unsure if i even want to post this because it proves that i spend to much time playing this senario... but here goes.

I am taking over the world as CCCP and I have come opon a slight snag... for some reason i can kill of poland... I have made sure they have no navy left and no teils left so my question is is poland some how tied in with the axis so they can be liberated buy the UK in a way other city states cant?

wau I am a little unsure if i even want to post this because it proves that i spend to much time playing this senario... but here goes.

I am taking over the world as CCCP and I have come opon a slight snag... for some reason i can kill of poland... I have made sure they have no navy left and no teils left so my question is is poland some how tied in with the axis so they can be liberated buy the UK in a way other city states cant?

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Who are the CCCP? Are you playing on alternate history? What are teils? Have you taken warsaw?

OK, and my final run at the scenario playing the USSR. I actually tried it twice, the first with alternate history on, the second with it off. The alternate history game ended VERY quickly. Russia starts with virtually no army - just three tank corps and three rifle divisions. Also no war industry, so that had to be built before I could start expanding. Germany plowed through Poland, then Hitler declared war and they carried on right into me. There was very little I could do to stop them, and I'd lost Moscow by February of 1940, and Stalingrad by May. At that point, with France also collapsed and the British being no help that I could see, I threw in the towel.

I imagine that the tiny size of the starting Soviet military is balanced for a game in which the Soviet player has until June of 1941 before getting into the war. It does cause problems if you get into a brawl before then, though. Perhaps the Soviets could start with a larger army, but made up of weaker, inferior units, to simulate the poor quality of the pre-war army, despite its size.

Anyway, with that rapid defeat I started a second game with alternate history off. Germany smashed Poland and France as per, then invaded Britain and by June of 1941 had captured most of England, with London under siege, and the Brits holding a defensive line in the north at Edinburgh. When the war started, the Germans had very little in the East, and after a little shoving back and forth I advanced into Poland and captured Warsaw. By early 1942 I was in Berlin, and the Germans had never thrown enough forces at me to make the result in doubt. They kept feeding Panzer IIs into the meatgrinder of my T-34s backed with field guns, for a depressingly consistent refrain of "suicidal attacks."

Once again, the Finns were no threat at all, and I mopped them up when I had forces to spare. My biggest problem was actually the Italians, who threw a substantial army through Rumania, and slipped into the steppes, racing all the way to the Urals, cutting trade links and threatening smaller towns. I eventually hunted them all down, but it took significant resources away from fighting the Germans.

Once that was dealt with though I began a methodical advance west to Berlin (the Germans relocated their capital to Paris); then cleared the Balkans, then advanced to the Rhine and into northern Italy; and then finally liberated France; then launched a massive air offensive over the UK, allowing Churchill's forces to break out of the siege of London. The game ended with an allied (Soviet!) victory in late 1943.

Some bug points. The game crashed several times due to the convoy bug, which I fixed using the IGE. Also, there was a weird bug with heavy bomber research continually resetting. I'd finish research on the Pe-8, then a few turns later I'd get a message that the British had just researched heavy bombers, and then my Pe-8's would all stop building, and I'd have the heavy bomber research 1 day away from completion, and have to finish it again. This happened three or four times, and only stopped when I liberated Paris. Then I got a notice saying that the Brits (and the French and Greeks this time) had finished heavy bomber research, and it didn't reset mine. Also I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but when I landed troops in the UK to help liberate it I found they couldn't get any supply. After some bloody battles, I withdrew my land forces and just assisted by sea and air.

As far as equipment is concerned, I found the KV-2 utterly worthless. It's expensive, slow, and not terribly effective. It was easier just to use artillery and infantry teams to assault cities. Also while I built La-5s and Yak-7s their stats were virtually identical. The Yak being slightly better, and a tiny bit more expensive to buy and operate is all. I'd suggest the differences should be made more marked, since I got both fighters available about the same time. I never got the trigger to upgrade either (I assume to the La-7 and Yak-9) so I don't know if greater differences are introduced with the upgrades.

Finally, with the war starting in mid 1941 I found the game rather easy. Germany was still busy in the West conquering Britain, giving me a relatively free hand in the East.

I really like the concept of operations, and - in addition to the Soviet Winter Offensive operations I mentioned above - giving Germany an "Operation Barbarossa" for when they attack the USSR would be nice. Something to plunk down a serious army in the east and then get it rolling for Moscow - forcing the Soviet player to start off on the defensive.

I get the impression that balancing for the USSR is going to be difficult. My first game was impossibly hard, the second, easy mode. My suggestions would be to buff Finland (and Rumania), give Germany an event triggered to force a serious invasion of the USSR in June of 1941, but also give the Russians a larger starting army, but of inferior units.

MrManilow said:

Who are the CCCP? Are you playing on alternate history? What are teils? Have you taken warsaw?

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right I am playing as the USSR witch is the English name for the CCCP sorry about that. I am playing on alternate history and teils is me not spelling tiles correctly (so the six sided tiles the play field is made up of..) I hade taken every city on the map except Rome at the time of writing i wanted to take over the world (who doesn't) and to see if i could complete a conquest V instead of the usual domination one and i think it may have worked the V screen was sort of broken and had no text on it except the two buttons as pr usual

I played as Greece on alternate history and was bored to find out that turkey has no army! HUMPF!

Skibbi said:

I played as Greece on alternate history and was bored to find out that turkey has no army! HUMPF!

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Just do what I did, and give them one with IGE.

i think it may have worked the V screen was sort of broken and had no text on it except the two buttons as pr usual

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That sounds like it might be all there is, IXJac mentioned the lack of coding for an endgame. Also I think the alternate history is kind of unfinished or at least it needs a lot of work.

I don't know about poland though. I haven't looked at the coding, but I'm guessing polands a bit of a special case what with the fall of poland event. I couldn't say why, I've never looked at that part of the code. Again it could be because alternate history hasn't had much work done on it. It might be different with the new update.

Skibbi said:

I played as Greece on alternate history and was bored to find out that turkey has no army! HUMPF!

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I guess the neutral countries which stayed neutral for the course of the war should have a decent army and cities with a high defense value to protect that neutrality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_country#Neutrality_to_forestall_invasion
http://www.cracked.com/article_20301_the-5-most-secretly-badass-countries.html

Peter

well they do build the defence building if they can.. but yeah they should get to make an army... but only once you attack them something like the reinforcements the AI players can call up