McMonkey,
I've played Fortress Europe for more than 20 turns, it's the best large scale WW2 scn that I have played. Some scns, like Tootall's D-Day, are also great. But Fortress Europe is the only one that have a good portrait of Battle of Atlantic, North Africa, Strategic Bombing, all these interesting factors of westen front all together. Also I like the "defence terrain", and special use of infantry on such lands.
Thanks for the great job!
Besides all the greatness, however still I think there are some room for improvement. Suggestions or questions are:
1, There are tooooo many U-Boats... They fill the ocean so much that Adolf can walk from Brest to New York without wetting his shoes. I think half the number would be still a decent threat.
2, Escort fighter can be researched around 1942 winter, or even more earlier. Very soon Luftwaffen posed no threat over German homeland. Perhaps it's better to move the escort fighter tech downward, cancel some U-Boat spawning events, and make more Luftwaffen fighter spawning events.
And there is also a problem for strategic bombing: to keep the economy running, it needs only a few bombers to take out factorys every a few turns, so I can use most of Allied bomber fleet to hunt U-Boats. This is not very like the history. Perhaps the number of factorys should be doubled, and bounty for each factory cut in half, so more bombers would be needed?
And also don't forget to add a House Rule: only attack Factorys with Bombers or land units, not Figters/Fighterbomber/GroundAttacks. Or else it would be too easy after we can mass produce P-51s...
3, I don't get why you set Fighters being 3h2f, Fighter Bombers being 3h3f, Ground Attacks being 2h4f? Fighters have better A/D, however Fighter Bombers's better F may compensate it. It dosen't seem 3h3f is better fitted for anti-ground while do not improve the anti-air ability, thus the units don't seem to be very different from each other. Same goes for Ground Attacks, I can't tell what's the difference.
Consider that the CIV2 engin doesn't differ AA and AG attack value anyway, I'd rather give all them same H/F, same A, keep their current D, cut FighterBombers movement, give Ground Attacks one more range but further cut its movement. Advantages in this way are:
a) you would prefer to use FighterBombers/Ground Attacks in attack roles, then Fighters to cover protect them. And unlike current version, FighterBombers/Ground Attacks won't perform almost as good as Fighters when defending citys.
b) Ground Attacks with 3 Range would be better to provide continue air support close to front line, and Range of 3 does not change its combat radius so it cannot be used to escort strategic bombing (you need even number to go back home!), while FighterBombers better for deeper strike but less persistence.
4, Ignore Wall issues, said above. And also I don't understand why you give Allied "Heavy Tank" in early to mid war, as they are graphically also Sherman, and the stats don't differ a lot from Medium Tank anyway. Heavy Tank should be something that can make a difference, and only available to Allied in late war.
I tried to fix the "Ignore Wall" by change some units stats as following:
Infantry: 7a, 7d, Ignore Wall.
Light Tank: 15a, 5d.
Medium Tank: 21a, 7d.
Reasons:
a) the lack of "Ignore Wall" cut Tanks attack in 1/2 in open ground, and in 1/3 when attacking a city.
b) Tanks should have 3 times Attack than their Defence, so it would be a fair fight if a tank attack a Fortified same class tank.
c) Compare to infantry, all tanks including even the Light Tank should have more attack value in open ground.
d) Medium Tanks like Pz4, M4 Sherman, T34 should be able to challenge Fortified Infantry in open ground, and no less defend power. Light Tanks should have a fair chancec to attack unfortified Medium Tanks.
e) Mech Infantrys and Heavy Tanks are not listed but alse set in likely manner, and twist a little for different nationnalities.