R.E.D. World War II development thread

at some points I'll add reinforcement coming from the USA. I also plan to add convoy ships from the beginning which will give UK and France free personnel or materiel for reinforcing their troops and maybe some free units.

edit : found a bug with v.2, the Ju88 crash the game when constructed, it will be fixed in v.3

lancelot1968 said:

great scenario will be playing it soon.
Would be great if the the east side of the US was also on the map as europe ie would never have won WW2 without the help of the US and Canada.
Makes for a more realistic scenario

Click to expand...

hmmm as I know US sent troops to Europe in 1943 only because otherwise soviet union would "liberated" western European countries (France, Netherlands, etc) by themselves and place communistic parties in control of those countries but US wouldn't like it.

Back to topic. I think you can add US presence by adding ability to buy American troops which are going to be delivered in 5-10 turns in one of your furthest cities. Then you could add projects for Germany which will give them 10% chance to intercept those units. If you are going to implement this system then I would suggest you to switch off ability to buy units inside of the cities.

v.3 is here.

Normally I would have waited to add more features before uploading a new version, but the Ju88 bug was game breaking, and I've made a lot of change in the code itself, it should be a bit faster between turns (and this optimization was mandatory for what's to come...)

v0.3 (Jul 29, 2011):
- Code: major rewrite of the code related to saving/loading data tables, now save only once per turn and just before saving game. As a result, the detailed save menu is overridden by the mod (auto-named save file).
- Bugfix: Ju 88 can be build without crashing the game...


And bonus : a screenshoot of the reinforcement reserve panel

magzhi said:

hmmm as I know US sent troops to Europe in 1943 only because otherwise soviet union would "liberated" western European countries (France, Netherlands, etc) by themselves and place communistic parties in control of those countries but US wouldn't like it.

Back to topic. I think you can add US presence by adding ability to buy American troops which are going to be delivered in 5-10 turns in one of your furthest cities. Then you could add projects for Germany which will give them 10% chance to intercept those units. If you are going to implement this system then I would suggest you to switch off ability to buy units inside of the cities.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a good idea on the feature.

On the note about the US in Europe, although you are right about that, I think you're leaving out a key part. That being, that the western countries themselves wouldn't have liked that much either. Churchill and Roosevelt had been looking for an excuse for the US to enter the war for a long while before Hitler foolishly declared war on the US.

So, it's not as if the US choosing to enter the European theatre ended up being only in its own self interest.

The US offensives into western Europe accelerated the collapse of the German lines by quite a bit too. Having to deal with only the threat from the battered Brits on the western front would have made holding against the Soviets a lot easier, if still probably ultimately futile.

with the 2nd version I can open the city screens without crashes! but the game crashed after 4 turns anyway...oh and the swiss names are still corrupted.

now i'm going to try with the last version

Bonci said:

with the 2nd version I can open the city screens without crashes! but the game crashed after 4 turns anyway...oh and the swiss names are still corrupted.

now i'm going to try with the last version

Click to expand...

did you delete the old version of the mod from the mods folder ? sometimes even a mod that is deactivated could mess with the others...

Hi Gedemon,

this reinforcement system is great !
if you ever find the time it would be nice to have it as a separate mod to use with other mods

Some balance suggestions :

- Tanks are too powerful against cities and as a matter of fact they should not be able to take a city.
With tanks you can raze a city but to conquer and hold it you need infantry.

- Panzers are overpowered right now (I suppose you will probably look into such balance issue later).
The german Panzer I and II (up to 60% of the tanks in a Panzerdivision in 1940) were not effectiv against the french Somua S35, Hotchkiss H35 and english Matilda II (to defeat those the germans had to use the 88mm AA guns as antitank guns).
What made the difference was the tactics employed (the germans were the best at this) and the heavy use of the divebombers to support the panzers.

- How do you build the D520 project ? I have 3 barracks but no option to build an academy.

- Submarine can get the promotion against land units.

Diplomacy :

- Italy denunces Germany!

- Germany declared war on me 2 turns after I declared war on her.

Hulfgar said:

Hi Gedemon,

this reinforcement system is great !
if you ever find the time it would be nice to have it as a separate mod to use with other mods

Click to expand...

Yep, time, time, time... and there's already a request for the capture/supply (even if the Reinforcements part should be easier to separate I think)

Hulfgar said:

Some balance suggestions :

- Tanks are too powerful against cities and as a matter of fact they should not be able to take a city.
With tanks you can raze a city but to conquer and hold it you need infantry.

Click to expand...

Is there a tag to prevent a unit from capturing cities ? I think I've seen something somewhere, but can't remember the exact table... or was it in Civ4 ?

or I can simply raise the penalty against city for tanks.

Hulfgar said:

- Panzers are overpowered right now (I suppose you will probably look into such balance issue later).
The german Panzer I and II (up to 60% of the tanks in a Panzerdivision in 1940) were not effectiv against the french Somua S35, Hotchkiss H35 and english Matilda II (to defeat those the germans had to use the 88mm AA guns as antitank guns).
What made the difference was the tactics employed (the germans were the best at this) and the heavy use of the divebombers to support the panzers.

Click to expand...

yep, I'll balance this as soon as I add the Panzer II and III.

BTW I'm pondering adding a light tank class...

And on another domain, maybe a fast bomber class with evasion probability...

Hulfgar said:

- How do you build the D520 project ? I have 3 barracks but no option to build an academy.

Click to expand...

it's the military academy, not the university.

Hulfgar said:

- Submarine can get the promotion against land units.

Click to expand...

It's a vanilla bug, isn't it ?

Hulfgar said:

Diplomacy :

- Italy denunces Germany!

- Germany declared war on me 2 turns after I declared war on her.

Click to expand...

Yep, I need to add some kind of check function before applying the programmed diplomacy actions

Hi Gedemon,

Is there a tag to prevent a unit from capturing cities ?

Click to expand...

yes it is in the promotions :

<Row>
<UnitType>UNIT_TANK</UnitType>
<PromotionType>PROMOTION_NO_CAPTURE</PromotionType>
</Row>

Click to expand...

would make sense for any kind of artillery as well.

It's a vanilla bug, isn't it ?

Click to expand...

Yes. Thalassicus solved this by reworking the promotion line of the submarine. I will check it if you want (should do it for my mod anyway).

BTW I'm pondering adding a light tank class...
And on another domain, maybe a fast bomber class with evasion probability...

Click to expand...

It depends if you want your mod historically accurate and if you want to work on a division or batalion level :
Light and medium tanks were mostly in the same division, the germans had independant batalions for heavy tanks.
For the allies it's quite different, I have to check it but they didn't have so much models as the germans I think.

For the bombers there was not much evasion possibility for them. Their protection was long range fighters and heavy machine guns with a lot of bombers packed together.

What should be usefull and accurate are the divebombers and strike fighters.

Thanks, I'll try the promotion, make sense, yes. I hope this won't handicap the AI, we'll see.

For the submarines, implementing a new combat class was making attack animations not working if I remember Thalassicus posts on this subject. Maybe a check to remplace it if the AI pick it for a submarine (and prevent the player from choosing it, just need to find the code for picking a promotion)

We need to balance gameplay/realism, ideally I'll like to have an army system with each army units composed of division than can split and regroup in the army. Or a lower scale with Divisions units that could split in regiments... but making the AI use it, well, that's beyond my range (and surely beyond the Lua range to be implemented within the AI global strategy)

The map is at army level IMO, but I want units to represent regiment for diversity sake, so I've chosen the middle ground and called them "divisions" with some units really representing regiment size formations (special forces for example, with less strength but some unique promotions - I'm experimenting with the Foreign Legion atm, I'm able to give them the paradrop promotion only when in cities)

So I've planned this classes so far (those marked with a "(?)" I'm still pondering to add):
infantry = division
special force = regiment
mech infantry = division
light tank (?) = division
tank = division
heavy tank = division
artillery = regiment
anti-air = regiment
engineer = regiment
fighter = squadron
fighter-bomber = squadron
attack aircraft = squadron
heavy fighter = squadron
light/fast bomber (?) = squadron
bomber = squadron
heavy bomber = squadron
mobile HQ = regiment ?
fortification = regiment ?
and each figure for sea units represent a ship

The attack aircraft class regroups the dive bomber and strike fighter (German Stuka, Italian Breda Ba.65, French LN.401 and maybe the Russian Shturmovik - this one I'm hesitating with the fighter-bomber class)

It's the British Mosquito, the Russian PE-2 and the French Amiot-350 that I want to put in a fast-bomber class (with German jet-bomber if models are available at some point), given them a small chance of evasion (25-33% maybe) and less strength than normal bomber. I'll also make the Ju88 part of that class, it was designed for this role after all, even if the Mosquito or the Pe-2 were in fact more capable to evade enemy fighters...

I think you shouldn't make it too complicated and use only few units types. I suggest you to use such types:

infantry
mech infantry

tank
heavy tank

anti-air
fortifications

fighter
fighter-bomber
bomber
heavy bomber


Artillery is unneeded because of the scale of the game, it should be included as a part of all divisions. Try to watch some gameplay videos of "MILITARY HISTORY&#8482; Commander: Europe at War". It has almost same scale as yours.

I think 2 tank classes for 1 period is enough :

1. half of the war :
Light regiments with Pz I and II types.
Medium regiments with Pz III types until 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------
2nd half :
Medium regiments with Pz IV and V from 42 to 45
Heavy regiments/batalions with Tiger and K.Tiger.

The question is can the AI make use of different tank classes?

Artillery is usefull to weaken cities if you cannot use your bombers and if you want to save your tanks to fight ennemy units.

small report on v.4, playing Germany in deity level, a massive British landing at Dunkerque has just prevented the capture of Paris and is now forcing me to retreat, I'm going to call back troops from the Russia front, but I'm afraid of Stalin's potential counter-attack...

I've added texts description to all buildings to reflect the gameplay change.

The units and buildings pre-request code is done, now I need to add more units type and fill the classes, then do some balancing, there are too many tank units on the field...

In city, you'll need a factory to build "factory extensions" foir air, land or sea units (see picture). Only one type will be allowed (and if you chose air, you can have small and medium or medium and large eair factory, but not small and large or the three)

BTW I'm pondering adding a light tank class...

Click to expand...

I recently added tankettes to my scenario. The Italians relied fairly heavily on them. I gave them a penalty on defense promo akin to the lancer unit in order account for the light armor as well as some other adjustments down from a regular tank. I also opted to have them use iron instead of oil to make them a useful alternative to tanks.

The nice thing I found about them is that the mechanized infantry unit graphic looks a lot like they did irl too.

btw, the helicopter gunship cannot capture cities in vanilla.

Anyways, just some ideas for you.

thanks.

btw I've made a google spreadsheets to help me organize the unit classes (relative strength and such), buildings and to keep notes/ideas.

Hello Gedemon,

ver 3 is already fun to play. Once again I took France and Germany came to the doors from Paris after taking Strasbourh, Metz and Reims (please take the "H" out of this city name!).
The Wehrmacht used heavily bombing + tanks, infantry was mostly used to clear my troops that were left behind the lines.
Then the Germans made a mistake : the Luftwaffe began to bomb my troops, losing bombers and fighters to my own fighters based in Paris.

The Royal Air Force has begun to bombard German troops and the captured cities, once again there is no reinforcement coming for Germany so they will soon be back home.

Some questions/ideas :

Can you prevent the troops stationned in a city from being destroyed when the city is captured ? Perhaps make them retreat and lose the move points + some HPs ?

Can you force the AI to give back a liberated city ? (Belgium liberated Metz from the Germans with help from the RAF but kept it !)

After some research I've come to the conclusion that the Panther is a medium tank, this leave the Tiger and K.Tiger has heavy tanks for Germany.

Dreadnoughts is a term used for WWI capital ships, after this war capital ships were classified in cruiser, battlecruisers and battleships. Battlecruisers have quite the same firepower has battleships but less armor and a greater speed.

You are doing a great mod !

thanks for the feedback !

Hulfgar said:

Can you prevent the troops stationned in a city from being destroyed when the city is captured ? Perhaps make them retreat and lose the move points + some HPs ?

Click to expand...

I had thought of this, but it may need the dll sdk to be implemented, or I need to test if the OnCityCapture events fire soon enough to get the unit inside the city out of there.

From my test game I feel (as you I believe if you've asked this) that this would help the AI a lot, the player may even be tempted to not defend small cities so that it can take them back possibly destroying good AI units in the process...

Hulfgar said:

Can you force the AI to give back a liberated city ? (Belgium liberated Metz from the Germans with help from the RAF but kept it !)

Click to expand...

Yep, it's already in v.4

Hulfgar said:

After some research I've come to the conclusion that the Panther is a medium tank, this leave the Tiger and K.Tiger has heavy tanks for Germany.

Click to expand...

I totally agree. I'm planning 3 levels for tank, Panzer IV and T-34 being level 2 and Panther level 3.

Tanks could be leveled like that :

Tank level 1 : Panzer III
Tank level 2 : Panzer IV, T-34
Tank level 3 : Panther
Heavy level 1 : Kv-1
Heavy level 2 : Tiger, Is-2
Heavy level 3 : KingTiger
Heavy level 4 : Maus

with combat strength of tank level 3 > heavy level 1

Hulfgar said:

Dreadnoughts is a term used for WWI capital ships, after this war capital ships were classified in cruiser, battlecruisers and battleships. Battlecruisers have quite the same firepower has battleships but less armor and a greater speed.

Click to expand...

You're right, but the actual available battleship model for the Soviet is the Gangut, a WWI ship. Depending of the ships that will be available in danrell's pack, I may add one more class for cruiser or battlecruisers.

Hulfgar said:

You are doing a great mod !

Click to expand...

thanks

Hi Gedemon,

As promised some pedia files in english, french and german
This first shot is for the battleships, tomorrow I should have most of the tanks ready.

I have included my DDS atlas files for ships and tanks if you wish to use them.
The PSD files are included as well if you want to rework those files (the smaller icons are not of the best visibility I think).

Pedia and atlas are currently in use in the version 7 (test) of my mod and seems to work correctly.

I will complete the atlas and pedia when Danrell's new conversions are released.

Hulfgar said:

Hi Gedemon,

As promised some pedia files in english, french and german
This first shot is for the battleships, tomorrow I should have most of the tanks ready.

I have included my DDS atlas files for ships and tanks if you wish to use them.
The PSD files are included as well if you want to rework those files (the smaller icons are not of the best visibility I think).

Pedia and atlas are currently in use in the version 7 (test) of my mod and seems to work correctly.

I will complete the atlas and pedia when Danrell's new conversions are released.

Click to expand...

Thank you !

I'm going to release v.4 very soon (just a last check to do, surely in less than one hour) to test the retreat feature (under heavy casualties or... from cities ), then I'll merge your files in V.5 which will be a "public" release (means with a thread in modpack or scenario section, keeping this one for the development) maybe next week with more units.

v.4 version uploaded !

v0.4 (Aug 04, 2011):
- Bugfix: liberate allied/friend cities after capture
- Feature: units retreating under heavy casualties or from cities about to be captured
- Feature: update text description for buildings to reflect game mechanism
- Feature: units and building restrictions
- Feature: updated promotions
- Heal = Combat Medics : -10% personnel needed to reinforce the unit
- March = Field Hospital : -30% personnel needed to reinforce the unit
- Repair and Air Repair : -20% materiel needed to reinforce the unit
- Supply : -20% materiel and -30% personnel needed to reinforce the unit
- Test: Promotions for special force on Foreign Legion, can paradrop (20 tiles) only from cities, don't capture tile
Note : The retreat feature won't work if you're using quick combat animation or strategic view.