Questions on Road to War -- Beta Patch

Hi Dale -- I installed the Beta patch (no movies version) -- seems to work fine:
Have some questions:

1) There are a number of scenarios now -- for example: Europe 1939 has three versions. What are the differences?
2) As Engalnd, in 1939 scenario (Hitler) Got a great spy in Gibralter. Went to move the Great spy to Germany -- Germany tropps attacked and killed it. I thought that the Great Spy was invisable? Bug? Feature?
(Any way, I reloaded from a save and did my first GA).
3) I read on this board that city size is limited to 4. I build farms and my cities grow nicely. (I am running into health problems) -- What am I missing?
I do notice that the starting city size is 4....
4) Research for Brits is way slow -- Building labs and running merchants in London -- but still very slow -- any suggestions?
5) Germans very non aggressive -- am into late 1940 -- and no invasion of France or Norway (German took out Low Countries) I have been able to keep subs north of Jutland, penning in the German fleet.

Does the AI try to follow the course of the war?

Thanks much for the mods -- I am having a great time:

1- I've provided each scenario for both leaders (Hitler-von Papen/Hirohito-Yamamoto). The ones listed with no leadername are the originals and can be deleted.
2- I'll check it out.
3- Correct. The board comment of stuck on size 4 is wrong.
4/5- Did you choose one of the two event modes, or the open mode? In event mode the nations will follow the course of the war.

Dale,
Hey, thanks for your quick reply--
The option I am using is Historical -- Random Dates

Well you must be lucky with the Germans. It happens sometimes.

Dale, I'm having a really hard time keeping my cities healthy. (America, 1936 start, Pacific Theatre.) Pretty much every building subtracts 1 health, and there aren't any ways I can find to increase my health. Is that intentional? How do I deal with it?

I did this deliberately (keeping health low) to slow city growth and also it simulates declining health/food services as more resources got diverted to the war. Also, civilian health problems were a major issue in worn-torn areas.

Dear Dale,

I downloaded you beta patch and now the mod won't load. I've tried all scenarios and it just simply doesn't work. I know this is a vague report of a problem. But I would appreciate any help you can provide.

Any error message? At what point does it crash out?

Dear Dale,

It crashes to the desktop while intiating the python or xml during the loading process. Also, it wants to report the problem; the program crashes, etc. I simply replaced it with the 1st add-on pack. I'll try the whole thing again, and I'll send you a screen shot - or at least the exact language.

Again, thank you for your time and help.

Dale:
I have played two games so far as the Brits – 1939 start – the first game was historical – variable entry times, the second game was historical fixed entry times

I am having a great time – and I would like to offered some game play suggestions (not just complain about missing leader, leader heads, units or counties (Upper Volta, you are missing Upper Volta )

After writing up my ideas, I saw that there was a lot of text – so I split it up, hopefuuly it is understandable – please take these comments not as complaints, but as enthusiasm for your mods—clearly you have thought of many ideas and rejected many more – If this is true with any of my suggestions, please do not take offense --

As I have read your posts about your design efforts, I particularly liked your citation of Hearts of Iron II – I hated that game – completely boring – a game that may have all of the finicky little details, but the interface was awful and the design intent was obscure.

CIV 4 is fun – and the simplifications that it makes are acceptable to me – so I try to suggest ideas with in the larger CIV 4 design intent – for example, rather than creating 40 different bomber type – lets create three promotions that can unlock a useful game element (killing ships).

Some background – As noted above, I have played two games so far – so there is a lot I do not know but I have developed some overpowering tactics that exploit weakness in the game system – so I have thought about some possible fixes.

<continued next post>

My strategy as the British has been very aggressive on the ocean, I put 6 subs into the Skaggerack, and reinforce with a large stack of cruisers (all of the Scapa Flow Cruiser fleet). I put the cruisers in the Jutland area, where they are out of range of most mainland European based bombers. But they are safe there because the planes cannot sink them. They promote, and I can heal with a medic cruiser. This means that I have been able to bottle up the Germany Navy fairly well – with the subs there, I can crush any German capital ships with a bombardment –

Bug Number 1: With a large enough capital fleet, I can bombard a single German ship to death – there is no message in the message line (it would be nice to see a note, like when you kill something during normal attack).

Enhancement 1: Ships are too overpowered against Air – I know you know the arguments – but bombers need to be able to kill ships – maybe a promotion?
Within your concept of separate missions for bombers – and the requirement that you use generic plane types – maybe the following mechanism – three promotions – naval attack, unit attack, city attack (which would permit factory and defense attack). A bomber unit could only have two of these types -- And only bombers with Unit and Ship Attack could kill ships. This would permit the development of anti ship bombers and fighters –

Enhancement 2: Ships in cities must be much more vulnerable. Right now, they can never be killed – they take collateral damage from planes, but cannot be killed, and cannot be killed by ship attack (maybe ship bombard – must test). In real life, if a bomber raids a city, the ships are at severe disadvantage. Currently, I can sit with a huge fleet of ships in London – protected from others ships while the bombs rain down.

There are a number of ways to fix – 1. Ships in a city attacked by bombers must leave city -- they are immediately placed on coast squares.
2. Just double or triple the damage against ships in port – (and all planes can attack and kill).

Another issue – In my second game, I put some English units into Europe, attacking the Germans – even retaking Amsterdam (those overpowered Fleets) – (Tactics: Take the Scapa Flow stack, base in London – move to Amsterdam coast – Bombard Amsterdam all at once -- Will certainly remove defense, most likely will collateral damage all units to 50%. Move home – next turn repeat – and on this turn directly invade – Attack at 99% success chance – move transport into city and unload units –THEN – air transport six to nine units from Canada into Amsterdam –

Yikes – a little over powered – got to put some limits on the Air transport –

I thought of an easy way to do it: We only want mature cities getting air shipments so – you must have either 50% cultural defense or have an Airport in receiving city to Air transport. Even this will be over powered – as you will be able to air transport from Canada or USA to England – but it is better than directly into a captured city. Another thought, maybe prevent air transport into a city in revolt.

The reason this is important is that once you build two air bases in Canada, the Battle for the Atlantic is over!!! There is no need to run any ships across the Atlantic at all. Then I can use my over powered fleets to bombard to my heart’s content – you can move 6 ground units across the Atlantic per turn – more than the likely capacity of the cities. (All Air units just rebase)

So Enhancement 3: Restrict Air transport as noted above. Either way works for me.

Here is another enhancement element. This is a little chrome, rather than a design element: Air unit training – we all know about the major effort of the allies to create well trained air units -- So here is a proposal – a new building called the Air training base – is built by moving an air unit with 10 XP to a city with an Air base – if you leave an air unit on an air training base for a turn, and NO attacks are made against the city, the air unit earns a 1 XP The Air training base only lasts for six months, after which another air unit with 10 XP must be expended.

This would simulate the USA’s air training policy very nicely – and pose the strategic dilemma that existed at the time. It works within the promotion system, and only introduces the concept of stationary units earning the promotions.

However, this maybe difficult to code -- I am not familiar with the SDK well enough to know, so I thought of another way to implement – have three different bomber and fighter types for each unit, that take different amounts of time to build – for example – right now I can built a Spitfire in three turns – for another 10% hammers – I get 3 XP, for another 25% hammers I get 6 XP. So I have a choice to build trained, or advance trained air units, IF I have the Air Training base in the city

Or to avoid any SDK changes at all – Air Training Base gives 3 XP – That is the simplest – but it is important for the strategic dynamic is to have them expire after X number of turns (veteran pilots are needed to keep the Training base going). which I suppose will require an SDK change...

Yes – it is a little bit of chrome – but I think it adds some flavor –

A final question – Is there a trigger in the game for the Germans to send troops to N Africa? As the British, I move all of my ships to Malta and defeat the Italian Navy in detail –
I use subs in the Gibraltar straits, and about 10 cruisers in Gibraltar, plus the Alexandria fleet at Malta controls the sea lanes around Italy easily. Even with out air cover.

This strategy would become impossible is bombers could sink ships in port, or the ships would be forced out of port – then the Italian Navy could get them – (see above)

My strategy is overpowered – and I kill any landing craft I see – and I see all of them – So the North African campaign is easy for the British – Cruiser and battleship sorties to bombard – and attack with three infantry (and one tank flown in from Canada) – So I was wondering, do the Germans ever land in N Africa?

So – again the British Navy is very much overpowered in enemy air covered areas – and mass bombardment attack will kill most of the Italian Navy fairly quickly –
The tactics are – move the Alexandria fleet to Malta. As the Italian Navy comes out, count the number of ships in the target square. Bombard with all units minus the number of battleships equal to number of ships in target. Use remaining battleships to kill remaining targets –

While it is true that I could play at higher difficulty levels – I think that having many more units to kill with these tactics do not increase the fun of the game –

Again, I am sure that you have heard these requests before – many times I expect, but I hope that I have suggested something of merit.

As things stand now, against the AI – my tactics are overpowering –

I can destroy the Italian Navy easily, and keep the German fleet in home ports easily (see above) – as you know this was not the strategic situation in WWII for the British --

again thanks for this mod -- my comments should not in any way suggest disappointment or complaint -- I am very happy with your efforts, and hope that you will take these comments in the spirit they are offered.

Dale - Posted this elsewhere but did not get a response. Like your scenario but I have a problem I have not seen elsewhere.

I played the original for a while and then noticed this so I downloaded but did not get a chance to try it. Today I also updated to last path (303?). Now when I load RTW I do not get the RTW start-up screen. It looks like vanilla BTS with choices of all the civs. I chose Germany and get an advanced start (3 settlers, 3 riflemen, etc) in what I presume is a world map, starting in Germany with railroads and developed land.

So, it looks like the RTW map but no Hitler and no 1939. Did I do something wrong or is there a problem with the last patch and this patch to the game??