Over the Reich - Creation Thread

[Prof. Garfield]

Maybe we should include an updated civlua module with the scenario, rather than relying on everyone to update the civlua file.

Basically, rename civlua.lua as civluaBugFix.lua and include it with all the other scenario files. Then, in events.lua, change the line

local civlua = require "civlua"

to

local civlua = require "civluaBugFix"

 

[JPetroski]

I think I meant to include it and deleted it by accident when I was tidying things up for release.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I think I meant to include it and deleted it by accident when I was tidying things up for release.

What I meant is that if we just include an updated civlua.lua file in the scenario, the end user doesn't have to change anything. Unfortunately, lua checks the lua folder for modules before the scenario folder, so the name of the file (and the require line) would have to be changed.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Allies can only build aircraft in England/Ireland, Germans can only build aircraft east of the Soviet Tanks in this picture. Basically, the German trains must cross the Dusseldorf or Cologne rail switchyard in order to build aircraft. They can be built in Denmark also, which I only realized just now might not be desirable. I can fix it if necessary.

I also fixed the unit selection function, so it should now pay more attention to OTR specific features. I also made it so that if a radar station is selected (by any mechanism that triggers the activate unit function, so not from the city screen), the next unit chosen will also be a radar station, if available. I found that when building new radar stations, it was annoying to try to find the ones that had to be moved before the rest could make a scan.

I wouldn't push this update to the downloads section until more work is done.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

OK, I just want to list the outstanding issues that have to be changed in events.

1. Reduce veteran bonus for munitions.

Solution: 'gun' munitions (and A2A rockets) still gain veteran status if created by a veteran fighter, but veteran munitions are debuffed by 1 attack point when activated. Effectively, this means that vet status is a bonus of 20-30% instead of 50%, which should reduce how effectively veterans can chew up rookies.

2. ME110 and JU88 balance. At the moment, JU88s are better in almost every way in daytime. The ME110's advantage is not triggering bomber reaction, so it is somewhat better against large bomber formations outside fighter cover. If A2A rockets are too strong at night, ME110 will get the same guns as the JU88 and face the same imbalance. Only ME110 advantage would be free Wilde Sau between day and night, but that is only useful in places where day and night attacks are both common and can't be detected ahead of time.

Possible solutions: A. Do nothing. The vet status debuff might make A2A rockets less overpowered at night. B. Restrict JU88s to low altitude during the day and/or take away their daytime rockets. Essentially, reduce their value during the day. (They might still have a role hunting Sunderlands or something, and if they can still go to high altitude, they could still be decent in a pinch.) C. Keep rockets at night for the 110, but reduce the attack value for rockets if activated on the night map, so the 110s still have a more powerful attack, but it is not quite such a killer blow.

3. Change the French train bonus. Current system basically means that Germans transfer troops to France, and collect 6 (maybe 7) trains after a few turns. There is very little downside to this until the Allies attack the rail network, and the Germans can't quickly redeploy by rail if an invasion happens elsewhere. even then, German numbers are so overwhelming that the Allies need air support, and so will probably invade in or near France anyway.

The proposed solution is to tie the bonus to the number of factories in France, which makes some sense, except that it would result in a weird dynamic where the Germans prefer to have factories in France instead of Germany, perhaps even by a large margin.

4. Easier veteran status for bombers. Current system means that (except for B17s), a bomber either has to drop the killing bomb on a target, or get attacked and escape in order to get a chance at veteran status. The first situation is relatively rare (and is still 50-50 anyway), and the second requires being attacked, but not pursued to destruction, which is unusual given that the attacker chooses what units to attack.

The proposed solution is to grant veteran status to any bomber that generates munitions near an enemy target, as long as that target is far enough away from England to prevent gaming the system by 'raiding' close to home where there is no danger. Using targets attached to 'Germany proper' would leverage existing code and tables. This would seem a bit unfair to situations where significant combat is close to home.

Another possibility would be to automatically grant veteran status to a bomber surviving any attack. A third option might be to give all adjacent bombers a 10% chance to become veteran whenever a fighter generates a munition. So, even if one particular bomber gets downed, the others were also considered to have engaged in 'combat', and so have a chance to be veterans. I might be able to tie this to reactions, so reacting units get a chance to be veterans.

5. Hotkey to aid train movement. With zigzags in the railtrack, moving trains to Germany is a hassle, and can't easily be done with a simple goto, since the command doesn't work well over long distances when there isn't a clear path. This doesn't really need input. However, I was thinking that it might also be useful to tell the train to go to an airbase that needs it. Since we can't tell what cities are actually building, I'm thinking the train should go to the nearest airbase that has less than a certain shield threshold in the box, but I'm not sure what that threshold should be. Perhaps the highest value for a regular fighter?

5 doesn't need to be fixed right away, but I'd like to do the others before we resume our game, and I think we need a bit more discussion.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm fine with 1.

For 2:

Possible solutions: A. Do nothing. The vet status debuff might make A2A rockets less overpowered at night. B. Restrict JU88s to low altitude during the day and/or take away their daytime rockets. Essentially, reduce their value during the day. (They might still have a role hunting Sunderlands or something, and if they can still go to high altitude, they could still be decent in a pinch.) C. Keep rockets at night for the 110, but reduce the attack value for rockets if activated on the night map, so the 110s still have a more powerful attack, but it is not quite such a killer blow.

I favor B and it is easy to do. The 88's may well be useful against Sunderlands as you said, but they really should only be used in daylight in a pinch.

3. Change the French train bonus. Current system basically means that Germans transfer troops to France, and collect 6 (maybe 7) trains after a few turns. There is very little downside to this until the Allies attack the rail network, and the Germans can't quickly redeploy by rail if an invasion happens elsewhere. even then, German numbers are so overwhelming that the Allies need air support, and so will probably invade in or near France anyway.

The proposed solution is to tie the bonus to the number of factories in France, which makes some sense, except that it would result in a weird dynamic where the Germans prefer to have factories in France instead of Germany, perhaps even by a large margin.

What about only giving the bonus by counting German battlegroups with full hitpoints that aren't in a city? It would give the Allies a good reason to attack them early even though they don't give points and can't be destroyed from the air. It would compel the Germans to defend them. By placing them outside cities, they'd be more exposed.

4. Easier veteran status for bombers. Current system means that (except for B17s), a bomber either has to drop the killing bomb on a target, or get attacked and escape in order to get a chance at veteran status. The first situation is relatively rare (and is still 50-50 anyway), and the second requires being attacked, but not pursued to destruction, which is unusual given that the attacker chooses what units to attack.

The proposed solution is to grant veteran status to any bomber that generates munitions near an enemy target, as long as that target is far enough away from England to prevent gaming the system by 'raiding' close to home where there is no danger. Using targets attached to 'Germany proper' would leverage existing code and tables. This would seem a bit unfair to situations where significant combat is close to home.

Another possibility would be to automatically grant veteran status to a bomber surviving any attack. A third option might be to give all adjacent bombers a 10% chance to become veteran whenever a fighter generates a munition. So, even if one particular bomber gets downed, the others were also considered to have engaged in 'combat', and so have a chance to be veterans. I might be able to tie this to reactions, so reacting units get a chance to be veterans.

Either option 1 or 2. I personally favor 1. The B-17's are the first daylight bombers gained and they have a fairly good veteran mechanism, even if attacking targets in France. Bomber Command by default only hits Germany (except in extreme circumstances) so they'd get the vet bonus with option 1. B-24s are kind of left in a lurch where they might hit French targets and not get veteran bonus, but their bombs are more powerful so they're more likely to gain vet bonus via attack than the 17s.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

What about only giving the bonus by counting German battlegroups with full hitpoints that aren't in a city? It would give the Allies a good reason to attack them early even though they don't give points and can't be destroyed from the air. It would compel the Germans to defend them. By placing them outside cities, they'd be more exposed.

This might lead to stacking several battle groups on the same square, fortifying one of them, and letting that battle group take all the hits (since fortified, it would defend until it lost a decent amount of HP). I'm not sure it would really be all that different in practice to the current system.

 

[JPetroski]

The current system may be fine with the change to where aircraft can be produced. Although I will say, the trains really do add up, don't they?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I won't be able to play or change events until tomorrow evening at the earliest, maybe not till Thursday. You can change the JU88s yourself if you want (I'll assume you have the events until further notice.)

I made the change so that light guns, medium guns, jet guns, heavy guns, and A2A rockets have 1 attack point reduced when activated while veteran.

I noticed that tactics increase the effectiveness of A2A Rockets, which I hadn't realized (or forgot), just in case this wasn't intentional.

This is probably the most crucial balancing aspect, so you might decide to continue your game with Fairline.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I'm going to assume that you haven't changed the events, and I'll have them to implement the other changes. If I'm wrong, it will only be changing a couple tables anyway.

The German occupation bonus is kind of tricky. It must either be costly to the Germans, or there must be some way for the Allies to diminish the bonus.

Keeping troops in France is essentially free.

Tying trains to factories in France makes sense, but, as I said, has the weird dynamic where factories would be built and destroyed in France.

I was thinking about doing something with quartermasters and/or railyards, but quartermasters are invulnerable to Allied attack, and I kind of liked the situation where railyards are targeted for heavy attack around the time of the invasion.

However, I'd like your thoughts on the idea of tying the occupation bonus to the Allied score. The simple idea is that every turn, the Germans get to choose a number of trains to generate in France, but the Allied score is increased based on the number of trains generated. So, a couple trains might be free, but every train beyond that gives the Allies extra points, the cost per train increasing with the number of trains generated in the turn.

This would represent diminished combat effectiveness elsewhere (or, increased pressure to invade), if more troops are sent to loot France. A slightly more complicated version of this would be to change the necessary Allied points for Italy and Russian invasion based on the number of trains generated.

With regard to JU88 balance, we could substantially increase the fuel cost of rockets for the 88 compared to the ME110, so the 88s could use rockets if necessary, but using the 110 would be preferable.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

When a bomb attacks a target with 0 movement points and that has a home city in "Germany", the winner's bomber is made veteran.

I've added a reminder not to attack occupied cities. This will be shown once per city that is attacked (So after Calais is attacked once, the message won't be shown for Calais anymore, but it will be shown again if Prague is attacked.), unless the first bomb dropped completely destroys the urban target, but I think that chance is pretty remote.

Airfields are reduced to 10 food in storage every turn, so they won't be able to grow anymore.

The balance issues still at hand are the JU88 and the bonus for occupying France. A train hotkey is also something that should be done.

 

[JPetroski]

I can't quote easily as I'm on my phone, but what about taking your idea about having the Germans select how many trains appear and tweaking it a bit to where the penalty might be a risk that firefighters disappear, a unit in France might have its move spent, or the Allies might get a score boost.

To me, this would be akin to increased Resistance activities being driven by harsher occupation laws. The more exploitative the German occupation policy, the greater the chance of ill effect. Perhaps you get 3 trains for free, but the 4th adds a slight chance of these issues, the 5th a greater chance, and the sixth the greatest chance.

I think that just tying it to Allied score is pretty abstract unless we rationalize it as the Resistance makes gains due to the harshness of occupation.

As for the Ju88 situation... I'm inclined to nerf their rocket capabilities. Then they have range and multi-attack per turn capacity as their advantage and the "true" bomber destroyers can actually destroy bombers reliably, but I would be open to increasing their fuel cost to say, 100, for rockets and seeing if that is enough to reduce their use.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I can't quote easily as I'm on my phone, but what about taking your idea about having the Germans select how many trains appear and tweaking it a bit to where the penalty might be a risk that firefighters disappear, a unit in France might have its move spent, or the Allies might get a score boost.

To me, this would be akin to increased Resistance activities being driven by harsher occupation laws. The more exploitative the German occupation policy, the greater the chance of ill effect. Perhaps you get 3 trains for free, but the 4th adds a slight chance of these issues, the 5th a greater chance, and the sixth the greatest chance.

How about this:

1st train: Free
2nd train: Each French city (not airfield) has a 25% chance of being revealed to the Allies each turn.
3rd train: Each French city has a 75% chance of being revealed to the Allies each turn.
4th train: Each French city is revealed to the Allies each turn, French airfields have a 10% chance of being revealed each turn.
5th train: All French cities are revealed to the Allies each turn, French airfields have a 25% chance of being revealed each turn.
6th train: All French cities are revealed each turn, French airfields have a 35% chance of being revealed each turn. Firefighter improvements each have a 5% chance to disappear, with a message along the lines of "The firefighters in CITY can no longer be trusted to protect our vital infrastructure. We need to reform the service with men who support our occupation."

I'm thinking that the Germans can also only change their exploitation level by 1 each turn, so they can't immediately decide that security is important for 2 or 3 turns, and reduce their exploitation from 5 trains to 1.

Let's just get rid of the 88's rockets. That's the easiest thing to do.

 

[JPetroski]

How about this:

1st train: Free
2nd train: Each French city (not airfield) has a 25% chance of being revealed to the Allies each turn.
3rd train: Each French city has a 75% chance of being revealed to the Allies each turn.
4th train: Each French city is revealed to the Allies each turn, French airfields have a 10% chance of being revealed each turn.
5th train: All French cities are revealed to the Allies each turn, French airfields have a 25% chance of being revealed each turn.
6th train: All French cities are revealed each turn, French airfields have a 35% chance of being revealed each turn. Firefighter improvements each have a 5% chance to disappear, with a message along the lines of "The firefighters in CITY can no longer be trusted to protect our vital infrastructure. We need to reform the service with men who support our occupation."

I'm thinking that the Germans can also only change their exploitation level by 1 each turn, so they can't immediately decide that security is important for 2 or 3 turns, and reduce their exploitation from 5 trains to 1.

Let's just get rid of the 88's rockets. That's the easiest thing to do.

I didn't even know these were options but I love this. Yes this is great.

I think when these are done we can continue our playtests?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Here are the updated events. Only train assistance is on the to do list, and that is just quality of life. I'll play a little later.

Spies for trains is implemented for the Germans, with a series of special numbers governing the details of spying and lost firefighting capacity. The German 'exploitation level' starts at 1, and can only be incremented 1 train per turn. The existing system of military units governs the maximum number of trains the German player can receive, even if they set the exploitation level higher (but they'll still suffer the increased consequences of the higher level).

I also removed the rockets from the JU88C and G.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I forgot to add that Peenemunde and Friedrichshaven can no longer build military ports.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Here are some potential issues to resolve for the game.

Battle of the Atlantic:

Veteran status should probably be removed from new U-Boats.

Veteran status should be given to at least some convoys. I'm inclined to think that the chance of veteran status should depend on the number of recent losses. So, if few convoys are lost, it is relatively easy for the Germans to score a kill if they get into position, but if the Germans have had a lot of success, the convoys get tougher to kill.

Task Forces should perhaps be made direct attack units.

I think Wilde Sau is nuclear power, and gives a movement bonus to my sea units. This issue is largest if a sub starts its turn right next to a convoy, since at the moment it gets 3 attacks (I don't think I used all 3 in the couple of occasions where this was an issue).

V1 and V2:

It might be too powerful to stack the launch sites with gun batteries or battle groups.

Perhaps we might want to have the German player be required to build rockets to launch. The fuel cost alone seems kind of cheap, especially with the Politz Fuel Refinery. If we need a spare unit for a stockpile, the Flak train seems relatively useless.

Perhaps we still want to allow Bomber Command to get points after a V1/V2 kills something. Or, perhaps we want to have a point reduction, rather than a complete elimination (which is already possible just by changing a special number).

On the other hand, the 'solution' to this might simply be for the Allied player not to let the Germans get that far ahead.

Aircraft:

Hard to kill is only for strategic bombers and P47s, I guess. Perhaps the P51 will need a to be hard to kill, but probably have a lower survival rate.

ME110 and ME410 need their Wilde Sau bonus removed. Maybe they don't get rockets at night.

We might consider making rockets less effective against fighters (by using onResolveCombat).

We might want to consider a less severe penalty than deletion for aircraft that land in cities. Moving units on the low map feels dangerous, and I've probably had to disband several units over the course of the game. Perhaps aircraft activated in a city have their movement and hitpoints reduced to 1?

Flak:

Do we only want reactive flak?

Do we need flak trains? I didn't build any new ones, and probably wouldn't have missed the two I was given very much. The SDKFZ 7/2 was slightly more useful, but really only for going to defend relatively remote radar installations. One or two extra 3.7s placed at the start of the game would probably be sufficient.

Map:

Installation terrain needs to be placed for at least some potential radar stations.

Battle of the Atlantic and Occupation Bonus text should probably be updated to reflect the current situation.

Maybe the map should be marked with where new industry will appear. However, that could be a lot of work for little benefit.

Refinery tile at (358,66) should be removed.

Industry at (274,82), (277,81) and (279,81) should be removed. An airbase or two near these would have been quite useful for the shields, and they aren't vulnerable to bombing, so even better for supporting fighters.

Civlopedia and Help Tab:

Information should probably be updated to reflect current mechanics and settings. This could perhaps wait for one or two more playtests, just in case we find we must change a couple more things.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm going to add in a few things:

Reactions -I think I need to rework these in several places
**Tactical bombers draw a reaction but I never noticed any damage - I could have been lucky as it was just a few times, but I'm not sure
**Flak seems very powerful, but only if you get to the point of having 11 batteries firing in one place. Nonetheless, I probably need to rework it.
**Honestly, I'm considering if modulizing this and restarting with the reaction module you built would make more sense. I'll have to look at the two of them.
**All in all, I am not that crazy about a player losing 5-6 aircraft before they can even drop a bomb, especially considering how hard it is to hit targets

Flak in general
**Reactive is probably best just not to be a PITA in the game
**I had made it cheaper than aircraft as an "alternative" to aircraft but I'm wondering if it really should have its price upped a bit considering it is unlikely it'll ever be destroyed by anything. Certainly, aircraft are much more likely to be destroyed.

Sunderlands and Condors
**I never bothered to build a single one in any playtest. I'm not sure if anyone has. They're totally outclassed by the A-20s for anti-sub work currently. I was thinking of doing this: Maybe they stay expensive, but they aren't payload aircraft. Perhaps they can attack with bombs twice per turn. I think if they could stay aloft hunting and could take out 2x U-Boat/freighter per turn, they might be worth their cost.

Allied Production
**Allies might need a little tweak in unit costs downward.

Veteran status should probably be removed from new U-Boats.

That makes sense... I don't know the data on it but can't imagine many (if any) U-Boat crews that were sunk ever made it back to Germany.

Veteran status should be given to at least some convoys. I'm inclined to think that the chance of veteran status should depend on the number of recent losses. So, if few convoys are lost, it is relatively easy for the Germans to score a kill if they get into position, but if the Germans have had a lot of success, the convoys get tougher to kill.

That may be a decent way to auto balance things if you think it's easy enough to implement.

Task Forces should perhaps be made direct attack units.

Agreed.

I think Wilde Sau is nuclear power, and gives a movement bonus to my sea units. This issue is largest if a sub starts its turn right next to a convoy, since at the moment it gets 3 attacks (I don't think I used all 3 in the couple of occasions where this was an issue).

I'll have to see if we have a free technology, or at least if I can swap out NP for another one.

Hard to kill is only for strategic bombers and P47s, I guess. Perhaps the P51 will need a to be hard to kill, but probably have a lower survival rate.

I'm on the fence about hard to kill fighters of any kind, though I think the bombers make sense. If we leave hard to kill on the P-47, I think we need to make it so they won't defensively react if they don't have at least 50% HP. We could make it pretty hard to kill simply by upping its defense by 1, too.

ME110 and ME410 need their Wilde Sau bonus removed. Maybe they don't get rockets at night.

Yes, rockets make no sense at night.

We might consider making rockets less effective against fighters (by using onResolveCombat).

Honestly the rockets at the time were unguided novelty weapons that slowed down the fighter carrying it significantly. It would have made zero sense to use them against enemy fighters and they were exclusively used to try and break up bomber formations. I'd just say "they don't work against fighters," period. If we do this, I could up their strength so they're more likely to damage the bombers badly. Right now it is set where it is because I needed to take into account it being used against fighters.

We might want to consider a less severe penalty than deletion for aircraft that land in cities. Moving units on the low map feels dangerous, and I've probably had to disband several units over the course of the game. Perhaps aircraft activated in a city have their movement and hitpoints reduced to 1?

I had to disband several as well. Your solution is better. I'd also like to see how you implement it because I want to implement the MP reduction on another project.

Do we only want reactive flak?

I think so... It was a chore to use it any other way.

Do we need flak trains? I didn't build any new ones, and probably wouldn't have missed the two I was given very much. The SDKFZ 7/2 was slightly more useful, but really only for going to defend relatively remote radar installations. One or two extra 3.7s placed at the start of the game would probably be sufficient.

If we have a desperate need for another unit slot, they'd be next on the chopping block, but I think they might be useful. I built several of them in past Germany games.

Installation terrain needs to be placed for at least some potential radar stations.

I took care of this but haven't uploaded it yet.

Information should probably be updated to reflect current mechanics and settings. This could perhaps wait for one or two more playtests, just in case we find we must change a couple more things.

This will be an ordeal and I agree it should wait for a few more games.

Industry at (274,82), (277,81) and (279,81) should be removed. An airbase or two near these would have been quite useful for the shields, and they aren't vulnerable to bombing, so even better for supporting fighters.

I think these are from the aircraft factories but I could be mistaken. If you're saying there is no corresponding industry unit above them, then I'm mistaken and they do need to be removed.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I had to disband several as well. Your solution is better. I'd also like to see how you implement it because I want to implement the MP reduction on another project.

Here's how I implemented reducing movement to 2 for amphibious landings:

local function maxMoves(unit)
    local moveAllowance = (unit.hitpoints*unit.type.move)//unit.type.hitpoints
    local moveMult = totpp.movementMultipliers.aggregate
    if moveAllowance % moveMult > 0 then
        moveAllowance = moveAllowance - moveAllowance % moveMult + moveMult
    end
    if unit.type.domain == 0 then
        return math.min(math.max( moveAllowance,moveMult),unit.type.move)
    elseif unit.type.domain == 1 then
        return unit.type.move
    elseif unit.type.domain == 2 then
        return math.min(math.max( moveAllowance,2*moveMult),unit.type.move)
    else

    end
end

local function amphibiousPenalty(unit,carryingShip)
    secondaryAttackReactionWrapper(unit)
    if carryingShip then
        secondaryAttackReactionWrapper(carryingShip)
    end
    unit.moveSpent = math.max(unit.moveSpent,maxMoves(unit)-specialNumbers.beachLandingMoves*totpp.movementMultipliers.aggregate)
end

There is gen.maxMoves in the General Library, which takes into account wonders and nuclear power for sea units.

Once you have the movement allowance for the unit on that turn (taking HP into account), you simply spend movement until the unit only has the desired movement allowance left. If it has already spent more than that, make no change.

I'll have to see if we have a free technology, or at least if I can swap out NP for another one.

Now that I think about it, I could just spend one movement point for German naval units if they have Wilde Sau. Another option would simply be to increase the munition cost by one movement point. That could be a little easier than moving techs around.

I think so... It was a chore to use it any other way.

That also means we can do away with the flak fortification mechanic, which makes it hard to move flak around.

**Flak seems very powerful, but only if you get to the point of having 11 batteries firing in one place. Nonetheless, I probably need to rework it.

**Honestly, I'm considering if modulizing this and restarting with the reaction module you built would make more sense. I'll have to look at the two of them.

That could be some work for both of us, but it would allow us to set a maximum number of units that can react to any given target. That would solve the flak issue. More flak would mean targeting more attackers, so more would be damaged in the attack, but fewer would be killed without fighters to pursue.

**All in all, I am not that crazy about a player losing 5-6 aircraft before they can even drop a bomb, especially considering how hard it is to hit targets

We could allow the munition to still be generated, even if the attacker is killed. That is what we did before.

Flak in general
**Reactive is probably best just not to be a PITA in the game
**I had made it cheaper than aircraft as an "alternative" to aircraft but I'm wondering if it really should have its price upped a bit considering it is unlikely it'll ever be destroyed by anything. Certainly, aircraft are much more likely to be destroyed.

The fact that it can't be destroyed is a good point. I did end up building a lot of it, often because I just forgot that a 150+ shield city was producing it.

Sunderlands and Condors
**I never bothered to build a single one in any playtest. I'm not sure if anyone has. They're totally outclassed by the A-20s for anti-sub work currently. I was thinking of doing this: Maybe they stay expensive, but they aren't payload aircraft. Perhaps they can attack with bombs twice per turn. I think if they could stay aloft hunting and could take out 2x U-Boat/freighter per turn, they might be worth their cost.

I built some condors (late) to scout for convoys, since they can spot subs. You wouldn't have had this experience, since photo-recon were better and cheaper until we gave convoys the subs flag.

Most allied units have to spot subs, because of Wilde Sau, so it makes sense that the A-20 is just as efficient at scouting. We could improve the Sunderland's reaction to subs, so they're useful at defending. Maybe give it a custom munition (using the heavy flak spot) that reduces the chance of a wolf pack to return to port when defeated. Perhaps just less movement, but longer range and no payload restriction, so they just hang out indefinitely over the Atlantic.

 

[JPetroski]

That could be some work for both of us, but it would allow us to set a maximum number of units that can react to any given target. That would solve the flak issue. More flak would mean targeting more attackers, so more would be damaged in the attack, but fewer would be killed without fighters to pursue.

One way or another, I need to overhaul that and I believe that your module is "better" than what is currently in OTR, correct? I say we go for it.