Over the Reich - Creation Thread

[Konig15]

Well, first of all, Konig, I'd like to thank you for your enthusiasm! It's great to see someone take a look at our scenario and offer feedback though I think you're looking at a horribly outdated version per this quote right here:


To address some of your points.



This is a good idea, I can have the city that starts with I.G. Farben already have roads (fuel dump) on the terrain. Thanks for pointing this out.



The Germans already need to build quartermaster improvements because the "corruption" in the base game now represents other front's siphoning off resources. I'm not sure I'm happy with the term "quartermaster" but the basic idea you provided is already in the game.



At some point I need to pick Garfield's brain about this as while I may have missed it, I haven't noticed him attacking any of these in the scenario. They're quite vulnerable (they only have a defense of 4, which is very weak for this scenario).



We have a couple features to add, and need to figure out a way to address the late game crawl. Poor Garfield has been dreaming up different quality of life mechanisms daily it seems to try and cut down his turn times, and they're still too long.





In my much younger years I made a scenario called "Anstieg" that featured Concentration Camps. I will never do that again.

Thanks for your feedback!

OK, cool. Questions:

1. Where is the latest version? The version I downloaded is in the download section and found in the OTR Release Thread, which is linked from Scenario League wiki:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/over-the-reich.27172/

2. No no, no. The quartermaster keeps fuel IN GERMANY. BUT if you do well in building refineries, you should be able to release some or a lot of this fuel to other fronts. Quartermasters and Other fonts work together to make sure that while fuel IS going to other fronts, it is going to other fronts ON SPEER'S TERMS, and no one else. This, especially in light of the chaos in motion that was Nazi Germany represents political influence and control of the Armaments Ministry versus the OKH (Obercommando Heer, or the guys running the East Front), and Kesselring (CiC Southern Ops, and well Italians before their navy was seized by the Allies). And this makes a LOT of sense because the OKW (which you control)and the OKH weren't on speaking terms, something that REALLY hurt German logistics.

If you want you could call it Political Control or something that emphasizes this is Speer wrangling the German state away from the Führerprinzip. He can't totally succeed because Hitler and his regime are inherently criminal so efficiency must make way for power games and influence jockeying, but Speer could get a grip on by the expenditure of political power.

3. You'll have to change the urban terrain. In my version urban generates NO fuel bonus when depots are built. I would make it a thing where for five turns could mine Urban terrain and make it +2 industry. Not nearly as much an industry tile BUT it's an investment and gives the construction crews something to do. Also, irrigation is possible, with no food bonus so crews can irrigate isolated grassland patches.

4. I get the no concentration camp rules as a person. I never played Ansteig because Europe in Flames had a bigger map, and.....all kinds of bells and whistles. But the concentration camps took ALL the fun out of playing Germany. But then that's why I can't really play Red Front in good conscience. And the workarounds are real simple, have a tech tree leading to the removal of Stalin/Hitler and the concentration camps go away. At least with the Advances, I put forward, you as a player have the option of washing your hands of the Holocaust. You can be Oskar Shindler, only you make shells for the Nazis but they work damnit!

This is the problem I have with a lot of World War II games where you play the Germans. Is this an AH where Hitler isn't a genocidal scumbag and just normal Fascist unpleasant? Or is it with every victory as the Germans General, behind you come the SS and the Einsatzgruppen? I didn't back then but I got Panzer General II working now and I may just through the Sedan battle so that Germany fails to overrun France and thus the Germans lose or Hitler is removed by the end of the year. No east front, no invasion of the Balkans, no Holocaust. It might be the most heroic act possible in the game. The exception is Rush for Berlin where taking out Hitler is the only chance Germany has of surviving.

I won't ask you to put the camps in. I understand emotionally why you won't. But nonetheless, I'd like to hear out your reasons from a design perspective. In Anstieg, there didn't seem to be anything you could do about the camps but watch them. In OTR, you can bomb the horsehocky out of them. In fact, I'd like to take UK Bomber Command and bomb ALL the extermination facilities on the other side of the map. But I'm also that allied player who doesn't rush for Berlin, I'm rushing for Bucharest, and Tallin and Riga.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I disagree that there is no benefit - the cities that you've completely destroyed (especially early in the scenario) are exceptionally difficult to rebuild because you must first invest funds in the civilian improvements to then build the industrial ones. Early in the scenario, I was able to rebuild improvements if I wanted to (I generally didn't as a strategy because you were generally attacking places that were nearby, thus could be hit repeatedly so I thought it would be a waste). However, Hamburg was never rebuilt and had you done that to any other city outside of your initial range, it probably never would have been, either. When we implement the random fire storm chance, this could get really bad for any particular place.

The direct benefit to killing urban centres is relatively small. It is only by also attacking industry that the effects are more significant in that the cost of rebuilding is greater. If I threw all my resources into night bombing, I could 'freeze' your development, but you would still have nearly all your existing war industry. Perhaps the firestorm mechanic will change this somewhat, but I would still want the chance to be small.

@Konig15

The purpose of Over the Reich is to model the air war, not the entire North European war. The scope for 'changing history' is meant to be limited to the air war, and things significantly dependent on the air war (e.g. ground forces need help of tactical bombers, not strategic bombers; maybe the Luftwaffe could help the Kriegsmarine blockade England).

In the current version, we've trimmed down the ground war to 'battle groups' and gun batteries, and the sea war to 'task forces', convoys and wolfpacks. Both these aspects have to be modelled somewhat, since they interact with the air war (and event driven territory capture would have been a lot of work anyway), but we want to keep them as a relatively small part of gameplay (unless, Germany throws a lot of resources into the Battle of the Atlantic). Have a look at https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/over-the-reich-information.651379/ for the current version and other information (if you want the really current version, you'll have to follow our playtest thread).

If you like, you can think of the resources from industry and refineries as that part of production that has been directed into aircraft production and air defence.

 

[Konig15]

The direct benefit to killing urban centres is relatively small. It is only by also attacking industry that the effects are more significant in that the cost of rebuilding is greater. If I threw all my resources into night bombing, I could 'freeze' your development, but you would still have nearly all your existing war industry. Perhaps the firestorm mechanic will change this somewhat, but I would still want the chance to be small.

@Konig15

The purpose of Over the Reich is to model the air war, not the entire North European war. The scope for 'changing history' is meant to be limited to the air war, and things significantly dependent on the air war (e.g. ground forces need help of tactical bombers, not strategic bombers; maybe the Luftwaffe could help the Kriegsmarine blockade England).

In the current version, we've trimmed down the ground war to 'battle groups' and gun batteries, and the sea war to 'task forces', convoys and wolfpacks. Both these aspects have to be modelled somewhat, since they interact with the air war (and event driven territory capture would have been a lot of work anyway), but we want to keep them as a relatively small part of gameplay (unless, Germany throws a lot of resources into the Battle of the Atlantic). Have a look at https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/over-the-reich-information.651379/ for the current version and other information (if you want the really current version, you'll have to follow our playtest thread).

If you like, you can think of the resources from industry and refineries as that part of production that has been directed into aircraft production and air defence.

OK, that's cool. I don' want to be all death of the author, but OTR isn't just the air war. By most scenario creator standards there are a paltry six axis ground units, you can't even upgrade the tanks! But for me, that's fine. I don't need lots of fancy unit types, and I get the unit limitation. But you're doing a LOT more than air war, you're directing SD operations in occupied Europe, you are basically allocating and commanding the entity of the Kriegsmarine, you are building shipyards specifically to foster the production of U-Boats, and controlling CiC West, especially if the Allies invade Normandy. And BTW, I've played around with the interceptors and ground units in England and they....well they work damn well as tactical bombers. In fact, you HAVE the Stuka G, alll you'd need to do is put rockets it's backspace option and you get a decent anti-infantry weapons platform to boot.

Also, this is most certainly not intentional and maybe you patched it, but the Me 110s rockets are AWESOME at strategic bombing. They don't always hit, most of the time they don't, but they relatively cheap and can attack multiple times a turn and IF they hit they take full health urban units into the red almost maybe one in every 6-9 salvos or such. As of right now, I LOVE the Me-110, they are more useful than the Henkels.

But if I have time, I will check out the new OTR versions. Thank you for the link. Might I suggest that you put in the info for the download section, newer version might be found on the playtesting thread, and I'm guessing best practice is to go to the end of the thread and backtrack till you find a zip file?

 

[JPetroski]

But if I have time, I will check out the new OTR versions. Thank you for the link. Might I suggest that you put in the info for the download section, newer version might be found on the playtesting thread, and I'm guessing best practice is to go to the end of the thread and backtrack till you find a zip file?

For your ease, I've attached up-to-date files less sounds and improvement icons which have not changed much if at all (you might be missing one or two improvement.bmp here but I trust you can manage without them). Just extract these files right into whatever OTR scenario file you currently have.

Also, this is most certainly not intentional and maybe you patched it, but the Me 110s rockets are AWESOME at strategic bombing. They don't always hit, most of the time they don't, but they relatively cheap and can attack multiple times a turn and IF they hit they take full health urban units into the red almost maybe one in every 6-9 salvos or such. As of right now, I LOVE the Me-110, they are more useful than the Henkels.

As I've given you the new files, I don't expect to have this problem any more, but I have to be honest with you - if you aren't playing the most up-to-date (or even close to the most up-to-date) version, I have no choice but to ignore most of your feedback. This isn't because I don't value it, or because I'm not happy to receive it (I'm ecstatic that someone is actually trying the scenario out, so thank you) -- it's just that Prof. Garfield and I have been at this for so darn long that I have no idea if the issues you are referencing are still issues. For example, the rockets -- we made it so that most munitions can't kill industrial targets. I believe the rockets are included, but I have no idea from your commentary if we missed this or not, as you're not playing a recent version. Indeed, you're basically saying a house is drafty, because you're looking at a photo of it while only its framing was up during construction.

OK, that's cool. I don' want to be all death of the author, but OTR isn't just the air war. By most scenario creator standards there are a paltry six axis ground units, you can't even upgrade the tanks! But for me, that's fine. I don't need lots of fancy unit types, and I get the unit limitation. But you're doing a LOT more than air war, you're directing SD operations in occupied Europe, you are basically allocating and commanding the entity of the Kriegsmarine, you are building shipyards specifically to foster the production of U-Boats, and controlling CiC West, especially if the Allies invade Normandy.

Everything in this scenario centers around the air war, everything else is ancillary to it. We do have some land and sea units simply because they were part of the air war, indirectly. The Battle of the Atlantic had several aircraft fighting in it, and some historians have rightly pointed out that the Germans might have done better had Goering been bothered to invest in it more (there was very, very little coordination between the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, from what I've read).

In the same vein, any Allied invasion would require air superiority. There are ground units, but these are immobilized to a great extent via the absence of friendly air units. There's actually only 1 Axis ground unit now (not counting flak), the battle group. I call it 1 unit, but it will take 2 slots (one for full strength, one for depleted). Likewise, in the version I've attached, there are nearly no naval units (Task Forces, freighters, and subs) So we've doubled down on minimizing the ancillary units to the greatest extent we feel we can (or, should, anyway. It's hard to say "can," which implies there's a "can't," these days with lua).

Anyway, what I would suggest that you do is take the new files and strike up a multiplayer game with yourself. You won't have a perfect fog of war, of course, so you could always direct the Luftwaffe or Allies to perfect interceptions, but you could resist the urge, or at least adopt unofficial rules for yourself to make it interesting. For example, if you have some dice laying around, you might say that you need to "roll doubles" to direct aircraft towards a raid not yet detected by radar, etc. It's an idea, anyway.

Play both sides, try to win as both sides, and then offer feedback if you would like. That feedback will be much more useful, and relevant.

 

[JPetroski]

This to do list has been moved onto a new page.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

UNKNOWN IF FIXED
PETROSKI: Excuse my ignorance, but we are already counting distance, correct? So then couldn't we just have another small table that talks about the maximum range each aircraft has, and then divide by 2? Then whenever an aircraft goes to call up ammo, we run a check to see how far away the nearest airbase is, and see if that number is lesser or greater than the equation for each aircraft type? I think the ranges are pretty well established and I doubt I'd change them at this point, so it would just be a matter of building it out once. We could also tie the reaction to this so that there's no benefit at all to flying off into the sunset (aside, perhaps, from dragging fighters away).
GARFIELD: Yes, I can do this and it will probably be good enough. It might mean that P38s can sacrifice themselves for extra attacks instead of returning home (and maybe hurricanes and beaufighters), but it probably isn't worth sacrificing a unit to try to get an extra kill (well, maybe it is, since allied fighters are cheaper than German ones).

This is done, a unit won't react defensively, or even defend itself in combat if it is out of operating range of its airbase (it also can't fire munitions).

GARFIELD:Actually, there is a much simpler solution to the problem of moving tons of units onto carriers: just limit space on carriers. After production, check each carrier, and delete any aircraft on the tile that exceed the carrier's capacity. If a carrier can only carry three planes, for example, then their air power is inherently limited unless tons are built, which would be expensive. I suppose this could lead to a problem of 'juggling' aircraft on the carrier, in order to have 2 or 3 times the complement of aircraft.

This is not done. In fact, I have a carrier in the North Sea in our playtest with 8 or 9 units on it.

 

[JPetroski]

Based on the experience I had with the 15th AF, I don't think I'd ever pay 500 shields for one. The Red Tails actually make them useful, so I'm not to concerned with a 1000 shield price tag for them.

I'm just leery of creating a situation where there's suddenly an outrageous number of bombers on the southern front too... What would you suggest for a cost that would be more of a sweet spot? I could also tweak the stats of the actual unit to make it a bit more survivable given the increased cost, or potentially do a bit better job of defending itself (right now it does a terrible job of that akin to the B-24).

Allied convoys are already worth 1200 (300 base+300 per refinery) fuel when delivered to a city with 3 fuel refineries (which was my first goal). I don't know how much value there would be in tying extra fuel losses to convoy sinkings. If the Battle of the Atlantic is won, then the proposed mechanic won't really have an effect anyway.

You're probably right about that.

The Allied fuel buildup might not be such a big deal after all. Re-establishing order in France can get fairly expensive (though, that won't be an issue if we give the Allies Fundamentalism), as can fixing the French rail network. Maybe the Allies just need something to spend it on. Maybe for 500 fuel, a battle group can press backspace and reduce its moveSpent by 1, thereby allowing it to travel faster. Perhaps there should be an upper limit to that, somehow.

Did you ever find yourself rushing units once they got close enough that the price wasn't ridiculous? Just curious if a slight tweak to fighter costs might help give the Allies something to spend some funds on. I'm not opposed to the idea you just wrote, however, and think something like that could get use in other scenarios I have planned so I wouldn't be upset to see it developed.

We could give the German player the expected fuel expenditure after Allied production, then take it away after German production. If there is a deficit, then something bad can happen, but we don't have to worry about inconvenient structures being sold off. Same could be done for the Allies. That might be easier than trying to enforce minimum fuel reserves.

That seems elegant, doesn't require us to tell someone their floor is really 500, and looks like it would work. We might even be able to drop the floor on the Experten killed/refinery killed events to 0 from what it is set at now.

Yes, I'll get rid of the special target events (I'll probably just set the start and end window beyond the maximum turns, rather than try to figure out all the code that has to be removed).

That works fine for me.

I think we need to check Vienna, too.

I'll add it to the To Do list and take a look when I have the events again and some time.

I don't mind stopping. The turns are long enough that it is almost a chore to play at this point.

Oh, I'm sure they are, but the only way we can stop them from being this long at this point is to thin out Allied units, and the most fun way, I would think for both players, is to have that in combat. I'm gathering data and so far it is giving me some ideas though I don't want to commit to a solution until all the data is compiled (and I'm only roughly 1/3 of the way through grabbing it as it is so time intensive). There is one idea, however, that I do think might have merit. I'd propose that we moeve the "need for long range escorts" tech further back in the tech tree so it is necessary to unlock some of the earlier Allied fighters (probably the 2nd P-47 and 2nd P-38). If we do this, I'll just have the Germans start with it so they can still research those techs without issue.

If we move this tech earlier in the tree, we can substantially bump the number of bomber losses it takes to gain it to whatever we feel is right. Right now, that number is low, and the reason it is low is because in my playtest with McMonkey I developed a pathological need to delay researching techs that I wanted, because I didn't want my escort range to increase to a point where I'd find it almost impossible to trigger the tech event. If we move that tech event before the 2nd tier escort/interceptors become available, that won't be an issue. Also, it's not like the need for long range escorts led right to the Mustangs, first there were drop tanks (which the Americans curiously didn't think were important at the start of the war) which were fitted to P-47s and P-38s to extend their range.

I think this change would also extend the mid-game period (which I would call "the time the USAAF bombers have to try and go it alone for most of the way") and increase the likelihood that Germany has a technology advantage with their fighters (they, rather than the Allies, will probably be the first ones to roll out better equipment, because the Allies will need to muddle through an increased period of relying on bomber defenses).

This in turn would lead to more losses, and culling of the massive Allied air armadas.

At this point, playtesting would mostly be a question of how quickly the Allies can be expected to advance. Not important for this game, but it might be useful to know if, say, turn 90 is 'too late' for an effective invasion. Then again, since I started in the far west, a turn 90 invasion at Calais might be nearly equivalent to what we have. In any case, if we're destroying airbases upon capture, and changing fighter-bombers and tactical bombers, we might not get any more useful data anyway.

If we're going to destroy airfields when captured, I think we can leave fighter bombers as is. If the Allies really want to be able to get them all the way back to base after attacking, they're going to have to plan to build an airfield to do that. I don't think they'll be as powerful with this change.

I do think you had a good idea to change the medium bombers in this way. I wonder if you would build more than a handful if you could use them in the new fashion.

Maybe we want to increase the number of times light flak fires, so that fighter bombers continue to bear risk when attacking.

Yes, that would probably be fine to increase it from 2 to 4 or maybe even 6. They are so darn slow, and all of them react at once so even if you stacked 10 in an airfield, the Allies would all only be hit 6 times.

I'm curious as to how effective a defensive mix of one or two battle groups, some flak, and some gun batteries would be at halting my progress. The three together might make a formidable defensive barrier that might take some effort, or sacrificed battle groups, to deal with. I don't think it is necessary to have an active game just to try that out.

At this point I'd just suggest editing my game file into a .sav, creating a few situations like you explained, and seeing how it does.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I'm just leery of creating a situation where there's suddenly an outrageous number of bombers on the southern front too... What would you suggest for a cost that would be more of a sweet spot? I could also tweak the stats of the actual unit to make it a bit more survivable given the increased cost, or potentially do a bit better job of defending itself (right now it does a terrible job of that akin to the B-24).

From my perspective, the 15th AF bombers are slow and vulnerable. It strikes me that putting too many planes in Italy would simply be inviting the Germans to move fighters south and score easy kills. Even on turn 79 you were able to muster the forces to kill 21 bombers in a single turn. Since the bombers can't be sent back to England (I could see why converting B24s directly to 15th AF and back would be a problem), a sudden force shift might score some hits in Munich or wherever, but the redeployment of fighters would render them ineffective after that.

Perhaps the Germans could receive an intelligence report of the number of 15th AF bombers each turn. If there is a sudden buildup over one or two turns, fighters can be rushed south (under the current event, stuff sent to Italy has no movement on the turn it is built) to bolster existing forces.

Did you ever find yourself rushing units once they got close enough that the price wasn't ridiculous? Just curious if a slight tweak to fighter costs might help give the Allies something to spend some funds on. I'm not opposed to the idea you just wrote, however, and think something like that could get use in other scenarios I have planned so I wouldn't be upset to see it developed.

Sometimes, after I had England mostly built up. Usually, I just kept disbanding trains, so there weren't too many opportunities where the price was right to do it. It doesn't seem reasonable to spend large amounts to get one or two extra aircraft.

I'm gathering data and so far it is giving me some ideas though I don't want to commit to a solution until all the data is compiled (and I'm only roughly 1/3 of the way through grabbing it as it is so time intensive). There is one idea, however, that I do think might have merit. I'd propose that we moeve the "need for long range escorts" tech further back in the tech tree so it is necessary to unlock some of the earlier Allied fighters (probably the 2nd P-47 and 2nd P-38). If we do this, I'll just have the Germans start with it so they can still research those techs without issue.

If we move this tech earlier in the tree, we can substantially bump the number of bomber losses it takes to gain it to whatever we feel is right. Right now, that number is low, and the reason it is low is because in my playtest with McMonkey I developed a pathological need to delay researching techs that I wanted, because I didn't want my escort range to increase to a point where I'd find it almost impossible to trigger the tech event. If we move that tech event before the 2nd tier escort/interceptors become available, that won't be an issue. Also, it's not like the need for long range escorts led right to the Mustangs, first there were drop tanks (which the Americans curiously didn't think were important at the start of the war) which were fitted to P-47s and P-38s to extend their range.

I think this change would also extend the mid-game period (which I would call "the time the USAAF bombers have to try and go it alone for most of the way") and increase the likelihood that Germany has a technology advantage with their fighters (they, rather than the Allies, will probably be the first ones to roll out better equipment, because the Allies will need to muddle through an increased period of relying on bomber defenses).

This in turn would lead to more losses, and culling of the massive Allied air armadas.

I might be able to write a script to collect the data. If you'd like that, remind me what you need.

Perhaps we shouldn't start the 'bomber counter' until after 2nd level escorts are achieved, or maybe even 3rd level P47s (which, with the additional range, can get pretty far). Or, rather than using the best 'current' escort range, we use 60 or 68 squares based on the best P47.

 

[JPetroski]

I might be able to write a script to collect the data. If you'd like that, remind me what you need.

I would love this and if you made it a module I can all but guarantee you that other designers such as @tootall_2012 would too as he routinely gathers unit data to see how playtests go.

My current process is to load each save, hit F2, and then start manually counting various types of units, summing them up, and adding them to excel.

If, instead, I could simply press a button (call it a "testing key" which can be disabled from final release) and have the game count the units in different groups and sum them up at one stroke, reporting it back as a dialogue box, this would cut the time down to nothing. I'd prefer a key press approach rather than a script to load if possible because loading a script would mean I need to convert everything to a .sav first. I can do it if I have to, but I think the key press would be better for a wide range of projects.

I'm close to done with the Allies already (and modifying your module on my own to add different fields would be necessary anyway to use this in future projects, so I might as well try it with the few remaining Allied ones).

For the Germans, however, if the game could count the following and spit them out, it would be exceptionally useful [I'll provide the unit Aliases]:

Fighters: {unitAliases.Me109G6, unitAliases.Me109G14, unitAliases.Me109K4, unitAliases.Fw190A5, unitAliases.Fw190A8, unitAliases.Fw190D9, unitAliases.Ta152}
Heavy Fighters: {unitAliases.Me110, unitAliases.Me410, unitAliases.Ju88C, unitAliases.Ju88G, unitAliases.He219}
Jet Fighters: {unitAliases.He162, unitAliases.Me163, unitAliases.Me262}
Jabo: {unitAliases.Fw190F, unitAliases.Do335}
Total (the sum of the four above):

Industry: {unitAliases.Industry1, unitAliases.Industry2, unitAliases.Industry3, unitAliases.ACFactory1, unitAliases.ACFactory2, unitAliases.ACFactory3, unitAliases.Refinery1, unitAliases.Refinery2, unitAliases.Refinery3}
Civilian: {unitAliases.Urban1, unitAliases.Urban2, unitAliases.Urban3}
U-Boats: {unitAliases.UBoat}

Perhaps we shouldn't start the 'bomber counter' until after 2nd level escorts are achieved, or maybe even 3rd level P47s (which, with the additional range, can get pretty far). Or, rather than using the best 'current' escort range, we use 60 or 68 squares based on the best P47.

There just seems to have been a light switch that flipped in this scenario and I'm not quite sure how to stop that. You should have "escort creep" over time but I'm thinking it may have come on too quick. Again though, better to wait for the data and explore it a bit together once I compile it and chart it up (don't expect anything too fancy as I'm not great with excel).

Perhaps the Germans could receive an intelligence report of the number of 15th AF bombers each turn. If there is a sudden buildup over one or two turns, fighters can be rushed south (under the current event, stuff sent to Italy has no movement on the turn it is built) to bolster existing forces.

In another game I play sometimes, there are "radio chatter" bars that alert the German player that something is going on in England or Italy (all the talking to coordinate takeoff and such) so I don't think this would be much of a stretch if it is easy enough to do. Maybe just add it to the same dialogue box that shows the score as most players would presumably check that early each turn.

 

[JPetroski]

Scenario Casualty Tracking Data

-Note that this is imperfect data and should be read as "at least" because I don't think the deaths where a unit was killed by reactive fire are stored in the casualties section. I would have to rely on your best estimate for how much to increase losses for your side. I would estimate that we could probably increase interceptor losses (and therefore production of interceptors) by as much as 20% or so for the German side as your escorts and bombers did take down a number of German fighters.

-Also note that this is one of two spreadsheets I'm compiling and does not track turn for turn combat readiness/force levels which is what I would like your help with a script to acquire. This merely looks at how many units were KIA and present on the last turn and compares it against how many were present on the first turn to try and determine production levels.

Some observations:

Production Comparisons

Total Unit Production
-The Allies produced or received via events "at least" 1,496 reinforcements (I am not counting the damaged B-17s) while Germany produced 254. Thus, the Allies outproduced Germany 5.89 to 1. I'm not sure if the Allies need this much of a production bonus to win. It seems to have simply made your turns a chore towards the end of the game.*

*This does take into account industrial buildup as well, however.

Total Aircraft Production
Allied aircraft production exceeded Germany's by a factor of 8.99 to 1
-The Allies produced or received at least 1,258 aircraft of all types, thus 84% of their production or reinforcement was devoted to aircraft.
-Germany produced or received at least 140 aircraft of all types, thus 55% of their production or reinforcement was devoted to aircraft.*

*The disparity can be accounted for in a few ways. For one, Germany tried to rebuild some cities. Secondly, the Allies receive substantial event-driven reinforcement, while German reinforcements were mainly one-off special units.

Total Fighter Production
Allied fighter production exceeded Germany's by a factor of 3.19 to 1
-The Allies produced or received at least 434 fighters. Thus, 34% of their aircraft production was devoted to fighters.
136 were "interceptors" (Spits, P-38s, Yak)
167 were "escorts" (P-47 and P-51)
80 were "jabo" (Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest)
51 were night fighters

-Germany produced or received at least 136 fighters. Thus, 97% of their aircraft production was devoted to fighters.
79 were interceptors (190 series)
8 were escorts (109s)
25 were heavy fighters (Me110s, 410s, and all night fighters)
14 were jabo
6 were jets
4 were Experten

Munitions Comparison

-The Allies expended at least 3,357 aircraft munitions against the Germans' aircraft munitions of 932.

-If you exclusively look at fighter munitions expended, the Allies only used 237 munitions vs. the Germans' 932, though a majority of the German attacks were against bombers. Of interest, 16% of all aircraft munitions fired by Germany were fired by jets, which is remarkable considering how late they arrived and how few were created (my maximum level I think was around 6). Clearly, we don't want the skies overrun with jets (and they aren't and are unlikely to given current balance).

-Germany fired 649 flak bursts from 88mm batteries or flak trains, though only 25 more were produced.

Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign

-The Allies destroyed 245 strategic targets through 86 turns, or an average of 2.85 per turn.

 

[JPetroski]

@Prof. Garfield if you could break down how the average turn went for you and try to give an approximation of how much time each task took, that would be helpful. I'm particularly interested to hear about your use of Typhoons and Tempests. They are the only two units that carry 1,000lb bombs, and you only produced 80 of them, yet you dropped at least 1,084 of these munitions. I'm guessing that they accounted for much of your time.

-What did you tend to target with these munitions?
-Are these munitions ineffective against certain units? Are they effective against others?
-Did you find yourself spending a lot of your turn sending wave after wave of jabo after targets without having much occur?

I'm curious because in my playtest with @McMonkey , this was definitely where I started wearing down. I'd easily spend a majority of my turn trying to take down his defenses and I tried (perhaps ineffectively) to provide the 1,000lb as a way to break the gridlock. The data doesn't support that this worked, though I could be wrong.

If you did find these very ineffective then perhaps a good way for the Allies to spend their money would be to substantially increase the strength of these bombs, and also their cost. Would a fuel cost of 1,000 make sense if each one of these was nearly a guaranteed kill on certain units?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

My current process is to load each save, hit F2, and then start manually counting various types of units, summing them up, and adding them to excel.

I think I can write a script that will create a csv (comma separated values) file with the information that you can load into excel. I'll try that first in any case.

-Note that this is imperfect data and should be read as "at least" because I don't think the deaths where a unit was killed by reactive fire are stored in the casualties section. I would have to rely on your best estimate for how much to increase losses for your side. I would estimate that we could probably increase interceptor losses (and therefore production of interceptors) by as much as 20% or so for the German side as your escorts and bombers did take down a number of German fighters.

-Also note that this is one of two spreadsheets I'm compiling and does not track turn for turn combat readiness/force levels which is what I would like your help with a script to acquire. This merely looks at how many units were KIA and present on the last turn and compares it against how many were present on the first turn to try and determine production levels.

Relatively little on my side was killed from reactive fire. Most of what was killed were bombers taking 'splash' from flak, and most of those were B17s that became damaged.

Total Aircraft Production
Allied aircraft production exceeded Germany's by a factor of 8.99 to 1
-The Allies produced or received at least 1,258 aircraft of all types, thus 84% of their production or reinforcement was devoted to aircraft.
-Germany produced or received at least 140 aircraft of all types, thus 55% of their production or reinforcement was devoted to aircraft.*

*The disparity can be accounted for in a few ways. For one, Germany tried to rebuild some cities. Secondly, the Allies receive substantial event-driven reinforcement, while German reinforcements were mainly one-off special units.

German aircraft are more expensive, so the shields spent disparity might not be as high. However, 9 to 1 is surprising.

When you're killing bombers left, right, and centre, that Allied production is necessary. But when you stop, it just contributes to a massive glut of stuff. Maybe we need a system, where part of convoy reinforcements are dependant on replacing Allied losses. So, there is a counter counting how many shields worth of aircraft were lost in combat by the Allies. 2 trains are 'automatic' but the other 2 trains only appear to replace losses, at, say, a 50% rate or something. I don't know what good numbers would be, I just had the idea.

@Prof. Garfield if you could break down how the average turn went for you and try to give an approximation of how much time each task took, that would be helpful. I'm particularly interested to hear about your use of Typhoons and Tempests. They are the only two units that carry 1,000lb bombs, and you only produced 80 of them, yet you dropped at least 1,084 of these munitions. I'm guessing that they accounted for much of your time.

-What did you tend to target with these munitions?
-Are these munitions ineffective against certain units? Are they effective against others?
-Did you find yourself spending a lot of your turn sending wave after wave of jabo after targets without having much occur?

I'm curious because in my playtest with @McMonkey , this was definitely where I started wearing down. I'd easily spend a majority of my turn trying to take down his defenses and I tried (perhaps ineffectively) to provide the 1,000lb as a way to break the gridlock. The data doesn't support that this worked, though I could be wrong.

If you did find these very ineffective then perhaps a good way for the Allies to spend their money would be to substantially increase the strength of these bombs, and also their cost. Would a fuel cost of 1,000 make sense if each one of these was nearly a guaranteed kill on certain units?

With the use of hot keys and the 'smart' unit selection, it doesn't take as much time as you would think (though I did try to make munitions fire automatically if there was only one target square, but, unfortunately, I don't think we can force a unit to make an attack via events). Set a hotkey to the 'attacking' square, another to the airbase location, then it is basically press 8, backspace, arrow, arrow, 9, then repeat for the next unit (once other nearby units have been told to wait).

I've been attacking flak, battle groups, and gun batteries mostly, oftentimes several stacked on a square. Given the number of units required for successful strategic bombing and escorting, the numbers required to make progress don't seem unreasonable (though maybe we want to increase the strength of a barrage, as an alternative to air power). However, if tens of jabo units attack targets, it might make sense for light flak to attack a few more times.

Maybe we should re-think splash damage. At the moment, it means that I can't just move 20 tempests to the square at once, attack with them all, and then retreat with them all (in a formation or something). Perhaps the better idea is just to have more flak attacks, and have them do more damage.

A near guaranteed kill on a ground target that is expensive would probably still be useful. The trouble is that we might keep the balance in "air to surface attacks", but ruin it for "air to air combat" involving Jabo aircraft.

 

[JPetroski]

When you're killing bombers left, right, and centre, that Allied production is necessary. But when you stop, it just contributes to a massive glut of stuff. Maybe we need a system, where part of convoy reinforcements are dependant on replacing Allied losses. So, there is a counter counting how many shields worth of aircraft were lost in combat by the Allies. 2 trains are 'automatic' but the other 2 trains only appear to replace losses, at, say, a 50% rate or something. I don't know what good numbers would be, I just had the idea.

If I'm killing bombers left, right, and center, then we both have something to do and a "fun" way to reduce numbers naturally (we each have stuff in the air to shoot and kill). I think we should consider something like this for Regensburg... I think you mentioned one of them being free 109s. I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but what about:

Each turn, the game counts how many fighters the Allies have, and how many fighters the Germans have;
If the Germans do not have a certain percentage of fighters compared to the Allies (Maybe 25%? Maybe 33%?), then there's a text box that pops up and basically says:

"Given the ever-pressing need for more fighters, the Messerschmidt Flugzeugwerke at Regensburg works round the clock to fill demand."
At the same time, the needed number of 109s (the latest model available) to bring German fighter strength up are delivered to Germany at the airfield near Regensburg (342,112,0).
Perhaps if the WoW Jagernotprogramm has been built, the percentage could increase by 10%

I don't know that this would be imbalancing. The 109s fire the weaker ammo that has a hard time killing your stuff but enough of them would be able to dent at least the bombers that don't have an escort, and there are always a few of those. The 109s also can't carry rockets which are what really work well to bring down bombers. Also, if we base the percentage on fighter vs. fighter (rather than vs. total aircraft), then you don't have to worry about the bombers becoming swamped, as there will "probably" be less Allied fighters than bombers on any given turn. Further, the Allies can always stop this by targeting Regensburg frequently (though I'd probably beef up its starting defenses so it would take an effort to do this). Finally, this solution wouldn't imbalance the early game (because there, Germany starts with significantly more fighters), but would act as kind of a safety net when things really start going badly - ergo it would kick in mid-game, when we want it to.

Maybe we should re-think splash damage. At the moment, it means that I can't just move 20 tempests to the square at once, attack with them all, and then retreat with them all (in a formation or something). Perhaps the better idea is just to have more flak attacks, and have them do more damage.

So what I'm reading here is that the way we currently have things set up is preventing you from fully utilizing the quality of life mechanisms, because you can only bring your groups so far before you need to stop them out of range of the splash damage, correct? If so, then yes, I think we should get rid of the splash damage and compensate by allowing flak to fire more times. That way you can bring a formation right where you want it rather than pausing and bringing in aircraft bit by bit. Hopefully that will save you some time and headache.

Earlier in our designing you mentioned the possibility of having reactive attacks destroy the ammo that was produced if the attacking unit was killed. I think that might be something we should consider now if we're getting rid of splash damage too.

A near guaranteed kill on a ground target that is expensive would probably still be useful. The trouble is that we might keep the balance in "air to surface attacks", but ruin it for "air to air combat" involving Jabo aircraft.

Well, the 1000lb bombs can only attack aircraft if they're on the ground, and I'd imagine such situations are already a near guaranteed kill, so I don't think we will imbalance air to air combat. I just wanted to ensure you weren't spending 30 minutes each turn with your jabo, as I found that insufferable and was hoping to avoid that.

We still have 1 remaining unit slot (2, if we have "barrage" be fired by whatever is currently firing medium shells - I think the gun battery). Do the Allies need an "ace?" Well, I know the answer to that - "no," they don't "need" it. But would it be a fun way to maybe combine, say, 5 units into 1 and get charged 10,000 (so that it doesn't happen constantly--the Germans can only earn 15 Experten in the scenario now) in exchange for a super defensive unit (something on par with the Red Tails but that can be operated from England)?

Just trying to spitball some ideas of getting rid of the excess fuel (although I wonder, if you're not spending it on anything, does it even matter that it exists? It's not like counting it is causing you to have longer turns).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

If I'm killing bombers left, right, and center, then we both have something to do and a "fun" way to reduce numbers naturally (we each have stuff in the air to shoot and kill). I think we should consider something like this for Regensburg... I think you mentioned one of them being free 109s. I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but what about:

Each turn, the game counts how many fighters the Allies have, and how many fighters the Germans have;
If the Germans do not have a certain percentage of fighters compared to the Allies (Maybe 25%? Maybe 33%?), then there's a text box that pops up and basically says:

"Given the ever-pressing need for more fighters, the Messerschmidt Flugzeugwerke at Regensburg works round the clock to fill demand."
At the same time, the needed number of 109s (the latest model available) to bring German fighter strength up are delivered to Germany at the airfield near Regensburg (342,112,0).
Perhaps if the WoW Jagernotprogramm has been built, the percentage could increase by 10%

I don't know that this would be imbalancing. The 109s fire the weaker ammo that has a hard time killing your stuff but enough of them would be able to dent at least the bombers that don't have an escort, and there are always a few of those. The 109s also can't carry rockets which are what really work well to bring down bombers. Also, if we base the percentage on fighter vs. fighter (rather than vs. total aircraft), then you don't have to worry about the bombers becoming swamped, as there will "probably" be less Allied fighters than bombers on any given turn. Further, the Allies can always stop this by targeting Regensburg frequently (though I'd probably beef up its starting defenses so it would take an effort to do this). Finally, this solution wouldn't imbalance the early game (because there, Germany starts with significantly more fighters), but would act as kind of a safety net when things really start going badly - ergo it would kick in mid-game, when we want it to.

I think I did suggest something like this at one point. In any case, I like the mechanism. However, a couple potential problems occur to me. The first is that targeting Regensburg becomes something that the Allies only want to do if they are already far ahead, rather than something to do to try to cripple the German aircraft production early in the war. I suppose we could have both double 109 production and the 'catch up' production tied to the same target. The second concern is that maybe the Allied player doesn't care about downing 109s once the Germans are in the 'catch up' phase, since the unit will just be replaced anyway, and attacking it and failing to kill might just make the unit veteran.

So what I'm reading here is that the way we currently have things set up is preventing you from fully utilizing the quality of life mechanisms, because you can only bring your groups so far before you need to stop them out of range of the splash damage, correct? If so, then yes, I think we should get rid of the splash damage and compensate by allowing flak to fire more times. That way you can bring a formation right where you want it rather than pausing and bringing in aircraft bit by bit. Hopefully that will save you some time and headache.

Earlier in our designing you mentioned the possibility of having reactive attacks destroy the ammo that was produced if the attacking unit was killed. I think that might be something we should consider now if we're getting rid of splash damage too.

Basically, splash makes me have to worry about unit placement during my turn, and not just at the end of it (as in normal Civ II). This means that I can't just focus on one task at a time (quality of life improvements, either existing or things I could make are a part of that). So, I can't just bring in planes, kill the target, then worry about how to disperse them after the target is killed, since everything hanging around that doesn't have to be there at that moment just takes extra splash damage. It also means I have to move bombers before fighters. So, I can't have an active mustang near a target, and move it in to defend the retreating bombers, and then move the bombers in (knowing for sure how many fighters there are, and so how many stacks to make).

For one or two attacks in a turn, these aren't huge problems, but when flying planes all over the place (especially having P51s not in formation with B17s, but catching up to them near the target), this stuff adds up. Maybe there is some tactical value to trying to find approaches to avoid splash, but writing that last paragraph about placement of units within the turn (instead of just at the end) has pretty well convinced me we should do away with it (then, we can do away with the friendly fire, and the mechanism to withhold fire if more damage is likely to be done to friends).

I'm not sure how my existing quality of life improvements have fixed things, since as I was implementing them, my numbers were also skyrocketing.

I should be able to kill munitions if the generator is killed, but I'll have to look at the code.

Well, the 1000lb bombs can only attack aircraft if they're on the ground, and I'd imagine such situations are already a near guaranteed kill, so I don't think we will imbalance air to air combat. I just wanted to ensure you weren't spending 30 minutes each turn with your jabo, as I found that insufferable and was hoping to avoid that.

What I mean is that suppose we adjust the 1000lb bomb so that 1/4 of the existing Tempests are typically needed to achieve a result (and so their price is increased by a factor of 4). Then they are only 1/4 as good for use as fighters as they were previously, unless something else is changed. Maybe I need a hotkey that tells 16 units of a type in an airfield to either all fly to a target square, or to form up into a 4x4 formation en route to a target square if they can't reach it on the current turn (or something of that sort). If splash is eliminated, then there isn't much harm in doing this.

Also, this might mess with hurricanes, if, for example, a player decided to use hurricanes in order to build up a force of aces for use in Tempests.

We still have 1 remaining unit slot (2, if we have "barrage" be fired by whatever is currently firing medium shells - I think the gun battery). Do the Allies need an "ace?" Well, I know the answer to that - "no," they don't "need" it. But would it be a fun way to maybe combine, say, 5 units into 1 and get charged 10,000 (so that it doesn't happen constantly--the Germans can only earn 15 Experten in the scenario now) in exchange for a super defensive unit (something on par with the Red Tails but that can be operated from England)?

Just trying to spitball some ideas of getting rid of the excess fuel (although I wonder, if you're not spending it on anything, does it even matter that it exists? It's not like counting it is causing you to have longer turns).

The fuel only matters in that a number of French cities can be brought up to high war capacity surprisingly quickly. 2 civilian and 2 industry cost ~5000 gold and are quite good. I'm now actually less concerned now that I've spent down the treasury than I was before, since the Allies might need a bit of a war chest just to bring the French railroad back to working order in order to bring stuff forward (especially construction crews, now that we're going to eliminate airfields from capture).

I don't really like the idea of a defensive 'ace' for the allies, given that the entire problem they are trying to solve is how to get bombers safely over Europe, and such an ace would kind of be a 'cheat' to get that, or too expensive to matter. I'm not sure what unit would be fun for the allies.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Here is the data gathering tool, and, as a bonus, all our saved games renamed as .sav instead of .hot, so that it is quicker to open all the games (I had an easy way to do this, and I wasn't sure if you did).

When you load a game, the events check if your main test of time directory (not the OTR directory) has a file OTRData.csv . If not, that file is created, with two 'header' lines. (Move the file out of the TOT directory if you want to 'start over'.

Then, the event gathers a whole bunch of data about the game for the current turn (and active tribe) and adds it to OTRData.csv.

You can open OTRData.csv with Excel (I'm pretty sure) or Libre Office Calc (Free, and I know for a fact it will work, since I tried) and manipulate the data (sorting, deleting unnecessary columns, etc.) .

I didn't collect the specific fighter count data you asked for, since I figured with a spreadsheet, that should be easy to get afterward. Let me know if you really want that, or if there is something else you would like me to collect.

 

[JPetroski]

I didn't collect the specific fighter count data you asked for, since I figured with a spreadsheet, that should be easy to get afterward. Let me know if you really want that, or if there is something else you would like me to collect.

No this is fine and much better than what I was collecting independently. I'm not an excel wiz by any means, but I can at least create a pivot table and all of this raw data is very powerful to work with. Thank you very much!

but writing that last paragraph about placement of units within the turn (instead of just at the end) has pretty well convinced me we should do away with it (then, we can do away with the friendly fire, and the mechanism to withhold fire if more damage is likely to be done to friends).

Agreed. We've been consistent with trying to reduce turn time and the current setup increases it. Let's axe it in the interest of moving the game along.

However, a couple potential problems occur to me. The first is that targeting Regensburg becomes something that the Allies only want to do if they are already far ahead, rather than something to do to try to cripple the German aircraft production early in the war. I suppose we could have both double 109 production and the 'catch up' production tied to the same target.

That makes sense - the German player can choose to build 109s with the aim of getting two for one and keeping the Luftwaffe well-stocked. The Allies will want to put an end to this earlier.

The second concern is that maybe the Allied player doesn't care about downing 109s once the Germans are in the 'catch up' phase, since the unit will just be replaced anyway, and attacking it and failing to kill might just make the unit veteran.

I don't think this is as much of a concern. For one, if you don't kill the 109s, they're going to kill you. Secondly, defensive reactions will likely remove a number of 109s even if the player didn't want to target a single one - they don't really have the option of not killing them if the Germans want to use them. Finally, it would be quite the gamble for the Allies not to kill any on purpose given they probably aren't going to have great data as to how many fighters Germany has compared to the Allies at any given time. I think the far safer course of action for the Allies would simply be to keep hammering Regensburg to stop the mechanism from occurring, but it is far enough away that it can be defended well enough (I think the 15th even needs 2 turns to reach it).

 

[JPetroski]

Here are a few graphs that tell the tale of our play test.

Total Aircraft Strength

-Turn 33 saw you obliterate Hamburg in Operation Gommorrah with bombers that arrived on turn 25.
-This lead you to earn two triggers on turn 34 for bomber reinforcements.
-I believe on turn 35, Operation Hydra may have also fired and you again received a bump in bombers. You struck Peenemunde on turn 44.
-From turn 40-45 you went from 36 USAAF bombers to 96, I believe because you triggered a point threshold for reinforcement (374 achieved between turns 43-44) and also received the bump for the Schweinfurt Raid, the attack of which occurred from turns 46-47.
-Together, these three historic missions accounted for the huge spike in your total aircraft strength, as you were successful with all three, and managed to earn a ton of points that pushed you into several bonus pools.
-It was really bad luck that they all fired so close, and they were probably the "light switch" that turned on.

Total Fighter Strength

You'll note that on turn 55, you reported that it was the first time you had a bomber raid return from deep inside Germany relatively unscathed. I think turn 53 was when Germany lost fighter superiority, and would not ever get it back. You'll note this is right at the tail end of the three historic missions described above.

Industrial Comparison

There is a distinct correlation between the time that the Allies gain parity with German fighter strength and the time that German industry starts to plummet. Right around turn 53 or so, it starts to nose dive.

You once said: "I'm wondering how balanced the historic missions are. They seem like something that has a good chance of helping whoever is winning. "

I think you nailed it, my friend!

Edit - if I have some time tomorrow I'll do a bit of a deep dive about why you really took off at turn 57.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

The Allies and Germans seem to have progressed technologically at about the same pace. Did the Germans have enough fuel (at least until the late game when everything was being bombed)? If so, then maybe all we have to do is increase the technology costs a little bit, rather than changing the Allies to fundamentalism to create a differential between the Allies and Germans.

Perhaps at the start of the scenario (maybe after turn 5, so the players have a bit of a feel for the game), we could give extra research production to the players, so the necessary buildup technologies don't take too long to get (or, the player sacrifices economy for some early technology). That might keep the early-mid game consistent, even if we increase the overall research costs. If we want the Germans to have a slight technology lead, we can give them a couple more technologies (or, maybe, give them a research bonus/ free current research tech when they reach point goals, the same way the Allies get some reinforcements).

So, it looks like the game is balanced fairly well without the special missions. What does that mean if we start giving the Germans a couple 'critical industry' bonuses? I suppose they are balanced by the fact that the critical industry also adds special vulnerabilities.

I'm inclined to think (as I've said before) that there shouldn't be a dambuster target, unless we also have a 'specialist' bomber to attack it. According to the Wiki only 19 bombers took part, so it doesn't really make sense to just send an armada of bombers to attack the target.

Maybe we should 'double up' the B17G unit. Make it cost 400 shields and drop 6 bombs. I don't think the 'tactical' changes (more effective veteran transfer from older bombers, essentially being equivalent to a two stack on a square, etc, half the support cost when carrying payload, only need half as many airbases for production) are that severe, and it would reduce the allied aircraft flying around somewhat in the late game.

 

[JPetroski]

Did the Germans have enough fuel (at least until the late game when everything was being bombed)? If so, then maybe all we have to do is increase the technology costs a little bit, rather than changing the Allies to fundamentalism to create a differential between the Allies and Germans.

Fuel was always a concern, but not a massive issue until you really started hammering the refineries, and especially when jets started sucking it up. The data isn't the best here because we're capturing at the end of the turn rather than at the beginning. I'd have to go and create new saves from the beginning of a turn to see how it really played out, which I'm not sure it's worth it to do. I do know that my strategy revolved around fuel refineries early in the game, and on acquiring the Speer wonder.

All the same, if we can avoid a massive change like going to fundamentalism, that would be a good thing.

If we want the Germans to have a slight technology lead, we can give them a couple more technologies (or, maybe, give them a research bonus/ free current research tech when they reach point goals, the same way the Allies get some reinforcements).

Well, we do have the prototype (trade and freight) units just sitting there, unbuildable, and Germany is a Republic. I'd think throwing them one of those now and then by some method would boost them very well. I almost think Peenemunde should have its own little point tracker where it gets 1 point per turn that it is operational. Every 10 turns of being operational, it spits out a prototype or two. If the Allies want to stop it, they need to attack it and keep it shut down. That way, the Germans don't get an advantage that can't be nullified.

So, it looks like the game is balanced fairly well without the special missions. What does that mean if we start giving the Germans a couple 'critical industry' bonuses? I suppose they are balanced by the fact that the critical industry also adds special vulnerabilities.

The only bonuses we are considering are:

1. Free U-Boats if they have none and a critical industry exists;
2. Double 109 production (which from my experience, weren't that impressive) and free 109s if they have very few fighters and a critical industry exists;
3. Free prototypes (if we use my Peenemunde idea) if a critical industry exists.

All three of these can be shut down.

The other critical industries don't really grant a bonus to Germany, they just really don't want to lose them:

1. Losing an Industry tech if Schweinfurt is hit;
2. Losing a Refinery tech if Politz is hit;

Both of these would be problems, and both of them also have the effect of reducing Peenemunde's effectiveness (because theoretically, the German player might decide to use the prototypes to re-research Industry or Refinery techs).

So I don't think we imbalance anything with these. Even if you're getting 2 for 1 on 109s, that still means it's one less 190, and the A8 especially is actually useful. I'd much rather have 190s than 109s as seen from my stats.

I'm inclined to think (as I've said before) that there shouldn't be a dambuster target, unless we also have a 'specialist' bomber to attack it. According to the Wiki only 19 bombers took part, so it doesn't really make sense to just send an armada of bombers to attack the target.

I am OK with removing this one. It looks stupid on the map anyway.

Maybe we should 'double up' the B17G unit. Make it cost 400 shields and drop 6 bombs. I don't think the 'tactical' changes (more effective veteran transfer from older bombers, essentially being equivalent to a two stack on a square, etc, half the support cost when carrying payload, only need half as many airbases for production) are that severe, and it would reduce the allied aircraft flying around somewhat in the late game.

We also could just not drop its shields to 200 and keep it at 300 and figure that the Allied industrial buildup allows for more units in and of itself late game. Allied production will beat German production in most games - first, the Allies are going to be concentrating on building units that can bomb industry where the Germans usually won't, but secondly, the sheer size of Europe means that building up German industry with freight trains from occupied Europe takes a very long time (I usually just used them to build fighters). Once the Allied buildup was complete (see the flatline on your industrial graph), your forces skyrocketed, and they skyrocketed after your "freebie" events stopped, too.

One thing that I should mention about the graphs is that during the mid 60 to mid 70 turns I wasn't building many fighters, and was instead saving the few trains I had so I could rush as many 262's as possible on turn 76. You commented wondering what had happened. This coincided with D-Day, where I took losses, and also seems to have coincided with a point where you had a massive fighter buildup of your own, as you wanted to flood the skies with Mustangs (which I noticed on turn 72). These circumstances combined to become the final nail, so to speak, but if you look at your industrial graph, this was also a period where you flatlined on production of industry (probably due to maximizing it for the most part in England) and so I'm sure you started devoting more and more freight trains to units at that point.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Fuel was always a concern, but not a massive issue until you really started hammering the refineries, and especially when jets started sucking it up. The data isn't the best here because we're capturing at the end of the turn rather than at the beginning. I'd have to go and create new saves from the beginning of a turn to see how it really played out, which I'm not sure it's worth it to do. I do know that my strategy revolved around fuel refineries early in the game, and on acquiring the Speer wonder.

All the same, if we can avoid a massive change like going to fundamentalism, that would be a good thing.

This means that the Germans and Allies have a similar rate of technological progress at the moment, and fuel works about right for the Germans under these circumstances.

We get 'far enough' through the tech tree around turn 70. If we increase tech costs by 50%, this would make that point around turn 105. If we dole out some techs at the start of the game, semi-completion of the tech tree will happen a few turns sooner.

Maybe we should bestow the currently researching tech (so beakers are not wasted) to both players when certain point thresholds are reached. That way, if the 'story' progresses faster, the technologies keep up.

Well, we do have the prototype (trade and freight) units just sitting there, unbuildable, and Germany is a Republic. I'd think throwing them one of those now and then by some method would boost them very well. I almost think Peenemunde should have its own little point tracker where it gets 1 point per turn that it is operational. Every 10 turns of being operational, it spits out a prototype or two. If the Allies want to stop it, they need to attack it and keep it shut down. That way, the Germans don't get an advantage that can't be nullified.

Do we need the prototype at all? Why not just use an event to put some extra beakers into the German research bucket? I think this would be a good idea, to give the 'critical industry' something to do beyond just researching towards rockets (which the German player might not care too much about).

The only bonuses we are considering are:

1. Free U-Boats if they have none and a critical industry exists;
2. Double 109 production (which from my experience, weren't that impressive) and free 109s if they have very few fighters and a critical industry exists;
3. Free prototypes (if we use my Peenemunde idea) if a critical industry exists.

All three of these can be shut down.

The other critical industries don't really grant a bonus to Germany, they just really don't want to lose them:

1. Losing an Industry tech if Schweinfurt is hit;
2. Losing a Refinery tech if Politz is hit;

Both of these would be problems, and both of them also have the effect of reducing Peenemunde's effectiveness (because theoretically, the German player might decide to use the prototypes to re-research Industry or Refinery techs).

So I don't think we imbalance anything with these. Even if you're getting 2 for 1 on 109s, that still means it's one less 190, and the A8 especially is actually useful. I'd much rather have 190s than 109s as seen from my stats.

You're correct, it probably wouldn't be unbalancing.

We also could just not drop its shields to 200 and keep it at 300 and figure that the Allied industrial buildup allows for more units in and of itself late game. Allied production will beat German production in most games - first, the Allies are going to be concentrating on building units that can bomb industry where the Germans usually won't, but secondly, the sheer size of Europe means that building up German industry with freight trains from occupied Europe takes a very long time (I usually just used them to build fighters). Once the Allied buildup was complete (see the flatline on your industrial graph), your forces skyrocketed, and they skyrocketed after your "freebie" events stopped, too.

That makes sense. Part of that, however, was the fact that I got most of the ports, so convoys started crossing the sea in greater numbers.