OVERLORD (1941 Start) - Second World War In Europe, North Africa, and the Soviet Union

[Meteor Man]

I also have an idea how to make sure AI would do an invasion

I'd love to hear it lol

Btw I don't think it needs a fix, it means happy time for subs is over, convoys are much harder to attack - as it happened historically.

This is really interesting, perhaps a good idea I could maybe implement as a late-game upgrade for Allied sea transports.

The reason I don't like doing things such as this, however, is it railroads Germany's decline. This is fine if you want your mod to parallel history. But I intend for this mod to be as 'sandboxy' as possible.
That being said, there are a few things in the mod that do force Germany on the defense compared to the Allies. Namely: that the Enigma Machine and Abwehr wonders become obsolete at the end of the Industrial tech tree. Also, late-game German units are slightly weaker than their Allied counterparts and they have some unique units that can be built without some previously necessary resources, such as the Volksjager jet fighter I just added, which does not require Aluminum.

I think it's a nice feature to represent u-boat ability to scout convoys from greater distance, like 6-7 tiles away.

I could maybe see this justified as representing radio direction finding on the part of the u-boat wolfpack. IRL, of course, this would have been done by multiple u-boats to triangulate a position. But, still. Good thoughts, again.

I see that in 1.5 capturing of enemy artillery was disabled. It's good, because I had a swarm of USSR artillery as Germany (especially Katyusa's were funny to see in german hands ) that could crack the hardest defense anywhere.

Good, that's an unintended side-effect but a welcome one. Though I did like the parallel with historical reality, as the Germans did use a ton of captured allied equipment, particularly from the French.

But I have an idea, what if capturing these artillery results in spawning supplies? That means these captured materials were broke up for re-use for various purposes.

I don't think this is possible to implement.

Firstly, artillery is now uncapturable primarily because of the new regional city graphics. I'll explain: in Civ3, units can only be captured if they are buildable by the civ capturing them. That means all artillery needed to be available to all civs, with differentiation between which civ can build what dependent on unique strategic resources. These were named "Industrial German City," "Industrial British City"... etc. And they were placed under the civ's cities.
Once I changed city graphics to be based on resources, this had to be changed.

So artillery cannot be capturable anymore for this reason, and because it simply doesn't fit in the tech tree anymore.

Secondly, I don't think there is a way in the Civ3 engine to produce a different unit than the one being captured. If you know of one, let me know! Thanks for your comments.

 

[gugu84]

I'd love to hear it lol

however, is it railroads Germany's decline

unfortunately I feel my idea would railroad Germany's decline, e.g. it would guarantee allied invasion in Normandy, which would be really hard to hold back...

btw I found a bug, you can build all 4 film industry related wonders as any country, it wasn't the case for the previous version:

 

[Arexander]

I could maybe see this justified as representing radio direction finding on the part of the u-boat wolfpack. IRL, of course, this would have been done by multiple u-boats to triangulate a position. But, still. Good thoughts, again.

The German U-Boats did technically have a recon capability, though it saw limited use due to Allied air superiority.

 

[Meteor Man]

unfortunately I feel my idea would railroad Germany's decline, e.g. it would guarantee allied invasion in Normandy, which would be really hard to hold back...

I wish you would just tell me what you're thinking

btw I found a bug

thanks for that. Easy fix, and it's not the end of the world. Attached are the hotfixed .biqs.

The German U-Boats did technically have a recon capability, though it saw limited use due to Allied air superiority.

I did know about these. I have thought of giving some subs limited recon (ie. operation radius = 0).

In real life operation, they greatly aided visibility for a sub. But as translates to the game, it's not any advantage over the default view distance for sea units.

I'll add it anyway. But it only affects one unit: the (SS) Type XXI uboat for Germany, as the autogyro was first fielded in 1942.

OVERLORD v1.5_01 hotfix (see attached)
Changelog

1.5_01

- fixed: Motion Pictures are now confined to their host nations rather than buildable by all
- (SS) Type XXI uboat (Germany) given the Recon ability with 0 operational range

 

[gugu84]

I don't think the great guy would have been too happy that the other great guy's statue caused any smiles in Berlin....
No need to fix I think, it just makes me smile

 

[Civinator]

Meteor Man, your adaption of the HOI techtree to Civ 3 is brilliant modding work!

Since the early attempts of Cimbri, who did a fantastic work in the early time of Civ 3 when he created his WW2 scenario, we know about the wonderful fitting of the HOI graphics (at that time HOI 1) to the large and small icons of Civ 3, but until now nobody was able transform the HOI techtree to a useful Civ 3 techtree. I am sure, even the old SOE modders would have liked your great techtree adaption.

I also have an idea how to make sure AI would do an invasion

I'd love to hear it lol

May be gugu84 meant the invasion by land bridges covered with ruin graphics showing water, in SOE. I don´t know, if this is fitting well with the philosophy of a sandbox game. One thing is sure: With these settings bloody battles to invade Britain (or the Continent) are granted. The other side of the medal is, that these battles can happen "in the water", so may be only one tile for a land bridge would be working better as here always one part of the battle has a contact to the "shown" land terrain.

Spoiler :

There are two land connections between France and Britain marked with resources: The Sea Lion route between Dover and Calais and the D-Day route between Cherbourg and the Isle of Wight. On land it can happen, that the AI uses large forces. Therefore SOE can have nice D-day and Seelöwe invasions. Britain and France are both still able to cross through the Channel via those harbour cities. Other civs (like Germany) had first to conquer some of these cities to pass the Channel.

Now with the Flintlock mod and the land-sea intersections this can be handled much better. The same for convoy routes from the US and Canada (together with the deep sea harbor settings of the Quintillus editor):

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/storm-over-europe-soe.454785/page-12#post-16202320
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/storm-over-europe-soe.454785/page-12#post-16215757

 

[Meteor Man]

I don't think the great guy would have been too happy that the other great guy's statue caused any smiles in Berlin....
No need to fix I think, it just makes me smile

This is actually kind of driving me insane because I can't figure out why it's there.
1) Which .biq are you playing?
2) Have you captured Moscow? (This may be the issue as Red Square is not a wonder unique to the Soviets, but is preplaced in Moscow. If it's captured, that would place a Lenin statue in every city on the continent. Issue that needs to be fixed.)

Thanks a bunch for beta-testing for me!

Meteor Man, your adaption of the HOI techtree to Civ 3 is brilliant modding work!

Since the early attempts of Cimbri, who did a fantastic work in the early time of Civ 3 when he created his WW2 scenario, we know about the wonderful fitting of the HOI graphics (at that time HOI 1) to the large and small icons of Civ 3, but until now nobody was able transform the HOI techtree to a useful Civ 3 techtree. I am sure, even the old SOE modders would have liked your great techtree adaption.

Thanks again for your kind words, Civinator.

May be gugu84 meant the invasion by land bridges covered with ruin graphics showing water, in SOE. I don´t know, if this is fitting well with the philosophy of a sandbox game. One thing is sure: With these settings bloody battles to invade Britain (or the Continent) are granted. The other side of the medal is, that these battles can happen "in the water", so may be only one tile for a land bridge would be working better as here always one part of the battle has a contact to the "shown" land terrain.

Indeed, I know about this solution. It's not something I have necessarily wanted to port from SOE.

On the other hand, something like that might be the only way to get the Allies to invade France, or vice versa. Original plan was to just have a 1944 start with the Allies already on the continent (Cherbourg & Caen, or just Cherbourg).

 

[gugu84]

This is actually kind of driving me insane because I can't figure out why it's there.
1) Which .biq are you playing?
2) Have you captured Moscow? (This may be the issue as Red Square is not a wonder unique to the Soviets, but is preplaced in Moscow. If it's captured, that would place a Lenin statue in every city on the continent. Issue that needs to be fixed.)

1) Overlord Germany biq
2) Yes, it appeared in every city after capturing Moscow.

 

[Meteor Man]

1) Overlord Germany biq
2) Yes, it appeared in every city after capturing Moscow.

Thank you! I know what the problem is and the fix will be included in the next update.

 

[gugu84]

this unit seems to be immobile:

ARTL - Light Artillery

It has 1 movement point, but I wasn't able to move it anywhere...

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

this unit seems to be immobile:

ARTL - Light Artillery

View attachment 674753


It has 1 movement point, but I wasn't able to move it anywhere...

I believe there are some pre-placed artillery units that are made immobile. If you produce that light artillery it should be mobile.

 

[Meteor Man]

this unit seems to be immobile:

ARTL - Light Artillery

View attachment 674753


It has 1 movement point, but I wasn't able to move it anywhere...

Yes, some arty units are pre-placed and immobile. The minor nations get some as they're usually controlled by AI players.

 

[gugu84]

May be gugu84 meant the invasion by land bridges covered with ruin graphics showing water, in SOE. I don´t know, if this is fitting well with the philosophy of a sandbox game. One thing is sure: With these settings bloody battles to invade Britain (or the Continent) are granted. The other side of the medal is, that these battles can happen "in the water", so may be only one tile for a land bridge would be working better as here always one part of the battle has a contact to the "shown" land terrain.

Actually no, AI seems to be paradropping units over the channel:

This is just testing, and the "planes" are foot units with airdrop capability. I gave 8-9 units to AI, and after turn 1 they immediately took Caen, then Cherbourg in the next turn, then they went for Rouen in 3rd. Ofc this needs balancing, but a great wonder could auto produce these units (enabled by a late-research tech), so that AI could do an actual invasion to mainland Europe.

2nd test run: I haven't tested invading GB with buffed units, so AI took the above 3 cities in 1 turn. Also I gave them some regular paratroopers, they dropped them near Nantes:

Ofc this needs a lot of balancing, but AI is very capable of invasion. I also gave these "buffed paratroopers" enslave capability, that spawned the regular French infantry unit near Caen.
I don't know if the mod is still under development, but I have lots of ideas how this could be improved/balanced.

 

[Armchairstrategist]

As a prelude I wonder if the extreme success I'm having in this really impressive mod as the USSR may be a result of accidentally 'hacking' a feature removed for balance purposes...

Firstly thought, this mod is amazing, congratulations and hats off to the really impressive work of Meteor Man and the contributing team. Despite having played previous grand strategy games, the HoI series was always too intimidating with its required simultaneous control of the entire Eastern Front. Breaking it into turn based both make it more beginner friendly and highlights some of the fascinating tactical issues in detail such as trying to correctly guess where to place troops to resist an armoured Blitzkrieg from plains to arctic forests and across 1000kms of possible entry points.

Having Civ III's more even more nuanced than usual civilian infrastructure and production to manage at the same time nicely captures the long term challenges of a modern war of attrition like WWII.

I do have a few thoughts on 1 or 2 issues which may be able to be improved within the limits of Civ III's AI which to be fair I don't understand very well. The idea of having a wonder that produces high capacity transports seems like a really good idea. I wonder how that has worked in practice? And if the AI does take advantage of more cargo space, tbh giving the majors ships with capacity of 10-15 wouldn't seem too unrealistic. Particularly for the Allies. As I understand the current academic position on the Western Allies willingness to launch an amphibious invasion it was more a question of will than ability. While earlier invasion/s may have failed due to low availability of trained and equipped troops, much of the consideration was to ensure the USSR would absorb most of the Axis inflicted casulties to ensure greater relative powers for the West at the end of the war. Maybe a mid game tech granting 10 capacity ships would work? Or modify the vanilla galley and limit movement speed to 1? To mimic the relative ease of creating a coastal invasion flotilla, but the real reason the Axis could never use such a force as they never managed to gain sufficient naval or air superiority in the English Channel? Or probably less likely to be acheivable, an auto built wonder whenever certain triggers are hit, such as Axis occupation of Moscow triggering a Western Allied flotilla building wonder, or Axis capture of Baku doing the same for them, to simulate the longer run rivalry between the 3 camps e.g Axis, Western Allies and Commintern.

Also the AI doesn't seem to know how to deal with roads getting bombed out through forests. So I was able to essentially funnel the Axis Barbarossa armoured attacks through Ukraine and 2 advantageous tiny gaps between forests in I think Belorussia. Because Germany didn't priotise rebuilding the roads which I strategically prioritised bombing directly ahead and behind their columns, when they attacked their units got bogged down in slow, easily scoutable columns I could then counter with Militia (see exploit below) built railroads, allowing me to focus on massively expanding industrial production to the point that within 20 turns I am succesfully taking out Finland and the Bulkans already!

The 'hack' was the USSR wonder National Conscription. I noticed I could build it but got an error as the newspaper pop up wasn't in one of the text files. I replaced it myself by manually typing the pathway the scenario said it couldn't find, and replacing the pop up with the Gestapo one (it was just the closest in the text file). Can I check was National Conscription intentionally removed? I am only playing on Regent- as I understand this makes combat and build penalties equal with the AI, however National Conscription is helping to soften early Axis assualts, and ironically by disbanding these units allowing me to massively buff railroad connections in remote parts of the USSR, as well as disbanding the units to hurry factories, refiniries and other goodies in otherwise very week Arctic Siberian towns.

I think on a higher difficulty National Conscription would be more balanced, but at Regent it feels unfair to immediately gain reinforcements in Norwegian towns I am capturing, and getting those economic and rail buffs in remote areas of USSR territory, and the excess Militia can be used to soften enemy columns in counter attacks. Also I am guessing the cost of 2 maintenance for militia is intentional, or they'd be even more OP right? Let me know, as I will restart if I am only supposed to be able to use local conscription centres. Also is regent high enough difficulty to realistically simulate difficulty for the USSR? I would be fascinated to hear your advice, and will try for the higher more realistic difficulty you reccomend =).

Response or not, you've done an awesome job. I've really enjoyed playing this and feel I have an enhanced understanding of how overwhelming the Blitzkrieg must have been to be on the recieving end of. Particularly within the constraints of the Civ 3 engine. Thank you for your skillful work creating this mod for us all!