R.E.D. WWII: Concepts & Suggestions

Hello everyone - I hope you'll think this as good, if insignificant, idea as I do: I think it would be cool to have all bombers be able to do a 'supply drop' for troops that are cut off from supply lines. The amount that the cut off unit could heal would be porportional to the class of bomber or somehting like that. I have had some of my favorite units get cut off, and slaughtered many times, and I thought this would be cool if possible. Thanks for your attention and thanks for the great mod!

 

Windows update killed off the German conquest of the planet, so I started a new game as Russia on Diety level.

A couple of things really stand out. Starting with 3 Infantry, 3 Tanks, and 2 Light Fighters to defend the entirity of the USSR would be impossible, except for the idiocy of the AI.

1) The agressor must be more aggressive. Especially Germany. Perhaps some thought needs to be put into the AI's behaviour to balance different phases / events

2) The amount of Time wasted waiting between turns while various scenarios played out between the Italy, French, British and German airforces was ludicrous. Not so noticeable in when playing Germany yourself, but when Germany has over 20 aircraft bombing various cities / units in France, supported by Italy, and the UK's bombing runs on Paris... I'd have prefered to skip displaying the AI turns. I guess the answer is not to display the cities on the map. Which causes other issues.

3) If the game is going to hold to scripted events, ship build-limitations, and declarations of war, as opposed to a startup situation that then plays freely, it needs to better emulate the Russian economy and armed forces as of 1939: http://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Orders-of-Battle/Russia/Red-Army-1939.htm

There are various ways you can restrict the bear from being too aggressive: Prior to Declaration of War by one of the other major powers, units may be required to prevent unrest, or limit the distance they can move from the center (Moscow). Enough to capture part of Rumania, parts of Finland, and part of Poland, but not enough to enter Germany. Alternatively make the quality of the Russian troops much, much lower, until a major DoW.

 

Another option is the Faster Aircraft Animations mod. It's pretty much essential if you're not going to use strategic view.

 

Can you get strategic view to work? It only shows artillery!

 

Is that the only reason we can't use the Strategic view? Because we don't have icons for all the units? I suppose we want different icons for each type of armour, infantry, aircraft and naval vessels. How many icons are we discussing? A couple of hundred? I don't have the time right now, but I'll think about what I can start to contribute with in 6-8 weeks. I'll go check see what is needed for an icon.

 

This may be a long post, so be warned
1. Balance for light tanks is a little off. The L6/40, Panzer 35(t), T-26, and 7TP should ALL be buffed to 44. My reasoning is as follows:
I.For the L6/40, the following is from "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles" (pg295)

II.For the T-26, as much as I hate Wikipedia, here I must quote it:

(Address is here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_history_of_the_T-26)
III.For the Panzer 35(t), I'm quoting a website called "achtungpanzer.com" (Link is here: http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzerkampfwagen-35t.htm)

IV.For the 7TP, I again quote "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles" (pg353)

2. Italy's starting tank strength is way off. Again quoting the trusty "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles" (pg280)

In this quote, medium tanks mean M11/39s, light tanks mean L6/40s, and tankettes mean L3/33s, L3/35s, and Fiat 3000s. So what does this mean?
I. Italy, when the 1939 scenario starts, should have an M11/39. And that's it, for normal tanks, at least.
II. The tankettes need to get in the game ASAP. Because they WERE important, if ineffective.

3. The Polish 10TP is currently a medium tank. It should be a cruiser tank. Quoting "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles" (pg354) again:

And again:

4. As kind of a side note, the Panzer 38(t) needs to get added. My reasoning, "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles" (pg346)

I tend to think one quarter of the Panzer arm was fairly important.
I. Also, when the Panzer 38(t) gets in the game, it should be around 56.
My source is the same as the above

By "same generation French medium tanks", it means the Souma S35, which is currently 56.

 

After playing around some more, here is a list of things I'd like to see changed:

1) I don't understand why aircraft manufacture is divided into three seperate factory types, two of which are mutually exclusive. Nor why Land Factories mean you can't produce fighters. I'm not understanding the real world logic behind this decision.

2) Part of the war in the Pacific, was about building aerodromes on dinky remote islands. The current map allows you to fly anywhere there is a town. I'd have liked to see two city improvements and an engineered map improvement instead: airfield (engineer-built; max stack size for aircraft 1) aerodrome (city improvement, max stack size for aircraft = city size or 3, whichever is lower) / airport (city improvement, max stack size for aircraft 5) These improvements shouldn't get destroyed by attacking the city.

3) The naval war: the current game plays out very differently from the naval war. The reason no navy went overboard on producing battleships (despite several hulls being laid down prior to the war starting) during WWII was the shift to airpower, and the realisation that airpower and aircraft carriers were far more important. Aircraft carriers are currently useless in the game, because even level 8 aircraft cannot sink battleships or cruisers in a timely enough fashion. With only 3 aircraft per carrier, it'll take 3-4 turns to sink the damn thing at best. So the player cranks out all the battleships/cruisers he can, because they are the path to dominate the seas (pre-WW2 thinking). If you instead increase the power of aircraft vs non-destroyer ships, fleets cannot approach coastlines with impunity, and the value of an AC goes up. Additionally if destroyers are the navy's AA, then the player now has a reason to produce them.

 

My computer doesn't really run normal view very well...

The three factory types makes sense but why you can't build all 3 beats me. I'm pretty sure a big city like London would have all 4 factories and a ship yard.

Maybe the improvements can be 'knocked out' for a turn, meaning that the bombers or fighters may not be able to scramble. Or maybe, if the attacking plane suffers less than 3 damage from the attack, planes based in the airfield can get damaged a bit.

I agree, naval power needs to be balanced but also, planes shouldn't be able to do much damage against destroyers and destroyers should always be able to intercept but most of the time do 1-3 damage. Aircraft carriers aren't available in Europe 1939-1945, which is a disadvantage to England.
Also, England used fighter planes to attack German submarines and it was a great success.

 

Torpedos, like the fairy swordfish?

 

Would be good, but I don't think anyone has made a Swordfish yet.

 

And converting the maginot fortification.
About the maginot forts, maybe artillery guns can have a 'convert to fortification' command that takes 2-5 turns to create.

 

After 115 turns I have only built my army (had to quit building it after turn 80 or so because of the money issue!) and watch japan fight china.
Is this something you made on purpose?

I know in 10-20 turns the ww2 should start with germany attacking poland.

Playing as Germany btw.

 

Akrapovic it sounds like your playing Earth 1936 map, not Europe 1939. If you play the 1936 map you will have to wait for a hundred odd turns until the european theatre begins.

If you play in the 1939 map the war will start after 10 or so turns. The 1939 map is europe only, but its porbably better when playing germany anyway.