R.E.D. WWII: Concepts & Suggestions

I don't know, I need to see how it works in game, and that take time. Too much. I really want higher resolution for the base materiel of the diplo screen, and there is no DoM screen IIRC, I also need to check the unit reskins, I want those to be visually different from the one already used. Give me days of 48 hours, and I can promise Hungary in game in a month... Else, well, I really don't know.
 
Ok, time for a long answer :D

I./


If it's a question of more upgrade path using existing classes, that can be change by users by editing the g_UnitUpgrades table, but IMO the way it is limited now shows how the U.K. engineers have tested a lot of wrong paths before reaching the first great main battle tank design.
I definitely had more upgrades in mind, primarily the 6 pdr gun which can be done without reskinning imo, on the one hand, and taking into account the early design flaw (ie no HE ammunitions and therefore a penalty against infantry) of all British tanks, on the other hand.

The 6 pdr gun should make a nice project that would make the Valentine VIII, Crusader III (already in but could use an attack score upgrade since it has the same gun as the Cavalier), Churchill MkIII or IV, Churchill Mk VII (up armoured) available, similar to the attack plane project for instance?

Generally speaking, such projects should be available for AT (mostly) and AA guns/vehicles (regardless of nation). You probably know that the German engineers managed to use a lot of French 75mm as AT guns (7,5cm Pak 97/38) after some reengineering (mostly a new carriage&HEAT ammo) and of course the Free French at Bir Hakeim (without the reengineering, but against easier to knock out than the Germans in USSR). Nice as a cheaper alternative to the 7,5 Pak 40 that is probably the model for the current AT gun, and could be used as an infantry upgrade.

I.7/ Difficult to balance dynamically. But there is a fixed ratio table used in the 1939 Europe map (g_Max_Armor_SubClass_Percent) that can be changed, and it can be combined with a modification to the initial OOB. Now there is still the game play problem, most players expect the German AI to crush France at the beginning of the war, something that would not happens if we use realistic OOB with the game mechanisms.
Well I mentioned the Battle of France because it's really amazing there, but even on the East Front there are too many AI tanks - but I'll try to set up something for this specific scenario on the relevant thread (a save with some twinking).
 
Right this should be the right place although this thread could use some serious cleaning..
Germany's navy! it is insanely annoying (how ever historically correct) that the German navy has such a severely limited size only 2 Bismark class battleships is just plain mean. This is of cause fine and dandy in the strictly historical games where you, playing Hitler make all the stupid depositions and never would consider building more then two of the best battleships in the world and never use them as a unit working together to take on that beast that is the British navy.
Now i know a free play mode is in the workings and the earth map is coming along if you want to have any chance as Germany on the world map you will need to take on the American navy and if free play alternate history is allowed limiting the German navy to the historically correct number of ships needs to be changed.
I would even like to see it changed as is there must be some historical reference to ships on the drawing board or ships that had been commissioned but where scraped when because of the change in tactics and the progress of the war...
sticking to the subject of the German navy... maybe a unit upgrade like the one the french musketeer has where they get bonuses when in base contact with other musketeers would be in its place to represent the wolf pack tactics employed buy the Germans it could be an upgrade project...
 
One way to do that would be to enable players to designate certain units to receive upgrades first, first priority on reinforcements and also to change to the latest equipment type automatically.

that is planned.

I also plan to add "guard" name for some Soviet units after reaching a high level.
 
A couple of broad points about 1939-1945 Europe:

England needs to put more units into Suez. At least half of all of its armor should go to Africa automatically, and virtually all of its newly made armor before 1945

I would strongly encourage a couple of automatic triggers. Whether they are actual projects or not, doesn't really matter:

UK: Late 1940, spawn 4 armor (with desert rats promotion), 4 infantry, 2 spitfires of the latest model, and 2 attack aircraft in Suez[Defense of Egypt]
Germany: Early 1941, Spawn 3 armor, 2 infantry, 2 bf109's in Tripoli. [Operation Sonnenblume]
Germany: June 1941, spawn 10 armor units, 10 infantry units, 4 howitzers and 4 field artillery in Poland and in Allied Romania, to push in to Russia [Operation Barbarossa]
Russia: October 1941, Spawn 25 Infantry, 5 armor, 4 aircraft in the Urals, with orders to move to the front.
UK: March 1941, Spawn 5 Infantry, 5 armor off the coast of North Africa in the Atlantic [Operation Torch]

These would be a good start, and they should be as big as possible within reason to simulate an overwhelming assualt.

Generally, there needs to be a coinflip decision for the AI when Germany is played by the AI, about whether to commit everything into invading England or to not try to invade England at all, and to instead commit to defending fortress Europe and invade Russia. The AI's tendency toward attempting to do everything it's programmed to do and only really doing it in a mediocre fashion leads to stagnant games without a whole lot of movement. As the flagship 'big scenario,' some toying with the LUA or whatever internal mechanisms govern such actions might make for a better repeat game performance.

Its unreasonable to expect the AI to analyze your own game play and react intelligently to your own movements. But what is within reason, and eminently achievable, is to program in some randomized strategic efforts.


On an unrelated note, every 'none-major civ' city that gets occ'd should spawn supply convoys heading home. Tunisia/Algeria/Morocco should send supplies to Vichy France, and Vichy France should give tremendous supplies to Germany. A feature like this would be nice for the world-sized scenarios, but it'd be a good start for 1939-1945 as well.

French spec ops/partisans should spawn every 3-5 turns in France, and on the order of at least 2 of them, and as many as 4, at once. Any tile taken by them should auto-pillage. A similar effort in Russia would be really nice, especially if they focused on taking railroads and railroad river crossings, because those are a pain in the ass to take if you're on the wrong side of them.
 
England needs to put more units into Suez. At least half of all of its armor should go to Africa automatically, and virtually all of its newly made armor before 1945

I usually play as britain, but I think that there is already coding that britain sends units to both Norway and the suez unless their under attack, but I agree that the North african campaign could be opened up a bit more. Generally all that seems to happen is that Italy quickly takes over, or if you play as britain you send a bunch of reinforcements and take Libya.

Operation torch or sonnenblume could be a good idea, but a check would have to occur so that it wouldn't launch the effort if north africa is already won or lost, or it just ends up with a dumb AI invasion like seelowe.

But playing too closely to real life events does take a bit of the fun out of it. I mean, operation seelowe never really happened, but it's fun to play as a sort of what if scenario. But more german action in north africa could be something to look at, as well as a possible Italian attack on malta.

Germany: June 1941, spawn 10 armor units, 10 infantry units, 4 howitzers and 4 field artillery in Poland and in Allied Romania, to push in to Russia [Operation Barbarossa]
Russia: October 1941, Spawn 25 Infantry, 5 armor, 4 aircraft in the Urals, with orders to move to the front.

I don't think that giving the germans more units would be a good idea, though certainly placing them before the war in romania would be a good idea. What I often see is the germans advancing from poland to moscow, while the russian line in the southeast advances into romania.

A 1941 launch of troops from the urals is a good idea, forcing the a german player to go for a quick victory over moscow, though if the player is russia it could interfere with the unit limit.

Then again I wouldn't advise adding more operations until the current ones are fixed. Certainly seelowe is broken, as the AI will keep launching more soldiers across the channel even if their no beach head. This stops when russia attacks, but watching them take warsaw when they are supposed to be the ones being invaded is a little irritating.

French spec ops/partisans should spawn every 3-5 turns in France, and on the order of at least 2 of them, and as many as 4, at once. Any tile taken by them should auto-pillage. A similar effort in Russia would be really nice, especially if they focused on taking railroads and railroad river crossings, because those are a pain in the ass to take if you're on the wrong side of them.

I think partisans are already planned. Also partisans in yugoslavia would be good, though I find that greece tends to cling on for quite a while.
 
Partisans in general i think would be tremendous, and i am encouraged that they are already planned.

Generally, i think the German AI needs to be given a 'checklist', or something of an 'audible checklist', to give the game some randomization. Either it commits wholly to invading england, or it decides to bulk up units for the invasion of Russia. Romania needs to be allied a bit earlier, say 2-4 turns prior to Barbarossa, and with that, something along the lines of:

If Minsk is Russian, take Minsk
If Minsk is German, take Kiev
If Kiev is German, take Smolensk
If Smolensk is German, 'consoldate borders,'
In 1942, if Smolensk is German, either advance on Stalingrad OR advance on Moscow OR Advance on Leningrad

The AI could be governed by such a logic, and to fully commit 50%+ of its unit count to such an endevour would be logical and good for the realism of the game.

As an audible, it could substitute smolensk for Sevastopol or Riga or any other 'secondary objective' beyond Minsk and Kiev, which are unimpeachable primary objectives. Kiev especially, given its relative isolation on the Map.

But yes, i think generally that the existing operations need to be fixed first. Seelowe should be bigger but a single event, and it shouldn't spawn automatically but be governed by some chance alternative toward wholehearted commitment towards africa or russia, and some randomness as well.

More allied operations in general would only be good. I would strongly encourage toward 'simple, large unit assualts' more than anything else.
 
Seelowe is a simple operation, launched once, after preparation.

what you see after is the "reinforcement route", it's that part that need tweaking.

I strongly encourage those interested to learn Lua and look at the code, the mechanisms are there, it's "only" a matter of giving it more data, and checks (those are the harder part if you don't have programming experience)

ATM giving the AI specific objectives is not something that can be done simply, but I hope to get some events in the DLL to help on that part. But that's long term.
 
The Germans had a monopoly on self propelled artillary, Vesp, Hummel, that gave them a big advantage on the battlefield.
You must be misinformed. The Free French used 75mm guns mounted on the rear of lorries (canon porté in French, it's the origin of the portee guns of the UK troops) as early as 1940, albeit in some numbers, the Red Army though it wasn't their primary purpose had the ISU152 and of course, later on, the Katyusha, the US army had the M7 Priest (and some on halftracks ealier), the UK had the Bishop and later the Sexton, etc.

I usually play as britain, but I think that there is already coding that britain sends units to both Norway and the suez unless their under attack, but I agree that the North african campaign could be opened up a bit more. Generally all that seems to happen is that Italy quickly takes over, or if you play as britain you send a bunch of reinforcements and take Libya.
I'm not sure UK and France send any unit to Norway, but they should as AI, but I do agree that the NA early war theatre could use some polish. As the UK it's quite tough to survive there if Seelöwe is happening (and whether or not it should happen...) conversely neither Italy nor Germany appear to react much to a UK conquest there. I agree that the NA campaign should be challenging, but right now it's hard to survive there as a player except as Italy which has too easy a time, and in everygame I've played (Europe 39 scenario) UK AI gets wiped out there and is too busy with Seelöwe to do much of anything!
 
While we're speaking about simple changes, alternative history mod option should totally disable all automatic declarations of war, operations, scripted events, and automatic teams.

I want to be able to invade Italy as Germany, invade France as Britain.

Some kind of 'random personalities' where France or Russia was despised in the run up to 1939 like Germany was might be a nice tweak too. It'd just increase the replay value of the mod, something i know basically everyone is eager to have.
 
beta *soon*

next update is dependent of the beta results and the possibility to fix the convoy bug. If I had to guess I'd say 1 month minimum.
 
On the same topic, an Italy that wouldn't align with the Axis would be nice for the 1936 scenarios, since history wasn't written yet at that point: Mussolini opposed the first Anschluss and was still a possible neutral or ally as late as 1938, an option for an alternate history where only Germany and Japan would be part of the Axis could be interesting in those scenarios.
 
beta *soon*

next update is dependent of the beta results and the possibility to fix the convoy bug. If I had to guess I'd say 1 month minimum.



I'd be willing to beta test for playability/bugs if you needed. not difficult to stick everything on fortify/wealth and just scroll through the turns
 
I think that the player should get options. Like when Germany has fallen, UK gets a message saying "Do you want to commence Operation Unthinkable (attack Russia)?". Or Germany on september 1st "Do you want to Attack Poland?" if not, an Alliance with France/UK + Germany against Russia. And France on fall of Paris "Do you want to surrender?".
 
Firstly, I'd like to say an immense "Thanks!" to everyone involved for an amazing mod: really felt like the best game I've played all decade. World 1936 seemed unstable, so I ventured into Stalingrad, (Brilliant way to bring home the importance of supply routes, and capturing terrain) and currently am enjoying Europe 1939 (only got as far as October 1940, so far)

I hope you understand that I haven't had the patience to wade through the entire thread, so bear with me as I try to say what I thought worked less well. PLease, please remember that this is in context of what I think is the best mod ever, elevating a hum-drum game piggybacking on former glory to a fantastic masterpiece. R.E.D WWII is just so good. It is a game I'll be replaying many, many times.

1) Units. It had to be said, so here is my view point. Why do we have minor variations of some basic models (T34, T34/76, T34/85) which could actually be interpreted as "promotions" of the basic type in game derived from XP-giving buildings in production, when there are entire weapon platforms that are not covered? German units (for instance) I'd like to see covered: (forget Maus...a three-of-a-kind 1945 prototype doesn't register) Instead FW200, Me163 (Rocket Fighter), He162 (People's Fighter), V1, V2, And submarines Type XI, Type XXI, and Type XXIII, and the hull of the Graf Spee were all designs that could have affected outcomes of battles (real or imaginary). I realise this is somewhat constrained currently by a limit on the number of different unit types.

2) Unit repair ratio: How set in stone is the number 20 for describing the ratio Personnel / Material? Somehow, this doesn't quite capture the true distribution of costs, between weapons platforms. Has it all been considered to have different number of basic weapon types? (10 Infantry (9/1), 15 Paratroopers (12/3), Light Tanks 20 (8/12), Medium Tanks 25 (8/17), Heavy Tanks 30 (8/22), Type VII Sub 30 (12/18), excetera.

More to come, but I have to catch up on some sleep.
 
Thanks for the comments :)

1/ Unit's types are limited by the available 3D models, but there are still a lot to add, and next version of the mod will feature some of them. And there will be some "what if..." units.

2/ I think you're the first one to point that, but it was something I wanted to change since a while now, and you'll be happy to know that with the new way I'm initializing units stats, the development version don't use the "ratio on 20" model anymore for reinforcement.
 
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.
 
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