Have played my Germany-Global/Random game far enough now to encounter the following:
1) The AI is lame. It does not do much to defend primary targets, nor does it react well once those targets are under assault. I know this isn't news, and that it also isn't due to Dale's programming. But I do wonder if there is something that can be done about it. Examples: UK "leaves the British Isles to their fate" while moving large armies around in Africa and posting a huge stack at Gibraltar (perhaps because it keeps flipping to Spain??); France "leaves mainland France to its fate" while moving large armies across Africa; you get the idea (note that this is also happening during the period BEFORE Italy enters the war). The AI will bring the UK/French navy to the North Sea but that's about it. Perhaps the fix to keep countries from moving their capitals will help some. But I wonder if there is some way to place 'something of value' which the AI has to protect? Possibilities: cultural 'wonders' in Paris (Arch de Triumph?), London (Tower of London?), etc. These wonders don't have to have huge production- or game-value, but there has to be some way to make the AI 'want' to protect them (e.g., by airlifting units from Africa to Europe, rush-producing defenders, etc.).
2) Smoke of War. Since I didn't see this in the fix list, I wanted to reiterate: I cannot see a damned thing behind the flames-of-war effect. A year later parts of France are still burning, but at least it doesn't matter since my army has moved on. Like I said earlier, it does not need to change the game-effect of reduced production from battlefield tiles, but I would like the option to turn off the smoke part so I can actually see what's going on. If there is already a way for me to turn this off, can someone tell me what it is?
3) Country Colors. France and one of the Spanish factions are both blue -- kind of confusing. Hungary and Yugoslavia are very-similar colors, as are Germany and UK.
4) Additional identification of Country/Leaders in Advisor screens. Mentioned earlier the possible diplomatic incidents from some country contacting you and you don't know who it is. Some simple linkage where it always has [leader name][country name]. Same thing would be useful for the military advisor screen. I know who the main leaders are, but trying to pick (sorry) Australia's leader-pic out among all the FDR clones is a bit trying. A tooltip popup when you put the cursor over the pic showing [leadername][country name] would help here too. Or use the flags in place of the leader pix on the Military advisor screen?
5) Map issues. Hopefully the culture thing has been fixed, but I too wanted to reiterate how anytime a city is taken the neighbor always absorbs all the surrounding territory. E.G., Spain absorbs most of mainland French territory, Sweden absorbs Norway, etc. It is enough that the cities are in revolt for the better part of a year, but it doesn't seem to be very realistic to have to run the culture slider to get your land back.
Also, as someone said, Athens should be attackable overland (Turkey's culture/border prevent it). Istanbul should be a port on both the Med. and Black Seas to represent the Bosporus (Historical/Random mode makes this moot, as Turkey isn't in the war; but Open Mode would allow whoever controls Istanbul to move ships in/out of the Black Sea -- shouldn't have to build a fort to make this happen). Someone already mentioned that there is a gap between the Maginot fortifications and Low Countries, allowing overland invasion prior to bringing the LC into the war.
6) Diplomacy Issues: In Random Mode, why is anyone asking Germany to switch to Democracy? Why even bother in Random (fine for Open).
). FIXED. (RR removed from Africa & Arabia)
April 1936!
