WW2 for Dummies

[Cherokee158]

Here's a new WWII in Europe scenario. My goal was to make a game that was easy to install, reasonably accurate and playable. You be the judge...feedback is welcome.

You can get it here:

fritzthefox.com/scenario.html

The game begins in 1940, just following the colapse of Poland, and ends in 1942, with the entry of the US into the war. I thought this offered the most interesting time frame for the European war, with lots of potential for what-if's. Realistically, once the USA entered the war, Allied victory was assured, and I have always hated WWII games that start after Germany has invaded Russia (like the popular Axis and Allies board game). By 1942, Germany had already made all of the big diplomatic and strategic decisions, and her course was set. Ah, but 1940: Russia is still a wild card, and many lesser allies could go either way. The game is balanced with Germany and Italy on one side, and France and Britain on the other. Germany dominates the land mass, but Russia looms like a shadow over every move Germany makes (will Stalin stab Germany in the back while her attention is focused on the West?), and Britain controls the seas.

Big fun. And also neatly sidesteps the problem of where the heck to put America, thus keeping the map a handy size. America's presence is only noted in abstract: Britain and Russia may build the improvement "Lend-Lease", which provides some monetary bonuses for them.

Scarce and vital strategic resources insure some lively diplomacy and bitter contests for the shipping lanes.

Some custom units, but not too many. It takes about three minutes to load on a 1 Ghz machine, but in-game performance is painless.

Curious to hear your opinions...it's new, so I am sure there are still some warts left. But it shouldn't scram on you.

 

[kuff-dam]

checked it out on editor, looks ok but try increasing city cultures to make more defined borders. a couple of city placements could do with changing but i'll let you know how it plays

 

[robacus]

what about the russian revival?
battle for brittan? Marshall tito? French and all the other partisans? The plots to kill hitler that sent him paranoid?

Noway can i argee with you that american entry was victory assured for the allies

 

[Cherokee158]

I'd be interested in hearing how you feel an Axis victory would have been possible after the US locked horns with Germany.
It seems very unlikely to me. If nothing else, the A-bomb would've settled Hitler's hash for good, and no other country (even Germany) had adequate resources to develop the bomb before the US did. It was probably the most expensive weapons project in history and, more importantly, most of the key scientific minds involved in it's development had already fled the Nazi regime by the time the war started.
Not that I am disinterested in your opinion. But I would like hear you substantiate it.

You are, of course, welcome to take your own editor to the game. I did include the USA as a civ, although it is not playable. In fact, there is a lot of interesting stuff in embryonic form under the hood that I opted to leave out of the final game, but left in the works, thinking someone might find it useful. (For example, the German Type XXI subs can be found if you open the scenario in the editor, but are not used in the game, since they were very unlikely to have been built before the last years of the war)

Someone with their own ideas of how the game should play out could probably do some fun things with the scenario... ---B

 

[Mobilize]

If Hitler would have concentrated his Panzer Divisions at Stalingrad he would've taken it and would eventually take Moscow. The entire Caucas Mountains meneuver was his failure in Russia. If Russia would've fallen I think Hitler could have won WWII with the British suiting for peace.

Theres 1,000,000 other things which Hitler could've done better, and if a lot of those would have happened the war could've turned out much differently.

But past those arguments, America did seal the deal. Fresh, well-trained, well-equipped troops in mass numbers usually wins a war against worn out enemies.

 

[Zeekater]

2 words: Dunkirk, Seelöwe.
If those 2, I'd be speaking German.

 

[Cherokee158]

It is an interesting topic for debate, although it ultimately depends on how you define victory. (Obviously, if you live in Belgium, your idea of an Allied Victory may be a little different than that of someone residing in Ohio)

Could Germany have really triumphed over Russia at all? There is a lot of assumption that, had Moscow fallen, Russia would have capitulated. But Napoleon entered Moscow before...and we know how that ended. Russia is a big place.
As for the US, it is obviously unlikely that Germany could've occupied the continental US, so there was no chance of Germany ever winning in that sense. The best Germany could've hoped for was a stalemate, with dominion over Europe, which is how I would define a German victory in this game.
Germany wins if she beats France and Britain, which would theoretically be sufficient to meet Russia on competitive terms and keep the US off the continent. She loses if the US has time to enter the war before she can manage it. I think those are reasonable victory conditions. (It also keeps the game from taking an entire season to play, which was a consideration)

 

[robacus]

heres my possible scenario of how hitler cud have lost that war without the usa entering. im not saying it happened or its my opinion but discuss it anyway.

Dec 1941- Europe

Hitlers forces have conquered from france in the west to outside the gates of moscow and leningrad in the east. reich troops also fighting in stalingrad weakens army group south while greece and the other balcan states rise against the nazis and attack the weak italian allies.

hitler seeing italy is now vunerable orders a full withretreat from north africa followed by the british across the meditaraen and into italy.

Finally at this point the russain bear wakens and lets roar at the germans wit marshall zukrov in the south while in the north amry groups north and middle and begin pushed back get caught in the pipet marshes and are destoryed by the rebuilt russain airforce.

Several other eastern european states occuppied or allied with the nazis suddenly rebel lead by czechoslovika try all are put down eventually but contribute to the russian advance.

While britian has now freed greece and parts of southren italy, hitler relieses that he must call in all his favours while the russains are still only outside warsaw.

he sends messages to franco, the king of sweden, vichy in france, eamon de valera demanding that they enter the war on his side. the counties see this as a threat and immedatly declare war on hitler.

Mussilini's party depose him and call for an uprising against the german occupiers in the north which helps the british more. the british take rome and milan and the germans withdraw into austria.Churchill and De Guelle together call for france to rise and quote "the time is right".

Eventually the Russians are outside berlin and the british/spanish/turkish army take all of italy. France rises followed by holland and belguim as britian lands large veteron but united at last british/irish and free french and polish troops in a safe french harbour take by the resistance.

Eventually what u get is a free france, italy, holland beliguim and maybe norway while russia woud have all of germany, all of eastern europe, possibly all of scandivana.

As a proud european i think i can safely say all of us from western side of the cold war are greatful for the americans for entering the when they did and boy howdy do u guys kick ass!

But all im saying its not impossible that europe cud have beaten hitler (but at more costly a price) and its definatly not impossible in civ for a scenario like that to happen.

im robacus leader of the eastern plagues that spreads like butter and i need a smoke.

 

[Zeekater]

Well, I'd like to respond to that, but I'm not going to go offtopic more, perhaps a mod can split this thread to World History?

 

[Klyden]

Loaded this up and tinkered around with it a bit and as with about anything, there is some good and some things that need to be worked on.

First, many of the units are actually what they are. The Germans feature Stukas, HE111's, ME 109's, etc. This all helps add to the feel of the game.

The Germans don't have oil to start with to build their better units (ships, aircraft and armor) and have to negotiate with the Rumania to get it, which is not that tough.

The unit density is low.. probably too low as many cities don't have a garrison at all and it simply takes a unit walking in to capture it. Infantry is more mobile than a lot of people are probably used to with a movement of 2. Ships are extremely fast as well.

Playing the Germans, I overan the low countries on the first turn and also took a undefended Strasborg. The RNG killed me as I launched an attack against Paris with a full strength panzer army (all three panzer corps) against 1 infantry and lost, or I would have taken Paris on the first turn. Adjusting the tech rate did not seem to do a whole lot as the minimum level is a very high 50 turns and going lower to get more money had minimal return.

I tried the Italians for giggles and was rather suprised that I could overrun Toulon on the first turn (nothing between the Italian border and the city and no group troops in the city).

I loaded the French up to take a look at them and was suprised to find 0 armor units in the entire French army to start with. I also learned that Paris only had the one infantry unit for group troops, so my attack as the Germans should have worked had the RNG been more kind.

Some things I think can be improved:

1. Tech tree needs work. Clean out all the stuff not used (looks like they added techs specific to this game and did not remove regular game techs). Tech may not play a role in this game by design because of the short duration, but it still should be cleaned up perhaps.

2. Units. There should be at least something in each city for groud troops. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the AI will do nothing until it gets troops built there for defence, so a AI run position is going to do nothing for the most part, giving a human player a big advantage in time and also the ability to concentrate what forces there are to take advantage of the situation. The other thing is that the AI will be unable to slow a human assault without loosing a lot of cities and perhaps having the position hurt severely. I would have to do some more testing on the units themselves to weigh out how they play. Also, with the very limited units in play, you are really leaving someone at the mercy of the RNG. (Case in point, my entire panzer army being wiped by a single infantry unit in Paris or the only ground unit the British have in Egypt losing to a fight to an Italian infantry unit). Things like Paris or Toulon falling on the first turn of the game simply should not happen under most circumstances.

3. I saw that plane bombing is lethal. Not sure that is such a good idea. Not sure if artillery is lethal or not because I could never get it to hit (went 1 for 5 or 6). Lethal bombardment against something (unless a ship is the target) is not a very good idea in most cases, because humans have a tendancy to build lots of whatever those are and use them enmass to kill enemy units with no losses to themselves.

4. As you have noted, the culture should be set high enough to to get a solid border, etc.

5. The two German battlecrusiers (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) have the same ratings as the pocket battleships. Considering that they were at least half again as big and had 50% more firepower than the other ships in main gun armament alone, I don't know that is all that accurate to lump them all together as the same thing.

Looking back and doing "what if" things have always been interesting and a lot of it is speculation. No one can say with 100% accuracy had they done this instead of this, then that would have won the war. Change the course of the war, yes, but not win it outright.

I think Germany controlled her own destiny for the most part into 1941. For the mistakes that were made (Dunkirk, Battle of Britain conducted wrong), she was still master of her fate after that. She could have take a more active role in the Med against the British and obviously, there are things that could have been done differently in Russia. I think Germany had until late 1942 to still have a good chance to win in Russia and still have time to deal with England. The other thing to consider is that Hitler declared war on the US.. not the other way around.

 

[Cherokee158]

Thanks, good feedback.

Unit movement has been adjusted to bring it into scale with the map and timeframe. Each turn is about a week...which is about how long it took Germany to roll through the low countries. So, yes, it's about twice what people may be used to. (I really wanted a two week turn, but that would've screwed up the game calendar)

Interesting point about the AI. I don't have a good deal of experience with scenario design for this game yet, so any insights into the behavior of the AI are welcome. (I tried a test game with the British, and found that AI Germany scrupulously avoided rolling through the low countries to get to France, since the AI is apparently not keen on violating nuetrality. Can you coax the AI into being an utter scoundrel? Hmmm)

I was trying to keep the unit density low for a few reasons, game performance and overall game play chief among them. I think a game with fewer units is more interesting to play, as you truly feel each loss. Unfortunately, the often all or nothing nature of the Civ combat can make that approach a liability. If enough people complain, I may double up the units. Right now, the historical to game ratio is approx 1 army (that is, three corps) to one unit, although armored units represent a corp sized unit.

The problem (from a gameplay standpoint) with deploying too many units is that the game rapidly degenerates into one tedious siege after another. The garrison untis may help that, though. I may make more liberal use of them, as per your suggestion...especially if it improves AI performance.

France lacks armored units because the French army did not deploy their tanks as large armored units, but scattered them piecemeal throughout their other units.

I agree the tech tree needs work. I would've liked to do more with it, but since I'm rather new to this, I was a bit leery of messing with it much. It is definitely on my to do list. It was a low priority for me, since there is little tech to be done in this scenario. Most of the really interesting innovations came later in the war. But I agree it would be better with some housecleaning, and maybe a few more things to research. As addictive as scenario making seems to be, I'm sure I'll be back to it

Good point about the Pocket BB's...I was in a quandry here. They almost need their own unit, but it's a lot of fuss for two ships. They are too weak to be BB's, and too slow to be cruisers.

Bombers are a wee bit more powerful, but not a lot. Interceptors are also more effective, though, so play remains balanced. I have played the Pacific War conquest many times, and got a little frustrated with inneffective air strikes and nearly useless interceptors, so I bumped them both up a bit. Dive bombers are much less powerful, but can make precision strikes.

Culture was something I paid little attention to in design, other than to yield some apporximate borders. I will play with it and see what improvements I can make.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!

 

[Happyman]

Gosh darn it guys sorry im a big history buff i would like to say the following things NO. Germany could have beat america in building the nuke untill 1942 the only reason they didnt was because they thought that (im right about this i watched a show on the the history channel about this) the war would have ended before they would have finneshed it No2 Napolion had entered moscow but he did not take petrograd and stalingrad did not exist it was volograd and it was not a big city for moral And PETROGRAD/ Stpetersburg was the capital in the napolienic era!!! So if the germans took moscow in WW 2 they would have crushed the russian fighting spirit because they actualy conquered the capital. The only reson the us made the a bomb was because of japan hitler didnt count on them bring the us into the war and if hitler conquered the soviot union the us would have refused to enter the war!! britain would be forced to surrender and america would have no foot hold to drop the nuke! when america entered the was Germany was not condemed the power scales where about equel. Anay way just wanted to say that no dis attended.

 

[Happyman]

Oh yeah im an american not some crazy canadian thinking the US sucks i love america but i also love fact.

 

[Klyden]

Actually.. the plane that became the B36 Peacemaker was being designed during WW2 and one of the specific requirements of the plane was that it could bomb Europe from the US non-stop. This specification was put in just in case England surrendered and the US had no available bases from which to bomb.

Of course, it getting through the swarm of jet fighters that the Germans would have available by the time it was operational is a different matter..

 

[sbporter]

According to this, the German abomb was very iffy...

http://www.luft46.com/armament/abomb.html

Simon

 

[Cherokee158]

I'm really more interested in scenario feedback than I am whether or not anyone thinks German could've won. This might be a more interesting topic for debate in another forum.

 

[Aeon221]

Just like to remind everyone that what happened with Nap has NO relevance to a modern industrial war. The Russians then didnt need the cities for much of anything. In a modern war, cities are absolutely essential. Had the Germans captured a major industrial center like Moscow, it would have ended badly for the Russians.

Not much to say about the game except keep up the good work ;p

 

[Happyman]

um the germans were working on a bomber like the peace keeper too.

 

[Klyden]

Yes, the Amerika bomber. I don't know that it would have been capable of carrying a nuclear device while the Peacekeeper certainly was.

Germany was also working on the next generation of rockets and those were being designed to launch at the US as well, but again, they would not have been able to lift a nuclear payload.

 

[Bueto]

Usa did capture alot of scientist from Germany when they gave up. In fact no one wanted to be captured by the Russian army so most of the scientist fleed to west to the US.

Germany knew how to build the Abomb but they didnt have the right stuff for it (some kind of water). Norway had what they needed but the partisan in Norway did a good job to stop the Germans. Japan did have the water too. That was why Germany loaded up an submarine early in 45 to ship it to Japan so they could develop the bomb.

So in fact it was the German scientist who built the bomb... Lucky for us they built it in the US and not in Germany or in Japan.

The same is for the jet fighters that Usa had in the Korean war.