WW2-Global

[LBPB]

DDAY Storm over USA - part 3


Another titanian battle taked place on sea, I dispatched 9 Yamatos to deal with the 2 remnants Iowa (and their escort) sent by the USN. Even if I had losses I stand firmly unitl all US ships where sunk...
I ordered my damaged Yamatos to regroup in the LA harbor to repair.


On land, I begun moving my troops east, near Phoenix. There, I encountered one of the last major allieds attempt to stop my invasion.
the US sent mass tanks divisions (Shermans, Pershings and Wolverines), appox 16 units. The Canadians sent Paratroopers (5 units). And the Dutch (!) sent 38 infantry !
And if my last bombing on USAF Airfields had knocked down the US Airforces, what was my surprise to see their operation backuped by the RAF !!! And this is a serious threat, they used at least 17 Halifax to weak Airfields installations in San Diego...

So the first move a my forces this week was to engage the RAF over Canada and their top notch Spitfires who kicked numbrous of my planes...
This will take some weeks until I could finish them off, since I can't spare much plane on this mission... the others have to continu the destruction of the communication network over the USA.


Next week, my diving bombers engaged the huges Allies forces near Phoenix, damaging enought of them to allow me a direct attack with my ground forces.
One more time a success with minimal losses...
This victory will speed the collapse of the USA.

After that I launched several attacks :
- One on Phoenix. The city fall easily.
- One on san Francisco. The city keep good this week... butmore of my renforcements are coming there.
- One on Seattle with my carriers based bombers. Weakening the city for the first time.
- One on the Texan oil fields to stop the Allies oil supplies.
- Numerous others over all vital networks connexion throught the country...

 

[Rocoteh]

Rocoteh,

Thank you for the excellent, very detailed scenario. I've been playtesting v1.6 at Monarch as Germany and had three early comments

1. The economic impact on England of the submarine war does not seem to be captured. The U Baots are good at killing destroyers and vice versa, but I do not get the impression that the hurt Englands productivity. Maybe it will be more evident when the US starts send troops and the U Boats can hit the transports, but for now, I do not see much effect. Maybe transports could carry "treasure" from North America to the UK something like the Age of Exploration scenario in conquests.

2. Benito's Italians run around like the Keystone Cops. In to Russia, out of Russia, into Yugoslavia, out of Yugoslavia. They don't start wars with people I don't want to go to war with yet, but they don't seem to be doing anything. Also, I cannot collocate with them or use their cities. I had to land on the beach at El Almein instead of unloading in Tobruck like a civilized Axis partner.

3. A trifling map nitpick. In West Africa between Accra and Kumasi you show Lake Volta. It's a lovely lake, about an hour's drive from my office here in Accra. But it wasn't created until the construction of the Akosombo Dam in the early 60's. During WW2, it was just a stretch of the Volta River.

Great scenario. These are minor points.

Otumfuo2,

Thank you for the positive words.

1. I agree. However the problem is with the game-engine, that does
not allow strategic warfare. What I hope for most with regard to CIV 4
is a strategic warfare module.

2. An AI-problem that one only can hope will be solved in CIV 4.

3. I will change it with regard to version 1.8.

Thank you and welcome back.

Rocoteh

 

[Rocoteh]

LBPB,

Thank you for the report.

"And the Dutch (!) sent 38 infantry !" LBPB

AI always have surprises!

The situation really looks good. I will not be surprised if AI
starts to collapse within 5-6 weeks.

Welcome back.

Rocoteh

 

[clearbeard]

its well worth the wait times.

After the computer makes its moves I start doing chores or errands around the house, laundry, picking up, etc etc and just stop by to see if its prompted me for any build orders!

If you set up the city governors to control the building, you'll not get any build order prompts. I then go into the domestic screen and adjust the build orders as necessary when my turn finally starts. The governor does adhere to build queues already entered and only chooses something new when it's empty. I don't let the governor produce anything, so it defaults usually to recon bombers, for some reason, at the end of the queues, so I know which cities to check just by sorting on production. That gives me an uninterrupted 20+ minutes to do stuff around the house, starting when the last foe makes his unit moves! Of course, on the current game that is much shorter, as the Allies are now confined to North America, Australia, and the south Pacific, and Russia is eliminated. The AI doesn't have so many cities to run through any more.

 

[LBPB]

DDAY - Storm over USA - part 4

This time the USA are collapsing, they aren't now posing any real threat to my advance...
San Francisco and Albuquerque are taken... Seattle is declared open city free from US troops.

While this all good things are happening, the second landing wave of my troops are coming from Hawaii, I redirect them north to attack Canada.

The only strategical point I need now is the Panama Canal... I redirect a part of my fleet there...

 

[Overlag]

amazing!

 

[Rocoteh]

LBPB,

Thank you for the report.

I agree, the US collapse seems to be near!

Rocoteh

 

[skanar]

In my 1.5 Brit game, the Finns captured Chengtu!!!!
Apparently the one Finnish infantry hanging around the Himalayas got lucky.
They've held it for a long time, cause the Chinese can't attack and the Japanese are their allies.

By the way, what's with the "wasted" resources? I see lots of pigs/deer in central Canada or Southern Africa that can't be used by any cities. Are they just for flavor purposes, or is there a settler unit that I have yet to discover?

Finally, some units seems extra expensive because of mobilization. Aircraft carriers, for example, have 0 attack, so they do not get the sheild bonus. If this is intentional, I can understand it, but it seems to me that mobilization ought to make bombers or carriers easier to build. Possible fix: add a nominal attack value to carriers. so, the C2 (I think) would be 1/12/5 rather than 0/12/5. It won't be attacking much successfully, and it WILL get the sheild bonus.

Oh, BTW, transports currently have a higher attack value that carriers! Most of the carriers were at least armed, with 20mm AA guns and some larger ordnance, while the transports often had no weaponry. There's at least some in-game justification for a higher attack value for carriers.

EDIT: Forgot to thank Rocoteh for the mention in the credits!

 

[Bob1475]

Great Britain - Emperor - v1.7
1940 Report

Matildas were brought on line in time to hold back the Japanese although there attack was not as significant as in earlier versions (or perhaps I was just better prepared?). In any case we eventually took the offensive and took back Hanoi, Kumming and Nanning.

The Germans were attacking through normal lines in India but were turned back with our airforce.

Inevitably the Russians attacked and horrific battles in near Kabul were won as a result of our defense (Mobile Artillery) and the Russians mistake of declaring war on the Germans while at war with the Allies. We took back Damascus from the Russians (who had earlier taken all of Turkey) before the Russians made peace with the Allies. After they took all of Finland and Poland they made peace with the Axis.

As the year ended we took back Sicily and are marching on Batang - the Germans had earlier joined in with the Japanese and now Germany holds 3 Chinese cities (they had Nanning until we took it).

Our Australian units drove back the surprise Japanese attack and have taken the offensive seizing Timor, Surabaya and FakFak. For many weeks any units sent to Singapore were sacrificed to intense Japanese air attack. Eventually we had to dispatch part of our Mediterranean fleet to sink their carriers. Fortunately they could never bring troups to bear because of active interception by the USN.

The German almost broke through our chokehold on the Atlantic - they brought to bear three of their BBS and destroyed our units. Reserve units have brought the situation back under control.

Canada is pumping out units and we land in French North Africa and rush to the front. Our intent is to drive the Germans out of Asia and then take a primarily defensive position vs the Japanese on the mainland. We hope the American will show up soon.

Our next step is to take Sicily and then drive up Italy to relieve our French allies and go to Berlin - hopefully in time to face the inevitable Russian attack.
France still holds four cities on the mainl

 

[Rocoteh]

In my 1.5 Brit game, the Finns captured Chengtu!!!!
Apparently the one Finnish infantry hanging around the Himalayas got lucky.
They've held it for a long time, cause the Chinese can't attack and the Japanese are their allies.

By the way, what's with the "wasted" resources? I see lots of pigs/deer in central Canada or Southern Africa that can't be used by any cities. Are they just for flavor purposes, or is there a settler unit that I have yet to discover?

Finally, some units seems extra expensive because of mobilization. Aircraft carriers, for example, have 0 attack, so they do not get the sheild bonus. If this is intentional, I can understand it, but it seems to me that mobilization ought to make bombers or carriers easier to build. Possible fix: add a nominal attack value to carriers. so, the C2 (I think) would be 1/12/5 rather than 0/12/5. It won't be attacking much successfully, and it WILL get the sheild bonus.

Oh, BTW, transports currently have a higher attack value that carriers! Most of the carriers were at least armed, with 20mm AA guns and some larger ordnance, while the transports often had no weaponry. There's at least some in-game justification for a higher attack value for carriers.

EDIT: Forgot to thank Rocoteh for the mention in the credits!

skanar,

On Finnish forces that capture Chengtu:I think its hard to avoid
that AI sometimes creates these type of absurd situations.

On "wasted resources": Countless of pre-release versions were
made before the first release. Some of the resources can be due to that.
However I will remove them in 1.8.

On carriers and transports: OK, I will change that.


Rocoteh

 

[Rocoteh]

Bob1475,

Thank you for the report.

"before the Russians made peace with the Allies. After they took all of Finland and Poland they made peace with the Axis. " Bob1475

No doubt, its a problem that German-AI handle its forces so bad.
Only seldom can German-AI conquer more tham 2-3 cities in Soviet.

"the Germans had earlier joined in with the Japanese and now Germany holds 3 Chinese cities (they had Nanning until we took it)." Bob1475

Strange!

Looking forward to hear more from this playtest.

Thank you and welcome back.

Rocoteh

 

[Sasebo]

Just a few comments on early USSR, since I am only up to week 48,1939. Soviets are cake early on Rocoteh, since they are not at war and can pick and choose when and where to fight. Overall, very weak production and not a lot of defense; I will have to see how this plays out.

Soviet air is almost useless with pitiful stats,low ROF, and no lethal bombard for land OR sea! Good range and recon ability though, so they do have some use. Cossacks are for some reason doing better then I thought they would with their low stats; the high hp seem to help a lot. Why can't AI build them?? What is with the T-26 having 2 AA ability!? I am tempted to buy a ton on them and use them in my cities for flak instead, then I would have a ready made armored reserve. Were these like 20 mm tanks or something? The infrastructure job ahead of me is truly daunting. All those bloody forests... I see you turned off the auto-production for the T34/76 factory wonder. IMO that is a bad idea; the AI needs the boost,and if it seemed too strong to you it might be better to just adjust the rate at which it pops out tanks. If it was like the Axis minors production it should be fine. I used to think the auto-production was too powerful until I realized all they basically get is the equivalent of 1 free city with X production....it seems quite weak now. Certainly none of the ones I've seen so far seem over-powered in the least. You have the German ones set particularly well.

On the game itself, I 'e overrun Turkey(auto-razed Trabzon , should not have bombed it.) since the Frogs wanted it, and would have grabbed it if I had not gotten there first. It literally was a race to see who got half the cities. There is no way I was going to let them get Istanbul, my major theme in this one is to get the Soviets free access to open ocean. Which is why I took Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, and have a landing force sitting next to Reykjavik as we speak. After that, Greece and Yugoslavia will fall! I've been watching the German/French fight near Paris with air recon; this Germany seems to be doing fairly well. I saw them attack and take out the Maginot fort in the Grassland with ground units! Paris is down to size 10; I think it will fall. Without distractions, German AI seems to be able to take mainland France at least, but it does take a while. They did throw their starting air forces away with constant bombing runs into heavy defenses. Japan also is doing pretty well, have taken up to Hanoi with Hong Kong holding out.

A couple of questions. Did I mention last time that you forgot the Do-17 was going to get recon ability? I changed my own .biq, but I don't remember if I mentioned it to you. Also the DDF seems to have new stats in the pedia entries, but it lists them at +20 hp...is that a typo? I thought you said you were putting them to +14 in one of your posts is all,just a bit of confusion here, which did you intend it to be?

p.s.: Since I can't build Cossacks, any chance we could get Guard Cavalry or Guard Infantry units for USSR? It feels kind of weird playing a WWII Soviet Civ without them. You could change that T34/76 factory to auto-produce one of these in fact, or have it buildable after 1941 Land tech perhaps. Maybe 7-4-2/+3 hp/80 shields for Guards Cavalry, 11/13/1/+3 hp/150 shields for Guards Infantry? Just some ideas there. What do you think?

 

[Rocoteh]

Sasebo,

"Also the DDF seems to have new stats in the pedia entries, but it lists them at +20 hp...is that a typo? I thought you said you were putting them to +14 in one of your posts is all,just a bit of confusion here, which did you intend it to be?" Sasebo

You are using the Civilopedia done by clearbeard.
Its excellent done, but yet not incorporated into WW2-Global by me.

Until that have been done I appreciate if I am not told I have done
typos or produced bugs.

I hope you understand how I mean.

Will be back tomorrow with more comments on your post.

Rocoteh

 

[Sasebo]

Oh fudge!! I feel so very,very stupid right now. Of course you are right Rocoteh, I didn't even realize. I'm so very sorry!

 

[Rocoteh]

Oh fudge!! I feel so very,very stupid right now. Of course you are right Rocoteh, I didn't even realize. I'm so very sorry!

Sasebo,

No need to feel stupid!

Your post are interesting and I will be back with more
comments on it tomorrow.

Rocoteh

 

[oljb007]

anybody mess with the "AI agression" on the scenario setup screen?

 

[Sasebo]

I have oljb007; I have it set on 'more aggressive' usually. I am not able to say for sure, but the AI does seem to launch riskier attacks; they will attack with an elite when it is down to 3-4 hit points even. It might be a better idea not to do that.

Rocoteh: It is week 4,1940 now, and a Marine unit popped out of the wonder in Irkutsk! Did you add that in 1.7? I have not played USSR before so I was wondering. I thought I had forgotten to change it's orders until I saw I had a building 1/2 completed there.

I've been keeping the border sealed because I am using a ROP with Germany and Finland, but I think I need to open it soon. Germany has jsut finished off mainland France, and I don't want them to think they are boxed in. They only razed Marseilles, and I can't figure out why since it was size 17 at the time and no French troops were anywhere near it. The Panzer IIIgs are squishing France very easily in conjunction with SS Infantry units.

 

[William Mitchel]

French ver. 1.5 at demigod with normal AI aggression. first post. to week 25 of 1940 (second game as france)

General: used the same general strategy that i outlined in my previous post (destroy roads leading into france, build fortifications and armor, no science - use money to accelerate builds, bombers to africa and fleets to med to destroy italian improvements, etc.) this strategy really seems to be the most effective.

Conclusion: the french are viable at this level as well. i never lost territory in france and was able to eventually take mainland italy. (the italians are very vulnerable to bombing/shelling - i have trashed their economy now as either british or french.)

Possible Bug: in all games played, in central africa, garrisons for some french (/ belgian?) cities are not in the cities, and cannot be moved into them.

Game Flow: germans and russians trash turkey within first 10 turns of the game. german forces kept going south - never saw an army on french border (don't know if preparation encourages AI to shy away). germans swept thru middle east and were actually down in the congo. most cities to fall were british. i made french north africa into a production area and cranked out enough tanks to provide a defense and take out a few italian cities. at this point, italians are greatly reduced and have no economy to rebuild. ussr just declared war on axis (as in my first game, just a little later). finally got a leader, which i used to build intel center. finally got a spy in japan and was able to steal my first tech level. a lot harder than i thought. still can't get one in germany. never did build any air - just used it very carefully.

if ussr had stayed out, this would be more in doubt - but now just looks like a matter of time to build critical mass of proper units for city-crunching. have seen other posts indicating that ussr may make peace later. i will try to keep this one going a little longer to see what happens.

 

[Grizx]

Rocoteh

Update on Britain SID Ver 1.7

After defeating a major German attack from Turkey into the mideast, was able to use newly arrived Matildas to go on a limited offensive to take Turkey. Had to strip forces from the Persian/Russian front and from Burma to do this, but a good rail network made it possible. Took quite a few casualties slogging through Turkey. Matildas may be OK on defense but they are not offensive powerhouses.

The advantage of gaining control of the choke point at Istanbul was well worth the cost. With Istanbul in my control and well-garrisoned, was able to quickly release forces back to the other fronts.

German navy continues to attack through the North Sea and English Channel. German AI is building a lot of DDF's and bombarding London then retreating to its haven at hamburg. Very annoying.

The front at Istanbul has been static for some time now. The German AI seems unwilling to attack my strong position at Istanbul and I do not yet have the combat power to attack into Europe.

Getting some light attacks by German and Italian infantry divisions down through the Caucasus towards Tabriz and Baghdad. But they have been easily defeated at a distance by airpower. This has been helped by the recent arrival of the first Lancaster bombers.

The Persian/Russian front was quiet until last turn when approx 13 German Panzer divisions attacked South towrds Meshed (Persia) and the Khyber pass. This attack too is being defeated with air power.

On the front with Japan Britain, continues to be on the defensive. Port Morseby is well defended, as are Singapore, and Labuan. Even Hong Kong is still holding on although it is under constant bombardment by DDF's and 2 Yamato BB's.

The Burma Line, although lightly defended is still holding strong. Japanese SNLF divisions continue to attack towards Dehli and Lucknow from Lhasa. British use of air power has been contrained by Japanese Zero's, so am transferring Spitfires to that theater to gain air superiroity.

Overall, Britain has been on the defensive buying time to build the economy throughout the British Empire. It was very dicey for a while, but all fronts are now anchored on strong points and favorable terrain with good kill zones in front of all positions.

As research and combat power build up, I will look at taking the offensive.
Would like to start by opening up a land link to Singapore by taking the Thai cities. Lhasa is also an objective in order to end the attacks on India originating from there.
Then I am considering taking Norway and simultaneously starting a major air campaign to obliterate Geramn ports on the North Sea.

The US AI has still not invaded Mexico. But it has sent almost its entire land army up into the Canadian tundra in search of Santa Claus. I think putting US obersvation posts/weather stations up there for the start of the scenario will help stop this.

France has been doing well. French cities in North Africa have been producing a lot of Somua tanks (and nothing else). I actually think that France is able to produce too many Somuas too easily. Their combat stats seem about right but you might look at upping the shield cost. Have been able to use the Frecnh tanks by channeling them to the front where i need them most.

The German AI is doiing well and is now at the outskirts of Moscow and starting to take out the remaining French cities in Southern France.
This game the German AI has been a very good and challenging opponent. I am thinking that this may be partly becasue I amde irrigation and mine improvements on all German-controlled terrain squares in the editor before I started the game. I also gave Germany 15 combat engineers. I did the same thing with improvemtns on the Japanese home islands and gave Japan 15 combat engineers in Tokyo and in Korea; plus started Japan with two additional transports. I think this has also made the Japan AI more competitive.

RE: your comment on the German AI attacking Turkery. I don't think that has to be fixed. The quickest route for Germany to attack Britain is through Turkey to Suez. I take it as a good sign when the German AI attacks Turkey that it will be a good game.

Specialist units: Russia, US and Italy AI's are producing mostly marines and parachute units. Have not seen a Russian tank yet. Perhaps what should distinguish special untis like marines and parachute untis should not so much be increased cobat power but rather their special abilities. The AI's will not use these special abilities very much, but human players will. The AI's are building these specialized units as the most comabt effective units instead of front line infantry and tank units. I think the cost of parachute and marine units should be increased or their combat stats reduced. (with an exception for US Marine units).

Light Cruisers: I like the changes you made to light cruisers. I have found them very useful in ver 1.7 whereas before I just used them as cannon fodder. I am amazed at your dedication in making 16 classes of light cruiser. If you find that number hard to for future versions, we could get by with fewer classes. But the overall effect is very good.

Grizx

 

[Grizx]

Screen shot 2

Ver 1.7 SID Britain