I'll have a rec. on the MRD and maybe will do a few turns as France; I think I am done with Italy for now due to Soviet issues. A summary of my more recent turns of Italy 1.2 follows:
Week 39- Manila falls to Japan,Foochow razed. Japan declares war on Soviets! I am currently invading Greece,took Thessaloniki.
Week 40- Romania DEAD!
Stacks of Soviet armor show up on my border near Belgrade.
Week 41- Hungary DEAD!
Palawan Falls to Japan. I begin to mass air & artillery in Belgrade. I kill a couple MRD.
Week 42- I finish Greece off, invading Crete. Soviet armor builds. I kill 1 or two more. I am not mentioning it, but they are chopping up my units, even fortified in cities.
Week 43- US declares vs. Turks. I neglected to mention Turks & Greece were at war for most of the game. Turks chased Greek navy to the atlantic.
Germany takes Lublin. Japan razes Wuhan.
Week 44- Cyprus falls. Yay!
Petsamo,Kuipiu in Finland falls. I lose 5 infantry, kill 5 MRD in response.
Week 45- Kemi, Warsaw,Lublin,Honto fall to Soviets. Japan takes Panay. I kill 4 MRD and a tank Division near Belgrade. US fleet of 3 BB shows up near Spain, and I kill a small task force of UK near Sicily including a Transport.
Week 46- Vaasa, Tampere fall to Soviets. Germans take Vilnius. I forget to wake up my infantry and move five more into Belgrade, and I am pretty much ready to hang it up for now. Some thoughts...
Italy seems fine so far as balance. They have to struggle hard to make anything, but their navy rules the med! I did take Yugoslavia,Greece and Cyprus. Those one square Islands are going to be really hard for Italy to take without marines, and they don't have any to start.
But the pace seemed right, and you have a fighting chance. I needed those offshore platforms pretty bad, it was good you included them. I still felt weak economically vs. what I managed in China but that was the Allies strength. I notice I don't have the ability to build Heavy Artillery, why is that??? Also, after a ton of naval bombard, I think there MAY be something wrong with CA bombard. I hit almost never with them. BBs seem to do much better even though they only have 2 more firepower. I was able to bomb roads on plains say with a bomber fairly easily; the CA just don't seem to get it done, I can't figure out why. I am talking about maybe 4-5 bombard hits out of say 55 tries? It just seems off. Maybe bump their ROF to 2?
I noticed a lot of food resources are outside of City radius', was there any reason you did that? It is kind of annoying.
I massed something like 18 artillery, my 3 DB and 3-4 bombers in/near Belgrade. I DID kill MRD,quite a few of them actually. They just had endless numbers it seemed. I think Germany is strong enough to hold their own even against the 1.2 version, but it will kill their Axis allies straight off. I don't know if you want to simulate the Axis advance into USSR but if you do then you need to seriously weaken the Soviets or it is all over. I am not complaining here either, I know you are well aware of this and I see in your last post you wanted more feedback.
I look at the raw stats and you have USSR paying 130 shields for a 21-19-2 while my best defender is a 5-8-1 for 100...and their cites are spread out more and I am betting are way more shield productive. No way can we hold those #$$%$ off. Both in Italy and China games Axis minors got pounded and taken out.
Not sure how you want to correct this but I have some ideas. I notice you had early versions of Soviet troops in your Barbarossa scenario that upgraded later,1941 say. If you made early versions that were low on hit points and bumped them with extra hit point versions in 41 and 42-43 this would help a lot I think. I know from playing China that starting with 3 hit point regulars is a very tough row to hoe attack wise. I know they have the raw numbers of equipment,and you want to show that in the stats, but their showing on the real battlefield indicates you need to really chop they down in the first couple years. So less hitpoints AND lower stats; even if you dropped the MRDs defense down to 13 like it was in 1.1 that attack of 21 was deadly. Even the 14 attack T26s were killing me;I was losing like 7-8 units a turn in Belgrade at the end,they chewed right through my infantry. I could not sustain that loss rate which is one reason I gave up the game, I could see the writing on the wall.
I'd suggest 16-13-1 in 1939, then 18-15-2 in 1941, then 21-19-2 in 1943. Adjust the cost a bit higher maybe too,you really can't tame these demons too much. I wasn't even into 1940 yet, and they had already overrun eastern europe.
Take a hard look at the Soviet armor in general. If you can make early & late versions for more of them it will help a lot.
You also might want to do what you did with Turkey, and give the Axis minors some Special Fortress 1-15-0 units in their home cites. The idiots take all their infantry and leave them half empty! Take away some of their starting Infantry to make up for the increase in strength. If you give the minors these, you might not have to do too much to the soviet tanks. It's that high attack vs. their 8 defense that is slaughtering them. The minors may get their armies in the field decimated, but their home cites will keep them in the game a lot longer. 2 to 4 of those Fort Infantry per city should do it.
Maybe you should give in a bit, and allow colonists to replace the razed cites. Make them dirt cheap so it doesn't waste the AI's production. The AI is usually good at filling up empty space in that regard at least. Just an odd idea.
Really sorry this was so long! You said you don't have many reports coming from France, so I think I will try them next, although I am dying to try Japan or Germany. I suspect France will be cake though.
Once again, great job!
