E3 Map

[Fürstbischof]

One thing I did notice was that the game pops up "Scenario file had errors" whenever installing latest E3 + all the fixes but nothing seems to be botched. (...)

tbh, Mjarr, I don't know which version of the scenario files you're actually using but I can tell you that yours isn't the most recent. Your Vichy screenie was very helpful in this regard because
+a naval base in Nantes has been added
+a naval base in Antwerp has been added
-the naval base in Dunkerque has been removed
-the land fort in 2509-Annecy has been removed
+(and the newly added french air bases are missing)

You might download the scenario files from page 1 again, copy them over your files and try to start a new game. Please tell me then if you have these "Scenario file had errors" pop-ups any longer. If a modded file causes such a pop-up and I can't discover the bug the change is discarded and the unmodded file is used again. This is sometimes very nasty for me but I want that you always have a error-free scenario start. So if you encounter a bug I'm very interested in discovering and fixing it eventually.

I'm also wondering how province 359 - Toulouse could stay in french hands. Would you like to post the first lines of the Vichy entry of your revolt.txt file?

To my surprise I've seen on your screenies several air sprites (from bebro) which aren't the usual MIN sprites which we have to endure since the release of v1.05. Have you discovered a way to circumvent this bug or are you actually using v1.04?

 

[Mjarr]

The massive allied airpower is indeed a major surprise but not an unpleasant one.

In its own ways it was positive thing, despite the fact it got occasionally annoying to see where most of the major flight routes are going before actually doing anything to stop them, even when once in a while it gave the impression I was in 1944 of IRL events :rofl:

You mention also that you used new ai files. What does this mean exactly?

Basically I meant the AI files updated to work with E3 on the 1st page, as the old version used vanilla ones. You could say bad wording on my part.

Too many divisions in NOR is a variant of the same problem which can seen in most nations. To solve that the devs need to introduce a new manpower system it seems.

In its own ways it's not that bad, as AI overproduction is not going out of hands as it would go in vanilla, since relatively speaking AI shares the same production rules as the player does, and the overall number of units in general is satisfying on both sides, based on the combat in the low countries and France. The french did give up sort of good fight in the few areas I was pushing with infantry (with some air support) only, as basically once the ARM strolled through Belgium to create few bottlenecks to prevent the french AI from 'reacting' properly, had that happened it would've possibly slow war of attrition.

And yes I did notice the Vichy thingy (that one province) shortly after I wrote the post. The scenario error thingy wasn't really a problem to me as if it's only minor stuff, I can live with that but it might be possible the E3 adapted SOV file (due the way GDE is done with the mod) may be outdated, even though I did update it before I started the game, the question is did I install it before I started it is another story

To my surprise I've seen on your screenies several air sprites (from bebro) which aren't the usual MIN sprites which we have to endure since the release of v1.05. Have you discovered a way to circumvent this bug or are you actually using v1.04?

I am running 1.05 and I didn't do anythign else besides install them after installing 1.05. US P-51 sprite is somewhat buggy but everything else works fine mostly.

 

[bestmajor]

about the inability to influence infra builds, i think i found sth (maybe).

i added these lines in the scenario .inc for UK:

province_development = {
id = { type = 12700 id = 1001 } #type = 4712 id = 2143
name = ""
progress = 0.0000
location = 19
cost = 2.0000
date = {
year = 1940
month = december
day = 11
hour = 0
}
manpower = 1.0000
close_when_finished = yes
waitingforclosure = no
total_progress = 0.0000
size = 10
done = 0
days = 1783
days_for_first = 211
gearing_bonus = 0.0000
type = infrastructure
}

means that UK builds 10 infra in London when scenario starts.

before i added/removed this to/from db/buildingcosts.txt (means that you can build infra just like convoys, not related to province) - dont think its needed, but i use it to reduce micromanagement, even if the infra is cheaper then.

infra = {
buildable_in_allied_provinces = yes
#only_buildable_in_provinces = yes
cost = 2
buildtime = 240
manpower = 1
size = 0.1
}

so at least you can define (initial) infra builds with the .inc files; a lot of work, though.

 

[Balesir]

before i added/removed this to/from db/buildingcosts.txt (means that you can build infra just like convoys, not related to province) - dont think its needed, but i use it to reduce micromanagement, even if the infra is cheaper then.

infra = {
buildable_in_allied_provinces = yes
#only_buildable_in_provinces = yes
cost = 2
buildtime = 240
manpower = 1
size = 0.1
}

so at least you can define (initial) infra builds with the .inc files; a lot of work, though.

The issue with doing that is that Infra build rate is affected by the province terrain. What you will do with this is make building high Infra in mountains the same cost/difficulty as building it in plains or cities. That will skew the supply and SR operation. Just a (hopefully helpful) warning...

 

[bestmajor]

The issue with doing that is that Infra build rate is affected by the province terrain. What you will do with this is make building high Infra in mountains the same cost/difficulty as building it in plains or cities. That will skew the supply and SR operation. Just a (hopefully helpful) warning...

dont know if i understood that properly; apart from that this is a bit cheaty as all infra builds cost the same, are there effects which could spoil the gameplay? (i have used this option in one game already in 1.04, with higher values to avoid cheating and i didn't spot any problems?)

 

[Balesir]

dont know if i understood that properly; apart from that this is a bit cheaty as all infra builds cost the same, are there effects which could spoil the gameplay? (i have used this option in one game already in 1.04, with higher values to avoid cheating and i didn't spot any problems?)

It might not be obvious if you don't exploit it, but the issue is that it will cost you the same to build Infra in mountains as in plains, for example (when you build in the province the terrain gives a modifier to build time). That would make supplying an army over the Himalayas (for example) an easy thing to do - just build the Himalayan provinces up to 100%+ Infra and away you go. Same with the Sahara desert, except for those "blocked" province boundaries.

If you know what you are doing and don't cheat it could be a nice "shortcut" - but in multi-player, for example, it could get a bit "contentious"...

 

[bestmajor]

It might not be obvious if you don't exploit it, but the issue is that it will cost you the same to build Infra in mountains as in plains, for example (when you build in the province the terrain gives a modifier to build time). That would make supplying an army over the Himalayas (for example) an easy thing to do - just build the Himalayan provinces up to 100%+ Infra and away you go. Same with the Sahara desert, except for those "blocked" province boundaries.

ok i knew this. back in 1.04 i used the midpoint of the values (between eg plains and mountains) for my games.
btw, about those blocked provinces - these are a bit annoying, asp those in africa as you cant release eg egypt or LBY as a puppet state iirc.

 

[Fürstbischof]

ok i knew this. back in 1.04 i used the midpoint of the values (between eg plains and mountains) for my games.
btw, about those blocked provinces - these are a bit annoying, asp those in africa as you cant release eg egypt or LBY as a puppet state iirc.

That's something I wasn't aware of. A quick check revealed that mainly Chad and Egypt of the E3 revolters are handicapped by these unaccessible provinces. They're now fixed.

 

[Fürstbischof]

about the inability to influence infra builds, i think i found sth (maybe).

i added these lines in the scenario .inc for UK:
(...)
means that UK builds 10 infra in London when scenario starts.

I tried something similar while trying to simulate soviet 5-year-plans but I had a problem fixing the location of the newly added naval base. I've now exchanged infra with naval_base and it works perfectly. Cool.

before i added/removed this to/from db/buildingcosts.txt (means that you can build infra just like convoys, not related to province) - dont think its needed, but i use it to reduce micromanagement, even if the infra is cheaper then.
(...)
so at least you can define (initial) infra builds with the .inc files; a lot of work, though.

From a micro-management perspective this approach might be preferable but tbh it'll be abused.

 

[Fürstbischof]

In its own ways it was positive thing, despite the fact it got occasionally annoying to see where most of the major flight routes are going before actually doing anything to stop them, even when once in a while it gave the impression I was in 1944 of IRL events :rofl:

The massive presence of allied air over Germany seems to have its cause in the arguable design decision that their range is calculated on the nearest friendly=allied air base. But it seems to make the game slightly harder...

Basically I meant the AI files updated to work with E3 on the 1st page, as the old version used vanilla ones. You could say bad wording on my part.

No problem, but I wanted to be sure that I don't draw false conclusions. I should add that I've tweaked the ai build priorities for many nations, but also have streamlined research & builds (INT vs FIG) for several of them, so that might have some influence on the air war, too.

In its own ways it's not that bad, as AI overproduction is not going out of hands as it would go in vanilla, since relatively speaking AI shares the same production rules as the player does, and the overall number of units in general is satisfying on both sides, based on the combat in the low countries and France. The french did give up sort of good fight in the few areas I was pushing with infantry (with some air support) only, as basically once the ARM strolled through Belgium to create few bottlenecks to prevent the french AI from 'reacting' properly, had that happened it would've possibly slow war of attrition.

The AI overproduction might be kept at bay by your minimod with its more realistic buildtimes. I haven't checked if you've also tweaked their manpower costs to reduce the overall number of units.

And yes I did notice the Vichy thingy (that one province) shortly after I wrote the post. The scenario error thingy wasn't really a problem to me as if it's only minor stuff, I can live with that but it might be possible the E3 adapted SOV file (due the way GDE is done with the mod) may be outdated, even though I did update it before I started the game, the question is did I install it before I started it is another story

If you don't fix such errors the first time you encounter them you won't be able to fix the more severe bugs once you encounter those. Can you confirm that your load errors are gone when you use the most recent version of the scenario files? Otherwise there might be a bug which I wasn't aware of.

I am running 1.05 and I didn't do anythign else besides install them after installing 1.05. US P-51 sprite is somewhat buggy but everything else works fine mostly.

Then it isn't totally bugged? Then it's now a good time to copy my sprite collection from Arma over to AOD and to try this myself.

Many thanks, Mjarr, for your report.

 

[bestmajor]

From a micro-management perspective this approach might be preferable but tbh it'll be abused.

depends how expensive infra is. if you add a value which is clearly above the forest and plains value, infra (all in all) should get more expensive, means it will get harder for a human (at least german) player, just the micromanagement is reduced.

 

[Mjarr]

I haven't checked if you've also tweaked their manpower costs to reduce the overall number of units.

Manpower cost is not really increased, certain units actually quire marginally less than before and some are marginally increased but due slower reinforcing, generally speaking more lethal combat among lowish trickleback factor and highish manpower cost factor it balances itself out quite well. Once you're in some major conflict you'll be using more manpower on reinforcements than on new divisions most of the time. I think my record as USSR was that I spent 600+ manpower basically on reinforcements within the span of quite busy 18 months.

If you don't fix such errors the first time you encounter them you won't be able to fix the more severe bugs once you encounter those. Can you confirm that your load errors are gone when you use the most recent version of the scenario files? Otherwise there might be a bug which I wasn't aware of.

I'll look into that at some point.

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

depends how expensive infra is. if you add a value which is clearly above the forest and plains value, infra (all in all) should get more expensive, means it will get harder for a human (at least german) player, just the micromanagement is reduced.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what "values" are we tweaking here and where? Only the db\buildcost txt? I'm afraid I haven't spotted the parameters where the terrain influences the building of infra...

 

[bestmajor]

that seems to be hard coded, so if you add the option to build this outside the province (like eg the convoy ships) you can only use one value (the one in building costs). and to avoid cheating it should be appr one year, i think.
infras on certain terrains are cheaper then (like mountains), but all in all it should be the same (or even higher) investment in infra.

 

[Mjarr]

Interesting encounter with the Royal Navy: http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/9293/screen5.jpg

The british seemed to have some sort of obsession with this place, counted around 4-5 attempted amphibious assaults between autumn 1940 - spring 1941 http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6264/screen6z.jpg

The british launch succesful amphibious assault in Italy, and Mussolini apparently is so depressed that he isn't giving a shit despite having steady number of divisions http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/8470/screen7t.jpg :rofl:

Early stages in Russia, with my overly ambitious plan to encircle the central area. Good note to self to research Inf '41 well ahead in time and have bigger 'reserve' to begin with, as by the end I am having bit trouble holding few areas http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/7271/screen8a.jpg
http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/1262/screen9.jpg
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/3813/screen10i.jpg

Curiously VVS showed no activity for a week or two, after that I stopped counting how many INT and FTR I saw in general.

One random division leftover from the Anschluss managed to repel some of the british attacks but once again, AI Mussolini doesn't give a shit http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9350/screen11t.jpg :rofl:

I'll see how it goes on for few months and decide if I call it off or not and after that I'll check for the scenario error thingy. It certainly gave me few things to look and tweak for the future, mainly few things on misc.txt. Also the infastructure in Russia is fine, reducing it any further would basically just be "ok just fuck it" solution IMO.

 

[Amallric]

Norwegian ports

Leikanger 15465;1364
Bergen 15353;1463
Stavanger 15354;1611
Kristiansand 15522;1694
Molde 15527;1211
Trondheim 15699;1151
Bodo 15999;720
Tromso 16185;446
Alta 16354;398

 

[Fürstbischof]

Norwegian ports

Leikanger 15465;1364
Bergen 15353;1463
Stavanger 15354;1611
Kristiansand 15522;1694
Molde 15527;1211
Trondheim 15699;1151
Bodo 15999;720
Tromso 16185;446
Alta 16354;398

Many thanks, Amallric! They'll be changed soon.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Manpower cost is not really increased, certain units actually quire marginally less than before and some are marginally increased but due slower reinforcing, generally speaking more lethal combat among lowish trickleback factor and highish manpower cost factor it balances itself out quite well. Once you're in some major conflict you'll be using more manpower on reinforcements than on new divisions most of the time. I think my record as USSR was that I spent 600+ manpower basically on reinforcements within the span of quite busy 18 months.

Bloodier combat will indeed require you to have huge amounts of MP in reserve. But does the ai actually keep a larger MP reserve? I wouldn't be surprised if it builds even more units because of slightly lower overall MP costs. I'm curious how your game will develop MP wise for the ai in the later war years.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Interesting encounter with the Royal Navy: http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/9293/screen5.jpg

Very interesting!

The british seemed to have some sort of obsession with this place, counted around 4-5 attempted amphibious assaults between autumn 1940 - spring 1941 http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6264/screen6z.jpg

That seems to be a full scale invasion! Sadly, I don't see any of their naval forces. No shore bombardment, no transports if they should loose. Have you seen if the ai actually escorts its transports?

The british launch succesful amphibious assault in Italy, and Mussolini apparently is so depressed that he isn't giving a shit despite having steady number of divisions http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/8470/screen7t.jpg :rofl:

It seems that the italian ai has fallen asleep. If you have kept a savegame from this month please start it again and look if the italian ai loads another ai script. You can see it easily.

Early stages in Russia, with my overly ambitious plan to encircle the central area. Good note to self to research Inf '41 well ahead in time and have bigger 'reserve' to begin with, as by the end I am having bit trouble holding few areas http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/7271/screen8a.jpg
http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/1262/screen9.jpg
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/3813/screen10i.jpg

Instead of Inf'41 you've Mechs. It was your choice.
Although the soviet ai has pushed westwards you can see that many units in the eastern part of the nearly closed pocket are moving eastwards to escape.

Curiously VVS showed no activity for a week or two, after that I stopped counting how many INT and FTR I saw in general.

VVS?

One random division leftover from the Anschluss managed to repel some of the british attacks but once again, AI Mussolini doesn't give a shit http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9350/screen11t.jpg :rofl:

Reloading should help.

I'll see how it goes on for few months and decide if I call it off or not and after that I'll check for the scenario error thingy. It certainly gave me few things to look and tweak for the future, mainly few things on misc.txt. Also the infastructure in Russia is fine, reducing it any further would basically just be "ok just fuck it" solution IMO.

Ok, when looking at the russian infra we'll concentrate more on other regions. How is your ESE just at and beyond the border and how low is it deeper in the USSR?

Thanks, Mjarr!

 

[Mjarr]

Bloodier combat will indeed require you to have huge amounts of MP in reserve. But does the ai actually keep a larger MP reserve? I wouldn't be surprised if it builds even more units because of slightly lower overall MP costs. I'm curious how your game will develop MP wise for the ai in the later war years.

The manpower cost is mostly reduced for MTN\PAR\MAR and cavalry, everything else is mostly as it was. As for AI keeping MP reserve, this is something I doubt you can really do but usually GER AI is only critically low on manpower around 1944 - 1945 if it engages in major war of attrition and once in a when when I load savegames to see how AI is performing its internal affairs I've seen AI running out of resources more often than manpower.

However as for the "builds more", since unit buildtimes are reduced and manpower growth mutliplier in misc.txt is only slightly reduced, for major countries it is possible to actually 'gain' back the manpower you spent on division before it's combat ready unless you have multiple serials going on. However you can only produce what your IC allows and while AI always 'cheats' slightly with the IC allocation or unit production, the base buildtime in vanilla AoD for regular infantry is 95 days and manpower cost is 10. In my minimod it is 140 days and manpower cost is the same, now let's take fully hawk lobby which reduces it by -20% to 76, add small arms assembly line and it's another -20%. Now I am not sure does it reduce the x% from the base cost but just for the sake of example I'll presume it does. -40% to base cost would mean 57 days, now let's add free market and it's ridicuously low. Add gearing bonus and you can fart divisions out at will. Even if the another -20% is applied to the modified cost it would be 61 days. Now let's take -20% off from 140 days is 112 days. Let's apply -7% from assembly tech (value in the mod) to the base value and we have 102 days basically, if applied to the reduced cost (after all I am not entirely sure how the game calculates it) it's around 104 days. With free market it's around 90 days, which still is more notable than the ~40 day buildtime. Needless to say if you apply gearing bonus the default buildtime can go pretty low, even though how it does cap the gearing bonus vs buildtime is something I haven't tested that thoroughly, besides maybe the misc.txt setting

So if you really look into the production queque it probably has alot more stuff ongoing at the same time, but the actual amount of divisions in most cases is far diffrent than the Behemoth armies you would know in AoD. Sure the AI probably has relatively speaking more divisions than you do but not by that massive margin. Once I'll get the new release out maybe you should try it out yourself