E3 Map

[Fürstbischof]

Blocks to ship movement can be added in the adj-provs.csv file. I particularly like how the Third Reich Mod has blocked Channel movement at Dover for Germany and at Cherbourg for England. The Channel Islands should definitely control access to the Bay of Biscay from Channel to the NE. Those big guns at Battery Mirus!

Operation Cerberus, the german channel dash, is a prime ww2 example that in spite of an alarmed enemy a naval force could move through such a blocked area. But Dover should block the movement of german naval task forces in AOD. That would be a simple and easy solution to teach the german ai to use the historical routes to the North Atlantic.

I also like the idea of Crete controlling E-W Agean access because it makes Crete a worthwhile objective for the Axis and also there's always the Guns of Navarone.

The british Dodecanese Campaign is an example that Crete itself doesn't hamper naval movements. It's the presence of strong naval and air forces which inhibits most naval movements.

Also, control of one bank or the other of the Suez should block movement for the other. See the Third Reich Mod for further information.

Control of Suez was blocking movement since HOI1 iirc. But I'll look at that mod to get an idea how they've blocked movement through the channel.

I've looked recently more closely at how the Third Reich Mod modelled closing of certain areas for naval movements. Its idea is to 'channel' naval movements through a land province which, if in enemy hands, does prohibit these.

Therefore I've made possession of Taranto the condition for moving fleets into the Adriatic Sea. The Strait of Otranto and also the Strait of Messina are no longer easily passable. Crete has only influence on naval movements through two of the three available sea zones connecting to the Sea of Crete (north of Crete; needs to be renamed).

re naval movements through the English Channel I've implemented a solution which hampers only the british/allied side. Enemy control of Calais will now stop naval movements through the English Channel. Movements to Portsmouth or Plymouth from the West are as usual. Forces based there can't any longer interfere in the North Sea which now has to be controlled by forces based at Scapa Flow or Rosyth.

Since the Germans heavily relied also on coastal shipping through the Channel I haven't implemented a similar fix for them which would otherwise precluded another channel dash. But honestly if we would force all german naval movements around the British Isles the ai german navy would be destroyed piecemeal which would be no fun either.

These changes and all the other fixed crossings will be available when the next map fix is uploaded. We're now working on fixing IC & resources, too.

 

[Mjarr]

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?

Several other attempts did actually have shore bombardment and full fleet to protect, and one time it was 3xMAR landing that would've probably succeeded if it weren't for pulling 2x ARM from other provinces to prevent it.

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.

It's not that difficult to have both Mec and Inf by 1941, but the problem was when I realised I should research inf41 it was too late to upgrade any units unless I would be trying to attack in autumn 1941, but shit happens

VVS?

Soviet (and Russian) Air Force.

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?

Average ESE would be around 50%, on lowest areas it's around 8-11%.

 

[Titan79]

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

Sorry for the OT, but the acronym "VVS" reminds me of the time spent on Il-2 Sturmovik shooting at LaGGs, La-7s, Yaks and so on... ah, the memories...

 

[Fürstbischof]

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.

When the german ai runs in 1944 - 1945 into MP shortages then it's ok for me. Although I'd favour to raise the MP cost of INF divisions this would effectively lead to MP shortages sooner than later simple because the ai won't start building less INF divisions. Which leads to the conclusion that a mod which intends on tackling the MP issue by increasing the buildtimes has to revise the ai build orders eventually, too.

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

The short buildtimes which are reduced even further by sliders are especially awkward if you're looking at all those infantry type units which require some thorough training and are mostly equipped with low tech equipment. These sliders might reduce the cost of these units but they shouldn't reduce the build (and training) time of infantry units to a mere six weeks or less. But sliders can't be modded? This might solve many more isssues.

If you can mitigate this by increasing the buildtimes of these units I'm in favour of it.

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

re build queue sometimes I had the impression that the ai shuffles its build orders around so that no longer the 'first in, first out' principle (simplified!!) is valid. It's quite irritating to see that the ai has even lost the gearing bonus of short serials. But it might be that the ai doesn't add its new build orders at the bottom but instead at the top of its build queue.

Since I like the idea of generally higher buildtimes which seem to be more appropriate for such a game like AOD I'll give it a try when I've the time to do so...

 

[Fürstbischof]

Several other attempts did actually have shore bombardment and full fleet to protect, and one time it was 3xMAR landing that would've probably succeeded if it weren't for pulling 2x ARM from other provinces to prevent it.

I'm impressed by the v1.05 ai.

It's not that difficult to have both Mec and Inf by 1941, but the problem was when I realised I should research inf41 it was too late to upgrade any units unless I would be trying to attack in autumn 1941, but shit happens

Ah, you forgot it. I thought you had prioritised Mechs instead of Inf'41. The good german tech teams and the now up to 10 slots should normally be a guarantee that you can research both in late 1940.

Average ESE would be around 50%, on lowest areas it's around 8-11%.

Once the infra of the captured is repaired the ESE might get better. But 8-11% seems - even with my limited game experience - fairly low. We'll keep it in mind.

 

[Mjarr]

Once the infra of the captured is repaired the ESE might get better. But 8-11% seems - even with my limited game experience - fairly low. We'll keep it in mind.

If ESE is below 20% (or even 30% might be sufficient, not sure about the exact values) the division consumes more supplies than it gets, so it's not just "fairly low", just wait for few weeks and they're willing to eat damaged tanks just to stay alive

 

[Fürstbischof]

If ESE is below 20% (or even 30% might be sufficient, not sure about the exact values) the division consumes more supplies than it gets, so it's not just "fairly low", just wait for few weeks and they're willing to eat damaged tanks just to stay alive

Sorry, miswording on my side. It was meant in the sense of 'quite low'.

 

[Mjarr]

Here's the Vichy France revolt.txt entry line:
# Vichy
VIC = {
date = { day = 1 month = january year = 1934 }
expirydate = { day = 30 month = december year = 1954 }
minimum = { 319 320 321 322 324 327 328 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 367 527 528 529 1676 2242 }
extra = {

My guess is that one province #id is just missing.

As for the game, I actually played it until mid 1942 and managed to sort of secure, stable foothold in Russia with quite heavy attrition but basically Italy AI couldn't really get rid of that UK bridgehead in the area and once the british attempted to land in France repeatedly I decided to call it a day there. Might consider trying another testgame as USA to see how the pacific war works out with E3

 

[Amallric]

About infra, just take in account that Mjarr is playing with significantly reduced ESE so no wonders his troops are dying off...

 

[Mjarr]

About infra, just take in account that Mjarr is playing with significantly reduced ESE so no wonders his troops are dying off...

Yes the TC -> IC ratio is one thing but even if we would put it back to default values the ESE% is easily lower than the infastructure, say 120% infastructure area has around 80-90% ESE even when your TC is perfectly fine. If you combine this with AoD's supply tracking based on infastructure you could replicate similiar results quite easily even though how much it has impact on your game is not as notable. Even in vanilla AoD if you load up UK as '39 scenario and fight in Africa you'll find out sooner or later that there are provinces where you can station just single infantry division and wait for few weeks and they are actually low on supplies and won't regain them until you redeploy them to a beter province or you would improve infastructure.

As for 'dying off', it was mostly a joke and to be more 'serious' abut it I presume it to be common sense that such areas are not really worth occupying for further periods of time but considering that the whole base ESE modifier is untouched (in misc.txt) and that there's tons of more provinces inbetween with partisan activity than in vanilla AoD, you could easily have similiar problem with vanilla AoD + E3 on certain provinces. Mostly the only reason I decided to leave that GER game be is that AI Italy for some reason got bugged beyond any help and pulling off any 'real' units to prevent it would mean either France would be very vulnerable to attack (considering the amphibious assaults were fairly frequent here and there) or I would have to ditch the eastern front which is out of question.

 

[Amallric]

the whole base ESE modifier is untouched (in misc.txt)

Really? I thought you put it to 70%

there's tons of more provinces inbetween with partisan activity than in vanilla AoD

Did you garrison those provinces?

AI Italy for some reason got bugged beyond any help

That's an AI problem I think. They still have their "let's pown British in Africa" ai script going I believe.

Also could you tell more about the way you modded the supply. I would be interested to know what exact effects the modifiers from misc.txt have.

 

[Mjarr]

Really? I thought you put it to 70%

Nope it's at 100.0. aka the same vnailla AoD has.

Did you garrison those provinces?

It's quite impractical thing to do when you have notably less divisions avaible in general than in vanilla AoD, but I tend to garrison more important areas and certain provinces with INF + MP. You can't simply garrison every area and basically since almost every occupied area has some partisan activity, unless you would want to use 60-120 divisions just for garrinson duty you'll get the idea

That's an AI problem I think. They still have their "let's pown British in Africa" ai script going I believe.

Yes I was thinking about the same thing, somewhat annoying issue when it happens to the player.

Also could you tell more about the way you modded the supply. I would be interested to know what exact effects the modifiers from misc.txt have.

Resupply ratio for land and naval units is actually slightly higher than in vanilla and slightly lower for air units, the basic supply distance modifier and ESE are unmodified while TC-> IC ratio is halved in general. If you look at some of the screens you can note the TC jumps wildly between being on positive to being notably overloaded, the latter being caused by having alot of divisions on the move and fighting at the same time and some even on offensive supply. It even jumps nearly to 'positive' levels when there's less fighting going on in general. The overloaded has some effect on ESE in general, but even in a situation I had positive TC the average ESE was around 50. In some areas (E.G. swamps or otherwise nasty spots) it was nonexistant, as mentioned before.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Here's the Vichy France revolt.txt entry line:
# Vichy
VIC = {
date = { day = 1 month = january year = 1934 }
expirydate = { day = 30 month = december year = 1954 }
minimum = { 319 320 321 322 324 327 328 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 367 527 528 529 1676 2242 }
extra = {

My guess is that one province #id is just missing.

Your Vichy entry is the same as my Vichy entry. And #359 is in. Since France is forced to release Vichy it can't keep any Vichy provinces. Toulouse should therefore always part of Vichy. It seems that we need more feedback on this issue.

As for the game, I actually played it until mid 1942 and managed to sort of secure, stable foothold in Russia with quite heavy attrition but basically Italy AI couldn't really get rid of that UK bridgehead in the area and once the british attempted to land in France repeatedly I decided to call it a day there. Might consider trying another testgame as USA to see how the pacific war works out with E3

That reminds me that I'm quite curious if my minor ai fixes for JAP have influenced them to build more CVs.

re Italy: how quickly have they annexed Ethiopia? Have they made besides their Malta invasion any moves worth mentioning?

 

[Fürstbischof]

That's an AI problem I think. They still have their "let's pown British in Africa" ai script going I believe.

Yes I was thinking about the same thing, somewhat annoying issue when it happens to the player.

I hope that the devs once find the bug which causes the ai to fall asleep. In the meantime we'll have to live with it and also with those suboptimal ai files. Was the italian ever able to win against the British in Egypt and conquer Africa? Are they even able to conquer Ethiopia in a timely manner? Re Ethiopia I've introduced by copy-pasting during the adaptation of the ai files a misleading ignore list which might have the effect of influencing the italian ai to make a detour. The effect should be fairly minor but who knows?

Resupply ratio for land and naval units is actually slightly higher than in vanilla and slightly lower for air units, the basic supply distance modifier and ESE are unmodified while TC-> IC ratio is halved in general. If you look at some of the screens you can note the TC jumps wildly between being on positive to being notably overloaded, the latter being caused by having alot of divisions on the move and fighting at the same time and some even on offensive supply. It even jumps nearly to 'positive' levels when there's less fighting going on in general. The overloaded has some effect on ESE in general, but even in a situation I had positive TC the average ESE was around 50. In some areas (E.G. swamps or otherwise nasty spots) it was nonexistant, as mentioned before.

Ok, we need ofc more feedback from play-testing but it might be necessary to tackle this modifier:

# IC to TC ratio
1.50

 

[bestmajor]

Was the italian ever able to win against the British in Egypt and conquer Africa?

i had this in 1.04 or 1.05 - italy was annexing SA (only after GER conquered Suez, though)

 

[Mjarr]

Ok, we need ofc more feedback from play-testing but it might be necessary to tackle this modifier:

Only thing lower TC-IC ratio makes is that it's easier to have overloaded TC when you're going for large offences (or you have tons of units moving and\or fighting at once), which have some effect in ESE as long as it's overloaded but here's the beef:

TC -> IC ratio with default 1.5 http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/64/tcic1.jpg

TC -> IC ratio with 1.25 http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7966/tcic2.jpg

Even with positive TC (and only having 'roughly' 60 less TC with lower TC IC ratio, ignoring the hit caused by dissent) the ESE is under 50% there and if I were to move it in swamp it would drop slightly and if it were swamp + heavy fighting fighting it would easily go under 20% once the infastructure is damaged, regardless of your TC. You would have eventually the same problem even with vanilla AoD + E3 on certain areas that your units are consuming more supplies than you can supply due to the aforementioned reason + ESE depends on your supply routes' infastructure, not just the province the unit is stationed in.

 

[Fürstbischof]

i had this in 1.04 or 1.05 - italy was annexing SA (only after GER conquered Suez, though)

Sounds cool, but I presume that you were playing GER.

 

[unmerged(52751)]

I made a few additions to the E3 project.

I also updated the E3 Province.csv to more closely match rare, metal, and oil production for Germany, US, UK, France, and USSR with vanilla AoD. I did this by simply increasing or decreasing resource values in province that already had the resources. It's not completely historically accurate but allows an E3 game to be played without the existing rares resource crash.

I also added events from the Third Reich mod to Hoi2.txt and changed the province values. Specifically these are the events that make most sense for a player-Germany game, and would be a cheat for any other country, like the UK fortifying Gib/Suez, building the USN, and giving the USSR many many free divisions.

Also altered the UK scenario start to give more free locked garrison units.

In my game I get a "Scenario file had errors" error, but I go this before any of my own modifications, I think because I am using the 1.06 patch and it's config text files over those of the E3 mod.

kilolima

 

[Calad]

Has anyone tryed how this works in MP?

 

[Fürstbischof]

I made a few additions to the E3 project.

I also updated the E3 Province.csv to more closely match rare, metal, and oil production for Germany, US, UK, France, and USSR with vanilla AoD. I did this by simply increasing or decreasing resource values in province that already had the resources. It's not completely historically accurate but allows an E3 game to be played without the existing rares resource crash.

Many thanks, kilolima, for your hard work. Tomorrow I'll look more closely at your changes.

I also added events from the Third Reich mod to Hoi2.txt and changed the province values. Specifically these are the events that make most sense for a player-Germany game, and would be a cheat for any other country, like the UK fortifying Gib/Suez, building the USN, and giving the USSR many many free divisions.

Also altered the UK scenario start to give more free locked garrison units.

Obviously I can't simply include events of the Third Reich mod or an extremely boosted UK but those who are interested in increasing the difficulty for the GER player might give it a try. If anyone is willing to adapt the Third Reich mod to the E3 map he can freely do so.

In my game I get a "Scenario file had errors" error, but I go this before any of my own modifications, I think because I am using the 1.06 patch and it's config text files over those of the E3 mod.

That isn't surprising.

I haven't installed the most recent beta patch so that I don't exactly know which changes the devs have done but their list of changes is very promising. Work on an update from v1.05 to v.106 will start when they've published the final 1.06 patch.