smark74 said:
There are a few optons Here:
Solution 1. We Keep Bismark and the other ships in (construction planing probably started in 35 anyway). This makes Thease ships appear in the right period and they allso take a little recources from Germany. This would be Historicly correct, Allthough I would suggest that we use MY file posted earlyer: The construction of thease ships is slightly reduced (some of the cost has allredy been paid before "36) and the Ships are slightly cheaper than if built by the player. If we decide to remove them and the German player wants to build ANYWAY he would be getting Bismark and other ships before or in "38.
We are trying to maintain some of the historical reality by removing the
Bismarck and
Tirpitz from the building que at the beginning of the game.
Solution 2. CHANGE the buildtime for ships. Longer buildtime in peacetime and then when a nation enters war then we have a tec that reduces BUILDTIME and INCREASES BUILDCOST accordingly.
There has been talk of creating a tech/event combination that does just that. The difficulty is figuring out how to make it work in the way that we want it too. I think that it would be benefitial to the game as whole. It would help the economies of the US and Britain which have a large number of ships under construction at the beginning of the game. Right now, to build up to historical numbers befire the war, it will force you to completely ignore build an army. That is historical, but it is death in HoI.
Anyway, Thease ships were built in History and the question is HOW much should the player be able to stray from Historical events??
I think the player should have the ability to be as historical and as ahistorical as they want. If we start to force the player to follow history, we would have to start finding ways to keep the player from invading Britain, winning the war against Russia, and ensure they would never win the war. That wouldn't be historical. There are players out there that want to play a freindly Germany, some that want to control every provence on the map, and everything in between.
Personally I belive that IF Hitler had more belive in Dönitz´s (or been convinced that Sub-Warfare was still effective) approach then He would not have Made Raeder Chief of Navy and NOT accepted Z-Plan. Then Dönits might have Started serious reaserch into Sub-Tec and Rebuilt the U-BOOT fleet (Germany had less than alloted by the treaty). If we opt for a more liberal approach to History then I would Have made Dönits the Chief of Navy and started to secretly MASS-Produce oceangoing Subs. Allso the Allied would then have had the same problem: Enourmus recources and energy put into ASW.
The problem was that no one thought that the submarine would be the dominant weapon of the next war. The development of SONAR/ASDIC was believed to make the submarine less effective than it had been in WWI. Raeder was preaching the same thing that all of the major powers were preaching prior to the war. You need battleships to control the seas. The way to challenge Britain was to make it too expensive for them to beat you. You had to have enough ships that they would loose too many ships defeating you to controlthe rest of the world. Even more important with an agressive Japan in the Pacific.
My Proposal
1. Change the minister file to allow greater flexability with ministers (posted in the Germany tread). Modified!!!
I don't know enough about the German ministers to comment on this one either way. I doubt that people would complain about having more choices for the important minister positions.
2. Add a tec (for all) that increases Buildtime for ALL units (by +50%?) and decreases BuildCost (by -50%), Then When War starts then The tec is deactivated through Event.
Making a tech that does what you want is easy. Getting it work correctly is a little more difficult. You could make an event that lowers the build time when a nation is at war, but Italy would start the game with cheap warships because they are engaged in a bush war in Africa. Probably not a good idea. You could have it dependent on a war with another major power. The problem with that is how can the US gear up their production shortly before entering a war? The build time of the vessel is set when you start construction, so their wouldn't be any motivation to start construction if war was approaching because of the amount of time it would take to complete them. This solution will take a lot of work and testing to make work correctly.
3. Only Include ships ALLREADY under construction "36
That is already in effect. We have put in the ships that were under construction on 1/1/1936 (or fairly close).
4. Remove ALL transports from Germany. Remove all TRANSPORT TEC from Germany !!!!! THEN Give Basic Transport tec to Germany at the Start of WAR and then Add Transports through Events, Fex: Reich Commissioner of Shipping Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann takes over all privatly owned Merchant Ships (+ some ships of LOW TEC). The Occupation of Denmark (+ some ships of LOW TEC). Allso Same event for Norway Belgium Holland and France. I have a book with all the captured Merchant Tonnage etc. Germany was ALWAYS Hampered by the SHORTAGE of Merchantships/Transports. Allso The German Player SHOULD HAVE to be careful with his FEW ships and PROTECT them.
P.s. Only 76 ships (463,122tonnes) managed to return to Home Ports by 09.04.1940. Allso Germany only constructed 176 merchant ships (337,841tonnes) by the end of the war.
I don't understand this one. Why should we be removing Germany's ability to build merchant vessels? Germany had a large shipbuilding industry. At this point and time it was one of the most efficient in the world. The fact that only 76 managed to return home means that they had a lot more roaming around the globe conducting trade. The reason that Germany didn't build much merchant tonnage during the war was a lack of places to use it. Germany was cut off from seaborne trade with everyone but Sweden. They didn't need the large merchant marine that the US, Britain, and Japan needed to transport resources from distant locations.
We have discussed the difficulties with creating an event that will do what we want it to do. We can't give Germany specific models of transports to recreate the coastal vessels that they would get from Norway and Denmark. It would also keep the event for the nationalization of the German merchant marine from being as accurate as we would like.
Germany does have to protect their transports now. I challenge you to send your transports to sea on the first day of the war and see how long they last against the Royal Navy. They have the transport capapbility to move ten divisions by sea. That isn't unrealistic.
Lets not focus on the PROBLEM but the SOLUTION
Before we can find a solution, we need to take a careful look at the problem and analyze it. If we go throwing out solutions without knowledge of what the problem is and what is causing it, we could be doing more harm than good. We need to keep everything balanced for countries other than Germany. A solution which makes the naval construction accurate for Germany could make it difficult to recreate the naval war between Japan and the US. It could make it even more difficult for the Royal Navy to meet their commitments throughout the world. MDow
