CORE2 version 0.4.0 - now available for download

[dublish]

Hmm, I didn't have that problem in my game. How many fighter squads did you have supporting them? I had 4x4 interceptors and 3x4 fighters doing air superiority over the areas I used my TAC/CAS in, that way I never had any trouble...

I think he was talking about the AI's problems, not his own. If that is what he's talking about, then I agree. This hurts the AI far more than the player, since the player knows to keep his planes on the ground unless the enemy shows himself.

Part of the problem is the old debate on how to simulate the support structure of air units, which obviously won't be destroyed along with a few destroyed planes a hundred kilometers away. I think a better way to solve the problem would be to give air units very low morale, thus keeping them out of the war for a long time if they've been mauled, but without the problems associated with disappearing air units. It's a little late to be implementing radical new solutions that might not work though...

 

[unmerged(101225)]

One of the problems I noticed was Germany stationed most of its army along the Maginot line rather than on Belgium or the Netherlands. This means when it declares war it only has 3-4 divisions and France has enough time to poor divisions north to stop Germany's attack.

In my game it took Germany until May '41 to defeat France. Now it is December and they still have 20 divisions in Athens and aren't at all prepared for Barbarossa, not to mention the USA in the war.

Italy has run out of convoys (how did it lose at least 600 in 6 months?) and 20+ divisions in North Africa are at 75% strength and 0 org because of it. Italy also cannot evacuate the troops because it only has 1 TP left (I don't know how many it starts with, but it may need more). This might be due to in all of my test games so far Italy runs out of energy prewar and is reduced to ~50 IC the whole time.

Making the SU a little harder for a human Germany might be hard to do. Occupied Western Europe has a LOT of IC, especially in this version. I normally dont use Himmler as minister of security because i think it gives me too much IC. Buuuut if I want the SS I HAVE to make him minister of security.

If airpower loses are reduced, AI UK might be able to continually annoy Germany with its strategic bombing. AI SU will be able to interdict and bomb infrastructure rather than just gets its whole bomber force wiped out rather quickly (will also spend less IC repairing and more IC on infantry). Russian infrastructure might be further reduced to slow down a German advance and give SU time to build up more infantry\tanks. Maybe Russian partisans could be increased to give a German player a headache. If there is any way to get the AI to hold units a province behind the front line, those would slow down a spearhead.

I don't know what can\can't be modded, throwin' ideas out there. Maybe the increased partisans\lower infra could be tied to an event at the start of Barbarossa that the AI will never pick but a player can pick to make it harder.

 

[Bakta]

I remember once long ago Hagar said, CORE is supposed to be played on normal/normal settings. Is this still the case? I was thinking about trying on very hard/normal settings, but of course I don't want to cause any non-intended behaviour.

Which of following is the hardest to play, SU, Japan or UK?

Can't speak for Hagar. To my experience playing norm/norm is ok for the first time you play a tricky country. I play */aggressive or very aggressive, the first one depending mostly on the country, some can take hard or very hard, some cannot.

I'd say : JAP then SOV then UK

Each has a different challenge to face :

- JAP has some choices to makes both in term of production and research along with some tricky trade management that makes it the hardest to me.

- SU might be the easiest in term of finding a solution. It may also be the trickiest to implement it.

- UK's challenge lies in early surviving and mastering the sea lanes. Quite easy to achieve until JAP enters the fray should it decided to hit India

 

[dublish]

Italy has run out of convoys (how did it lose at least 600 in 6 months?) and 20+ divisions in North Africa are at 75% strength and 0 org because of it. Italy also cannot evacuate the troops because it only has 1 TP left (I don't know how many it starts with, but it may need more). This might be due to in all of my test games so far Italy runs out of energy prewar and is reduced to ~50 IC the whole time.

The transports are an issue for more than just Italy. It seems like nobody escorts their transports properly, so they get sunk pretty quickly. In my Germany game, I watched Japan get stuck on the Malay peninsula because it just didn't have the transports (or convoys, but that's relatively historical) to get into the Dutch East Indies.

 

[Hagar]

I remember once long ago Hagar said, CORE is supposed to be played on normal/normal settings. Is this still the case? I was thinking about trying on very hard/normal settings, but of course I don't want to cause any non-intended behaviour.

Which of following is the hardest to play, SU, Japan or UK?

CORE is designed to be played at a normal/normal setting. It's the level we test at, and do our balancing at. But the human player is simply no match for any AI, so you can certainly play it at a more advanced level if you find things too easy.

 

[Hagar]

The transports are an issue for more than just Italy. It seems like nobody escorts their transports properly, so they get sunk pretty quickly. In my Germany game, I watched Japan get stuck on the Malay peninsula because it just didn't have the transports (or convoys, but that's relatively historical) to get into the Dutch East Indies.

Something we can't control basically (an EXE issue). We had Germany sending all of their transports - unescorted obviously - to the Indian Ocean during testing. Needless to say they did not do so for long.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Taking it from the other side, and while the new events are historical. I think FRA has been kicked down a bit too much, more for gaming purpose than for historical ones it look.

Barring something I don't see, at war's outset FRA has around 80 manpower available, mobilization starts after the country is at war, if it doesn't shore up existing forces. It cannot trade tech with UK before war starts, so given it's tech leaders, it'll be trailing behind in the tech race. It'll also spend a good deal of time cleaning up unrest. While all these are individually historical, together they may be overboard. FRA cannot start war with more than 3-5 inf div more than it had in 36, and is forced to defend has it lacks shoring up manpower.

It may be a bit too far, maybe far enough FRA is better off not being allied for all the good it does to it. It might be ok against a AI GER, still testing that, but no way it can hold against a human player, tested.

Hi,

AI/AI FRA is outperforming the historical and I'm pretty certain that a human player will be able to do quite well as FRA without doing anything really drastic. Considering the rW results a human GER should be able to defeat an AI FRA on N/N. On a detail basis FRA is underperforming WRT the RW OOB. But this is mirrored by GER also being short as well so the end balance is reasonable. Tech wise I feel that FRA is getting a pretty good deal. Since we don't lock FRA into an awful doctrinal path we need to limit how much help they get from ENG prewar. At this point I think they actually overperform compared to the pace of RW developments.

mm

 

[dec152000]

I'm on the air to air loses being too much side. Germany started the invasion of France with 8-9 Tac bombers. They now have 2, all lost in air to air combat.

As it is I use my planes for a couple days, then have to ground them for weeks repairing them. Using them to support offensives is impossible beyond one or two days. Once they get below 70% strength I need to keep them grounded because they can easily go from 70% to 0% in one air battle.


Maybe some other people will give some feedback.

Hi,

You definitely do need to be careful with aircraft. OTOH, I didn't have a problem with frequently losing aircraft as GER. It's absolutely critical that you do maintain air superiority in regions you send TAC and cAS into. OTherwise they do take very steep loses if intercepted. One thing you probablly need to do is prioritize Air and Naval units for reinforcement. OTherwise the LAnd units tend to get reinforced and the others don't unless you are fully allocated. Will continue to monitor this issue for adjustment.

mm

 

[dec152000]

I remember once long ago Hagar said, CORE is supposed to be played on normal/normal settings. Is this still the case? I was thinking about trying on very hard/normal settings, but of course I don't want to cause any non-intended behaviour.

Which of following is the hardest to play, SU, Japan or UK?

Hi,

If the game seems to easy I'd go ahead and try H/VH. We don't do much testing on those settings, but it should work just fine. Depending on what your objectives are I'd expect all of these nations could be somewhat difficult. JAP certainly wasn't easy during my testing. Haven't actively tested as ENG or SOV.

mm

 

[Bakta]

Hi,

AI/AI FRA is outperforming the historical and I'm pretty certain that a human player will be able to do quite well as FRA without doing anything really drastic. Considering the rW results a human GER should be able to defeat an AI FRA on N/N. On a detail basis FRA is underperforming WRT the RW OOB. But this is mirrored by GER also being short as well so the end balance is reasonable. Tech wise I feel that FRA is getting a pretty good deal. Since we don't lock FRA into an awful doctrinal path we need to limit how much help they get from ENG prewar. At this point I think they actually overperform compared to the pace of RW developments.

mm

Respectfully, I disagree.

The main issue is FRA is railroaded in term of manpower and tech before war starts. So far the local agreement is FRA is better off spying tech out of UK rather than wasting money, and possible relation hits, on either GER or ITA. Too we agreed that FRA has no benefit to being allied, and for the third test going, still see no UK troops landing mainland to bolster defences on the Belgium border.

Should GER decide to give Poland a miss and hit FRA instead (DoWing LUX or BEL), the current debate is we're not sure taking down FRA will be harder.

Tech wise, the lack of options, mostly forcing FRA to assume Air being Army subservient, added along the trade prevention. AI-UK doesn't research much land doctrine. But, getting special project on it's own forces researchless FRA to spend a lot of time on those before that 38 Durand comes in. Few of these like special project or radar theory, in other words those who gives +research% FRA needs given it's tech teams, are very lengthy effectively downgrades FRA's tech efforts compared to 0.3.

Mobilization's kicking out after 39-09-03 gives FRA a boost compared to previous release, true. But the catching up phase is unhistorical. Against a AI, FRA might be better off not sure; against a Human player, FRA is worse off.

Maginot's line defence lowering too add to that. Before FRA could zerg, for the lack of a better word Saarbrucken; now GER can zerg Mulhouse instead.

Compared to 0.3, FRA took a serious hit. I'm not accusing anyone here. In my book FRA will always be the ultimate test in HoI, and I'm very grateful for the work done. The changes are historical, I'm all for them. But fair is fair, letting FRA face GER alone is unhistorical too. Can't have it both ways.

Some more testing are needed, I can write a report on FRA's path to war in 0.4 if required.


B./.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

WRT to Manpower FRA is far from being alone in having a shortage as this is one of the areas that we've drastically cut back on a global basis. Historyman did a lot of research in this area and I think we are ballpark for having enough MP to build the forces FRA historicaly fielded. Based on the RW mobilization effort I don't see France having been capable of much more.

BEF: Yes, you aren't going to see much help from ENG in the 0.40 release. I've typically seen 1-2 divisions. D2 balance issues we have not tried to increase this yet but ideally we'd like to see a proper BEF comitted to help FRA.

1939 FRA instead of POL: I think GER would have a hard time deploying enough troops to quickly overrun FRA in 1939 while still leaving adequate forces on the POL border.

Air Doctrines: For what FRA needs I think they are actually better off being Army Directed. This can give pretty good immediate results for Air Superiority, Ground Attack and Interdiction. I don't see FRA as initially needing to do much else. Plus it is efficient from a research cost perspective initially as well.

Maginot: I can't imagine that attempting to attack over the Rhein into Mullhouse would actually work well even with the lower value of the Forts. In 0.40 it is much harder to attack than before. During testing I was having a hard time dislodging FRA troops from Freiburg after I lost that province to an early attack.

0.30 to 0.40 FRA is weaker: Tech wise that is correct and it is WAD. The other structural changes that made attacking far more difficult overpowered FRA to the point that GER wasn't even defeating FRA in most games. One area we went after was FRA developing ahistorical techs. This hadn't been an issue when fRA was still collapsing on schedule in the 0.3x releases.

mm

mm

 

[namuseta]

I think he was talking about the AI's problems, not his own. If that is what he's talking about, then I agree. This hurts the AI far more than the player, since the player knows to keep his planes on the ground unless the enemy shows himself.

Part of the problem is the old debate on how to simulate the support structure of air units, which obviously won't be destroyed along with a few destroyed planes a hundred kilometers away. I think a better way to solve the problem would be to give air units very low morale, thus keeping them out of the war for a long time if they've been mauled, but without the problems associated with disappearing air units. It's a little late to be implementing radical new solutions that might not work though...

Giving air units low morale would be murder to players as they haveto redeploy them ai gets that for free

 

[SirHumphrey]

Hi, just anyone tried to play as Czechoslovakia? I think it´s impossible to play caouse the Fortifying event (about summer 1936). After this event You will loose 28 supplies everyday (-28 supplies off-map production) a and the whole effort of this huge cost is Fortifyingbonus, that happens once till Munich event (30.Semptember 1938). I think that daily cost for fortifying the border area is possible, but it should happens more than once. Possible bug or intension of the authors? The other thing is that CZE starts with 8 manpower and this event needs 20 manpower and also having enough supplies is just impossible. So I tried to change starting resource to 40 manpower (to have enough for this event) and supplies on 15.000 to have enough supplies for whole time till Munich. The fortifying effort happens only once so it does not depend on resources. Maybe I have to mention I played with difficulty set on very hard as i usually do.
Any comments?

PS: great mod, thaks to author
PPS: sorry for my bad english

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Being on VH is going to make playing nearly any nation a real challenge. This is especially true for some natios that have special pre-war scripting like CZE. The scripting here could probablly be improved so that a player is given a choice about building the forts or not. Otherwise the cost is actually quite good for the benefit received as fortifications are expensive. The structure where only one round of fortification ocurring prior to the Munich events is WAD.

mm

 

[seymouruk]

kudos

As you can probably see from my post count I don't post very much but I thought I should come on to offer my congratulations to the team on this new version.
Reading other posts it seems people are getting ahistorical results and complaining about it, but surely thats the point of the game!!

My own game as Canada has ended up with Germany overrunning France, Italy being pushed out of Africa and then the Soviets rolling into Europe pretty much all within historical timeframes. The only differences are that Japan has taken India and America hasn't done anything other than with its navy and airforce.

Now in the 1950s and Japan is on its last legs being pushed out of the far east by the Allies minus America and the Soviets. It's navy is at the bottom of the Pacific and its airforce is destroyed.

All in all its a great game and i'm sure my next game will be different but just as enjoyable.

 

[Elfenwolf]

re

I play Germany n/n and theres too much IC for Germany(build up only 6 Factories). In my game Nov. 43 the Output for Germany was 573/451, Italy 83/104, Amerika 702/536, England 350/252 and Russia 352/221. Russia defend of Murmansk are poor so they lost it very early ( have send 4 Mountainers 1941) The entire war Russia run out of Supplies.

Manpower may are still also too much for Germany. May daily increase are 2,35 against Russia with 2,15.

 

[HistoryMan]

Elfenwolf - are you playing with full IC takeover ? I think you'd find that Germany can't get (or support) this much IC normally - it will run out of Rares long before it can support this much, and Metal might be a problem too. I'm guessing you have gone to full CP as well ?

Tim

 

[Elfenwolf]

Nope, I never played hoi with tech takeoffer ore full Ic.Settings for full Ic and tech takeoffer are both off. Have done a fresh install with latest patch.
I support easy the industry my output are 220 Energie 97,5 Metal 39,5 rare materiall 1,4 öl, 6,4 money.
strange...

 

[Denniss]

The problem with SOV running out of supplies because they are set to use offensive supply. And they tend to use it a lot so with heavy fightiing they are out of supply early in the morning every day. That needs to be fixed.
If you want to fix it your self backup your current savegame, open it and earch for the SOV entry in the file, there should be an entry like "use offensive supply = yes" and change it to no.

I played GER through the Betas and have never seen such a high manpower raise - do you use special ministers to get it that high ?
GER should have a lot of IC as they occupied lots of provinces and the SS ministers give them a foreign IC bonus. A human player should be able to get lots of rares early on and to conserve them throughout 1944/45 but then starts to run low on them. The AI has way more problems. ITA is so low because they usually lack energy.

 

[snoopy1710]

Elfenwolf - are you playing with full IC takeover ? I think you'd find that Germany can't get (or support) this much IC normally - it will run out of Rares long before it can support this much, and Metal might be a problem too. I'm guessing you have gone to full CP as well ?

Tim

Hi Tim,

Not true. I have reached October 40 in my current n/n german game, my IC 700+ and I still have 35k rares left. Granted I goose-stepped over pretty much all of Europe but left the UK and SOV alone until now.

Snoopy