early game changes that might help

[unmerged(18202)]

I've played through the early game phases enough to see some trends that CORE might look at:

1) Hungary: needs to be harder to bring to Axis alliance. Didn't happen until 1940 in the real thing. Romania and Italy, on the other hand, are pretty standoffish to Germany--especially Italy.

2) Spanish Civil War has taken a step backward for Germany. I don't agree with all the people that want to be able to send expeditionary forces, but I do think it needs to slant more toward the Nationalists. I also think Germany should get some leader experience and techs out of the deal, no matter who wins, especially air doctrine techs since there is almost no early land doctrine research for Germany but a buttload of air doctrine research.

3) Slovakia. Slovakia cannot remotely maintain the whole former Czechoslovak army; in reality it topped out at something like nine divisions. I know that when we disband a nation's units we get potluck, which sucks for Spain but not for a landlocked country with no fleets to lose. All but four divisions should be disbanded; they get what they get. Germany should not get two random Slovak divisions; it should get either a couple of new light tank divisions of its own, or it should get some tank techs.

4) Marco Polo Bridge. There should be a chance Japan decides not to invade China proper, but it should be a slimmer one than I've seen.

5) Turkey looks awful weak. Denmark looks awful strong.

6) Doesn't seem too much to ask for Germany to have a single troop transport at start. Those guys got to East Prussia somehow.

7) It might be a good step to make it so that if Germany invades the Netherlands while Belgium's still neutral, the Belgians may join the Allies. Right now the exploit is to just smash the Dutch after Poland, and get by with it. Even Leopold wasn't that dumb.

jkk

 

[unmerged(27364)]

Just a couple of things:

1. Yes Germany does need a troop transport at game start. Hist. there where plenty of German run passenger ships to move troops with, had the army needed them.

2. The easiest way to fix the Slovakian army would be to have two events handleing the transition. The first would disband the entire Czeckoslovakian army ~ that would take care of all units. Next. Seperate events would add the Slovak army units into thier production list, completed ready for deployment of course, and a similar event for the Germans.

Although you might not have the smae names on the units, you could notch that up to reorganizarion, etc.. Infact, this would allow even countries with navies at stake , to keep the units and types of units that you would like them to keep during this type of transition.

 

[McNaughton]

I've played through the early game phases enough to see some trends that CORE might look at:

1) Hungary: needs to be harder to bring to Axis alliance. Didn't happen until 1940 in the real thing. Romania and Italy, on the other hand, are pretty standoffish to Germany--especially Italy.

I seem to remember that there was difficulty getting any nation into the Axis!

2) Spanish Civil War has taken a step backward for Germany. I don't agree with all the people that want to be able to send expeditionary forces, but I do think it needs to slant more toward the Nationalists. I also think Germany should get some leader experience and techs out of the deal, no matter who wins, especially air doctrine techs since there is almost no early land doctrine research for Germany but a buttload of air doctrine research.

Without intervention from the West, the Republicans should have difficulty winning (Italy should be the nation that devotes the most, about 30 000 troops, or two divisions worth of troops). Did Germany really learn a lot? What they mainly learned was that their light tanks were useless, and the false perception that terror bombing worked.

3) Slovakia. Slovakia cannot remotely maintain the whole former Czechoslovak army; in reality it topped out at something like nine divisions. I know that when we disband a nation's units we get potluck, which sucks for Spain but not for a landlocked country with no fleets to lose. All but four divisions should be disbanded; they get what they get. Germany should not get two random Slovak divisions; it should get either a couple of new light tank divisions of its own, or it should get some tank techs.

Germany got, max, one division's worth of tanks. Slovakia had about 4 divisions maximum, and should be heavily neutered after their creation.

5) Turkey looks awful weak. Denmark looks awful strong.

Looks can be decieving. Denmark had the equivalent of about 4 divisions of troops (their Divisions had 5-6+ Regiments), while a Turkish Division was really just a reinforced brigade.

7) It might be a good step to make it so that if Germany invades the Netherlands while Belgium's still neutral, the Belgians may join the Allies. Right now the exploit is to just smash the Dutch after Poland, and get by with it. Even Leopold wasn't that dumb.

jkk

There should be more situations like this, such as neighbours or individuals joining alliances when in a potentially tough situation (Belgium would join the Allies if the Netherlands was invaded, the reverse probably wouldn't hold true, as, the Dutch were neutral in the first war, and may pull off being neutral in the second).

 

[MateDow]

I've played through the early game phases enough to see some trends that CORE might look at:

6) Doesn't seem too much to ask for Germany to have a single troop transport at start. Those guys got to East Prussia somehow.

Have you no faith??!?

I am reworking the naval OOBs for the new tech tree, model availability, and testing some new ideas. Don't worry Germany will have some troop transports in 1936 for moving troops around. I haven't decided if the passenger liners will be there at the beginning of the game or will appear through event with the outbreak of war. MDow

 

[JRaup]

Have you no faith??!?

I am reworking the naval OOBs for the new tech tree, model availability, and testing some new ideas. Don't worry Germany will have some troop transports in 1936 for moving troops around. I haven't decided if the passenger liners will be there at the beginning of the game or will appear through event with the outbreak of war. MDow

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'll believe it when I see the code.

 

[unmerged(28582)]

I've played through the early game phases enough to see some trends that CORE might look at:

1) Hungary: needs to be harder to bring to Axis alliance. Didn't happen until 1940 in the real thing. Romania and Italy, on the other hand, are pretty standoffish to Germany--especially Italy.

2) Spanish Civil War has taken a step backward for Germany. I don't agree with all the people that want to be able to send expeditionary forces, but I do think it needs to slant more toward the Nationalists. I also think Germany should get some leader experience and techs out of the deal, no matter who wins, especially air doctrine techs since there is almost no early land doctrine research for Germany but a buttload of air doctrine research.

3) Slovakia. Slovakia cannot remotely maintain the whole former Czechoslovak army; in reality it topped out at something like nine divisions. I know that when we disband a nation's units we get potluck, which sucks for Spain but not for a landlocked country with no fleets to lose. All but four divisions should be disbanded; they get what they get. Germany should not get two random Slovak divisions; it should get either a couple of new light tank divisions of its own, or it should get some tank techs.

4) Marco Polo Bridge. There should be a chance Japan decides not to invade China proper, but it should be a slimmer one than I've seen.

5) Turkey looks awful weak. Denmark looks awful strong.

6) Doesn't seem too much to ask for Germany to have a single troop transport at start. Those guys got to East Prussia somehow.

7) It might be a good step to make it so that if Germany invades the Netherlands while Belgium's still neutral, the Belgians may join the Allies. Right now the exploit is to just smash the Dutch after Poland, and get by with it. Even Leopold wasn't that dumb.

jkk

1 - Agreed, but perhaps the chance of entry could be made contingent somehow upon whether or not the neo-Fascist Arrow Cross is in power (same with the Iron Guard for Romania). If not done so already, these would be good events for the minor nations, in fact.

2 - Also agreed that the Nationalists need bumping up. I happen to be something of a historian of the conflict and like many who have studied it I feel the Republic had next to no chance whatsoever of winning in real life. The German RL exp force was small but significant and the Italian CTV was enormous; another poster was correct about the large number of troops. Actually the numbers probably were close on 50,000 at one point. The "Littorio" Division was in for much of the conflict, in fact, and that was about as close to an elite unit as one could find in the Italian army. As for what Germany got out of it, blueprints for a couple (esp air) doctrines seem reasonable but perhaps at cost of a big supplies hit.

3 - Haven't seen the RL Slovakian OOB but I believe they only fielded one actual division and that it was incorporated into the Wehrmacht. I am not 100% on this one.

5 - Yes and yes. Denmark should not be able to hold off a six stack of Wehrmacht, especially as it capitulated in RL after putting up no fight at all. There is an event of course that handles this in 1.1 but it needs some tweaking.

6 - Use the Hamburg-Amerika line of ocean liners for this. I think that was done in C.O.R.E. 1.

7 - Agreed. Just tried out Stony Road 2.1 and they have something like "Benelux violation" as an event that brings the non-violated countries into alliance.

 

[Kaarle XII]

The Slovakian army

For some information about the Slovakian army in the war, check http://www.feldgrau.com/a-slovakia.html , Four days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Slovakia sent its own units forward against the Russian lines in the form of the Slovakian Expeditionary Army Group. The Slovak Army Group was commanded by the Slovak Minister of Defense, Ferdinand Catlos. As the Campaign in the East drew on, the Slovak forces began to fall behind the massive German sweep across the Soviet Union. This was mainly because of a general lack of mobile forces able to transport the 45,000 stong Slovak Army Group along side the German advance.


So they should have atleast a couple of divisions...

 

[unmerged(39280)]

About Slovakian military. In 41-42 they got 2 infantry divissions and 1 "fast" division (motorized division + tank batalion or something like that... (using Skoda tanks given or sold by germans after march 38'). Later as war in the east goes worse for gemrany - they were assigned to occupying duties - and later - even disarmed (being to risky to keep them as armed force any longer...) and used as workforce. All this im writing from memory - i read about Slovakia in 2 WW long time ago...
About minors in general - they seems to be way overspowered, what can be done - at least for non european minors (UK puppets as Nepal comes in mind) - to give them only ONE IC - as it is now - they have 5 or 6 typically - so in few years they are able to build far to many divisions...
As for countries like Denmark - maybe giving them a peace-time penalty (like UK/France/US has) would be a good idea - Denmark has any army to speak off in 1940 - in HoI2 they usually have about 7 divisons by then.
Just my 2 cents