Unless I have more planes I rarely win them, sadly. I do always have better combat effectiveness though, which kinda puzzles me. Maybe as you said I don't see that I'm actually damaging them.
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That's a bad idea.The stacking penality will absolutely destroy you if you have too many air wings in one battle even with an air marshall.Having 4 interceptors or fighters under a good leader will be more efficient than 8 .
You can also use bombers to destroy your enemies air fields that ways they can't repair their planes and the air wings get destroyed by attrition or won't start their missions.
1.Are your planes outdated?
2.Are you using the correct planes to counter theirs ?Interceptors against bombers ,Fighters against interceptors and other fighters etc.
3.Make sure to build and research better radars ,it can make a big difference if you enemy has them and gets a bonus while you don't.
4.Don't let your planes start missions if they have low org or strenght that will also casue them to be less efficient.
I usually win most air engagments once I actually try to build an airforce and even in the early war as germany my interceptors trade very well against the british bombers ,usually 10:1 in my favour and my fighters usually get 3:1 or 4:1.
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Better combat effectiveness, same number of planes or even more but still loosing the fight... that looks like your planes haven't got enough air attack and/or organisation. The best combat effectiveness doesn't help much if it is multiplied with a too low air attack. Neither if the fight needs to be abandoned rather soon due to diminished org. The problem might be, as pointed out above, outdated planes or the wrong ones. Or a lack of the proper air doctrines which also raise your planes' organisation.
I take it that, when you talk about better combat effectiveness, you are refering to the adjusted combat effectiveness after boni/mali due to near air ports, radar, weather etc.?
Some forum posts and threads which might be interesting:
INT vs FIG, which ones to produce?
How to be effective with your planes' organisation...
My guess would be that the problem is too low organisation of your planes... due to lack of air doctrines and/or using the planes before they have fully recharged their organisation.
In practice the art of air battles is usually the art of heaping a lot of boni together in each fight (nearby air base, radar, 25% interceptor bonus vs bombers, fighting over own static AA which diminishes enemy org and really avoiding to do exactly the opposite which means a fight in which the enemy has all those boni). And, of course, starting battles with the max org and strength which means conserving your planes' org as much and best as possible (eg air scramble instead of air superiority missions, high infra in the regions of your air fields which speeds up org regain considerably).
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Ive done the 4 interceptors under a good leader, but im getting slammed by 10 or more air units, hence why I put up with the stacking penalty cause the AI has it too?
Thanks for the very detailed answer. I am indeed about talking about that combat effectiveness. I'll try and provide a screenshot example :
After that battle, I won but only killed 60 "plane personnel" to the 50 I lost. While retreating, the two squadrons met again near Dover (so closer to their bases/radars) and I lost that fight, losing 30 personnel to their 10. So all in all, I lost more during these fights despite having, I had hoped, better everything. Maybe I underestimate the power of their radars but I feel like I can't really get big enough of an advantage even when fighting on my terms.
;
I did, however, do a better job against Soviet planes - I guess I was paying more attention to resting damages planes.
Those battle results are roughly what you can expect.
In vanilla DH Fig-7 and Int-9 have the same base values: air attack of 6, air defence of 9. From the combat stats I would had expected a slightly better outcome for you in the first battle: you had better attack effectiveness, slightly higher org and if your fighters get even less mali due to rain than the Brits your air doctrines seem to be ok, too. Probably the Brits got an event or special research bonus making their planes a bit stronger than their base values, EoD has quite a lot of such events for a multitude of units (quite a lot for the Germans as well).
The result of the 2nd battle near Dover makes sense, too. With base proximity bonus now for the Brits plus radar bonus the combat effectiveness was probably exactly reversed. Both groups of planes had lost already some org in the first battle, thus the battle was shorter and with less losses before one side had to break off.
Well, there isn't much you can improve: Your ideal location for an air battle would had been directly over Cherbourg: additional radar and AA support. This can't be enforced but, let's say, encouraged by using the mission "air scramble". As a nice side effect it usually also stops your planes from wandering around, for example towards Dover.
Nevertheless... you are facing the historic problem: the air battle over the canal won't be decisive but just a multitude of skirmishes. Which is ok if you want to keep it historic and want to stay just defensive in the west to go east first. Otherwise: invasion. Which is easier in DH than it was in reality (unless you have done it very historically and forgot to build any kind of invasion fleet, transports, some units somehow suitable for an amphibious landing and didn't research the approbiate amphibious techs in the naval doctrine section... it's almost comedy that the Wehrmacht, after realizing that they had forgotten a few things, thought it then easier to perhaps conquere India than to dare a successful landing at the British coast... well, to their excuse, probably there wasn't a single German general who had expected France to be defeated already in spring 1940 and an invasion of England even a possibility).
Ah, realized only now, if you mention air battles with Soviet planes, you are already at war in the east.
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Very detailed answer as usual, a million thanks. I'll remember your suggestion of improvements for my next playthrough. I almost tried to invade them, but I wanted to keep it pretty historical for my first big game with Germany. But war in the east is indeed going very well, had a long session last night.
BTW, regarding invading the UK, is it considered 'gamey' to land a para division on an undefended port/harbor and then sea transport a bunch of troops? I saw that the AI didn't defend some provinces and I thought about the whole thing, considering that their beaches, especially with the 'hard Sealion option', are really well defended.
BTW, regarding invading the UK, is it considered 'gamey' to land a para division on an undefended port/harbor and then sea transport a bunch of troops? I saw that the AI didn't defend some provinces and I thought about the whole thing, considering that their beaches, especially with the 'hard Sealion option', are really well defended.
Hehe, depends how many times you have done it already... if it is your first time, definetly give it a try. If it works out, it let's you feel like a genius mastermind.
And if at one stage of the war, you notice that you look again and again at this huge annoyance named Gibraltar... and those stubborn Spanish denying you access via land...
That is the best way to invade England. Dropping paras from Amsterdam on Hull or Lincoln.
Second is funny, use Marines to invade Edinburgh in autumn 1939. UK gets some events that boosts their army, but it usually kicks in late 1939.
But you still need to keep in check Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. That can be done with building carriers or converting your initial BBs into carriers.
4 carriers + 2 light carriers escorted by light cruisers and destroyers can be a real killer, until British naval bombers show up (those are insanely unrealistically efficient).
i didnt get the events for bulgaria, romania and hungary, Yugoslavia joining the axis before operation barbarrosa is this normal?
Hungary should come in when the czech events occur, romania u need to deploy a specific amount of units at certain provinces, it should be in ur events window it will also tell u if its not available what u are missing. They all should be available prior to Barbarossa.
After the Paris is conquered you should get an event called German Diplomatic Offensive. That is the start for the future join of those countries.
Yugoslavia joins towards the end of 1940 and almost immediately an event fires about a coup that makes them neutral again and an event fired for Germany called War with Yugoslavia. You must choose war, when you want it to fire.
Afterwards, events allowing the alignment of Hungary should fire immediately. Romania fires after you get troops in Debrecen I think. Bulgaria joins after you put troops along Danube.
Vienna Dictat should fire in summer of 1940. If you decide in Hungary favor, there is a chance Hungary will join immediately, but later on Romania is going to be too weak for helping you during Barbarossa.
And yes, it is possible to get Hungary in Axis in February 1939, if you give them the whole Slovakia when annexing Czechs. Frankly they are more trouble than it worth, unless you take control of their military. They go after France while you are busy with Poland and they are going to provoke a skirmish before you can redeploy troops to the west.
Not really they don't have enough troops so they never attack on their own and unless you have no garissions on the border france won't attack either.
I have to report a very annoying bug : if Japan surrenders, a German puppet India will make peace with Allies, causing a general white peace. It happened to me as I was conquering Africa after Asia and preparing Seelöwe. After loosing against China, Japan was forced to surrender to USA after several nukes. Suddenly my puppet India made white peace with Allies, and the whole Axis was included in it. Very sad for me...
Is there an esay way to tweak event "Japan surrender" to avoid that ? I understand if India is a Japan puppet, or even if Japan is allied with Axis, but Japan refused all my alliance proposals (after breaking USSR, quite odd by the way, my help wouldn't have been superfluous).
Is there an esay way to tweak event "Japan surrender" to avoid that ? I understand if India is a Japan puppet, or even if Japan is allied with Axis, but Japan refused all my alliance proposals (after breaking USSR, quite odd by the way, my help wouldn't have been superfluous).
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I will check out later today to see why this bug fires. I never encountered it.
It is possible that there is some error in one of the new events added in the latest version. There is an Even called Fate of India which fires after Germans conquer Delhi.
Still, I never had a situation when Japan lost the war against China. Their war usually drags on and on. I once had it last way past 1960. Also, when playing with Germany, I usually stay away from an alliance with Japan, especially since I DOW on US when I want to, not when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
And as a piece of advice, always aim at doing the invasion of England before Barbarossa.
It is possible that there is some error in one of the new events added in the latest version. There is an Even called Fate of India which fires after Germans conquer Delhi.
Still, I never had a situation when Japan lost the war against China. Their war usually drags on and on. I once had it last way past 1960. Also, when playing with Germany, I usually stay away from an alliance with Japan, especially since I DOW on US when I want to, not when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
And as a piece of advice, always aim at doing the invasion of England before Barbarossa.
Ive played the game many times, and have never chosen keeping Slovakia, dont see any advantage, and having a stronger Hungarian ally that will give u an extra 35 to 40 infantry and 8 to 10 fighters is a win for me, The make excellent garrison units and augment my front line units with those units brigaded with art, eng, tank etc. And the air units if kept off the front lines and if given enough techs are excellent for air missions further back catching enemy units that have been depleted or redeploying to other areas.
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Hello, first and foremost many thanks to the creators for this very excellent mod for Darkest Hour (which remains most playable and convenient among all HoI variants). This mod deserves so much praise and is a masterpiece playable for many years even solely with its soundtrack. My suggestions and noting of the issues below are only for making this mod better if possible, and not at all any sort of criticism to this masterpiece.
Having played version 2.2 and 2.3 several times, I would like to indicate a few matters, which can probably be amended with next version, if there would ever be one. Mod is obviously mostly designed for Germany and there are less issues for Germany, but more issues for Allies.
- When you play with countries other than Germany, version 2.3 makes bugs (namely "5 bugs" relating to AI, etc.) each time you load a game.
- Again I do not know if it is ever possible in Darkest Hour, AI receives expeditionary units constantly; but the player does not - this gets to be important when you play as the Allies especially - you can never manage US/UK coordination when you play (you cannot assume control of US when you are UK, too - why would you anyway, if you would not like to deal with Pacific operations).
- Allied AI is quite horrible in terms of naval invasions; they never manage to make marine strikes and even when they do, a few transport units without any ship protection attempt to do it and the ships get sunk by Italian/Japanese/German naval bombers or navy. A typical game ends up with only UK making an invasion attempt in Patra/Greece, Sardinia and maybe Norway (usually when they are empty). It is a rare thing to see Allies land in France or mainland Italy (maybe only in very late war once Soviets juggernauted whole Germany or if those provinces happen to be empty). Usually US divisions stack up in some irrelevant location, generally never join a single war, loses most of the divisions underway in unprotected transport ships getting sunk. Similar issue with invasion of France, no AI could save UK units from destruction in France, making some sort of Dunkirk evacuation.
- This "Unknown" warning error appears when you click the pause button for some reason.This is more a version 2.3 thing
- I do not know if it is a normal thing, but in early Barbarossa stages, 3 German tank divisions can shatter an entire 30-division upgraded Soviet army group. But maybe this is required for German AI to achieve what they did in France or USSR.
- Generals..Whenever I play, the AI has some 4-5 level field marshals even in early stages of war, whereas a player would need to fight several years to make 4-5 level field marshals. Some auto-upgrades of notable commanders can be given in events firing up (exists in Germany, but not the others).
- Fate of South Africa event..Namibia always ends up with S.Africa even when you assign it to Mittelafrika (probably designed as a national province for S.Africa and a claim for Mittelafrika only)
- Fate of Africa events need some rework; if Egypt switched to Axis side, it only ends up in Sinai. France ends up getting former German West African colonies (Cameroon, etc.). There should be some formulation to keep Nigeria, parts of French West Africa and German colonies in German sphere of influence. Also, even when Italy gets Sudan, since ITA or Italian East Africa do not have any claims, they want to offload immediately to some party who does have claims there (if you claim Sudan as Germany, they will be given to you).
- The "immovable 273 American divisions in Lexington" issue is persistent. 273 citizen units are stuck there immovably and this seems to have no logical point. If they move, this would render an invasion of the US impossible - so this needs some sort of balanced rework.
- Fate of Middle East needs some rework, as it does not generally create a meaningful difference.
- German AI tendencies in Soviet war is quite interesting that things turn into a north-south war after a while. Advancing through north and south
- I never came by any post-war event threads for Allies. That could be a grand addition to this mod. There are no events pushing Soviets for invasion for Manchuria. And there are no events for post-war liberation of annexed countries with the exception of Poland. You could only do that yourself. Same for Allies, no events for liberation if you do not do yourself.
- When Italian state collapses, if Yugoslav/Greek provinces are in Italian possession, these also pass to the power invading Italy, creating a post-war liberation trouble
- I have never got to understand how post-war Occupation zones have any impacts to the game. It should bring some sort of difference if you would grant independence to the occupation zone rather than GDR/FRG or Austria.
- Naval bombers' extreme effect, if possible, could be restricted (I think though this is HoI-related and they are effective in Vanilla HoI2 too). It gets to be a bit absurd when a few Italian naval bombers squadrons can bring down whole British Mediterranean fleet. Naval bombers were effective in the war, but brought down several ships throughout the war, not an entire fleet.
- And also there happens to be 1-2 pockets after those liberation which stay in Allied or Soviet possession (e.g. if Allies invaded Hungary and Soviets Romania, then Transylvania remains in Allied possession -- or exclusively it happens to be in some Polish or Czech border province, like Karlovy Vary, etc.) All these issues may be fixed with a single grand series of post-war liberation events (e.g. some sort of "Fate of Europe" event series, both for Soviets and Allies). Or some sort of conference events (Yalta, Tehran, Potsdam) whereby claims are laid and national provinces are determined. No liberation should not be a possibility and if you keep them as puppets in case of Western Allies, there should be a high dissent hit. This influence area partition issue was so critical back then that it may have lead to a a new "hot war" instead of cold war.
- Some post-war early stage events could be included, some even from Vanilla HoI/Darkest Hour. Such as decolonisation events or independence of Pakistan, India, Jordan, Israel, Indonesia, etc. Others could be easily made. Also an event reversion of colonial possessions to France could be made.
- If Dutch East Indies are annexed by Japan before the US nukes - once the US nukes, an independent Indonesia or Dutch East Indies is not established - the provinces remain with Japan.
- After the war, there is no event making pre-war Eastern Poland area (Tarnopol, Lwow, etc.) Soviets' national province. I am not sure Poland partition event gives this sort of effect, I believe Molotov-Ribbentrop does not make them national province, but rather gives claim; in contrast with Baltic provinces. In sum, I end up with them being "non-national" provinces.
- In Fall Attila, it is normally the US who struck into French North Africa, but it is given to the UK in this mod.
- US needs to assume Allied leadership with an event rather than UK upon its entry into war. A similar event was available in Kaiserreich (once you liberate the UK with Canada, then UK assumes the leadership rather than Canada).
- Italian portraits are gone in version 2.3.
- French Indochina administration may be made "non-French" once it falls in Japanese sphere.
- Some late war events can be added to at least certain neutral nations for declaration of war to Germany and Japan (most of them did at a point; e.g. Turkey did at a very late stage and this could be added)
- I do not know if there is a way to avoid this, but in all events with long explanations (mostly these are German "Fate of" events), the screen is dark in the bottom; I have to make the selections without seeing what the selection is (I know the options by now, but for a first-time player this is an issue and there happens to be no solution but to check the file from its original .txt file).
Having played version 2.2 and 2.3 several times, I would like to indicate a few matters, which can probably be amended with next version, if there would ever be one. Mod is obviously mostly designed for Germany and there are less issues for Germany, but more issues for Allies.
- When you play with countries other than Germany, version 2.3 makes bugs (namely "5 bugs" relating to AI, etc.) each time you load a game.
- Again I do not know if it is ever possible in Darkest Hour, AI receives expeditionary units constantly; but the player does not - this gets to be important when you play as the Allies especially - you can never manage US/UK coordination when you play (you cannot assume control of US when you are UK, too - why would you anyway, if you would not like to deal with Pacific operations).
- Allied AI is quite horrible in terms of naval invasions; they never manage to make marine strikes and even when they do, a few transport units without any ship protection attempt to do it and the ships get sunk by Italian/Japanese/German naval bombers or navy. A typical game ends up with only UK making an invasion attempt in Patra/Greece, Sardinia and maybe Norway (usually when they are empty). It is a rare thing to see Allies land in France or mainland Italy (maybe only in very late war once Soviets juggernauted whole Germany or if those provinces happen to be empty). Usually US divisions stack up in some irrelevant location, generally never join a single war, loses most of the divisions underway in unprotected transport ships getting sunk. Similar issue with invasion of France, no AI could save UK units from destruction in France, making some sort of Dunkirk evacuation.
- This "Unknown" warning error appears when you click the pause button for some reason.This is more a version 2.3 thing
- I do not know if it is a normal thing, but in early Barbarossa stages, 3 German tank divisions can shatter an entire 30-division upgraded Soviet army group. But maybe this is required for German AI to achieve what they did in France or USSR.
- Generals..Whenever I play, the AI has some 4-5 level field marshals even in early stages of war, whereas a player would need to fight several years to make 4-5 level field marshals. Some auto-upgrades of notable commanders can be given in events firing up (exists in Germany, but not the others).
- Fate of South Africa event..Namibia always ends up with S.Africa even when you assign it to Mittelafrika (probably designed as a national province for S.Africa and a claim for Mittelafrika only)
- Fate of Africa events need some rework; if Egypt switched to Axis side, it only ends up in Sinai. France ends up getting former German West African colonies (Cameroon, etc.). There should be some formulation to keep Nigeria, parts of French West Africa and German colonies in German sphere of influence. Also, even when Italy gets Sudan, since ITA or Italian East Africa do not have any claims, they want to offload immediately to some party who does have claims there (if you claim Sudan as Germany, they will be given to you).
- The "immovable 273 American divisions in Lexington" issue is persistent. 273 citizen units are stuck there immovably and this seems to have no logical point. If they move, this would render an invasion of the US impossible - so this needs some sort of balanced rework.
- Fate of Middle East needs some rework, as it does not generally create a meaningful difference.
- German AI tendencies in Soviet war is quite interesting that things turn into a north-south war after a while. Advancing through north and south
- I never came by any post-war event threads for Allies. That could be a grand addition to this mod. There are no events pushing Soviets for invasion for Manchuria. And there are no events for post-war liberation of annexed countries with the exception of Poland. You could only do that yourself. Same for Allies, no events for liberation if you do not do yourself.
- When Italian state collapses, if Yugoslav/Greek provinces are in Italian possession, these also pass to the power invading Italy, creating a post-war liberation trouble
- I have never got to understand how post-war Occupation zones have any impacts to the game. It should bring some sort of difference if you would grant independence to the occupation zone rather than GDR/FRG or Austria.
- Naval bombers' extreme effect, if possible, could be restricted (I think though this is HoI-related and they are effective in Vanilla HoI2 too). It gets to be a bit absurd when a few Italian naval bombers squadrons can bring down whole British Mediterranean fleet. Naval bombers were effective in the war, but brought down several ships throughout the war, not an entire fleet.
- And also there happens to be 1-2 pockets after those liberation which stay in Allied or Soviet possession (e.g. if Allies invaded Hungary and Soviets Romania, then Transylvania remains in Allied possession -- or exclusively it happens to be in some Polish or Czech border province, like Karlovy Vary, etc.) All these issues may be fixed with a single grand series of post-war liberation events (e.g. some sort of "Fate of Europe" event series, both for Soviets and Allies). Or some sort of conference events (Yalta, Tehran, Potsdam) whereby claims are laid and national provinces are determined. No liberation should not be a possibility and if you keep them as puppets in case of Western Allies, there should be a high dissent hit. This influence area partition issue was so critical back then that it may have lead to a a new "hot war" instead of cold war.
- Some post-war early stage events could be included, some even from Vanilla HoI/Darkest Hour. Such as decolonisation events or independence of Pakistan, India, Jordan, Israel, Indonesia, etc. Others could be easily made. Also an event reversion of colonial possessions to France could be made.
- If Dutch East Indies are annexed by Japan before the US nukes - once the US nukes, an independent Indonesia or Dutch East Indies is not established - the provinces remain with Japan.
- After the war, there is no event making pre-war Eastern Poland area (Tarnopol, Lwow, etc.) Soviets' national province. I am not sure Poland partition event gives this sort of effect, I believe Molotov-Ribbentrop does not make them national province, but rather gives claim; in contrast with Baltic provinces. In sum, I end up with them being "non-national" provinces.
- In Fall Attila, it is normally the US who struck into French North Africa, but it is given to the UK in this mod.
- US needs to assume Allied leadership with an event rather than UK upon its entry into war. A similar event was available in Kaiserreich (once you liberate the UK with Canada, then UK assumes the leadership rather than Canada).
- Italian portraits are gone in version 2.3.
- French Indochina administration may be made "non-French" once it falls in Japanese sphere.
- Some late war events can be added to at least certain neutral nations for declaration of war to Germany and Japan (most of them did at a point; e.g. Turkey did at a very late stage and this could be added)
- I do not know if there is a way to avoid this, but in all events with long explanations (mostly these are German "Fate of" events), the screen is dark in the bottom; I have to make the selections without seeing what the selection is (I know the options by now, but for a first-time player this is an issue and there happens to be no solution but to check the file from its original .txt file).
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Well, I think it is broken, because either Japan has not to be in war against China, or Germany to be at war against USSR, which delay alliance untill operation Charlemagne if Japan don't join the fight after the fall of Moscow.
It is working as intended ? Because I see no reason for Japan to refuse the help of the Whermacht after a successfull Barbarossa to finish China and fight together against USA and UK.
Otherwise how to fix it ? I didn't find the relevant event in the db files.
Are you sure you are using the latest version of the mod?2.3?The decision was avaible for me as soon as I defeated the USSR.