NOT A BUG: German Diplomacy Futzed

[Calbeck]

BUG: German Diplomacy Futzed

A standard tactic of mine when playing Germany is to choose the Ideological Crusader for Foreign Minister as soon as possible. This allows me to kit out potential and likely allies with tech advancements for free (as the design shows --- dropping the cost from 1 to 0). In fact, if I expect to have allies capable of fighting their way out a paper bag (since they develop new tech at a glacial pace on their own), this is an essential part of the game.

But with the 1.06 patch, suddenly the cost of tech transfers has gone up while the posted cost remains the same! The Ideological Crusader still costs 1 point per tech transfer, which means I can't even get Italy up to par before war starts, let alone any of the minor allies. And if I go with anyone else, the cost is 2 per transfer!

At this point, about all I can do is support Spain during her Civil War and then forget about allies except as nations I have to munch myself in order to ensure they can produce anything worthwhile. :wacko:

 

[Long Lance]

Bug!??!

AFAIK, this has been changed in 1.06. Seems to be no bug to me.

 

[jpd]

Yup. Even though I don't like this change for a while myself, it sure is better for game balance purposes. Before this change, you could pick, as Germany, your likely alliance candidates and start freebee tech sharing. By the time the war broke out, all those allies were on par with Germany, tech wise. All it took was two years of methodically weekly tech shares.

Jan Peter

 

[Maximilian I]

Not A Bug.

 

[unmerged(15723)]

Not A Bug.

No. And for sure one of the better changes with 1.06.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

It's still possible to get allies like Hungary and Romania up to a very good level before Barbarossa even when it costs 1 DIP for each shared knowledge. I get Italy into the Axis after I annex Yugoslavia and they eventually catch up inf. wise to the other members in the Axis. I don't do much else with DIP so there's more than enough to share tech with your allies.

 

[jpd]

Then you didn't share all that much tech to start with.

Before v1.06, a German player bent on getting it's (potential) allies on par tech wise would share, on a weekly basis, techs with at least Japan and Italy. Probably also with Brasil, Manchuko (Japan's puppet) and Hungary, and possibly Rumenia and Yugoslavia. Even if you limit it to Japan and Italy, that would now cost you 52 * 2 = 104 DI yearly. You don't get even close to that amount yearly. When compared to pre 1.06 tech sharing, tech sharing is curtailed to a very large extend.

Jan Peter

 

[Calbeck]

Okay, thanks for the info on this being a deliberate change, however:

1) The stats on the leaders remain the same as before 1.06, which is rather misleading (since the Ideological Leader still promises "0" and others promise "1"). The typos should be fixed, although I realize this is a minor beef.

2) The minor allies are not the least bit capable without "freebie tech". Even at "only" 1 DP per transfer, it becomes pointless to spread tech support to more than one or two countries and that means Italy/Japan. The historical minor allies of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland (and/or Yugoslavia) can expect little or no support of any kind simply because anything they get will detract from Italy and/or Japan and still won't bring them up to anything like fighting quality before war breaks out. This makes their armies effectively worthless, and their nations pointless as allies (better to conquer them outright for the resources and factories!).

3) Even if one only supports Italy and/or Japan, DPs get sucked up much faster than they are replaced, making other diplomatic efforts pointless and ultimately a waste of DPs. I can't afford to tussle with the Allies and Soviets over Turkey and the Benelux countries when I'm trying to ensure that the Italian Navy won't fold in its first year of operations!