Axis Operation 1945 Review

[terminator]

In Operation BARCA, this IS-3 is unstoppable :

Barca.jpg (245.11 KiB) Viewed 1529 times

[Grondel]

In Operation BARCA, this IS-3 is unstoppable :
Barca.jpg

this is just one of many ways to kill them.


sers,
Thomas

[terminator]

In Operation BARCA, this IS-3 is unstoppable :
Barca.jpg

this is just one of many ways to kill them.


sers,
Thomas

You have four heroes attached to a tactical bomber I had noted that IS-3 was vulnerable to tactical bombers but I started the campaign AO45 without backup with a more limited number of heroes

[DefiantXYX]

I got no problem with nemesis units and superstrong heroes, but the base IS-3 is far stronger than a Tiger II and even stronger than Panzer VII Loewe.
Whats next in 1946? A Spirtfire X is stronger than ME 262?

Just give them overstrength and more units and dont manipulate the stats.

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

I got no problem with nemesis units and superstrong heroes, but the base IS-3 is far stronger than a Tiger II and even stronger than Panzer VII Loewe.
Whats next in 1946? A Spirtfire X is stronger than ME 262?

Just give them overstrength and more units and dont manipulate the stats.

The IS-3 and Lowe have basically equivalent stats. I would even rate the Lowe a little higher because of its higher mobility. There is no reason that all German units must be better than all other units, as that certainly wasn't the case irl.

The Lowe didn't even exist irl, for one, and German strategic bombers in PC2 are laughably overbuffed compared to their much more successful UK/US equivalents. It's also perfectly believable that US/UK jet fighters in 1946 would have similar or better stats than an Me 262, as both had extant jet fighter programs

Purely from a gameplay perspective, I find it more fun when the AI has comparably powerful units. You're already at a huge advantage by being a person, and the capture game essentially serves as an engaging sidequest

[DefiantXYX]

The whole endgame on the russian front was based on quality vs quantity. If the russians even got better toys the war would have ended in 1943.
German tanks in the last years of the war did rather die to mechanical defects.
Loewe and IS-3 is part of the ahistorical game. Germany still has a lot of ressources, the industry is not bombed to ashes and there is no reason to rush the production of weapons.

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

The whole endgame on the russian front was based on quality vs quantity. If the russians even got better toys the war would have ended in 1943.
German tanks in the last years of the war did rather die to mechanical defects.
Loewe and IS-3 is part of the ahistorical game. Germany still has a lot of ressources, the industry is not bombed to ashes and there is no reason to rush the production of weapons.

Well to some extent, the quality vs quantity argument is a bit of a red herring. The USSR design philosophy deliberately chose quantity over quality, partly on the realization that it doesn't matter if a tank falls apart after a year, when its average expected life in combat is less than six months.

And the German tanks not only suffered from defects due to production issues from bombing and slave labor, but many flaws were inherent in their design. Higher maintenance times, higher overall costs, lack of materials needed for the high quality alloys required, multiple subcontractors supplying subsystems that weren't mutually interchangeable, etc
The IS-3 provided the template for post-war Soviet tank design, it wasn't anything to sneeze at

Similarly, British jet engine design was actually significantly more advanced than anything the Germans had by war's end. Where Germany still had the advantage was in understanding aerodynamics

[RVallant]

Wasn't the first British jet used for a while post-war?

[Kerensky]

Wasn't the first British jet used for a while post-war?

The first real world use of the Meteor III as I recall was it being used to intercept V-1 Flying Bombs.

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

Speaking of V-1s, another under-celebrated Allied wunderwaffe was the proximity fuse for AA and later airburst artillery shells. Combined with radar-guided fire control computers it was extremely effective at shooting down V-1s, and increased US effectiveness against kamikazes by a factor of 7

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

[VirgilInTheSKY]

Speaking of V-1s, another under-celebrated Allied wunderwaffe was the proximity fuse for AA and later airburst artillery shells. Combined with radar-guided fire control computers it was extremely effective at shooting down V-1s, and increased US effectiveness against kamikazes by a factor of 7

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

The problem with VT is the size, though, which means most of the ground AA units at that time are unable to utilize it due to having too small caliber to fire VT shells.

[Wolfenguard]

from my view, the Review of the SCW and AO
SCW:
some People said scw was to long other not,
i think it hat the correct lengh, because it takes part in a time or scenario with where not really a part of other games
the only negativepoint was, that we have to use aux inf units, especially later in the scw when you get everytime fresh aux inf units and fight against 1 or 2 star enemy inf units.

ao 39 to 43
there where some fun missions some not really, depening a lot of your own units (def missions where you have to wait to the end of the scenario),
negative maybe de Gaule as the nemesis unit, which comes back again and again instead like the nemesis from scw
and maybe small invasion of england and no chance to save your fleet

ao 44 & 45
starting with the ability to get an a hist part, both of the Ao feels a little short, when you see the amount of missions from the other ao´s
negative in my view, was the main focus on the eastern Front, but you can´t be at everywhere,
the DDay invasion, where a little bit short handled with an air only mission,
positive the elite Missions, where you get your bonus directly and not some time later


for the CP
it was a nice idea, that you can buy things with this points, but at some ao´s you endet with x points left and had nothing to do with the rest points, maybe in the next PC we get the ability to buy at the end of the ao some new units or special units

Prototypes
i think they where a two sides swort, it was nice to have some stuff a little bit earlier but at the same time, you have x prototype units and dont get a benefit if they get standart units like some prestige points aso.
maybe in a new pc, they handle them a little bit different like, if you use the prototypes the standart version gets a stats boost

Story
was nice and feels good
at some point i would change it a little bit especially when we know that there will be a ahist path,
invasion of france, special mission to conquer french fleet in the middle sea, when iam correctly the british fleet attacked the french fleet in the harbor so that the germans cant use them
east front:
the russian change the location of their industry to the ural area in 1943, i would make there a mission where we bring build units to specific position to build startbases for the v1 to attack the ural industry or build like the breitbahnprojekt rails for the heavy rail guns.

Missions:
i like ships , maybe some small fleet only missions, like
some submarines tries to stop convoys (especially if we have a bigger dday missions part, where the enemy has less units because we sunk the convoys) or the last drive of the bismark, after the air only mission with the gneisenau aso. we try to bring the rest of our fleet into the atlantik for konvoy hunting or for their travel to japan, (like in the atlantik our fleet has no chance, but we can be a urgend part in the sea war bethwen japan and the usa

Core system:
yes and no, on the side its a part of the balancing on the other side oh yes i get new stuff and some more core points and then oh no the new stuff needs x points more ...

captured Equipment
i think it need a rework, it was nice to get some of the stuff at a specific point scw: where the captured equipment outranged your own stuff (especially the aircrafts), but most the time it was more stuff for the roleplayers which likes to use the stuff, because the captured equipment had the same stats like your own (and your own stuff, dont had the problem with the limited amount of stuff, when you dont use the limited stock feature)
i think it would be a good change, if the captured equipment get a iniative boost, the enemy dont know we have the stuff but our people know every enemy is an enemy

for the future for a possible PC3
captured equipment, see above

core system / Army (RPG) System
a change of the core system to an army system depending on your general traits
fixed units slots for your army like in PC1
starting with x groups with have y slots for units like
group 1 2 infantery 4 Tanks 2 Support
2 2 infantery 4 Tanks 2 Support
3 2 Fighter 2 Bomber
if you choose inf general +2 inf - 2 Tanks
Group 1 4 inf 2 tanks 2 support
...
no air or arty -1 figther and Bomber -1support but +x inf or tank
Aux units will now be a fix part of your army but have only acces to own equipment (italian aso,)
at specific parts of the campaign you can choose to help other armys with you groups (Air only missions aso), if you send a group to help, you have to play this missions (if this is a scenario like air only) or you only dont have acces to this group for x mission but get a bonus like cp or a special unit (or new units for aux or a change of the army)
with the cp you can lvl up your general to change traits or get new groups/addons.

Army HQ:
you have acces to the army HQ, at special points in the campaign, where you can get letters from home (story informations) get acees to story only missions and or have acees to other war places like africa,
it can be like this, army hq a new newspaper is here, our submarines attacked a convoy (start of the mission, submarines attacks convoy) or like afrika, you play 3 missions there, then go back to the main campaign and play later the next x mission in afrika, depending on your succes aso you get points for the a hist path aso.
with this system, we can get out of the one war theatre and see what happens on the other theatres and why happened this or this. like some people said about the ao43 it fells like we where the only army which makes an impakt and the other dont know what they makes

[Bee1976]

and maybe small invasion of england and no chance to save your fleet

Uhm, you can indeed save that fleet. But sadly, there is no reward in achieving this. You are able to meet the blücher again if you saved her in the first norway mission, but even if you save all battleships in the england scenario, there is no reward :/

[DefiantXYX]

Uhm, you can indeed save that fleet. But sadly, there is no reward in achieving this. You are able to meet the blücher again if you saved her in the first norway mission, but even if you save all battleships in the england scenario, there is no reward

It is not about the reward, I dont care to be honest. But the dude just says in de debriefing that your fleet is lost. And even in 1945 ahistorical wagners says that the navy got only 4 battlelships left.
Like I keep saying, we need a revamp of all the DLCs. Saving the fleet gets an elite objective and you get a AA-hero as rewards, because he get bored of the navy and wants to join the ground forces

[RVallant]

I think, my only real complaint (aside from length) is that heroes are too big of a deal.

Playing 1945 now and basically every other major enemy has to be a triple hero combination of super big tanks in order to give my forces something to think about. And then I just stick Rudel on them and they go away for a bit.

If they do PZC3, or rather if they do other DLC I wouldn't mind them forcing an option to block all heroes beside the Elite objectives ones ~ if that, for story purposes. I think that would make managing the difficulty so much easier. Maybe?

[Ryba666]

But from other side, if you as player stlill struggles after 9 years of campaign ii will be no fun, also rudel is only one, soviets have a more than one tank unit. To easy, i dobt think so, i f you do stupid moves even op unit with 3 units can die.

[RVallant]

I was just using him as an example, but with double move/attack, it isn't that unusual for Rudel to wipe out two tanks in one shot anyway, or 0-9 them so someone else can come along in a tank and chain-kill the entire map.

By '45 with all the heroes I have, my entire fighter squadrons are on no retaliate/fast rebase (which is obscene), I have two Rudels, Rudel himself and another TAC with double move, double attack, tank killer.

I have a 21cm artillery that can shoot something silly like almost 6 hexes on flat terrain (which paired with a recon air, and +ammo hero makes them a prime comedy show for retaliation fire), never mind if I stick them on anything elevated!

My AT's are sitting in camo, 2x rapid fire, which makes Jadgpanther's pretty much one-shot everything, including near enough the super powered IS-3's.

My Infantry, whether it's the Engineers (0-20 any time, with 6 move hex before even hitting transports) or Azul (0-20 again) or Grenade defenders (First strike, aggressive counter etc) are basically untouchable. Unless I am overwhelmed with numbers, or put units in the wrong places, I'm pretty much good to go.

I think it would be a more even fight, if heroes were limited. Doesn't have to be easier/harder ~ 1945 goes to great lengths to point out the Russians still have ample reserves, so they should be winning in terms of numbers and attrition tbh, but the hero game just trivialises things. (I imagine it's a PITA for the dev team to have to balance the game around heroes and also fresh cores tbh.)

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

You can limit "normal" heroes in the current game. When you start a new campaign, under the "advanced options" tab at the bottom of the new campaign settings, there is a "hero chance" slider that goes from 0(guaranteed no hero per scenario) to 100 (always hero per scen), which is set to 100 by default
Also, you can of course set a house rule where you dismiss however many heroes you want

If you want to be forced into limited heroes, make sure to check out the next update to the PC1 Grand Campaign Mod for PC2, where Grondel has created a system where you buy heroes from tiers with prestige.

[fmscherer]

Just found this topic.

I must admit I was also quite disappointed by the AO45. Like others I really like the game, so I pretty much buy every DLC available. But I gaines the impression, that the designers went at this with a "we are tired....minimum effort" attitude.

I did not necessarily expect a more "branched" campaign tree. But a little bit of story for achiving elite or "high command" objectives.

Like saving Ms Brandt forces Wagner to decide between his girlfriend and wife ... or when achiving all high command goals getting a bonus hero, like a totally fanatic "Endsieg" fighter. Or some erratic immediate "high command commands" during the last battles which interfere with your military decisions.

The ahistoric route also sems a little short-cut for me. The "Reichstag"-scenario is a nice flavor. But as a full scenario I get the impression it was just a way to get your scenario number fullfilled with limited effort. To finish off the Sovjets and whole India in so few battles? The whole "A-bomb"-story? Somehow it leaves the aftertaste of "short-cuts".

Just a little bit more effort to keep us players entertained who are supporting this series for some years now would have been nice

I think there was some oportunity wasted. A pitty.

Still looking forward to the next DLCs.

[DefiantXYX]

I think there was some oportunity wasted. A pitty.

The opportunity is still there in 1946. You could start with operation Barbarossa 2.0, since the russians break the peace again and you have to finish them by talking moscow in the traditional way, isntead of atomic bomb fairy tales.
With german high end stuff and without supply issues you dont need more than 3 scenarios.

After that 3-5 scenarios for Operation Sealion 2.0, followed by an invasion of the us, maybe 5-10 scenarios.