Potzblitz V25.0 OCT 18th 2024

[Robotron]

(...)

[werst]

The new additions to the mod are great. I especially like the different campaign scenarios.

Yet I've tried the Ostmarch again and again and I think it is unwinnable with Central powers (while I won it with Entente on the first try). I don't think it is possible to kick France or Britain out of the game till 1918 if you had to reach Moscow first (since you can't wait for the Bolshevik revolution but have to conquer a huge part of the vast Russian plains).

I managed to reach the end of 1917 with both Germany and Austria-Hungary having suffered only 2 collapse points each, both having around 100% morale. I kicked Russia out of the game, conquered Serbia and Belgium, made break-throughs on French and Italian fronts. Economy was balanced, all units upgraded and superior to the enemy. I was clearly winning the war. If I just had a little more time.

Since the start of 1918 all the "army exhausted" and simmilar events appeared, Germany jumped from 2 collapse points to 11 within few months and in the July 1918 I got the result "Historical defeat". It felt sort of like I was winning a soccer match but then the referee called eight penalties in the row against me.

I know in the real world the German army lost because the nation got too exhausted and collapsed in the midst of Germany's own offensive. But a game needs to be winnable, even if the best possible final result would be: "Good job, you managed to stay in the war till the end even though the initial decision of your generals was really, really stupid."

[Umeu]

Great changes.

I've played quite a few games in the mean time, and I've encouraged my opponents to come here to share their thoughts, but none have done so yet, so I'll just share some of mine and some of theirs that we have discussed.

My ignore list is now empty again.

So at the risk of this not staying true for very long lol, here it comes XD



Questions:

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
The Austrian Armored Train is now parked near Krakau at the start of the game.

So that means AH loses 1 reserve in their starting army now?

Ottoman starting forces in the Sinai are much weaker. To compensate, Britain does not receive free units at the Suez anymore (Arabs etc).

Good change, it was definitely too strong. However, I now foresee the reverse issue that Britain had. In the situation that Britain joins early, and Ottomans join (much) later, the UK can build up artillery, cavalry (and maybe army corps) near the Ottoman border to blitz it in 1 turn. This is even worse than what the Ottomans could do before, because they at least could not cross Sinai desert before they declared war. Britain can.

Possible solutions:
- make Sinai blocked (like the Race to the Sea hexes in Belgium) until war is declared by either side.
- Give Ottomans back 1 army corps in Palestine if they join the war X amount of turns after Britain does.
- Put a reserve in the fort, and the cavalry outside the fort (would probably not be enough)

The Ottoman starting navy now consists of an Armored Cruiser instead of a Light Cruiser.-

Comments about this further down.

FRANCE

Abandonment Plan17: French troops now receive max entrench, French units are not getting paralyzed from German surprise attack anymore

Good changes, but this event still needs further tweaking. Because playing Abandon plan 17 should increase French defensive capacity, but instead it opens Nancy up to be taken by Germany in t1, which then also endangers Verdun because there's a cannon there (this is not as bad anymore, since you can now move it).

Suggestions:
Switch the army corps in Belfort with the reserve in Nancy. This way, Germany can't just take out the city without a proper offensive.

Playing Anzac land in Egypt bestows +1 naval transport capacity to Britain.

It already gave +1 naval right, so does it now give +2? Or is it just added to the PDF?

RUSSIA

Playing Full Russian Mobilization grants an extra rail transport capacity to Russia. The full mobilization will now be completed between turn 7 to 9.
Full Russian Mobilization must be played before turn 5 when Russia would usually join the war.

I like this. I was actually thinking that maybe in 1916 (and maybe also 1917) every nation should receive 1 free rail since upgrading rail is so expensive, and you can never afford it later on. But at same time, it's also quite strong early and you don't want it to be too cheap that it can be spammed. But it's kinda weird that these huge powers can only move 1 unit per turn in a huge army fighting on both fronts.

Rush-mobilize Russian army is discarded at the start of turn 3. Before it was possible to hold back diplomatic points to play both Rush-mobilize and Russian Surprise Attack on the same turn.

Can CP still respond with Redeployed or Defense plans if Russia sends Rush-Mob on t2?

Ammo factory cost:
The 15 PP cap for building more than 15 ammo factories is removed.

Ammo cap for minor nations
Minor nations can only store up to 3 times the number ammo factories built but at least 10. 30 is the absolute maximum.
The Ottoman Empire is considered to be a minor nation in this respect.

Ammo factory cap for minor nations
Minor nations can't build more than 10 ammo factories.

Do the ottomans also count as minor nation for the ammo factory cap? Or just the ammo storing cap?



The problem of Late Game Artillery:

I've considered the discussion we had about it. And I've paid attention to it in the games I've been playing. I've noticed that without artillery, it's impossible to dislodge entrenched infantry now, even a homeguard with 20 entrenchment can hold out vs multiple army corps for multiple turns. However, add 1 artillery, and the homeguard dies that same turn.

Imo, this is good though. You need to plan your offensives, and you need to dedice on which front to use your artillery, since you can only make and support so many of them. Germany especially, has to decide whether to send artillery east or west, although the British have to make a similar decision about the West and Mesopotamian/Egyptian front.

You need about 4-5 artillery to effectively force a breakthrough, but this is only on a single hex. The artillery itself doesn't do that much damage in terms of HP strength, it however, deals a lot of efficiency damage. If the defending unit is not properly upgraded to match the gas tech, then it can escalate quite quickly. Still, the advance is slow, and in my games where I have been doing this vs France, it took me the whole year of neverending artillery barrages to advance 2 hexes on a wider front. And even then, it's hard to exploit your gains, because the enemy can counter attack barrage units which move into the gaps. In 1 game, this actually resulted in my and my opponent leaving hexes empty, because each side decided that they were taking too many losses trying to defend this hex, which had changed sides every turn for 4-5 turns in a row.

I think there are multiple things going on.

Artillery does perhaps too much efficiency damage in the late game. However, I still see it just being -1 per attack quite often when the enemy unit has been properly upgraded. And even with 5 guns firing at a unit, it usually won't die unless reduced to 0 efficiency. So I think there are a few possibilities here:
1) In general, I think units die too fast when at 0 efficiency but still in full supply. Instead, imo they should just do almost no damage, but not necessarily take as much damage. They should definitely always retreat when attacked (providing there is space). This makes artillery reducing units efficiency a bit less bad, because you have more time to respond to it.

2) Just like fighters do less damage to damaged units than to healthy ones, artillery can do less efficiency damage to units that already have low efficiency. But I as I've said before, I think artillery is not as unbalanced as it might seem. It's just very complex.

Imo, artillery gameplay is one of the most advanced and difficult to master aspects of the game. But there are counters, and you can dominate artillery by winning the war in the skies. Using bombers and fighters (and zeppelins as Germany) you can make sure that the artillery is repairing rather than firing.

Fighter planes
researching Reinforced Fusilage tech now bestows +1 on shock instead of +1 ground attack, researching Inline Engine now bestows +1 ground attack instead of +1 to shock

Anti-Aircraft techs
All AA-techs get +1 to Airattack making them slightly more effective.

For that reason, I'm not very happy with these changes. It's good for infantry, but it's also an indirect buff for artillery, since they are better defended now vs attacks from the sky. Maybe reduce the high defense of artillery to compensate? Or Perhaps give fighters a bonus vs artillery / artillery an anti-air attack malus vs planes (like the one subs have vs capital ships)

However, the best counter, especially now that you have buffed anti-air techs, seems to be the railroad gun. This unit is actually better in all aspects than normal artillery. It's cheaper, requires less upkeep and has a lot more advantages, most importantly its range. 2 railroad guns kill 1 enemy artillery battery outright. I don't have much of a problem with this, I think it's good. It will force the enemy to move their artillery or risk losing them. However, I do think Railroad guns need some tweaks:

1) They should be capped, either generically at 2 for each power that can make them (currently only France, Italy, AH and Germany. > USA can make them too, but they don't have an artillery lab, so I don't know if it can actually get researched for them.)
Or, if you'd like to make a bit of a small overhaul, I would suggest this: Britain, USA (after having gained option to build an artillery lab, either by default or through event), Italy and AH can build 1. France and Germany can build 2 or 3 (imo it should be 2, but 3 is ok as well). This gives entente a max of 3-5 (depending on USA and Italian war entry) while giving CP a max of 3-4 (depending on what side italy goes). It can be decided to give France 2, and Germany 3, so that CP can get max 4-5, since Italy usually joins Entente nowadays.

2) On top of that, the stats for Railroad guns need to be changed. They currently take 4 turns, which is strange since they are bigger, heavier and more complicated guns to build. It should maybe be 5 or even 6 turns. They should also cost at least as much as normal artillery to build. Currently they are 10 PP cheaper to build and 1 PP cheaper in maintenance. Both of those numbers should increase.

3) Railroad guns can currently use gas. I think they should not be able to. Their role is more to attack cities from a distance, to kill enemy artillery or airplane units which can't be reached by normal artillery, rather than to gas infantry. I think historically these guns also did not fire gas cannisters, but super heavy bombs instead. To compensate, perhaps this unit can get a (small) multiplier vs units in forts, since they are mainly siege weapons. It's also better from a game design perspective, if the 2 units are as distinct as possible. Normal artillery to gas and kill infantry. Train artillery to siege forts, destroy cities PP production and to counter enemy artillery and airforce.



The possible issue of games ending too early:
I played 10+ games recently, most which were indeed effectively over by 1917, but only in the sense that it was quite clear who would win and people don't like to fight a losing battle for entertainment. That said, no side would be able to truly breakthrough the enemy lines on a wide enough front to secure this victory. And it seemed unlikely that the major powers would surrender before 1918. However, for most people it's not fun to stick through a lost game for 2 more years, and so they just give up and start a new game. Probably, had the real WW1 been a game, Germany would also just have restarted in 1916, so I don't think there's that much ahistorical about it.

It definitely seems that games ending early is due to the homefront collapsing (morale to 0 more often than collapse points to 10+, as well as no more PP production left to repair or train units). The military itself usually remains in tact enough to draw the war out longer.

Because the people I played, though they are good players, were new to Potzblitz and lost some games due to inexperience or lack of knowledge about the events and other features. I'll focus mainly on the 2 games I lost.

I am losing both times as CP (both games are still going on, but I know I can't win). In 1 game, I had effectively lost in 1916, but I will be able to fight on till early 1918 most likely. I know I have lost because Serbia is still alive, Russia is starting to push me back now that they have recovered from the Supply Crisis, and Bulgaria has not joined. Which means that the ottomans, who have dominated their front with the help of the Senussi (though at the cost of 4 mass desertions triggers and 8 collapse points) are just stacking ammo and PP with no use for it.
I am unable to replace or repair my units because of the blockade, and though Germany still has the power to push back the French army and is slowly inching closer to Paris (which I actually might take) I can't hope to replacy any units I lose, while Entente is flooding in men.

The other game is a lot less clear cut. In fact, it might very well be balanced all the way up to 1917. But while a badly battered Russia that has suffered the Supply Crisis can still get 24PP per turn, Germany and Austria and Ottomans aren't even getting 24PP per turn all 3 of them combined. Because of elite units, I am still gaining ground, but Russia has effectively stabilized and won't be knocked out of the war it seems.
Britain has been defeated on the seas in an awesome battle of the North Sea (it's great to see the navy relevant now btw), and submarines have killed all their convoys, triggering a deep red food crisis. My only hope to win is that they surrender. Still, I think I am losing, because almost every neutral has joined Entente. I have the usual 4 + spain which joined me recently. But Entente got Greece, Portugal, Persia, Romania and Brazil, while the Netherlands will join soon. No sight of the USA though, despite me wrecking all atlantic trade.
I should however be able to make it to 1918 easily, though I think the outcome is clear.

Games which ended way earlier were where I was the Entente, and managed to keep Russia and usually also Serbia in the game in tact into 1916. Entente definitely seems the stronger and easier to play alliance at the moment. The changes to Ottomans (which are good btw) will only further increase their dominance.

There was one game however, that stood out in respect to ending earlier, and it was caused by the Russian steamroller and the Cossacks in Prussia events.

I (ab)used the Steamroller to its max extent, and managed to take Koenigsburg, Krakow, Lemberg, Premyzl and the east Prussian forts in 1914. Germany's morale plummeted to 0 and they offered surrender in 1914. (I refused, for the sake of the game and testing, and then they regained 100% morale and were able to fight on until 1915.)
Austria got completely destroyed as well, and because of Russia's success, Italy decided to join in 1914, adding the final nail to the coffin. They surrendered in early 1915, reaching 0% morale, but I refused surrender and they regained 50% to fight on a few more turns. By late 1915 they surrendered again, and Italy was advancing to Berlin and Ruhr, causing Germany to surrender a few turns later as well.
screenshot provided by opponent to show his morale the turn after I refused surrender: https://img.onl/MxN95L
The turn after this screenshot was taken Germany's morale shot up to 100% again.

I'm not entirely sure what caused Germany to lose morale so quickly, but I think it was probably the Cossack event. Prittwitz could not retreat behind the vistula to end it, because Prittwitz was killed in Action, and the morale penalty seemed to just keep stacking.
suggestions:
-Cossacks are coming morale penalty for Germany should last 4 turns only and end when the steamroller does. (same maybe for the additional diplo points Russia gains for taking hexes)
-Cossacks are coming morale penalty for Germany should not lower German morale below a certain point (50% or maybe 25%, numbers are tweakable)

But really the big issue is the Steamroller feature.

Steamroller is too strong. If it can't be ended on first turn (usually t6 if no surprise attack), then CP will likely lose the game. However, vs a Russian player who knows what they are doing, it's kinda impossible to achieve Tannenberg on t6. They simply don't expose their reserve and cavalry corps. Army corps are too tough to kill. The only way to do it is to move army corps from the west to the east, which triggers chaos in command and loses you the war in France. While historically, the east Prussian army did not need Western reinforcements.

On top of that, Von Francois spawn is bugged in MP. It spawns vs AI, but I have not seen in it MP ever, despite having "abused" the Steamroller for it's maximum of 4 turns to destroy the entire CP army on the Russian border.
From the many games I've played recently, I think the steamroller has definitely been one of the most unbalancing and decivie game features. It's too strong now that it no longer get's reset by Von Francois' spawning (I know this feature was removed, and it's separate from the fact that he is bugged).

Another issue is that while the steamroller is designed to end when you take a major city, Russia can actually just decide to kill the units in the cities, but not take it. You can just take the cities after you have wiped out the armies, since there is nothing left to defend them then anyway. Here is an example of that:
https://img.onl/UGjra

https://img.onl/wDxkWy
Even later, when the steamroller bonus has ended, CP can't recover anymore.

This was the end result:
https://img.onl/c8POW

https://img.onl/ZmQTsg
Screenshot from another game where I decided not to abuse it by leaving the cities, I still managed to take Krakow and Lemberg in the same turn and vanquishing the Austrian army in Galicia (though I did take some heavy losses myself)

Anyway, imo it is clear something should happen. These are my ideas:
1) Return to previous state where Von Francois set the bonus back to 0, from which it could build again to it's max.
2) Have the bonus reset at the start of every turn, so that you can't carry the benefit of attacks from previous turns over. Currently, it stacks exponentially. As attacks not only increase your own strength, it also reduces the CP ability to defend. And Germany quickly loses it's ability to achieve Tannenberg, so they can't stop it either.
3) Reduce the max of the bonus (currently at 8, 5-6 would already make a big difference, but keep the way it stacks and carries over to the next turn the same.
4) Decrease the max of the bonus per turn (+8, +6, +4, +2 on last turn of the bonus). (Or go for a hill pattern, such as max+4 on t1 of Russian entry, max+8 on t2, max+6 on t3, max+4 on t4.
5) Decrease the bonus by a lot (like +4 instead of +8) but remove the buildup feature.

An indirect buff to CP's ability to stop the steamroller can also be considered. Currently sending Hindenburg and hoping you roll Wave of Patriotism is your best, and maybe only realistic chance. Going for the Wireless + Hoffman route simply takes too long. So give Germany chance to already get the wireless intercepted when they start t6 (basically, by investing on Russian intel before Russia joins the war, and then, the first turn Russia moves units, CP can intercept the wireless. And then on t6, they can send hoffman. This means hoffman must be sendable without calling hindenburg though. Or, the wireless intercepted must give a bigger combat bonus than it currently does.
However, this route still leaves the surprise attack steamroller as a big problem. I think currently the surprise attack steamroller is even stronger, right? Perhaps it should be weaker.

Any of these should do the trick, but I think I prefer the 2nd and the 1st.


Other observations from those games:
- CP might have a big PP disadvantage now in the long game. With all the buffs that Entente has received, perhaps some changes to show that CP was far more efficient at war time economy changes, like extending the effect of Raw Materials war department for more turns or maybe entire game (but instead being 1 per upgrade, and not counting the malus of blockade, which makes upgrades more expensive) or some other ideas.
- Persia should stay neutral more often. It now often joins Entente, or otherwise it joins CP, but it never really stays neutral for the whole war.
- the same is true for Greece, though to a lesser extent.
- the opposite is true for the USA, which I have seen join only once in like 10 games, despite u-boat campaigns sinking convoys in all of them
- navies are way more important now, and it's great to have this extra aspect of the game.
- however, it's probably way too easy to camp and kill the Swedish convoy with submarines and other ships as Entente.
- it's probably too easy to reduce Constantinople's PP production to rubble with Russia's black sea navy if Ottomans did not send Goeben to Med. Especially now with the light cruiser nerfed. But maybe it's ok, and you should just choose Goeben to med to avoid it.
- Maybe, when Belgium yields, the French army should no longer get surprised as it's obvious that Germany will go through Belgium now (hence it unlocks abandon plan 17?) If in your opinion, Abandon Plan 17 needs to be played in order to avoid that surprise (And locking units in place) please switch the army corps in Belfort with the reserve in Nancy (currently, Germany can take Nancy in first turn of war entry, and France can't ever take it back.)
- Railroad guns are now better than normal artillery for less production cost and maintenance.
- Revolt in Cairo happens too easily, and should not remove whichever British unit is in Cairo (or at least should not remove anything stronger than a small garrison)

- Senussi are too strong (already explained previously) but I'd like to stress it one more time. It gives too many units at once, maybe too many units in total. But definitely too many at the start, especially with Jihad, but I think even without Jihad. Even if you know they are coming, you have to send a disproportional amount of units to defend vs them, when historically they were kept at bay by the Egyptian friggin coast guard...
However, in the game, this frequently happens
https://img.onl/PHPEmh
Mind you, this is AFTER the Senussi attack helped destroy the Brits in Egypt, and then marched on Italian Lybia in force, where 3 Arab raiders managed to hold back and outmanouver 2 Italian army corps and 1 cavalry corps (though not at the same time) and destroy 1 army corps before reinforcements came from Egypt, and also destroying the other corps and cavalry after the reinforcements came. (Granted, my opponent didn't play this well, he should've just stayed in his cities, rather than fight them in the desert, but still there are simply too many units)

Suggestions
1) The event spawns only like 4 units max to start with, and then it spawns more units as long as they (lost 1 or both of their capitals) or the ottomans aren't defeated. This means they they aren't much of a threat but can become one if they stay alive for long enough.
2) Ottoman generals shouldn't be able to lead them, decreasing their effectiveness.
3) reduce the amount of raiders/infantry spawned, and instead replace those with garrisons. (Though I'd rather see less units that are good, since the Senussi were great warriors, than more units that are weak, since they just didn't have the numbers and the terrain is huge, much bigger than the map can show)


Bugs or not WAD:
- Von Francois doesn't trigger in MP
- Ottomans can immediately retake Kuwait if they camp some units outside the capital since in MP, the Arab Raider unit doesn't always spawn immediately. And the army corps that's in the bay can't get there in time.
- assault on verdun event should not damage german units when Verdun is completely cut off. Otherwise, sending this event actually decreases the chances of taking the fort, since it exposes you to a counter attack on the weakened units.
- In MP at least, operation judgement only seems to give ammo, not PP
- Kaiser visits Turkey PDF says that it gives morale bonus to Germany and Ottomans, but I think only Ottomans get it (or at least, only Ottoman morale updates immediately). Might be case of PDF outdated though.
- britain can send ammo and PP by sea to italy, but france cant.
- something seems off with silent killer attack for player vs ai and in MP (it does seem to work for the AI). it almost always gives less dmg than the prediction (Which is usually 0-4, but I never score more than a 0-3 on the first convoy), while as the first sub attack, it should give a bonus. Instead, subsequent attacks on convoys are almost always better than the first one, despite no bonus (and no upgrades to make a difference).
- sometimes hitting a mine with your submarine also triggers the silent killer event.
- USA has no artillery labs and can't build any.
- I reported 2 crashes here earlier: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 5#p1011915

Suggestions:
- Maybe shouldn't be able to attach ottoman generals to arab senussi rebels (they had their own leaders historically), at least not until Ottomans have taken Suez so there's a land connection between Senussis and Ottomans.
- Suggestion by Cassius/SoontirFel > New event called British Betrayal of Belgium! First British unit that sets foot on Belgium soil while they are enemies, gives Britain 5% morale penalty or something. Since Britain at first claimed to be Belgium's stalwart defender.
- Building on that, maybe Germany gets an event similar to the ones Entente has, to slander Entente for invading Belgium, giving them a diplo bonus penalty (like -3 diplo for each unit in Belgium one)
- maybe Marne taxis can give small diplo points bonus? it was mainly exploited as a PR stunt anyway
- New event: Portuguese independent Heavy Artillery Corps. Conditions = Portugal, Britain & France must be on Entente side in the war. & Either Britain or France must have unlocked Railroad guns already.
Effect would be, spawn a Portuguese Railroad Gun in France and Give some ammo to Portugal. It's based on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugues ... %20War%20I
I've written the code and tested it, made the pictures etc, so it's ready for you to use/adapt if you want.
- New event for AH: Defend the passes. I see 2 options.
Conditions should be: Galicia overrun (and possibly as well, Hotzendorf attacks has happened)
1) It makes certain hexes in the Carpathians (I'd say the ones where the rail goes through, maybe 1 more "pass") impassable during the harsh winter of 1914-1915. Leaving only the passes open for units to pass through, thus making it easier for Austria to defend vs the Russian advance > It also ensures that there will be a long winter, lasting until and including march 1915 > units that were in the impassable hexes get sent back to producion queue
https://img.onl/nG9siq
Yellow crosses where the Carpathians should become impassable. So that AH can defend the 3 passes with only 1 unit until Winter ends.
2) Spawns 3 reserve corps (and maybe some homeguard) in the Carpathians and gives them max entrenchment (dynamic spawn, depending on the location of Russian units.)
> both versions of the event should ensure that the second version of Hotzendorf attacks event is triggered in the near future. (or if gone with option of Hotzendorf attacks not being a condition for Defend the Passes, then it could be the first version as well)
https://img.onl/OLwk64
Red crosses for reserves, Orange crosses are possibly for the optional small garrisons/homeguard?
> possibly add to the above, that 2nd version of Hotzendorf attacks event now also damages Russian troops, not just Austrian ones, when they are adjacent to each other. Since the Carpathian Winter War was brutal for both sides.
(The reason for this event being needed, is that currently there are only big drawbacks to Galicia being overrun, despite it being quite easy to achieve. There are no events for AH to counter besides AH defense plans. Giving AH more options to defend should also make AH defense plans less of a no-brainer card to send.)
> follow up event: War Crimes in Bukovina & Galicia / Russophobia.
Conditions: CP reconquers Galicia (or just Lemberg?) after having lost it and having sent Defend the Passes.
Effects: (there is a chance it) triggers one instance of ethnic revolts in Austria! (Maybe also give a small morale bonus, since the violence against enemy 5th column exalts the homefront)
Based on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpathia ... War_crimes

Predictions:
- With new nerfs to Ottomans and buffs to Russia, I think CP will be unable to kill Russia militarily, the way it used to be able to do. I think this is good, CP troops marching to Moscow, and Ottoman troops overrunning the Russian steppe is kinda weird to see. However, I think Russia was already too hard to knock out of the war non-militarily. Their war-weariness and revolutions should have a bigger impact on their willingness to fight on, despite the army not being fully defeated (as this is what happened historically too). So probably Russian Revolution (which is now too easy to thwart) and Brest-Litovsk treaty should be easier to achieve by 1917. And effect of Tsar abdicates should probably also decrease Russia's willingness to fight on.
- See you in December eh?


With all of that said, the mod is getting better and better. And it's still enjoyable and surprising after so many games. So again, kudos to that and all your efforts.

The new blockade dynamic is definitely my favorite change. Here's a little peak into what would escalate into a 6 turn naval battle which left both navies devastated.
https://img.onl/u28HnQ
Germany came out on top, but only narrowly. Britain lost half their capital fleet, but has the PP production to recover. Perhaps there will be another exchange?

[Robotron]

The Austrian Armored Train is now parked near Krakau at the start of the game.
So that means AH loses 1 reserve in their starting army now?
No, AH actually gains a home guard in Stanislau since the train is parked adjacent to Krakau and not inside Krakau.

Ottoman starting forces in the Sinai are much weaker. To compensate, Britain does not receive free units at the Suez anymore (Arabs etc).
Good change, it was definitely too strong. However, I now foresee the reverse issue that Britain had. In the situation that Britain joins early, and Ottomans join (much) later, the UK can build up artillery, cavalry (and maybe army corps) near the Ottoman border to blitz it in 1 turn. This is even worse than what the Ottomans could do before, because they at least could not cross Sinai desert before they declared war. Britain can.
*sigh!* okay then: one reserve corps is reverted back to an army corps again.


Abandonment Plan17: French troops now receive max entrench, French units are not getting paralyzed from German surprise attack anymore.[/b]
Good changes, but this event still needs further tweaking. Because playing Abandon plan 17 should increase French defensive capacity, but instead it opens Nancy up to be taken by Germany in t1, which then also endangers Verdun because there's a cannon there (this is not as bad anymore, since you can now move it).
This is such a freak situation that I really don't care about it. Decide if you want to play Abandon Plan 17 or not and deal with it. The CP player also took a risk playing the Ultimatum event/chose to risk losing the initiative in the west.


Can CP still respond with Redeployed or Defense plans if Russia sends Rush-Mob on t2?
Yes, of course.


Ammo factory cap for minor nations
Minor nations can't build more than 10 ammo factories.
Do the ottomans also count as minor nation for the ammo factory cap? Or just the ammo storing cap?
Just for the storing cap.


Fighter planes
researching Reinforced Fusilage tech now bestows +1 on shock instead of +1 ground attack, researching Inline Engine now bestows +1 ground attack instead of +1 to shock

Anti-Aircraft techs
All AA-techs get +1 to Airattack making them slightly more effective.
For that reason, I'm not very happy with these changes. It's good for infantry, but it's also an indirect buff for artillery, since they are better defended now vs attacks from the sky.
You wanted aircraft to be more effective against artillery and "shock" is more effective than "ground attack". I'm sure the planned +1 to airattack from AA techs vs aircraftwill be pretty much insignificant.


the stats for Railroad guns need to be changed. They currently take 4 turns, which is strange since they are bigger, heavier and more complicated guns to build. It should maybe be 5 or even 6 turns. They should also cost at least as much as normal artillery to build. Currently they are 10 PP cheaper to build and 1 PP cheaper in maintenance. Both of those numbers should increase.
It's 40pp and 5 turns prod time now.


3) Railroad guns can currently use gas...
Nope, at least not in my mod, just tested it. The only upgrade for railguns is AA-techs. Send me a savegame where it's possible to equip a railgun with gas. It's for this reason that railguns were cheaper.


I am losing both times as CP (both games are still going on, but I know I can't win). In 1 game, I had effectively lost in 1916, but I will be able to fight on till early 1918 most likely. I know I have lost because Serbia is still alive, Russia is starting to push me back now that they have recovered from the Supply Crisis, and Bulgaria has not joined. Which means that the ottomans, who have dominated their front with the help of the Senussi (though at the cost of 4 mass desertions triggers and 8 collapse points) are just stacking ammo and PP with no use for it.
I am unable to replace or repair my units because of the blockade, and though Germany still has the power to push back the French army and is slowly inching closer to Paris (which I actually might take) I can't hope to replacy any units I lose, while Entente is flooding in men.
Sounds pretty historically accurate to me. If you are CP you either win pre-1916 or most likely will lose.


But really the big issue is the Steamroller feature. Steamroller is too strong.
2) Have the bonus reset at the start of every turn, so that you can't carry the benefit of attacks from previous turns over. Currently, it stacks exponentially.
This! It was that way before in earlier versions but got removed, most likely because steamroller was too weak that way or whatever. Let's go that route again.


CP might have a big PP disadvantage now in the long game. With all the buffs that Entente has received, perhaps some changes to show that CP was far more efficient at war time economy changes, like extending the effect of Raw Materials war department for more turns or maybe entire game (but instead being 1 per upgrade, and not counting the malus of blockade, which makes upgrades more expensive) or some other ideas.
Maybe CP could just build less units? Also:

pillage.jpg (651.59 KiB) Viewed 1657 times

Persia should stay neutral more often. It now often joins Entente, or otherwise it joins CP, but it never really stays neutral for the whole war.
Persia now starts at perfectly neutral alignment. Was subjected to a random 3D6 modifier in either direction before.


the same is true for Greece, though to a lesser extent.
Ooooh, that's a new one! Greece actually DOES join Entente now? Working as designed I might say.


the opposite is true for the USA, which I have seen join only once in like 10 games, despite u-boat campaigns sinking convoys in all of them
No clue what's going on there but I doubled the alignment changes for sinking Entente convoys for good measure.


however, it's probably way too easy to camp and kill the Swedish convoy with submarines and other ships as Entente.
Ask your opponent to please play nice.


it's probably too easy to reduce Constantinople's PP production to rubble with Russia's black sea navy if Ottomans did not send Goeben to Med. Especially now with the light cruiser nerfed. But maybe it's ok, and you should just choose Goeben to med to avoid it.
Sending Goeben to the Med is a no-brainer unless you were not able to play "Kaisers Gold" on turn 1 and Entente played "Deliver British Dreadnoughts". This was usually a pretty rare affair but recently there might be other CP events who are just as interesting to choose instead.


Maybe, when Belgium yields, the French army should no longer get surprised as it's obvious that Germany will go through Belgium now (hence it unlocks abandon plan 17?) If in your opinion, Abandon Plan 17 needs to be played in order to avoid that surprise (And locking units in place) please switch the army corps in Belfort with the reserve in Nancy (currently, Germany can take Nancy in first turn of war entry, and France can't ever take it back.)
You can't have your cake and eat it. As said above: decide if you want to play Abandon Plan 17 or not and deal with it. The CP player also took a risk playing the Ultimatum event or ignored the possibility for losing initiative in the west.


Railroad guns are now better than normal artillery for less production cost and maintenance.
See above


Senussi are too strong (already explained previously)
Made Tribesmen and Raiders less likely to be spawned also reduced the number of units spawned by 1. Also added an event for Entente to simply remove all Senussi.


Bugs or not WAD:
- Von Francois doesn't trigger in MP
Not true, just bad luck, yes it happens. I'll change the Francois-trigger value each turn in the V24..


Ottomans can immediately retake Kuwait if they camp some units outside the capital since in MP, the Arab Raider unit doesn't always spawn immediately. And the army corps that's in the bay can't get there in time.
Fixed. Arab cavalry now spawns in Kuwait when playing the Kuwait Revolt event.


Aassault on verdun event should not damage german units when Verdun is completely cut off. Otherwise, sending this event actually decreases the chances of taking the fort, since it exposes you to a counter attack on the weakened units.
I'm puzzled about what event you were "sending" here? Hex supply is determined at the beginning of the following alliance's turn as you should know so maybe that's the issue here?


In MP at least, operation judgement only seems to give ammo, not PP
It never did.


Kaiser visits Turkey PDF says that it gives morale bonus to Germany and Ottomans, but I think only Ottomans get it (or at least, only Ottoman morale updates immediately). Might be case of PDF outdated though.
+10 morale for Turkey is correct.


Britain can send ammo and PP by sea to italy, but france cant.
Tried but can't reproduce, works fine. Got a savegame?


Something seems off with silent killer attack for player vs ai and in MP (it does seem to work for the AI). it almost always gives less dmg than the prediction (Which is usually 0-4, but I never score more than a 0-3 on the first convoy), while as the first sub attack, it should give a bonus. Instead, subsequent attacks on convoys are almost always better than the first one, despite no bonus (and no upgrades to make a difference).
Damage prediction is modified by a randomiser. Subsequent attacks work better because that's the way the combat script works.


Sometimes hitting a mine with your submarine also triggers the silent killer event.
WAD. This is to represent a submarine falling prey to a mine laid by another submarine, stressing the "silent killer" attribute.


USA has no artillery labs and can't build any.
This is to represent that US used French artillery.


I reported 2 crashes here earlier: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 5#p1011915
Yeah, saw that. One was reported earlier by OMGNOES the other one was correctly fixed by you.


Suggestions:
- Maybe shouldn't be able to attach ottoman generals to arab senussi rebels (they had their own leaders historically), at least not until Ottomans have taken Suez so there's a land connection between Senussis and Ottomans.
Nope, no extra "Senussi-only" commanders. Ottomans sent weapons and ammo via submarines to the Senussi, so it would not be too far fetched for one of their generals to travel via sub to Libya too.


Portuguese independent Heavy Artillery Corps. Conditions = Portugal, Britain & France must be on Entente side in the war. & Either Britain or France must have unlocked Railroad guns already.
Reinstated Portuguese artillery corps from the start. Was part in earlier versions of the mod but then removed for whatever reasons I can't remember.

I expect your next wall of text to be twice as high, so don't disappoint me so I can ignore you again until January...2025.

[bondjamesbond]

Your mod continues to improve and become great ( sad that there is no full Russian version of your mod to understand all the nuances and not the cold rhetoric of the online translator )
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иностранн ... я_в_России
Tell me if there will be an intervention in the already Soviet Russia ( as well as the Soviet Ukrainian war and the Soviet-Polish war ) ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian–Soviet_War

Basmachi (from Turkic "basma" - raid + suffix -chi) is a term of Soviet historiography used to describe various military-political, national liberation and religious movements in Central Asia in the first half of the 20th century. In Soviet historiography, Basmachi is an armed counter-revolutionary nationalist movement in Central Asia in 1917-1926. It was a form of class struggle of feudal lords, bais, kulaks, mullahs, national bourgeoisie against the Soviet power

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Басмачество

The USSR was fighting in Afghanistan long before World War II
https://www.bbc.com/russian/internation ... basmachism


https://warspot.ru/17716-samyy-boevoy-podvodnyy-parohod

[Umeu]

*sigh!* okay then: one reserve corps is reverted back to an army corps again.

not what I meant. The changed set up is good in case Ottomans join before Britain does (happens less often, that's true, but still in Ostmars, Rupprecht and Belgium Yields it happens more often than not).

This is such a freak situation that I really don't care about it. Decide if you want to play Abandon Plan 17 or not and deal with it. The CP player also took a risk playing the Ultimatum event/chose to risk losing the initiative in the west.

I've had this happen in 3 MP games out of 10, and never seen anyone attempt the yield but fail to get it. Lucky opponents I guess but since you have lifted the surprise freeze, it's not as bad. Before you also likely lose Verdun, since very often the artillery in Verdun would not be able to move.

You wanted aircraft to be more effective against artillery and "shock" is more effective than "ground attack". I'm sure the planned +1 to airattack from AA techs vs aircraftwill be pretty much insignificant.

ok, if shock will be more effective, let's see how it goes.

Nope, at least not in my mod, just tested it. The only upgrade for railguns is AA-techs. Send me a savegame where it's possible to equip a railgun with gas. It's for this reason that railguns were cheaper.

https://img.onl/SYDEBb

railroad gas.rar

(161.12 KiB) Downloaded 48 times

I didn't upgrade the tech btw, but maybe it autoupgraded since the gas techs were already researched when I built the unit. Or, might just be a display issue then.

Sounds pretty historically accurate to me. If you are CP you either win pre-1916 or most likely will lose.

It does, but that wasn't the point. It was about length of the games. In my experience they end early more because 1 side feels hopeless and like they can't win, and so they don't want to play on. The mod has done well to achieve historical balance I think. But most people seem not to want to fight an uphill battle without at least a small chance of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It doesn't matter for me much, but maybe these seismic events such as the Russian revolution, French mutiny, Indian independence and Ethnic/socialist uprisings can be made more severe and a bit more unpredictable as to have a small chance of rng to have the tides completely reversed by a stroke of fortune.

Anyway, what about the Cossack morale damage? Even with Germany losing East Prussia, they shouldn't plummet to 0. It was MP, so can't provide savegame unfortunately.

This! It was that way before in earlier versions but got removed, most likely because steamroller was too weak that way or whatever. Let's go that route again.

the increments with which it went up was also lower then, so maybe this is the right balance. reset per turn but reach the max faster (current 0.75 seems good.) What about the surprise attack? Does it give a 0.25 on top of the 0.75 or is it just 0.25 increments for suprise attack?

Maybe CP could just build less units? Also:
pillage.jpg

yeah... imagine them building even less units. They already make less than Entente. Pillage would help in a pinch but gives too much of an aligment hit if you use it frequently (also currently, the luckier your pillage "diceroll" the more aligment hit you take.), and CP would currently need to do it every turn. Especially since no convoy ever really makes it through because nobody plays nice

Pillaging could be the right balance adjustment though. Maybe just reduce the aligment hit? It also costs diplo points so there is already a big cost for rng outcome. Or perhaps better, the hit only applies once. After that, people become desensitized to it.

Alternatively, bring back the 35 pp event back to the pool (similarly to the 20 ammo event). I know I asked for it to be less frequent at some point in the past XD but balance has changed a lot now.

Sending Goeben to the Med is a no-brainer unless you were not able to play "Kaisers Gold" on turn 1 and Entente played "Deliver British Dreadnoughts". This was usually a pretty rare affair but recently there might be other CP events who are just as interesting to choose instead.

I've been going goeben to Pacific to get von Spee to help out break the blockade and fight in the North Sea (though I suppose he's not actually supposed to get away his tour of the British islands XD), but now that battlecruisers have been nerfed, maybe to Med is better again. Kaisers gold is still the event to send though, even without going Goeben to Med

Not true, just bad luck, yes it happens. I'll change the Francois-trigger value each turn in the V24..

strange, but sure, seems good then.

Assault on verdun event should not damage german units when Verdun is completely cut off. Otherwise, sending this event actually decreases the chances of taking the fort, since it exposes you to a counter attack on the weakened units.
I'm puzzled about what event you were "sending" here? Hex supply is determined at the beginning of the following alliance's turn as you should know so maybe that's the issue here?

Operation judgement. Sending, choosing, picking, whatever. I meant that this event damages French unit(s) adjacent as well as CP units adjacent to Verdun. But when fully surrounded (the turn before), there are no adjacent French units.

Tried but can't reproduce, works fine. Got a savegame?

It was in MP. I don't currently have a savegame of v23 with italy on Entente's side. It works now in an old savegame, so just a strange occurance I guess.

Damage prediction is modified by a randomiser. Subsequent attacks work better because that's the way the combat script works.

It doesn't seem random in my games. It always shows 0 losses 4 kills, and then it always does 0 losses 3 kills, at least for me. But if it works well for you then fine.

This is to represent that US used French artillery.

They also used French tanks and British airplanes :/ but ok I get the reasoning.

I expect your next wall of text to be twice as high, so don't disappoint me so I can ignore you again until January...2025.

It must be twice as high since you ignored half of it XD and imagine banning 50% of your active playerbase for engaging with your mod!

That was a joke btw...







It's more like 75%

anyway, thanks for the reply and adjustments. Appreciated



PS: came across something in the MP. Everytime the German unit from Irish Rebellion leaves and reenters Dublin, it triggers the Dublin Fallen pop up. Not sure if there are any penalties associated with it for the UK.

[Robotron]

I didn't upgrade the tech btw, but maybe it autoupgraded since the gas techs were already researched when I built the unit. Or, might just be a display issue then.

Thank goodness it's indeed just a display issue since the script checks for unit class instead of unit prototype and erroneously displays the gas attack icon. The combat script properly checks gas attacks for artillery units only, not railguns. With this in mind, do you think 40PP and 5 turns build time are worth it?

Anyway, what about the Cossack morale damage? Even with Germany losing East Prussia, they shouldn't plummet to 0. It was MP, so can't provide savegame unfortunately.

It will now also end as soon as East Prussia devastated was triggered.

the increments with which it went up was also lower then, so maybe this is the right balance. reset per turn but reach the max faster (current 0.75 seems good.) What about the surprise attack? Does it give a 0.25 on top of the 0.75 or is it just 0.25 increments for suprise attack?

The 0.25 for Russian Surprise Attack is on top of the 0.75.

Pillaging could be the right balance adjustment though

Did so. Now you get +2PP for each city, +3PP for each fortress and +5PP for each capital modified by how often you pillaged before. Neutral nation's anger is lowered to a +2 alignment shift against the pillaging nation per pillaging attempt. Also pillaging is now renamed "Requisition" for PR reasons.

Operation judgement. Sending, choosing, picking, whatever. I meant that this event damages French unit(s) adjacent as well as CP units adjacent to Verdun. But when fully surrounded (the turn before), there are no adjacent French units.

Operation Judgement can't be send/played/picked etc., it triggers randomly. I don't understand why there's a problem with damaging adjacent French units when there are no adjacent French units to begin with. So nothing happens, now what?

PS: came across something in the MP. Everytime the German unit from Irish Rebellion leaves and reenters Dublin, it triggers the Dublin Fallen pop up. Not sure if there are any penalties associated with it for the UK.

Wow, that bug must have hidden there for an eternity. Losing Dublin causes loss of 5 morale, 2 ammo factories and bestows 1 collapse point on Britain.

(the wall of text) must be twice as high since you ignored half of it XD

To be honest, I found your proposal about blocking the Carpathians in winter overly complicated and I'm also not too keen about adding more war crime events. If I skipped anything else you consider especially important/desirable then feel free to bring it up again.

[Umeu]

Did so. Now you get +2PP for each city, +3PP for each fortress and +5PP for each capital modified by how often you pillaged before. Neutral nation's anger is lowered to a +2 alignment shift against the pillaging nation per pillaging attempt. Also pillaging is now renamed "Requisition" for PR reasons.

sounds good, keen to try it out.

Operation Judgement can't be send/played/picked etc., it triggers randomly. I don't understand why there's a problem with damaging adjacent French units when there are no adjacent French units to begin with. So nothing happens, now what?

I guess I mixed up event names, it's the assault on Verdun event then. It's not so much a problem as wondering whether that's how it is supposed to work. Because the French don't lose, since there is no unit to be damaged, but CP instead gets 2 units damaged now, instead of 1 CP and 1 Entente.

To be honest, I found your proposal about blocking the Carpathians in winter overly complicated and I'm also not too keen about adding more war crime events. If I skipped anything else you consider especially important/desirable then feel free to bring it up again.

It was just part of the joke response to your wall of text comment. You responded to most of it adequately enough, hence the thanks.

As for the Carpathian block, I agree it's a bit complicated and I'm not sure what the best way would be, but I do think AH could use some help there, especially since it was a very bloody and iconic (Though forgotten?) part of the war. But mainly, AH currently doesn't have any other strategic options than to hold the line. If it gets broken or suicided by Hotzendorf, they very often have no real way to stabilize (Unlike France, for example which can send BEF, AoA, Foreign Legion, Galieni and Marne taxis (and even Battle of Yser under certain circumstances) to stabilize vs a strong German push). And the Russian army can quite easily link up with Serbia and KO from there.

The war crime event I'm not too attached to, it was just a way to add some downside to the Defend the Passes event, to prevent it from being too OP.

Thank goodness it's indeed just a display issue since the script checks for unit class instead of unit prototype and erroneously displays the gas attack icon. The combat script properly checks gas attacks for artillery units only, not railguns. With this in mind, do you think 40PP and 5 turns build time are worth it?

Missed this. But yeah, I think it's still worth it, and I think the unit deserves a cap as well. Both for sake of historical accuracy as well as balance reasons. The extra range is just really valuable, and despite the gas not counting, I haven't found the unit to perform noticably worse vs dug in infantry compared to normal artillery. But the fact that 2 of them can destroy 1 artillery/fighter unit, that's the real strategic value imo. Once these things are built and properly used, the enemy has to either gain air superiority or offensives will be limited to only a few places where you can't put 2 of these baddies in range of enemy artillery. I used to always prioritize gas. I'm now debating whether it's not just better to put tech focus on these from the beginning. Definitely after the first gas tech, you should switch to these. It's now artillery to kill infantry, railguns to kill artillery, fighters and bombers to kill railguns.


btw, why is portugal's manpower reserve so low? It's only 150, less than half that of Netherlands (330), and like 40% that of Greece (400+), while Portugal had about 6m people in 1914, same as the Netherlands, and even a bit more than Greece. Is it because half their military manpower is sent to the colonies?

[Robotron]

btw, why is portugal's manpower reserve so low? It's only 150, less than half that of Netherlands (330), and like 40% that of Greece (400+), while Portugal had about 6m people in 1914, same as the Netherlands, and even a bit more than Greece. Is it because half their military manpower is sent to the colonies?

Probably, I did not chose that number but it makes sense to assume most Portuguese military was in stationed in Africa. That being said 150 manpower is really quite low but then again the whole Portuguese Expeditionary Corps was only 50.000 men strong.
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.n ... nary_corps

[Robotron]

Added build limits for railroad guns: 3 for France & Germany, 2 for Austria & Italy.

it's probably way too easy to camp and kill the Swedish convoy with submarines and other ships as Entente.

Should Russia's ability to build submarines be removed again then in exchange for having a single submarine at the start?

[bondjamesbond]

Added build limits for railroad guns: 3 for France & Germany, 2 for Austria & Italy.

it's probably way too easy to camp and kill the Swedish convoy with submarines and other ships as Entente.

Should Russia's ability to build submarines be removed again then in exchange for having a single submarine at the start?

Will there be any real use from one submarine ?

This is how, at the dawn of the 20th century, an almost invisible weapon - submarines - appeared in the history of warfare.

I am standing on an old concrete quay in the Finnish port of Gange. It was from here that Russian submarines went to sea on their very first combat trips. Then, in 1914, as well as now Gange, known to us thanks to the historic victory of the Russian Navy over the Swedes as Gangut, was a cozy resort town. And few people knew that the 1st division of submarines was based here, which included quite modern and formidable for those times submarines "Bars", "Vepr" and "Cheetah". On the other side of the Gulf of Finland, in Revel, stood the 2nd Division ("Tiger", "Lioness" and "Panther"). Both divisions were part of the Baltic Sea Submarine Division, whose main task was to cover the sea approaches to the capital of the Empire.

Before the outbreak of the World War, none of the naval powers had any real experience in the combat use of submarines. Therefore, their tactics were very primitive.

https://www.stoletie.ru/voyna_1914/atak ... ki_437.htm

https://en.topwar.ru/108911-russkiy-flo ... ast-1.html
https://en.topwar.ru/109423-russkiy-flo ... ast-2.html
https://en.topwar.ru/109425-russkiy-flo ... ast-3.html
https://en.topwar.ru/109426-russkiy-flo ... ast-4.html
https://en.topwar.ru/109427-russkiy-flo ... ast-5.html
https://en.topwar.ru/109429-russkiy-flo ... ast-6.html

[Umeu]

Added build limits for railroad guns: 3 for France & Germany, 2 for Austria & Italy.

it's probably way too easy to camp and kill the Swedish convoy with submarines and other ships as Entente.

Should Russia's ability to build submarines be removed again then in exchange for having a single submarine at the start?

idk, Britain brings theirs usually, France as well sometimes. You just kinda have to suffer it until the anti-submarine upgrade comes through, usually that ends it. It's just that the spot it comes through is so predictable. With the atlantic ones, you roughly know, but the area is so big, sometimes you miss them by 1 hex for example. But the Swedish one, you know exactly where it'll spawn. And it can be easily camped by 2 subs.

I don't think I've seen them be rebuilt once they die, so the build limit won't change much. Maybe random starting spawns. Or just leave it as is. Did Russia really have that many subs active though?

Based on the 1st Russian source Jamesbond shared, they didn't really have much of an effective submarine force early on in the war.

They began to look at submarines as full-fledged warships, and very soon the tactics of waiting for the enemy were replaced by active actions: raids to the enemy’s shores and hunting for his ships. So, already on September 7, the submarine “Akula” under the command of Lieutenant Nikolai Gudim set out on a voyage to Dagerort to search for the enemy. The commander was in no hurry to return to base and, at his own peril and risk, moved to the shores of Sweden, from where transports with ore for Germany regularly sailed. The next day, the signalman discovered the twin-tube German cruiser Amazon. It was guarded by two destroyers. Gudim fired a salvo from a distance of 7 cables, but the Germans managed to notice the torpedo's trail and went beyond the island of Gotska Sande. This is how the first attack of Russian submariners in the Baltic took place.

And if in 1914 Russian submariners managed to make only 18 trips before the winter freeze-up, then in the next year they made almost five times more. Unfortunately, it was not possible to open a real combat account. None of the torpedo attacks in 1915 were successful. The fact is that Russian torpedoes could not withstand diving to great depths. However, the submariners captured two enemy ships with cargo.

First attack wasn't until September, and it didn't do shite lol. And in 1915, still didn't do stuff. I thought it was mainly the British subs that were somewhat effective in the Baltic.

By the beginning of 1916, new torpedoes of improved quality and new submarines entered service with the Russian submarine fleet. On May 15, the submarine "Wolf" set out from Revel on a voyage to the shores of "Swedish Manchester" - the port of Norrkoping

This seems to support that.

So, Onstead of dynamic spawns, maybe remove the Russian sub, but keep the limit at 1? And Russia can decide to build the sub or not? Or maybe give Russian subs an attack malus vs convoys in 1914 and 1915, to show they were ineffective early on?

Or was there any naval base between Stettin and Danzig? 1 Extra port for Germany in the baltic would help as well.

Maybe the best solution would be for somehow to make merchant convoys immune to attacks on the first turn they spawn. It's fair game once they've moved once.

Idk. It's not that big of an issue in the end. If it's left as is, I'm fine with it too.

[Robotron]

Okay then, things stay as they are considering Russian subs (none at start, can have max. 1 at any time).

If nothing else is brought up in the meantime by people that actually play this mod then I'll upload V24 tomorrow.

[Umeu]

Okay then, things stay as they are considering Russian subs (none at start, can have max. 1 at any time).

If nothing else is brought up in the meantime by people that actually play this mod then I'll upload V24 tomorrow.

Not sure if you changed it and I missed it, but in MP and Entente AI, Russia starts with 1 sub still. Only in SP vs CP, it starts without one.

nothing further to add for now.

[bondjamesbond]

Okay then, things stay as they are considering Russian subs (none at start, can have max. 1 at any time).

If nothing else is brought up in the meantime by people that actually play this mod then I'll upload V24 tomorrow.

I'm playing your mod while this update is being developed (I just like the First World War)
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... &start=160
Of course, I don't understand everything because English is not my native language, but online translators are improving

[Robotron]

V24 is finally finished.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OPplj4 ... YqI4G/view

Enjoy!


CHANGES:

GERMANY

In Schlieffen/Moltke-Schlieffen scenarios: upon moving German army/artillery corps to the east, the CP player will receive warnings if he is about to trigger "Chaos at OHL" event.

Let Crown Prince assume command is now available from turn 4. Moltke has been moved from the army corps near Luxembourg to the army corps north of Mainz to have a leaderless army corps ready to be taken over by the Crown Prince.

CP morale drain caused by Entente convoys arriving at British/French ports while Germany is blockaded is capped at 35.

Kaiser Abdicates event:

Conditions
Netherlands remained neutral throughout the war.
Happens after Demonstrations in Germany occurred while German morale is down to 20 and Germany has suffered at least 8 collapse points and...
either year is 1918
or Socialist resistance has grown too strong. This value is hidden from the player but there will be clues when Socialist resistance starts to become too strong.

Effect
Germany suffers two collapse points.

Kaiser's Fleet at rest event:
only triggers if more capital ships are in port than at sea and every capital ship at sea also reduces the sailor's "boredom level" each turn.

Zimmermann Telegramm event:
will now only be available if CP SIGINT on US equals Entente SIGINT on Germany but it will only work as designed if CP SIGINT on USA is substantially higher than Entente SIGINT on Germany.

Diplomatic Poker event:
removed result concerning Russia in Aufmarsch Ost scenario, removed result concerning Belgium in Rupprecht scenario.

NEW: General Francois is more likely to be activated each turn. Won't activate after "Recall Hindenburg to active duty" or "Victory at Tannenberg".

NEW: Retreat submarines from Atlantic lowered efficiency: was 2 points pro-CP alignment shift for US per submarine in Atlantic, now 1-2 points per submarine



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

The Austrian Armored Train is now parked near Krakau at the start of the game.

Stanislau receives a Home Guard unit to fill the vacant hex formerly occupied by the Armored Train.

Cede Transylvania removes Bulgarian Mobilization from CP event pool and vice versa.



TURKEY

Shelling of Sevastopol can now automatically trigger on a randomly pre-determined turn (1-20) after Goeben BC has arrived at Constantinople. There's a roughly 33% chance for the event not to fire at all or at about the historical date or a bit too late. The event is still available to be played manually by CP if things take too long.

Ottoman starting forces in the Sinai are much weaker. To compensate, Britain does not receive free units at the Suez anymore (Arabs etc).
NEW: Ottoman starting forces at Sinai front are now: 1 cavalry corps, 1 army corps, 1 reserve corps, 1 artillery corps

Clipboard02.jpg (393.71 KiB) Viewed 1371 times

Morale loss from Ottoman Mass Desertions increases in smaller steps.

No more auto-spawn of Turkish units if Russians cross into Caucasus in singleplayer mode vs Entente AI or multiplayer. Instead moving Russian troops onto Ottoman territory may lead to Enver Pasha event getting discarded.

The Ottoman starting navy now consists of an Armored Cruiser instead of a Light Cruiser.

NEW: Senussi army reduced in number and less likely to spawn army/cavalry corps.





FRANCE

Abandonment Plan17: French troops now receive max entrench, French units are not getting paralyzed from German surprise attack anymore

France can't expand her rail transport network before turn 5.



BRITAIN

British Food crisis won't reduce British morale lower than 35.

New event for Entente to play: British Cruisers called home:
Added to the Entente event pool once the British North Sea Blockade is broken for the first time. Spawns a random British surface unit every fourth turn at the southern edge of the Atlantic with the following probabilities. 40%: Armored Cruiser, 30%: Pre-Dreadnought, 20%: Light Cruiser, 10%: Battlecruiser If too many "good" units appear the event can trigger the 2nd Russo-Japanese war if Entente loses the annual morale check which would lead to Russo-German Peace Talks.

NEW: British Arab cavalry spawns in Kuwait after Kuwait Revolt.

NEW: Break Senussi Rebellion event (removes all Senussi) more likely to get added to Entente event pool.



RUSSIA

Playing Full Russian Mobilization grants an extra rail transport capacity to Russia. The full mobilization will now be completed between turn 7 to 9.
Full Russian Mobilization must be played before turn 5 when Russia would usually join the war.

When Tsar takes command is triggered, Russia receives general Alexejev: Attack:2, Assault:1, Defense:2 Radius:3. He will be removed when the Tsar abdicates.

Rush-mobilize Russian army is discarded at the start of turn 3. Before it was possible to hold back diplomatic points to play both Rush-mobilize and Russian Surprise Attack on the same turn.

Until either Victory at Tannenberg or East Prussia devastated was achieved, Russia is obliged to have a total of at least 3 army and/or cavalry corps stationed in East Prussia at any time or suffer the Tsar's wrath: a one-time morale loss of 15 and a collapse point.
NEW: If the Russian steamroller is still in effect 5 turns after Russia joined the war and neither Lemberg, Krakau or Przemysl were captured, the Tsar will be just as angry.

Lake Naroch, Brusilov and Kerenski -offensives more likely to be added to Entente event pool. In singleplayer vs Entene AI higher chance to trigger automatically.

The city of Grodno gets a reserve corps in Aufmarsch Ost scenario.

NEW Removed the Russian submarine from the initial setup except in singleplayer mode vs Entente AI.

NEW: The Russian steamroller bonus is lowered to 25% of its last value at the start of each turn. Russian steamroller also ends if East Prussia devastated was triggered.



ITALY

Italian Offensive failed event:
should now trigger much more often



NEW: UNITED STATES

Raised US anger for each Entente convoy getting sunk.



NEW: PORTUGAL

Portugal now starts with a reserve corps and an artillery corps.



NEW: PERSIA

Persia is more likely to remain neutral.



MISCELLANEOUS:

Implemented a "version check feature" that warns via popup when your savegame is no longer compatible with the new version of the mod you installed to a match already in progress despite having been warned not to do so.

Patriotic Movement event to boost morale decreases in efficiency when used more than 3 times. Players will be notified via popup.
NEW: added a few vigorous propaganda events when Patriotic Movement is played.

Greek Schism event (donation of Salonika to Entente) now puts all adjacent neutral hexes around Salonika under British control.

Macedonian Warzone event triggers earlier and also puts all neutral/Serbian hexes within a radius of 6 hexes around Salonika under control of the Entente nation that occupies Salonika (usually Britain). This should allow for a much more expanded Macedonian theater of war.

Bulgarian Mobilization event is removed upon Serbian surrender, also Bulgarian alignment shifts 3 points toward neutrality, because the incentive to attack is gone.

"Cipher safe" INTEL Status:
"cipher safe" can be erroneously displayed even if your cipher is actually broken, this will be determined by comparing the total INTEL spent by either alliance and only the side with the higher amount spent getting the correct reading while the other deems itself safe or gets paranoid.

Ammo factory cost:
The 15 PP cap for building more than 15 ammo factories is removed.

Ammo cap for minor nations
Minor nations can only store up to 3 times the number ammo factories built but at least 10. 30 is the absolute maximum.
The Ottoman Empire is considered to be a minor nation in this respect.

Ammo factory cap for minor nations
Minor nations can't build more than 10 ammo factories.

Armored Trains
Movement slightly reduced.

Fighter planes
researching Reinforced Fusilage tech now bestows +1 on shock instead of +1 ground attack, researching Inline Engine now bestows +1 ground attack instead of +1 to shock

Anti-Aircraft techs
All AA-techs get +1 to Airattack making them slightly more effective.

Capital Ships
Dreadnoughts and Pre-Dreadnoughts made stronger and Battlecruisers made weaker.
This makes the Dreadnought (DD) now somewhat superior to the Battlecruiser (BC) while the Pre-Dread is still outclassed by an upgraded Light Cruiser squadron (and also consumes ammo).
Raised upkeep for BC/DD from 4 to 5.
Reduced build time for BC from 12 to 6 and for DD from 18 to 12.
Reduced cost for DD from 45 to 40PP.
BC cost unchanged 35PP.
Note that upkeep must be paid during build time, so a BC will effectively cost 30 + (6x5) = 60PP, and a DD costs 40 + (12x5) = 100PP. This is to encourage Britain/Germany to invest into BCs to overwhelm each other by weight of numbers if so desired.

Troop Transports
Now have a movement allowance of 35.

Fixed issue about not being able to send PP from Belgium to France via sea transport.

Fixed issue with Dublin captured triggering multiple times

Made French/Italian cities in North Africa overrun by the "Maghreb revolts" able to be retaken again by attacking them. Cities overrun by Maghreb rebels are now defended by an Arab homeguard unit.


NEW: Railroad Guns
Railroad guns cost 40PP and take 5 turns to build. The maximum number that can be built is 3 for France & Germany and 2 for Italy and Austria.
Fixed an issue where the "poison gas" skull icon was displayed despite railroad guns not being able to use gas.


NEW: REQUISITION
Named "Pillage" before on diplomacy panel. Now gives PP for each occupied city (2PP), fortress (3PP) and capital (5PP) of the selected enemy nation. Reduced negative alignment shift for neutrals getting angered by this act of barbarism: -2 for 1st use, -4 for 2nd use, -6 3rd use etc.



PDF Manual:

added descriptions for the following events:
- Chaos at OHL
- the neutral Ally (Norway)
- British Cruisers called home
- rush-mobilize Russian army
- Latvian Riflemen


DO NOT APPLY THIS UPDATE IF YOU HAVE ANY MATCHES ALREADY IN PROGRESS THAT YOU WANT TO CONTINUE!
START A NEW CAMAPIGN AFTER APPLYING THIS UPDATE!

[Robotron]

Some bugs were found, one of them being a Serbian fighter plane that should really not be there besides other stuff.

Please re-download the mod if you did so before, all links are updated.

[Umeu]

Some cool changes. Will try it out soon.

1 thing actually came to mind, wanted to raise it earlier but then forgot about it. But why did you change Belgium to surrender in 1915 if only Antwerp is left?

I feel like Belgium would never surrender as long as there is some hope left. They clung to the tiniest part of their country near the sea, despite the rest being under occupation and their army did not surrender or give up. So I feel that if they still had a major fortified port which could be supplied from sea by the British navy, they would surrender even less.

Besides, it forces Germany to deal with Antwerp sooner or later, because now they can just ignore it and wait for them to automatically surrender.

Also, did you fix the issue regarding Belgian DoW in Schlieffen scenario for V24? In V23, Belgium just joins the war, so Germany does not do DoW, and as a result Britain does not get angered. I even sent British warning to Germany in this game (still v23 for now), and instead of Britain joining instantly, I have to wait 10+ turns
https://img.onl/IGctnj

btw: the pdf says that Greek Schism is supposed to move Greece 5 points towards Entente, but in one of my MP games it caused Greece to go from around 50% proCP to 0% CP = 100% Entente after Greek Schism triggered. This was v23 still, but I think it's probably still the same in v24.

[Robotron]

So I feel that if they still had a major fortified port which could be supplied from sea by the British navy, they would surrender even less.

Consider it implemented in the next update/bugifx. I really don't feel like re-uploading the whole mod for minor issues like this right now.

Also, did you fix the issue regarding Belgian DoW in Schlieffen scenario for V24?

Yes.

btw: the pdf says that Greek Schism is supposed to move Greece 5 points towards Entente, but in one of my MP games it caused Greece to go from around 50% proCP to 0% CP = 100% Entente after Greek Schism triggered. This was v23 still, but I think it's probably still the same in v24.

Missed updating the event's description. Here's the updated version:

Clipboard02.jpg (190.67 KiB) Viewed 1286 times

The situation you described must have been caused by the event triggering randomly quite late in the game, about turn 50 or later.

[Umeu]

So I feel that if they still had a major fortified port which could be supplied from sea by the British navy, they would surrender even less.

Consider it implemented in the next update/bugifx. I really don't feel like re-uploading the whole mod for minor issues like this right now.

Also, did you fix the issue regarding Belgian DoW in Schlieffen scenario for V24?

Yes.

btw: the pdf says that Greek Schism is supposed to move Greece 5 points towards Entente, but in one of my MP games it caused Greece to go from around 50% proCP to 0% CP = 100% Entente after Greek Schism triggered. This was v23 still, but I think it's probably still the same in v24.

Missed updating the event's description. Here's the updated version:
Clipboard02.jpg

The situation you described must have been caused by the event triggering randomly quite late in the game, about turn 50 or later.

fair enough.

btw, was messing around in files, and I noticed that the game_morale script is now completely different. It only contains 1 long line. Where it used to have all the events and luadata values set to 0 or whatever amount. Did you move this to another file? (some of it is still there, topevents etc, but the country luadatas arent anymore.


and for the blockade, does the English Channel count as North Sea, Atlantic or neither?

Russia doesn't start with an army corps in the caucasus anymore in MP. is that intentional?

the code for minor powers not being able to build more than 10 factories also bans major powers from doing it.

Code: Select all

  elseif ( faction == game:GetFactionById(5)
     or faction == game:GetFactionById(6) 
   or faction == game:GetFactionById(7)
  	or faction == game:GetFactionById(9)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(11)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(12)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(13)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(14)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(15)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(16)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(17)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(18)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(19)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(20)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(21)
	or faction == game:GetFactionById(22) )
	and faction.luaData.factories >= 10 then
         PopupMessage("Minor powers lack the infrastructure to build more than 5 ammunition factories!")
		return false	

this works

I sent German Army Redeployed in MP and it did nothing. In the code, there seems to be no line for matchtype >=2

race to the sea doesn't unlock the hexes in MP

regarding the new Salonika donation, I didn't realize that the hexes would now create a passable front. So CP can just immediately take Salonika if it has a unit there. Maybe just donate the 2 coastal hexes, but not the 2 inland one, so that Entente can still bring more than 1 unit, without CP immediately being able to take Salonika? Otherwise probably anything less than spawning an Entente army corps there will result in Salonika being overrun immediately after donation.

still in v23, but not sure if already fixed in v24, but this part of the Kaiserschlacht code is missing localization for Paris and Dortmund.

[04:49:05][15052]game/game_events.lua:14853(global Offensives) game/game_events.lua attempt to index global 'paris' (a nil value)

[04:54:29][22876]game/game_events.lua:14855(global Offensives) game/game_events.lua attempt to index global 'dortmund' (a nil value)

Code: Select all

--------KAISERSCHLACHT----------
if germany.luaData.kaiserschlacht == 1 then

Capital Ships
Dreadnoughts and Pre-Dreadnoughts made stronger and Battlecruisers made weaker.
This makes the Dreadnought (DD) now somewhat superior to the Battlecruiser (BC) while the Pre-Dread is still outclassed by an upgraded Light Cruiser squadron (and also consumes ammo).
Raised upkeep for BC/DD from 4 to 5.
Reduced build time for BC from 12 to 6 and for DD from 18 to 12.
Reduced cost for DD from 45 to 40PP.
BC cost unchanged 35PP.
Note that upkeep must be paid during build time, so a BC will effectively cost 30 + (6x5) = 60PP, and a DD costs 40 + (12x5) = 100PP. This is to encourage Britain/Germany to invest into BCs to overwhelm each other by weight of numbers if so desired.

These changes heavily favor Britain/Entente. With the longer train times, the naval war was pretty balanced, slightly in favor of Britain for surface war, but Germany can do a lot to equalize with smart use of submarines (both to sink convoys as well as to help in big North Sea Engagements).

However, now that battlecruisers have become cheaper in price by about 1/3rd due to reduced train time, their new spammabilty, means that only Britain/Entente has enough ports to stick these baddies in. Since their upkeep has increased, this doubly favors Britain/Entente, because Germany simply doesn't have enough ports to keep the battlecruisers in during the long periods of inactivity (and since the iniative is with Britain largely, they get to choose if and when the battle for the North Sea happens). So Britain can carry the cost relatively easily, especially since they don't need to get into the action immediately anywhere. While for Germany, adding battlecruisers to overwhelm the British in the North sea, mostly means they sit there doing nothing, draining the Empires coffers. And it means Germany most likely won't have the strength to win on land. With all the changes recently favoring the Entente on land, where they did have a significant disadvantage, I think giving Germany a slightly better position to win or contest the war on the seas, would benefit the overal balance of the game. Many people seem to be struggling to win with CP (though I believe it's quite possible to win with them, but it's definitely challenging)

Before this wasn't so much of a problem, because battlecruisers and dreadnoughts were rarely built because of their high cost and long build time. But this has all changed now.

I'm not sure if the changes need to be reverted. I'm not against reducing their build times, though I don't think it was a necessary change. However, as mentioned before, this change makes it even more necessary for Germany to receive some extra ports. Even if they conquer Antwerp, Amiens and Le Havre, they still don't have nearly enough ports to keep up with the British.

I suggest:
https://img.onl/JRBLY7
The one near Denmark would be Sylt (could maybe be a 0PP fortress). The other one would be Rostock (1PP city?). They can be added as 0 or 1 PP per turn cities. Their main function is to give an extra free upkeep port in case Germany goes for a surface navy heavy strategy. It changes very little to nothing if Germany goes for a submarine or non-navy approach. It would bring the balance of ports to 11 for Britain and 8 for Germany. If the game goes relatively as historical/normal in the west, including French and Belgian ports, Entente can be expected to have about 15-16 ports, while Germany can be expected to have about 10-11.

Alternatives would be:
Give Germany another naval event, or add it to Tirpitz plan (not my preference, it's already quite OP), which would reduce German navy's upkeep in certain areas (for example the green areas around the ports or something similar)

Revert the build time / upkeep changes, but keep the battle stats changes.