Nationalities for realism

[dualist]

I like this game. It reminds me a LOT of one of the greatest games of this genre, V for Victory, from the early 1990s. That game was somewhat more realistic however, particularly in that it tried be historically accurate. One of the ways it did this was to include the Canadians and the Polish.

I think Commander - Europe at War suffers greatly because it has left out these two very significant and important national armies. The Canadians after all were present in most of the major campaignes, from Dunkirk to D-Day and on into Germany itself. Ignoring them is really an insult. They were not simply British.

Please add them in a future update.

Thank you.

[IainMcNeil]

The reason Canada was merged with British forces was for gameplay. We did not want to force the player to keep track of another set of resources and manpower. It would have added nothing to the game except fiddly micromanagement. It is in no way intended to suggest the Canadians were not involved. The same is true for Australia, New Zealand etc etc.

The Polish are in as a minor nation so I dont understand this comment?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I don't understand this problem either.

You can name every unit you want so you can call newly built units for e. g. 1st Canadian Corps, Canadian Armored Corps, Royal Canadian Air Force etc. and place them in Halifax or Ottawa. You can even build "Polish" units using British PP's and name them e. g. xx Polish Corps and place these in Britain before D-day.

I don't see the reason for having separate force pools for these nations. That would mean separate research etc. Now they benefit from the British research levels.

You have a similar "problem" with Axis minor units. It's impossible to build more Axis minor units and place them in Bucharest, Budapest, Helsinki etc. They have different tech levels than the Germans. It could be handy to build Axis minor units instead of the more advanced German units e. g. when the manpower level has dropped for the Germans.

But this is a minor issue and won't affect gameplay much. We usually only build German units since they fight better.

[syagrius]

As a canadian, I usually rename some British divisions as "1st Canadian Division" or "2nd Australian Division". It adds flavor! I agree that a separate force pool for countries of the Commonwealth is not necessary.

[borsook79]

I too believe that the current Candian/Polish representation is ok, with the exception of R-M pact, which could be represented in other way than the partition happening before 1st of September...

[Redpossum]

Canada's major contribution was escort ships.

Canada's population in 1941 was too small to support a major contribution of land units. Yes, Canadians served on land, and served bravely and with distinction. But not in sufficient numbers to justify creating separate units for a game on this scale.

There too, Canada (like Australia and New Zealand) had seen its troops take horrendous casualties in the First World War due to incompetent british leadership, and was highly reluctant to suffer that again.

And if anyone wants to dispute the validity of the phrase "incompetent british leadership", go study the Gallipoli campaign first, then come talk to me.

[Magpius]

Could not agree more with your comment Possum.
Australia has a national day which honours the fallen at Gallipoli. April 25th.
and EVERY small country town has a memorial listing the names of the dead from the 'war to end all wars'.
-Strongly recommend a book on Gallipoli by Les Carlyon, (a number 1 best seller in Australia).
One of the best accounts of the flawed campaign.
It shows Churchill's lack of regard for commonwealth troops in WW1 was similarly repeated in WW2.

[Evans]

There too, Canada (like Australia and New Zealand) had seen its troops take horrendous casualties in the First World War due to incompetent british leadership, and was highly reluctant to suffer that again.

I agree that Gallipoli was a debacle, but the above quote is absolutely wrong... If you read contemporary Canadian media and study to history of the Dieppe raid, you'll see that the Canadian public and media were very keen to see their armed forces more heavily involved in the conflict, and resented the fact their units were stationed on garrison duty in England. It was their hope that their soldiers would have the chance to fight with similar distinction as their counterparts in the First World War (they had performed admirably in France). Their response to that raid, their first engagement with the Germans, was to try and make it out as some kind of victory in which Canadian forces had played a key role - the backlash was quite severe when it emerged over time that Dieppe had actually been quite a disaster for them. In a positive way I'd call it a desire to get stuck in that lead them to call for greater involvement (for example in D-Day), but in a less flattering light it could be seen as a desire for glory.

As for the ANZAC, I don't think they were unhappy with serving alongside the British, but they did certainly want to head east when the Japanese were threatening their homeland. It was however Churchill I believe that refused to let them go, though to be fair they were definitely still needed in North Africa, and in a way, such was the strangeness of the war; that Australians and New Zealanders fought to protect Egypt and invade Libya, whilst Americans went to protect Australia and New Guinea...

On the subject of the main post though, I thoroughly agree with the general tone - in-game Commonwealth representation is best handled under the auspices of the 'British', and the Polish Army of the West can be represented well by this too (in fact one could argue it's needed to explain why the UK is able to field so many land units).

[Evans]

I too believe that the current Candian/Polish representation is ok, with the exception of R-M pact, which could be represented in other way than the partition happening before 1st of September...

I think the design choice was made that it's easier to put the Soviet units in their start positions for 1941 than to activate that nation specifically for the invasion of Eastern Poland (which was basically a walkover against little resistance), the Baltic states (who given their situation couldn't really offer any resistance either), Romania (who gave up Bessarabia without a fight). The only conflict that really justifies the added hassle would be the Winter War with Finland - but the outcome there was never really in doubt, rather the duration took everyone by surprise - did you know the Soviets originally only committed their local resources from the Karelian Military Department (I think it was labelled Karelian), as they expected an easy victory over the Finns? This was at the time many Soviet units didn't even know how to use their new equipment... It prompted a few reforms in the Red Army to say the least.

[borsook79]

I too believe that the current Candian/Polish representation is ok, with the exception of R-M pact, which could be represented in other way than the partition happening before 1st of September...

I think the design choice was made that it's easier to put the Soviet units in their start positions for 1941 than to activate that nation specifically for the invasion of Eastern Poland (which was basically a walkover against little resistance), the Baltic states (who given their situation couldn't really offer any resistance either), Romania (who gave up Bessarabia without a fight). The only conflict that really justifies the added hassle would be the Winter War with Finland - but the outcome there was never really in doubt, rather the duration took everyone by surprise - did you know the Soviets originally only committed their local resources from the Karelian Military Department (I think it was labelled Karelian), as they expected an easy victory over the Finns? This was at the time many Soviet units didn't even know how to use their new equipment... It prompted a few reforms in the Red Army to say the least.

I'm not saying that the Russian invasion has to played out, I'd be happy with a solution: Polish troops get removed, border changes, Russian troops appear in place, any German troops in the "Russian" part of Poland are moved to Berlin (yap, the HOI R-M). I just don't like that the current solution does not allow the Germans to push further east, and makes seeing the actual size of Poland harder.