old Potzblitz thread (discontinued)

[Zombo]

A couple of comments:

I would make the "Big Push" mirror the "Verdun" event in terms of manpower loss. first, it's always good to homogenise things ( and I guess it makes the coding easier), second, the Somme was actually more of a bloodbath than Verdun.

I don't remember seeing the "Horse Massacre" event fire when it should, but maybe I'm mistaken

< suplicating tone > No "Russian deserters" event mirroring the Turkish one? even for multiplayer?

Anyway, there's a spot under my Xmas tree for the last iteration of your mod! looking forward to it!

[Vokt]

I couldn't find the way to attach the file on the post. It said "not allowed extension" all the time.

then compress it, rar or zip

Thanks.

Robotron, here you have the save game file.

[Robotron]

@Vokt: found and fixed the bug but I'm afraid your game will not be salvageable anymore because of the pp damage already done to you by the bug. Sorry about that, please try again with the next update. It's very difficult for a one-man-team like me to anticipate all the things that may go wrong and I just don't have the time to playtest the mod 24h7days a week but I know it's frustrating to play just to have the game fucked up by a bug. So welcome to my world, I know how you feel.

@Zombo: about Somme casualities: good point, will include that. No Russian deserters though, the Russians will suffer enough already after the update. Just playtested the newly tweaked CP-AI and barely held Warsaw in 1914 followed by a complete rout/retreat to Riga-Rovno line in 1915 and losing Brest-Litovsk in January 1916. If CP were played by a human propably Minsk and Kiev would be in danger now.

About "Horse Massacre" not triggering: there's an element of chance included I forgot to mention in the PDF.

PotzBlitz V3.4 due on next Sunday.

[Zombo]

Sunday! Great!

about the desertions thing, i was only thinking of an event firing around 1917. I suspect ( but I confess I can only suspect, since I've never gone that far with the mod) that the Russian army of 1917 might have more staying power than historically.
I've read some recent studies, namely of the so-called "von Hutier" offensive, and it appears that the spectacular results were less due to the German tactical innovations that
n to the complete collapse of Russian combativeness. Russian units wouldn't even put up a pretense of resistance and would just withdraw, if not outright evaporate, when in contact of the enemy.

[Vokt]

@Vokt: found and fixed the bug but I'm afraid your game will not be salvageable anymore because of the pp damage already done to you by the bug. Sorry about that, please try again with the next update. It's very difficult for a one-man-team like me to anticipate all the things that may go wrong and I just don't have the time to playtest the mod 24h7days a week but I know it's frustrating to play just to have the game fucked up by a bug. So welcome to my world, I know how you feel.

No problem with that. Game was stopped quite early (turn 9) anyway.

[operating]

Robotron

Question: Will your mod be in a separate MP lobby than vanilla?

[Robotron]

Operating

Answer: I guess it will be in the same lobby than vanilla but both players must have installed the mod. Zombo should be able to properly answer the question, since he's the only multiplayer guy around here.

[nehi]

i guess its in the same lobby, twice i joined other moded games there, quite surprising

who hosts it, sets rules (i havent any mod, but there were noticable map and economy changes)

[Kossatx]

Robotron, why battlecruisers need 8MP? Five more than battleships

[Robotron]

Robotron, why battlecruisers need 8MP? Five more than battleships

Just an oversight, thanks for reporting.

[Robotron]

And here it is:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0N7V ... TJscDZVRnc

- Germany and AH received bonus PP
- all manpower gain per turn doubled from 1915 onward
- cavalry cost reduced from 25 to 20 but extra vulnerable to infantry (not garrisons) with "industrial warfare" tech
- infantry PP upkeep raised from 4 to 5
- winter effect stops at y-coordinate 51
- all non-arab units suffer from moving and fighting in dunes and deserts (British units will have a "Desert Pipeline" event to counter this around 1916), dunes are more severe than deserts
- 33% extra damage for units that fail to retreat
- special event for Germany to unlock "assault tactics" by tech-breakthrough (two or more infantry tech labs needed once "flamethrowers" and "creeping barrage" are unlocked)
- CP AI further improved


Kaiserschlacht event:

Conditions
Russia has surrendered and France is still fighting.
“German Army exhausted” has not yet occurred and Germany has less than 10 collapse points.
The winter season has passed.
German morale is at least 25.
Germany holds at least 6 hexes in either Belgium and/or France.
Germany has unlocked “Assault Tactics” and “Creeping Barrage” techs.
Either Ludendorff or Von Hutier are stationed in Belgium or France.

Effect
Every German infantry in the West will be restored to full strength.
Every German infantry in the West will receive 50-100 extra experience points
Every German infantry in the West of at least veteran rank will be upgraded with “Assault Tactics” tech for free.
If Paris is still under Entente control, a German Railroad Gun will spawn at Dortmund.

The offensive will last for at least 3 turns or as long as Germany is able to conquer new hexes in France.
Every conquered French hex will raise German morale and lower French and British morale.

If no more hexes are conquered a roll of D100 must be higher than the number of the current gameturn multiplied by either 1, 1.5 or 2 depending on whether Paris and/or Verdun are still under Entente control.

If the roll is lower the offensive ends:
Germany will suffer two collapse points and suffer a morale loss of double its number of collapse points.

Enjoy!

If the game crashes please provide the AutoSave.EndTurn.ctgw file and/or the ctgw.log (found in your "My Games" or "Games" folder, depending on what Windows version you use). Put these files into an archive (zip) and include them as an attachment to your post. Else I will have to resort to my magic crystal ball to find the bug and that will take some time or I might just be unable to fix the bug.

[Zombo]

Just a little question: does the cav penalty for fighting against industrial infantry apply in defense as well?

[Robotron]

Just a little question: does the cav penalty for fighting against industrial infantry apply in defense as well?

Yes.

[Robotron]

Since the game appears to be stable (for now) I spent the last few days refining the mod and ironing out bugs in the script that prevented certain stuff from working as intended. My focus at the moment is on improving the singleplayer game vs CP AI but if you guys have anything you would like to have added or changed/improved upon please say so, so I can include it in the next (and last) update for this year.

[Zombo]

Hi Robo

Thanks for your dedication

All my partners seem to have gone hibernating for Xmas, so I haven't been able to test much, but I'm pretty confident the whole thing is about right

Merry Xmas to you, by the way!

[Zombo]

A few comments about the first turns ( this is not due to the new version, it only confirms something that was there in the oldest one): the cumulative effect of experience and Putnik makes the Serbs a little too overpowered when attacking the AH (not when defending). I would suggest reducing the attack & assault bonus of Putnik in multiplayer, and singleplayer Entente.

[Vokt]

Just played a bit more with last update (France production bug fixed by the way) and I'm liking more and more what I'm seeing. Frontlines more or less stand at pretty much the same positions as the historical ones. (AI playing as CP)

Only 1 thing I noticed and that's the sort of garrison spamming that AI frequently does. Far from their main territorial and static role, AI garrisons actually join offensives and they are built in a great number. This way, AI frequently rail garrisons directly to the front line as combat units instead of railing them for garrisoning conquered cities as it should be.

To start with, could it be made that garrisons are railed only to city hexes but not to adjacent hexes? This would keep a bit the AI from sending that many garrisons to the front line.

And for avoiding a little their use in offensives, could it be lowered garrisons attack values? This way discouraging the AI from using them in offensive roles. Instead, we could augment their defensive values since I've noticed that Northern France cities garrisons fall excessively easy to German attacks.

[Zombo]

Micro-detail: I noticed the Swedish Garrison soldiers were depicted as early French, while Swedish Infantry had its own outfit. Definitely not game-breaking, though...

[Zombo]

Hi & merry Xmas for those here who care for that sort of stuff

I have another suggestion, for a (non-technical) problem that was recurrent in all our previous multiplayer games: the ability of the British to field troops far too quickly, nothing like the time it took for Kitchener's army to be mobilized. This means that the BEF can very quickly be reinforced, with a consequence that generally one British unit can land in Antwerp in 1914 (the Germans must bypass the fort on their initial thrust towards Paris) and make it virtually impregnable for the remainder of the game (because the colossal investment of forces needed to take the fort is generally needed elsewhere, and as nothing to do with what the Germans used in reality)
The British are also able to send troops into Serbia ( appearing on a convoy in Egypt) very early, which really upsets the historical balance on that theatre

I don't know how this can be fixed technically, but I would suggest making the British incapable of producing garrisons or Infantry straight away, whether by fiddling with British PP or by imposing for sort of "no build before" constraint such as the one used for German ammo factories.

Obviously, this is based on multiplayer, experience and would be, I guess, adequate for multiplayer and singleplayer Entente only.

[Robotron]

Frohe Weihnachten @all!
Don't despair, I'm still working on this and the promised update will be available in a few days. It will include:

- delayed Bulgarian war entry: as of now Bulgaria almost always joins CP before Italy declares war, so Serbia will be overrun to soon. I changed that by a few months on average
- human controlled commanders in singleplayer mode will have a higher chance of getting killed to raise the challenge
- in singleplayer vs CP AI, CP submarine warfare will now be automated by a special function that compares the number of Entente light cruisers and their anti-sub tech-level with the number of CP subs and their sub-tech levels to determine if, where and how much damage is done to convoys. This is to help the totally defunct naval AI to conduct submarine warfare and force the British to heavily invest in light cruisers to deploy in the Atlantic.
- Russian Supply Crisis will be totally changed: once the event triggers, Russia will use up ammo points every time it attacks or defends with any kind of unit and if those ammo points are used up Russia will suffer atrocious loss of manpower and PP as long as the crisis lasts. Furthermore Russia's war effort level will be crippled even after the crisis has ended.
- efficiency loss for moving and fighting in dunes and deserts was way too low (an oversight) and will be quadrupled so that a fresh unit that moves and fights during the same turn will now be in the red. This is meant to slow down the action in the Sinai desert and Mesopotamina fronts.
- new cities/fortresses: Caporetto, Monte Verena (Italian fortress in the Alps), Qurna, Amarah, Ctesiphon (fortified position near Baghdad), Turtucaia (fort near Bucharest)

@Vokt: sadly I still have no clue about how to force the AI to make clever decisions regarding unit choices and rail transport, as that would require to completely decypher the way the AI scripts work and I'm still far from that.

@Zombo: how about delaying Britain's ability to produce infantry until "industrial warfare" tech has been researched? That would be around winter 1914 so after production and transport the first infantrys would arrive around summer 1915. Seems okay to me.