Sea Lion feedback

[Horst]

The naval artillery in OOB is in particular dangerous to all land units, as its damage mechanic wasn't toned down like the land-artillery. Few ships can annihilate ground units from far away in one turn. In PC, ships have firing ranges of only 4 or 5, destroyers no long-range attack. In OOB, the naval ranges go all from 4 to 9, excluding the pt-boats with 1.
PC-Forts have a range of only 3. In OOB, it's 5. OOB coastal guns have even range 9.
The land-artillery in OOB has also a slight range advantage over PC.

Yes, the odds in OOB are definitely worse.

[Horst]

Alright, this time I could completely wipe out the Channel Islands in 10 turns.
You rather only need 5 inf/para units for the right island, while I used 7 for the lower-left one. I used like 6 Para units for a big punch. Paks have been more or less unnecessary. 3-4 IGs are okay in total.
Important is that you purchase only tactical bombers there. Fighters are a waste of ground-attack potential what you need there.
I could purchase two submarines, but in vanilla one IX sub and an S-boat should do fine too. I would use the sub for the right island while the boat can freely harass the lower-left island.
I also used two supply ships for the lower-left island, while the northern one had to do without what was barely doable with bomber help. Okay, I admit my 1-fuel setting for the Mtn-troops helped there.
The Brit naval reinforcement was basically just bummering against the scorched barrier doing nothing all the time.

The only thing I would have changed is this annoying tent-spawning on airfields. Sometimes, these dumb tents spawn, sometimes they don't. And if the AI enjoys destroying tents more than my units, that's fine because a destroyed airstrip turns into better airfields then.
If someone is going to argue about lack of supply for aircrafts on these little islands then I also argue about the possibility for the Brits to reinforce/repair units there. Where should the reinforcement come from? The local fishers?
Easier with my gameplay mod or not, next stage will be the Eagle Screech. This scenario requires more attention.

About Eagle: Erik, if you give all paved roads on the Axis mainland 10 instead of 5 supply, this would make me very happy. I still miss 9 supply for these aux-units with my mod. My arty supply/cmd increases from 2 to 5 according to caliber ranges what I think is better balanced.

[Andy2012]

Alright, this time I could completely wipe out the Channel Islands in 10 turns.
You rather only need 5 inf/para units for the right island, while I used 7 for the lower-left one. I used like 6 Para units for a big punch. Paks have been more or less unnecessary. 3-4 IGs are okay in total.
Important is that you purchase only tactical bombers there. Fighters are a waste of ground-attack potential what you need there.
I could purchase two submarines, but in vanilla one IX sub and an S-boat should do fine too. I would use the sub for the right island while the boat can freely harass the lower-left island.
I also used two supply ships for the lower-left island, while the northern one had to do without what was barely doable with bomber help. Okay, I admit my 1-fuel setting for the Mtn-troops helped there.
The Brit naval reinforcement was basically just bummering against the scorched barrier doing nothing all the time.

The only thing I would have changed is this annoying tent-spawning on airfields. Sometimes, these dumb tents spawn, sometimes they don't. And if the AI enjoys destroying tents more than my units, that's fine because a destroyed airstrip turns into better airfields then.
If someone is going to argue about lack of supply for aircrafts on these little islands then I also argue about the possibility for the Brits to reinforce/repair units there. Where should the reinforcement come from? The local fishers?
Easier with my gameplay mod or not, next stage will be the Eagle Screech. This scenario requires more attention.

About Eagle: Erik, if you give all paved roads on the Axis mainland 10 instead of 5 supply, this would make me very happy. I still miss 9 supply for these aux-units with my mod. My arty supply/cmd increases from 2 to 5 according to caliber ranges what I think is better balanced.

Yep, that's how I did it, too. But I would still delete that coastal gun in the southwestern corner. Kinda hard to reach. And maybe those silly supply trucks there, too. It is still quite important to get Guderian.
BTW, maybe going all para is a way to beat the landings. However, that is quite expensive (80 vs. 30 credits).
Erik, do you plan to update the early campaign missions soon or should I poke around the other missions before you start your adjustments? Except Channel Islands, I have not played anything for more than 2-3 turns (it seemed to me that they were kind of unwinnable or only with cheating and heavy losses).

[Erik2]

Added Kriegsmarine as core.
Added all 1940 air/land/general specs to Wehrmacht and 1940 naval/general specs to Kriegsmarine at the start of the campaign. This should be a real boost to the Germans.
Hid the non-applicant specs for both cores.

So, for the benefit of Horst, it looks like this in the data file:
<specs>
acquired = tank_school germany, Radar_I germany, Auftragstaktik germany, Boot_Camp germany, Flight_School germany, Scrambling germany, Drop_Tank germany, War_Economy germany, Naval_Academy kriegsmarine, War_Economy kriegsmarine, Radar_I kriegsmarine
hidden = Naval_Academy germany, Damage_Control germany, Wolfpack germany, Unrestricted_Submarines germany, Plan_Z germany, Schlachtschiffe germany, Flugzeugtrager germany, Torpedo_Improvements germany, Boot_Camp kriegsmarine, Tank_School kriegsmarine, Auftragstaktik kriegsmarine, Beutepanzer kriegsmarine, Waffen_SS kriegsmarine, Waffen_SS_II kriegsmarine, Waffen_SS_III kriegsmarine, Forced_Labour kriegsmarine, Unrestricted_Submarines kriegsmarine
</specs>

Hi Andy
Eagle: Removed all land action in France to let the player concentrate on the air and naval business. Increased Kriegsmarine purchase resources.
Dover: I managed a win when I tested this scenario, but that was of course against the zero-experience Britons. I have reduced the exp from 3 to 2 for all British land units and increased the no of turns from 18 to 27. Hope this helps.

Campaign link updated in first post.

[Horst]

I haven't checked or tested v2.3 yet, so my study below is still from v2.1.

About experience in this campaign: the PC campaign was designed for importing units from DLC 40. Core units may have up to 5400 xp = 2.7 stars or 5 points in the editor.

Channel Island:
- UK: 50 xp what is only about 830 xp in OOB, barely a star.

Eagle Attack:
- German aux: 200 xp = 3 OOB points
- UK: 175 xp = 2.9 OOB points.

The new OOB-player can start with only 1-star units by specs (2000 xp or 2 points). So the AI already starts with 1.5 stars what is a bit tough for the beginning.
These Channel Island guards certainly have rather only 0 xp.

Little historical info about the British situation from June 1940:
In June 1940 the British Army had 22 infantry divisions and one armoured division. The infantry divisions were, on average, at half strength, had only one-sixth of their normal artillery.
There was a critical shortage of ammunition such that none could be spared for practice.
An official historian gave the figures for tank numbers on 10 June 1940 as 103 cruisers and 142 infantry tanks.
Far more men volunteered than the government expected and by the end of June, there were nearly 1.5 million volunteers as Home Guard.

Summarized, the situation was pretty bad at beginning for British ground troops. Filling all the gaps in the infantry division with fresh men most likely didn’t qualify for as much as 1 experience star – if any at all, considering the many Home Guard units accompanying them.
I suggest, let’s start with 0 exp for the AI and increase that slowly. The RN may start with 1 star (2), but not these supply ships on the Channel Islands! Gaining experience is quite difficult for the German player at beginning until a beachhead is secured.

Good stages during the campaign to give the British ground units more exp (editor-points):
Basildon/Farnborough/Shepton-Mallet: 1 (British counter-attacks)
London A/S: 2 (stubborn defense with the veterans)
Hadrian: 3 (last stand in Britain)

The US troops may have one point less experience than the British/French/Polish/etc. troops.
Let's take it easy for the start and experience!

Here's the PC campaign-tree:
http://www.slitherine.com/img/OSL-infographic%202.jpg

Bug: 17Plymouth: Turns/Day 22 -> 2
Bug: 24Irish: Turn Limit: 10 -> 18

[Andy2012]

Hi Andy
Eagle: Removed all land action in France to let the player concentrate on the air and naval business. Increased Kriegsmarine purchase resources.
Dover: I managed a win when I tested this scenario, but that was of course against the zero-experience Britons. I have reduced the exp from 3 to 2 for all British land units and increased the no of turns from 18 to 27. Hope this helps.

Campaign link updated in first post.

Okay, tried that. Specialisations work. Thanks for removing the French. (In general. And in the game, too. Just kidding. ) Thats the good news.

Bad news:
I think this mission is not working out now.
Short story: They (RN and RAF) are too powerful and numerous and both the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine are too weak.
Long story: Stukas have an impact against DDS and some small ships, but are fairly vulnerable and weak attackers against capital ships, including the aircraft carrier I am supposed to sink. Also, these stand next to powerful AA. Stratbombers are useless in this mission, cannonfodder. When attacking / going fighter hunting with my 109s, they have insufficient numbers and get cut down by AA and naval AA. The RN has more ships with higher exp and more naval guns. I was able to sink some outlying DDs, but now they are ganging up on me.
Put shortly: I have no real edge against the RN and RAF and after six turns, my eagle's claws are getting quite dull already. Relying on two star aux units (my core is worse) means losses here cannot be made good, they are just gone.
I sent a recon over to see about those supply ships - is that the avenue I am supposed to go? I mean, even when I cut the RNs and RAF's supply down, I still will lose a lot of units in the process and they still have an edge in numbers and exp over me. And I will have wasted at least 5-8 turns with heavy losses.

Suggestion:
1. Remove the carriers as units and as an objective. I just dont have the weapons to take them on. (Unless there is an option for naval stukas?)
2. Reduce RN and RAF in numbers. And possibly exp, too. Reduce AA near the coast. I mean, I cant wait til they come to me, I have to hunt the RAF over England.
3. Increase starting points and credits for Kriegsmarine. Maybe some aux recon planes and several subs?
4. Maybe remove some of their coastal guns and give me one more?

Altogether, the original setup is not working when ported into OoB because the unit composition is still not complete and balanced. I mean, I just dont have an option to take on the RN with air attacks. Especially not capital ships. So its not your fault, but you have to account for these obvious deficiencies in the game mechanics in the mission design to make this one work.

Still, keep up the great work, Erik.

[Erik2]

Channel Islands:
Brit land units exp = 1

Eagle Attack:
Brit AA/Radar units strength = 5, exp = 2.
Coastal guns exp = 1.
Added resources and command points for two additional Kriegsmarine cruisers and two destroyers
Reduced primary obj sinking 2 BBs to 1 BB.
Reduced primary obj sinking 6 CA/CLs to 3 CA/CLs

Dover:
Brit inf units & bunkers/frots/coastal guns strength =5 exp = 1
Brit AA/art/arm units strength = 5
Added command points for one additional Kriegsmarine cruiser and one destroyer

Canterbury, Gravesend, Thames:
Reduced Brit land units exp from 3 to 2.

Link updated in first post

[Andy2012]

Channel Islands:
Brit land units exp = 1

Eagle Attack:
Brit AA/Radar units strength = 5, exp = 2.
Coastal guns exp = 1.
Added resources and command points for two additional Kriegsmarine cruisers and two destroyers
Reduced primary obj sinking 2 BBs to 1 BB.
Reduced primary obj sinking 6 CA/CLs to 3 CA/CLs

Dover:
Brit inf units & bunkers/frots/coastal guns strength =5 exp = 1
Brit AA/art/arm units strength = 5
Added command points for one additional Kriegsmarine cruiser and one destroyer

Canterbury, Gravesend, Thames:
Reduced Brit land units exp from 3 to 2.

Link updated in first post

Thanks, will try that out over the following days.
Only thing that comes to my mind right away: If you reduce them to 5 strength, wont they reinforce right away?
Maybe set them to zero resource income? That would actually simulate the drained state the Brits were in after Dunkirk (and would add playability).
Horst, your two cents?

[Erik2]

The income is 1 resource pr unit pr turn, so rebuilding should take some time. Especially if the Germans keep on hammering them.

[Horst]

Are we getting any aircraft command points for the Kriegsmarine sooner or later?
If not then hide Flight School and Scrambling there.

Eagle
- played through it successfully with v2.3
- except the fighter objective, the other goals were obtainable
- the poor German coastal gun badly needs like 10-stars to survive more than 3 turns
- aux BB Gneisenau for coastal gun objective? No no, always cores as rewards, please!
- where are the 15 fighters? I still had 8 left to down. Is this related to the Brit-airfield killing-triggers? I don’t know what you are actually removing there by trigger without any hex or target-definition. Man, it’s so dumb with the aircrafts in hangars in the editor. How do you pull aircrafts out of hangars again?
- please add redeployment zones, always!
- supply ships in general should rather always have 0 xp to make it easier to kill them

I was always blank on Germany-RPs except the last couple of turns when not much was left. KM RP's were fine. I was still waiting for the 8 fighters to spawn.
I think giving some amount of RPs at beginning is always useful to purchase and repair units. It shouldn’t be that mandatory to keep so many RPs from the last scenarios. The original PC campaign always give the player a certain amount for each new scenario. The advantage is that the income doesn’t need to be that high as most losses are at beginning anyway, while in the last turns there isn’t enough AI power left to justify much income anymore. Most repairs are needed at beginning. When players barely make it to a next scenario, it could mean a game-over if they have only damaged units in reserve. With new funds at start, there is a much better chance to play on.

I’m going to Gibraltar next where it’s warmer. I’m going to see enough of Britain later anyway. Let’s see how the Italians can help me there.

[Erik2]

Horst

The Kriegsmarine gets the Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser with air units in a later scenario.

Eagle:
Reduced fighter kills to at least 10. Removed the remove-hangar-triggers, didn't work properly anyway.
German coastal gun exp and fortification = 10
Gneisenau reward is now a core unit.
You select the air unit in the formation list and shift-click on the map to move it out of the hangar.
Added naval exit/redeployment to the NE and SW map edges.
Supply ships exp = 0. I'll change this in other scenarios too.

Link updated in first post

[Andy2012]

Horst

The Kriegsmarine gets the Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser with air units in a later scenario.

Eagle:
Reduced fighter kills to at least 10. Removed the remove-hangar-triggers, didn't work properly anyway.
German coastal gun exp and fortification = 10
Gneisenau reward is now a core unit.
You select the air unit in the formation list and shift-click on the map to move it out of the hangar.
Added naval exit/redeployment to the NE and SW map edges.
Supply ships exp = 0. I'll change this in other scenarios too.

Link updated in first post

Okay, tried the latest version of Eagle Attack (why not call it Adlertag? Must be shouted to unleash full teutonic effect. Try it at home. )

I think it is very slowly starting to work better.
This time, I left the Channel mostly empty and deployed most of my stuff around Cherbourg to first catch that convoy. (Which I did)
Now, after 7 turns (will take me a few more days to finish this), I plan to slowly crawl towards the channel.
Also, I attacked the carrier with three subs, but will probably need a second fresh wave because there are just so many DDs with sonar around.
I guess that this time, I will plow through the objectives and maybe pull off a win.
But some issues persist: AI is reinforcing its AA to full strength. So reducing them didnt do anything, as I suspected.
KM balancing problems persist in this, this is not your fault. That Lysander biplane is surprisingly strong, for example.
I'd also suggest that you throw out all those useless stratbombers and give me more fighters and Stukas. I mean, they do nothing against ships and right now, I use them as scout and AI bait. Which is not fun.
Horst, you beat this. What was your approach?
Generally, I know you try to keep as close to the original as possible. But these superlarge battles with throwaway aux units are just not much fun, I think. (Not your fault.) OoB works best and is the most fun when focusing on a core army and maybe some supplemental aux units (mobile AA, special stuff like siege guns etc) for limited objectives over a rather short turn range (20-30 turns). This keeps the focus on your core, AI turns stay short (right now, I do laundry and dishes while it finishes and then assess the damage).
Still, this is a lot better than the original DLC content and I will probably stick around this place for your western Europe stuff. A "Thai Police vs Japs DLC" in Bangkok just does not spark my interest.
I mean, theoretically, you could do the first few mission of Panzercorps: Afrikakorps as well, right? Most of the British and US stuff is there, anyway. Come on, Erik.

[Horst]

I was glad all these own ground units have been removed in Adler. That didn’t make it such a burden to go through all these aux units.
My torpedoes and submarine deck-guns are somewhat more useful than in vanilla. 18 subs with wolfpack spec and BB Gneisenau later did quite fine. What is also pretty cheesy that submarines can fire their deck gun while surfaced undetected. It was the first time I played with the new battery-mechanic. I though they recharge completely after a single turn and not only 1 charge per turn. That’s quite tedious to play, but I’ll manage. While surfaced, you just have to be careful not to lure these AA-hungry capital ships to your submarines by nearby own bombers.

Andy, here something for us to dream about:

[Andy2012]

Andy, here something for us to dream about:

Marvelous. I am seriously twitching with excitement. When will you be done? (If you have any vague idea...)
I must playtest this!
(Kinda sad that I am now more interested in free custom content and do not care much for new DLCs or betatesting them. I mean, the quality is easily superior and the experience as well as the price, so...yeah. It has now come to this.)

[Horst]

Hey, this was just a 15-minute quickie in a 10x10 map!
The landscape wouldn't look that great with only beaches without sand dunes and sandy hills. You can see that the deco-houses also got the grass-terrain below. Theoretically, you could create anything already with grass-terrain and replace it later - should the true desert theme be released one day. We still lack more Italian units too. I also miss the sand-camo for German units. Too many lacking things only ruin the fun. I can still wait a bit longer.

[Andy2012]

Hey, this was just a 15-minute quickie in a 10x10 map!
The landscape wouldn't look that great with only beaches without sand dunes and sandy hills. You can see that the deco-houses also got the grass-terrain below. Theoretically, you could create anything already with grass-terrain and replace it later - should the true desert theme be released one day. We still lack more Italian units too. I also miss the sand-camo for German units. Too many lacking things only ruin the fun. I can still wait a bit longer.

Now I got my hopes up for nothing. Great.

Well, there are always other campaigns to play. I really have the urge now to replay PC Afrikakorps...
I still wonder why the devs did not go straight for this one. I mean, sand camo skins should be easy to do. Desert tiles, too. And supply was THE issue during the historical campaign, so there is vast potential for a totally fresh approach with the OoB supply system. (That would require actually investing time in mission design...man, KM still makes me soo angry.)

[Horst]

Gibraltar is nuts at beginning:
- first you can’t start with any planes as there is only enough Spanish air-supply for the totally useless Italian (French) planes – for 5 turns. Afterwards, it takes a while until you have captured and occupied an airfield until you can finally use aircrafts
- you can’t (re-)deploy any (lost) KM/Italian naval units after start until you take a port in like turn 15-20 or something
- the upper airfields are impossible to take at beginning with so many AI units swarming to the coast. I rather focused on the lower coast only
- if you retreat like a true Italian to the redeployment zones, you can’t redeploy the planes afterwards until you capture an airfield
- not enough RPs to replace/repair all the many losses. RN loves to destroy my transport/supply ships on the other side of the coast
- one Hurricane in the South has no behaviour and hovers to death there
- time ran out in the end to get the last primary with still some supply ships and supply depots left
- KM didn’t receive any spec-points afterwards although you could use something like 3 submarines

Lyme Regis
- game-over with 44 RP left. See my suggestion about giving RPs at each scenario start

PS. Just checked the initial/income prestige values of the PC-scenarios I played:

Channel Island: 2200/-
Eagle Attack: 1200/100
Gibraltar: 350/50
Lyme Regis: 5000!/50
Divide anything by 3 and you got proper OOB RP-values according to the average unit costs. Oh man, 1666 RP would have let me repair all my damaged units again.

[Andy2012]

- if you retreat like a true Italian to the redeployment zones

Word.

Isnt there any Italian around here to piss off? Probably not. (Kidding, guys...They, uhm, fought hard. Hardly. )

[Horst]

The Italians were often smart enough to know that they had no chance with their outdated equipment. Nah, Rommel wouldn't have come that far without them as infantry backbone. They just needed better leadership and useful tanks as backup.

Can you find the irony in the snapshot below?
I still have 3 Italian destroyers and all capital ships left from Gibraltar, so it wouldn't be that hopeless. Most are damaged of course. A bit too challenging with 0 RPs to start with them in Lyme Regis.
The Germans, preferable the Germany-Core, could badly need more RP-backup to start with either, as I would gladly follow Guderian's advice.
The vision of "I manage the RP by only income" is blindfolded and makes this campaign unnecessarily harder than it is.

[Erik2]

Eagle:
Reduced the British income to a trickle to force the AA unit strength to remain low.

Gibraltar:
Adjustments to Italian ships.
Added a couple of core U-boats.
Replaced all exit locations with air/naval/land exits and deployment hexes to allow the German player faster off-map repairs.
Fixed the idle Hurricane (and a Fairey Battle).
Increased the number of turns from 22 to 33.

Back in my Blitzkrieg campaign days players reported that they would amass a large surplus of resources. Obviously this is not the case in Sea Lion.
So I've taken Horst's advice and given the Wehrmacht/Kriegsmarine a lump of resources at each scenario start. This is based on the PzC numbers/3 and divided between Wehrmacht/Waffen SS/Kriegsmarine as applicable.

Campaign link updated in first post.