Sea Lion feedback

[Horst]

Thanks, let's see how it plays with more start-RP.
33 turns for Gibra is a bit too much. Maybe 28-30. Maybe someone else is going to play that scenario again, as I prefer to continue.

[Erik2]

Thanks, let's see how it plays with more start-RP.
33 turns for Gibra is a bit too much. Maybe 28-30. Maybe someone else is going to play that scenario again, as I prefer to continue.

We'll see how Andy does on the Rock. Maybe I'll adjust turns after some more feedback.

[Horst]

Do I get this right in Lyme Regis that you can't place a single non-carrier-based German aircraft at scenario start (again)?. So I must face the RN and RAF with three crappy carrier-based Jap WW1 biplanes as long as I'm not up to purchase any additional seaplanes that survive up to 2 turns.
The briefing said something about placing up to 10 planes. I only see three Italian aka. Jap planes. Muaaah... I want to play with my own aircrafts right from start!
Geezus, who cares about these two fantasy Italian carriers if the whole French coast is not far to the South? That's what redeployment zones are for after all!

[Erik2]

Horst

There should be a number of combination air/naval/land deployment hexes for the Axis.
But there were some problems with these in the first KM update.

I've added enough pure air deployment hexes in the middle bottom map, there were a few free hexes available.

Link to Lyme here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16806697/15Lyme.zip

Campaign updated in first post.

[Horst]

Actually, I couldn't start the scenario anyway. Was first surprised I couldn't save, and when starting the first turn after deploy-turn the turn-button vanished.
I figured out it is related to the Waffen-SS spec somehow. I could still play with the WSS fine in Gibraltar but Lyme now doesn't even show their resources anymore in the list to the main-panel on the right. Clicking on KM or Italy shows WSS but not Germany anymore. This looks like a serious bug but no idea why at moment...
Just start the campaign fresh and nuke yourself to Lyme while picking WSS on the way and you'll see there.

[Erik2]

Odd.
I added the Waffen SS faction to Lyme (there are no SS units in this scenario) and fixed a couple of other minor things.
When I launch the scenario from the editor, I get the strat-map bug 'normally' caused by assigning a faction twice. Strange.
So it does not seem to have anything with the campaign files to do.

I think I'll create a thread in Tech support.

[Horst]

Air deployment zones look fine in Lyme now, but the WSS-bug persists. I nuked myself without WSS or taking any other specs in a vanilla-test on but noticed a 2d-map crash with the Minehead map. Can you confirm this?

PS: Gibraltar already had 2 WSS aux units from start, but my WSS RP-account was applying to it normally. I also could purchase and play with a tank there normally.

[WWII44]

Is the first map of sea lion supposed to divided up by those ugly tracts of land?

[Erik2]

Is the first map of sea lion supposed to divided up by those ugly tracts of land?

Yes, the islands are actually located much farther apart. So it is a way to disallow the player to move naval assets between the various islands.
The division lines are part of the original PzC scenario as well.

[Andy2012]

Thanks, let's see how it plays with more start-RP.
33 turns for Gibra is a bit too much. Maybe 28-30. Maybe someone else is going to play that scenario again, as I prefer to continue.

We'll see how Andy does on the Rock. Maybe I'll adjust turns after some more feedback.

Thanks, may take a few days.

[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.)

BTW, tried a few turns Afrikakorps over the weekend to sharpen my mind and focus my thoughts on why OoB annoyed me so much with KM.
Panzercorps is way more random and does look oldish now. But the balance and mission design do still make up for it easily. I mean, I struggle to hold Mathildas at bay, slowly push them away with my fighter bombers and finally take all objectives in the last turn. That back and forth, carefully balanced, dramatic mission design hardly showed up in OoB. KM especially was really lackluster here.
Great, now I am getting angry again...this is all your fault, Horst. (kidding )

[Horst]

Sorry that I have popped your dream-bubble, Andy!
The Brits have still so few mechanical units that Africa wouldn't be worthy yet to create. If the next official campaign is actually improving the Brit arsenal again then things will look much better with more Hurricane and Spitfire variants, 6-pounder AT, heavy arty, Valentine tanks, Daimler Dingo, Humber, etc. etc. Even the Indian engineers and Ghurka are useful for Africa.

About the WSS in Sea Lion: what to do now if that spec doesn't work along the couple of WSS objectives that exist during the campaign?
- Waiting for a fix that could never come?
- Remove the WSS spec from the campaign?

I hesitate playing on. I wouldn't mind to nuke myself to Lyme again without WSS. The 6000+ RP should be enough to purchase a proper core again. I hadn't really gathered xp so far anyway by the many losses.

[Erik2]

adherbal said there was another update imminent.
I guess they're trying to fix all the recent post-KM issues in one update.

[Andy2012]

adherbal said there was another update imminent.
I guess they're trying to fix all the recent post-KM issues in one update.

Just managed to squeeze out a few turns in the latest version of Eagle Attack. I think this will work, but I havent finished it yet. As I said, can take a few days.

Still, this very strongly reminds me of Crete and its persistent problems:
1. Way too many aux units. Core is secondary here.
2. Way too much going on, AI turns take forever.
3. Balancing issues, stratbombers are useless here. I use them as scouts or diversion.
4. With aux units and core, I feel that I control an army that is too big and takes forever to move. Mirrors the AI turns.

@Erik: I know, you try to port Panzercorps faithfully, but this more or less feels like a chore to me. (Or maybe I need to take a break with wargaming for a while...)

Anyway, do you guys suggest I power through this and get the commander rewards or just cheat and take a look at the next one? Your call.
BTW, @Horst - what is your strategy towards getting the carrier? My subs get annihilated, strat bombers are useless and my KM needs to catch the convoy from the southwest. Or am I doing this wrong?

[Horst]

Andy, I can’t really give you any good advice there as the gameplay by own mod is different than vanilla, like more useful submarines, and battleships which are still more powerful than cruisers. I haven’t played this campaign in PC either (which I played with own mod too there ofc ).
During my Eagle flight, my fighters and TBs had enough chances to sink all the destroyers after many turns which were the only danger for my 18 submarines. It’s quite difficult to manoeuver at beginning that AI ships often bumped into my surfaced subs. Replacing sunk subs is still affordable though.
I still know from my own run that the convoy on the left more or less got stuck by too many AI warships there that kept chasing my airplanes around the Channel. My bombers rather tried to destroy that coastal gun there at the convoy’s exit point which the AI warships magnetically attracted. Meanwhile, I could destroy the convoy one by one with my subs and some planes.
The AI carrier on the upper-right sooner or later got torpedoed by my many other subs either. Near the end of the max turn limit, I sank all the other AI ships too that only some AI AA-guns were left. No idea if this is possible in vanilla too.

I can’t say much about too many Aux units yet. The funny thing in Eagle was that all my 6-8 core TBs had been destroyed mainly by capital ships while every single aux airplane was still more or less kicking in the end. It was truly a battle of materiel.
The amount of aux units in Gibraltar was fine. No idea yet how it looks later in the campaign as I don’t want to spoil myself too much by checking in the editor. It’s possible that scenarios can get quite time-consuming later as I’ve played some other campaigns of the original author in the past in PC too. They were nevertheless quite entertaining except the exaggerated hero bonuses.
Stuck in Lyme since a while now due game-bug which is hopefully fixed later by the non-beta patch.

[Andy2012]

@Horst: Thanks. Quite sad that you have to mod the game to make it more viable.
18 subs is a lot. I mostly go for Hippers.
Agree with the grinding nature of this mission.
What exactly is that bug that hinders you? Cant understand that in the previous posts.

[Horst]

Andy, the game won't let me past the deployment phase in Lyme as the turn-button vanishes. I already noticed that I couldn't save in that scenario. I don't get either but it's possible related to deleting factions during creating the map? Whatever, I hope Erik doesn't need to recreate such scenarios again from scratch.
Maybe a good idea is to go from Eagle next to Brighton which is maybe not so fortress-clustered like Dover.

It's not sad to mod war games, it's my beloved hobby!
I can fully understand using rather only CAs instead of BBs in vanilla now as this main battery cooldown was a totally unnecessary change in my book (and isn't used in my mod), but what do I understand about game balance as bloody amateurish modder here.
Surface ships, like your beloved Hippers, doesn't seem to be a good idea in Eagle as even the BB Gneisenau later as bonus reward there already gets quickly swarmed by anything that is still floating in the Channel. You have immediately use your Stukas to sink all attackers, as long as you don't want to hide your new BB down around the Axis coast throughout the scenario.

[Andy2012]

Andy, the game won't let me past the deployment phase in Lyme as the turn-button vanishes. I already noticed that I couldn't save in that scenario. I don't get either but it's possible related to deleting factions during creating the map? Whatever, I hope Erik doesn't need to recreate such scenarios again from scratch.
Maybe a good idea is to go from Eagle next to Brighton which is maybe not so fortress-clustered like Dover.

It's not sad to mod war games, it's my beloved hobby!
I can fully understand using rather only CAs instead of BBs in vanilla now as this main battery cooldown was a totally unnecessary change in my book (and isn't used in my mod), but what do I understand about game balance as bloody amateurish modder here.
Surface ships, like your beloved Hippers, doesn't seem to be a good idea in Eagle as even the BB Gneisenau later as bonus reward there already gets quickly swarmed by anything that is still floating in the Channel. You have immediately use your Stukas to sink all attackers, as long as you don't want to hide your new BB down around the Axis coast throughout the scenario.

Didnt want to downgrade your beloved hobby. After all, we almost share it. (I dont start recoding stuff...)
And I would love to use different or varied unit composition with my Kriegsmarine, but DDs and mostly Hippers is just the most cost-efficient. Sure, BBs and subs are iconic and cool, but just dont cut it.
Lets see what Erik comes up with. Will try to finish Eagle attack (or probably slog through it) in the next days, then it's the rest of England.

[Horst]

I gave Brighton (after cheating through Channel Islands and Eagle) a chance, but the Brits are simply too powerful as reinforcement. While my fresh troops disembarked from naval transports are already battered enough from the submarines and Sea Forts, the experienced Brit reinforcements swarming in from all sides are way too much to bear.
Main problem was again the lack of redeployment zones for aircrafts. Maybe Dover lacks the same, so better check this!
I also don't think I would have made it in 24 turns with more experienced troops but I already gave up on turn 15.
The difficulty of this campaign is simply too high and frustrating. Okay, I admit that an unknown scenario is always difficult but fighting many AI units that have more experience than yours is simply torture.
Like I already suggested in the past, better reduce the AI experience to 0 at beginning:
Basildon/Farnborough/Shepton-Mallet: 1 (British counter-attacks)
London A/S: 2 (stubborn defense with the veterans)
Hadrian: 3 (last stand in Britain)
My suggestion above could really work better, especially for people who start this campaign without any imported core (not that it really matters in OOB anyway). I've played through most original campaigns twice with beach landings and such, but this simply beats anything before. Sea Lion is no vanilla-banana campaign!

[Andy2012]

I gave Brighton (after cheating through Channel Islands and Eagle) a chance, but the Brits are simply too powerful as reinforcement. While my fresh troops disembarked from naval transports are already battered enough from the submarines and Sea Forts, the experienced Brit reinforcements swarming in from all sides are way too much to bear.
Main problem was again the lack of redeployment zones for aircrafts. Maybe Dover lacks the same, so better check this!
I also don't think I would have made it in 24 turns with more experienced troops but I already gave up on turn 15.
The difficulty of this campaign is simply too high and frustrating. Okay, I admit that an unknown scenario is always difficult but fighting many AI units that have more experience than yours is simply torture.
Like I already suggested in the past, better reduce the AI experience to 0 at beginning:
Basildon/Farnborough/Shepton-Mallet: 1 (British counter-attacks)
London A/S: 2 (stubborn defense with the veterans)
Hadrian: 3 (last stand in Britain)
My suggestion above could really work better, especially for people who start this campaign without any imported core (not that it really matters in OOB anyway). I've played through most original campaigns twice with beach landings and such, but this simply beats anything before. Sea Lion is no vanilla-banana campaign!

Agree with this. Channel Islands is working and I guess that you can slog through Eagle Attack the same way that you can endure Crete, but I felt underpowered against the AI in the few landing turns I took (okay, it has been a while and a few versions). Please, tone this a bit down, Erik. Still enjoy your work. Cant wait for your take on Russia with the new tanks!