Great new mod for CEAW released

[IainMcNeil]

Many thanks to BJR , Jim Potts and Ronnie Runyan for the creation of this great new mod for ceaw.

Here is a brief overview of the mod:
A few exciting tweaks are rail capability between Iraq and Egypt, a sea lane to Kuwait (which the Allies can use if the Axis capture Port Said and shut down the African transportation loop), German oil imports from Russia prior to Barbarossa, amphibious invasion limits, naval/sub rules that require more attention to the Battle of the Atlantic and to properly escorting convoys and transports and Allied Naval Med naval presence and Malta supply rules, and a few more. I'm really excited about these changes. I feel that our Mod plays very historically and immerses one in an extremely rich WW-II corps level gaming experience.

Full details of the changes, house rules and the mod itself can be downloaded from www.slitherine.com/files/ceaw/ceaw_mod_bjr_v1.06.zip

The mod is compatible with Slitherine CEAW v1.06. It's not been tested with other versions but it may work as it is or with only minor adjustments.

I'm sure you'll have many hours of gaming fun with this one!

[rkr1958]

Many thanks to BJR , Jim Potts and Ronnie Runyan for the creation of this great new mod for ceaw.

And Borger Borgersen! Borger was the one who made the amazing changes "under the hood". All the map changes, the graphic changes and most of the data file changes are the result of his hard work. I've never beaten Borger in any of our playtests and I don't believe Jim has either. He's undefeated! He's the grinder. His play is flawless, relentless, methodological and he doesn't make mistakes. Borger's knowledge of WW-II history is amazing too.

Jim has a ton of wargaming experience and knowledge of history, including WW-II. Borger and Jim had a very mature mod when I came on-board in June 2008. I was very glad they included me in it. I have thoroughly enjoyed playing all iterations and refinements of the mod and being able to make modest contributions to it compared to the massive amounts that Borger and Jim have made. I have learned so much from playing them both.

I really hope that folks will give the mod a try. If you do, then I think you'll be pleased; especially if you're looking for a mod that plays almost as an historically accurate simulation of WW-II in Europe at the corps level. Also, I think you'll find a mod that's balanced and that can be used to explore historically reasonable variants.

Many thanks

You're welcome.

[IainMcNeil]

Sorry for confusion - BJR is Borgen

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Sorry for confusion - BJR is Borgen

No it's not. BJR = Borger, Jim and Ronnie, i. e. the first letter of the name of each of us. Just like ABBA was Agneta, Benny, Bjørn and Annifrid.

[IainMcNeil]

Ahhh - my bad. Many apologies Borger. I thought BJR was your username. I'll update the news items.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Ahhh - my bad. Many apologies Borger. I thought BJR was your username. I'll update the news items.

No prob. My username is Stauffenberg.

I guess that name is known a bit better now because of the movie Valkyrie with Tom Cruise in the role as count Klaus Schenk von Stauffenberg.

[afk_nero]

I have the 1.07 patch - will this work?

[rkr1958]

I have the 1.07 patch - will this work?

We've haven't tried it with that version but given what we know it should. My understanding is that the only changes introduced in 1.07 over 1.06 are data file changes which our mod will overwrite anyway.

[firepowerjohan]

I have the 1.07 patch - will this work?

We've haven't tried it with that version but given what we know it should. My understanding is that the only changes introduced in 1.07 over 1.06 are data file changes which our mod will overwrite anyway.

Yes, I have not thought about that. It is correct the, 1.07 changes is just minor balancing of 1.06 so if you are using the mod you do not need them since the mod is a "different ball game" kind off. Thanks again for modding the game

[rkr1958]

I thought I'd pass this along from a PBEM game currently underway between myself as the Axis and Borger as the Allies. The turn just finished by me is 9/30/1941 and the topic is my thoughts on the Battle of the Atlantic.

I'm watching the BBC World at War series made in 1974. What I like really like about this series is that it contains interviews with actual commanders and soldiers involved in the various battles covered. One episode I just finished watching was the Battle of the Atlantic. It had interviews with Karl Dönitz, several u-boat commanders, and UK escort and naval commanders. It's amazing how accurately CEaW with our mod (and house rules) simulate this battle. As Borger continues to point out to me we have the hindsight of history that gives us an advantage of which tactics work and with don't.

For example, and to digress slightly, the following is an exchange between myself and Borger for 9/10/1941 and the initial onslaught of Barbarossa.

The Axis continued their offensive in Russia pushing ahead. The problem is that the Russians are running back faster than the Axis can move forward. It seems that your Russian commanders have learned the lesson that took the real Russian commanders a year or so to learn.

I guess it was pretty natural to try to defend and not give a lot of space to the enemy unopposed. The Russians learned in 1941 that having several million Russian soldiers killed or captured wouldn't help them in stopping the German army. But we play in retrospect so we know it's smarter to retreat and just let the Germans move in 1941. I tried once to defend behind the Dnepr and Dvina line in 1941. It worked well and the Germans were stopped here, but slowly he killed a big part of my army and I couldn't maintain a double defense line. So I had to retreat again to save my army. I ended up in the usual defense line by the end of the year, but with a much weaker army. The Germans were weaker too so 1942 was a bit easier. But I think the Germans benefit from clashes in 1941 so it's smarter for Russia to just run away.

Anyway back to the Battle of the Atlantic. What struck me in watching the World at War episode was how effective Allied strategic bombers were against u-boats. For example, the UK Lancaster and the US B24 Liberator bombers were very effective against German u-boats. But historically that weren't employed in that role when they were really needed for it for the reason that strategic bombing of German took priority. Also historically, there was a gap in the mid Atlantic for escort of convoys during this time THAT could have been mitigated by long range bombers based in Greenland and Iceland. Something else that struck me was how accurately CEaW w/BJR-mod modeled these historical realities and possibilities. The Allied player has the option of using strategic bombers for ASW (i.e., sub hunting and convoy protection) instead of for strategic bombing. I've seen this in our playtest games from both sides, as the Allied and as the Axis player. As the Allied player using strategic bombers to interdict subs and provide protection of convoys is a very effective strategy in CEaW w/BJR-mod is very effective; however; you must give up or reduce strategic bombing of Germany. What's fun is that's your choice as the Allied player to make and that choice and outcome is historically reasonable.

Borger, if you're reading this post and please skip this paragraph and go the the last. Also, there is a strategy I'm going to deploy (as the Axis) against Borger in our current game in the Battle of the Atlantic that I don't want to give into right now as to give it away. This was also discussed in the World at War episode. Before watching the episode I was debating with myself whether or not to try it. Low and behold this strategy was discussed, but really not used historically, so I decided to go for it. If folks are interested I'll post exactly what I'm trying and how well it works. I hope I haven't given away too much. You never know when the enemy is listening

Borger -if reading please especially skip this paragraph. German R&D from the start for naval research was (suppose) to be focus on submarines. An internal German audit of defense R&D spending in June of 1940 revealed that naval research had been focused on ASW and NOT subs. (That is, I had clicked on ASW and not subs probably out of habit when playing the Allies. Like most (I assume), I focus naval research for the Germans on submarines and for the Allies on ASW. Usually I'm very careful about this and double check but I guess familiarity and habit lead to error this time.) Dönitz was not happy! Those individuals responsible for this mistake were immediately demoted, transferred to the army and reassigned to the command of units that are now part of Army Group South, which at the time of this report are pushing ahead in southern Russia. Dönitz reasoned that some practical field experience and out of the labs was necessary to properly develop the career of these individuals. German u-boats in our game have not experience the "happy time" that their historical counterparts had in 1940. Borger aggressively escorted a number of northern and mid Atlantic convoys. It seems that when German u-boats found convoys it were the ones that were heavily escorted. The second "happy time" for German u-boats in the real war was in 1942 after US entry. I'm hoping to salvage this in our current game and extend that into 1943. However; knowing Borger as I do and knowing his excellent skills he will be prepared and have an effective counterpunch for any strategy that I try. It's impossible to surprise him. He's such a strong player. But I need to try to do something. One thing I don't want to do is throw away my u-boats. Even if they're not doing damage the threat of them keeps him guessing and forces him to escort the important convoys and transports. Also, u-boats provide highly useful intelligence on pending operations / invasions (such as Torch).

To summarize, I'll boast that no other strategic (i.e., corps level) game models the Battle of the Atlantic any better and gives the Allied and Axis player historically realistic strategies than does CEaW w/BJR-mod. As an old AH 3rd Reich games (in both senses of "old") I came from a wargaming perspective of where strategic warfare (i.e., subs & bombers) were modeled abstractly. CEaW w/BJR-mod is such a refreshing change and contains some many games within the overall game. I believe we've achieved a mod that historically models all these as accurately as possible given the constraints of a playable and FUN game that has an significant amount of replayability.

[richardsd]

as no one has posted here yet, I can confirm the mod works fine on 1.07

[rkr1958]

as no one has posted here yet, I can confirm the mod works fine on 1.07

Thanks! Good to know!

[johnbuzspam]

I have a question about your mod. I am planning on buying the game when the new Gold version comes out and plan on using your mod. But I value historical accuracy when industrial production is concerned. Past threads revealed that in the base game the US is rather weaker economically than it was in real life. So did you add any industrial muscle to the US? If not, how hard would it be? I might even try to do it myself for my own mod. I hope its relatively straightforward to add some cities to the US part of the map. Thanks for any insights.

[firepowerjohan]

I have a question about your mod. I am planning on buying the game when the new Gold version comes out and plan on using your mod. But I value historical accuracy when industrial production is concerned. Past threads revealed that in the base game the US is rather weaker economically than it was in real life. So did you add any industrial muscle to the US? If not, how hard would it be? I might even try to do it myself for my own mod. I hope its relatively straightforward to add some cities to the US part of the map. Thanks for any insights.

Even easier than adding Cities, you can add off-map production to any country via the editor giving them a turnly extra of production points. Editor is compatible with the latest version and the Gold version.

[johnbuzspam]

Thanks for the info. It will be a long wait till the March release...javascript:emoticon(':)')

[rkr1958]

I have a question about your mod. I am planning on buying the game when the new Gold version comes out and plan on using your mod. But I value historical accuracy when industrial production is concerned. Past threads revealed that in the base game the US is rather weaker economically than it was in real life. So did you add any industrial muscle to the US? If not, how hard would it be? I might even try to do it myself for my own mod. I hope its relatively straightforward to add some cities to the US part of the map. Thanks for any insights.

Log of changes summaries all of the changes our mod introduces. But to answer your question, Yes we did significantly beef up the US industrial muscle. Specifically,
1. Increased the starting US Industrial Tech level from 0 to 3.
2. Increased Washington DC per turn production from 12 PPs to 16 PPs
3. New York City from 8 PPs to 10 PPs
4. New York City -> Port from 2 PPs to 4 PPs
5. Added Norfolk, VA Port with 4 PPs
6. Added a New Mine in Eastern USA with 10 PPs
7. Added a New Oilfield (to represent Gulf Oil) with 2 PPs per turn, which also produces an extra 8 oil points per turn.

[vira]

Hi. I´ve translated the rules of the MOD into spanish, if anybody wants, only have to send me a email

[rkr1958]

Hi. I´ve translated the rules of the MOD into spanish, if anybody wants, only have to send me a email

Great job! Thanks!

[vira]

[rtamesis]

One of the files in the mod, message_eng.txt, causes the CEAW 1.06 beta for the Mac to crash upon launching the application. I already posted this info to the Freeverse CEAW forum.