Uhu wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2019 12:37 pm
Hello to the author ! Congratulations to all a merry Christmas and happy New year !!! And all these beta versions change the single-player game or only intended for cartoon (milte) orgies ? )
Thanks and Merry Christmas to you and all other Generalfeldmarschall as well!
There are some changes in the single version as well in v2.1, but the recent beta versions mainly change the multiplayer version.
auda wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2019 12:02 pm
Hi guys!
I've been enjoying (more or less) this mod for a while now. I consider myself a fairly good PC player, so I thought I could handle the BE mod, however, it turns out this mod can be a bit frustrating. I understand why, though; it is supposed to model history and this is done quite well (if you want to experience the downfall of the German army in 1941 and its economic shortcomings). However, I tried to make the best of it and turn the tide in my favor at least on one front, but in my three attempts so far, I wasn't successful.
Hi, and thanks for your feedback. I am not sure what version you are playing, if it happens to be "realistic" or "realistic+" then you might want to try the easier "moderate" version for less frustration. The two hardest are truly designed to be hard and to accurately show the overwhelming historical strength of the Allies.
Also some time ago we made a survey which revealed that most players were happy with the "realistic" and "medium" (current "moderate") version and the majority of the respondents could achieve at least a draw while playing these versions, even if it took several attempts:
viewtopic.php?f=147&t=88193
As a result of this survey I decided to abandon the "easy" version due to the low number of respondents who played it, and only kept the "medium" which is now called "moderate". My impression was that there was a higher need for more challenge and I made the "realistic+" version which, as the name suggests, is somewhat harder than the "realistic" one.
However, when making this survey we could only rely on the number of honest respondents and it may not represent the true player base and the number of unsuccessful campaigns could be higher. Also note that the survey was made with v1.9, and that version might have been slightly easier than v2.0.
- British destroyers always get better rolls: two British destroyers always destroy my submarine, even when fully submerged, with each attack scoring 40-60% of the sub's hit points, while my subs never manage to shoot-off more than 2 hit points.
WW2 submarines were not designed to fight enemy destroyers, their main role was to sink enemy merchant ships and to a lesser extent captial ships and aircraft carriers. Therefore it is best to avoid enemy destroyers with U-boats, unless you have numerical superiority and/or air or capital ship support nearby.
- British submarines easily destroy my destroyers with minimal losses, which I think is a bit too much
It depends on what destroyers. German destroyers have pretty much the same stats as British ones so they should perform more or less the same in a one-to-one situation. Actually German destroyers have +1 defense, however at the cost of 1 less spotting range. Italian destroyers are another story, they are indeed weaker, but in fact they were: they did not have radar, they were more fragile, usually had a crew with lower morale, experience and training and historically most of them were destroyed by the end of the war.
- Artillery is very weak:
Yes, is somewhat weaker than in the base game, but it affects both sides so the player can make use of it. Also it can be compensated by concentrating several aritllery units in a group which the AI is unable to do so on its own.
AA is also weak, and British bombers have no trouble attacking my AA guns directly. Even the 'ambush' mechanic (when the bomber hits a target next to my AA) scores very little damage.
This is a valid issue, and has been fixed in the current latest 2.1 verison of the mod: British heavy bombers have much lower ground attack stats as they were mainly used as night bombers and were less precise.
- Leningrad fortress is very strong
Initially, it is. However, the battleship can be sunk in 2-3 turns from the air with 1-2 good bombers, and the fort can be slowly reduced by bombarding it with the German heavy siege artillery and by some infantry attacks in bad weather. After it is gone, the island fort can be attacked as well. The other option is to blockade it for a while, but for that invisible towed AT guns can be used as well, which the AI cannot see so cannot bombard. Finally, it can be stormed in 1943 the latest when the Panthers become available. For them the defenders of the city are no match.
Therefore, attacking Leningrad takes as much casualties as just holding siege.
That is quite true, in this mod there is no "golden path", a one-and-only and universal strategy, players have to decide what they want to do and how, but they always have to pay the price, one way or another.
The AI always concentrates its artillery on my engineer units, so attacking is extremely costly.
Sure, the AI always tries to attack the most expensive unit. Engineers should only be used where the enemy artillery had been reduced.
- Elite replacements for fighters are very expensive, which, again, for the sake of historical authenticity, is ok, but when everywhere your units (due to winter attrition or losses) require non-stop replacements, this depletes prestige very quickly.
So just do not give them elite replacements all the time and then it is all in historical context as historically the general quality of the German fighter force gradually decreased as the war went on. Or, you can try to do so, but then you have to pay the price for that by having less resources for other units.
- There's only the 21. Panzerdivision and the 90.Africa for Afrika Korps. What about the 15. Panzer?
In the v2.1 version it has been changed as well, and another Pz.II unit named "15. Rec." has been added. However, note that in this mod tank units do not represent actual armoured divisions, but a concentration of tanks of (mostly) the same type.
There are also no German artillery units, only Italian?
There was indeed some, but then there would be too many Axis artillery units in Africa in the beginning. Currently the DAK artillery is considered to be part of the Italaian artillery units. Maybe one of the Italian ones could be changed to a German one, but then the overall number should be reduced by one, to keep the current balance.
Maybe the units stationed in city hexes should not get the winter attrition penalty?
Yes, maybe, but in this case the strength penalty does not really simulate actual loss of tanks (or other units) but rather the chaotic supply situation during the first winter which resulted in the general reduction of the effectiveness ("unit strength") of most of the Axis army in the east. They had no fuel, no spare parts, no winter clothing, and they were exhausted as they had expected to end the operations in the east before the onset of the winter.
What I wish to say is, as one unit on map now represents a division, the combat stats do not reflect this change. A panzer division was the strongest unit Germany had. It had its own artillery, infantry, engineers, and AT. But in this mod, the stats are the still like it represents a panzer battalion.
In this mod units do not really represent actual divisions. I wrote about unit scale in detail which can be read in the in-game library in the "Changes" section.
If units would represent actual divisons, there should only be two types of ground units: infantry and armoured. There are other games out there which do a pretty good job at this, but Panzer General / Panzer Corps games offer something different.
) and the rest, staying in Russia was slaughtered by the masses of Red Airforce. I truly do not see, what the solution could be for Tunis: what I choose, I had to pay heavy price for it, see Russia and it still cannot guaranty the victory at Tunis... 
So maybe it is better to attack the city itself after killing the other fort and leave Kronstadt last. Just guessing. 
