Potzblitz V26.01 OCT 26th 2025

[Unwichtig]

Hi all,

Wow that's a very nice discussion.

1. Regarding my suggested naval mine laying event above: I got something mixed up: I am talking only about the Baltics and not the black sea.
In my event I mentioned the black and the Baltic sea but that was a typo. I don't think there is need for additional mining in the black sea. But in the Baltics it would even be extremely realistic. Tha Baltic sea was full of german mines. (and it still is). A detached cruiser for mining ops would make sense and make it harder for entente ships to enter it. This will also protect the German Swedish convoy which is crucial for Germany. And entente could maybe get their subs back (?)

2. The tirpitz plan as starting event: yes, it needs fine tuning and I will reconsider it to give it another twist to be more attractive. Just one BC is probably not enough as the other starting events are more powerfull or more important. I ll come back to this one, I have a few ideas but I think this is okay for a 7th german starting event. A nice naval touch, I think is great, as the Kaiser loved his navy.

3. Love the German subs in Spanish ports event. That's epic. It's realistic and yes, It will bring Submarine action the the south Atlantic. A very good suggestion. I like it.

[Robotron]

Sea mines in the Baltic are already implemented for both sides...or maybe I misunderstood your proposal?

[Unwichtig]

5. Mine the Black Sea.
- 1915 and 1 LC.
Removes one german LC from the Game which is tasked to automatically mine the Black Sea.
- If played, +50% Chance that Entente units get hit by a mine in the Baltics for rest of the game.
This prevents the Entente Submarine flood in the Baltics. (they then could have the subs back instead) .

That was my previous suggestion and I wrote both Baltic and black sea. I actually wanted to achieve a higher minethreat inside the Baltic sea for entente units.
So germany has the option to loose a LC which will throw even more mines into the Baltic sea and therefore stop entente from using submarines there. This would prevent the sub flood or high entente naval actions in Tha Baltics. Minethreat is still there for Germany as well I just wanted to make it harder for royal Navy units to breach the Baltics. If you prefer the mining in the black sea option that's also okay. I would not mind that.
Maybe that's also okay then to rebalance naval actions a little in the black sea.

Anyway.... The tirpitz plan:
Available from turn 1, here are some options (to be continued, I think max 3 effects should happen so we need to choose)

A) Brings am additional admiral into the game (does not have to be tirpitz himself, I just thought it would be nice ta celebrate his come back from the political theater)
(comparable with 'reactivate Hindenburg' event)

B) Adds 1 naval transport capacity.
(not, if a separate german amphib event is added as well I. E. Amphib landing in The Baltics as suggested yesterday).

C) Adds 1 battlecruiser for free Or 1 dreadnought for 15 pp (available from turn . I like having the option, good idea robotron.

D) Next attack on a British naval units adds crippling damage to this unit. (comparable with: max Hoffmann event on the eastern front).

E) 33% chance to shock the royal Navy with maritime expansion: uk can't move dreadnoughts out of port for 5 turns. (comparable to France caught off guard)

F) Germany starts with 2 additional naval techs for the surface fleet leading to a technological advantage. So BB and BC start on one higher tech level than royal Navy u it's. (this is also not unrealistic, some Brand-new german BBs were state of the art)

I personally like the choice of BB or BC, one more admiral, and some additional tech.

[Robotron]

A) No. Tirpitz was a planner not a naval commander. Come to think of it, I might remove Britain's Jacky Fisher for the same reason.

B) No. I'll add your amphibious landing event for a later stage (~ 1917) instead.

C) Yes. Battlecruiser will be available at once. Battleship will cost 15PP and take 6 turns to spawn at Kiel.

D) No. That's already covered by the "Magazine explosion" INTEL effect.

E) In contrast to land units, naval units can't be made to lose all movement points. I've not yet found out why this is. So: no.

F) Germany already starts with a naval tech lead. A tech lead of 2 might be too much, I guess.

So in accordance with the KISS-principle (keep it simple, soldier ) I'll go with C).

Now I need 1 more starting event for CP and 1 for Entente.

[trulster]

Hi all,

Wow that's a very nice discussion.

1. Regarding my suggested naval mine laying event above: I got something mixed up: I am talking only about the Baltics and not the black sea.
In my event I mentioned the black and the Baltic sea but that was a typo. I don't think there is need for additional mining in the black sea. But in the Baltics it would even be extremely realistic. Tha Baltic sea was full of german mines. (and it still is). A detached cruiser for mining ops would make sense and make it harder for entente ships to enter it. This will also protect the German Swedish convoy which is crucial for Germany. And entente could maybe get their subs back (?)

Also, the Swedes actually mined their coast near the Orebro straits to stop British subs from entering the Baltic. So such a move should be dangerous for Entente subs.

[Unwichtig]

Another german starting event to make it 8:

'Restore German British Relations' or
'Seek compensation with the empire'.
(small chance to success, comparable to Austrian ultimatum to Serbia)

Background: Final attempt of germany to keep the empire out of the conflict after the risk theory and the tirpitzplan were doomed to failure.
Last German attempt to calm down the UK at a high price.

- Cost all German Diplo points this turn
- Germany offers not to build Any additional naval units 1914. (to show some good will and to de escalate). If any german naval unit is comissioned/constructed in 1914: USA and UK enter the war.
- delays British war entry by 6-12 turns?!?
- northsea blockade is significantly delayed (earliest mid 1915?)
- uk will not guarantee Belgium neutrality
- German morale minus 5.

It's only an idea. Might be too powerfull. I don't know. But I like an event that is optional, a little bit fiction and not entirely unrealistic. Germany always hoped that the empire would stay out of a conflict - at least it was an objective of the risk theory. (which failed, but never mind).

This event would be the more friendly approach instead of the Tirpitz plan event which if more aggressive towards uk.

[Unwichtig]

Two more options. They are not 100 convincing yet. Just some ideas. Maybe they need to be changed. They definitely need fine tuning.

1)
'Secret British - Italian Treaty'
The official treaty of London from 1915 between entente and Italy offered italy some extra territories in Trentino to make them join thewar.
I don't know if this treaty is yet somewhere mentioned in the game. Anyway, in addition the UK also negotiated a second, exclusive treaty and also offered Italy some territorial gains in Eastern Africa on top of that.

Am 'Anglo-italian treaty' Event could be added.
But I am not yet convinced that this should be a starting event for entente. Don't know.

Event could:
- Have major impact on italy joining Entente earlier. (not earlier than late 1915 please, otherwise it gets unfair for CP)
- small chance to anger France (as they will have Italians next to their own colony in Djibouti)
- British morale minus 1d6 (as they loose influence in Africa)

2)

'Prepare for war! Tax the Empire!'
With this starting event Great Britain recognizes the German Threat and takes it seriously from the very beginning. The UK does not wait to get ready for war... It takes a more proactive stance and 'activates' all resources from its empire to support the UK on time.

The Effects could be:
- 1d6 extra PP income for UK per turn until rest of the game (due to high tax rates in colonies)
- Anzac arrive earlier (if that's possible?)
- spawns free elite indian reserve corps near Kuwait (?)
- 1% chance that 'revolt' events happen per turn (India, Pakistan, Egypt, maybe even Canada or neu Zealand)
- revolt events come with morale penalties and maybe even collapse points!?

Basically the UK player can gamble with higher initial fighting power at the risk of loosing it at the end of the game. (a little bit like... No taxation without representation, just the other way around)

[Robotron]

I suggest: creation of "War Raw Materials Department": all German repairs and upgrades with a PP point cost of at least 2 or more are reduced by 1.
See here for english description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsrohstoffabteilung

[Unwichtig]

That war material department sounds good.
I did not know that was created.
Learning something new everyday.

But it does sound a little like the scrap collection event or at least it sounds to me that the war material department was in charge to do the scrap collections.

Do you want that event to have an impact on scrap collections? They sound pretty equal and could be combined.

[Unwichtig]

I am still searching for new ideas and keep reading stuff and articles about the war.

One 'very big' issue that has not yet been included is the fact that this was the first war that led to huge prisoner of war camps with millions (!) of soldiers being kept in prison for years.
Both sides constructed huge camps, sometimes entire armies were encircled and enprisoned. Especially on the eastern front the scale of 'weakening the enemy' by keeping their soldiers in prison was insane. And pow were not held 'at high standarts, it was rather the opposite.

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.n ... ar_germany

This is a good source showing that we are talking about millions of pow in German pow camps. The same happened the other way around.

I know it's hard to simulate this aspect so I am not suggesting a complicated event.
But I think due to the shortage of manpower that all fractions already suffering anyway due to casualties, there is room for a simple event that could restore some manpower for all sides.
And it would also be realistic.

'approve POW exchange'
- Event available from 1916 or when manpower is red for any county
- can be played once only by any side. (the event has the same effect on both side when played, so it does not matter who plays it)
- adds 200 manpower to BOTH entente and CP countries.
- entente player can choose if he wants French or Russian troops.
- CP player can choose between German or Austrian
If one side plays the event, both sides make the decision. (as its supposed to be an exchange)
- this allows both players to prevent red armies with no manpower and restore some morale.
It's totally fair as both sides get 200.
This prevents a French or Austrian army being exhausted too early.
- the counties that get their pows back get a minor morale boost. The country that doesn't, gets a minor penalty)
So players need to think a little what kind of pow they want back in exchange.

If the decision aspect is too complicated forget about it. Then 200 could be added randomly
In each fraction.

Just an idea that would
cover this big issue.

[trulster]

Got opponents building no bombers but a swarm (10+) of fighters for one nation. This is used to mass-strafe land units bringing them down to 0 efficiency. Seems a bit gamey and unhistorical for a WW1 game, perhaps some change should be made? Is it possible to program max two air unit attacks per hex or something of the like?

Fighters apparently being more effective than bombers against land seems off, but not sure what values to change in.

[Robotron]

Fighter stats are alright, it's the mass of fighters built by your opponent that's skewing the results. Apparently your opponent is trying to compensate the lowered fighter stats in Potzblitz by overbuilding fighters.

Anyway, I can't do anything about that issue for a match in progress but I will fix it for V12 by also enforcing build limits on fighters and more effective anti-air techs.
Some more details would be helpful though.

Which nation is building 10+ fighters on what front? I presume Britain in the West?

What turn is it in your game? No anti-air techs or interceptors available?

[trulster]

1916 - Brits 10+ and France probably same number. Interceptors and AA tech available and these fighter swarms do continually take quite some damage, but that is not a major hindrance for Western Entente who normally have plenty of PPs.

Generally I think fighters at WW1 level tech vs ground units should be almost inconsequential at the scale of this game with whole armies being affected.

[trulster]

In many ways this is a relic of the older game using the same engine, the Commander WW2 game. At least there, being ww2, it made somewhat more sense that air power is effective. Even then IIRC there were house rules that you only attacked a hex twice per turn with air power.

[Robotron]

To be more precise it's a leftover from the CTGW basic game where aircraft had crazy high stats resulting in multiplayer matches featuring armies that had more air than land units. Such obscenities eventually led to sane players abandoning the game, leaving only the powergaming nutjobs to duke it out between themselves. I thought I had solved that problem in my mod by clipping air units to a point where I believed nobody would build those fighter swarms ever again. Seems I was wrong about that.

[trulster]

Perhaps a solution is that fighters strafing ground units can never lower efficiency below 7, if this is possible to code?

[Robotron]

For V12 I've just built in a fighter per tech limit which will approximately cut in half the number of fighters.
I've also removed the ground attack bonus and command radius from all air aces except for the absolute aces of aces: Richthofen, Brumowski, Fonck, Mannock & Rickenbacker.
Also enhanced AA-techs.

Won't that suffice?

I'd very much appreciate some kind of general info about what is actually going on in multiplayer games as this is the kind of stuff that keeps my motivation up for modding this thing.
Seems the only ones playing are onpp & Trulster?

[trulster]

Maybe making too many changes at once may have too unpredictable an effect? As it is now, how likely is a fighter attack on a ground unit to lower efficiency?

Also, having many fighters per se is not the problem, it is their unhistorical ability to bring down whole armies that is the issue. But yes limiting numbers can be a straightforward fix.

Personally going to wait for the next mod release before starting new matches.

[Robotron]

As it is now, how likely is a fighter attack on a ground unit to lower efficiency?

Combat in CTGW is quite deterministic with minimal randomization, even more so for air attacks.

The efficiency value goes from 0 to 100 even though the value displayed only shows the first 2 digits and the displayed value is also rounded up, meaning even a value of 91% will show as 10.

Each air unit attack with...
a shock value of 1 will cause an efficiency loss of 4% (= "Synchronized Guns" tech)
a shock value of 2 causes 9% (= maxed fighter techs or bombers with "Bomb Sights" tech)
and a shock value of 3 (only possible with Richthofen plus either maxed fighter techs or "Bomb Sights" tech) causes 15% efficiency loss.

These are the maximum values for efficiency loss per air attack for a full strength attacking air unit, damaged attackers will cause much less efficiency loss.

[trulster]

Aha, thx for the breakdown. Then maybe these numbers should be halved? Also, how does unit recovery work, is it enough to have say one fighter attack to stop a unit from recovering effectiveness? That may be equally problematic, fighters can keep significant parts of the front line red.

Another thing, the Murmansk convoys are abstract right? There are no actual convoys sailing that can be attacked?