We want feedback on GS v2.0 game balance

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Just curious what's the logic behind restricting this only to rough seas?

The manual states "can only be interdicted if the weather in the iron ore hex is not fair"[Emphasis mine]. Since the iron hex is in Sweden in North/East Europe weather zone it could have a different weather than Central Europe weather. The latter I believe determines the rough seas for the Atlantic, right. So just making sure is the weather for iron hex used and does that particular hex make belong to northern or central zone?

I guess I stand corrected. I remember we at one time had code checking for weather in the sea area, but we changed it to the weather in the Swedish iron ore hex. The reason was that the limiting factor was the weather in the Luleå port (northern weather zone). If the Luleå port was frozen then the Swedes had to send the trains with iron ore to the Norwegian Narvik port instead, a port which is ice-free all year. Gulf of Bothnia froze each winter so Luleå couldn't be used all the time.

By adding this rule it means you can actually benefit as the Axis going after Norway. It's very easy for the Allies to interdict the Swedish iron ore with a neutral Norway. The British were in fact mining the Norwegian coastal waters just prior to Operation Weserübüng, and the main reason the Germans felt they had to invade Norway. Losing the Swedish iron ore would make warfare much harder for them.

[_Augustus_]

The reason was that the limiting factor was the weather in the Luleå port (northern weather zone). If the Luleå port was frozen then the Swedes had to send the trains with iron ore to the Norwegian Narvik port instead, a port which is ice-free all year. Gulf of Bothnia froze each winter so Luleå couldn't be used all the time.

Makes sense if they really did that and didn't júst store it in Luleå to wait for suitable conditions. I wonder if they did the same with nickel ore from mines Petsamo(the northern most resource hex in GS map in Finland and which is actually located on the Artic Ocean coast) during the winter. I can't remember from top of my head whether the ore was shipped via Arctic Ocean and southwards along the Norway's coast or did they rail it to Oulu or Tornio(right there on the Gulf of Botnia near Uleå) and ship from there. Either way one could argue Petsamo's PP should fall under the same restrictions as the Swedish iron ore.

Losing 10 PP's per turn for about 7 turns (approximate number of rough sea weather turns per year) and 3 PP's per turn for 11 turns it means the Axis will lose 70+33 = 103 PP's per year.

Just having some fun with the numbers to work out how benefitial it could be for Axis to take Norway.

Lost production in Norway: 7/2x18x1.1=69 PP annum. 1.1 is just an arbitrary war effort.

So the Northern non-fair weather determines when the ore shipments can be interdicted. There are 6.35 non-fair weather months in year in the north-> 9.5 turns in a year. If the interdiction is easy when Norway is neutral Axis could lose 9.5x6x1.1= 63 PPs that way.

For total of 132 per year. That's quite a lot.

_augustus_

[PionUrpo]

Makes sense if they really did that and didn't júst store it in Luleå to wait for suitable conditions. I wonder if they did the same with nickel ore from mines Petsamo(the northern most resource hex in GS map in Finland and which is actually located on the Artic Ocean coast) during the winter. I can't remember from top of my head whether the ore was shipped via Arctic Ocean and southwards along the Norway's coast or did they rail it to Oulu or Tornio(right there on the Gulf of Botnia near Uleå) and ship from there. Either way one could argue Petsamo's PP should fall under the same restrictions as the Swedish iron ore.

Finnish rail network isn't my specialty but I doubt there was a connection from Petsamo to Tornio back then.

Iron is used on massive scale whole year and several months worth of production can't be afforded to sit in storage (even if possible, this would immensely strain transport system during those non-frozen months) so the Norwegian coast was most definetly used when the Baltic route froze. On the other hand, while still required all year for alloys and whatnot, nickel is an additive metal needed in relatively small quantities. That should allow having some stored and the required amount transported during favorable conditions (if possible).

[_Augustus_]

Finnish rail network isn't my specialty but I doubt there was a connection from Petsamo to Tornio back then.

It ain't speciality of mine either. This Finnish wikipedia entry would indicate railroad went only up to Rovaniemi http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liinahamarin_reitti (a shorter Swedishlanguage entry http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petsamotrafiken)



All more likely to me that ore was shipped from Petsamo(or from Liinahamari to be more precise) rather than trucked down several hundred kilometers south. http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolosjoen_kaivos also mentions ships lost on their way to Germany.

[PionUrpo]

Yeah, trucking it all the way south doesn't make much sense when the coastal route is available, ships are simply much more efficient. I doubt Finland could even spare the trucks, although that's just a gut feeling.

In this context adding the Petsamo resource hex to the interdiction rule would make sense.

[_Augustus_]

In this context adding the Petsamo resource hex to the interdiction rule would make sense.

Agreed. Of course the question is it worth the coder's time to implement it. One can can always take a view that the part of Petsamo's production shipped through Arctic Ocean and there of can be cut off was already included in the increase from 4 to 6 of the Swedish Ore