BJR Mod - Looking for Play Testers for Potential Updates

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Should I look into the possibility of creating Free France as a major power joining the Allies in November 1942 with Dakar as a capital port and some production near this territory?

Nice idea - would be really cool. I only worry about anything that tilts the game further into Allied favor.

There shouldn't be any danger of that because we reduce the US production similar to the production from Free France.

Free France actually had 560.000 troops by September 1944 and over a million by the end of the war. Remember that France was a colonial power and many French troops in the colonies joined the Free French. Soon after the Allies landed in northern Africa many Vichy French units there (more than 50.000) joined the Free French forces. When the Allies liberated parts of France then even more troops joined the Free French forces. It's not possible in CeaW to reinstate France as a major power after the liberation of Paris.

I look at the Free French forces in CeaW as the sum of all forces from occupied countries (France, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway etc.). The US and British got a lot of help from other nations fighting the Nazis.

Free France could in theory be added to the BJR-mod as a minor power, but I had some things I wanted to fix in the mod that I was not happy with. The biggest issue was the "empty" major power of Iraq in the mod. Only major powers can provide supply level 5 needed for rail transport. Initially we added a British capital in Kuwait only to learn that the game sent the convoys to Gibraltar instead of Glasgow. So the only way to get rail capability in the Middle east was to make a major power. Iraq was selected and since Iraq has no units it wouldn't affect game play.

But it was a bit annoying seeing an empty page when you scrolled between the major powers in the research or production dialog boxes. So when someone wanted us to look into adding Free France (since we already added Vichy France) then I though I could kill 2 bird with one stone.

This is what I've done in BJR-mod v1.04 (sent to the playtesters 1 hour ago):

1. Added Free France as a major power by adding Dakar as a capital and giving Kuwait to Free France instead of Iraq.

I had to use Kuwait as a Free French capital because if I only used Dakar then Dakar would give supply level 5 and the Allied had rail capability in western Africa. This is not historical. The southernmost capital of each major power is the capital providing supply level 5.

2. Free France has a max production of 8 PP's turn. This may be tweaked down to e. g. 6 PP's if it becomes too much. 4 PP's from Dakar, 3 PP's from a nearby mine and 1 PP from Kuwait city. To compensate for this we removed 4 PP's from the US ports of Norfolk (2 PP's reduction) and New York (2 PP's reduction).

3. Free France starts with 100 PP's, 70 starting manpower with a max of 200 manpower (so they start at 35% manpower). They only produce 2 manpower per turn so they can't really afford to build many units to replace many losses.

4. Another reason to add Free France as a major power was because minor powers can't have leaders. I wanted to add de Gaulle and Leclerc as leaders. De Gaulle was set as a level 5 leader with +1 attack (cost of 80 PP's) and Leclerc as a level 4 leader (40 PP's). De Gaulle was one of the first Allied leaders who fought against the Germans in an armored clash in May 1940. He was advocating the use of armor divisions instead of spreading the armor among the infantry divisions.

5. Since Free France is a major power they have to build a leader at the turn they activate. That's the main reason I added at start PP's to Free France. They can go for de Gaulle and have a good attack leader or have PP's for an extra corps and go for Leclerc.

6. Free France only starts with the XIX Free French infantry corps in Dakar and is set to activate in December 1941. This is also the time rail capability will be available for the Allies in the Middle east. That's one reason I didn't set the join time for Free France to the end of 1942. Free France actually fought in 1942, but mainly in the colonies.

7. Free France starts with 1939 war effort of 0 and tech level 1 in most areas. So they will have 0 production initially and will only slowly get some PP's to build labs. I playtested one sessions and by January 1942 they can have 5 labs. They can't afford air and naval units so they should focus their labs in infantry, armor and general. So I had built 2 infantry labs, 2 armor labs and one general lab. They can just manage to keep their PP reserve above 80 if they build the labs and not a single land unit. That means they can afford de Gaulle when they activate. If they save most of their PP's in 1942 they can build an armor unit by the end of 1942 and use it together with the at start infantry corps in northern Africa. Free France fought well in Tunisia against the Germans and even helped landing in Italy. Later they joined the Allies in Overlord and fought many places in France.

8. All Free French units must be placed in Dakar or Kuwait and be transported to the area they want to fight. That costs 8 PP's per unit. They only produce 2 manpower per turn so they can't afford to build more than 1-2 units per year if they're engaged in combat and must replace losses. The initial manpower is at 30% so they need to wait 45 turns before they have 75% manpower and won't suffer -1 quality. That is 2.5 years. So they can't really start building units until the Spring of 1942.

9. I made graphics for the Free French flag (the French Flag with the Lorraine cross inside) and the Free French generals of de Gaulle and Leclerc. All looks smoothly when we play.

What remains now is to fine tune the production, manpower, tech etc. for Free France. Hopefully we can find values that won't shift the game balance in favour of the Allies. What I want to accomplish is to have Free French units replacing some US units. So by lowering the US production we accomplish that... I hope.

The Free French units cooperated better with the US than the British so it's only natural that the Free French use the US amphibious landing capacity. I don't think you will necessarily see Free French units land in France in the first wave (Overlord). This is because those units will take the highest losses and Free France can't afford to pay for a lot of losses. So it's better to send British and US units with a higher production of manpower and PP's. But the Free French units will be good to send in later and let them move to hold the line e. g. along the Siegfried line. Free French units fought hard in the Vosges mountains and liberated Strasbourg. They even liberated Paris after the Germans had fled, but that was only because the US allowed them to do so. It was politically important for the Allies to have the French liberate Paris.

I think having Free France as a separate power in the BJR-mod makes the mod even more fun. We have to be careful about not making Free France too powerful because that would disrupt the play balance we try to find. But it shouldn't be so hard to find the correct balance. Initially they will start with a max production of 8 PP's per turn, but I will lower it to 6 PP's per turn if it seems they can build too many units.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I agree it would be cool but then I think this would be somewhat unfair to the Axis allies who should then also be treated as seperate "major powers". The Romanians had a greater impact on the war than the Free French did, although this was mainly felt on the eastern front.

I think that as the Free French where almost totally reliant on the good will of the allies that they should not be given any autonomy unless the same could be said for Axis allies.

It could be possible to add Axis countries as major powers as well, but CeaW won't have room for more than 7 major powers. I can add more than 7, but then all charts etc. become garbled. There is only room for 7 lines and if you try to squeeze in 8 or more lines then the data won't be sorted it columns and rows so they're easy to read.

A major power needs a certain number of PP's in the home country in order to pay for new units, labs etc. When they operate as a minor power then the Germans can pay for step losses. But that's not the case if they're a major power.

I was once thinking about adding Finland, Romania and Hungary as Axis major powers so they could have their own leaders and be able to build new units. The problem was that they rarely had PP's to actually pay for anything. E. g. leaders cost 25-40 points (level 3 or 4 leader). If Finland has 3 PP's per turn they need 14 turns (or almost a year) to pay for that leader. Step losses are quite expensive so you may end up with those countries having to withdraw their units because they can't pay for repairs.

I think a major power needs at least 6-8 PP's to actually have the capabilities to build something. Romania has that production so they could have been a major power. But then comes another little problem. In order to be a major power you need separate graphics for everything. I don't have the graphics for Romanian air units, tanks etc. It was easier with Free France because I simply copied the graphics from France and just tweaked the French flag by adding the Lorraine cross.

It will be a lot more work adding Romania, but it's not impossible. If I do that then we have to live with the game charts like the casualties list become garbled unless Timothy can change the charts so conquered countries are removed from the charts or more rows are allowed.

It's, of course, possible to discuss the impact of the Free French forces during WW2. I guess the answer will be different regarding who you talk with. French people will claim the Free French troops helped a lot and maybe the British people will say they were more of a nuisance (thanks to de Gaulle) than a help. The fact is that more than 560.000 Free French troops existed in September 1944. That is not a small force. If you say that one corps consists of about 60.000 troops then the Free French had 9 corps units.

Read here an article about Free France in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Frenc ... _of_France

According to wikipedia 100.000 Free French troops fought in Italy in 1943, mainly near the Gustav Line. That is about 2 corps units.

The Free French could muster 400.000 troops by the time of Overlord. That is about 7 corps units. Free French units even participated in the landing in southern France in August 1944 (Operation Anvil).

I think having Free French units landing participating in Torch, landing in Italy and liberating France adds some flavour to CeaW. As long as the Free French units don't come in addition to US units, but instead of a few US units then it won't matter much to the Axis player. An Allied unit was an Allied unit to the Axis.

[afk_nero]

Thanks for the reply Stauffenberg and I agree with most points however the fact remains that the Free French supplied less troops and had less of an economy than some of the Axis allies.

I understand your point regarding game mechanics however as a point of principle the Romanians, Fins and Hungarians all had historically more capability of war production, fought in more campaigns, lost more troops and generally contributed more both econimically and physically to the war effort.

The 500 000 free french troops where almost exclusivly equiped by the allies - this was not there own produciton equiping them. THey used British and American production and equipment. They certainly contributed to the war effort and they certainly had a large number of men participating but they had no factories or major production.

Compared to the Hungarians and Romanians who had largish production bases. TO me this is an argument of fairness and distorted viewpoint. As we are all based in the west it is more "romantic" to have the free french around however in terms of looking at what really happened even the canadians produced more than the free french.

My view is that there are more desrving nations than the french who certainly contributed manpower and a good leader but did not contribute economically and giving them 8pp's when the canadians, romanians etc get less seems unrealistic to me.

[gerones]

I think having Free French units landing participating in Torch, landing in Italy and liberating France adds some flavour to CeaW. As long as the Free French units don't come in addition to US units, but instead of a few US units then it won't matter much to the Axis player. An Allied unit was an Allied unit to the Axis.

First of all, I appreciate your efforts for making this game more challenging... I think all of us wanna take part in these efforts giving ideas and opinions... I have to say that hardcoding 2 air attacks per hex house rule is great because is one of the house rules that you can´t verify if it´s been followed... We could see in several reported games in this forum that it wasn´t always observed... Second, introducing Free french units would be great too and realistic. The same for Vichy changes, it all sounds great too! Not sure for introducing more major powers. Maybe this could unbalance the game...

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Thanks for the reply Stauffenberg and I agree with most points however the fact remains that the Free French supplied less troops and had less of an economy than some of the Axis allies.

I understand your point regarding game mechanics however as a point of principle the Romanians, Fins and Hungarians all had historically more capability of war production, fought in more campaigns, lost more troops and generally contributed more both econimically and physically to the war effort.

The 500 000 free french troops where almost exclusivly equiped by the allies - this was not there own produciton equiping them. THey used British and American production and equipment. They certainly contributed to the war effort and they certainly had a large number of men participating but they had no factories or major production.

Compared to the Hungarians and Romanians who had largish production bases. TO me this is an argument of fairness and distorted viewpoint. As we are all based in the west it is more "romantic" to have the free french around however in terms of looking at what really happened even the canadians produced more than the free french.

My view is that there are more desrving nations than the french who certainly contributed manpower and a good leader but did not contribute economically and giving them 8pp's when the canadians, romanians etc get less seems unrealistic to me.

The point is that I need an Allied major power to provide rail supply in the Middle east. Since the southernmost capital is the capital providing supply I can't use any of the existing major powers. USA would e. g. lose rail supply in USA if I placed a US capital in Kuwait. That's not good at all. So we need a different major power. I had used Iraq as a major power until now, but it created the empty page when you scrolled between major powers.

With the addition of Iraq I've used up all 7 slots in the charts. So when someone wanted Free France the I figured that it could prove rail supply for the Allies better than Iraq. So I killed 2 birds with one stone.

What's important to me is that the Free French forces consisted of FRENCH soldiers or soldiers from French colonies. They weren't US units with US officers. I agree that the US provided much of the equipment (artillery, tanks, guns etc.), but it was French soldiers who died on the battleground.

Finland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria didn't produce a lot of equipment themselves. They got supplies from Germany like airplanes, tanks etc. Some of the low tech units were produced in the country, but were later replaced by German equipment.

So the Axis minors weren't in a very different position than Free France. They provided the troops, but got supplies from Germany / USA. The biggest difference between Free France and the Axis minors was in the mentality. De Gaulle looked upon himself as leading a true major power (France) and wanted to be treated like an equal when talking with Eisenhower and Montgomery. After the war de Gaulle became a president and leader of the liberated France. France WAS a major power and Free France was the seed to the new post-war major power.

Also remember that when French territory was liberated it could start to produce again for the Allies. The US and particularly the British were very sceptical to de Gaulle, but they saw after Overlord that he was very popular among the French in the areas liberated. He inspired the French to fight against Germany and become enlisted into the new Free French army. So the Allies had good use of de Gaulle.

It's not like the Free French units were a minor unit not providing much to the Allied war effort. The British had already lost many soldiers and had manpower issues. So having a lot of French soldiers fighting to liberate France was important.

If I had room for more major powers then I could easily have added Romania. It's not about what's fair. The main point is that I need a new ALLIED major power to provide rail supply in the Middle east due to game limitations to supply. Then all the slots are used up. If people agree to play without casualty charts etc. then I could include Romania as well, but so far I haven't heard many talking about that.

The alternative is to get Iraq back as a major power without any units and have Free France as a minor power with a fixed number of units. E. g. one armor and 2-3 infantry units starting in Dakar sometime in 1943. That is an option if people don't like the idea of having Free France as a separate force.

But personally I like the idea of Free France. Remember that soon after the war Germany was divided into 4 occupation zones. A Russian zone a British zone, a US zone and a FRENCH zone. So de Gaulle had managed to use his influence to be seen as one of the major power victors of WW2. 1.3 million French troops existed in May 1945. So France soon recovered their status as a major power when they liberated French territory. That alone seems to indicate to me that Free France is in a different position that e. g. Romania. Free France was the seed to the postwar major power of France.

[rkr1958]

I agree with Borger's rationale for making Free France a major power. See viewtopic.php?p=93462#93462

I understand the argument that other Eastern Nations might also be deserving of being a major power; however, I don't like the idea of cluttering up the graphics to accommodate this. I'm not sure what making them major powers would add to the game over keeping them as they are. If fact as Borger pointed out in viewtopic.php?p=93467#93467 adding them as major powers might actually weaken the Axis.

Adding Free France as a major power to replace Iraq actually takes cares of some work arounds that Borger had to make to give the Allies rail capability in the Middle East. And like he says it takes care of the blank page in the research graphics.

By reducing US production to compensate for the French French this weakens the US initially in its build up in Europe and addressed an issue that some have about the US being too strong initially; thus allowing a 1943 Overlord. Also, this places more importance on the Med in 1942 & 1943. Another positive benefit.

In the vein of not changing too much at once I vote we make Free France a major power and keep the Axis minors as they are for the time being. Let's evaluate these changes and see where we need to go from there.

[rkr1958]

Also, France was one of the four occupying powers post WWII in Berlin (USA, UK, USSR & France). Post war they were given "Major" power status by the US & UK.



reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin

PS: Just saw Borger's reference to this. viewtopic.php?p=93480#93480

I guess great minds think alike.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

First of all, I appreciate your efforts for making this game more challenging... I think all of us wanna take part in these efforts giving ideas and opinions... I have to say that hardcoding 2 air attacks per hex house rule is great because is one of the house rules that you can´t verify if it´s been followed... We could see in several reported games in this forum that it wasn´t always observed... Second, introducing Free french units would be great too and realistic. The same for Vichy changes, it all sounds great too! Not sure for introducing more major powers. Maybe this could unbalance the game...

Keeping the balance is the number one issue and that's why we will playtest a lot. Since Free France is rather small they can't change the balance a lot. Since we reduce the US production similarly to the production given to Free France then you simply exchange some US units with Free French units. For the Axis player it won't be a difference.

I would probably not have added Free France as a major power if it wasn't for the need to have supply level 5 in Kuwait to provide rail supply in the Middle East. I used Iraq as a major power for that purpose, but had to live with the not so great option of having to scroll through an empty page of major powers. Adding Free France means we don't need to have an empty major power anymore. The best solution would be to have the chance to set supply level directly per city, but that means Slitherine must reprogram the editor and I don't think that will happen. So we need to have a secondary solution and the one I found is not so bad I think.

Finding the balance should be easy since I can just reduce the production for Free France. One benefit is that we will finally get de Gaulle or Leclerc on the battlefield. I guess French speaking people would be thrilled to see great French generals in CeaW instead of the poor 1940 ones.

Remember that Free France will only join early in 1942 and they need a long time to gear up so they won't have much to contribute with until 1943. Then they will probably have a few corps units and can help liberating northern Africa or Italy (as they did historically). They can e. g. beused in 1944 to hold the line in France near the Siegfried line while Patton and Monty try to cross the Rhine further north hopinh to end the war.

The main thing to remember is that modders should never be afraid to try new ideas to improve a game. You make a change and try it out. If it didn't work then you can always remove the change and try something else. So the introduction of Free France is not set in stone. We will try it and if it doesn't add to the gameplay as we hoped then we simply take out the changes.

[afk_nero]

I think an option would be to keep a few British or American troops named as Free French much like the Siberian option in a static reserve that gets released when a time event hits.

This will allow for the French to be represented but they will look like the allies and depend on the allies for upgrades etc. An allied leader can be created for de gaulle and added to one of the units when released.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think an option would be to keep a few British or American troops named as Free French much like the Siberian option in a static reserve that gets released when a time event hits.

This will allow for the French to be represented but they will look like the allies and depend on the allies for upgrades etc. An allied leader can be created for de gaulle and added to one of the units when released.

But how do you get rail supply to the Middle East without having the "cheesy" empty Iraq major power page in the production and research dialog boxes?

What do you see is wrong with having Free France with their own units? They will look blue and be easy to distinguish from the British and US, but as long as you don't get more or less Allied units in total then I don't see a problem with it. Not changing the game balance is the main thing here.

[afk_nero]

Well being South African - my vote gets cast to provide South Africa as a Major Power thus helping with your game mechanics issue. )

They contributed circa 350k men in WW2, fought right through from 1939 till the end of the war. Defeated the French in Madagascar (conquering the island) and despite a Major blip in there military WW2 history of Tobruk generally fought well. Was a arms contributor throughout the war a fact that meant that they still have a very large arms industry today (even supplying the US military currently with armoured vehicles)

But that said I am biased.

I have no Major issue with the French being a power and do understand that game mechanic necesity does sometimes drive a need to put something to paper.

To the victors go the spoils - I concede victory to the master politician De Gaulle.

[ncali]

Just briefly, my own preference would be to leave Free France out. As was pointed out, the equipment was mainly Allied and research progress should probably just be tied to the Allies. If the Allied player wanted to rename a few units "Free French," that would be fine. Free French manpower can be taken into account for the US and/or British.

It does seem to me to be a nice "polish" to the game to add them as a power, but the issues of complicating the game by managing another power outweigh that in my view.

[gerones]

Just briefly, my own preference would be to leave Free France out. As was pointed out, the equipment was mainly Allied and research progress should probably just be tied to the Allies. If the Allied player wanted to rename a few units "Free French," that would be fine. Free French manpower can be taken into account for the US and/or British.

It does seem to me to be a nice "polish" to the game to add them as a power, but the issues of complicating the game by managing another power outweigh that in my view.

I´m agree with ncali. Introducing Free French as a major power may be too much... It will be great for the game introducing Free French units (not renaming) entering in the game the same way like british units in Syria after the fall of France but to consider Free French as a major power with its own production and manpower seems to be a little unrealistic... Like ncali certainly says, Free French equipment come from US mainly and from UK...

[jjdenver]

Stauffenberg wrote:
"With the addition of Iraq I've used up all 7 slots in the charts."

So 7 slots:
UK
USA
Germany
USSR
Japan
China
Italy

That's 7 - so now make a full WW2 scenario.

gogogo

kkthxbai

[rkr1958]

It's been a couple of days so I though I'd update you on where we are. First of all, Borger and Timothy are working very hard on a number of changes. The rest of us are helping out and testing where we can but those two are doing the lions share of the work.

Our next "stable" release, which should come out for "beta" testing in a few days will by BJR Mod Version 1.05. The highlights of this mod, in addition to or instead of those discussed above for BJR Mod Version 1.04, are:

1. Vichy France is created as a minor neutral power when France falls as discussed above.

2. Also, Free France is created as a MINOR neutral pro-Allied power when France falls. Free France will consist of 6 African hexes near the West African Transport Loop with Dakar as its capital. Dakar is on the coast and has a port. Free French forces are composed of three infantry corps, one motorized corps and one tank corps. The USA, if at war, pays for transportation and repair costs of Free French units. If the Free French units are activated prior to USA entry then the UK pays these costs until USA entry. Free France is ONLY activated by an Allied or Axis DOW on Vichy France. And by house rule, Free French forces can not be used outside of North Africa as long as Vichy units remain in North Africa.

3. Iraq is returned to a minor power. Kuwait City now has supply level 5, which means on activation that the UK will have rail capability in the Middle East and Egypt. Also, the blank major power page in the stats now longer shows up.

4. Borger has built graphics for every minor nation and all units (i.e., infantry, tanks, etc.). Thus, each minor country will have the capability for their own unique unit graphics. Borger has done a lot of work pulling together the unit graphics for all countries. In most cases these graphics are duplicates of those of one of the major powers (i.e., UK, France, USA, USSR, Germany and Italy). However; and to directly quote Borger, "But it’s possible for clever people to actually change the png files and e. g. use photos of Romanian armor or fighters for the Romanian units by replacing the existing German photos for Romania." Timothy is working on the necessary class file changes to make this happen. They are close to having this in place.

[Not in this upcoming release but something we're going to look into. Also, please don't hold me to the exact details in the examples I give below.]
5. The ability to script reinforcements through a data file. This will allow us to give each major power a free leader on activation and to script reinforcements for key minor countries later in the war (e.g., an armor corps for Romania).

6. The ability for minor countries to have leaders (e.g., Finland, Free France). They will be "assigned" through the script file discussed in 5.

7. A more historical surrender condition for Italy. For example, Italy surrenders if two or more cities in mainland Italy are Allied control. However; all hexes that are Italian control at the time of their surrender go to the Germans and not the Allies.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I would just like to add a comment to 4 above.

I've created unique NATO symbol graphics for each major and minor power. They will be available if you check the Counters box in the Display group under game settings. If this box is not checked then you get the usual unit icons of tanks, soldiers, airplanes etc.

The unit icons for minor powers were linked to their controlling major power. That means e. g. Romanian units used German unit icons. This could not be changed. Now each minor country has their OWN unit icon files. I've copied the most likely major power unit icons for each minor power. So by default they will look the same as the major power unit icons, but it's possible to edit these files for each minor country and e. g. show unit icons of Swedish fighters for the Swedes, Romanian fighters for the Romanians etc.

Here is the list of which major power is used for unit icons for each minor country:

UK unit icons:
Holland
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Greece
Turkey
Persia
Iraq
Ireland
Poland
Egypt

French unit icons:
Vichy France
Free France

Russian unit icons:
Yugoslavia

German unit icons:
Finland
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Switzerland

Italian unit icons:
Spain
Portugal

[gerones]

what about north africa sea lane? has it been replaced by a transportation loop in this update?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

what about north africa sea lane? has it been replaced by a transportation loop in this update?

Not yet, but it's on our to-do list.

[gerones]

what about north africa sea lane? has it been replaced by a transportation loop in this update?

Not yet, but it's on our to-do list.

I´ve read on your posts above that you are going to add Free French territory in that zone, then I think it would be more than aesthetic to replace it...

[Peter Stauffenberg]

what about north africa sea lane? has it been replaced by a transportation loop in this update?

Not yet, but it's on our to-do list.

I´ve read on your posts above that you are going to add Free French territory in that zone, then I think it would be more than aesthetic to replace it...

Free French territory is not inside the transport loop, but just north of the entry to the transport loop. So we can easily remove the sea hexes between the transport loop entry points when we add new transport loop hexes. The changes we want to make are the following:
* Add a new transport loop from Western Africa to the Persian Gulf
* Add a new transport loop from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf
* Add a new transport loop from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea

Change the control mechanisms so all transport loops are open for both sides except the following:
* The Eastern Mediterranean to the Red Sea , which will be controlled by Port Said (Suez canal)
* The North Sea to the Baltic Sea, which will be controlled by Kiel (Kiel canal)

But we have many other interesting changes on our to-do list so I'm not sure when this change will be made.