Slitherine

Forwarn45 wrote:Thanks for the response. I'm just not sure about this part. It seems that if you have 2 or 3 subs, you can usually guess within a hex or two where the convoy will pass through and block it by positioning the subs together. But on the other hand, I guess this would be a limited use of the subs in the sense that you are using 2 or 3 subs to make 1 attack. Further, if you did this regularly then the Allies could try to run into one of the still-hidden subs (with a destroyer) by trying to move it adjacent to the "spotted" sub that the convoy ran into.

I don't think this tactics will be the main way for the subs to attack convoys. First you need to use a sub to locate the convoy. Then you have about 50% change to be rammed by the convoy if you place it just outside range of the escorts in the direct path towards the destination port. So you will need 2-3 subs in the path to be pretty much sure to ram the convoy.

So you waste 3 subs to score one hit (usually 6-10 PP loss). You can't even run away from the strategic bombers so they can bombard you and inflict some damage (usually 2-4 steps).

Remember also that only one of the subs can be rammed by a convoy. When the convoy rams a sub it will stop. So you will no be very effective against the convoy. The escorts can according to the house rules partly surround this
sub and make it have to pass through ZOC hexes just to escape. Then the sub won't get far and can't keep up with the convoy. The escorts trying to partly surround the sub might even bump into the other subs that also tried to be rammed.

So I believe it's a much better way to just let the convoy go if it's too well escorted or attack it anyway and accept the losses the DD's will inflict next turn.

The only areas where I would consider ramming are the areas you know is outside the air range of enemy bombers. Before 1942 the Allies don't have enough bombers to cover all sea hexes in the Atlantic. So there are holes in the aircover you can use to place subs. But if the convoys aren't escorted well enough then it's better to just attack it.

It's better to use the ramming technique against enemy transports sailing to a port or an invasion area. Ramming a transport carrying a fighter or armor unit is particularly fun. But the Allied player can avoid much of this by always
sending his escorts to the new location before sending any transports. Then you clear the path and know the transports won't bump into anything nasty en-route to the new sea location.

I don't mind that the subs can be used in the way we discuss. If this method turns out to be effective then the Allied player must find counter measures. Using several strategic bombers as sub hunters is one way. Sending DD's along the estimated convoy path just to check for hidden subs is another. That requires you have a lot of DD's, though.

Before I was usually frustrated with the sub warfare, as the Axis player. The reason was that the escorts often ended up gobbling up my subs. I could never be sure I attacked in a location where retaliation wasn't possible. So the Germans either had to spend too much PP's on new subs or they had to accept defeat and not build more subs. Now the German player knows that it's safer to attack unescorted convoys. Only air units or a nearby CV can attack them. This again forces the Allied player to give higher priority on naval units. That means they will have overwhelming air superiority later than in the vanilla game. You can't afford to build lots of air units until the naval units are built that allows you to escort most convoys.

Thanks for the comment - I think you're right about that tactic. One additional question. It looks like from the house rules that air units can attack ony twice per "hex." It seems then that additional air may attack a unit if it retreats to another hex after a land combat. In other words, you could attack with two air, followed by a ground combat that retreats a unit to an adjacent hex, then attack the unit again with two more air. Is this the intention? If so, I'm curious as to the reasoning?

Forwarn45 wrote:Thanks for the comment - I think you're right about that tactic. One additional question. It looks like from the house rules that air units can attack ony twice per "hex." It seems then that additional air may attack a unit if it retreats to another hex after a land combat. In other words, you could attack with two air, followed by a ground combat that retreats a unit to an adjacent hex, then attack the unit again with two more air. Is this the intention? If so, I'm curious as to the reasoning?

Yes, it's possible to attack a unit that just retreated with more air units even if you used 2 air raids against the original hex. This means it's slightly easier to get rid of units in open hexes you force into a retreat. This won't work against cities, capitals and fortresses, though, since units never retreat from those hexes.

Please notice that the 2 air attacks per hex per turn also applies to strategic bombardment. So it means you have to spend some time to completely shut down production in a hex.

The only exception to the 2 air attacks per hex rule is direct attacks upon enemy airbases. The limit is down to only 1 air attack against an enemy airbase. One reason for this was to avoid the rule exploit where you lure the enemy fighter to intercept and then you have 2 air attacks to eliminate it. With just 1 air attack the enemy fighter has a better chance to survive and retreat to safety. If air units had been quite cheap then it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but air units are the most expensive units in the game. If you allow enemy air units to strike airbases with 2 air units then the side will air superiority will have an even bigger advantage.

One major reason we decided to limit the air attacks per hex to 2 was to avoid ahistorical results. Air strikes were used to soften up enemy units before the land units attacked, but in vanilla CeaW it was possible to simply eliminate a 10 step land unit just with air units. One really nasty way this was exploited was in the Med. The Allies have a LOT of air units in 1942 and afterwards. You want to knock Italy out of the war and then you send transports to all sea hexes adjacent to Rome. The Axis will try to eliminate those transports, but won't be able to sink them all. Next turn you send all your fighters, CV's and bombers within range against Rome until the defender there is eliminated. Sometimes you need up to 10 air units before you've cleared the hex (especially if a German armor is in Rome). Since Rome is now empty you can land the transport directly into Rome and force an Italian surrender. This exploit meant that Italy usually was knocked out of the war soon after the Allies got control over Africa and Sardinia. You didn't even have to invade Sicily. It proved very difficult to defend against such a strategy.

You have a similar problem with defenders in key hexes like capitals, fortresses etc. The attacker could just send as many air units he needed to deplete the defender so much so the land unit attacking was sure to succeed with almost no losses. The was almost no chance for the defender to hold strongholds like fortress lines, mountain lines, capitals etc. once the enemy had air superiority.

We felt it wasn't right that air units could annihilate land units by themselves. By limiting the air attacks to 2 per turn per hex it means you have to continue to bombard e. g. a fortress or mountain hex for several turns before the efficiency is down enough so you can afford to let the adjacent land units to initiate assaults. The defender can repair steps each turn, but the efficiency will continue to drop from the shock effect from the bombers. Think about the assault upon Monte Cassino in Italy just north of Naples. The Axis held out here for many months and it virtually stalled the Allied progress in Italy. It meant the Allies had to initiate the risky Anzio invasion etc. In the vanilla game you can just send 10 air units against this mountain hex and attack being almost sure you clear the hex and advance after combat. So the vanilla air rules means you can speed up the advance quite a lot.

We've playtested a lot with the 2 air attacks per hex rule and it works really well. In Italy you need to land in southern Italy and slowly advance towards Naples and Taranto to widen the front line. It can take year to move to the tip of Italy to Rome just like it took in the real war. Rome didn't fall until the Summer of 1944.

Germany has 2 fortress lines that can help them, the Siegfried line in the west and the Ostwall in the east. With the changed air rules it means these fortresses become the obstables they really were in the real war. Now the Allies might feel it's necessary to cross the Rhine into Germany north of the Siegfried line, just like in the real war. The Germans can hold the Siegfried line and defend the eastern bank of the Rhine vigorously possible holding the Allies at bay for as long as they did historically.

The same applies to the Ostwall. The Russians were held there for quite some time and heavy combat occured e. g. in Seelow Heights. It was very costly for the Russians.

With the vanilla rule the Allies could just bombard a fortress repeatedly until you got the efficiency of the land unit almost down to 0. Then you could attack it with land units and advance after combat. So even the strongest fortress line would breach after just 1 turn. That was very frustrating indeed.

So they max 2 air attacks per hex means the flow of the game is much more historical. It won't hamper the Axis early in the war because they usually spread their air attacks to better the odds for more hexes.The only places you would like to use concentrated air strikes would be against Sevastopol, Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad.I don't think it's bad that these strongholds have a better chance of surviving direct assaults. Only Sevastopol fell to the Germans in the real war and it was after a prolonged siege with concentrated bombardment from heavy artillery (the enormous rail guns etc.).

I recently played a PBEM game as the Axis using this mod. Whilst I like many/most of the changes (house rules etc.) and the map changes I have a question about why the Russian armour has been beefed up so much. I am no military historian but from my limited understanding of Barbarossa the Germans were able to cut through the Russians and carve them up piecemeal until winter struck in December. In the game I played my panzers were substandard (I had 3 laboratories in armour focussing on blitzkrieg) and no match for the Russian armour, which started better than my Germans even in 1941. My attack included 6 panzer units and was one turn (20 days) before the real date and so I expected the Russians to be LESS prepared not MORE. My understanding is that the Russian tanks were historically inferior generally although they had some KV-Is and even T-34s early on but not in significant enough numbers to affect battles. Along with that they were far inferior to German tactical training and communications. So back to the original question: why are they so good in the mod? I lost the game convincingly, so this may be sour grapes! Cheers.

El_Condoro wrote:I recently played a PBEM game as the Axis using this mod. Whilst I like many/most of the changes (house rules etc.) and the map changes I have a question about why the Russian armour has been beefed up so much. I am no military historian but from my limited understanding of Barbarossa the Germans were able to cut through the Russians and carve them up piecemeal until winter struck in December. In the game I played my panzers were substandard (I had 3 laboratories in armour focussing on blitzkrieg) and no match for the Russian armour, which started better than my Germans even in 1941. My attack included 6 panzer units and was one turn (20 days) before the real date and so I expected the Russians to be LESS prepared not MORE. My understanding is that the Russian tanks were historically inferior generally although they had some KV-Is and even T-34s early on but not in significant enough numbers to affect battles. Along with that they were far inferior to German tactical training and communications. So back to the original question: why are they so good in the mod? I lost the game convincingly, so this may be sour grapes! Cheers.

My experience either as the Axis or the Allies is that the German armor is usually well ahead of Russian armor. I can't remember the exact percentage but German armor seems to be have tech levels that are at least 50% higher than the Russians in 1941 through 1944. As the Axis player I use a balanced armor research strategy and don't focus it in any one area. I do focus my naval research into subs and my air research into dogfights until it reaches tech level 1 at which time I switch to a balance research. The first lab I build is an infantry lab (9/1/39) and the second is armor (9/21/39). By the end of 1939 I have one lab in each area. Then in 1/19/40 I build my second infantry lab and my second armor is built on 2/8/1940. By July or August 1940 I have two labs in each area. Then in the first two turns of 1941 I build my 3rd infantry lab and an armor lab. With this strategy I find that I get a nice infantry and armor tech upgrade by mid 1941. In fact, there have been games where I've delayed my invasion of Russian until July 1941 in order to take advantage of an upgrade.

Also in my experience playing the mod I've found that if the Russians in 1941 stand their ground then they get chewed up. A couple of tactical bomber attacks, followed by an infantry corps attack (or two) and then an armor attack should be enough to destroy a 10-step Russian tank corps.

El_Condoro wrote:I recently played a PBEM game as the Axis using this mod. Whilst I like many/most of the changes (house rules etc.) and the map changes I have a question about why the Russian armour has been beefed up so much. I am no military historian but from my limited understanding of Barbarossa the Germans were able to cut through the Russians and carve them up piecemeal until winter struck in December. In the game I played my panzers were substandard (I had 3 laboratories in armour focussing on blitzkrieg) and no match for the Russian armour, which started better than my Germans even in 1941. My attack included 6 panzer units and was one turn (20 days) before the real date and so I expected the Russians to be LESS prepared not MORE. My understanding is that the Russian tanks were historically inferior generally although they had some KV-Is and even T-34s early on but not in significant enough numbers to affect battles. Along with that they were far inferior to German tactical training and communications. So back to the original question: why are they so good in the mod? I lost the game convincingly, so this may be sour grapes! Cheers.

We have NOT beefed up the Russian armor a lot compared to the vanilla game. All we've done is to up the starting antitank tech from 1 to 2. We've increased the starting German blitzkrieg tech from 0 to 1 to make the armor a bit more effective in the first year battles. Tactical bombers are more effective against armor with higher techs. Germany starts with tech 1 ground support instead of tech 0 in the vanilla game. We've even given the Germans an extra tac bomber at the start of the game. Britain gets an extra fighter in Canada, but it takes awhile to get it to Europe if he wants to use it there.

So you will see that the Germans actually have a better chance to achieve historical results in the mod. Now it's definitely possible to take out Poland in 2 turns, Holland and Belgium in 1 turn (each) and Paris by May 1940.

The Russian armor was the most powerful of all during WW2. The Germans dreaded the Russian armor units at the start of Barbarossa. Most of the German armor units in the start of Barbarossa were quite weak Pz II and Pz III. Some were Pz IV. It was only after 1942 the Germans had better tanks than the Allies and Russians (Panther, Tiger etc.).

The main reason the German tanks performed so well before 1942 was not because of their firepower, but because of a much more effective armor doctrine and quality of the panzer soldiers. It took some time before the Allies understood they needed to concentrate their armor units in armored divisions instead of spreading out the armor among the infantry division. The German commanders used radio to their advantage and could cooperate much better on the battlefield against enemy tanks.

But this advantage was slowly lost and Germany had to focus upon panzer units with better firepower and armament. The Russians were always fond of huge and powerful armor units. So it's not correct to say the Russian armor were weak. The Germans panzer troops were shocked when they first were engaged in battle against T34 tanks. They found out the hard way that the T34 had better armor and better firepower. And the T34 was only a medium tank. The Russian heavy tanks were even harder to kill.

Germany did so well in the east front in 1941 because Stalin refused to retreat his troops to safety and tried to hold the Germans. That was obviously stupid and the Russians lost a lot of units because of being encircled numerous places. At the start of Barbarossa the German air units bombarded the Russian airfields and got air superiority despite Russia having a bigger airforce than German at the start of the war. The Russian commanders were unable to use their armor units effectively until winter 1941 because of poor organization.

We've tried to make the BJR mod more historically accurate than the vanilla mod by making our changes. If you lose German armor against the Russians in 1941 then the reason is NOT that the Russian tanks are so powerful, but because you don't use an effective strategy.

Inexperienced players send their armor units eastwards as spearheads without proper infantry support. That is simply asking for trouble. The real Germans broke through the initial lines north of the Pripet and sent their armor eastwards to encircle the Russians. At some stage the resistance east of Minsk was annihilated and they could move straight to Moscow almost unopposed, but the German High Command was too afraid of risking their armor divisions by being encircled by the Russian reserves. You have to advance in a coherent way to make sure you don't lose your spearhead units.

If you attack Russian armor units with your own armor without first softening them up with air attacks then you're also asking for trouble. You need air support to change the odds in your favour.

I've played the Axis many times and lost armor units being too adventurous in 1941. But the Russians pay a heavy price for such a counter attack. You expose several armor units to German counter attacks the following turn. If Russia loses several armor units in 1941 they will have a very difficult time in 1942 trying to stop the major German offensive. So you should actually be happy if the Russians take out on of your armor units and you can kill 3 Russian armor units.

I've also been the Germans when the Russians DON'T retreat in 1941 and try to hold the Dvina / Dnepr line making numerous counter attacks. OK, the Germans bleed a lot, but it will be a lot easier to crush the Russians in 1942. Germany can afford to replace their losses more easily than Russia in 1941.

I usually use my German armor units as support to infantry attacks. I designate maybe 4-6 hexes each turn as my targets and then I initiate by air attacks to soften up the defenders. Then I use an infantry unit to deplete the defender and take the bulk of the losses. Then I use an armor unit to finish off the defender without advancing afterwards. Then a fresh infantry can take the empty hex in the new front line.

If I want to break a double defense line then I need to use the armor in a different way. I find a 3-4 hex wide part of the front line I bombard. Then I use armor units against each front line unit to finish them off with just 1 attack. That means the armor units take slightly more losses, but there will be holes that infantry units can attack. I bombard the rear defense line with tac bombers and then I can usually create a complete hole with 2 infantry attacks. If I get a 3 hex wide hole then I can ooze through the hole without being hampered by ZOC's.

I always try to make sure my armor units don't end up in the front line after all the battles. This way the enemy has to kill my front line before he can deplete my armor.

Never underestimate the power of the tac bombers in the mod. I usually always send tac bombers against enemy armor if they're within range. So if the Russians keep their armor not far from your front line then they will never get a chance to kill your armor units because you send tac bombers against them. In 1941 you will inflict 2-4 steps per attack and that means a Russian armor can lose 4-8 steps before getting to the front line. So the Russians MUST get their armor units to safety or lose them completely. This alone means the Germans shouldn't worry too much about Russian armor in 1941. In 1942 a clever Russian player keeps his armor units outside German spotting range.

One thing you all have to think about is that Jim, Ronnie and I have spent a LOT of time adjusting the mod to get better game balance. One of the hardest things to get right was to get a good play balance for 1943 and later. So some things you see early in the game can be changed for a reason and you will only understand why later in the game.

The Russians and Allies always had to play catch up tech wise against the Germans in the vanilla game. Since they started with industry tech 0 it meant they could build fewer labs than Germany and would never be able to catch up. In our mod we gave USA industry tech 3 and Russia industry tech 2. Since both countries start with war effort of 0 it means it takes a long time until they get war effort of 130 and 120 respectively. The war effort is also used to determine the max number of labs allowed so by letting USA get to 130 (13 labs) and Russia to 120 (12 labs) they have a better chance to strengthen their weak spots with proper lab focus.

In our mod you will see that the initiative changes to the Allies late 1942 or early 1943. The Allies start to catch up with the Germans tech wise and they get the strength to start engaging the Germans in combat.

One thing you also have to remember is that the vicotory conditions if very different in the mod compared to the vanilla game. Germany will only win in the vanilla game if they control 3 or more major power capitals by the end of May 1945. In the mod the Germans will win if they do better than the real Germans did. So if they control just 1 capital by the end of May 1945 they have won the game.

This means you have to make sure the Allies will get initiative not too late and have a decent chance to achieve this goal. In the vanilla game the Germans could give up once they lost Paris or Rome. Then the Allies were sure to gain victory. In the mod you have something to fight for until ALL capitals are lost.

El_Condoro wrote:I recently played a PBEM game as the Axis using this mod. Whilst I like many/most of the changes (house rules etc.) and the map changes I have a question about why the Russian armour has been beefed up so much. I am no military historian but from my limited understanding of Barbarossa the Germans were able to cut through the Russians and carve them up piecemeal until winter struck in December. In the game I played my panzers were substandard (I had 3 laboratories in armour focussing on blitzkrieg) and no match for the Russian armour, which started better than my Germans even in 1941. My attack included 6 panzer units and was one turn (20 days) before the real date and so I expected the Russians to be LESS prepared not MORE. My understanding is that the Russian tanks were historically inferior generally although they had some KV-Is and even T-34s early on but not in significant enough numbers to affect battles. Along with that they were far inferior to German tactical training and communications. So back to the original question: why are they so good in the mod? I lost the game convincingly, so this may be sour grapes! Cheers.

The Russian tanks are roughly equivalent to the Germans in terms of firepower in 1941, but are extremely vulnerable to German tactical air until they get better air and armour ratings. What you say about the limited quantities of T-34 and KV-1 models is true. But I think that we felt that the limited numbers of Russian tanks in the game/mod (4 in June '41) was a low enough number to not skew the game, even though they have decent firepower.

In June of 1941 the Axis player will typically have five to six armour corps, perhaps the Italian (I know, big deal) and four or more tactical air.

With six armour, I am surprised that you had problems with the Russians. Did you perhaps outrun your own air cover? Also, even against the Russians in 1941, I tend to screen my panzers from counter-attack by ensuring that they do not outdistance their infantry. Even in Poland, I am cautious---more than once I have lost three or four steps of armour to a suicidal Polish counter-attack.

Getting back to the historical record---the Russians did not lack for decent armour in 1941. What they lacked was sound doctrine to apply to the handling of that armour. Plus killing off most of his generals in 1937 wasn't one of Stalin's better ideas .

I think we are close in achieving decent play balance, but nothing is ever perfect. But I think the real problem might be that your opponent was just uncooperative, and refused to repeat the mistakes made by the real STAVKA in 1941!

Look here for interesting info about Barbarossa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

The Germans had on June 22nd 1941 about 5200 tanks. 3350 of them were committed to Barbarossa. Only 1404 of these tanks were Pz III or Pz IV. The rest were lighter tanks like Pz II.

The Soviets had a staggering 23106 tanks on June 22nd. 12782 of these tanks were stationed near the front line against Germany. Only a fraction of these were good tanks like T34 and KV1, but still they had 1861 of these tanks against the Germans. Tank by tank the T34 and KV1 outperformed the best German tanks (Pz III and Pz IV). So the Russians had higher number of high quality tanks than the Germans had.

So I don't think it's wrong that Russia has quite a lot of tank units in CeaW at the start of Barbarossa. These tanks were a formidable force and the Russians squandered many of them until the winter of 1941 due to a poor strategy, poor quality of troops, lack of radio communications etc.

Thank you all for your time and effort in replying. I think the problem with my strategy and approach was described by Stauffenberg; I sent the armour out too far without support. I am very grateful for the hints on attack tactics, too - making sure there is a screen of infantry around armour after an attack is very important, as is the effect of tac bomber softening. rkr1958's tech approach sounds good, too. Happycat is also correct in saying my opponent was uncooperative - he consistently made good choices and followed a sound strategy, which I considered very rude! Having read these replies my worst fears have been realised - my defeat was my fault! Now I am itching to give the mod another go as the Axis and see if I can do better. Thanks again.

Another interesting fact about the Russian T34 was that it had sloped armor in both the front and side. I seem to recall that it was sloped at about 60-degrees, which effectively meant that a projectile had to penetrate twice the thickness of these plates.

Stauffenberg wrote:I've played the Axis many times and lost armor units being too adventurous in 1941. But the Russians pay a heavy price for such a counter attack. You expose several armor units to German counter attacks the following turn. If Russia loses several armor units in 1941 they will have a very difficult time in 1942 trying to stop the major German offensive. So you should actually be happy if the Russians take out on of your armor units and you can kill 3 Russian armor units.

I would like to second Stauffenberg on this point.

In a recently completed game, the Russian player counter-attacked on my northern flank with three tank units. While he did some serious damage on that turn, in the end it backfired as I dispatched all three tanks. As Mr. S points out, the Russians can't afford that kind of loss in '41.

If an air attack reveals a sub in port, do the normal limitations on attacking subs and ships in port apply?

ncali wrote:If an air attack reveals a sub in port, do the normal limitations on attacking subs and ships in port apply?

Yes.

Since you get two air attacks per hex this would leave you with one more air attack against the sub. For example, a strategic bomber attacking a port reveals a sub. You could follow that up with at most one air attack against the sub from a tactical bomber, fighter or CV. Note that the CV could only attack if it could do so without having to move. This would be it for attacks against the sub. Any BB or DD fleets adjacent to the port would NOT be able to attack the sub even if they could without having to move since the sub didn't attack out of the port last turn. We know it didn't because it was revealed by the strategic bomber attack and if it had attack last turn it would have been visible at the beginning of the turn. Therefore, it is protected by the port against DD and BB surface attacks.

Now instead of a sub, suppose the strategic bombing attack had revealed a surface ship (i.e., DD, BB or CV) in port. Then that ship could be attacked by one additional air attack (i.e., tactical bomber, fighter or CV which in this case could move before attacking) and / or one sub attack.

Now if the controlling city for a port is captured then this changes everything. In this case, ships or subs in port when a city is captured can be freely attacked by enemy land, naval or air units without restriction. This represents the overrun of the port city and lost of its protection against enemy forces.

Thanks for the info! One more question: when the Allies begin to liberate previously captured capitals (like Brussels, The Hague, Belgrade, etc.) - do they have to garrison them?

ncali wrote:Thanks for the info! One more question: when the Allies begin to liberate previously captured capitals (like Brussels, The Hague, Belgrade, etc.) - do they have to garrison them?

The house rules say you need to place a unit in every CAPTURED capital and capitals of any ACTIVE major power. This means the Allies or Russians must place a unit in Rome, Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest and Helsinki since all these capitals were Axis.

You do NOT need to garrison Paris because France is no longer an active major power when Paris is LIBERATED. You you don't need to place units in Brussels, Hague, Belgrade, Athens etc. unless the ALLIES invaded those countries while being neutral. This is because you LIBERATE these capitals.

The garrison house rule is primarily meant to simulate forces needed to pacify partisans etc. in a country. Partisans unfortunately stop spawning if the country surrenders. It would have been better if partisans could appear in every country with enemy forces on their territory (even if the country had surrendered). E. g. there were a lot of partisans in Yugoslavia after 1941. The French Resistance was also renowned for their sabotage actions etc. Even little Norway had resistance after the occupation. The organized resistance was called Milorg (military organization). People called them "gutta på skauen" (the forest boys) because they usually fled to the forests after the sabotage raids.

It would have been great if CeaW2 could have made different partisan rules saying that all countries with enemy units on their territory (or being occupied) could spawn partisans. Each country could have a different number indicating the probability of partisans, another number for the probability of a corps spawning instead of a garrison. This way we can have a high number for countries like Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and a lesser number for Denmark, Holland etc. You could e. g. check for cities inside the occupied country NOT garrisoned and add 10% to the spawning chance of a garrison per city not garrisoned. Some countries like Soviet Union and maybe even Yugoslavia could have a chance for multiple partisans.

With such a rule you won't have to make any house rules about garrisoning cities because you have to do it to reduce the spawning chance of partisans in the occupied country.

It would also have been nice to have Free France as a Allied major power, e. g. that would join from 1942 or so. Free France could be based on the map near Senegal and mostly get off-map production. They take over the French tech levels, generals, units etc. when France surrenders. Since the production is low you will see few Free French units, but at least some. Then liberated French cities would be added to the Free French production and France could place new reinforcements there. But this might be complicated to achieve.

Thanks for the response! That makes sense. One more minor point - do the Allies have to maintain garrisons in Cairo for Egypt and Baghdad for Iraq once these areas "join" the Allies? They were basically colonies, so I am just curious.

ncali wrote:Thanks for the response! That makes sense. One more minor point - do the Allies have to maintain garrisons in Cairo for Egypt and Baghdad for Iraq once these areas "join" the Allies? They were basically colonies, so I am just curious.

No you don't have to, but the garrisons can't be transported across the Med so they will remain in Africa unless you open up a rail network to continental Europe. But you can easily send those garrisons to Tobruk, Benghazi etc. to defend against Axis actions.

The only rule regarding Egypt / Malta is the rule saying that the Allied player needs to have 3 surface naval units (at least 1 CV) in the Med to apply the Malta supply restriction on the Axis. You can decide to withdraw these naval units from the Med, but then the Axis can operate freely in Africa. The reason is that you can't maintain proper supply to Malta etc. and it means the Allies can no longer properly interdict Axis supply to Libya.

Since you have quite a lot of Allied garrisons in Egypt / Iraq I usually place them in coastal cities in Africa to garrison against Axis surprise invasions. But you're not required to have them in certain home cities.

Thanks for a very interesting mod. I have played a PBEM game all the way through with a friend and we are midway into 2 more mirror games. One observation. From our experience with the mod so far, the Russians seem a bit stronger than they were historically in the early war. Anyway, we are still enjoying it. The first game ended with an Allied strategic victory - a few turns after Berlin. I think it was July or August of '44.

ncali wrote:Thanks for a very interesting mod. I have played a PBEM game all the way through with a friend and we are midway into 2 more mirror games. One observation. From our experience with the mod so far, the Russians seem a bit stronger than they were historically in the early war. Anyway, we are still enjoying it. The first game ended with an Allied strategic victory - a few turns after Berlin. I think it was July or August of '44.

If you play as Russia against Stauffenberg, RKR, JoeRock to name but a few, you will wish the Russians were even stronger

I do agree that in our mod the Russians appear to be stronger than they were historically, but the disparity in tech levels should normally even that out. We actually kept increasing the Russian unit quantities as we tested this thing, because Russia kept getting steamrollered to such an extent that they had no hope of getting to Berlin (frequently not even Warsaw) by 1945.

The mod takes some getting used to, as it is quite a different "feel" than the original CEAW. As Germany, playing it using "vanilla" version strategy and tactics can be problematic.

All of this having been said, your comments are most appreciated, and duly noted. We are already making some minor changes affecting the English Channel area (the positioning of the Cherbourg port hex created an exploit for a speedy Sealion). So it is entirely possible that the Russian situation will be revisited too.

Thanks again for your positive comments.

Happycat wrote:If you play as Russia against Stauffenberg, RKR, JoeRock to name but a few, you will wish the Russians were even stronger

I do agree that in our mod the Russians appear to be stronger than they were historically, but the disparity in tech levels should normally even that out. We actually kept increasing the Russian unit quantities as we tested this thing, because Russia kept getting steamrollered to such an extent that they had no hope of getting to Berlin (frequently not even Warsaw) by 1945.

The mod takes some getting used to, as it is quite a different "feel" than the original CEAW. As Germany, playing it using "vanilla" version strategy and tactics can be problematic.

All of this having been said, your comments are most appreciated, and duly noted. We are already making some minor changes affecting the English Channel area (the positioning of the Cherbourg port hex created an exploit for a speedy Sealion). So it is entirely possible that the Russian situation will be revisited too.

Thanks again for your positive comments.

Maybe me and my current opponent will challenge you guys to a game when we're done with ours. As for Russia, I see your point. I wonder if there would be a way to freeze several of the starting Russian armour and/or production until early or mid '42 - maybe by use of a "neutral" country. You could say it takes into account reserves moved from Siberia. That way, Russia would still have about the same strength but not so quickly.