Slitherine

Victor and Ronnie have proposed a possible change to the morale loss to British and French units when Brussels falls to only be applicable if Brussels is taken in one turn. That means people doing sitzkrieg can get the benefit while people doing blitz in 1941 can't get the benefit from delaying the fall of Brussels till the first fair weather turn in 1940.

Please vote on the proposed change:
France and UK will only lose 20 efficiency if
a. the weather turn is fair
b. Brussels fell on the same turn Belgium was DoW'ed

The reason is that the hordes of refugees and chaos in the Allied lines would only occur if the Germans did a really fast advance towards France. If they struggled during the winter and only managed to grab Brussels in March 1940 then the Allies would not have panicked the same way they did.

This change can make sitzkrieg more attractive.

In order to encourage players to DoW Holland and Belgium at the same turn we could also do the following.

1. Belgium will NOT lose any efficiency if Holland is already surrendered when Belgium is DoW'ed.

This means it will be slightly harder to take Belgium if Holland is German controlled. That would have meant the Belgians would have been mobilized and expecting an attack.

2. To compensate for that we could e. g. change all Dutch units to garrisons and set them at strength 4. The Dutch units will be increased to strength 10 if Belgium has already surrendered when Holland is DoW'ed. This because Holland has already mobilized if Belgium was taken first. They will not lose any efficiency either if Belgium is conquered.

3. Belgian forces would start at strength 4 if Holland is still not conquered when Belgium in DoW'ed. This could make it easier to take out both Holland and Belgium in one turn. If Holland has already surrendered then Belgium has mobilized and would have their units at strength 10.

Remember that conquest takes place at the end of a turn so it doesn't matter which of the 2 countries is DoW'ed first.

By making these changes we make it more attractive to DoW Holland and Belgium at the same time. Both countries will have a weaker army if that's done so the Germans should be able to get to Brussels on turn 1 and enforce the French and UK efficiency loss.

It can certainly be interesting to try out and see how the effect is.

If we make the change for Holland and Belgium then I think we should allow the Germans to build a paratrooper unit in 1939 so they can have it ready for the start of Case Yellow in March 1940. It takes 5 turns to create one. That means we need to alter the following in general.txt from 0 to 1

MAX_PARA_GERMANY_1939 1 /* Max number of German para units allowed on the map in 1939 */

We can set Holland and Denmark back to neutral in th 1940 scenario and give Germany a paratrooper unit instead of a garrison so they can e. g. land near Brussels to ensure a 1 turn conquest of Belgium.

Hi,

This sounds like good changes for Holland and Belgium

Paul

Sounds good to me too.

My votes with some comments:

France and UK will only lose 20 efficiency if
a. the weather turn is fair
b. Brussels fell on the same turn Belgium was DoW'ed --> I vote for both conditions.



1. Belgium will NOT lose any efficiency if Holland is already surrendered when Belgium is DoW'ed.
YES


2. To compensate for that we could e. g. change all Dutch units to garrisons and set them at strength 4. The Dutch units will be increased to strength 10 if Belgium has already surrendered when Holland is DoW'ed. This because Holland has already mobilized if Belgium was taken first. They will not lose any efficiency either if Belgium is conquered. YES but with the conditions mentioned below


3. Belgian forces would start at strength 4 if Holland is still not conquered when Belgium in DoW'ed. This could make it easier to take out both Holland and Belgium in one turn. If Holland has already surrendered then Belgium has mobilized and would have their units at strength 10.
NO. This would leave without effect the change that was made before regarding to Eben Emael fortress to avoid that the germans could capture Belgium in september 1939 and to be in Paris by december 1939. So I propose the following strengths for Belgian army:

IV Corps (Liege fortress): 10 steps
I Corps (Brussels): 8 steps (keep as a corps unit)
II Corps (Antwerp): 7 steps
III Corps (NE of Brussels): 6 steps

All of these units would be at 10 steps if Holland is conquered.

This way we will be reducing Belgian army strength without making it excessively vulnerable in 1939. Let´s keep in mind that the belgian forces actually have 20 efficiency loss and this should be enough for a fast conquest of the country.

What can be reduced significatively is the initial strength of the dutch army. Consulting Niehorster´s website it can be seen that dutch army (4 corps units) was weaker than Belgian army (7 corps units). This is not reflected in GS 1939 OOB since both armies have the same strength. So Dutch starting army in 1939 could have the following strength:

II Legerkorps (Arhem): 6 steps.
I and IV Legerkorps (Hague): 7 steps (and keep as a corp unit)
III Legerkorps (SE of Hague): 5 steps

Furthermore, we could remove the Dutch garrison in Den Helder so Hague could be also attacked from the north.

And, the same way that Belgian army, all of Dutch units will go to full strength if Belgium is conquered.

Stauffenberg wrote:In order to encourage players to DoW Holland and Belgium at the same turn we could also do the following.

1. Belgium will NOT lose any efficiency if Holland is already surrendered when Belgium is DoW'ed.

This means it will be slightly harder to take Belgium if Holland is German controlled. That would have meant the Belgians would have been mobilized and expecting an attack.

2. To compensate for that we could e. g. change all Dutch units to garrisons and set them at strength 4. The Dutch units will be increased to strength 10 if Belgium has already surrendered when Holland is DoW'ed. This because Holland has already mobilized if Belgium was taken first. They will not lose any efficiency either if Belgium is conquered.

3. Belgian forces would start at strength 4 if Holland is still not conquered when Belgium in DoW'ed. This could make it easier to take out both Holland and Belgium in one turn. If Holland has already surrendered then Belgium has mobilized and would have their units at strength 10.

Remember that conquest takes place at the end of a turn so it doesn't matter which of the 2 countries is DoW'ed first.

This might work - will need some play testing though.... What will be the unit strengths if France DOWs Belgium?

schwerpunkt wrote: This might work - will need some play testing though.... What will be the unit strengths if France DOWs Belgium?

Good point and another argument for not leaving the belgian units at 4 steps of strength.

I propose the following to make the coding easy:

BELGIAN_GARRISON_STRENGTH 5 /* 1..10. 10 If Holland already conquered */
BELGIAN_CORPS_STRENGTH 7 /* 1..10. 10 If Holland already conquered */
BELGIAN_FORTRESS_STRENGTH 10 /* 1..10. 10 IF Holland already conquered. Strength of unit in Eben Emael */
DANISH_GARRISON_STRENGTH 2 /* 0..10. 0 = no spawn. 10 if Norway already conquered */
DUTCH_GARRISON_STRENGTH 5 /* 1..10. 10 If Belgium already conquered */
DUTCH_CORPS_STRENGTH 7 /* 1..10. 10 If Belgium already conquered */
NORWEGIAN_GARRISON_STRENGTH 2 /* 1..10. 10 If Denmark already conquered */

So Belgian and Dutch garrisons will be at strength 5 and corps at strength 7. The Eben Emael unit will be at strength 10.

I will test with these values and make a few test runs to check if I can take out Belgium and Holland in one turn using the 1940 scenario. The Germans will start with a para unit in the 1940 scenario as well because I will allow for the Axis to build a para in 1939 to have it ready for Case Yellow. They might need that one to finish off Brussels if they got unlucky elsewhere.

If the Allies DoW Belgium then USA will suffer -6 war effort and the Germans get a chance to march into Belgium without having to fight the Belgian units. The only problem would be that the Allies could risk losing efficiency by capturing Brussels in one turn so I have to code that this event will only happen if Brussels is conquered by the Axis.

We can code it so the Belgian unit 1xNE of Brussels instead spawns 1xSW of Brussels if DoW'ed by the Allies. Do you think the Allies can capture Belgium in one turn?

The biggest issue I see is that the Allies can DoW Belgium to avoid being hit by the -20 efficiency loss for losing Brussels in one turn, but they could already do that under the current rules.

I noticed that we have earlier added the following restriction for Allied DoW upon Belgium and Holland.

INDEX-1004| "The Allied aggression against Belgium has angered USA. The USLL destroyer will not be given and convoys are %s1 % smaller until USA joins the Allies". So the USLL destroyer won't spawn and the convoys will be quite a bit smaller. I think this alone would be enough for the Allies to think twice about attacking Belgium.

Wow -- I've been traveling today and all this has happened over the last few hours! I'll need some time to digest all this but one thing that occurred to me is that we could make Belgium pro-allied to avoid the allied DOW against them.

rkr1958 wrote:Wow -- I've been traveling today and all this has happened over the last few hours! I'll need some time to digest all this but one thing that occurred to me is that we could make Belgium pro-allied to avoid the allied DOW against them.

That won't work similar to making Poland pro-Allied. The reason is that then Germany could e. g. make a strategy where they just put garrisons in the Siegfried line hexes and ignore Belgium / Holland. Then they send all they have against the Russians. How can the Allies then enter Germany? The only way is with amphibious assault via Germany.

So we need to make countries neutral so you can't create a permanent buffer.

I like the principles in Stauffenberg's suggestion, that is, to make it more attractive for the Germans to attack Holland and Belgium on the same turn, at the same time. If Belgium and Holland are attacked consecutively and not simultaneously, it stands to reason that the unattacked country of the two would go on alert and would mobilize to face the German threat.

I vote 1 no 2 no 3 yes

This will force the Axis to choose fair day attack strategy . Before Axis had two choice including bliz . I understand you want to make this game have to go in a historic way . But this will ruin some of joy of a Axis player . Besides this , in the GS 2.0 ,Axis is already hard to win , this change will make Axis more difficult .

You don't check in for a couple days and everything changes! Actually, I like all these changes except for the one that requires the Germans to take Belgium in 1 turn to have the French and UK suffer the supply penalty.

I've always thought Belgium should just join the war if the Germans attack Holland. The changes to strength/surprise are a nice compromise.

But I still think the Allies would have had problems dealing with blitzkrieg if the Germans were just a little slower in Belgium. I don't see why they should lose the surprise penalty if it took 2 turns to take out Brussels.

ncali wrote:You don't check in for a couple days and everything changes! Actually, I like all these changes except for the one that requires the Germans to take Belgium in 1 turn to have the French and UK suffer the supply penalty.

I've always thought Belgium should just join the war if the Germans attack Holland. The changes to strength/surprise are a nice compromise.

But I still think the Allies would have had problems dealing with blitzkrieg if the Germans were just a little slower in Belgium. I don't see why they should lose the surprise penalty if it took 2 turns to take out Brussels.

We have to remember what caused the Allied efficiency loss. It was not that the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium. No it was because they moved so fast through the low countries that the people in Belgium and northern France panicked and fled the cities towards Paris. This clogged up the French roads and made it harder for the French army to move. The fact that the Germans penetrated the French defense line in the Ardennes also created a lot of confusion in the Allied High Command.

The setup of the Dutch and Belgian forces are made in such a way that it's easy for Germany to take out both capitals in one turn attacking both on the same turn. We've even allowed Germany to build a para unit in 1939 so it can be ready before February 1940. Germany can use the para unit as a reserve unit and drop it on Brussels to take out Brussels if they get unlucky with the air and land attacks. The corps unit in Brussels is only at 7 steps. Actually the critical hex in the entire attack is Liege because it remains at 10 strength. So the Axis need to take it out with 1 air attack and 2 land attacks. So maybe the para needs to be used there (as it was historically) to ensure the fall of the city. Once Liege is down it's easy to get 3 land units to attack Brussels.

What we don't want to see is Axis players attacking Belgium in 1939 and fight there for some time and delay the fall of Brussels till the first fair weather in 1940 to ensure the Allied efficiency loss. That is a gamey strategy that will not happen anymore.

What needs to be discussed is whether a 1 turn conquest or a 2 turn conquest should be required for the Allied efficiency loss.

I propose we try first with the one turn conquest and see how the games go. If several players get problems with taking Brussels in one turn when starting in March 1940 then we can alter the rule to be a 2 turn requirement. That's why we test.

Thanks for the response. I think the efficiency loss simulates both the refugee issue and the difficulty the UK/French forces had adapting to the blitzkrieg tactics. But I understand why you would want to impose the 1-turn requirement for now and see how it works out.

On another note, I was very sorry to hear about the tragic attacks in Norway today. My sympathies.

ncali wrote:Thanks for the response. I think the efficiency loss simulates both the refugee issue and the difficulty the UK/French forces had adapting to the blitzkrieg tactics. But I understand why you would want to impose the 1-turn requirement for now and see how it works out.

On another note, I was very sorry to hear about the tragic attacks in Norway today. My sympathies.

Thanks. My home is 10km from the city center and I was watching Tour de France on TV. Still I heard the blast as a big thunder.

The area affected is close to where we go almost daily in Oslo so it's a strange feeling seeing the devastation. Norway is not a country used to terrorism. Despite the terrible actions yesterday it's a relief it was done by a Norwegian madman and not Al Qaeda. That means it's probably possible to continue living without having a constant increased security everywhere.

You can never guard against madmen despite the security measures. What we fear now is that copycats can try something similar.

What happened in Oslo has more in common with the Oklahoma bomb than the Al Qaeda attacks in New York, Washington, Madrid and London.

The guy probably responsible is known to be on the extreme right wing with focus on fighting against Moslems. Until now he only had expressed opinions against Moslems and nothing about violence. So it's shocking it could happen.

Time will tell how this will affect Norway, long term.

I remember after 9/11 wondering what would happen next. As you say, at least this appears to be the work of one extremist. It is amazing (and terrible) that one person can cause so much tragedy. Again, I'm so sorry.