Slitherine

So, just played trough Blitzkrieg and had a nice time, overall the game is still good. However, hunting down and killing a large numbers of enemies is a bit boring and i hope you reduce this in the future.

But for me the biggest issue is the uselessness of tanks with the current system. As it is now they can not be used for flanking, as they will be cut off and out of supply. Similarly, in the future series, when Germany is on the defensive, they can not operate as blocking forces to allow slower units to retreat to new defensive lines.

Basically, you have killed off the tanks mobility, as they can only be moved along with the infantry.

So, how do we solve this ? Real easy actually. You already have this ability in game. When i drop my air units, they get the number 3 on them to indicate that they have 3 turns to operate before they need resupply. Apply this ability to tanks, where they can act independently for 2 or 3 turns (you may have to play around with this) Thus, you reinstate the tank as a useful asset in the game. (the tank destroyer may also need this)

Why give me a clarinet when i can not play it ?

I already wrote about this in the following thread:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 64&t=74902

Great, you had the exact same idea as me. Must be good then Have you tried getting 4 paratroopers and 2 anti tank guns instead of 4 tanks. Might be worth a try.

"External Fuel Tanks" for tank units to delay the effectiveness loss when cut-off would be a neat idea for another specialization.

Horst wrote:"External Fuel Tanks" for tank units to delay the effectiveness loss when cut-off would be a neat idea for another specialization.

Good name, I proposed name it "Blitzkrieg" but yours is better.

For the tank specialisation, what about 'Schwerpunkt'? (Assuming that isn't already taken - I can't remember what is available in that campaign)

- BNC

I´m not sure I like it as tanks should also be able to be cut off from supply.

But that´s not really why I write, its your "in the future series, when Germany is on the defensive" that caught my eye. Why would that necessarily have to happen? We do play to try to alter the outcome dont we? Off course there will be massive counterattacks by the russians, but it doesn´t have to end in Berlin does it? I do hope that the developers make more "what if" content than we know from PC. I mean it was pretty anticlimactic to have fought for 6 years only to have 1 mission to beat the Brits and then 1 to beat the Americans.

We are not discussing if tanks should be supply immune like in PG, where they can operate alone like satellites. This is for a limited number of turns only, where you can use your tank to flank an enemy defence line. Strangely, the only current unit you can use in this role, are the paratroopers.

Re supply
I think all/most isolated units should be able to move/attack with less efficiency for 2-3 turns to try and rectify the supply situation.
The instant punishment is too harsh.

It's funny that the possibility to delay supply lost is actually already implemented in the game. All you need to do is to add fuel values to units in units.csv, like the 4 of the paratroopers. As long as the fuel number doesn't show 0, the efficiency won't be lost and units can still recover it. It will only drop after the turn it reaches 0.
I first thought that fuel settings only work for airborne units now, but tests show how often wrong a theory is.
Enjoy modding the game!

Horst wrote:It's funny that the possibility to delay supply lost is actually already implemented in the game. All you need to do is to add fuel values to units in units.csv, like the 4 of the paratroopers. As long as the fuel number doesn't show 0, the efficiency won't be lost and units can still recover it. It will only drop after the turn it reaches 0.
I first thought that fuel settings only work for airborne units now, but tests show how often wrong a theory is.
Enjoy modding the game!

Awesome. Thanks for sharing the information.

Yes, that was interesting.
I'm leaning further towards modding units...

I think naval units are generally too slow, especially compared to leg infantry. Specific unit's movement range could also be more varied, now the naval movement is too generic.

I would also like to test an air mod which would give air units 4 turns in the air, but much larger movement ranges.
Turn 1: Launch
Turn 2: Move to target area
Turn 3: Engage target
Turn 4: Return

Erik wrote:Yes, that was interesting.
I'm leaning further towards modding units...

I think naval units are generally too slow, especially compared to leg infantry. Specific unit's movement range could also be more varied, now the naval movement is too generic.

I would also like to test an air mod which would give air units 4 turns in the air, but much larger movement ranges.
Turn 1: Launch
Turn 2: Move to target area
Turn 3: Engage target
Turn 4: Return

I'm headed in the same direction. The current mp ratings range from 6 to 13. At least for the Japanese and US aircraft there are two large "groupings" at 8 and 10 (with around 63% of the aircraft falling in these two buckets). Looking at the actual speed range it is from 160 to 600 mph. I'm considering changing the mp ratings to be in a range of 6 to 22 which would offer up a much wider performance range able to differentiate the actual performance curve a bit better. However I need to expand out my analysis to include land and naval units as well. Ideally there would be a proportionality to the entire movement model from the slowest moving infantry unit to the fastest jet power aircraft. This will take some tweaking I'm sure. Shooting for something that gives the appearance of the speed disparity.

I like your idea about the 4 turns for aircraft especially for the strategic bombers. These aircraft wouldn't linger around for long. Get in, drop the bombs and get out. I had considered something similar for the strategic bombers, simulating their deployment from off map airfields. They would arrive, move to the target area of the players choice, drop their payload and then exit the map. Returning after a period of time to reflect the flight time to / from base. This has a disadvantage of needing additional AI scripting in the scenario, but could reflect the performance of these aircraft a bit better.

I'm still mulling over the fighters and tactical bombers. I do like your 4 turn idea for the tactical bombers also, but I don't think that AI scripting these would be appropriate, at least for the dive and torpedo bombers. Made the medium bombers. I'm not totally sold on the scripting answer either. However it is one possible solution.

I would certainly be interested in your ideas.

My aircraft speeds are about 50% faster than vanilla, but the fuel settings are about the same or less.
I do my own reality-game conversion calculations but have to stick to vanilla directions to prevent screwing up missions and balance.
I do know from PzC modding though that increasing the movement speed too much can severely reduce the performance, also known as thinking… in OOB. AI bombers and paratrooper planes will scan more and more hex-rings around them for valid targets what can take a while longer then.
My aircraft speed calculation basically starts where naval/ground units end but gets more squeezed, so e.g. a Gribovsky G-11 glider (146 km/h) would have MP 10 as rough minimum and a Me 163B (954 km/h) would have MP 20 as rough maximum if these 3d-models ever make it to OOB.
The road mechanic is somewhat problematic making ground units pretty fast, but I still had no real trouble during original campaigns so far. I prefer more differences even if it means my Willys outrace some planes on paved road. Maybe I’m still too used to my PzC settings which game has a better terrain speed system.

A good start to check if your aircraft settings work is playing the Jap Pearl Harbor mission. If you have somehow trouble finishing that you should reconsider your settings.

Naval speeds in vanilla are indeed horrible that I quickly fell asleep. It might be good for tactical battles if ships don’t zip around all the time, but I prefer plausibility and like my naval movement speed follow the same rules as my ground units. Naval units that move at full speed around tend to do no or not much damage anyway, so that’s balanced.

Horst wrote:My aircraft speeds are about 50% faster than vanilla, but the fuel settings are about the same or less.
I do my own reality-game conversion calculations but have to stick to vanilla directions to prevent screwing up missions and balance.
I do know from PzC modding though that increasing the movement speed too much can severely reduce the performance, also known as thinking… in OOB. AI bombers and paratrooper planes will scan more and more hex-rings around them for valid targets what can take a while longer then.
My aircraft speed calculation basically starts where naval/ground units end but gets more squeezed, so e.g. a Gribovsky G-11 glider (146 km/h) would have MP 10 as rough minimum and a Me 163B (954 km/h) would have MP 20 as rough maximum if these 3d-models ever make it to OOB.
The road mechanic is somewhat problematic making ground units pretty fast, but I still had no real trouble during original campaigns so far. I prefer more differences even if it means my Willys outrace some planes on paved road. Maybe I’m still too used to my PzC settings which game has a better terrain speed system.

A good start to check if your aircraft settings work is playing the Jap Pearl Harbor mission. If you have somehow trouble finishing that you should reconsider your settings.

Naval speeds in vanilla are indeed horrible that I quickly fell asleep. It might be good for tactical battles if ships don’t zip around all the time, but I prefer plausibility and like my naval movement speed follow the same rules as my ground units. Naval units that move at full speed around tend to do no or not much damage anyway, so that’s balanced.

Thanks for the insight Horst. Game performance was something I had concerns about. Especially if the number of units increases (which I've also considered). The change I'm considering for the aircraft speeds just makes the mp rating have the same proportionality from bottom to top as the actual speed ratings of the aircraft. I'm not totally sold on the idea yet because I haven't been able to do to much testing. Today is my last day of school for a few weeks so I should be able to get some good testing done before it picks up again. As an aside, I don't recommend going back to school in your late 40s with kids still at home.

I also haven't been too terribly happy with the naval units either, but those tweaks I think are going to be much easier. The real work for me will be "expanding" the scenario scales. Some of them just seem way to cramped. I prefer Erik's Coral Sea scenario over the stock one for this reason.

There would be a lot of work researching all air/naval unit's speed and movement ranges.
Is there any dedicated spread-sheet enthusiast here ?
This would of course end up in a mod. I'd be happy to help out with the units.csv file if neccessary. I have been able in the past to get a private units mod working.

Erik wrote:There would be a lot of work researching all air/naval unit's speed and movement ranges.
Is there any dedicated spread-sheet enthusiast here ?
This would of course end up in a mod. I'd be happy to help out with the units.csv file if neccessary. I have been able in the past to get a private units mod working.

I have aircraft data for US and Japanese aircraft. Working on the remainder.

I used to have a fairly extensive database which would have made this real easy. Sadly it was lost in a house fire many years ago when I lost both my computer and backups.