LandMarine wrote:
Perhaps it's time for some Paratroopers! Say during Operation Citadel?
Well that would be a suicide mission, I guess. Parachute into the middle of a Soviet tank concentration? Do not count on me in this...
iceFlame wrote:
But how much historicity can you sacrifice for the sake of game play? Some people will undoubtedly think the AI is 'cheating', but they're probably the same folks who don't know the actual production numbers. If you balanced it more it would be totally unreasonable the other way, so maybe you're darned if you do and darned if you don't?
Good point, but this mod is supposed to be a historical one (at least within the boundaries of the PzC engine), so I will humbly suggest those folks wishing to conquer the whole world with the Wehrmacht keep playing the vanilla campaign or other mods which allow it. Lucikily, this is not a profit driven enterprise, so I do not have to make sure that each and every player will be happy with it. This creative freedom is only provided by free to play - free to download mods.
On the good side, in this mod units would normally not appear in the middle of the map out of nowhere (save for the occasional partisans - but they are weak units), even though e.g. in the case of Stalingrad, as you wrote, it would make sense. Instead, Soviet units are either 'produced' in the Ural region and they have to travel to the fronline on their own or are pre-placed on the map in the beginning, waiting paitently for the command to attack.
It's probably not possible due to AI scripting limitations, but I was thinking how cool it would be if you could somehow emulate the effects of improved supply flow after the fall of Malta. It seems to me it would add additional incentive to consider an attack, (and as you've probably figured out by now), I'm a big fan of rewarding the player for risk.
In some way it is emulated: as long as Malta is in British hands, a new enemy aircraft appears over its airfield time after time. And those planes can make quite a lot of trouble given the geographical position of Malta forcing the player to provide escort to planes and equipment transfered to and from North Africa. For example, in my present test play, I did not take Malta early, as I wanted to use all the aircraft in Operation Sealion, so when Torch came, I had real difficulties transfering some units to Tunisia. Obviously once you manage to capture it, there will be no more British planes deployed to Malta from that point. So, the sooner you capture it, the less British planes you have to deal with in the Med, which is a nice reward, IMO.
I'd also suggest something similar for Leningrad. (Presupposing it's successful capture would likely result in greater cooperation and contribution from the Fins). That way it'd be more of a jewel in the north to augment the prestige value of Moscow in the middle and the resource booty of the South.
(It's just I like the idea of pumping Leningrad up, as I think it would help make priority decisions between the three army groups even more interesting).
Sure, in the meantime I did something in this direction as well: the number of Soviet reinforcements appearing in the Ural from 1943 is largely governed by the number of key objectives in Soviet possession. That is, if the player focuses on defeating the British, for instance, or follows the 'historical path' and thus do not capture any of these key objectives, he has to face the full might of the Soviet Steamroller starting from 1943, as historically. Currently the key objectives are these:
- Caucasus oil fields - capturing AND holding these would have the biggest impact removing more than one third of those late Soviet reinforcements
- Moscow - capturing and holding this area would remove about one quarter - one third of the later Soviet reinforcements
- Leningrad - capturing and holding this area would remove about one quarter - one fifth of them.
All these affect different units, so if the player can take all (which may or may not be possible), by 43-44 then there would be very few Soviets reinforcements appearing in the Ural from that point, allowing the player to conclude the campaign in the east. The capture of the oil fields would mainly affect tanks and planes, the big cities would mainly affect infantry, but several tanks and other units as well.
So, each of them is tempting, but to a different degree. And if lost, the Soviets will try to recapture them with the remaining units appearing in the Ural as reinforcements. And if they successful, then the earlier reinforcements affected by those objectives would eventually appear in the Ural and join their comrades in the offensive.
Sounds like a real war of attrition, isn't it?
...
Now I have a question, too. Currently in the mod, if the player captures England, Malta, North Africa and the Middle East, the British sue for peace. But what should the Americans do in that case? Should they sue for peace as well and concentrate on defeating Japan? I think it would make more sense than continuing a war with Germany with not a single base in the European theatre, apart from Marokko (if they still posess it at that time at all).
EDIT:
Things would change if you had the Paris Gun and Red Baron helping you!
Haha, yeah for sure, Richthofen would make the difference, too bad that you let him die in your WWI mod. You should make him invincible so that he can help in WWII as well.
What are they trying to do? Win?! 
!
