The problem with this argument is that the spanish civil war doesn't intrude on any other potential major conflict during that time. The design space can be entirely allocated to this conflict, and thus allow you to zoom in on it. This is not the case from 1st - 16th of september 1939. During that timespan there was the center of attention: the attack on Poland. And the battlefield that became a sideshow because, in comparison not a lot happened: the Saar offensive.Hexaboo wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 7:16 amPitching in on the argument of the 1939 shenanigans in the West being 'too small a thing, too tiny a battle': I haven't seen anyone 'scandalised' about the Spanish Civil War DLC, even though it blows the quantities of various equipment way out of proportion. Take the Trubia tank, which you see around every corner in the game: only 4 were ever built, and their active combat history is limited to a battle that's not even in the game (Siege/Battle of Oviedo). Other Spanish-built AFVs were manufactured in similar numbers, and the Soviets only supplied about 300 tanks throughout the entire 2.5 years of the war, so in many scenarios, you can comfortably imagine that the corresponding units stand for no more than 1-2 tanks. Outrage!
Now if you make the 1939 campaign, you have limited design space, you don't want the campaign to be too long or too short for various reasons, so about 12-16 missions sounds right. Within those 12-16 battles you have to choose which conflicts you are going to present to the player. There are various reasons why you should or shouldn't fill that design space with a certain mission: is the battle exciting, was it of importance for the war, do people know the battle, can you make a fitting narrative to the story, etc.
By choosing to fill a significant portion of that design space with the saar offensive - 5 missions - you reduce the number of battles you present the player in another theather - Poland/Winter War/etc. Scale matters! Having people fight 10 small scale battles in the Netherlands and 4 battles in France doesn't make a great Axis operations 1940. Unless you let people choose which path to take, but then you need to design more missions which costs money and time. With the current DLC they chose to fill the design space with battles that are less known, less exciting (at least to me, mine laying is less interesting than bunker busting breaking through enemy lines kind of battle), and kind of don't make a lot of sense from storyline perspective as Turtler points out. Moreover, you deny players access to more pivotal and exciting battles, even if those have already been covered in a previous Grand Campaign. That's where it might have been better to make 1 mission on the Saar offensive where, for example you could've been flown in, to take command of aux forces holding the line - a defensive scenario - and then flown back to Poland.
Choosing either the option of letting people choose - Saar offensive or start in Poland - or filling less design space with sideshow battles (from 5 to 1) and more main action (Poland) would've been the better design choice in my opinon. Saying, this battlefield hasn't been covered before, thus it's a better choice is definitely an error, as there are many more factors that come into play. If this product is supposed to be some kind of testing ground to see whether people are excited for such a thing, i would've rather known in advance, before purchasing the product, what it was going to be about. Cause i too think it's controversial to use the Saar offensive. It's never done before, and to be frank, i find that theather kinda boring.
When purchasing the Field Marshall edition, maybe already have a little text what that DLC is going to be about would've been great. (So you have to think about such things earlier) And although that probably wouldn't be good for sales, it would be honest towards players. Cause i probably would not have bought this DLC, if i knew beforehand that such a large portion of the game would be about something i'm not too interested in. Yes, you always gamble if you buy the product before knowing what it's about, but it would be nice if companies didn't use such tactics.
), but what I saw in AO 1939 is too much for me.
, had no valuable allies, no vision just got into the war really because they didnt expect the franco-british team declare war on them, they were unable to adopt to changing enemy tactics, they had a retarded leader 
