Let's get ahead of ourselves : Axis Operations 1944/1945

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

I have really enjoyed AO43. I think the decision to split into historical and ahistorical is a good one. However, it has resulted in a shorter campaign for each branch, while still requiring the devs to create a lot of total missions.


For AO44 I would prefer either splitting the historical and ahistorical branches into their own separate dlcs or charging extra for a supersize dlc, instead of just having 12 missions per campaign be the standard going forward, vs the 15-17 missions per campaign in the past

[UncleAi]

I really don't think Hitler will allow us to retreat from Moscow if we captured it in 1941 winter. At least it is a shelter in winter. We will get sacked if we retreat. It will become an Stalingrad with stronger German.

And we are the best-performanced general since SCW, we should be the most favored general. Should be field marshal lone time ago. Probably commanding an Army Group now.

[PWHERREN]

I have really enjoyed AO43. I think the decision to split into historical and ahistorical is a good one. However, it has resulted in a shorter campaign for each branch, while still requiring the devs to create a lot of total missions.


For AO44 I would prefer either splitting the historical and ahistorical branches into their own separate dlcs or charging extra for a supersize dlc, instead of just having 12 missions per campaign be the standard going forward, vs the 15-17 missions per campaign in the past

Totally agree!

And separate DLCs for historical and ahistorical should make the coding/scripting simpler, and so speed up the development process.

That would be a definite win-win!

[DacianWarrio]

Alternatively, if we are sent West, it's a more self-contained experience (it's not influenced by previous AOs and can be plausibly won without previous AO successes in the same way they chose to do for AO 1943).

The advantage of AO 1944 taking place on the Western Front is that it allows the Eastern Front to, plausibly and conveniently, progress historically. Sure, if we achieved ahistorical success in 1942 and 1943 it may be an orderly retreat instead of a rout, but still, without us on the Eastern Front in 1944 things can be argued to end up as historical in terms of frontlines.

This allows AO 1945 to start out from a common trunk, the Vistula-Oder offensive. And from there on? Well from there on I expect we cash in our chips we earned in 1942/43/44 and do a "Poland Redux" followed by "Barbarossa For Real This Time" where we take Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad and reach the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan Line.

[DefiantXYX]

I would really enjoy a combination of East and West.
We should be able to send some of our core units to Italy, while the rest stays at Kursk. So we could built up a second core army. Would be very interesting to lose on the west and win on the east. Could be a nightmare for the devs to design all the possible combinations

[Bee1976]

I have really enjoyed AO43. I think the decision to split into historical and ahistorical is a good one. However, it has resulted in a shorter campaign for each branch, while still requiring the devs to create a lot of total missions.


For AO44 I would prefer either splitting the historical and ahistorical branches into their own separate dlcs or charging extra for a supersize dlc, instead of just having 12 missions per campaign be the standard going forward, vs the 15-17 missions per campaign in the past

Totally agree!

And separate DLCs for historical and ahistorical should make the coding/scripting simpler, and so speed up the development process.

That would be a definite win-win!

i couldnt agree more.
I would really love 1 AO44E historic and 1 AO44E ahistoric DLC. More Missions ,more battles, more time in PC2, which is never a bad thing
The problems i fear are time and ressources. I mean, poeple are waiting for way more PZC2 stuff. Pacific, SovietCorps, Alliedcorps, AfricaCorps, maybe AO44W and AO45W, all with possible ahistoric missions and/or DLCs.
This is a huge amount of content to create, if they like.

But, and this is really not meant as an offence, the last DLC took about 10 (?) month to deliver, there is still stuff missing like Steam ACMs or translations. the pandemia is not over and i dont know, our hopes might bge simply too much for a realistic DLC schedule. But ofc i hope for a lot of PC2 content in the near future hehe

[Wolfenguard]

after playing the ao43
historical
i think the we start in the next ao44 in the east again and will be send back to west, shortly after the dday where we have some defending and some small attack scnearios, for 45 its the same, defending positions and finaly a big scenario where we try to defeat berlin or an other location, maybe we have to hold the line, so that other can escape and in the end we get captured by the enemy. Maybe we will see 1 or 2 marine scenarios where we have to defend transportship which people who flee back to germany. Some Defend Missions where we have to try to intercept Bombers aso.

ahistorical
there are a lot of interessting ideas,
standart
i think we start again in the east but come back to the west front some days before the dday, defenting one of the beach and or give the americans a bloody nose. Some misions where we have to finish landing troops on other beaches where our other armys where not so succesfull as us aso. for 45, invasion of England and maybe a visit in afrika, before it goes to america in 46

ME Token
we alry have used the ME Token and get a special unit. Maybe this is not the only benefits what we get from this. Maybe they use the papers too, to improve the V1 / V2 Weapon system.
so we start in the East and have some Mission where we have to escort some building trucks to specific locations so that they can set up V1/V2 Starting ramps, which are close enough to target the russian military industry and Railstadions. depending on the player succes, we have in a special mission more Rockets for destroing industry / Command Posts or get the ability to do this mission.

DDay Tokens.
Like the Tokens from the AO 43 we get a system with dday tokens, where we will have some more benefits for the dday mission or the later invasion of England.
we get the informations about the dday from a spy or from a bonus goal. After this we know that the dday will happen, but we have to relocate our troops. Trough Tokens we get on the dday mission more troops, aux units or have stronger defend positions. We get tokens trough bonus goals or missions like. Capturing Rusian Trains, Transportplanes, ships or maybe trough a marine mission, where we have to sink Transport convoys, with submarines or the ships from the airsupport mission, so that we delay the date and get our stuff to the front. Special mission, where we have to shoot down transportaircrafts with paratroopers

[Retributarr]

A.I. Campaign-Generator:

Tts too-bad that the 'K.I.S.S.-Principle' couldn't work here!... that is to say... to have a '"Computer Campaign Management Programme" to "direct-decide" what can or cannot take place based on actual concrete realities of that particular conflict situation at that time [Resource availability-Political Consequences-Weather Conditions/Consequences-Alliances... current and potential-Throw in the chance of "Uncertainty"... such as the Americans not getting in to the war... or even many such alternative real-life near happening events/situations... and so on!] with consideration to current world events as of that moment in time. Thereby!... then giving the 'Player'... the conditions and choices that can be made and effected based on that current mixture of realties... which would then again... change or effect future gaming parameters as to what will then be?... or not be?... in the forthcoming game-mix for whatever potential possibilities that would result from those directive actions.

Then!... this way... you could never hope to predict what your going to face... or what will be the result!... of a WWII Campaign.

[Xenos]

It's a bit tricky. I feel there should be a split at some point, '44 or '45, either Eastern Front and Western Front, or Alternative History and Historical. Till now it worked somewhat, but some stuff really were past the realm of plausibility even for soft alternative history - like invading Britain and then retreating across the Channel after having lost the entire navy and having defeated an enormous armoured counterattack: the scenarios were fun but made literally no sense, it would have been less weird if they were treated as some sort of feverish dream of the commander, really. From now on, things cannot be cobbled together, it's just too many stuff. '43 already feels too short because it has to accomodate two timelines.

So, for a '44 Alternative history DLC I think three main scenario lines would be nice: 1) Secure the Caucasus for good, retake Stalingrad, maybe retake Leningrad with the help of Finnish troops, then conquer Moscow, destroy the last reserves and win the war in the East; 2) Reconquer Italy, starting from the Gothic Line (let's say the Allied advanced a bit quicker in this timeline, because of a stronger focus on the Eastern front) and keep marching south, then stop the Allied evacuation from Sicily (Dunkirk done right, this time) and deal a devastating blow to their strength in the Mediterranean; 3) Face Overlord, fall back against the D-Day, battle against very strong American and English forces, stop them in their tracks and then expel them from Europe.

The war could really end right there, with a favourable, somewhat plausible, peace treaty. But if you want to go further into uchronia, '45 could feature Sealion II, and then the classical invasion of USA (and Canada). I would also like the campaign to end with a coup and a brief civil war between the Wehrmacht, led by our characters, and the hard-liners of the Party. Not only it would be nice to battle German assets for a chance, it would also feel better knowing that in the end, even in victory, you managed to avoid the creation of a nightmarish nazi world.

[DefiantXYX]

Till now it worked somewhat, but some stuff really were past the realm of plausibility even for soft alternative history - like invading Britain and then retreating across the Channel after having lost the entire navy and having defeated an enormous armoured counterattack: the scenarios were fun but made literally no sense

I dont agree with you in this point, I liked the scenarios very much and the retreat was featured but a good story. Even if the entire fleet got destroyed it doesnt mean, what you still dont have some ships to get your small army back to the main land.
What I dont like is that I saved the entire fleet und no one noticed that

I would also like the campaign to end with a coup and a brief civil war between the Wehrmacht, led by our characters, and the hard-liners of the Party. Not only it would be nice to battle German assets for a chance, it would also feel better knowing that in the end, even in victory, you managed to avoid the creation of a nightmarish nazi world.

Good idea, something like that. Winning this war for the ultra nazis definatly feels wrong...

[Bee1976]

What I dont like is that I saved the entire fleet und no one noticed that

+1

Good idea, something like that. Winning this war for the ultra nazis definatly feels wrong...

Indeed thats a good solution/idea. The team kept politics and ideology out of this fgame as much as possible, but at some point there should be the option to win this war without supporting evil itself. So a civl war at the end might work out well.
I mean its ahistoric, the team can do whatever they like

[Xenos]

What I dont like is that I saved the entire fleet und no one noticed that

+1

Good idea, something like that. Winning this war for the ultra nazis definatly feels wrong...

Indeed thats a good solution/idea. The team kept politics and ideology out of this fgame as much as possible, but at some point there should be the option to win this war without supporting evil itself. So a civl war at the end might work out well.
I mean its ahistoric, the team can do whatever they like

I would say that staging a coup against a victorious Hitler in 1945-46 would be too implausible. His popularity would be too great and our general would find no support amongst the war-weary population. So I would go like this: Hitler dies in '46 and their is a suspect he has been assassinated. Himmler, Goering or maybe a surviving Heydrich declare the martial war and use the SS to take the power, and we are given the choice to accept the situation and end the campaign there, or march our troops to Berlin and bring down the nazi government in 2-3 scenarios.

[BarbarianHunter]

What I dont like is that I saved the entire fleet und no one noticed that

+1

Good idea, something like that. Winning this war for the ultra nazis definatly feels wrong...

Indeed thats a good solution/idea. The team kept politics and ideology out of this fgame as much as possible, but at some point there should be the option to win this war without supporting evil itself. So a civl war at the end might work out well.
I mean its ahistoric, the team can do whatever they like

I vote von Manstein 4 Chancellor

[Kerensky]

I vote von Manstein 4 Chancellor

I guess he left a good impression with how he has been presented in the campaigns?

[klhbekool]

I had a good time playing, I went Ahistorical. I just hope that Wagner doesn't go all Stauffenberg at some point. If it is going to be awhile for the next DLC. I may start over in Spain and work my way up the end of AO 43 again. I missed saving the Konigsberg. i will see what I can do.

[Kerensky]

Since you guys are talking about 1944 and 1945 in here, I have a question.

Do you think it's time to see some mega Allied heroes? Units that are hero stacked to the point where they have access to broken hero combos that the player has?

While I'm always mentioning we don't balance around that sort of thing, having hero stacked enemies are interesting in their own right. Degaulle generated more than a few complaints, but we haven't seen the likes of that kind of hero in a long time.

And it's about time for the Allies to really be winning, and at the very least they should be able to put serious hurt on even the most Elite hero stacked Tiger tank units, which currently no number of swarming 1 star 10 strength T34 tanks can accomplish.

Would you like to see more insane enemy heroes with multiple synergistic abilities in 1944 and 1945?

We'll take the obvious precaution to make them guard non-mission critical objectives, so players who don't want to tangle with them can always opt out and no one is 'forced' to fight such enemy units.

Thoughts?

I had the idea to see a crazy Soviet mass artillery position, where every single unit has 'shock tactics' meaning they can paralyze a whole group of player units in place, rendering them immobile and helpless.

A Prudent/Avenger/Inc Max Overstrength T34/85 might be completely unkillable.

If I put Lightning Attack on enemy fighters, all the escorts in the world won't be able to save your bombers. Well no, that's not true. I guess you could fully enclose a bomber in a ring of escorts. That would prevent such a fighter from gutting a Stuka.

Not sure I'll ever put Overwhelming Attack/Envelopment together though. I imagine it will be a keyboard smashing inducing, alt f4 out of the game moment if such a unit started deleting 5 star 15 strength Tiger IIs.

[Retributarr]

For myself!, I would like to have those implementations as an "OPTION" only!... but not have them 'Hard-Wired' into the Game as a 'Fixed-Feature'!.

[DacianWarrio]

Since you guys are talking about 1944 and 1945 in here, I have a question.

Do you think it's time to see some mega Allied heroes? Units that are hero stacked to the point where they have access to broken hero combos that the player has?

While I'm always mentioning we don't balance around that sort of thing, having hero stacked enemies are interesting in their own right. Degaulle generated more than a few complaints, but we haven't seen the likes of that kind of hero in a long time.

And it's about time for the Allies to really be winning, and at the very least they should be able to put serious hurt on even the most Elite hero stacked Tiger tank units, which currently no number of swarming 1 star 10 strength T34 tanks can accomplish.

Would you like to see more insane enemy heroes with multiple synergistic abilities in 1944 and 1945?

We'll take the obvious precaution to make them guard non-mission critical objectives, so players who don't want to tangle with them can always opt out and no one is 'forced' to fight such enemy units.

Thoughts?

I had the idea to see a crazy Soviet mass artillery position, where every single unit has 'shock tactics' meaning they can paralyze a whole group of player units in place, rendering them immobile and helpless.

A Prudent/Avenger/Inc Max Overstrength T34/85 might be completely unkillable.

If I put Lightning Attack on enemy fighters, all the escorts in the world won't be able to save your bombers. Well no, that's not true. I guess you could fully enclose a bomber in a ring of escorts. That would prevent such a fighter from gutting a Stuka.

Not sure I'll ever put Overwhelming Attack/Envelopment together though. I imagine it will be a keyboard smashing inducing, alt f4 out of the game moment if such a unit started deleting 5 star 15 strength Tiger IIs.

With the caveats about balancing that have been expressed in the threads lately in mind, yes it's high time the enemy should get access to that kind of quality. Particularly in any historical campaign paths (actually scratch that, the ahistorical victory paths as well).

[Raganr129]

Since you guys are talking about 1944 and 1945 in here, I have a question.

Do you think it's time to see some mega Allied heroes? Units that are hero stacked to the point where they have access to broken hero combos that the player has?

While I'm always mentioning we don't balance around that sort of thing, having hero stacked enemies are interesting in their own right. Degaulle generated more than a few complaints, but we haven't seen the likes of that kind of hero in a long time.

And it's about time for the Allies to really be winning, and at the very least they should be able to put serious hurt on even the most Elite hero stacked Tiger tank units, which currently no number of swarming 1 star 10 strength T34 tanks can accomplish.

Would you like to see more insane enemy heroes with multiple synergistic abilities in 1944 and 1945?

We'll take the obvious precaution to make them guard non-mission critical objectives, so players who don't want to tangle with them can always opt out and no one is 'forced' to fight such enemy units.

Thoughts?

I had the idea to see a crazy Soviet mass artillery position, where every single unit has 'shock tactics' meaning they can paralyze a whole group of player units in place, rendering them immobile and helpless.

A Prudent/Avenger/Inc Max Overstrength T34/85 might be completely unkillable.

If I put Lightning Attack on enemy fighters, all the escorts in the world won't be able to save your bombers. Well no, that's not true. I guess you could fully enclose a bomber in a ring of escorts. That would prevent such a fighter from gutting a Stuka.

Not sure I'll ever put Overwhelming Attack/Envelopment together though. I imagine it will be a keyboard smashing inducing, alt f4 out of the game moment if such a unit started deleting 5 star 15 strength Tiger IIs.

I think Allied hero units on the level of DeGaulle are/were fine (hard to kill, not impossible, but not going to roll your army). Something broken like an autosurrender combo or anything that could kill the player's units with little to no ability to counter would definitely be very very unpopular (ShockTactics/Envelopment + OverwhelmingAttack). I'd also maybe stay away from QuadripleGun, DoubleAttack traits as examples, maybe NoRetaliation and LightningAttacks too depending on what they're put on.

LethalAttack/ArtySupport 203s for example wouldn't be too broken maybe, as it makes any frontline allied units a hardpoint the player can discover, but wouldn't actively hunt the player much.

For historical paths certainly you might want allied units to go offensive/hunting though, so maybe for spooky but not horribly broken combos you could use traits that we haven't seen before? Perhaps infantry or armor units with Unyielding or OverwhelmingAttack (solo), with some overstrength, and count on the player to set defensive support appropriately (no LightningAttack), maybe spelled out in the mission brief or with really obvious terrain setups?

Lemme know what you think of those ideas after about 2 minutes of thinking.

[DacianWarrio]

If we are sent to the Western Front in 1944, putting Prudent/Evasive/Consolidator + Max Overstrength with 3+ stars on Allied aircraft can really drive home the feeling of "local air superiority is the best you can hope for".

A similar combo can be used enemy tanks on the Eastern Front to drive home the desperation of trying to survive an Operation Bagration.

Though if you're throwing that kind of stuff our way, Kerensky, there had better be some kind of payoff if we do well