Fatherland - Deutschland über alles

[Kanitatlan]

Fatherland
Deutschland über alles

Paint the world Grey

Germany, 1936 grand campaign, very hard / normal, no allies, objective world conquest
Doomsday 1.2
Style: game analysis and report
Significant game editing.

Note that this is my first real game in Doomsday and I may be unaware of some differences from normal HOI2.

Most content links are to an AAR page rather than a single post and the indicated action will start somewhere on that page.

Contents

Introduction (here)
Final Plan (post #168 and following)
Official Start (post #219 onwards)
1937 (post #265 onwards)
1938 (post #304 onwards)
1939 (post #329 onwards)

The War Begins

POLAND April 5th 1939 (post #383 onwards)
Includes Denmark, early naval operations, Netherlands
OKW review of Polish Campaign (single post)
First medal Awards (single post #516)
Denounced by VILenin
THE FALL OF FRANCE May 5th 1939 (post #546 onwards)
A dangerous post is made by DCP
France, final stages
Post France Review (post #733)
Renewed Operations June 2nd 1939
Spain, Hungary June 12th 1939 (post #831 onwards)
Sealion June 24th 1939
Yugoslavia June 26th 1939 (post #970)
London Falls June 28th 1939 (post #1003)
Spain Annexed July 20th 1939 (post #1130)
Lots of intelligence reviewed
Blue Emu's Birthday)
Greece July 22nd-26th1939 (post #1214+)
Portugal July 28th1939, Ireland August 9th (post #1221, #1232)
British excluded from Europe, Switzerland (August 27th 1939), Norway Sep 5th, Sweden Sep 20th
First battle of the Atlantic
Fall of Gibraltar (finally) Dec 12th, end of year maps

1940

Iceland and preparations
Pre-Barbarossa
Barbarossa - The Plan
Barbarossa
Kiev falls, icecream issued
Lenigrad falls, Barbarossa phase 2 in progress
First moves of phase 3
Phase 3 plan restatement
Baltic states become "involved"
End of the western military district, plan review
Moscow campaign in earnest, the fall of Russia - bitter peace and what next?
Cleaning up Europe, planning
More fighting, Finland, Lithuania, war fixing
Italy, Romania, Turkey. DOW from USA and Petal Throne

Global War

Fighting everybody
Italy campaign, the USA attacks
Lenin DOWs, alone against the world
Murmansk problem begins, Middle East campaign
Situation review
A new plan, into Africa
Landing in Africa

1941

A new year, the massacre of Alexandria
Preperation and planning
Barbarossa II
Persian pocket
Situation review and plans
Strategic bombing in South Africa
India Campaign

1942

South Africa, Singapore
Planning
Indonesia
China Campaign
Paradrop madness
What Next, the collapse of Russia and the UK
The battle of the South China Sea
Landing in Southern China
The Philippines
SE Asia Convoy war begins
End of year

1943

A new year, landing in Australia

If whilst reading through this AAR you find the odd picture marked as deleted by the hosting service then please let me know. I have retained copies of all AAR material and can repost. I mention this as I have recently found an example myself whilst updating the index

[Kanitatlan]

Introduction

This AAR is a bit different from my previous efforts.

Firstly the game has been significantly modified making it not such a good model for strategies that can be used by other players. Previously I have always stuck to vanilla for AARs but in this case it is going to be all a bit different.

Secondly I am using various forum personalities as ministers, tech teams and leaders and those with “official appointments” will be encouraged to post “official reports” in the AAR and will form part of the narrative. These official reports can be posted at any time and will constitute official advice to the leader (der Fuhrer) (me). We are a fascist country so whilst I will listen to all advice the final decision lies with me.

Posting policy will be as follows.

1. My posts will either contain images making them stand out from the background traffic or will start as in (2)
2. Official posts in the thread should start with a title in the following style

Standard Posting Title

(underlined, bold, centered, Dark Orange, Size 4)

This will enable readers to easily identify posting that is being treated as part of the narrative.

3. I will intermittently announce discussion threads in the main forum. In these threads input on potential strategy is solicited from everyone whether you have an official position or not.

The objective is to conquer the entire world using German forces only. There will be no allies and no puppets. This creates quite a challenge and a number of the game changes are designed to make it a little more practical (see below).

In addition to the game changes I am allowing myself the freedom to set the sliders to positions of my choice at the start. After that point they will not be changed. Also I am allowing myself free choice of minister personalities and I will be changing the minister personalities at any time during the game that I fancy doing so. I will, however, be applying the normal dissent penalty for minister changes but with a special bonus of allowing one change per year free of charge (self imposed limit). In some cases this will require save file editing.

[Kanitatlan]

Game changes

Numerous German ministers, tech teams and leaders have been changed. In all cases forum members have been given outstanding qualities to contrast them with the rest of the standard ones. Mostly existing figures have been edited causing many to be unavailable.

I will be modifying the auto-promote leader ratios and AI keep fighting level for air units if necessary. (presumed superseded by announcement of patch 1.2)

Minor changes have been made to the scenario:

• Starting stockpiles are sufficient for a couple of weeks allowing more flexibility in start up trading

One new land doctrine has been added on the blitzkrieg tech tree. A number of technologies have had their due dates moved forward to allow some significant early secret weapon development.

Brigades have been extensively adjusted. Additional soft attack for many, many speed penalties removed, added org for most. The general principal is to improve the weaker brigades and make sure that brigades are more cost effective for manpower than infantry divisions (principally achieved by adding org). A number of the German land doctrines now add org to various brigades but I can’t be bothered to do this for the AI in the other doctrine trees.

Difficulty has been extensively modified. Very hard is now the same as normal (i.e. no bonuses and penalties) EXCEPT all AI countries get +100% IC/Resource, +80% manpower, +80% dissent. As well as this all Allied countries and all Comintern countries get a further +100% IC/Resource, +80% manpower. This will result in outrageous army sizes for my enemies but at least I can get a decent army together as well. My calculations indicate this is roughly equivalent to the normal very hard differential

The Misc file has been adjusted, partisan TC load 12->10, 10% manpower from foreign territory, nationalism 15->10, reduces 0.3/month, event trait 5%->10%, early tech penalty .00125 -> .0005, leader deaths .0003 -> .0001, offensive combined arms +15%.

Collectively these changes will act somewhat in my favour.

I am extremely uncertain of the effect of all these changes on the overall play of the game and the consequences will at least be interesting.

[Kanitatlan]

Appointments

Head of State: Kanitatlan
Foreign minister: Sir Humphrey
Minister of Security: Prinz Walter
Chief of Staff: Brasidas
Chief of Navy: Kenneth the Great
Head of Government: Johan Kreuger
Armaments Minister: Mikhail O’Shea
Head of Intelligence: Prufrock451
Chief of Army: von Zwei Koetz
Chief of Air Force: Evil Santa

Inspector of mountain troops: H.M.S Wolfhound
Inspector of Airborne Forces: Eowunyth Von Wyvern
Inspect of Armoured Forces: Aldous
Inspector of u-boats: Blaues-Emu

Chief of research: Unassigned

Military Special Advisor: Hobotnica Joe

Historian: SirCliveWolfe.

Initially I am keeping quiet about the minister personalities as this remains a subject for discussion in the initial strategy thread.

Please note, anyone who posts in this thread is liable to find themselves popping up in the game, possible on the other side.

[Kanitatlan]

Sliders

Most of the initial slider settings are quite a simple choice.

The settings for Authoritarian, Political Right and Closed Society are based on our political status as National Socialists. In truth the Authoritarian setting is essential for zero dissent on DOW which will be critical to the game. The Political Right setting has no direct game impact and is therefore unimportant. The Closed Society setting is actually a disadvantage since a full open society would be highly beneficial against partisan activity. I have decided however to leave it as closed.

Democratic - Authoritarian 9

Essential for 0% dissent on DOW, gives –20% CG but +5% partisans

Left-Right 9

No effect but makes us National Socialist

Open-Closed 9

Tech Cost –20%, various dissent issues, again not good for partisans. Open would be better but implausible

The economic setting is area subject to some significant issues. Normally I would not have the option of Free Market but I am allowing arbitrary slider settings for this game and I have decided that this would be acceptable. There is an extensive discussion of the issues in the economic report (see below)

Free-market – Central Planning

Choice:
0: +40% money, +20% CG demand +25% Tech cost, -25% time and cost for upgrade, -20% time and cost for units
9: -50% money, -20% CG demand, -25% Tech cost, +25% time and cost for upgrade, +25% ICs

The remaining three sliders are extremely easy as they have a naturally desirable position at 0. Players have raised questions about the standing army slider but the benefits of full standing are substantially superior to the benefits from the drafted end. This will leave me with relatively low maximum gearing but the benefits of higher gearing are quite limited and would only apply to a few builds.

Full hawk and interventionist is a no-brainer for an aggressive nation and therefore I will provide no further explanation

Standing-drafted 0

+20% XP for new units, -10% max gearing, +10% org bonus, +5% time and cost for upgrade
9: +10% max gearing, -10% org, +50% time and cost for upgrade

Hawk – Dove: 0

-20% time and cost for production, +10 manpower

Interventionist: 0

+10% CG, DOW dissent 0

[stabsoffizier]

You just finished "Edge of Darkness..." and a new one of yours is in the starting blocks already! Marvellous, makes waiting time for a new HobotnicaJoe's AAR seem shorter

No Allies means no Puppets as well (like in your previous AAR, well only DDR), am I right? I was just wondering.
Since this will be DD, how about the Intelligence part, did you modify the spying settings as well because you'll lack the normal army/navy/airforce comparison ledger information.

Consider me *subscribed* from this thread on!
Good luck!

[Kanitatlan]

Economics

As stated in the sliders report I have a preference for Free market over Central Planning. This needs a bit of elaboration to explain the logic. With full hawk I have –20% time and cost for builds from the sliders. Free market would give another –20% time and cost. This works out as follows

Hawk, -20%, effective price 64%
+Free, -40%, effective price 36%

Because the slider adjustments are additive Free market gives a 25% reduction in cost and time relative to the Hawk position – i.e. from 80% of standard to 60% of standard. This means that adding free market gives a reduction of effective unit price to 56% of standard.

On top of this I get –25% cost and time on upgrades giving a total of –20% (there is a residual +5% from the army slider). This results in upgrade costs of 8% of new price for all units.

The alternative of Central Planning gives +25% IC. For unit build purposes this is equal to a 20% reduction in cost only but because it is not additive with Hawk (it is effectively multiplicative) it doesn’t even give the same cost element reduction that free market gives let alone the time reduction.

In terms of effective unit production increase we get

Hawk+Free = +178%
Hawk+Central = +95%

Also Central planning gives +25% time and cost for upgrades for a total cost of upgrading of 21% of new price.

So far free market is well ahead of central planning but there are two more issues.

The cost reduction element does not apply to factory builds and therefore reduces the impact of free market. However, the time reductions do still apply giving a 60% total cost for free market against an 80% total cost with +25% capability with central planning. These are actually completely equivalent except for one minor detail. The free market option builds its factories sooner and hence gets the benefit quicker and gains very slightly on the compound interest effect.

Finally central planning gives +25% TC. This is a very significant bonus and gives a +6% effective combat strength to the entire army. It also has an impact on unit speed especially in low infrastructure provinces. This is a powerful argument for central planning but for me not sufficient to swing things in its favour.

[Kanitatlan]

You just finished "Edge of Darkness..." and a new one of yours is in the starting blocks already! Marvellous, makes waiting time for a new HobotnicaJoe's AAR seem shorter

No Allies means no Puppets as well (like in your previous AAR, well only DDR), am I right? I was just wondering.
Since this will be DD, how about the Intelligence part, did you modify the spying settings as well because you'll lack the normal army/navy/airforce comparison ledger information.

Consider me *subscribed* from this thread on!
Good luck!

No allies means no puppets. The map will end up 100% German Grey. This is intended to be a major contribution to the overall difficulty of the whole thing.

I don't need to modify the intelligence part. If I use the nofog cheat then the ledger is restored to full information. I will make enough save games to be able to go back during the write up and add information from these saves. I'm not sure of the best policy for this as I should not be looking at anything that gives me extra information that can effect current play. I should be sending spies to obtain current operational intelligence.

[Aldous]

Finally!
Should you start a startegy already? I'm so eager for our führer to lead us to glorious victory!

[stabsoffizier]

ok! thanks for the answers!
I can't wait for your final belligerance score!
And the thing I am most curious about is what your first military actions will look like and whom they will be pointed at, please start as soon as you can!

[DirtyCommiePuke]

Please note, anyone who posts in this thread is liable to find themselves popping up in the game, possible on the other side.

KEKEKE

This looks amazing!

[Kanitatlan]

Ministers

Head of State: Stern Imperialist: CG –5%, unit cost –10%, dissent +20%

This choice is good for a pre-war situation with a further bonus on reduced unit costs. The –10% applies to both cost and time and leaves me with a standard build at –46% time and –46% cost. The total effect is to reduce the total cost to 29% of list price (down from 36% without him). This will do for now. The –5% CG is a very minor benefit since it is a small reduction on what is already a small CG requirement. It gains me approximately 1.87 IC per day.

Head of Government: Silent Workhorse: IC +5%, diplomacy cost +20%

This seems like a good choice, as there is little useful in this ministerial category. Nothing else gives a +5% across the board so this is will probably stay the same throughout the game. I have +5% in all production categories and +5% TC.

Foreign Minister: Biased Intellectual:

Not sure what is worth going for here. Due to the no allies decision there is limited action for the Foreign Minister although keeping countries out of the war as long as possible to stop them getting the “Allies” bonus could be a useful activity.

Armaments Minister: Administrative Genius: +10% IC

I can’t help focusing in on IC maximisation since this is always useful. There are temptations to look at alternatives with research boosts but none of the others provide an across the board benefit and my research will be well spread out. This means that a minister sacrificing IC improvement for research is only relevant if I a have a period of focused research or I have decided I have excess ICs.

Minister of Security: Man of the People +10% manpower, +10% foreign manpower

There is usually a temptation to go for the crime fighter here for –10% CG but this only nets me 3.74 IC per day AND I need to be careful about monetary income. The free market slider selection has already had a large impact here making the books balance but (from testing) my financial income is on a knife-edge. With the dramatic unit cost reductions I have already achieved, it already looks like the limiting factor will be manpower rather than IC so I am going to go for what I can get.

Once the war gets going I may be switching to the usual prince of terror, as that will give me a massive IC and TC boost. For now I am collecting some extra manpower. The expected yield is about 140 manpower which will translate into a decent garrison force if nothing else.

Head of Intelligence: Industrial Specialist: +5% IC, +5% steal blueprint, +5% sabotage industry

This is again down to my obsession with ICs. This is a 5% increase in war making capability whereas most options are about intelligence operations only. The only serious competition is the Technical Specialist with his +5% research. This is highly tempting but for now I am going to fall back on my excellent tech teams.

Chief of Staff: Mass Combat: +25% manpower, -5% time and cost infantry

This is all about manpower. Pre-war there seems little reason to go elsewhere. This is going to net me a tremendous manpower bonus and I am really going to need it. When war breaks out there are other choices but I am not sure if I will ever be willing to switch.

Alternatives: +10% speed; +20% org regain; +10% defence; +5% armour/artillery research, -5% build artillery (all types).

At the moment the only real temptation is the artillery bit. Total IC spend on infantry is likely higher than spend on artillery so the current choice is better. The research bonus is probably equivalent to less than +1% on all research and therefore I am definitely sticking with the current choice.

Chief of the Army: Armoured Spearhead: Armour/Mech/SPA/TD +5% attack, -5% cost

This is quite a useful minister for both pre-war and at war. The cost reduction is minor but is applied to high cost units. Unfortunately it is probably a small benefit compared with the cost of all unit purchases. Expected benefit equal to about .1 IC/day over the entire pre-war period due to the rather annoying fact that the bonus does not apply to light armour which currently provides my most cost effective build path. The +5% combat bonus is useful but not dramatic.

The only plausible alternatives are Guns and Butter (-15% supply) and decisive battle (+5% inf and art offensive). Defensive ministers are not really relevant.

Chief of navy: Power Projection: +5% BB, CA, CL; +10% CV; +10% cost DD, Transport

The increased costs for transports are unfortunate but the increase in the combat power of my ships is essential to try and make the most out of a relatively small but growing navy. The alternative would be to turn to submarines but they are never going to conquer the world for us so Power Projection is the winner.

Chief of the Air Force: Air Superiority: +5% combat, -5% cost on all fighter types. SB, NAV +10% build.

Army Aviation: +5% combat, -5% cost TAC and CAS. +10% cost SB

I am not sure what to choose here. It depends how scared of enemy air power I am and how much I am going to spend on the two branches of the air force. This choice requires further consideration before coming to a final decision. The Air Superiority minister’s premium on NAVs is not nice either.

[GrimReaper]

Lots of nice details; me like.

Needless to say, I'm onboard

[Tachikaze]

As the Head of Government, I would like to say thank you all for coming and please shut up and make way for the Head of State. Seriously though, nice to see that you're starting, will definitely be following this one.

[Kanitatlan]

Grand Strategy

The initial strategy is to go with the flow. I am intending to remain at peace until the Poland or war event and then enter into the war. It would be nice to take some territory prior to Poland but I am concerned about the effects of belligerence. Taking Hungary is a possibility and I would dearly love to take northern Italy but I don’t believe this is safe. With the change in head of state I no longer have good belligerence reduction in the peacetime intervals and therefore I believe Italy is definitely unsafe. The question of Hungary is as yet undecided.

Initial builds will be two rounds of factories. These will complete surprisingly quick and during 1937 significant builds will be started. I am currently considering the following build types…

(There is one general principal in the builds – building obsolete and upgraded is cheaper than building the target models. This is a consequence of my slider settings and means that in many cases waiting for the ideal model is the opposite of the most efficient policy)

CV type IV as soon as developed
CA, CL type IV for above
DD type IV for essential ant-submarine efforts only
BB type IV in small numbers
SS type IV for naval reconnaissance and harassment (convoy work)
CVL for no CV task forces (very small numbers)

TAC, CAS, INT – numbers undecided, building earliest models
I have decided to stick to interceptors and ignore fighters. The range difference might be an issue but because of the area based flying rules it makes far less difference than it should do. They are also cheaper than fighters and at least as good for air combat.

NAV – limited NAV builds to give longer range anti-ship capability

Inf-Art – with the brigade changes I am focusing on an army of 100% artillery brigades on the infantry
Arm+SPA – considering very large numbers
Mot+SPA/AC – at least 50% of armour count, trying for 100% but must start later
Paratroops – 9 divisions ?(+transports)
Marines – 12 divisions (targeted for summer 1940)
Mountain - 12 divisions

After the initial wave of armour all additional mobile divisions will be mechanised. If there is a shortage of SPA when I reach HA II then I will add some HA brigades.

Minimal use of other brigade types as we are an entirely offensive army.

The numbers of units are all extremely provisional and open to discussion.

[Alexus]

Great! Can't wait for my field debut

[Kanitatlan]

This thread is now wide open to discussion of the above. In particular I have made no real decisions on what to build except that I am aiming for an army capable of all types of manoeuvre and hence I will be covering all specialist units types. The game is waiting for 1.2 before an official start so there should be plenty of time for discussion.

Questions

1. What can I realistically do prior to the Poland event
2. Navy minister: how big a navy do you need.
3. Inspectors (various): how many mountain, para, marine divisions should I build
4. Any comments on slider selections
5. Any comments on minister selections.

[Brad1]

Does giving +80% dissent to the AI hurt or help them?
Also will all allied and comitern nations now have triple the IC and more than double the amount of manpower per day?

[Tachikaze]

EDIT: Motion withdrawn due to bad intelligence (with the author, one would presume).

[markiep]

Subscripted. Do you still need that chief of research, I'm interested!