Bugs, observations and feedback
Hi Devildread
Managed to play 1:03 all the way to November 1939 now, so I thought I'd give you some more feedback on how the game is doing.
I am having
a problem with Romania, but I am not sure that is DI:G's fault
BUGS in DI:G
When I finally get to order my first Super Heavy Battleship, the unit name in the production screen is simply "SH BB 1"
Subs on convoy raids loose ALL their org in about 6-7 weeks of raiding? But even though they are on Passive mode they do not retreat to port to get their org back? Is this WAD?
When the German-Soviet Trade Agreement event fires in August 1939 there is a reference to a strategic effect, which does not show up in the list of strategic effects. So you agree without knowing what the effects are. Only afterwards do you get a pop-up saying that the effects are -5% money, -5% supplies and +5% resources. It would be nice to know that before making the choice
Observations and feedback:
Subs convoy raiding seem very effective still. In the first month of war my 4 MR SS and 2 LR SS sunk 83 British and French convoys and 3 escorts! I was just about to pull them back to port to avoid destroying the UK's abilities in North Africa and Asia when the War of the Atlantic event fired. That made me keep them on the high seas and I can see in the Diplomacy/trade screen that the UK is running with a (small) deficit of everything but rare materials
Pocket Battleships have been a huge disappointment as surface raiders I am sorry to say. I have stationed 1 in the Carribean, 1 off the coast of West Africa and 2 in the Gulf of Aden thinking that they would choke off convoys from India and the Far East. So far the PBB off the coast of Trinidad has sunk 1 convoy in 8 weeks, the one off West Africa has sunk 3 (French) convoys and the 2 PBB's in the Gulf of Aden have encountered NOT A SINGLE convoy despite sitting in a bottleneck where 2/3 of the British convoys should be passing through?
I am not sure whether PBB's need to have their convoy raiding or spotting adjusted but so far I don't think they are working properly. At least they are no fun alternative to subs as I had hoped.
If you go ahistorical and get Nationalist China into the Axis, the Soviet Union
still gets the event for Operation Zen and support the fascist anti-comintern Chinese. I understand if you don't want to produce a completely new set of ahistorical Sino-Soviet events but this particular one seems rather unlikely?
On a possitive note, giving the Nationalist Chinese "strong support" has made them able to push Japan back into Manchuria and beyond by the summer of 1939
(but only after Japan annexed Communist China).
The game mechanics concerning the Strategic Effects "Norway Sweden Metal" and "Oil from Ploesti" are, IMHO, not working as intended. Romania cancels trades so frequently (including trades for metal, energy and supplies) that it is practically impossible to maintain 100 relations. I don't mind tough, but there is no reason to have it as an option if it is impossible.
The Norway-Sweden Metal is broken in the same way: Norway won't buy or sell anything to get relations above 45. But what's worse: As Germany you don't NEED this strategic effect. In my game I had good relations with China and NO metal imports, not even from trade with Sweden or USSR. Yet this way alone and after annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia as per usual, I have 99.999 metal by the summer of 1939. I am drowning in metal and I don't think I will ever get so much industry that metal from Sweden/Norway will ever be "vital" to the German war economy. I have posted a suggestion for this below.
I'D REALLY LIKE:
PBB's that do better at convoy raiding
For Nationalist China to be able to break their non-aggression pact with USSR when they sign the Anti-Comintern Pact and/or join the Axis powers.
In order to make the Strategic Effect Norway-Sweden Metal important to the German war economy again, there needs to be a
much greater shortage of metal. I would suggest:
- Changing the bonus from Sino-German Agreement to affect Rare Materials only (or Rare Materials and Crude)
- Reducing German home production of Metal
- Increasing the amount of metal it takes to produce one IC (if at all possible)
- Perhaps introduce some metal stockpile-reducing events in the game
As always, thanks for a great game and keep up the good work!
Jesper