North American Series - Game #2

British Raj should be able to defend itself. IMO it should work as a custom puppet which gives the British MP, but requires officers from the UK. Losing India should be a terrible political blow to the UK, so some penalties for them would apply. In fact, losing Australia/New Zealand/Canada or other dominions should also give the UK problems, so that the player would feel motivated to defend the whole Commonwealth. IRL if the Japanese conquered Australia, many citizens would think that the UK was losing the war and retaking lost territory would be a first priority. Another problem is that Australia is not very important for the Allied supply lines in HOI3, while IRL it was, which is yet another reason why the players usually don't care about it.

I also think that aircraft should operate less effectively when they are fighting at ranges close to their maximum range. The reason for this is that they have less flight hours then. This would create a nice effect, because fighting for air bases would be very important, esp. in North Africa or the Pacific, which would add more strategic dynamism to the game. Even if some provinces are worthless economically, they could still be useful because of the airfields and it would be as far from 1/0 gameplay as possible, as it would always be more beneficial to have air bases that are closer to the frontline.

Cybvep said:

British Raj should be able to defend itself. IMO it should work as a custom puppet which gives the British MP, but requires officers from the UK. Losing India should be a terrible political blow to the UK, so some penalties for them would apply. In fact, losing Australia/New Zealand/Canada or other dominions should also give the UK problems, so that the player would feel motivated to defend the whole Commonwealth. IRL if the Japanese conquered Australia, many citizens would think that the UK was losing the war and retaking lost territory would be a first priority. Another problem is that Australia is not very important for the Allied supply lines in HOI3, while IRL it was, which is yet another reason why the players usually don't care about it.

I also think that aircraft should operate less effectively when they are fighting at ranges close to their maximum range. The reason for this is that they have less flight hours then. This would create a nice effect, because fighting for air bases would be very important, esp. in North Africa or the Pacific, which would add more strategic dynamism to the game. Even if some provinces are worthless economically, they could still be useful because of the airfields and it would be as far from 1/0 gameplay as possible, as it would always be more beneficial to have air bases that are closer to the frontline.

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Some fair points, but this is probably better suited for a topic in the General HOI3 forum or in a proposal to a mod forum like HPP or DI.

As I was saying earlier, to try and keep in context, it might be worth considering a house rule if you're not going to mod, at least if you want to institute some kind of realism policy, but it will have the impact of strengthening powers without Colonial Empires (i.e. Germany) and weakening those with them (i.e. Britain, Italy, France), so it's something that should be considered very carefully.

I'm looking forward to the next round of updates in any case!

Yeah, maybe it was a bit OT .

I'm waiting for the next update, too!

Next game is tonight, unlike cpteasy's games, the players here have no problem posting the information immediately after the session. As of right now, you know no more then we do!

Also, cybvep, your ideas about India are pretty much implemented in August Storm, where India is a puppet with it's own army but gives a number of sizable bonuses to UK in form of strategic effects that are eliminated if India loses territory

Also, cybvep, your ideas about India are pretty much implemented in August Storm, where India is a puppet with it's own army but gives a number of sizable bonuses to UK in form of strategic effects that are eliminated if India loses territory

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Yeah, it works similarly in HPP, although the Indian AI was bad in the SF version (don't know about FTM). Sometimes it didn't even build infantry because it was too stupid to research the infantry activation tech <rotfl>.

Cybvep said:

I also think that aircraft should operate less effectively when they are fighting at ranges close to their maximum range. The reason for this is that they have less flight hours then. This would create a nice effect, because fighting for air bases would be very important, esp. in North Africa or the Pacific, which would add more strategic dynamism to the game. Even if some provinces are worthless economically, they could still be useful because of the airfields and it would be as far from 1/0 gameplay as possible, as it would always be more beneficial to have air bases that are closer to the frontline.

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Air units get a bonus if they operate within a certain range of their bases in FTM.

Is this a new feature or are you talking about the standard HOI3 Vanilla proximity to air base bonus? If it is the former, then it only applies to one province.

the biggest issue with changing effectiveness of aircraft based on proximity to an airbase is that in its current state, many players misuse, don't use, or just forget about the air force (nevermind the hapless AI) so adding another factor in would just make an AI that was even more inept at covering its airspace

The AI issues are another matter. Air and Naval AIs need a general overhaul, anyway.

Cybvep said:

The AI issues are another matter. Air and Naval AIs need a general overhaul, anyway.

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*cough* never going to happen *cough*

maybe they will pretend to fix one of them if you pay 20 more dollars though!

Just stating the facts here. The Air and Naval AIs are hopeless - they are much worse than the Land AI, which, although has many problems, at least knows what to do most of the time. In case of the other AIs it's not uncommon to see 140165 air wings doing nothing or the UK failing so badly at naval interception that it's embarrassing and can be considered to be an exploit.

I'm a realist, though, so I doubt that any of my ideas presented here will get implemented . However, the devs probably still want to do some work on HOI3, because it's one of their best-selling games, so we can expect one more expansion, I think. Of course, they could also announce HOI4, but it's probably too soon for that .

Canadian Update 1940Juneish to 1941 March 1stish

After the initial British landing in Sicily, of one armored division, Canadian and British forces quickly pounced on the rest of the Sicilian defenders. Their defeat was punctuated by a combined British Canadian attack at Messina. The Canadians landed Marine Divisions in Messina and the British attacked it from the ground west of Messina. The motorized division there eventually buckled under tremendous combined land and air attack. Shore bombardment made things easier as well, courtesy of the British Surface fleet. The capture of the straight led to the surrender of about six divisions, none though appeared to be elite frontline troops, save the motor division.

Greek Invasion
Sicily was captured as Italian eyes laid elsewhere. In a quick combined Romanian/Italian invasion the Greeks fell quickly. Regrettably the allies were unable to provide any troops to aid the Greeks. I think the invasion lasted less than a month. Greece was split between Italy occupying most of Greece and the Romanians, getting the Thracian part including Salonica.



Spainish Invasion
As the allies were finishing up the Sicilian Invasion, Germany launched an unexpected attack on Spain. The Germans initially threwback their facist Spanish friends quite easily as Spain had mostly 2 division brigades.



German Bloodletting

Britain and Canada somewhat worried by the invasion looked and examined ways to respond. As we carefully watched Germany expand into Spain, we watched for any weakpoints we could find. What we saw was that Germany might not be protecting its rearguard well in light of the invasion. Given this, the Brits conducted a brilliant amphibious invasion in western france. This was combined with a paradrop to instanly seal three German divisions in Brest.



The rest was just holding off the surprised Germans until the pocketed German's could be eliminated.



At least 30,000 new German prisoners of war. Set to work pruning British gardens immediately.



Knowing that we couldn't directly challenge Germany in Spain we decided to maintain this strategy, of trying to pick off wayward units. We got lucky again when one German armored division 2xarmor, 1xmot, 1xspart was seen racing towards Gibraltor, over 200 miles ahead of the nearest German Division.



This "Ghost Division" was immediately targeted for elimination. But did we immediately go after it, NO. we let it come to us. We used its speed against him. With each province captured he quickly became more isolated from the German Invasion force.



The "Ghost Division" eventually captured a Spanish VP and moved quickly towards Gibralter. At this point, Canadian and British forces moved in for the kill.



With an assist from AI Spain cutting his lines of supply with its light armored divisions, the "Ghost Division" was quickly urrounded. The Germans made a heroic attempt to rescue the divisions, but it was too late, the "Ghost Division" was a mere spectre of its former-self.



With the elimination of Ghost Division the British and Canadian forces got the heck out of dodge, retreating to Gibralter and fortifying there. After a short German assault, almost half-hearted(UglyGuy can fill us out more on the battle) the Allies were confused as to why the Germans invaded their Facist Friends. Was it to take Gibralter? The half-hearted assault may question this opinion. Was it to take Spain for some reason? Thoughts? All this delays the attack on the Hibernating Russian Bear who slowly rouses everyday.



Canada and Britain, alone fighting the Axis now, are realistic in what they accomplished during the fall of Spain. Eliminating four divisions is not much, probably not worth the fall of Spain, but a larger operation may have proven dangerous and threatened the long term combat effectiveness of the two powers. With the capture of 4 divisions in France/Spain, plus about 6 Italian divisions in Sicily, the Allies continue to bleed the Axis. The Allies have complete control of the seas. The skies continue to be clouded with Ally fightes. Yet the Axis are stemming the bleeding by making significant territorial gains. The Balkans are now all lost. Romania and Italy certainly grew in power with the capture of the Balkans. Spain may yet yield some advantage to the Germany that is not yet clear to the Allies.

very nice update icedbecker!

thanks, might have went a little picture crazy, but once you figure out how to do it, it goes pretty quickly

icedbecker2007 said:

After a short German assault, almost half-hearted(UglyGuy can fill us out more on the battle) the Allies were confused as to why the Germans invaded their Facist Friends. .

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The assault was determined, as the German player brought significant armor and special forces divisions to bear, but the British defenders were well equipped and well supported from the air. The Royal Navy provided shore bombardment assistance as well as protecting troop transports that housed British reinforcements. British commanders rotated in fresh forces as the land based defenders wore down, providing a continuous stream of fresh defenders to beat back the Fascist hordes. While the assault was real and in force, the defense of Gibraltar was never in any doubt. All combat factors favored the British.

Also, a quick correction, the Germans lost 3 divisions in the amphibious assault east of Brest, not just two.

As for the British update, it was another successful play period. The British are realistic in what they can accomplish, and so far have been executing their plans upon the German and Italian players with impunity. The Luftwaffe continues to be schooled daily, strat bombers rain fire upon German industrial targets at will, the Italian navy continues to be bottled up, the various small fleets that sail out attempting to escape are immediately sunk, British carriers port strike German subs and remaining naval assets unimpeded, and British naval superiority allows the British army to continue to conduct amphibious operations against German forces whenever and wherever they like. British convoy losses remain steady, but at such a low rate against such a high volume of reserve convoys that it has negligible impact.

British spies report that the German morale after the devastating port strikes against Rostock crippled its transport fleet has plummeted, and leaks out of the of the British High Command report rumors of preparations for Allied conflict with the Soviets should the vile communists not accept the tradition of British hegemony of a post conflict Europe. The King is insistent that the historical precedence of nominal British leadership over the civilized world be respected, even by the Red hordes.

Britain is playing very well so far, I can imagine the Germans tearing their hair out. Still, it's not over until the fat lady sings, and a few captured divisions won't necessarily end the war for Germany. That said, every little bit helps. I wouldn't be surprised if the RAF bombings are doing more long-term damage.

We just wanted more sunny beaches. You can stop defending Gibraltar now.

Still a ton of territory between the three powers in Europe there. I predict a very long conflict.