Damn Germany!

[Secret Master]

What I want is for Germany to have decreased delay to represent their ability to outpace their enemies, showing up in places where their enemies were retreating to. It is what the Germans excelled at. They broke through and moved on forward with their tank divisions without having a 72 hour delay because an HQ unit got in their way.

While the HQ attack delay is a problem, I really don't see how it takes that long to wipe out the French in FtM. France is so ridiculously nerfed from their historical OOB, historical IC, and historical navy that they are practically a paper tiger. I'm probably one of the worst people around here for taking out the French (I get way too excited about surrounding and destroying French Army Groups when I should be racing for VPs) and even I can just about reach historical German rate of progress in taking out Benelux and France.

If attack delay is really getting you down, then you aren't properly exploiting breakthroughs. You need to use one set of divisions for initial breakthrough attacks, and use a second set of follow up divisions to pour through. It's really simple. By the time the second set of units are tangled up in their own battles, the first group of divisions are ready to attack again.

Oh, and the breakthrough combat event reduces attack delay, so make sure you grab the doctrine that gives breakthrough events. If you don't grab both that doctrine and the attack delay doctrine as an armored-oriented Germany, you're just wrong. Germany doesn't have magical powers that make it possible for them to crush the French. You gotta get the right doctrines and organize your offensives properly.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Why are you even responding to anything I write, if you don't play FTM 3.05. Your mod has nothing to do with this conversation. And calling anything I say, bogus is only vaild if you actually play the same game I am.

It does not matter if it is DiG or FTW3.05. I can get the same results on either version. It does not take 3 months to defeat France unless you are doing something terribly wrong.

 

[SonofWinter]

The whole point of this thread is not me. Its the AI. And it can't handle fighting France without catastrophic losses that eventually kill it in the USSR. One of the reasons is the excessive delays. Me, sure, I can deal with it. I can leapfrog it. I get it. The AI doesn't. I don't have these problems but I do have to use gamey tactics to win, which I shouldn't have to.

 

[unmerged(188990)]

A hundred manpowers more or less will not save Germany anyway, so "catastrophic losses" is overstating it. Plus, you fixate too much on the historical outcome of the battle for France. France might have had a few weaknesses, but what we know today as the Blitzkrieg in the West happened pretty much by accident. German military doctrine in 1940, as well as the composition of their army was not all that different from that of opposing states. But then, Guderian started working his magic and suddenly, his armored formations had broken through the Ardennes and surrounded the allies. The German High command was as surprised as anyone - they even ordered their units to break off the advance. Good thing for them the commanders in the field didn't listen.

The Blitzkrieg was not inevitable, and should not be modeled as such.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The Blitzkrieg was not inevitable, and should not be modeled as such.

Well to be fair, the Germans did break through and advanced on all other fronts at the time when facing the allies unless they were outnumbered 3:1 on worse.

What you are missing in your analysis is the role the luftwaffe and artillery played in this.

Hours after DoW the allied HQs responsible for ordering bridges to be blown up were destroyed by precision stuka bombs and on fronts that had priority any German company could radio in air support and have that bunker or MG nest pinning them bombed out within an hour, often within 15min. That is impressive even by todays standards and something no other nation came close to practically achieving at that time.

The same for artillery where "airborne artillery" wasn't available.

The extensive use of radios is really what made the Germans unstoppable during 1939 to 1941.
Tanks, Infantry, Artillery and Aircraft cooperated like a single entity and gave each other mutual support.

This is why I claim that the Germans would have defeated France even if they didn't advance through the ardennes at all, it might just have taken an extra month or two and costed them more but their victory was pretty much inevitable. Especially if you consider how primitive UK-France cooperation was at the time.

 

[SonofWinter]

Exactly, Alex put it best, so I'll just add a litttle to it.

The Germans may have made it look effortless but it wasn't. It took years of preparations and grand strategic thinking. Guderian didn't just come up with the radios in each tank on a whim, he had to convince the high command 5 years earlier. Combined arms was again something he worked on prior to the war, as were mobile infantry units, which he thought were neccessary for his style of warfare. It wasn't about tanks, the French had better ones. Having the better technology wouldn't have helped the French, because the German victory came from the pure genius of people like Heinz Guderian and the fact that that he was allowed to let his brilliance shine. And you can't trully put a value on that, but reducing the German delay by an extra 24 hours would probably help.

 

[Curwen]

The same for artillery where "airborne artillery" wasn't available.

Yeah, a cannon dropped from an aircraft tends to hurt when it reaches ground level

I however agree that the way Germany performs vs USSR currently is rather unimpressive. HoI2 had the distinction between the doctrines, so that the Germans would've higher org early in the war. This gave them an "edge" that was not expressed in manpower and leader skills and such. I guess it has been modeled with the officer ratio in HoI3, but the effects of that doesn't seem to give Germany the advantage needed to truly challenge the Russian bear.

I guess I'll postpone playing USSR against the AI till that's in order.

 

[Secret Master]

Summary of German attack on France with pertinent points

The game already models those advantages. Radio is a flat 10% bonus right there, before we even start talking about doctrines. You get some good doctrines in the mix, and your CA bonus shoots up, you can concentrate more brigades per division (which equals more concentration of force), and you can get combat events that let you steamroll the enemy without difficulty. And Germany can research it all thanks to high leadership.

Exactly, Alex put it best, so I'll just add a litttle to it.

The Germans may have made it look effortless but it wasn't. It took years of preparations and grand strategic thinking. Guderian didn't just come up with the radios in each tank on a whim, he had to convince the high command 5 years earlier. Combined arms was again something he worked on prior to the war, as were mobile infantry units, which he thought were neccessary for his style of warfare. It wasn't about tanks, the French had better ones. Having the better technology wouldn't have helped the French, because the German victory came from the pure genius of people like Heinz Guderian and the fact that that he was allowed to let his brilliance shine. And you can't trully put a value on that, but reducing the German delay by an extra 24 hours would probably help.

I'm not even sure it would help with the problems you see Germany having. If, as you claim in an earlier post, it's an AI problem, not your personal problem, then reducing AD by 24 hours just for Germany won't help them win. The AI already gets bogged down in stiff fighting in France. Reducing attack delay won't help the AI avoid manpower loss. It might even speed up manpower loss thanks to a faster operational tempo (And really, that's all AD represents is operation tempo, as modified by battlefield conditions (blitz combat events)).

If, on the other hand, you think AD is affecting YOUR performance as Germany, then just go deeper into the proper doctrines. If 24 hours of AD makes such a big difference for your playstyle, then you gotta grab those techs ahead of schedule. It's not like Germany can't afford the leadership cost.

This does not even factor in the bonus to all combat units Germany gets from initiating the war in the first place. That initial buff from the Blitzkrieg decision is nice.

I'm actually not sure AI Germany has that big of a problem with AI France. Yeah, it's not as efficient as its historical counterparts, but Paradox has created an AI that tries to play to win within context of the rules. The historical French leadership (despite warnings from guys like de Gaulle) weren't playing to win in the context of the rules. So how can you expect the German AI to fare as well as historical Germany if France is going to play the game that well? After all, France is not tied down by its historically bad choices in doctrines, either. A human or AI can research good doctrines before the war and play catchup. Hell, France can even fire bad generals and put good ones in charge (France has them, they are just buried in the OOB.)

What you are asking for is a magical buff for Germany to overcome a perceived inadequacy in fighting the French when, in fact, it is the French who perform better than expected. You could instead just nerf France more than they already are (or even make France's AI stupid), but that would make the game way too easy in other ways and make it pointlessly difficult for those playing France. (If you've ever played France, you know it's the wimpiest major power in the game in terms of manpower, IC, and starting army right now.) While we will disagree, I think that as long as Germany beats France 90% of the time, I have no problem if half the time it takes 5 months or so to do it.

 

[SonofWinter]

I'm not even sure it would help with the problems you see Germany having. If, as you claim in an earlier post, it's an AI problem, not your personal problem, then reducing AD by 24 hours just for Germany won't help them win. The AI already gets bogged down in stiff fighting in France. Reducing attack delay won't help the AI avoid manpower loss. It might even speed up manpower loss thanks to a faster operational tempo (And really, that's all AD represents is operation tempo, as modified by battlefield conditions (blitz combat events)).

Higher delay means greater entrenchment for the defender and org replenishment. So an extra 24 hours means less casualties when the attacker doesn't get bogged down for an extra day and the defender doesn't get that +1 to their entrenchment. So, it would help the AI a lot and reduce German casualties of not having to fight an entrenched enemy over and over and over again.

As for the buff, my original proposal was to give Germany some CORES in Wartherland and Alasce Lorraraine areas but that idea got shot down, so I came up with something else. Now if you tell me that Germany will get some more CORES to make up for the astounding losses being taken currently, then it should balance things out a bit. But all I've seen are noe, noe, noes to that proposal.

 

[Xerjin]

Higher delay means greater entrenchment for the defender and org replenishment. So an extra 24 hours means less casualties when the attacker doesn't get bogged down for an extra day and the defender doesn't get that +1 to their entrenchment. So, it would help the AI a lot and reduce German casualties of not having to fight an entrenched enemy over and over and over again.

As for the buff, my original proposal was to give Germany some CORES in Wartherland and Alasce Lorraraine areas but that idea got shot down, so I came up with something else. Now if you tell me that Germany will get some more CORES to make up for the astounding losses being taken currently, then it should balance things out a bit. But all I've seen are noe, noe, noes to that proposal.

I have read all of this thread, and dude I have got to say I see you point about cores in terms of buff, but really it's not going to happen in the real game. make a DLC for it if you relly want it. Another thing I would say is why the hell are you letting AI control your Great Grand German steam roller? That would be like Hitler letting Goebbels take control of the toy soldiers for an afternoon! Are you mad, do it yourself, because what we are doing here IS PLAYING WITH TOY SOLDIERS. I can't understand why you would take away the enjoyment, of personnally crushing France in 2 weeks on very hard, from yourself??

If you do want reduced attack delay, research the doctorin, its there for a reason you know. If you start in 1936 you can can get this down by a massive 36 hours before 1940. Really all of this still has not alot to do with barbarossa two years later or three if you roll the French over early like most of us.

Whatever you do or however you play I honestly don't think there is an issue here (and I am a German player 100% of the time and love to mess around with the buff) German even on very hard setting should have no issues until 1941 ish. Basically the game is weighted in thier favour alot already.

 

[SonofWinter]

I have read all of this thread, and dude I have got to say....

You haven't read all of this thread, you'd know what this was about and you obviously haven't grasped it, so I'll do a recap for you.

This thread was started by someone asking why German AI was so weak that they would never get to go toe to toe with Germany as the US because the USSR is always able to beat Germany, even without US intervention. Everything else, has just been an exploration of the inherent weaknesses placed on Germany and why Germany stalls so early into the game and why it is unable to continue to make any real headway. That is the issue the OP was having and that is what I've been discussing, nothing to do with ME or MY games.

You assume a lot about me. But you've heard what happens when you "assume" right? Now take your assumptions about how I play and stow them. Since you don't know the first thing about me and I have no interest in sharing. Now, get back to p. 1 of this thread and figure out what this thread is really about and then you can come back and have an opinion that I won't simply dismiss out of hand.

 

[Xerjin]

You haven't read all of this thread, you'd know what this was about and you obviously haven't grasped it, so I'll do a recap for you.

This thread was started by someone asking why German AI was so weak that they would never get to go toe to toe with Germany as the US because the USSR is always able to beat Germany, even without US intervention. Everything else, has just been an exploration of the inherent weaknesses placed on Germany and why Germany stalls so early into the game and why it is unable to continue to make any real headway. That is the issue the OP was having and that is what I've been discussing, nothing to do with ME or MY games.

You assume a lot about me. But you've heard what happens when you "assume" right? Now take your assumptions about how I play and stow them. Since you don't know the first thing about me and I have no interest in sharing. Now, get back to p. 1 of this thread and figure out what this thread is really about and then you can come back and have an opinion that I won't simply dismiss out of hand.

Wow sorry if I upset you. But I have read the thread, and just because everyone is off topic by post 6-7 is not my fault.

If you felt I was directing at you personnally then I am very sorry, it was ment to more of a general statement that the AI will never be as good as you because it cant think, like you! So this does cover post number 1, because we are talking about AI.

 

[SonofWinter]

I have read all of this thread, and dude I have got to say I see you point about cores in terms of buff, but really it's not going to happen in the real game. make a DLC for it if you relly want it. Another thing I would say is why the hell are you letting AI control your Great Grand German steam roller? That would be like Hitler letting Goebbels take control of the toy soldiers for an afternoon! Are you mad, do it yourself, because what we are doing here IS PLAYING WITH TOY SOLDIERS. I can't understand why you would take away the enjoyment, of personnally crushing France in 2 weeks on very hard, from yourself??

If you do want reduced attack delay, research the doctorin, its there for a reason you know. If you start in 1936 you can can get this down by a massive 36 hours before 1940. Really all of this still has not alot to do with barbarossa two years later or three if you roll the French over early like most of us.

Whatever you do or however you play I honestly don't think there is an issue here (and I am a German player 100% of the time and love to mess around with the buff) German even on very hard setting should have no issues until 1941 ish. Basically the game is weighted in thier favour alot already.

I have no idea why I took it personally. I apologize for not reading your post carefully enough.


Now back to the topic at hand. Yes, I realize most of us know how to exploit the game until winning as Germany is not a challenge. Unfortunatelly our explotation of knowledge of WWII means we will always beat the AI. Unfortunately this means that Germany has been NERFED to hell by PI because of our need for a greater and greater challenge, since most of us are Germany players. This has the unfortunate effect of making all other countries way OP in comparison to what Germany should be capable off. This is just my opinion but I have to say I think its a fairly reasonable one.

Historically, without US involvement, Germany would have rolled the UK and the USSR. It was only the heavy involvement of the US that made their survival possible. Currently, you can play a game as the US and watch the UK and the USSR eat Germany for lunch.

 

[Xerjin]

Historically, without US involvement, Germany would have rolled the UK and the USSR..

Do I go down this rabbit warren?

 

[SonofWinter]

Do I go down this rabbit warren?

By all means. Tell us how the USSR counter offensive against Germany would have worked, without the US shipping countless amounts of "sweet crude" to make the Russian tanks go and Russian planes fly? Feel free to tell me how the RAF pre-1942 would not have crumbled without the massive US volunteers showing up on the shores of the UK to take over the exhausted British airmen, who were on the point of breaking? Feel free to tell me why Churchill was on the verge of surrendering and making peace with Germany if the US would not involve itself?

The allied production was 75% US production. England's cities were in ruins and its colonies were on the verge of possibly declaring independence in the UK's hour of weakness. It wasn't roses for Germany's enemies and without the US propping the Allied powers up, until the US population could be brought around to join the fight, it was all down hill for the UK and the USSR.

Without the US embargoing Japan, what exactly were the chances of the USSR being able to make a deal with Japan, not to attack them? How would the USSR have held of Germany with the Japanese kicking down their back door?

 

[Xerjin]

Simple answer for the UK you already spent two years hiding under the covers while we broke the back of them. Why not just let us grind it out while you stay out on your own! lol

Before you take it personally the word you can be used to mean more than you. Also I am joking around here a little; of course US was vital, but dont think for a min the impossible to the US was impossible to the UK. After all they said we were doomed before Dunkirk yet we got 200,000 men home, then we beat the Luftwaffa when they outnumbered us 3-1 and then we beat the Germans out of Egypt all before 1941.

But hey your right.

 

[SonofWinter]

Simple answer for the UK you already spent two years hiding under the covers while we broke the back of them. Why not just let us grind it out while you stay out on your own! lol.

We didn't hide. We were furious with the UK and France. How many people starved to death in Germany during the continued blockade of Germany in 1919 by the RN? How many Germans watched their childred go hungry until 1932 because the UK and France forced the Germans to sign the humiliating, Treaty of Versilles? After WE guaranteed that no reparations or territorial changes would occurr if they surrendered unconditionally?

The UK and France and their damned treaty got Hitler elected.

The UK and France were responsible for the fact that the Germans were desperate enough to put a madman in charge.

German fathers and mothers watching their children starve to death between 1918-1932 was the reason Hitler got into power. And the UK and France made it happen with their GREED and need for VENGEANCE.

In 1918 we knew WWII was coming. Literally, our politicians said that the Treaty of Versilles was setting up WWII. We weren't hiding from 1939 to 1942. We were leting the UK and France reap what they sowed.

and then we beat the German out of North Africa all before 1941.

Must have been nice doing it on our blank check.

 

[Xerjin]

Ok dude there has to be a point where we must discuss this further somewhere else before we single handly get this thread trashed.

 

[unmerged(188990)]

Ok dude there has to be a point where we must discuss this further somewhere else before we single handly get this thread trashed.

It's always sad when what first looked like a rational discussion to really be about US jingoism and German-appologism.

 

[SonofWinter]

This is not about German apologism. People should understand that a huge section of the US population in the 1930s was of German descent, so conditions for war entry in WWII were already not ideal. Add to this the fact our Congress refused to acknowledge our entry into the League of Nations because of the Treaty of Versilles in 1918 or 1919 and you’ll understand why the US was staunchly isolationist, until it got dragged kicking and screaming towards the allies by FDR.

The American mindset during this era, was that our boys during WWI bled so that the European powers could play their little games and we got CONed. And the American public refused to have any future involvement in European affairs. Don’t kid yourselves that the American public was interested in bankrolling Europe’s little Civil Wars.

We literally knew where you were going in 1918 and we weren’t having any of it. This me the historian who reads news papers from the era telling you what I’ve read.