Feedback on DI:G 1.03
Dang. My 3 weeks of holiday starts on Saturday and I was looking forward to settling in with FtM DI:G
Suggested map corrections for future patch to DI:G for Semper Fi:
- Even though they are seperated by a large river, Caen and Le Havre have a road connection - not a river crossing?
- Foggia in Italy needs a large airfield. Historically, it was from Foggia that the bombers took off to smash Monte Cassino.
- Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains (near the border of present day Georgia) is mapped as a hills province. IMHO it should be mountains as it is the location of the highest mountain on the entire European continent - Mt. Elbrus of 5642 meters (which I summited in 2004)
HULL SIZE changes in FtM - effects in DI:G?
Paradox has changed the hull size in FtM significantly to make it harder to sink ships (or so I heard). Also, destroyers now have the same hull size as light cruisers, where in SF it was half that of CL's. This makes it a lot harder to A) Put together a fleet with plenty of screens to cover the capitals and B) Put together a surface fleet without a positioning penalty for hull size above 12.
Personally, I don't mind battleships being harder to sink, but is there a way to raise the limit of hull size 12 before positioning penalty occurs? Also, I'd suggest lowering the hull size of destroyers from 1.00 to 0.75 (halfway between FtM and SF) to make it slightly easier to have plenty of screens for a battlefleet.
Can we PLEASE get rid of Iraqi forces?
I love fairly historical games. And I just get so annoyed fighting the Iraqi air force over France and the Iraqi army in Libya. I would much prefer if Iraq behaved like Oman and Yemen and Bhutan: allies on paper but with no real effect. Can we please have the next DI:G patch lower the Iraqi manpower to zero or some other way to ensure that they don't send troops all over the world? If not, then I am going to have to mod a saved game myself
The entire Royal Navy stays together?
Not sure whether this is caused by Semper Fi or DI:G, but twice I have seen Royal Navy superstacks of 35-40 ships pass by including enough carriers to support 8-9 CAGs. I am not sure what causes it, but ever since Fall Gelb they seem to move about more or less all in one group. I have a couple of screen shots I can post of it. Once I saw them in the Bay of Biscay, the other time off the coast of French West Africa??
MAGINOT LINE EVENT BUG?
I was surprised that letting the Maginot Line fall into disrepair actually nets Germany 10,000 metal, 2,500 supplies and a bunch of rares (the opposite of what it costs to repair them). Is this WAD? If it is, I think it is a huge amount of scrap metal
Value of French VP provinces?
I am not sure whether this is caused by the latest Semper Fi patches or the DI:G, but I was surprised to learn that the VP value of Paris has been lowered from 25 to 18. In the 'good old days', all you had to do was capture Paris and the French would fold. Now, in my latest game, France has more than 110 VP's - 25+ of them overseas. That meant that I practically had to conquer ALL of mainland France (with help from Italy) before my occupation % was higher than France's national unity of 63%. I don't particularly mind that they kept on fighting because I got a lot of experience for my troops, but the lenght of the campaign (see below) meant that there was no time for Seelöwe in the autumn of 1940...
Italian AI needs some help
In my game, Italy did well against France, but not so well after the fall of France. They are unable to mount a defence in Libya - despite having plenty of forces to do so. And what is even worse: The war on Greece event fired on October 28th 1940, but the Italian AI seemed to be unable to prepare for the war?? Albania was defended by only 3 divisions that were overrun, and even thought Italy got a military access via Yugoslavia, 1½ months later they STILL haven't sent any troops against Greece??
If it is possible, I would suggest some help to the Italian AI, so that it actually KNOWS that it is going to DoW Greece and will prepare accordingly
Missing historical events?
Not sure whether this is caused by DI:G og Semper Fi, but in my game the Vienna Dictate part II (Romania bit to Hungary) did not fire at all. Is it because Romania was in the Axis since January 1940?
Also, no events concerning Yugoslavia and the Axis have happened at all. Shouldn't they join in the autumn of 1940?
Churchill's coming to power did happen, but not until November 20th 1940 - six months after the fall of Norway. Perhaps the triggers for that event needs to be adjusted a little?
THE FOLLOWING IS JUST FEEDBACK ON A REGULAR SF DI:G 1.03 GAME:
Fall Gelb lasted from June 8th until September 19th. I made two mistakes: First of all I tried the Manstein strategy for the first time, only to discover that a spearhead from Luxembourg to Calais is vulnerable on both the north side and the south side. Far too many Allied troops and HQs retreated southwards, only to rest and come back north and attack my flanks. So the majority of my spearhead spent a lot of the campaign guarding captured territory instead of advancing - until the Belgium pocket with French, Belgian and BEF troops was succesfully crushed. Second, I had allocated far too few troops for the campaign. I should have had at least an extra 15 divisions of infantry to advance on the heel of the spearhead.
As I stated in a previous post: If DI:G for FtM adopt the "HQ width = 0" system, it will be far less of a problem in the future. A lot of the problems with blitzing in France and Belgium was because of the huge amounts of HQ's wandering around that the AI used to block or slow advances everywhere.
The BEF was enormous! I counted some 20+ British and Canadian divisions, including at least 4 armoured divisions (there probably were 5 or 6). But just as I began contemplating a Seelöwe, my radar in Wilhelmshafen showed me that the Home Guard in England had mobilised. In Dover alone I could see some 18 militia divisions - and a few armoured units
I called my Italian allies into the war around August and the fall of Paris. To my surprise, the Italians had managed to build no less than 26 light armoured brigades, organised into 13 light panzer divisions, which they promptly used to steamroll France in the south. Unfortunately for them, they lost most of their gains when Vichy fired
In Africa, Italy almost took Tunisia and Egypt with a handful of units, while they, as usual, quickly lost East Africa. For a while, Egypt was defended by just 1 British militia division and the road to Suez looked open. Then, in early September, the British got an Afrika Korps event and I was pleased to see British armour and motorised divisions push the Italians back again, while I rushed to get Rommel's force ready for deployment.
After the fall of France, Italy DoW's Greece and is evicted from Albania in less than a week. After that they just drive around their (large) forces, unable to attack via Yugoslavia (even though they have access), and finally they start sending forces for Libya - thus ruining my coming campaign with Rommel because now there are 8-10 Italian armoured divisions using up all the fuel there
The British attacked until halfway between Cyrenaica and Tripoli - and then just stopped. Leaving the line manned by Iraqi infantry I sure hope this does not mean that the British AI has lost interest in fighting me in North Africa?
I'd love to be able to do it earlier, but I simply don't have the time, with moving and all. I hope you all understand, and won't hate me for it.
Dang. My 3 weeks of holiday starts on Saturday and I was looking forward to settling in with FtM DI:G
Suggested map corrections for future patch to DI:G for Semper Fi:
- Even though they are seperated by a large river, Caen and Le Havre have a road connection - not a river crossing?
- Foggia in Italy needs a large airfield. Historically, it was from Foggia that the bombers took off to smash Monte Cassino.
- Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains (near the border of present day Georgia) is mapped as a hills province. IMHO it should be mountains as it is the location of the highest mountain on the entire European continent - Mt. Elbrus of 5642 meters (which I summited in 2004
)HULL SIZE changes in FtM - effects in DI:G?
Paradox has changed the hull size in FtM significantly to make it harder to sink ships (or so I heard). Also, destroyers now have the same hull size as light cruisers, where in SF it was half that of CL's. This makes it a lot harder to A) Put together a fleet with plenty of screens to cover the capitals and B) Put together a surface fleet without a positioning penalty for hull size above 12.
Personally, I don't mind battleships being harder to sink, but is there a way to raise the limit of hull size 12 before positioning penalty occurs? Also, I'd suggest lowering the hull size of destroyers from 1.00 to 0.75 (halfway between FtM and SF) to make it slightly easier to have plenty of screens for a battlefleet.
Can we PLEASE get rid of Iraqi forces?
I love fairly historical games. And I just get so annoyed fighting the Iraqi air force over France and the Iraqi army in Libya. I would much prefer if Iraq behaved like Oman and Yemen and Bhutan: allies on paper but with no real effect. Can we please have the next DI:G patch lower the Iraqi manpower to zero or some other way to ensure that they don't send troops all over the world? If not, then I am going to have to mod a saved game myself
The entire Royal Navy stays together?
Not sure whether this is caused by Semper Fi or DI:G, but twice I have seen Royal Navy superstacks of 35-40 ships pass by including enough carriers to support 8-9 CAGs. I am not sure what causes it, but ever since Fall Gelb they seem to move about more or less all in one group. I have a couple of screen shots I can post of it. Once I saw them in the Bay of Biscay, the other time off the coast of French West Africa??
MAGINOT LINE EVENT BUG?
I was surprised that letting the Maginot Line fall into disrepair actually nets Germany 10,000 metal, 2,500 supplies and a bunch of rares (the opposite of what it costs to repair them). Is this WAD? If it is, I think it is a huge amount of scrap metal
Value of French VP provinces?
I am not sure whether this is caused by the latest Semper Fi patches or the DI:G, but I was surprised to learn that the VP value of Paris has been lowered from 25 to 18. In the 'good old days', all you had to do was capture Paris and the French would fold. Now, in my latest game, France has more than 110 VP's - 25+ of them overseas. That meant that I practically had to conquer ALL of mainland France (with help from Italy) before my occupation % was higher than France's national unity of 63%. I don't particularly mind that they kept on fighting because I got a lot of experience for my troops, but the lenght of the campaign (see below) meant that there was no time for Seelöwe in the autumn of 1940...
Italian AI needs some help
In my game, Italy did well against France, but not so well after the fall of France. They are unable to mount a defence in Libya - despite having plenty of forces to do so. And what is even worse: The war on Greece event fired on October 28th 1940, but the Italian AI seemed to be unable to prepare for the war?? Albania was defended by only 3 divisions that were overrun, and even thought Italy got a military access via Yugoslavia, 1½ months later they STILL haven't sent any troops against Greece??
If it is possible, I would suggest some help to the Italian AI, so that it actually KNOWS that it is going to DoW Greece and will prepare accordingly
Missing historical events?
Not sure whether this is caused by DI:G og Semper Fi, but in my game the Vienna Dictate part II (Romania bit to Hungary) did not fire at all. Is it because Romania was in the Axis since January 1940?
Also, no events concerning Yugoslavia and the Axis have happened at all. Shouldn't they join in the autumn of 1940?
Churchill's coming to power did happen, but not until November 20th 1940 - six months after the fall of Norway. Perhaps the triggers for that event needs to be adjusted a little?
THE FOLLOWING IS JUST FEEDBACK ON A REGULAR SF DI:G 1.03 GAME:
Fall Gelb lasted from June 8th until September 19th. I made two mistakes: First of all I tried the Manstein strategy for the first time, only to discover that a spearhead from Luxembourg to Calais is vulnerable on both the north side and the south side. Far too many Allied troops and HQs retreated southwards, only to rest and come back north and attack my flanks. So the majority of my spearhead spent a lot of the campaign guarding captured territory instead of advancing - until the Belgium pocket with French, Belgian and BEF troops was succesfully crushed. Second, I had allocated far too few troops for the campaign. I should have had at least an extra 15 divisions of infantry to advance on the heel of the spearhead.
As I stated in a previous post: If DI:G for FtM adopt the "HQ width = 0" system, it will be far less of a problem in the future. A lot of the problems with blitzing in France and Belgium was because of the huge amounts of HQ's wandering around that the AI used to block or slow advances everywhere.
The BEF was enormous! I counted some 20+ British and Canadian divisions, including at least 4 armoured divisions (there probably were 5 or 6). But just as I began contemplating a Seelöwe, my radar in Wilhelmshafen showed me that the Home Guard in England had mobilised. In Dover alone I could see some 18 militia divisions - and a few armoured units
I called my Italian allies into the war around August and the fall of Paris. To my surprise, the Italians had managed to build no less than 26 light armoured brigades, organised into 13 light panzer divisions, which they promptly used to steamroll France in the south. Unfortunately for them, they lost most of their gains when Vichy fired
In Africa, Italy almost took Tunisia and Egypt with a handful of units, while they, as usual, quickly lost East Africa. For a while, Egypt was defended by just 1 British militia division and the road to Suez looked open. Then, in early September, the British got an Afrika Korps event and I was pleased to see British armour and motorised divisions push the Italians back again, while I rushed to get Rommel's force ready for deployment.
After the fall of France, Italy DoW's Greece and is evicted from Albania in less than a week. After that they just drive around their (large) forces, unable to attack via Yugoslavia (even though they have access), and finally they start sending forces for Libya - thus ruining my coming campaign with Rommel because now there are 8-10 Italian armoured divisions using up all the fuel there
The British attacked until halfway between Cyrenaica and Tripoli - and then just stopped. Leaving the line manned by Iraqi infantry
I sure hope this does not mean that the British AI has lost interest in fighting me in North Africa?
