Thank you very much to everyone who's been taking the time to suggest and discuss stuff! If I don't answer you below, feel free to bring up the topic again, either by post or PM.
It's clear that Epsilon is developing a community. It is equally clear that the Project is going to need a lot more work to be great as it ought to be. I cannot do all this work myself (well, I could, but you'd literally be waiting
years). Therefore, I've worked up a way for interested people to help out where they want to, as much as they want to. See post #2 in this thread.
The German-Soviet War
- This is definitely the biggest game-balance flaw in the mod as it stands. Am seriously considering either 1) getting rid of the special SOV GDE penalty, or 2) nerfing Germany a bit more in the production department (I've already made some changes here). The SOVs are supposed to
Win!
Adding in more of the nation-improvement mods
- Definitely on my to-do list. The CCIP is already in (mostly), the HIP is about half-way in (events being the big exception).
Better surrender events
- A lot of SMEP will definitely be in for the next release, thanks to the kind permission of the lead modder.
Spying comments
- Try reducing the counter-espionage cost to 250 and play a full game with that. I really do want you to be dealing with AI spies - sometimes successful ones! - throughout the course of the game, but also don't want to see you get eaten alive by nasty spy missions. Counter-espionage should be a tool used, not to ensure safety, but as a panic measure to stop things getting out of hand. Hopefully this clarifies some stuff.
- Go ahead and stick with the current values for other spy missions. I really do need more detailed balance reports for long games before I can tweak either cost or effectiveness confidently.
Spanish Civil War end date
- I want the SCW to usually (unless one side gets lucky) end anywhere in the 1938 - 1940 time period (I think it historically ended in 3-39 or something like that). I'll start to worry if enough people report that it hasn't ended by summmer of '40. I should probably insert a "collapse of the Republic" event in early 1939.
- Will fix the problem with R. Spain's land doctrines.
Japanese-Chinese war
- You can expect to see highly variable results here. Against a Chinese AI, the Japanese AI experiments with three different settings, randomly chosen. Each is a different balance of pumping out infantry to kill China and building up industry to better prepare for the Pacific War (and to raise TC, which Japan will always have a problem with).
British and Italian AI
- I will have to fix the "move all garrison troops to Stornoway" (I know exactly why they're doing it) and the "ignore N. Africa" (not sure why) problems.
- Italy should definitely be overrunning the entire Middle East if the Brits don't get serious about the defence. I have no intention whatsoever of trying to replicate O'Connor's raid; the penalties that Italy currently suffers are sufficient.
Unit Icons
- Enzo, do I hear you correctly that you prefer the
Doomsday unit icons, the one that come with the basic game? If so, I believe that's a first in my experience: I've never heard of anyone preferring them before.
- I prefer CPack and Hannibal's icons to those in SKIF, at least for Epsilon purposes, due to their greater similarity to the rest of the game interface. Consistancy is important - it's why people talk about Epsilon's clean appearance. However (to repeat myself), I will be very happy to provide links to user-made graphical add-ons, because I don't claim to be any great judge of artwork!
National stockpile limitations
- I prefer to be a little too generous here than a little too harsh. Some players have a low tolerance for this sort of realism and I value their enjoyment too much to get overly stringent with the rules. The Epsilon Project is just as much about user-friendliness as realism.
Italy's mot divs
- Italy should get the 1936 semi-mot tech (error in v010).
Providing files in forms other than .exe (for non-Windows users)
- Give me a little time on this. The core game files will be up in .rar format soon. The tech files, because of their sheer size, are going to be a problem.
Tech pictures installation
- Ooops. Forgot to write this up. See post #1 in a few minutes.
Japan and their naval techs
- Japan should not have both convoy defense and hunter-killer. They should only have hunter-killer.
Unit names
- One of the weaker areas in Epsilon are the unit names. In other to free up time for event-writing and AI work, I put in the minimum amount of effort on unit names. This shows.
"my SAG's, do I use the CVL's or the CVE's for them?"
- Not sure I understand the question. If you are asking about the best ships to put in Surface Action Groups, feel free to experiement. No one really knows yet!
- If you are asking about what CAG to put on various carriers, put the weak CAG on the Light Carriers and the strong CAG on the fleet carriers.
Extra supply cost for entrance into marine, mountain tech
- I'll review this. The text that says "supply consumption 5.e -002" means that supply consumption increases by 0.05. Use of confusing scientific notation here is a textual bug in the base game.
Aggressive AI useage of spy missions
- Not an abberation. The AI nations aren't so strapped for cash in Epsilon, human counter espionage isn't a guaranteed immunity anymore, and I've started to rework Lothos's already solid espionage AI (haven't gotten around to stopping the USA from beating up on SOV after a certain date).
AI not escorting its transports correctly
- Yukala (or anyone else), have you suggestions on how to get AI nations to better protect their transports? This is one of the most serious flaws in the base game, a flaw which Epsilon hasn't fixed.