Bolted HoI - In the Works Thread

[unmerged(577)]

Originally posted by Bolt
Yes I have thought about working on a 1939 scenario . . . and I might yet do that.

I have been hoping for weeks that you would tackle the 39 scenario.....It will be so much easier, for obvious reasons, to stay truer to history with that scenario and with your attention to detail and determination, I am sure you would make that scenario "Rock" as well!

 

[unmerged(11117)]

Bolt,

latest version is great. I noticed the following :-

1. much harder all round, it is no longer a blind walkover, there was a real battle for France;

2. countries build up large forces;

3. England launched a few invasions of France, one was with 6 Armoured Divisions, another with 14 !!! mixed divisions. They were less active than others, but at least there were not just sitting on the sidelines, doing nothing and being useless (that' a s cue for the Cricket team too)

4. Eventually Italy got chucked out of Etheopia, I had to send an Africa Korps to secure the Italian positions in Egypt

5. repeated invasions of France by Free French and Commonwealth, also later by US once I DOWed them

6. Fight with Soviets became difficult once I ran out of Manpower, basically I didn't go for encirclements (until later) and went for straight large set battles, the losses were staggering and in the end even required a full strategic re-positioning until some divisions could be powered up again

7. Japan needed tech assistance to finally get China, and it took them until 1941, they then went after the Allies but did not invade any islands, as a result they took India but the US took all the Islands and ended up on Tokyo's doorstep

8. Russia overran my Finnish Allies, and I barely managed to hold on to some bits in Southwest Finland


Is there anything you can do about Slovakia ? Their 0 org means that there is just no point in installing Tiso.

The game really has changed from the very first version, which was a bitter disappointment.

Also : one thing I forgot : I noticed Allied Fleets having zero org after a few years and thus large fleets always got defeated by a small UBoot squad. Wasn't Patch 1.02 supposed to fix this ?

 

[Pocus]

a detail:
Would it not be a good thing to have events which suppress the Maginot line after the fall of France? I know that triggers can handle fortress reduction.

in my bolt 1.02a I never had the partition of Poland (I took it before august 39). I suppose you fixed this in 1.02b (as I saw discussion about the problem).

Would you be interested to have a province editor? I can make one if it can help.

As for the naval units, the thread about rising the org level seems to be very fruitful in promises. Do you plan to incorporate that? Or perhaps you wont make any updates before 1.03 ?

 

[Marquoz]

I'm really enjoying this version too. My only suggested change would be to bump the naval combat lethality upwards by incorporating those changes as well. Sinking ships = good . I've added those files to 1.02b, and it makes quite a difference.

 

[Szun]

hmm I just played bolted '36 1.02b as germany and I ran into a problem...

here some data:
date: march '39
I conquered austria rather then wait for the event (thought i should try that for a change)
I conquered hungary as well.
I was just moveing into poland and belgium, then a unexplained ctd happen while clicking on something ( happens now and then, no clue why but normaly no big problem)
Then the real issue happend.
I restarted my monthly autosave and boom..ctd at the point: reloading scenario
I retried and it happend again...
I loaded *oldautosave* and as well ctd
I am totaly clueless why I have this problem now, I never encountered a savegame bug befor.

anyone has a idea?

oddly enough I havent got past august 39 since I installed 1.02b
I allways have something happening I dont like (eg italy joins axis uninvited.. )
and now this...
I am kinda frustrated now...spent 8 hours to that point, plotting planing carefully, what do I research when, what time should be unit A be ready to have unit B build intime for my invason..jadajada jada
I allready had 100 infatry divisons, 15 tank divisons, 26 fighter (109b/E) and Mec-divisons just starting to get finished for the invasion into france, also some 6 tac bomber (basic) and 6 Nav-bomber(basic) were soon rdy for deployment.(and just finsihed Tiger reserach and added 15 to build.)

*Szun kicks the computer*

 

[unmerged(11731)]

Hi Bolt,

Here's my story - concentrated forces near Belgium and improved techs - as usual took anschluss, czech, and Poland caved into Danzig after some DI prodding. Stormed into France in 38, took out mainland UK in 39, and forced bitter peace in 1940. I activated my allies Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and their troops helped a lot in the southern flank. I focused in getting to Baku to get that oil and USSR was helpless (historically, Germany would have triumphed with a southern strategy instead of splitting his forces)

I noticed Japan hardly had any events.

The events I haven't played hands off yet. But please put those fortifications in UK to discourage early amphib by Germany. Once UK main is gone -Germany wins- no ifs and buts.

Good job.

 

[Ibn]

MuaDib, the Naval AI is idiotic and narcoleptic. Only on extremly rare occasions will it sail ships into port to regain Org, usually sailing them right back out before their org has increased much at all. Paradox has to fix this we can't do anything about it, IMHO all they accomplished in 1.02 in regards to naval warfare was break it even more.

You can go check out the thread on fixing Naval Combat for more details;
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63512

I uploaded my modified Units file in that thread. It works fine with Bolted 1.02b
and will make sure ships sink. If you come up with something better, please let us know.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by aesop
Hi Bolt,

Here's my story - concentrated forces near Belgium and improved techs - as usual took anschluss, czech, and Poland caved into Danzig after some DI prodding. Stormed into France in 38, took out mainland UK in 39, and forced bitter peace in 1940. I activated my allies Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and their troops helped a lot in the southern flank. I focused in getting to Baku to get that oil and USSR was helpless (historically, Germany would have triumphed with a southern strategy instead of splitting his forces)

I noticed Japan hardly had any events.

The events I haven't played hands off yet. But please put those fortifications in UK to discourage early amphib by Germany. Once UK main is gone -Germany wins- no ifs and buts.

Good job.

In your case, Aesop, I think the things you suggest would be a good addition for the Bolts of War - Axis Edition. I would have no problem beefing up AI, production, forts and so forth for England, massive numbers of infantry divisions with tech improvements, as I know that the object here would be to give a good game to a single human Axis player. It would not be a good idea to put these types of things into a scenario that was intended to be balanced.

So, I think this just confirms the idea that I should have different scenario setups for single player and multiplayer.

BTW when you took London did the capitol move events fire?

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by Szun
hmm I just played bolted '36 1.02b as germany and I ran into a problem...

here some data:
date: march '39
I conquered austria rather then wait for the event (thought i should try that for a change)
I conquered hungary as well.
I was just moveing into poland and belgium, then a unexplained ctd happen while clicking on something ( happens now and then, no clue why but normaly no big problem)
Then the real issue happend.
I restarted my monthly autosave and boom..ctd at the point: reloading scenario
I retried and it happend again...
I loaded *oldautosave* and as well ctd
I am totaly clueless why I have this problem now, I never encountered a savegame bug befor.

anyone has a idea?

oddly enough I havent got past august 39 since I installed 1.02b
I allways have something happening I dont like (eg italy joins axis uninvited.. )
and now this...
I am kinda frustrated now...spent 8 hours to that point, plotting planing carefully, what do I research when, what time should be unit A be ready to have unit B build intime for my invason..jadajada jada
I allready had 100 infatry divisons, 15 tank divisons, 26 fighter (109b/E) and Mec-divisons just starting to get finished for the invasion into france, also some 6 tac bomber (basic) and 6 Nav-bomber(basic) were soon rdy for deployment.(and just finsihed Tiger reserach and added 15 to build.)

*Szun kicks the computer*

There are a couple of savegame bugs in the buglist. One is loaded paratroopers into transports.

Other than that . . . did the game crash on or around August 24, 1939?

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by MuaDib
Bolt,


Is there anything you can do about Slovakia ? Their 0 org means that there is just no point in installing Tiso.

The game really has changed from the very first version, which was a bitter disappointment.

Also : one thing I forgot : I noticed Allied Fleets having zero org after a few years and thus large fleets always got defeated by a small UBoot squad. Wasn't Patch 1.02 supposed to fix this ?

Slovakia, like many other countries, suffers from and economy that has no resources, doesn't trade for any, etc. The problem is well known, the solution is not. I'm looking at ways of fixing various economies . . . nothing is easy or guaranteed though.

As for the naval issues, while I continue to look at the threads and possible fixes, the main problem is core AI behavior which results in zero org fleets - something a modder has no control over.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

going through the process of attempting to rationalize the world market and economy now.

This process consists of getting countries like England, Holland, Belgium which have massive spare rubber (and other resources) to sell a small portion of their spare on the world market with hardcoded trades.

First target is to try to use the new world market economy to support minor nations with further hardcoded trades. Poland is a good test case. They don't have much in the way of spare resources, just barely enough to do 3-1 trades for rubber (assuming it is available which it will now be due to the above steps). If I can get Poland's economy functioning, it should be more of a challenge for either a player Axis or AI axis to defeat.

I'm also going to create a special AI file for poland with some targetted tech prefs.

Main thing to see is if Poland actually starts building more units and improving their quality. They usually don't, even in Bolted HoI, because of the non-rationalized world market system.

If Poland is successful, then I will move on to other countries like Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Japan, Finland, and some interesting minors like Turkey, Yugoslavia, Siam, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, etc.

Goal is to get the bulk of the nations that matter somewhat to produce more and better units, so that no matter which side is played, nothing will be a total walkover.

 

[unmerged(11731)]

No, the event did not fire when I took London.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by aesop
No, the event did not fire when I took London.

Did any of the Bolted Custom events fire?

 

[unmerged(11731)]

I need to play hands off as I finished early on. But from 1936- 1940 - typical events fired up except for the changing of London's capital.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by aesop
I need to play hands off as I finished early on. But from 1936- 1940 - typical events fired up except for the changing of London's capital.

Well, you see, I'm wondering whether you've got the mod installed correctly. If the England Capital Move event isn't firing, that's an indication you aren't using the the things in the Mod that would help the game.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Progress Report :

I've added hardcoded convoys and hardcoded trades so that approximately 250 additional rubber are dumped into the market from England, Belgium, Holland, Siam, and Brazil. The Rubber supply now lasts until mid-june 1936 before world market deals begin to be shorted because of supply problems. Haven't added France's rubber supply to the market yet.

The next step was to carefully balance a test case economy to see if I could increase or optimize production. I used Poland. I've got Poland stabilized with three different trades targetting rubber at different rates, which results in an AVERAGE of 60 production points. This is a substantial increase over the normal situation.

I also experimented with giving Poland a separate AI that targets a few specific and simple improvements, and which also refactors the unit type distribution around what is possible.

I'm still testing, but the result for Poland was that by the beginning of 1938 she had build 1 additional Cav division, 2 additional Inf divisions, 1 Panzer division. Moreover, the targetted tech prefs resulted in a doubling of soft attack capacity for infantry units, and the addition of 2 defense points to most units.

Poland will still be a rollover at this pace, but I'm seeing improvements.

 

[Szun]

Originally posted by Bolt
There are a couple of savegame bugs in the buglist. One is loaded paratroopers into transports.

Other than that . . . did the game crash on or around August 24, 1939?

Had no paras and no, march 16. 39

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by Szun
Had no paras and no, march 16. 39

Send me the file. ZIPPED!!!!

 

[unmerged(12007)]

The econ balancing described above has continued. Now getting to August 30, 1939 with double the infantry divisions for Poland at start, all built by the Poland AI, and the economy now supported this and tech tree research to get infantry attack / defense values of 5/10 respectively. Org is the same even though I've given some pref and weighting to some org improvements, they are really too expensive for the Polish Economy.

 

[unmerged(11117)]

Arab uprising

Bolt,

Someone may already have mentioned it, but how about an Arab uprising event ? If I recall correctly there was one in 1940 or 1941 ? (someone correct me).

I know this may be problematic as we get back to the old Partisan / Revolt discussions and that they were difficult to implement.

Maybe it could be an event like the Spanish Civil War where an Arab province or two split off from British North Africa / Near Middle East and they get a couple of Milita Units or some resources (how about a donation from Italy ?) so that they could build some quickly ?

Just an idea.


PS : Goldstein and his followers are legion.