Edge of Darkness [new version]

[Khor]

There is also a rumor, that Hitler had plans to relocate the Hungarian population to the East around Kazakhstan and take the entire Hungarian land.
I can't find valuable source for this. It is possible, that he was just threatening the Hungarian leadership back than. This is useless for this mod, I'm just dropping it here and asking people, if they have any information about this. (A Hungarian Kazakhstan would be sad, but also hilarious in game terms.)

 

[Khor]

I'm dropping here a bunch of ideas, and you could sort it out, if they are interesting enough. I could post more, if you need them. Most of the links will be in Hungarian, but google translate will help you out, or I could translate various articles for you.

I'll drop them in the spoiler part because it will be a lot:

Spoiler: Interesting stuff

Lets start with Switzerland:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2015/06/2...izsaluzott_erdok_es_nyaralok_amelyek_bunkerek
Basically the Swiss were preparing for an attack by the Reich, and therefore they camouflaged some of their gun nests and fortresses as a weekend resort, or village house.

Mussolini and Italy:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2015/04/01/mussolini_felelesztette_caligula_uszo_luxusbordelyait
Mussolini taught it would be a great idea to make a "floating house" like the one that Caligula had.

Hungary and Islam:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2010/09/1...is_tamogatta_a_budapesti_mecset_megepiteset_1
Mussolini and the Albanian king were both positive about the creation of a Grand Mosque in the middle of Budapest.

M. and the people:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/01/2...ussolini_a_fasizmus_felhokarcoloi_es_koloniai
Around 192 cities were created under the rule of Mussolini

Szálasi and the Arrow Cross:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2014/08/29/nyilas_epiteszet_a_szalasi-var
The dictator of Hungary wanted to create a Szálasi-castle and an enormous university building along with grand statues.

Stalin and a little bit of conform:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/03/12/sztalin_fenyuzo_gruziai_dacsai_es_bunkerei
The luxury buildings of Stalin in Georgia.

The victorious Axis capital:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2010/10/0..._vilag_fovarosa_adolf_hitler_vazlatai_alapjan
An article about Germania.

Reich architecture at its best:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2014/04/16/bevehetetlen_naci_lovagvarak
Fortresses of the Reich.

Below earth:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2010/12/0...ti_varosai_vilagraszolo_talalmanyok_a_melybol
The underground industry of the Reich.

Wewelsburg:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2010/12/10/wewelsburg_naci_camelot_vagy_arja_vatikan
Camelot of the SS.

Underground:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2012/01/06/titkos_fold_alatti_eromu_a_balaton_mellett
Secret underground power station of Hungary

Linz:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/02/19/hitler_a_duna_parti_linz_lesz_budapest_nemet_masolata
Hitler wanted Linz to be a match for Budapest.

Hitler's plans:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2010/10/1...alatti_varosai_1_resz_az_anlage_riese_projekt
Below earth cities of the Reich.

Fall of the Eagle:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/10/1...er_fos_raktarvarost_a_masfel_millios_varsobol
Plans for the destruction and rebuilding of Warsaw by the Reich:

Where are thou?
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2012/10/13/meg_ma_is_szupertitkos_a_horthy_epittette_gigabunker
Secret bunker built by the orders of Horthy.

You too?
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2014/04/08/a_behemot_nagy_sztalin-bunker
Bunker of Stalin.

Another one:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2012/03/04/a_japan_csaszar_titkos_bunkervarosai_es_fold_alatti_palotaja
Japanese underground vaults.

Turanism at its finest:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/06/2...es_koppany_torony_turani_epiteszet_budapesten
Just another megalomaniac ide by Hungary.

Workers paradise:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2011/04/10/naci_melosoknak_epult_a_vilag_legnagyobb_furdovarosa_prora
A city built for the Reich workers.

Road of death:
http://falanszter.blog.hu/2015/06/10/ut_a_fagyos_pokolba_az_orosz_a-360-as_sztrada
A road which was ordered to be created by Stalin.

School for women:
http://harcunk.info/index.php/78-archiv/1065-a-harmadik-birodalom-menyasszonyiskolai
School for brides in the Reich. (I'm not joking.)

Plastic women for the brave men:
http://www.borghild.de/text1d.htm
Sex doll for the frontline troops.

Dr. Oetker:
http://harcunk.info/index.php/78-ar...-dr-oetker-a-nemzetiszocialista-mintavallalat
The company which was a model National Socialist business.

National Socialist Boers:
http://harcunk.info/index.php/78-archiv/111-eugene-terre-blanche
Well this is not in the mods time-frame as it started in the '70s, but it shows, that the Boers were easily influenced by the far right even after its fall.

If you like them, I could drop others. (There's a bucket of them.)

 

[JJMerrill]

Thanks a lot for the interesting reads - there's a lot to work with here. Even if the Southern Europe ideas don't make it in, just reading about them has been valuable to me.

I'm currently implementing simple flavor events that activate after Operation Barbarossa, things like German service medals being awarded, the reaction of the rest of the world to the fall of the USSR, the destruction of cities like Moscow and Leningrad, and of course the detailed Generalplan Ost event chains which are completely optional and meant to give a dedicated player a more serious challenge for the remainder of the game since their main enemy (Soviet Union) is severely weakened and unlikely to be a threat for as long as they choose to continue the campaign.

I'll also make the "clean up" of the rump USSR a little more satisfying with a fantasy second war "Operation Charlemagne" that the player can use to wipe the USSR from the map a few years after the first war against them. This will allow extension of RK Moskowien into the Urals itself (to Sverdlovsk) and allow the creation of the RK Turkestan state if the player chooses to do so. I'm very hesitant to get into anything that's more "fantasy" than this, and agree with the sentiment that some of the more exotic ideas in Southern Europe may not be appropriate for the mod.

In the future, I would like to expand my knowledge of both implementing TAGs and modifying AI behavior. I've always been unsatisfied by the final war against the USA and how easy it is. If I could adjust the USA AI to heavily focus on land divisions after both the USSR and UK have fallen, it would give a much better "final boss" feel, which it should have.

Keep your ideas coming, even if they don't make it into the mod they're great for inspiration and simply enjoyable to read.

 

[Khor]

I think this mod could implement some ideas from fatherland, while also Fatherland could take some things from here.
The US could also start fortifying their main cities after the fall USSR or Britain.

 

[Misantropia]

regarding the USA, I can imagine some events, here's my 2 cents:

-deciding if they want a cold or hot war, if cold then there's a lot of work to make it interesting (intervention in china, supporting decolonization, puppeting Central and South America, supporting USSR ) (Fatherland mod has some good events)
-if they chose the to not go for peace, they would get the option to decide what to do with the british lands in America, they should get all islands and have an event deciding the fate of Canada, ally, puppet or occupation, with similar coring events as the Germans.
-the AI shoud focus of garrisoning the beaches in Canada and US, BUT also island hop in the Atlantic, Bahamas, Azores Canaries, Iceland, Ireland. So the Strategy should be symilar to the Pacific one, except they would just want air bases for

 

[makif130289]

It is March 1942 with me as Germany and my cousing as Italy. This game is one hell of a challenge!

1) We started Barbarossa in May 20, 1941. Finland also joined us along with Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.

2) We destroyed 10 million Soviet troops and hundreds of divisions by Winter 1941 but were unable to capture Leningrad, Moscow or Stalingrad. Arrived at the gates of Moscow and sieged Leningrad but couldn't capture them.

3) Japan declared war on Soviet Union in the winter but only made very minor advances. Still it is good to see another front drawing as many troops as possible.

4) We almost lost because of oil! Both my cousin and i ran out of oil. Only our capture of Maikop, Baku and Iraqi petroleum saved us. (Trying to get Iranian oil now) We survived just enough by buying bulk reserves from France, Spain and Japan. I also expect oil conversion decision to take effect within 2 months to further relieve oil problem. I have 3k oil now, stil in a fragile condition.

5) Soviet winter offensive was a serious blow and we were forced to sacrifice quite a bit of territory and i lost 3 INF divisions. In Finland, i was able to hold Soviets at bay with constant counter-attacks while managing to reach North of Leningrad to complete siege of the city but Soviets managed to breakthrough all Finnish defenses in Winter. I relocated all my soldiers just in time and Finland surrendered. I am now holding Soviet forces in Tromso to protect Norway.

6) My cousin is leaving North Africa now. We will try to hold the eastern side of Suez Canal to protect our oil fields. The British are pressing hard and my cousin sent most of his forces to the East. If we could defeat Soviets, we will return to North Africa.

7) My intel still guess that Soviets had around 330 infantry divisions! ( I have 140 INF, 6 MOUNTAIN, 33 MOT, 18 ARM while my cousin has 40 INF, 7 MOT and 1 ARM in the East) My only hope is to conduct successful encirclement operations in the spring and summer of 1942. If we couldn't destroy Soviets by the end of 1942, it will be a disaster.

8) Fortunately, US haven't joined the war yet. We hope they stay out of war as long as possible.

This is one of the most intense games i have ever played. Feel free to make any suggestions for Axis world conquest

 

[Timur Khan]

I hope that the game can be easier too..... I like challenge, however according to your statistics the Solviets sounds like a never dying giant!

 

[Misantropia]

well, I'd advise you to concentrate air power, on certain points you want to push through. It can really turn the tides. I don't generally use it unless the ground forces are not up to the task

 

[makif130289]

well, I'd advise you to concentrate air power, on certain points you want to push through. It can really turn the tides. I don't generally use it unless the ground forces are not up to the task

My airpower is completely grounded. I have 12 interceptors while my cousin has only 4. SU has more than 20 interceptors and i am unable to obtain air superiority. I lost so many bombers to his fighters. Besides, i prefer to make my planes on the ground because of fragile oil situation.

 

[makif130289]

BTW, we destroyed around 300 divisions until winter with my loss of 10 infantry divisions. (We also lost 30 Finnish divisons when they surrendered). That's 1 to 30 ratio and they have still more than 300 divisions. Soviet Union is a monster!

 

[Dr.Feel]

Since we're on the topic could anyone give me some general Italy advice? I've not played the country before and the lack of IC is demoralising! Just as an added extra what about some Germany Barbarossa advice as well.

Cheers!!

 

[JJMerrill]

@makif130289 Enjoyed reading your report. The challenge in Operation Barbarossa is definitely much higher than in vanilla DH. I have a few posts several pages back that detail my own struggles and give some general advice on how to succeed. I may write a basic tutorial/strategy guide before the next major release of EoD to help players with this additional layer of challenge. My best record is forcing the USSR to surrender on December 29, 1941 in the currently released version, but only after many attempts and serious planning.

Check out my posts on Barbarossa here, I have a few screenshots and give general advice - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ness-new-version.701724/page-80#post-22051689



One of my fears is that players won't be able to overcome the USSR and be able to see rewarding flavor events that I'm working on, like this one. Note that these events do not exist in the currently released version, this is just a teaser:

 

[Sandertje]

Cannot wait for the next update now!

 

[Misantropia]

My airpower is completely grounded. I have 12 interceptors while my cousin has only 4. SU has more than 20 interceptors and i am unable to obtain air superiority. I lost so many bombers to his fighters. Besides, i prefer to make my planes on the ground because of fragile oil situation.

I know what you're saying, the soviets build hordes of planes before the war, and there's no way to inflict the destruction the germans inflicted IRL. You can at least try 2,3 bombing runs over pinpoint locations until the soviet air force redeploys

 

[Hirz]

@makif130289 thank you for your comprehensive report of your multiplayer session. It is nice to see that finally this mod is now also working in the multiplayer mod, which was not the case in previous versions. I'm sure those of you, who have played EoD 1.x are aware of the annoying intel crash bug.

I would be glad, if you could continue keeping us up-to-date about the situation in the east.
The Soviet Union is definitely a beast in the current version and it is a real challenge even in the single player with lots of reloads and opportunities to find out which strategy works the best.

As @JJMerrill has noted the difficulty might be too high for the average darkest hour player and therefore he might fail to experience the German colonization events. I can soothe you on this point and can assure that I am working on a concept of giving the player the chance to select about the difficulty in Unternehmen Babarossa.

For those of you, who have not read my post related to this topic, I will sumarize it up:
there will be three different difficult settings, immediately triggering when you go on war agianst USSR
Easy - similar to the Darkest Hour normal difficults
Normal - slightly easier and already introduced in current 2.1 version
hard - basically 2.0 version with some fruther challenges

If demanded I can easily add a very difficult option too.

 

[makif130289]

@makif130289 thank you for your comprehensive report of your multiplayer session. It is nice to see that finally this mod is now also working in the multiplayer mod, which was not the case in previous versions. I'm sure those of you, who have played EoD 1.x are aware of the annoying intel crash bug.

I would be glad, if you could continue keeping us up-to-date about the situation in the east.
The Soviet Union is definitely a beast in the current version and it is a real challenge even in the single player with lots of reloads and opportunities to find out which strategy works the best.

As @JJMerrill has noted the difficulty might be too high for the average darkest hour player and therefore he might fail to experience the German colonization events. I can soothe you on this point and can assure that I am working on a concept of giving the player the chance to select about the difficulty in Unternehmen Babarossa.

For those of you, who have not read my post related to this topic, I will sumarize it up:
there will be three different difficult settings, immediately triggering when you go on war agianst USSR
Easy - similar to the Darkest Hour normal difficults
Normal - slightly easier and already introduced in current 2.1 version
hard - basically 2.0 version with some fruther challenges

If demanded I can easily add a very difficult option too.

I will post an update about our progress. Two things :

1) When Italy enters the war and attack Egypt, some British forces spawn in the Libyan-Egyptian border provinces. This happens regardless of if these provinces are already taken by Italy. A weird situation. If this is AI buff, perhaps they should spawn in British controlled territories.

2) Balkan organization event should be a decision. It usually fires before Yugoslav partition events for all Axis members fire. The result is Croatia not getting some provinces from Germany ( because they are controlled by Hungary for example)

 

[Dr.Feel]

Question; If I play as Italy, I've noticed the German AI manages to get an IC of ~500 or more. Yet I'm managing only around 265, what am I doing wrong?

 

[JJMerrill]

@Dr.Feel Sounds normal. Darkest Hour generally gives large IC buffs to the major AI powers to help ensure that they are competitive. You'll notice a similar effect if you play as Germany and take a look at the Soviet Union or USA's IC after WW2 begins. This was probably done by the developers as a brute-force way to help make sure the game progresses somewhat historically, such as timing on the Fall of France or Operation Barbarossa.

Playing as Germany, a dedicated player can expect to have around 400 IC by September, 1939 if using a min-max strategy.

 

[Dr.Feel]

@Dr.Feel Sounds normal. Darkest Hour generally gives large IC buffs to the major AI powers to help ensure that they are competitive. You'll notice a similar effect if you play as Germany and take a look at the Soviet Union or USA's IC after WW2 begins. This was probably done by the developers as a brute-force way to help make sure the game progresses somewhat historically, such as timing on the Fall of France or Operation Barbarossa.

Playing as Germany, a dedicated player can expect to have around 400 IC by September, 1939 if using a min-max strategy.

Yeah you're spot on, the USSR has 517 IC and an eye-watering amount of divisions. I'm not a massively experienced player of DH though. Any brief Germany tips for me?

 

[JJMerrill]

@Dr.Feel I've got quite a few good tips throughout this thread, but here are the top two I can give for your ultimate success as Germany:

- Start Barbarossa the second the muddy terrain clears in May of 1941
- Encircle early or you will miss your chance to do so forever

Take a look at this screenshot and the planned encirclements. This is the best I've come up with so far. Note the double spearhead in Army Group North - this is because I'm diverting part of the forces up to Leningrad to cut off the whole Baltic area.

This is progress one month later. Note the 55 Soviet divisions in Brest-Litovsk I'm just waiting to move into me: