Experience after two games

[FLUX2226]

It depends on doctrine, there's a unique spirit you get for each doctrine. Indeed, the one you unlock by having mobile warfare allows you to freely edit motorized, mechanized, and tank templates.

Okay, I didn't know that, thanks for the info. Some indication that one of the "Spirit of the (branch)" choices depends on your chosen doctrine would be helpful. And Grand Battleplan has special forces while the rest either has tanks, infantry, artillery, mot/mech lmao or several of those lol. At least the GBP spirit gives a few small buffs as well instead of just design cost. Still, I'm very surprised that a literal infantry doctrine doesn't get free infantry designs while the artillery doctrine gets free infantry *and* artillery. Meh.

Edit: Doctrines actually add additional options for all of the eight spirit slots. Good to know.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Okay, I didn't know that, thanks for the info. Some indication that one of the "Spirit of the (branch)" choices depends on your chosen doctrine would be helpful. And Grand Battleplan has special forces while the rest either has tanks, infantry, artillery, mot/mech lmao or several of those lol. At least the GBP spirit gives a few small buffs as well instead of just design cost. Still, I'm very surprised that a literal infantry doctrine doesn't get free infantry designs while the artillery doctrine gets free infantry *and* artillery. Meh.

Edit: Doctrines actually add additional options for all of the eight spirit slots. Good to know.

It's not just that category, every single type of spirit (all 3 for land and navy and both of the air ones) has an extra option based on your chosen doctrine, yep.

 

[General Von Trapp]

The Spanish civil war ended within a year in both games. In the previous patch this war was very well balanced with the war dragging into 1939 often but this balance seems to have been lost.

Can vouch for this but I think this has deteriorated in patches since la resistance was released. Shame because the idea was to drag out that war.

The Germans are ridiculous strong they attacked me with 400+ Divisions. I had several defensive lines prepared, blew railroads it didn't matter, they did not slow for mud, winter or anything. They have more and better divisions, resistance in the Soviet union is so low that it doesn't bother them, the focuses one has to pick to strengthen the red army are so many, I have not yet been able to finish a game where I had them all selected before being defeated.
I tried different tactics defending the immediate borders and defending in staggered lines in the hinterlands.
I caused more damage defending the borders, even though half my army was destroyed in the first two months of the war. There doesn't seem to be any logistical problems for the axis whatsoever. Even had Italy naval invade the Crimea, defeating several strong of my divisions and opening up a new front. At the moment its unplayable in my perspective. Even if I completly ignore the economic and foreign policy focuses I do not have enough time to finish all neccessary pre-war focuses.

Well the AI can do it so it must be possible. Germans lose every time it seems. If you buy the DLC the Soviet Union is not going to be a walk in the park. The DLC is aimed for Soviet challenge.

 

[Treviranus]

I played the SCW earlier today and I found it noticeably easier than it used to be. Weirdly enough the anarchists seemed to have gotten way more units than before, but the Republicans had hardly any left, certainly not enough to man the frontline. I could just walk the Republicans down after the anarchist uprising and I then had the anarchists beaten by April 1937.

 

[long_fella]

I played the SCW earlier today and I found it noticeably easier than it used to be. Weirdly enough the anarchists seemed to have gotten way more units than before, but the Republicans had hardly any left, certainly not enough to man the frontline. I could just walk the Republicans down after the anarchist uprising and I then had the anarchists beaten by April 1937.

I played it last night, intervening as the USSR. I'm playing a completely historical game (well, at least I've turned on historical wherever and whenever I can in game settings).

There was no intervention from Germany or Italy.

 

[Woolfen]

I have had the chance to play a few games in recent weeks after not playing for about eight months or so. With the new DLC coming out I was tempted to try out the new systems and have been playing and enjoying crafting my games with custom game rules trying to recreate WW2 mostly historical except for my own input of course.

I have played the Netherlands in all my games and tried two games with the new DLC and would like to share my experience.

To setup the game I have buffed Italy one step and set all countries except Mexico to historical focus.

My first impression is that civil wars can happen even if a country is set to their historical path. Poland had one for instance in my second game. Lithuania had one the first and the fascist one in that one.

In both games WW2 broke out for quicker and was much larger quicker then I was expecting or hoping. In April 1939 war broke out between Roumania and Hungary and this kicked off the war. Poland fell in mere seconds and France could not hold against Italy in the south in both games.

In general there seems to be far fewer units on the field. The AI also adapts to the new supply system but this leads it to not have units on all locations on the front line. This happened in my first game when Germany was deep into Russia so I assume he just didn't have the required units but I have also seen Japan leave gaps in its line where this was not required as it had the units locally to not do it. The units are then easily pocketed of course.

The Spanish civil war ended within a year in both games. In the previous patch this war was very well balanced with the war dragging into 1939 often but this balance seems to have been lost.

Getting army XP seems to have been nerfed considerably. Training did not give a lot of XP before but now gives you jack****. 0.009 per day while training my whole army. I want to get my divisions to trained to perform better in combat but for the XP gain I might as well not. Combat also seems to have reduced the rate at which you receive xp. I understand this is a new game mechanic but I do question if this nerf is a bit too much. Even in the longer game of the two I only managed to unlock 5 land doctrines before the war ended and that was due to two 50% discounts and the 10% discount adviser. This also prevented me from having more then two different army templates on the field. I had an upgraded infantry template for 45xp and a motorised/mechanised division for 40xp but could not form a Marine division which costs 100xp or an armoured division for 50xp. This in my opinion needs some balancing.

On the other hand I had a lot more navy xp then I needed. Due to re-balance in resources increases due to the infrastructure changes I had plenty of oil to keep the navy training all throughout the pre-war phase.

The tank designer is a bit of mixed bag. It was fun to tinker around with it but there seems to have been a increase in the base cost of tanks. I purposefully designed a cheap tank to build but it was still much harder to get enough number then previously. Normally I am swimming in light tanks shortly after starting production and can pull away factories to other things but not now. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it was noticeable and I wonder if this does not make it even harder for the AI to field tanks divisions.
With the scarcity of xp it also makes using the tank designer a bit of a luxury which is a shame.

I will keep playing in the coming days but I am also looking forward to new patches and re-balancing over the coming days as well.

Thank you for reading.

Heh, in this pic you can see how the AI works now. I've already played 3 games and I think the AI is broken now because of the new supply system

 

[Admiral Fischer]

Heh, in this pic you can see how the AI works now. I've already played 3 games and I think the AI is broken now because of the new supply system

The AI leaving the whole front open for everyone to walk in has been a chronic issue ever since the 1.00 release. If you think there's a link between this five-year-and-still-counting AI incompetency with the barely three days old supply system, perhaps you should gather more evidence than what PDX AI has always been doing for the past decades.

 

[Treviranus]

I played it last night, intervening as the USSR. I'm playing a completely historical game (well, at least I've turned on historical wherever and whenever I can in game settings).

There was no intervention from Germany or Italy.

Interesting! I don't think I've ever seen Italy not intervene into the SCW, that's always been one of the few absolute constants in even the wildest ahistorical games.

 

[long_fella]

Interesting! I don't think I've ever seen Italy not intervene into the SCW, that's always been one of the few absolute constants in even the wildest ahistorical games.

In many ways it's a shame. The SCW ending early means I am woefully short of army xp.

 

[FindFloppies]

Interesting! I don't think I've ever seen Italy not intervene into the SCW, that's always been one of the few absolute constants in even the wildest ahistorical games.

That's because there really is no 'other' historical or non-historical path for Italy. Oh, Italy can join the Germans, or do Italy First, but that's about it. Still going to be Fascist AI. The AI won't put in a Democrat or Communist Adviser and change rulers, like a player can.


Germany has three paths, and 2 out of 3 non-historical will have a German civil war and go Monarchist or Democratic. That's one of the patch changes, in that in non-historical games the AI will definitely pick a path. Hungary re-formed Austria-Hungary in a game last night, not on historical. Also, that's why so many civil wars with the new focus trees. Pick a path...

 

[pro.gamer.69]

The AI leaving the whole front open for everyone to walk in has been a chronic issue ever since the 1.00 release. If you think there's a link between this five-year-and-still-counting AI incompetency with the barely three days old supply system, perhaps you should gather more evidence than what PDX AI has always been doing for the past decades.

the AI leaves holes, but not while it has 10 units stacked in one tile next door. the behavior in the picture is legitimately new.

 

[FindFloppies]

the AI leaves holes, but not while it has 10 units stacked in one tile next door. the behavior in the picture is legitimately new.

I saw some weird AI stacking yesterday, too. I'm in the process of testing the beta 1.1.4 patch today, see if this has any effect:

- AI will prioritize front stability better and avoid reshuffling divisions too often